Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:02 AM | Comments (190)
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Equities ended mostly unchanged yesteday. The Dow closed at 10,138.52, and the S&P 500 closed 1,074.57.

My intellectual betters at the Fed think I should just shut up and leave the economic opinionating to the experts. What do I say to that? Only that my mighty two credits of night-school Economics 101 from the Lake Pakawakashchumwatty Institute of Economics, Welding, and Diesel Repair is more than a match for your Ivy League ineptitude, gentlemen! The gauntlet is thrown! I demand satisfaction! From my trailer on the outskirts of town, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last gulp of cheap-ass rotgut whiskey at thee!

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Posted by: Monty at 02:36 AM | Comments (140)
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It's just crazy enough to possibly be true.

Gore said he was tired from travel and described in detail the massage he wanted. It included work on the adductor muscles, which are on the inside of the thighs. "I mentally noted that a request for adductor work is a bit unusual," the masseuse told police, because it can be "a precursor to inappropriate behavior by a male client."

Gore also requested work on his abdomen. When that began, "He became somewhat vocal with muffled moans, etc.," the masseuse recounted. Gore then "demand[ed] that I go lower." When she remained focused on a "safe, nonsexual" area, Gore grew "angry, becoming verbally sharp and loud."

The masseuse asked Gore what he wanted. "He grabbed my right hand, shoved it down under the sheet to his pubic hair area, my fingers brushing against his penis," she recalled, "and said to me, 'There!' in a very sharp, loud, angry-sounding tone." When she pulled back, Gore "angrily raged" and "bellowed" at her.

Then, abruptly, the former vice president changed tone. It was "as though he had very suddenly switched personalities," she recalled, "and began in a pleading tone, pleading for release of his second chakra there."

"Chakra," in Gore's new-agey jargon, refers to the body's "energy centers," which the masseuse interpreted as having a specific meaning. "This was yet another euphemism for sexual activity he was requesting," she told police, "put cleverly as though it were a spiritual request or something."

Posted by: Ace at 09:23 PM | Comments (163)
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WELCOME TO THE MONDAY.

Five Realistic and Tough To Watch Movie Plane Crashes

If you're afraid of flying, you may want to skip this item.

The Cast Away crash scene is pretty scary and about what I'd expect to happen if you crashed at night in the middle of the Pacific. But I find the crash scene from ALIVE to be harder to watch. Mostly because it's a true story and happened pretty much as the movie shows it. Plus you know that they've got 72 days of starvation and cannibalism ahead of them in the Andes. And as one commenter mentioned the crash at the end of United 93 is also almost unbearable to watch after everything the passengers went through.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:24 PM | Comments (790)
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Aw, baby wants attention.

RadioEqualizer puts it cleanly:

While reaction to [Senator Byrd's] passing is examined syllable-by-syllable by the left's partisan sensitivity screeners, expect the hate emanating from the own side to once again be ignored.

McCaskill Aide: Tea Partiers Are Just Like Hitler's Brownshirts. No, really.

Posted by: Ace at 04:46 PM | Comments (105)
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I think they just spin a couple of Aunty Enitity Thunderdome wheels and make a game show out of the results.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (91)
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I hope to God someone lodges a lawsuit.

They want to handle this scam by having a Special Election in 2012 for five or six weeks left in Byrd's term (Nov. 2012 to Jan. 2013) and also a general election for a term starting in January 2013.

Oh: ZeroSheep predicted just this.

I still want a lawsuit, though.

Posted by: Ace at 01:12 PM | Comments (79)
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(I don't want to steal any of Ace's daytime-posting thunder, so I'm going to keep most of this post "below the fold" for those interested.)

I meant to post this as a snarky aside in one of my "Daily Financial Briefing" posts and then move on, but given how I feel about most of Megan's stuff, I think it deserves a post of its own. If only because other people (like Insty) take Megan seriously in spite of the dearth of seriousness shown in many of her posts.

The item in question:

Megan McArdle's (Suderman's?) heart bleeds for the unemployed.
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Posted by: Monty at 12:37 PM | Comments (202)
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Ouch.

This as to do with ZeroSheep's point: One part of the law specifies the need for a special election. Another part of the law, though, specifies timing requirements that seem to put off a special election... until the actual regularly-scheduled election.

From cinyc:

There is settled case law on the point. In '94, Kanawha Co. Circuit Court Judge John Hey resigned in April. A local GOP party chairman sued then-Gov. Gaston Caperton (D) to try and compel a special election for the following Nov. The state Supreme Court, in Robb v. Caperton, ruled against the local party chairman and said Caperton's appointee would serve until the '96 election, when the office would have come up for election anyway.

With an election set for more than 2 years away, Manchin has the chance to pick a successor to hold Byrd's seat. It has been an open secret in the Mountineer State for years that Manchin covets a Senate seat, and his second term as the state's chief executive expires after the '12 elections -- meaning he could very likely appoint himself.

Manchin is hugely popular -- the latest survey, conducted Aug. 27-30 of last year by Mark Blankenship Enterprises, gave Manchin a 78% approval rating, 9 points higher than Byrd's -- and his candidacy would give Dems a good chance of holding a seat that, at a presidential level, has trended away from them in recent years.

Dusty posts this language, though:

(b) Except as otherwise provided in article ten of this chapter, if any vacancy occurs in a partisan office or position other than political party executive committee, which creates an unexpired term for a position which would not otherwise appear on the ballot in the general election, and the vacancy occurs after the close of candidate filing for the primary election but not later than eighty-four days before the general election, a nominee of each political party may be appointed by the executive committee and certified to the proper filing officer no later than seventy-eight days before the general election. Appointments shall be filed in the same manner as provided in subsection (a) of this section, except that the filing fee shall be paid before the appointment is complete.

He then comments:

In (b), it provides for cases where the standard procedure described in 3-10-3 does not apply. Some might point to the "Except as otherwise provided in article ten of this chapter" saying this supercedes the this provision (b) and it must go through all the standard procedures of an election, but the WV Consitution makes it pretty clear the vacancy must be filled by via the next General Election, which is 2010. This 3-5-19 provision clears the way to the very reasonable, (shortest reasonable) cutoff time of 84 days prior to the next General Election.

An elected Senator for two years is much better than one appointed for 2.5 years, and isn't that the purpose for having all these provisions to get an elected official in a vacant position?

cinyc counter-points that section ten is the one about the need for the primary, etc., and is the section relied upon to resolve the previous case about a judgeship vacancy.

I don't know. I kinda want that seat contested, obviously.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (86)
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Twittering sarcastically...

"At Least 29 Shot In Chicago Over The Weekend." It's the fault of our damn unconstitutional gun laws.

This is so insensible I would feel dirty having to point out what makes it so dumb.

Roger Ebert, Person of Stupid.

This is like that NYT writer who wrote twenty articles asking the same question: How can it be that crime rates are falling if our prison populations are growing?

Via GPollowitz.

BTW: Hey, dude, thanks for the three-and-a-half star recommendation for The Phantom Menace.

I f it were the first "Star Wars" movie, "The Phantom Menace" would be hailed as a visionary breakthrough. But this is the fourth movie of the famous series, and we think we know the territory; many of the early reviews have been blase, paying lip service to the visuals and wondering why the characters aren't better developed. How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story "Nightfall," about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen.

"Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace," to cite its full title, is an astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking.

So awesome it drives men mad.

I suppose it must be.

Always trust content from Roger Ebert.

Posted by: Ace at 10:09 AM | Comments (292)
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