STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 9 August 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 9 August 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 8 August 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 8 August 2013
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Dow Jones 15,498.32 +27.65 (0.18%)
S&P 500 1,697.48 +6.57 (0.39%)
Nasdaq 3,669.12 +15.11 (0.41%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.49% -0.03 (-1.19%)
30 Year 3.58% -0.03 (-0.83%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.










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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Hotler]

1. Wow! karen Black. I did not know..... a cross-post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017137722
I always thought she was kinda hot.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. And Barbara Mertz

aka Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/barbara-mertz-writer-better-known-as-barbara-michaels-and-elizabeth-peters-dies-at-85/2013/08/08/e92bb442-004b-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html

[Hotler]

2. Marc Faber: Look out! A 1987-style crash is coming

Hhmmmmmm!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100950234

"The only way this market can go up is if the 10 or 50 stocks that are very strong continue to drive the market higher, with the majority of stocks having actually peaked out," Faber said.

"That means that the market has become very reliant on a very small number of companies. "

Just the banks and Hedge Funds with their HFT.

[Demeter]

21. And good ole Uncle Ben and his QE recipe

Yes, Demeter is back! Or will be, once I catch up with myself.

[Hotler]

30. Yes! .......

Ben is giving them our money to play with their HFT's.

[jtuck004]

4. The Tragedy of Errors

Larry Walters had always wanted to fly. When he was old enough, he joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight wouldn’t allow him to become a pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he would often sit in his backyard watching jets fly overhead, dreaming about flying and scheming about how to get into the sky. On July 2, 1982, the San Pedro, California trucker finally set out to accomplish his dream. But things didn’t turn out exactly as he planned.

Larry conceived his project while sitting outside in his “extremely comfortable” Sears lawn chair. He purchased weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered Sears chair and filled the four-foot diameter balloons with helium. Then, after packing sandwiches, Miller Lite, a CB radio, a camera and a pellet gun, he strapped himself into his lawn chair (see above). His plan, such as it was, called for his floating lazily above the rooftops at about 30 feet for a while and then using the pellet gun to explode the balloons one-by-one so he could float to the ground.

But when his friends cut the cords that tethered the lawn chair to his Jeep, Walters and his lawn chair didn’t rise lazily. Larry shot up to a height of over 15,000 feet, yanked by the lift of 45 helium balloons holding 33 cubic feet of helium each. He did not dare shoot any balloons, fearing that he might unbalance the load and cause a fall. So he slowly drifted along, cold and frightened, with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He eventually crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX. A flustered TWA pilot spotted Larry and radioed the tower that he was passing a guy in a lawn chair at 16,000 feet.
...
Every year the Dalbar QAIB examines actual investor returns and every year the suffering of the individual investor is made plain. The latest data shows that for 2012, the average equity investor underperformed by 0.42 percent and the average fixed income investor underperformed by 0.47 percent. To those not comfortable with statistics, that may not seem substantial, but over the past 20 years, the average equity investor has suffered an aggregate underperformance of nearly 50 percent while the average fixed income investor has suffered an aggregate underperformance of nearly 85 percent. That level of underperformance is enormous, especially when it is compounded over time.

From the blog of Robert P. Seawright, the Chief Investment & Information Officer for Madison Avenue Securities.

You can read more here

This is a pretty good read about people's behavior, eventually getting to the economic front, but with an interesting beginning, no?

[xchrom]

5. JPMorgan Nears Settlement With SEC on London Whale Loss

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-08/jpmorgan-nears-settlement-with-sec-on-london-whale-loss.html

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) is negotiating final terms of a deal with U.S. securities regulators to end a yearlong probe of derivatives bets that led to the bank’s biggest trading loss ever, two people briefed on the talks said.

While JPMorgan is prepared to say it erred in how it oversaw a unit and London-based traders, executives aren’t likely to admit mistakes beyond what they already disclosed, one of the people said, requesting anonymity because the talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission aren’t public. How much the bank pays to settle is being debated, the people said.

JPMorgan, led by Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, is seeking to resolve U.S. and U.K. probes after botched trades by its chief investment office fueled more than $6.2 billion of losses last year. Senate investigators concluded in March that the bank dodged regulators and misled investors amid souring bets by Bruno Iksil, a trader dubbed the London Whale because his positions were so big.

While the SEC may target some people involved in the trades, top executives at the New York-based company probably won’t face claims they lied or misled the public, the people said. Iksil won’t be charged, Reuters reported yesterday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

[xchrom]

6. China’s Credit Expansion Slows as Li Curbs Shadow Banking

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-09/china-july-new-loans-money-supply-exceed-analyst-estimates.html

China’s broadest measure of new credit fell to a 21-month low as Premier Li Keqiang extended a campaign to curb a record expansion of lending that’s added risks to the nation’s financial system.

Aggregate financing was 808.8 billion yuan ($132 billion), the People’s Bank of China said in Beijing today, compared with the 925 billion yuan median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. New yuan loans exceeded forecasts and accounted for about 87 percent of the total, the most since September 2011. M2 money supply growth unexpectedly accelerated to 14.5 percent.

Policy makers are persisting with a crackdown on shadow banking following a government-engineered cash crunch in June even after a two-quarter economic slowdown. A report today showing faster gains in industrial output adds to evidence that growth is stabilizing after data yesterday showed exports rebounded more than estimated.

“Today’s overall outcome is a good one: Credit growth is slowing but real activity, including domestic demand and exports, are picking up,” said Wang Tao, chief China economist at UBS AG in Hong Kong.

[DemReadingDU]

7. I finally get the toon, new Matt Damon movie. n/t

[xchrom]

8. Exclusive: PetroChina to join Exxon on giant Iraqi oilfield - source

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/09/uk-petrochina-iraq-idUKBRE9780D420130809

(Reuters) - China's biggest energy firm PetroChina (0857.HK) will join Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) in developing Iraq's giant West Qurna oilfield and is in talks with Lukoil (LKOH.MM) to buy into a second project at the field, industry sources said on Friday.

China is already the top foreign player in Iraq's southern oilfields and a deal at West Qurna would boost its dominance and could make PetroChina the biggest single foreign investor.

PetroChina partners BP (BP.L) at Rumaila, Iraq's biggest oilfield, and operates the Halfaya field. The company was the first foreign firm to sign an oil service deal in Iraq after U.S.-led forces toppled former president Saddam Hussein.

"PetroChina will participate in developing the field," an industry source with direct knowledge of the deal with Exxon said.

[xchrom]

9. Corporate Constitutional “Rights” Harm Small Business

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/09

***SNIP


It was once suggested to me that because it is relatively inexpensive and easy to incorporate, Americans should just incorporate themselves individually—then we would all have the same rights and privileges as corporations. Interesting thought, but the fact is that even though small, incorporated businesses can technically claim Constitutional rights, the reality is that these small businesses are trumped by the treasuries of large multi-national corporations, which currently share the same rights and can afford long litigation.

Time and again, large corporations have gone to court to assert their rights over the rights of small businesses. In nearly every case, the Court has sided with the large corporations, most recently in American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant. From The New York Times:

On June 20, the court again restricted class actions, in American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant. The restaurant and other small businesses had brought a class-action suit accusing American Express of violating antitrust law in imposing excessive fees on merchants. The individual plaintiffs could have each recovered just $38,000 under the antitrust statute, but proving an antitrust violation would have cost exponentially more. Therefore, denying a class action meant that the suit could not realistically go forward. The result: a company can violate antitrust law yet immunize itself from liability through an arbitration clause.

Small businesses find themselves in the same position when it comes to our First Amendment “right” to participate in the electoral process. We simply do not have the funds to compete against the big boys. A body that should be protecting the interests of small businesses, the US Chamber of Commerce is overrun with the very same corporations who are exercising their personhood “rights” to slap down any business which challenges their policies, and frequently lobbies for laws and supports candidates who will support their corporate agenda.

[xchrom]

10. REPORT: Chinese Regulators Are Working On A Plan That Could Mean A Bank Bailout Is On The Way

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-developing-new-bank-loan-platform-2013-8

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is developing a new trading platform to enable banks to sell off loans to a wider range of investors, in a move that could pave the way for a government bailout of lenders or distressed asset sales to private investors.
The trading platform, now in the testing phase, is designed to introduce banks to a new class of investors, including non-bank financial institutions and large companies.

Currently, the lack of well-established precedents for asset disposals effectively leaves banks only two options: sell non-performing loans in private deals, mostly with big state-backed asset management firms, or keep rolling them over indefinitely to avoid booking a loss.

Most analysts believe Beijing will eventually be forced to use some public funds to help peel off bad loans from state banks, but the ability to draw in at least some private capital could reduce the cost of that bailout.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-developing-new-bank-loan-platform-2013-8#ixzz2bTOng1Kq

[xchrom]

11. The Detroit Bankruptcy Is Causing Governments Across Michigan To Cancel Fundraising Plans

http://www.businessinsider.com/michigan-muni-debt-sales-pulled-after-detroit-bankruptcy-filing-2013-8

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — Three governments in Michigan have pulled planned municipal bond sales off the market since Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

On Thursday, Saginaw County withdrew a roughly $61 million sale to cover pension obligations. Ahead of that decision, Genesee County withdrew a $54 million sale to finance a water and sewer work. And Battle Creek delayed a $16 million general obligation bond issue.

The decisions come amid concern that Detroit's bankruptcy will make it more difficult for communities to borrow money.

Detroit owes billions to bondholders and billions more in pensions to retired city workers. In its bankruptcy filing, the city proposed trimming pension benefits and paying bondholders a fraction of what they're owed. It also wants to treat retired city workers and bond investors as equals.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/michigan-muni-debt-sales-pulled-after-detroit-bankruptcy-filing-2013-8#ixzz2bTTXhcXW

[Demeter]

22. It's just as well

Because Michigan had an annual cyclical economy due to the auto plant shutdowns, strikes, etc, credit was not encouraged for the longest time. Restaurants wouldn't take credit cards, etc. when i was a girl and beyond....

So perhaps it's time to wean off the banksters shell game.

[xchrom]

12. Snowden's Super Secret Email Service Closes, Summing Up Why Tech Is Losing Billions Overseas

http://www.businessinsider.com/lavabit-shuts-down-fbi-2013-8

The super secret, encrypted email service that Edward Snowden used to communicate with Glenn Greenwald has officially closed down, writes Xeni Jardin for BoingBoing.
Lavabit not only offered encrypted email, but their operators don't collect your metadata and sell it to advertising companies — an obvious plus for anyone looking to be ultra private.

The implication is that they shut down because the U.S. government apparently served them with an order to either allow snooping, or shut down.

Obviously they decided to shut down.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/lavabit-shuts-down-fbi-2013-8#ixzz2bTVXSABE

[DemReadingDU]

16. That speaks volumes: Lavabit shut down rather than allow spying on Americans

Ladar Levison, the owner and operator of Lavabit says...

"I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on—the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests."

Ladar Levison, of Lavabit, wrote that his company had “already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.” But he pointed to two things that were lacking: “congressional action or a strong judicial precedent.” Until then, he said, “I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.” But that is where we Americans live, and where we need to push back.

more...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/08/the-nsa-and-its-targets-lavabit-shuts-down.html

[DemReadingDU]

17. Glenn Greenwald: On the self-shutdown of Lavabit to avoid US survillance

8/9/13 Email service used by Snowden shuts itself down, warns against using US-based companies

Snowden: "Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, and the rest of our internet titans must ask themselves why they aren't fighting for our interests the same way"

A Texas-based encrypted email service recently revealed to be used by Edward Snowden - Lavabit - announced yesterday it was shutting itself down in order to avoid complying with what it perceives as unjust secret US court orders to provide government access to its users' content. "After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations," the company's founder, Ladar Levinson, wrote in a statement to users posted on the front page of its website. He said the US directive forced on his company "a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit." He chose the latter.

CNET's Declan McCullagh smartly speculates that Lavabit was served "with [a] federal court order to intercept users' (Snowden?) passwords" to allow ongoing monitoring of emails; specifically: "the order can also be to install FedGov-created malware." After challenging the order in district court and losing - all in a secret court proceeding, naturally - Lavabit shut itself down to avoid compliance while it appeals to the Fourth Circuit.

This morning, Silent Circle, a US-based secure online communication service, followed suit by shutting its own encrypted email service. Although it said it had not yet been served with any court order, the company, in a statement by its founder, internet security guru Phil Zimmerman, said: "We see the writing on the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now."

What is particularly creepy about the Lavabit self-shutdown is that the company is gagged by law even from discussing the legal challenges it has mounted and the court proceeding it has engaged. In other words, the American owner of the company believes his Constitutional rights and those of his customers are being violated by the US Government, but he is not allowed to talk about it. Just as is true for people who receive National Security Letters under the Patriot Act, Lavabit has been told that they would face serious criminal sanctions if they publicly discuss what is being done to their company.
.
.
One of the most remarkable, and I think enduring, aspects of the NSA stories is how much open defiance there has been of the US government. Numerous countries around the world have waved away threats, from Hong Kong and Russia to multiple Latin American nations. Populations around the world are expressing serious indignation at the NSA and at their own government to the extent they have collaborated. And now Lavabit has shut itself down rather than participate in what it calls "crimes against the American people", and in doing so, has gone to the legal limits in order to tell us all what has happened. There will undoubtedly be more acts inspired by Snowden's initial choice to unravel his own life to make the world aware of what the US government has been doing in the dark.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/09/lavabit-shutdown-snowden-silicon-valley

[DemReadingDU]

18. Silent Circle Shuts Down Encrypted Email Service To Prevent NSA Spying

8/9/13 Silent Circle Preemptively Shuts Down Encrypted Email Service To Prevent NSA Spying

“We knew USG would come after us”. That’s why Silent Circle CEO Michael Janke tells TechCrunch his company shut down its Silent Mail encrypted email service. It hadn’t been told to provide data to the government, but after Lavabit shut down today rather than be “complicit” with NSA spying, Silent Circle told customers it has killed off Silent Mail rather than risk their privacy.

The Silent Circle blog posts explains “We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now.” It’s especially damning considering Silent Circle’s co-founder and president is Phil Zimmermann, the inventor of widely-used email encryption program Pretty Good Privacy.

more..
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/08/silent-circle-preemptively-shuts-down-encrypted-email-service-to-prevent-nsa-spying/




So how does one avoid being spied on? Walk away from the Internet, oh and cancel cell phone. It wouldn't surprise me that our newer model cars have technology to spy on us too.

[Demeter]

23. Carrier pigeons, or private couriers.

US mail, provided one is clever about it....(I have an idea, it's truly evil, but it should work for a while...and though it isn't cheap, it isn't horribly dear, either).

[xchrom]

13. The NSA Intends To Fire 90% Of Their System Administrators To Eliminate Future Leaks

http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-firing-sysdadmins-2013-8

(Reuters) - The National Security Agency, hit by disclosures of classified data by former contractor Edward Snowden, said Thursday it intends to eliminate about 90 percent of its system administrators to reduce the number of people with access to secret information.
Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, the U.S. spy agency charged with monitoring foreign electronic communications, told a cybersecurity conference in New York City that automating much of the work would improve security.

"What we're in the process of doing - not fast enough - is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent," he said.

The remarks came as the agency is facing scrutiny after Snowden, who had been one of about 1,000 system administrators who help run the agency's networks, leaked classified details about surveillance programs to the press.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-firing-sysdadmins-2013-8#ixzz2bTWLuwIw

[rusty fender]

20. Let's hope that those System Administrators take

thousands of files with them when they're fired, and release said files to the public.

It might be known as the great "Revenge of the System Admin Nerds."

[xchrom]

14. the justice department's 'war on wall street' - still no criminal charges

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/08/the-justice-departments-war-on-wall-street-still-no-criminal-charges.html

It took them a while, but the Feds are finally going after some of the country’s biggest banks for alleged wrongdoing during the great housing and credit bubble. In the past few days, the Department of Justice has sued Bank of America for willfully understating the risks attached to hundreds of millions of mortgage-backed securities it sold in 2007, and J. P. Morgan Chase has revealed that two different U.S. attorneys’ offices, one in California and one in Philadelphia, are investigating whether it broke securities laws and duped investors with some of the mortgage deals it put together.

But while the new cases are significant and likely to go on for some time, they don’t answer the question of whether anybody on Wall Street will ever end up in court, or face the possibility of prison time, on criminal charges arising from the mortgage mess. My take: there is no need for anyone on Wall Street to lose much sleep, and that includes Brian Moynihan, the chief executive of Bank of America, and Jamie Dimon, the head of J. P. Morgan. About the worst that is likely to happen is that the two big banks will be forced to pay some hefty fines, which, with both making billions of dollars of profit in the latest quarter, they can easily afford.

For years now, critics have accused the Justice Department of going easy on the bankers, whose actions during the housing and credit bubble helped bring about the U.S.’s deepest recession since the nineteen-thirties. The D.O.J.’s response has always been that it didn’t have enough evidence to prove criminal intent on the part of traders, investment bankers, and senior executives at big Wall Street firms, and that, without such evidence, it would likely lose in court if it went ahead with criminal cases.

Despite a recent change of leadership in the Justice Department’s financial-fraud task force, this still appears to be the agency’s position. The new case against Bank of America is a civil one, of the sort that usually gets settled without any admission of wrongdoing. And, according to the Times, the criminal investigation of J. P. Morgan, which is centered on alleged wrongdoing by mortgage bankers at Washington Mutual, acquired by J. P. Morgan in 2008, is reportedly in its early stages. It could well end up going nowhere. (The U.S. attorney’s office that is conducting the criminal inquiry is also running a civil investigation that seems to have made more progress.)

[Tansy_Gold]

15. I caught some flak

When the info about the "crackdown" was posted in GD because I dared to just

So who's laughing last?


I'll believe it when the banksters are either frog marched in orange or they start jumping (or singing) to avoid it.

[Fuddnik]

19. That's exactly why nobody will be frog marched or charged.

Somebody starts singing, and a lot of cabinet members, advisers, and regulators and the whole revolving door might have songs written about them.

[Demeter]

24. Fuddnik should complain! I go offsite for a couple of days

and you guys take down the whole Constitution!

Well, not the loyal readers of this thread, but the moronic 1%, who will find in good order that those very rights they have trampled would come in handy at their own personal reckoning.....

It's getting really scary out there.

[Fuddnik]

25. That's what we do best.

We'd have taken down the entire world economy this week, but Tansy was watching us.

Next week we're going to take ver a distillery and a microbrewery and have a party. But, don't worry, you're invited. And, if you're in Tampa, we'll hit the Cigar City Brewery.

[Demeter]

27. I left Tampa Tuesday

Left Orlando this morning.

Florida has changed a lot since my previous visits. Maybe two more funerals, and I never have to go there again....

[Demeter]

26. No Ideas for WEE?

Then we will be going for the gold!

We are going to look at such things as the Medal of Freedom and other junk jewelry issued by the CrackerJacks DC division.

After all, it's OUR nation.

[DemReadingDU]

28. Yum, CrackerJacks

But there are never enough peanuts.

[tclambert]

29. What they oughta do is every once in awhile put in a prize of real value.

Like a (small) diamond or a golden ring. But not a diamond ring. Somebody might think somebody else was proposing. "Oh, Seymour. YES!" "Yes, what?" And the relationship takes a sad turn after that.