see it all here

Is Kurt Andersen still filing those profound tweets from LA?

Maybe he can digest this (from Balk, genius as usual

SNL

I like reading Fred Armisen's blog

little steven disses primal scream sort of

(hat tip to the plate)

NCAA Pontiac digital....

Is this the best way to use Greg Gumbel?

Taibbi on the Financial Bottoming Out

The key idea behind a CDO is that there will always be at least some money in the box, regardless of how dicey the individual assets inside it are. No matter how you look at a single unemployed ex-con trying to pay the note on a six-bedroom house, he looks like a bad investment. But dump his loan in a box with a smorgasbord of auto loans, credit-card debt, corporate bonds and other crap, and you can be reasonably sure that somebody is going to pay up. Say $100 is supposed to come into the box every month. Even in an apocalypse, when $90 in payments might default, you'll still get $10. What the inventors of the CDO did is divide up the box into groups of investors and put that $10 into its own level, or "tranche." They then convinced ratings agencies like Moody's and S&P to give that top tranche the highest AAA rating — meaning it has close to zero credit risk.

Suddenly, thanks to this financial seal of approval, banks had a way to turn their shittiest mortgages and other financial waste into investment-grade paper and sell them to institutional investors like pensions and insurance companies, which were forced by regulators to keep their portfolios as safe as possible. Because CDOs offered higher rates of return than truly safe products like Treasury bills, it was a win-win: Banks made a fortune selling CDOs, and big investors made much more holding them.

REMEMBER MOUSE MCFADDEN?

CLEVELAND STATE one of my faves...

BLOGGING WILL RESUME SHORTLY

LESLIE HALL on YO GABBA GABBA

I enjoyed this video

YOU FUCKING IDIOTS

Jonas said his team got one dose of the immobilizing agent in the mountain lion Thursday, but the animal fled within 30 seconds and the team couldn't load the dart gun in time to provide a second dose.


Just kidding. Good luck catching that Mountain Lion. Probably different than going after a wayward sheep dog.

Matthew's Party

I can appreciate that, our apartments are not very large are they? I myself like to go for a jog every night to keep fit but fear leaving the house so I have to jog on the spot taking very small steps with my arms straight down.

VIA : http://www.pantherhouse.com/newshelton/

David Roth Covers the GWB Impersonator Recession

Still, this doesn't mean that Mendenhall--a self-identified moderate Republican who made a small campaign contribution to Bush in 2004--was among the 22 percent who approved of Bush at the end. "I felt the same way about the last few years as everyone else," he says. "It's tough when your character does things that make him unpopular and it winds up hurting you. ... Sometimes, I felt like the Britney Spears or Michael Jacksons do."