SOTD: The Offspring - Gone Away

SOTD: Staind - It's Been Awhile

Shut Up

"If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right?"
- Bill O'Reilly on finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, March 18, 2003

What Not To Count

It's Not Treasonous When Tom Delay Says It

“I cannot support a failed foreign policy. … President Clinton has never explained to the American people why he was involving the US military in a civil war in a sovereign nation, other than to say it is for humanitarian reasons, a new military-foreign policy precedent. Was it worth it to stay in Vietnam to save face? What good has been accomplished so far? Absolutely nothing.”

— Tom DeLay on the House floor in April 1999, when US troops were a month into their three-month mission in Kosovo

What a defeatist!

Help a Realtor

Found on the must-read blog CR ... this is pretty funny...

"I'd like to make an appeal to everybody who does not need to sell to take your home off the market."

Marianne Zoll, April 25, 2007, Re/Max 5 Star/Zoll Real Estate & Auction Team.

SOTD: Cracker - Big Dipper

Hearings Probe Hyped Tales of Heroism

Apparently there is nothing that this Administration won't lie about.

Housing Slump Well Contained

SOTD: Queens of the Stone Age - Go With The Flow

SOTD: Engineers - Forgiveness

I Suppose A Medal of Freedom is Next For Gonzales

Because of the storms back East, over 250,000 people still without power. In fact, it was so bad in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had to resort to destroying e-mails by hand. — Jay Leno (from PastPeak)

Google "greatest living American"

The Decline of the Dollar's Purchasing Power Over Time

Good thing that inflation is contained...

History Doesn't Repeat, But It May Rhyme

From the Big Picture...



Dow in 1987 vs today...

And then there's this..

SOTD: Surfact - Soulslide

SOTD: Tok Tok VS. Soffy O - Missy Queen's Gonna Die

VOTD: The Landlord

Will Ferrell & his 2-year old landlady.

SOTD: Suede - Attitude

SOTD: Grant Lee Phillips - Return to Love

SOTD: 33hz - Hot Flashes

Frogs Falling From the Sky

Hey, Bush is not only incompetent at running a war - the economy is pretty weak too! Just ask a Citigroup ex-employee.

Of course, if you're in the mortgage fraud business, business is booming!

Why is it booming? Here's one reason.

Another thing booming is margin debt, the highest since 2000.

One thing not booming is mortgage lending.

Not to worry...Bernanke says housing troubles are "well contained".

Sure they are:

" 'Why am I driving four hours a day, getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning and getting home at 7 or 8 at night, when my home is $50,000 upside down? Why am I banging my head against this wall when I can go back to L.A.? I might not be able to own a house, but my quality of life will be better, and I'll be able to spend more time with my family.' "

Also from the Times, some magical thinking: 60% of adults think we're likely to have a recession in the next year, yet 32% still expect their neighborhood's housing values to be higher six months from now.

What will the next bull market be in? Securities lawyers.

Followed by frogs falling from the sky.

SOTD: BT - Blue Skies (Tori Amos)

SOTD: Shaznay Lewis - Never Felt Like This Before

Americans Torturing Americans

This is what we've come to in the WOT (war on truth)? If even half of this story is true it shows just yet again how far from the US Constitution and true patriotism this sick Administration has sunk...

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran, had been a long-time supporter of the war in Iraq. But that changed last April when, serving as a security contractor in Baghdad, he was detained by U.S. forces and held without charges for more than three months at Camp Cropper, one of Iraq’s most notorious military prison camps. There, Vance and a colleague, Nathan Ertel, were denied counsel and were largely prevented from communicating with the outside world. They were held in isolation in extremely cold cells without adequate clothing or blankets. Vance was also subjected to sleep deprivation, interrogation for hours and periodically denied food and water for long periods. The U.S. military eventually released both Vance and Ertel without explanation, admitting that they had done nothing wrong.

Vance secretly kept notes on his time at Camp Cropper and smuggled them out in a Bible. He took his story public in December, offering a detailed and verifiable account of his experiences to the New York Times. His report has provided a rare and credible inside account of the Pentagon’s detention operations — and is one of only a few stories to emerge since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Vance has also filed a lawsuit in federal court, charging former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the government with torture and violating Vance’s rights of habeas corpus.

Ironically, Vance was arrested in a military sweep that he helped to instigate. An employee of Shield Group Security at the time of his arrest, Vance had been working as an unpaid informant for the F.B.I., sending reports about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including possible illegal weapons trading. When American soldiers raided the company, Vance and Ertel were arrested and detained with the others. For reasons that arestill unclear, the military failed to believe or act on Vance’s story, holding him even after the F.B.I. confirmed Vance’s activities were legal and that he had been acting in the interests of the U.S. government.

Here's the NY Times story on Vance.

Perhaps Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld will all end up in prison someday. One can hope.

Mediocrity Pays

The following, from the latest Berkshire-Hathaway proxy statement (DEF 14A), is so stunningly rare, so antithetical to the corporate culture found in 99% of public companies, that it just leaps out at you:

Compensation Discussion and Analysis

Berkshire’s program regarding compensation of its executive officers is different from most public company programs [understatement of the year]. Mr. Buffett’s compensation is reviewed annually by the Governance, Compensation and Nominating Committee (“Committee”) of the Corporation’s Board of Directors. Due to Mr. Buffett’s desire that his compensation remain unchanged, the Committee has not proposed an increase in Mr. Buffett’s compensation since the Committee was created in 2004. Prior to that time Mr. Buffett recommended to the Board of Directors the amount of his compensation. Mr. Buffett’s annual compensation has been $100,000 for over the last 25 years and he would not expect or desire it to increase in the future.

The Committee has established a policy that: (i) neither the profitability of Berkshire Hathaway nor the market value of its stock are to be considered in the compensation of any executive officer [i.e. no rigging the quarterly numbers to meet analysts expectations]; and (ii) all compensation paid to executive officers of Berkshire Hathaway be deductible under Internal Revenue Code Section 162 (m). Under the Committee’s compensation policy, Berkshire does not grant stock options to executive officers [because options are legalized theft from the shareholders]. The Committee has delegated to Mr. Buffett the responsibility for setting the compensation of Berkshire’s two other executive officers.

Like Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger has been paid an annual salary of $100,000 for over the last 25 years. Mr. Buffett does not anticipate that Mr. Munger’s compensation will be increased in the future. Both Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger will on occasion utilize Berkshire personnel and/or have Berkshire pay for minor items such as postage or phone calls that are personal. Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger reimburse Berkshire for these costs by making an annual payment to Berkshire in an amount that is equal to or greater than the costs that Berkshire has incurred on their behalf. During 2006, Mr. Buffett reimbursed Berkshire $50,000 and Mr. Munger reimbursed Berkshire $5,500. Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger do not use Company cars or belong to clubs to which the Company pays dues. It should also be noted that neither Mr. Buffett nor Mr. Munger utilizes corporate-owned aircraft for personal use. Each of them is personally a fractional NetJets owner, paying standard rates, and they use Berkshire owned aircraft for business purposes only.

Factors considered by Mr. Buffett in setting Mr. Hamburg’s salary are typically subjective, such as his perception of Mr. Hamburg’s performance and any changes in functional responsibility. Mr. Buffett also sets the compensation for each of the CEO’s of Berkshire’s significant operating businesses. He utilizes several different incentive arrangements, with their terms dependent on such elements as the economic potential or capital intensity of the business. The incentives can be large and are always tied to the operating results for which a CEO has authority. These incentives are never related to measures over which the CEO has no control.

Mr. Hamburg, VP & CFO, had a salary of $662,500 in 2006 and $11,000 in other compensation. Not a lot at a $168 billion market-cap company. In total the top 3 at Berkshire made less than a million dollars in total compensation! Combined!

Contrast the above with the following...

The CEO of Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Ray R. Irani, received compensation last year valued at $416.3 million. This is apparently third best in history for a public company exec, behind Larry Ellison's 2001 $706 million payday and Michael Eisner's paltry $570 million "earnings" in 1998. OXY stock gained about 13.5% in 2006. Berkshire's stock gained about 23% in 2006. What's wrong with this picture?

The new Ford CEO received $39.1 million for his four months work in 2006. No wonder the company is in trouble. Anybody seen a long-term chart of Ford since 1999? It's only down about 75%. Only 25% more to go!

I've already mentioned Bob Nardelli of Home Depot infamy.

Goldman Sachs gave its CEO a $53.4 million holiday bonus.

Forbes five worst CEO's includes such luminaries as

Steven Appleton, Micron Technology...

"That's right- this man [Appleton] averaged $7.8 million dollars in compensation - all for the miraculous accomplishment of losing 21.7% annualized over the past six years. It's hard to believe that boards, which are supposed to protect the interests of the company - especially shareholders, allow folks like Appleton to keep their jobs.

Anyone with a "Dilbert like" corporate life knows all about company performance reviews. So what happened to this guy's "goals and objectives?" What were his measurement criteria? What was his performance rating? And how in hell did that ever translate into $7.8 million???"

Why big shareholders of Micron like Goldman Sachs and Legg Mason don't put a stop to this nonsense is...oh, wait...the CEO of Legg Mason pulls in over $20 mil a year, and we already know Goldman grows money on trees. Never mind.

Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems, earned a measly $13.3 million in average compensation over the last six years. Lawrence Montgomery of Kohl's only averaged $12.5 million in six-year average compensation while posting a six-year annualized average return of a whopping .1% (point-one percent). At least Kohl's stock was up last year.

These companies should take a page from Circuit City's playbook and fire their overpaid CEOs, then offer to rehire them at minimum wage. With leadership resulting in a return of .1% or
-21.7% per year for six years, they would still be overpaid even at that level.

SOTD: Andy Ypsilon - The Sky Is High

Time Magazine Columnist Finally Sees the Light

From Editor & Publisher:

In the upcoming issue of Time magazine, out Friday, columnist Joe Klein considers what he calls the Bush administration’s “epic collapse.” He concludes with a statement that may make some wonder if he is hinting that the president ought to be impeached.

Klein claims, in referring to the president, that he has “tried to be respectful of the man and the office” but now he recognizes that the “defining sins” of his administration “are congenital: they’re part of his personality. They’re not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.”

Earlier in the column, Klein hits Bush's "adolescent petulance" and "indifference to reality in Iraq" and charges that his "hyper-partisanship" amounts to "a travesty of governance." He declares that the three major Bush problems of the year “precisely illuminate the three qualities that make this Administration one of the worst in American history: arrogance (the surge), incompetence (Walter Reed) and cynicism (the U.S. Attorneys)."...

Well said.

SOTD: Juliet - Avalon

SOTD: Foo Fighters - Everlong

Bill O'Reilly's Mental Train Gets Derailed