In which I blow your mind with a statistic about the differences between the rich and the poor and the different races

Are you ready? It involves marijuana too. OK, prepare to have your world shaken.

No city in the world arrests more of its citizens for using pot than New York, according to statistics compiled by Harry G. Levine, a Queens College sociologist.

Nearly nine out of ten people charged with violating the law are black or Latino, although national surveys have shown that whites are the heaviest users of pot. Mr. Bloomberg himself acknowledged in 2001 that he had used it, and enjoyed it.

On the Upper East Side of Manhattan where the mayor lives, an average of 20 people for every 100,000 residents were arrested on the lowest-level misdemeanor pot charge in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

During those same years, the marijuana arrest rate in Brownsville, Brooklyn, was 3,109 for every 100,000 residents.

That means the chances of getting arrested on pot charges in Brownsville — and nothing else — were 150 times greater than on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

GOLLY! More rich white people get away with shit than poor brown people? Oh me oh my, I never expected this. I bet there are more poor black people in our prisons than rich white people too and a massive sentencing disparity too! And there's a hypocrisy and staggering difference in enforcement with our drug laws? Next you'll be telling me the kind of cocaine a black person does is subject to a much harsher prison sentence that the type of cocaine a white person does.

Where's the fainting couch? I'm... I'm going to need to sit down. This is too much to handle.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 04.16

U.S. Accuses Goldman Sachs of Fraud
Today the US Government filed a civil suit against Goldman-Sachs alleging that they created and sold mortgage investments that were secretly designed to fail. By "alleged" we of course mean to say "they totally fucking did it". Shocking that a corporation that made money off of betting against the investments it sold to its customers might also be accused of nefarious deeds surrounding those investments. That sound you heard off in the distance? Matt Taibbi's boner ripping through his pants so fast that it broke the sound barrier.

The Price of Assassination
Now that our country openly advocates for assassinating our own citizens without a trial as part of our terrorist leadership decapitation strategies, one wonders: does any of this actually work? Robert Wright brings to a light a recent study that shows that decapitation strikes and assassinations are more likely to prolong the life of a organization. What a shocker, providing martyrs and rallying events for terrorist groups doesn't help shut them down. Next you're going to tell we that bombing a civilian's home doesn't make him more likely to love us.

A GOP Financial Reform Bellwether
If you had to guess what the upcoming GOP strategy for opposing financial reform was, what would it be? Outright lying, right? And well guessed by you, But this time there's an interesting twist: boldly stating the opposite of what is going on. No mere word twisting and blowing minor events out of proportion, now, we've moved straight into complaining about the opposite of what is going on. Time outlines this strategy and how closely GOP leaders are hewing to the poll tested evil of Frank Luntz.

Gates criticizes leaks group for war video
What happens when a group leaks footage of your soldiers essentially murdering a bunch of innocent people for no real reason? Well, if you're Defense Secretary Robert Gates the answer certainly isn't "apologize, investigate what went wrong, and punish those who did this and covered it up." No, the natural reaction for him is to complain that it was leaked, whine on about context and perspective, and cry about how the leakers aren't going to be punished. You know, like an adult would. He is right though, the video doesn't show the invisible terrorist ghosts that the helicopter pilots were firing at. Wikileaks just doesn't have the proper ectoplasmic video filters. Stay classy, Bob.

Pugnacious D
With Treme debuting on HBO and being so good that it got renewed for a second season after one episode, it's always interesting to delve into the mind of it's creator, and the creator of the Wire, David Simon. New York Magazine provides an extensive interview with the man.

Shadow Caster
The LA Times Magazine delves into the noir-ish history of LA police chief William H. Parker and gangster Mickey Cohen. Crooked cops, shakedown squads, Rollo Tomasi, classic gangster behavior, and how an uneasy truce between the cops and crooks went to hell when a crooked vice squad tried to shake down Cohen. An outtake adapted from the book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City. Reading about this kind of thing will never get old.

Nubs

In our day to day travels and interactions I think we find one thing we all have in common: we'd all like to violently assault a quadruple amputee for tenuous reasons. I just don't know why that is, but we'd all like to do it. Maybe it's human nature.

Now it goes without saying that in the larger community you'll be lionized and vindicated by public opinion. But then again, public opinion isn't legal opinion. So when John Law comes knocking on your door, remember to tell him that you assaulted that quadruple amputee in self-defense. Like this guy, Minnesota resident Jacoby Smith.

Bell was in no position to defend herself, being that both hands and both legs were amputated due to a childhood illness. But Smith says don't let that fool you--Bell is like a handless, legless Ultimate Fighter.

"She'll swing, push me down and choke me with her nubs," Smith told the Pioneer Press.

We've said it time and time again: amputees are predators and we must defend ourselves from them at all costs. Did no one see the Fugitive?

But rest easy, this story has a happy ending. Despite the fact that he beats her, she apparently beats him with the fury of Ken Shamrock and Fedor Emelianenko, and the fact that she cheats on him, these two lovebirds/sparring partners are going to get married. True love, dear readers.

Bigotry follies

Back in October President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act which added "perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability" to the 1969 federal hate crimes law. While some saw this as a long overdue addition to our legal code, others saw this as a trampling of free speech. I mean sure, this only is for violent acts of murder, assault, intimidation, and terrorism, but what about those who fear that this might affect them or their churches ability to bash an demonize gays? The law says that isn't going to happen, but can't people just whine about it anyway as some sort of flimsy pretext for stripping protection for gays from state law? Sure they can.

Such was the case in Oklahoma, where they didn't buy into this notion that gays are people too, so they set off to seriously de-gay their hate crimes laws. HOW DARE YOU REFER TO THEM AS OKLAHOMO! So they decided to write a bill that tried to severely hamstring those rights under state law and not allow state or local authorities to report or share hate crimes information with the feds pertaining to Title 18 U.S. Code Section 245. That's where the problem began.

Protections for sexual orientation and gender identity are actually under Section 249.
...
Section 245 of the Code refers to race and religious protections. Therefore, Oklahoma actually passed a statute allowing state law enforcement officials to keep information about crimes motivated by race or religion out of the hands of federal authorities.

“The bill in its current form doesn’t take away rights from gays and lesbians,” Oklahoma State Senate Minority Leader Andrew Rice explained. “It takes away rights for religion and race.”

I'm sure the race protections being stripped out was just a happy accident, but they'll be hopping mad about religious persecution being stripped out. That's what this whole thing was pretending to be about in the first place. First they try to knock out protections for violence against gays based on "uhhhh.... religion and stuff" (caution: legal terminology), but end up stripping hate crime protection from religion. It's almost as if God was trying to tell them something about hate and using religious cover as a pretext for bigotry. Or He was at least trying to make a point about the general stupidity of state lawmakers and reading comprehension levels in Oklahoma.

Well done Oklahoma, we do love a good petard self-hoisting. Quit while you're ahead, otherwise you'll have legalized murder by the end of the week.

Art of the day

From Gallery of the Absurd comes Lindsay Lohan: Milkaholic.


This is in reference to the fact that she has filed a $100 million dollar lawsuit against E*Trade because she thinks the company's talking baby "Milkaholic" ad is a direct reference to her. E*Trade is expecting to counter the suit by alleging that anything that ties Lindsay Lohan to their company can only act as a detriment so why would they court that kind of failure? Also, they'll note that there's no way the baby could be a seen as a direct reference to Lohan, seeing as the baby Lindsay has some sort of discernible acting future.

In additional Lohan news the entire country of India is considering banning her from ever again setting foot on their soil after she made false claims about child trafficking, India, and her role in rescuing child slaves during a BBC documentary she participated in. You remember that BBC documentary, right?

You know Lindsay, I think we all just thought that someday you'd either be doing porn or be dead of an overdose. There was no third option we had considered. It's so great to see you just go totally off in this unexpected direction of filing frivolous $100 million dollar lawsuits against baby commercials and getting thrown out of most of South Asia before one of those two happens.

Unlaw

According to the scuttlebutt, health care may pass this week. For those of you paying attention at home this marks around the 52nd consecutive time someone said that health care would pass this week. But this time they totally mean it with an extra heaping of 'for realsies' and a sprinkling of 'totally gonna happen'.

But as we face the new dawn of the imminent jackbooted socialist overthrow of our health care system, there are some political scholars and Constitutional experts that thing just because the Senate and House pass legislation and it goes to the President's desk and he signs it, that makes a bill a law. Nope. That fully ignores the right of Americans to plug their fingers in their ears, declare opposite day, and declare in "non-law". Here, let Dr. Michelle Bachmann explain.

"But mark my words, the American people aren't gonna take this lying down," Bachmann later said. "We aren't gonna play their game, we're not gonna pay their taxes. They want us to pay for this? Because we don't have to. We don't have to. We don't have to follow a bill that isn't law. That's not the American way, and that's not what we're going to do."

Bachmann continued. "Because it's one-party rule now in Washington, D.C. Their Chicago tactics, their Chicago friends, twisting Democrats' arms, threatening their own team members with ethics charges and a submission. This handful of people thinks (sic) they can enforce their will on 300 million Americans? They're not gonna do that. This is dictatorial, what they are doing. We are not compelled to follow a non-law just because Obama and Pelosi tells us we have to.

That's right, she has uniformly decreed that measure passed by reconciliation are "non-law" and that Americans thusly can opt out of taxes and all notions of legality because of it. Furthermore, the concept of majority rule is dictatorial.

I would have preferred she use the phrase "unlaw" and refer to Barry and Nancy as the "Un president and Unspeaker of Unamerica", but one can't have all his crazy cake and eat it too.

I just hope Bachmann's fellow like-minded individuals and supporters take her suggestion at face value. Just because I want to see the looks on their faces when the IRS nails them for tax evasion or the feds hit them for breaking whatever law they consider "not-law" now, and them trying to explain "But, but, but, Michelle Bachmann said...". Who knew there was a legal socialism based opt-out to the US legal system buried in the Constitution? Michelle Bachmann knew, that's who.

He's gonna take our guns!

Gun rights advocates are always in a state of perpetual fear. You would think the copious amounts of firearms they possess would make them feel safe, but somehow that just isn't the case. No, everyone, everywhere, at all times is looking to take their guns, so they must be ever vigilant to make sure that they ram through all sorts of new laws so that there is nowhere where they can't wield or purchase a loaded firearm with minimum background checks or public safety protocols.

When Republicans are in power it's the UN that's going to come in and confiscate everyone's guns in the name of the new world order. When Democrats are in power it's the liberal menace taking guns as a first step to a socialist/fascist overthrow of the American way of life and oh, by the way, didjaknowthat'showHitlerstartedhistakeoverI'mjustsaying. Well now they gun lobby is totally sure that Obama is just mere seconds away from stealing everyone's gun in the name of Karl Marx and steps must be taken to loosen our ultra-loose gun laws in order to prevent that aggression from standing, man. Gun ownership ain't a privilege, it's a right!

When President Obama took office, gun rights advocates sounded the alarm, warning that he intended to strip them of their arms and ammunition.

And yet the opposite is happening. Mr. Obama has been largely silent on the issue while states are engaged in a new and largely successful push for expanded gun rights, even passing measures that have been rejected in the past.
...
“The watchword for gun owners is stay ready,” said Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association. “We have had some successes, but we know that the first chance Obama gets, he will pounce on us.”

In Virginia you can now carry a concealed weapon into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, while they repealed the state's "one gun a month" purchase law and rejected a law that called for background checks for purchases at gun shows.... and this is after the Virginia Tech shootings. Arizona and Wyoming are considering letting people carry concealed firearms without a permit. Montana and Tennessee passed laws that got the damn gubbmint and their federal laws out of regulatin' their in-state arms and ammo sales. This in addition to federal laws passed last year that allow people to finally wield loaded guns on trains and in national parks.

And yet the black helicopters on the horizon and the national gun confiscation squads have yet to materialize. Guns are not yet outlawed so outlaws aren't the only ones with guns. Oh, but it's coming, the NRA swears it. So if you don't mind giving them a donation or two or three or dozen, they'll be able to stave off the complete repeal of the second amendment that would happen the second the stop being eternally vigilant and the second Obama thinks no one is watching. You know, even though he doesn't seem eager to pass or sign any new gun laws except ones that broaden the scope of places where you can purchase or carry loaded weapons.

America must never be burdened with the cumbersome load of background checks at gunshows or an inability to buy a Jeep mounted .50 cal machine gun. Be afraid, buy more guns. Before they (which is now plausibly the blacks) take them. The gun ban is coming, it's always coming.

Things I like

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo... suing Bank of America for fraud.

Details:

Cuomo also sued the bank’s former chief financial officer Joe Price and the bank itself for not disclosing about $16 billion in losses Merrill had incurred before it was bought by Bank of America in an effort to get the merger approved. Afterwards, Lewis demanded government bailout funds, Cuomo said.

“We believe the bank management understated the Merrill Lynch losses to shareholders, then they overstated their ability to terminate their agreement to secure $20 billion of TARP money, and that is just a fraud,” Cuomo said today at a press conference. “Bank of America and its officials defrauded the government and the taxpayers at a very difficult time.”

Hey, at least there's one guy out there who is willing to use his power and legal jurisdiction to fight for some accountability for the financial giants and banks that molested our economy. Good luck with that.

And he's a political legacy kid, imagine that. I think the odds are that one out of every twenty isn't some kind of simpering idiot. I think NY is finding that out with Harold Ford Jr.

Legalese

A recent decision was made on another series of lawsuits making the crazy claim that since the government and telecommunications companies illegally spied on us, someone somewhere should maybe face a criminal case, jail time, a large fine, a stern talking to, or a stern finger wag because of it. Of course this nonsense was thrown out of court. But we knew this would happen. The rule of law clearly states that those who rule must be protected from the consequences of the law.

But what is of interest is not so much the fact that the case was thrown out of court, but the reason why. We've moved beyond mere "The government did it so it's legal" and "Unless you can get the government or the telcoms to willingly give you information specifying that your were spied on, you can't sue" to merely stating that everyone got fucked over equally, so you should just take it like a man.

He noted that the plaintiffs include most every American connected to the internet or to have used a telephone — meaning the lawsuits boil down to a “general grievance” and are barred. The decision came days after a government audit showed the telecom companies and FBI collaborated for four years, between 2003 and 2007, to violate federal wiretapping laws.

Judge Walker said that the lawsuits, in essence, cannot be brought because they are “citizen suits seeking to employ judicial remedies to punish and bring to heel high-level government officials for the allegedly illegal and unconstitutional warrantless electronic surveillance program or programs now widely, if incompletely, aired in the public forum.”

Unfortunately the government and telcoms just spied on and wiretapped too many goddamn people, otherwise the courts would totally be able to do something. But since these spying thingy-dingys happened to essentially everyone with a phone or internet they get bussed down from Constitutional violations to general grievances. Your concerns are now legally like the buzzing of flies to Lord Vigo the US government.

And where was the Obama Administration on this case? They were busy trying to get it dismissed based on the "state secrets" privilege and arguing that the US government should not be allowed to be sued unless it has given consent, aka "sovereign immunity." Well at least they're vigorously fighting for one principle they hold dear.

So remember, if you think your Constitutional rights have been violated, you totally have legal recourse.... as long as Congress doesn't pass a retroactive law absolving those who have violated your rights, a company and the government wishes to willingly incriminate itself in said rights violation, the government doesn't claim a "state secrets" privilege, and also doesn't claim the rights of a 12th century Prussian monarch. Wonderful.

...and the home of the braaaave.

Lawyering 101

Some of you may have been paying attention to the new Most Important Story Ever of the Week, which, in a shocking turn, is actually mildly relevant this time around. Yes, the whole Leno/Conan/NBC clusterfuck over whether we have to wait until 12:05 to watch something funny or if we'll be watching something funny at 11:35 on Fox. Well, at least 10-11 on NBC has been cleansed.

But in the battle Conan O'Brien wages to not let middle of the road milquetoast comedy return to our post 11 o'clock news lives, one interesting fact has arisen. It seems that in his fight to actually get the Tonight Show in the first place, Conan and his lawyers forgot to specify one tiny little detail of minor importance.

When Conan O'Brien took on hosting duties of The Tonight Show, he had a team of lawyers negotiating his terms. Unfortunately, they neglected to specify a time slot, meaning NBC could put Conan on at whatever time they wanted, as long as he was still hosting The Tonight Show.

According to Business Insider this means Conan can't switch to another network without "voiding his contract and passing on the tens of millions of dollars he would otherwise be owed."

Whoops. That sound you just heard was Conan pausing from his mid-morning cardio of smashing Jay Leno bobbleheads and that muffin basket NBC sent over with a cricket bat to contemplate how deep and how alive his lawyers should be buried after he finds them. I hope he hasn't already paid out the billable hours they charged to negotiate his contract.

I don't know, but that sounds like some Lawyer 101 type shit. "Rule 2C, Subsection G: Make sure the contract actually says what you think it says and that you get what you actually think you're getting." It seems to me that a large part of getting the Tonight Show at 11:35 is the whole 11:35 part. It's almost Yoo-esque in it's incompetence.

But as a haggard Andy Richter desperately knocks the shotgun out of Conan's mouth just before he can pull the trigger, we all realize what the one good thing about Leno being on at 11:35 is: that's the exact same time the Colbert Report is on. It'll be like nothing's on NBC from 11:35-12:05 and it's one less complicated DVR scheduling issue you'll have to work out. Thanks for making our lives easier, NBC.

As an addendum, here's Patton Oswalt commenting on the situation and why Jay Leno is like Nixon.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.09

Yahoo, Verizon: Our Spy Capabilities Would ‘Shock’, ‘Confuse’ Consumers
We already know our government isn't really interested in curbing all that spying and wiretapping monkey business, but we now get to learn exactly why telcom companies are so eager to join up and comply: they make a pretty penny off of it. $3500 for a month long wiretap with a $1000 price break if you want more moths after that. Trap-and-traces are $2500, and a month's worth of records comes in at a thrifty $40. Now that you think about it, that data/text plan isn't as much of a gouge as you thought it was.

Yahoo Issues Takedown Notice for Spying Price List
In a follow up to the above link, Yahoo and Verizon kind of got mad that all that information got out after they tried to block a FOIA request and is sending out fresh batches of new lawsuits. And they should be pissed off, how can Verizon charge that much to the feds and still have such spotty 3G coverage? Luke Wilson ain't gonna get you out of explaining that one, Verizon.

Feds ‘Pinged’ Sprint GPS Data 8 Million Times Over a Year
Because it's "Telcoms are scumfucks" day on the Crutch, the good people at Wired's Threat Level inform us that if you're essentially a Sprint customer that means you're basically subject to GPS surveillance by the police at any time. Don't worry, they have to get a court order...unless it's an emergency. Now sure, that might seem like an excessive and easily exploitable rights violation, but then again, the Blackberry Curve and the Treo are pretty fucking sweet and if you want a great PDA you are going to have to sacrifice some rights. But hey, NFL Mobile Live is worth it.

Pork meat grown in the laboratory
Love pork, but just aren't comfortable with the ethical quandary surrounding butchering Babe up like, well, a pig? Thanks to unholy science, your troubles are at an end. With just a few myoblast cells and an animal fetus based nutrient solution and you've got vat grown pork lumps that even PETA says you can eat guilt free. Fuckin' science, man, growing pig meat in the lab. I guess I butchered and buried all those pigs in my back yard for nothing. Now I'm not even interested to see if a bacon tree grows.

U.S. Will Settle Indian Lawsuit for $3.4 Billion
Reversing a longstanding US government policy of fucking over Native Americans at all costs, the Feds settled a longstanding case over mismanagement of land trust accounts dating back to 1887. They're going to divvy up all the money between the remaining Indians, so it's going to mean a haul of about $200 million per person. Also as a consequence of the lawsuit: the US Government recognizes Indians as people. Just a warning to all the tribes out there: the white man is still an untrustworthy devil. If they give you the money in cash, handle it with gloves and surgical masks because it might have the pig flu on it. If it's an electronic transfer, watch out for a computer virus. Don't fall for the same mistakes as your ancestors.

Souter out

David Souter has had it up to here with all your Supreme Court bullshit. He's finally leaving to start that prog-metal band he kept mentioning in all his minority and majority opinions. Knights of Justice. He's already got a 12 minute opus loosely based around the Boumediene decision. Why's he leaving? Mostly because he hates Washington, hates politics, hates the politicization of the court, hates the court itself (calling it a "annual intellectual lobotomy" every time a term started up) and he ain't too crazy about your ugly mug either. He's gone as soon as they can find his replacement.

Justice Souter, who was appointed in 1990 by a Republican president, the first George Bush, but became one of the most reliable members of the court’s liberal wing, has grown increasingly sour on Washington and intends to return to his home state, New Hampshire, according to the people briefed on his plans. One official said the decision might be announced as early as Friday.

The departure will open the first seat for a Democratic president to fill in 15 years and could prove a test of Mr. Obama’s plans for reshaping the nation’s judiciary. Confirmation battles for the Supreme Court in recent years have proved to be intensely partisan and divisive moments in Washington, but Mr. Obama has more leeway than his predecessors because his party holds such a strong majority in the Senate.

Replacing Justice Souter with a liberal would not change the basic makeup of the court, where he and three other justices hold down the left wing against a conservative caucus of four justices. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate Republican appointee, often provides the swing vote that controls important decisions.

All that being said, Souter isn't THAT liberal, like Thurgood Marshall was. But he became a solidly rational, liberal leaning Justice. He will be missed. He also wasn't as liberal as the right wing will pretend the person to replace him is. Joy of joys, I can't wait for that circus. So and so wants free mandatory abortions for all from illegal immigrant doctors, this justice hates freedom, they're gonna take all the guns, SECEDE~!, this is tyranny, biggest liberal in the history of the world, affront to Democracy, etc. It'll be the pinnacle of rational debate.

As to who Obama wants to replace him with, baseless speculation has centered on the fact that someone heard from some guy who heard from another who heard a rumor that Obama might have said he wanted 'more chicks' at dinner last night. Or 'more chicken'. Either way that definitely signals he wants a woman to preside, what with her special lady parts and judicially analyzing lady brain. All in all, it ought to provide a couple days of rampant meaningless speculation over a position that hasn't even been officially vacated or even publicly signaled that is was going to be vacated yet. In any event it will at least give us a few days distraction before the H1N1 Super Pig AIDS kills 99% of us, rendering man's law and thus the Supreme Court null and void.

Hating gays is an inalienable Constitutional right

So the House finally got around to passing a law that expands hate crime coverage from a 1968 law that covered race, religion, and national origin to those motivated by "gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability." This was a bill that Bush had repeatedly threatened to veto, but now that we officially recognize the dawning of the 21st Century, has finally gotten some traction.

All it essentially does is allows the Government provide additional resources to local law enforcement to prosecute the crimes, such as the case of Matthew Shepard, where the local law enforcement had to furlough 5 detectives in order to pay for the investigation because it was a hate crime against a gay man. Via ThinkProgress, we learn how this new law is, of course, the worst thing ever and the latest tyrannical liberal assault on free speech.

REP MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): I feel that this hate crime legislation could be considered the very definition of tyranny.

REP. GRESHMAN BARRET (R-SC): This bill would inhibit religious freedom in our society -- a scary thought.

REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): You think a pregnant mother does not deserve the protection of a homosexual? You think a military member doesn't deserve the protection of a transvestite?

REP. STEVE KING (R-IA): I, Mr. Speaker, oppose and I defy the logic of the people that would advocate for such legislation the very idea we could divine what goes on in the heads of people when they commit crimes.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) called Matthew Shepherd's murder "a hoax" and denied that it was a hate crime.

Yes....prosecuting people for killing gays because they are gay is an assault on religious freedom. Prosecuting violent crimes is the same as prosecuting people for their thoughts. The right to discriminate is more important than murder prosecutions. The most important discrimination we have to worry about is discrimination against bigots. This all makes so much sense. Just when I thought there wasn't some new low for the fringe right wing to scrounge out, they rush to claim the real victims of hate crimes are the perpetrators of hate crimes and those who traffic in their ideology. I'll have to remember this after their next lecture about morals.

Questions

Civil Lawsuit Over Katrina Begins

A groundbreaking civil suit began in federal court here Monday to consider claims by property owners that the Army Corps of Engineers amplified the destructive effects of Hurricane Katrina by building a poorly designed navigation channel adjacent to the city.

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile-long channel known locally as MR-GO and pronounced “Mister Go,” was completed in 1968 and created a straight shot to the Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans. The suit claims that the channel was flawed in its design, construction and operation, and that those flaws intensified the flood damage to the eastern parts of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.

One geological expert testified on behalf of the plaintiffs that the channel was “one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the United States.”

Do you think that they're going to win all the money in existence, or just all the money that the banks haven't taken yet?

Are we going to have to invent new numbers for the financial award?

Jillion, bajillion, bazillion, kazillion? I'm a bazillion man.

Will we have to measure jury deliberation time in minutes or seconds?

Open up the coffers Geithner, the American taxpayer is going to have to take another gut shot.

New finance rules

Today the Obama Administration unveils their new financial plans. Not just content to attach strings after the fact to billions they've handed out freely, Tim Geithner and the other three people working at the Treasury Department have decided to come up with a plan to address new regulation of the financial markets to help better avoid a future financial Ragnarok. The sooner the better as the canvas bubble fueled by the tent cities springing up around the US will threaten the economy in 2011.

The plan, which would require Congressional approval, would give the government vast new powers over “systemically important” banks and other financial institutions that are so big that their collapse would jeopardize the economy as a whole.
...
If regulators decided that a company had become “too big to fail,” as was the case with A.I.G. in September, they would subject it to much stricter capital requirements than smaller rivals and much closer scrutiny of its borrowing levels and its trading partners, or counterparties.

But the most striking new proposals, and the ones that may provoke the most heated opposition from the industry, would regulate so-called private pools of capital — hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital funds — and the gigantic market in financial derivatives, including instruments like credit-default swaps, the insurancelike instruments that allow investors to hedge against bond defaults.

Of course this has to pass Congress, so there's a 50/50 chance that Harry Reid will have to water the bill down to the point where it actually deregulates the markets further just to get Arlen Specter to deign to consider voting for it. Not included in the article was a list of other regulatory measures the bill wishes to take:

• A company may only engage in enough shady dealings to tank 1/3 of the world economy
• The bonus system will be completely overhaul...just kidding
• All senior management must take at least one class on faking sincerity and gratitude
• ABC will commission the program Extreme Makeover: Corporate Office Edition so as to provide reasonable cover for those corporations still wishing to redecorate during their own collapse
• Failing companies will only be allowed to have one sports sponsorship at a time and will have to choose between jersey sponsorship and stadium sponsorship
• When choosing a minority underclass that tricked your company into your economic ruin, all official spokespeople will be allowed only to blame that one group for the duration of the crisis
• Only 2 handjobs per day for executives at their office spa
• Horse and dog track betting are now considered legal financial instruments for securities and credit default swaps
• Monocles, spats, top hats, and canes are mandatory attire for any CEO accepting government bailout funds
• Senior management must legally pinky swear to never break the economy again
  

End of an era

It seems there are now less and less places to secretly hide away your money from the prying eyes of government. Today Swiss bank UBS is set to open it's books and let the US take a peek at all the tax cheats squirreling their acorns away overseas in the hopes that the legendary Swiss banking system that was good enough for the Nazis and African warlords was good enough for a mid management tax dodger from Merrill Lynch. What will we find? Mengele's safety deposit box, Amelia Earhart's checking account, Bigfoot's home loan info? No, probably just boring info about boring US tax cheats. No Nazis.

In the hush-hush world of Swiss banking, the unthinkable is happening: secrets are spilling into the open.

UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, agreed on Wednesday to divulge the names of well-heeled Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes. The bank admitted conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.

It is unclear how many of its clients’ names UBS will divulge. Federal prosecutors have been examining about 19,000 accounts at the bank, but UBS ultimately may disclose the identities of only a few hundred customers.

Nice as our government is, we gave UBS a $220 million break on the penalties and back taxes they had to pay, what with the recession and all. As to why they turned over all this information, it seems the executives of UBS had an aversion to indictment and prison. In prison, bankers are currency. What is of note is that this fine is only covers the last seven years, from 2000-2007, so really, they're getting off light.

Among the charges that UBS is admitting to is that they encouraged the falsification or destruction of records, hiding money, jewelry, and art in safe deposit boxes, and the use Swiss credit cards so the IRS couldn't track purchases. Of note is that Swiss law doesn't actually recognize tax evasion as a crime, but as a necessary skill our financial betters have to engage in because they have earned it. As God intended. So sorry if you had hopes of hording your cash away from the government or soon to be ex-spouse, times are tough and the Swiss had to cut a deal. I'm sure you can find another crooked countries banking system. Just throw a dart at the map of the Caribbean and join your dirty money with your corporation's dirty money and shell companies.

Broken In Brief: Area officer unable to decide what TV or movie cop he's most like

ATLANTA--Area police officer Kevin Sanderson, a patrolman from the 14th district, was distracted from completing any work today as his thoughts about which TV or movie cop he most resembled wound up occupying all available brain space. Despite the pleas from his shift commander to go out and arrest someone and declarations from his partner that he was, "whatever one was the gayest," officer Sanderson was unable to complete any of his assigned duties and was still perplexed as he left the station at the end of his shift.

"I mean there was that one time I recklessly chased that dealer through the city streets in my car, so maybe I'm like Popeye Doyle. Or was that in Bullitt? Maybe both. Of course the dealer was a minority and after I shot him I made a sarcastic reference, so maybe I'm like Dirty Harry," a confused Sanderson was head to utter. "Everyone tells me I'm fat and racist.....Sipowicz? I'm estranged from my family and Alan Rickman has hated me ever since I administered a full body cavity search at the Atlanta premiere of Dogma, so maybe I'm like John McClane. Wait, which one was Starsky and which was Hutch? McNulty? Ponch? Do FBI movies count? Forget it."

Sanderson vowed to go home, IMDB cop movies and shows, and "...really diagram this shit out" in an attempt to add some vain meaning to his otherwise dull existence. He hopes that this exercise, while seemingly fruitless, will somehow make his low test scores, recent demotion for an unexplained discharge of his firearm, poor hygiene, and inability to pass the detective exam more palatable if he can fictionalize his existence as exactly like a movie he admires, instead of one filled with mundane traffic stops, domestic disturbance calls, and all that paperwork.

Eric Holder will not be nominated as President of 24

Yesterday marked the beginning of Senate Confirmation hearings for Obama Attorney General nominee Eric Holder. It started off well enough, with Pat Leahy getting Holder to agree that waterboarding was both torture and unacceptable, that an Obama Administration would not torture. Shocked at this open admission that Eric Holder wanted to kill Americans and pamper terrorists with his gay liberal ideas about human rights, Republicans jumped into the fray. John Cornyn of Texas decided to construct a mind shattering hypothetical based around something he half-remembered from a years old episode of 24, designed to shock the conscience and render Mr Holder's pampered liberal ideas as reckless and reduce Mr. Holder to tears at the thought of what his policies might bring forth.

CORNYN: I wanna just ask you a hypothetical. Earlier, you condemned the use of waterboarding. But you’re familiar with the ticking time bomb scenario, and I just wanna pose a hypothetical for you. Let’s say as Attorney General you find out that there are terrorists that have access to chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, and that you have a detainee who’s in possession of information that, if disclosed, would prevent those weapons from being detonated in the United States and thousands, maybe tens of thousands people being killed. You would still refuse to condone aggressive interrogation techniques like waterboarding to get that information, which would, under my hypothetical, save perhaps tens of thousands of lives.

Horrifying...and possibly infringing on FOX copyrights. Holder responded that waterboarding was not the only method of gaining information. Cornyn then decided to blow some minds.

HOLDER: I think your hypothetical assumes a premise that I’m not willing to concede.
CORNYN: I know you don’t like my hypothetical.
HOLDER: No, the hypothetical’s fine; the premise that underlies it I’m not willing to accept, and that is that waterboarding is the only way that I could get that information from those people.
CORNYN: Assume that it was.

Yes, assume that not only have all interrogation techniques been forgotten, but possibly even the notion of asking questions, and all that was left was drowning people. What then liberal? Holder just laughed and vowed to make sure Jack Bauer would never have the tools to be able to extract the information about where those suitcase nukes that are going to detonate within the hour are. He then pointed out that ticking time bomb scenarios only happen on TV, not in the real world, rendering Jack Bauer trapped in a plot hole riddled world of fiction and constant terrorism.

I'm guessing Cornyn will not vote to confirm Holder. While he seems fit to preside over our world, Holder is completely unprepared to rule over the world as depicted in Cornyn's favorite TV show. We can't have that.

Bush ordered to follow subpoena law

Judge: White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed

WASHINGTON — President Bush's top advisers are not immune from congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in an unprecedented dispute between the two political branches.

The House Judiciary Committee wants to question the president's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and former legal counsel Harriet Miers, about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. But President Bush says they are immune from such subpoenas. They say Congress can't force them to testify or turn over documents.

U.S. District Judge John Bates disagreed, saying there's no legal basis for that argument and that Miers must appear before Congress. If she wants to refuse to testify, he said, she must do so in person.

Yeah, the Bush Administration done got told that it had to follow the actual law, not the law as they wished it. This seems to be some sort of a pattern: claim some vast new illegal power, claim its totally legal and that furthermore you are able to bend steel girders with your super strength, get sued by liberals who at this point have repetitive stress disorders from eye rolling and shoulder shrugging, refuse to show up while brandishing your brightly colored baboon ass to the country, be told by judge that you are crooked liars making claims with no basis in reality.

Now the liars get to be marched two by two into an ark and sailed over to the House, where they will give vague dissembling answers that fail to answer simple questions, stall for time, deliberately misunderstand simple questions, and hopefully start pleading the fifth, confirming that yeah they need to be screwed into their pants every morning. Ideally this and the Rove contempt vote would lead to the sound of the scurrying of rats as they slit each others throats in an attempt to avoid jail time. But nothing of the sort will happen, everyone will fuck around at the House, nothing will really get answered, no one will do time for breaking the law, and nothing will really get accomplished. Like always.

Bale is the goddamn Batman

In case you were wondering just how quickly the success of The Dark Knight would go to Christian Bale's head and move him into the mindset of "Fuck it, I can do anything I want" I hope you put a lot of money on the first weekend. He apparently engaged his mother and sister in fisticuffs before being arrested, all before the UK premiere of The Dark Knight. The boy's movie made a record $158.4 million its first weekend and was fucking great, triggering a clause in his contract that no longer binds him to our human laws. He can fight anyone he wants for whatever reason because he's the goddamn Batman, get out of his goddamn way. Maybe some day you'll be the goddamn Batman, until then he's gonna fuck you up if you look at him crosseyed.

He denies any wrongdoing and has promised to sucker punch Michael Caine and put Maggie Gyllenhaal into a hammer-lock at the Paris premiere.