The inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that five SEC exams and investigations of Bernie Madoff were incompetently done.   I can believe one screwup happened, but five?  Five is agency policy to not look too hard.

Both Markopolos and an SEC staff accountant testified that it was clear the Boston office’s ( Read more... )

John Ensign has decided that he’s not resigning his seat, he’s running for re-election and he’s expecting the voters to forget it as soon after Britney Spears is killed in a love-suicide pact with Lindsey Lohan and CNN spends a week of coverage on the aftermath as possible.    Well, whatever keeps his dad’s and the RNSC’s pockets empty as they try ( Read more... )

New Zealander taekwondo champ trying to open a whorehouse in his home country to support his bid to go to the London Olympics in 2012.    Well, it’s not as nice as a Wheaties box…

I am singularly uninterested in the Jackson story.  I’ve seen enough oddball celebrity circuses, and the really interesting and truly weird stuff will not come out for a while for most people.   I expect more news circuses repeated endlessly on the news, and I will ignore them all.

Finally, someone sems to be doing something about rescuing Antioch ( Read more... )

I absolutely refuse to watch the train wreck of Jon and Kate Plus Eight - haven’t for a while, and I did catch about 10 minutes of the start-of-season one before I got nauseated.   I’m hearing stories about their ratings falling apart, and I’m just as glad.

First off, while some find the whole thing of having a view as to how to handle a big family ( Read more... )

Meredith has developed over the last year a taste for certain ‘reality’ shows that probe into private lives - as in poking inside a family household to see how it works. I have some real reservations on all of this, which I’ll go into in a minute.

In each of these cases, the family has one or more kids and a non-’conventional’ setup of some sort, ( Read more... )

…not talking about OJ.  Susan and her mom are watching this, but I’m very quickly getting sick of it.  The man’s an abusive psycho who consorts with losers and sycophants because that’s his level, and regardless of who really owned that stuff in the room, if I think someone’s ripped me off, I don’t go up after it with a posse and guns.  This ain’t ( Read more... )

Friday night, Susan said, a little of the ‘old Jim’ came up and out on the stage as I sang and joked with Mandy Patinkin…No joke. Actually happened, for real.

First, some explanation. I’m very fond of many different forms of music, including Broadway show tunes, and Susan and I are fans of his acting gigs and his CDs - and we’ve seen him in ( Read more... )