Reminiscences and Resolutions

Another year has come and gone, my friends. 2008 definitely ranks as one of the quirkiest and most-difficult-to-gauge in recent memory. It started with great promise and hope; work provided me with many unique opportunities for growth and development coupled with actual occasional personal satisfaction and gratitude. It ended, though, with utter chaos and uncertainty and has left me shaken to my very professional core, unsure of myself and my ability to contribute to not only one office but an entire career.

As with nearly all others in this troubled economy, money proved very tight as well. I'm sure you all feel the same there, wondering how those monthly bills are going to get paid and watching those annual percentage rates on the credit cards skyrocket.

But then again, I managed to have actual, real sexual contact with at least one live, honest-to-goodness female, so the year could not have been all bad... ;-)

So that brings us to 2009. A new year, a new president, and a shaky future. But I cannot control all of that stuff, I only have power over my own individual existence, and in that regard I am going to try something different this time out.

Rather than skimp on resolutions -- or offer only a few, feel-good platitudes -- I am going to list several very tough and impressive goals that would positively affect my life in various ways. Hopefully, by setting a lot of targets, it will obviate the fear and loathing that comes with failed accomplishments and will instead allow a moment of quiet satisfaction over the handful I do manage to keep.

1) 2009 will be gambling free. I know, sit down, that's a real whopper to start off with. And let's face it: over the course of 365 days it will be highly unlikely that I'll be able to fulfill it. Regardless, wouldn't this be a great boon for my personal finances and internal discipline if I could pull it off. My final trip of the year to the Water Club hit me with the worst losses of my gaming career -- right when I needed it the least -- so maybe that was the wakeup call I desperately needed.

2) No orders on Amazon.com. Tying into #1 above, ordering stupid and random crap on the world's largest online retailer -- books, movies, video games, whatever -- has done as much to kill my credit rating as any chips dropped onto a craps table. No more. If I want to see a movie or hear the latest CD by a favorite artist, I'll go buy it and only it at some local store. Handing out real legal tender is far more difficult than merely clicking and browsing millions of tantalizing recommendations. Or maybe I'll just download stuff off of Bit Torrent.

3) Lose 15-20 pounds. Really, that should be "75-90 pounds" but let's start slowly with a tangible, reachable milestone.

4) Finish all my schoolwork. There's a lot of writing that needs to be completed by May: a 100-page thesis, two last classes, and one incomplete course left over still from last summer. Tangible accomplishments will need to be documented on a daily basis to ensure I walk away with the Masters in Business Administration I've toiled for four years to acquire.

5) Keep a clean home. A clean, organized home will be a happier, more optimistic, and more healthy place.

6) Refind my faith. I haven't talked about it, but a lot of little things have left me at a point where my "faith" is probably at it's all-time nadir. Soul searching and intensive thought and meditation will be required to balance out the doubts and fears lurking within my heart.

7) Get the work situation settled. What do I want to do? Be a master of marketing? A Web guru? An independent consultant? All of the above? Figure it out, and hopefully the results will get me far away from individuals who resemble the unholy hybrid of George McFly and Garth Algar.

Anyway, all the best for the new year to my beloved friends and readers. As the great 21st Century philosopher Linus Caldwell proclaimed, "See you when I see you."

Yes, We Can

I'm an embarrassment to Barack!


I only scored 14 on the Obama Test

For My Next Vacation, I'd Like a Quadruple Bypass Please

Watch CBS Videos Online

Might be the only game in town to rival In-N-Out and Fatburger.

I Can Has Bailout?

So, instead of posting to this blog, I have been working furiously on researching my final paper for a management class on the current subprime lending crisis. Rather than look at it from the perspective of who's to blame -- the lenders or the homeowners -- I chose to tackle a different perspective: that our federal government repeatedly intervened into what had been a free market, and by doing so forever altered the landscape within in. From that point on, a strictly non-interventionist policy (such as the one favored by the Bush Administration from 2000 forward) was no longer a viable option and chaos ensued. Where blatent, I attempted to link to what served as footnotes originally.



One merely has to read the news or watch television to know that businesses across many major industries in the United States are – in their own words – failing and on the brink of collapse. Words such as “bailout,” “bankruptcy,” “urgency,” and “recession” are banded about with such frequency that it’s hard to tell where the rhetoric ends and the real alleged crises begin.

The renowned 20th Century economist Milton Friedman once famously declared that there is no place for ethics in capitalism. The ongoing subprime mortgage-lending crisis has fundamentally altered the American banking and capitalist system, perhaps forever. Unfortunately, the root causes of this financial mess are so integrated into the very fabric of politics, economics, ethics, and profit motivations that it proves difficult to figure out just where the blame and solutions lie.

That being said, it will be the contention of this paper that recent and historic intervention (or, in some cases, the ironic lack thereof) by both the federal government and by credit-rating agencies created systemic flaws within an “un-free” market.


Chapter One: A 30-Second Primer on How Banks Lend Money (Or, Rather, Should Lend Money)

Simply put, a mortgage is a loan obtained from a financial institution to pay for a home (real estate) and the land on which it is situated. The amount that the new homeowner must remit back to the lender is divided between principal (the actual initial dollar value of the loan, comprised of the cost of the home plus associated fees) and interest (the extra added onto the principal that allows the lending institution to make money on the transaction). Given the usually large values of mortgages, terms of payment run over the course of 15-30 years.

Mortgages can be broken down into two broad categories: fixed rate and adjustable rate. Fixed-rate loans have one set payment schedule and interest rate over the entire loan term. These loans are generally stable and work well for all parties in the long run, because they are easy to understand and simple to plan for. Of course, fixed-rate loans also prove more difficult to apply for and receive due to the associated larger payments.

Adjustable-rate mortgages have interest rates and payment schedules that fluctuate over time. Lending institutions often tie the interest rate to money market index rates (such as the one for Treasury bills), plus add on an additional margin factor. Adjustable rates prove attractive in the short term to the average investor because the initial rate offered (called a “teaser rate”) is usually far below the standard-offered fixed rate. However, even with payment and rate caps in place, periodic changes to terms can result in massive increases in monthly payments that make these loans far more risky for both parties. Unlike their fixed-rate counterparts, adjustable-rate mortgages are complicated and filled with conditions and create for the homeowner a condition known as “payment shock” due to the rapid increase in payment thresholds.


Chapter Two: Banking Deregulation and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

Since the Great Depression, the United States had imposed a wall of separation between commercial and investment banks. The Glass-Steagall Act attempted to rectify what was perceived to be the major cause of the bank failures of 1929: reckless speculative investing by banking institutions.

Starting in the 1980s, the firms that comprised the banks on either side of Glass-Steagall began to aggressively lobby Congress to repeal the wall of restriction. A 1987 Congressional Research Service report, “Glass-Steagall Act: Commercial Vs. Investment Banking,” summarized the key positions for and against repeal succinctly.

Arguments for repeal:

• Savings and loan banks are losing market share to foreign banks and securities firms that can offer more aggressive -- and potentially lucrative -- investment opportunities to customers.
• Potential conflicts of interest can be mitigated through legislation and by requiring the separation of lending and credit functions into separate subsidiaries.
• The investment activities that commercial institutions wish to undertake are relatively low-risk.
• Everyone else is doing it (i.e. the other capitalist nations in the free world do not have this barrier between commercial savings and loan and investment).
  

Arguments against repeal:

• Reckless speculation and conflicts of interest are believed to have caused the original banking failures of the Great Depression.
• Commercial banking institutions possess a great deal of power over the average consumer, because they literally hold onto his/her money. There should be strict regulations in place to ensure that the entrusted money is in fact always available to the consumer.
• Investing in securities is not a guaranteed profit-maker, and potential losses for banks could threaten the integrity of the deposits they hold. In the instance of failure, it would be the responsibility of the federal government (via the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) to step in and recoup the losses for customers.
• Since commercial banks have operated in a low-risk, conservative environment for so long, managers at these firms may not be capable of making the right investment decisions when thrust into the more risky world of securities.
  

In the end, the arguments for deregulation – accompanied by huge campaign contributions and lobbying efforts from the Finance, Real Estate, and Insurance industries to key members of Congress to the tune of $3.2 billion from 1998-2008 – won out and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was passed in 1998 with bipartisan support; the various incarnations of the bill were authored mostly by Republicans in Congress but signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

As to the former Senator and primary author of the legislation, Phil Gramm, he soon became a key member of the investment board at UBS, one of the largest financial services conglomerates to arise.

In the decade that followed Gramm-Leach-Bliley, countless commercial and investment institutions merged and consolidated into a system of financial holding companies with specialized subsidiaries. For example, almost immediately after passage, Citibank and Travelers Group merged to become Citigroup, a complete banking, investment, and insurance holdings company valued at $140 billion.

Ethical Implications

The banking deregulation movement raised several interesting questions related to social responsibility and ethics. What is the primary motivation of a commercial banking institution? Is it to make money for its owners, ensuring that it is then able to stay in business? Or, given that these institutions have fundamental control over the finances of millions of individual, ordinary citizens, are there larger needs for a more conservative, methodical style of management that will ensure stability above all else?

In this instance, it is clear that the latter argument has lost out to the drive to turn a profit by any means necessarily. As Friedman notes, this not necessarily a bad thing – a company motivated by staying alive first and foremost will likely do just that, and it can even be argued that increasingly diversified firms have a larger “hedge” against failure in any one area – however, the decreased number of consolidated financial institutions that arose from deregulation would prove a key factor in events to come.


Chapter Three: The Community Reinvestment Act

The federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) dates back to 1977, and essentially requires that banks lend money to the same local constituents who make deposits into the institution. The motivation behind the CRA at the time was to ensure that low- and middle-income communities in the United States had a means to access investment and growth opportunities that could mitigate poverty and improve prosperity, lofty goals indeed.

In 1999, as part of a bipartisan consensus to pass Gramm-Leach-Bliley, US Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT) negotiated key revisions to the CRA that applied lending requirements to the new financial services firms created by Gramm.

Ethical Implications

Perhaps no aspect of the subprime-lending crisis has been as politicized and proves as polarizing as the Community Reinvestment Act, and indeed the debate became an integral part of the 2008 US Presidential Election.

The CRA is clearly championed by the American left as a model for investment and opportunity within low- and middle-income communities. The CRA has undergone numerous alterations throughout its 30-year history, with various administrations either strengthening or weakening its hold and requirements, but its overall goals remain in place. Given the lower relative incomes of the potential lending class in these communities, though, it becomes increasingly logical that mortgages featuring attractive, adjustable teaser rates would become the financial transaction of choice. The hand of government, despite its best intentions, has actually set up a protected class to fail.

On the other side, the right vilifies the CRA for just that reason, and questions if convincing lower-income individuals that a risky grab at the American Dream is in their best interests is, in fact, merely a naked grab at winning votes and not at all motivated at combating racism and poverty.

As is usually the case in a complicated world, the answer lies somewhere in between. Yes, the Democratic Party has long positioned itself as the champion of the underdog, and has cultivated a powerful and loyal base in these communities. It makes sense that the party would then support legislation and reform that repeatedly favored its base as a result.

That does not mean, however, that the party is free from blame. Its operatives in the community – such as ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, and eventual President-Elect Barack Obama – repeatedly threatened lending institutions with cries of racism and inflammatory rhetoric that essentially forced banks to engage in practices that proved high-risk and that they might not have pursued otherwise.

The Community Reinvestment Act, despite its goals, served as a very important contributing factor to the crisis. Where Milton Friedman might be concerned, the CRA is a fascinating example of where forcing ethics and morality upon a capitalist system actually contributed to an eventual economic collapse.


Chapter Four: Meanwhile…Credit Rating Services Changes and the “Bundling Thing”

Anecdotally, I first noticed changes to our lending system when dealing with my student loans. As an undergraduate in the mid-1990s, I dealt with one lender exclusively; the Student Loan Corporation both lent me the money to pay for college and then was the entity to which I paid it back. More recently, though, my graduate loans have taken on a very different character. Instead of one institution, I have received notices from many different lenders over the past four years, each of which holds a small part of my total debt; the names and addresses of these lenders have also changed hands a few times subsequently, making it most difficult to understand just where my debt lies.

This phenomenon of buying and selling debt is known as bundling, or securitization, and became a popular means of raising equity by the consolidated financial services firms and related entities after Gramm-Leach-Bliley. In pure economic theory, the concept makes total sense for the lenders, and serves as a means of transforming non-liquid assets – mortgages – into sellable securities that immediately recoup for the lender entire mortgage pools.

The biggest consolidator and seller of these mortgage-backed securities is the federally backed aggregators Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two entities worked to provide a federal government "guarantee" on the interest and payment of subprime mortgages, and ensured what should have been a stable source of cash flows all the way through to the owners of the mortgage-backed securities – in theory only, as in actuality Fannie and Freddie are merely quasi-public corporations that have rights to lines of credit issued by the US Government and are not, in fact, actual government agencies.

Another factor contributing to the attractive nature of these securities were the lofty ratings granted to them by the various credit-rating companies, including Moody’s. Recently flush with cash as a newly public entity (after years of private, conservative practice), the rating agencies found themselves under great pressure to continue to facilitate favorable rankings for mortgage-backed securities, which increasingly in turn became a driving source of revenue and profit for the agencies.

Eventually, even packages of packages of subprime mortgage-backed securities (with interest rates nearing 10% due to the associated risk factor) earned high “AAA” or “AA” ratings, making them appear to be worthy investment vehicles in an era of increasingly low Federal Reserve interest rates.

The primary purchasers of these mortgage-backed securities? The consolidated post-Gramm financial services corporations.


Ethical Implications

In his post “Blaming Moody’s,” popular blog author Barry Ritholz of The Big Picture offers a scathing indictment of the credit-rating agencies for their complicit contributions to the subprime scandal.

A combination of factors led the ratings agencies to their current state of criminal embarrassment. Once they went public, the usual short-term focus on profits began driving what was once an objective decision making process regarding rating bonds. Once again, we see misplaced incentives shift the focus of a publicly traded firm: From safe, low-margin business of rating bonds to the more lucrative business of covering structured financial products and derivatives.

Securitization is in and of itself not an ethical matter or a contributor to the subprime crisis -- provided that the new securities are treated as having an appropriate value and risk factor. Backed with a credible, honest, and trustworthy rating – one that differentiates between high-risk and low-risk collections – the free market would sort itself out and investment funds would flow to the most worthy entities accordingly. However, with a wrong or less-accurate rating, the process of securitization becomes a glorified crapshoot. As we eventually learned, the false favorable ratings that these mortgage-backed securities garnered created chaos and uncertainty in the marketplace.



Indeed, it seems hard to understand how Moody’s could not be affected by its own actions. It placed a very difficult conflict of interest upon its rating experts, and without close scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission (which operated throughout the Bush Years with a very specific hands-off approach) the company fell under increasing pressure to provide favorable ratings to unworthy securities.

Here, in practice, Friedman’s vision begins to break down. Without strict regulation or a firm ethical backbone, investors were given bad information and, as a result, many large-scale corporate entities found themselves in dire financial shape.


Chapter Five: The Perfect Storm

A quick recap of where we have been so far:

• Under increasing pressure from politicians, mortgage lenders began to offer larger numbers of loans to higher-risk, lower-income new homeowners.
• These loans had the appearance of being “guaranteed” sources of cash flows due to their backing by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• These loans were then securitized into mortgage-backed securities, investment vehicles that despite the aforementioned higher risk were given lofty credit ratings, encouraging their purchase.
• The majority of the major investors purchasing these securities were the newly formed financial services conglomerates created after banking deregulation.
  

So what happened?

Thanks to a natural economic downtown and accompanying rising Federal Reserve interest rates, new homeowners became increasingly unable to pay their bloated, adjustable-rate mortgage payments and entered into default and foreclosure at a rate that even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could not completely absorb.

The dearth of cash flows eventually reached the endgame investors, the banks, and led to the very real possibility of large-scale banking failure the likes of which the United States has not seen since the Great Depression.

Truly, the cliché of the “Perfect Storm” gets banded about often in our hyperbolic news environment, but in this case the description is most apt.


Chapter Six: Where Were the Warning Signs?

Surely, when faced with such a massive and complicated system that touches so many investors, homeowners, businesses and more, there had to be someone watching out and offering a cautionary warning as to where the market was going.

Unfortunately, any warnings that did arise were often talked down and stifled at all levels of government, both executive and legislative.

Officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac undertook a massive and comprehensive push to earn the favor of key legislators and encourage them to not hold hearings on investigation into and increased regulation of the two entities' books. These efforts included purchasing dugout seats for Representatives Bob Ney (R-OH) and Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) to the first-ever game of the Washington Nationals baseball club at RFK Stadium.

Beyond this, according to the Associated Press, “internal Freddie Mac budget records show $11.7 million was paid to 52 outside lobbyists and consultants in 2006. Power brokers such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were recruited with six-figure contracts.”

Furthermore, one of Fannie Mae’s main defenders in the House of Representatives – Rep. Barney Frank, (D-MA) – received more than $40,000 in campaign donations from executives from the two agencies and was even romantically linked to a top Fannie Mae executive.

Fanning the flames even brighter, Senator Charles Schumer, (D-NY) released numerous letters to the public regarding his concerns over the solvency of major lending institutions such as IndyMac. The inflammatory language contained in these letters has been acknowledged by the US Treasury Department as having contributed to a run on the lender that resulted in its demise.

Meanwhile, under pressure from the banking companies apparently thriving in their new deregulated environment, and with an unending faith in the values of the free market that would make even Milton Friedman blush, the Bush Administration repeatedly cast aside calls to investigate and regulate the mortgage industry.

Ethical Implications

Never underestimate the capabilities of the government to exacerbate a private-sector problem by means of either interfering when unnecessary or failing to take action when required. At every level, our respective elected officials failed their constituents and contributed to a continuing crisis.

It was the government that authored the Community Reinvestment Act and encouraged an increase in risky lending practices that free-market entities might have otherwise avoided, and meanwhile passed banking deregulation that altered the way these banks do business.

The motivations for these actions stemmed from the most noble and ethical (encouraging home-ownership in low- and middle-income families) to an unrealistic faith in the free market (after initially interfering, the government cannot just then walk away from the modified environment it helped to create) to naked greed and ambition (such as the Washington Nationals handouts and actions of perennial camera-hog Schumer).

In all likelihood, this entire scenario would never have happened without government intervention – proving the best case yet for Friedman’s advocacy of a pure, ethics-free marketplace – but once established, the government is as culpable as the credit-rating agencies for then abandoning regulation and its charge to cast a watchful eye on the nation’s money in a modified, impure market.


Chapter Seven: Yeah, But What About the Buyer?

Throughout this paper, I have been clear to stay away from the individual mortgage owners who suffered through this crisis, instead opting for a bigger-picture view. However, it is important regardless to attempt to understand the motivations and ethics that drove these individuals to engage in risky practices themselves.

Ultimately, we are all responsible for our own actions. No one held a gun to the heads of these low- and middle-income homeowners and forced them to make purchases or investments that proved far beyond their means to support.

Still, from an amateur psychological perspective, it becomes difficult to see how the average adjustable-rate mortgage holder could have acted any differently given the incentive system set in place. We are bombarded every day with messaging on the notions of the “American Dream,” that most perfect aspirational concept that incorporates hard work and the resultant rewards of owning one’s own house and/or business. When compounded with anecdotal evidence that everyone else in similar circumstances were doing the same thing and purchasing the same homes, thanks in part to incredible attractive low teaser interest rates and payments, sociological pressure proved nearly impossible to overcome.


Chapter Eight: To Bail or Not To Bail

Banks failing, homeowners facing eviction, markets in chaos: the news media and various pundits across both sides of the aisle have made the subprime lending crisis appear to be the largest threat faced by the nation in nearly one hundred years. In this impossible situation, our elected officials have been left with little recourse but to step in and “buy” their way out of the problem. This includes acquiring and formally guaranteeing the bad debt that now permeates the entire market – held by banking firms and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – to help stabilize expectations and prevent the debt holders from failing.

Why bail out these entities? Why not adhere to the words of Milton Friedman and let the market settle this mess itself, even if that means letting a few companies go out of business? Unfortunately, the government is now in a situation where that alternative might prove positively apocalyptic.

For starters, as argued earlier, the government is one of the entities most responsible for creating this mess. To stand aside now and not act would be an egregious abdication of responsibility and only further inflame voter anger and hostility. (There is little doubt that Democrat Obama's electoral victory was due at least in part to voter rage at the Republican Bush Administration for it's perceived role in creating the crisis, justified or not).

Additionally, the bank on the corner is no longer merely a local, independent neighborhood business. In a deregulated banking environment, letting one major consolidated entity fail would create a domino effect that would reach literally hundreds of thousands of stakeholders throughout the country, if not more – from financial analysts and bankers to advertisers and marketers to mail-delivery personnel, janitors, and support staff. From an ethical standpoint, it would be unconscionable to allow that many individuals to suffer unjustly. From a financial standpoint, paying for unemployment insurance and/or welfare and/or health insurance turns out to run even greater than the cost of the bailout.

Bailout Cost: $700 billion
Total Banking Sector Employees as of 2005: 1,780,241
Money Spend in 2000 on Social Welfare Programs: $1 trillion


Conclusion: Now We Are All Business Owners!

In December 2008, Republic Windows and Doors, a small factory of 250 employees, shut its doors at least in part because Bank of America would not extend the firm a new line of credit to meet mandated severance package requirements for workers as part of their membership in the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union. While unfortunate for the workers involved, from a business standpoint the decision not to lend money to Republic was a prudent one for Bank of America given the unlikelihood that the company would be able to mount a successful business campaign and pay the money back.

Unfortunately, soon-to-be-indicted Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich stepped into the fray and demanded that Bank of America lend Republic the money, or else the state would discontinue any business being done with the banking giant throughout its borders.

In most private instances, this dastardly move would be considered extortion, but given the fact that the American taxpayers now own a part of Bank of America the issue becomes more cloudy. At what level does the firm now have to comply with the requests of elected officials? Would it treat a large minority shareholder any differently? In addition, doesn’t the encouragement to make a risky, poor loan to Republic in this case actually reinforce all of the bad management and lending practices that got us to this place today?

These are tough, self-reinforcing questions that have started to present themselves thanks in part to a cycle of intervention, bad decision-making, confusing financial schemes, and political pressures that a major sector of American business finds itself ensnared in today. In a simple world, it would have been easy to allow the banking corporations to solve their problems on their own and begin to now conduct lending practices within reason. However, given the current pragmatic political environment, it’s unlikely we can expect the intervening hand of Big Government to not shape the course of this debate once again in the future.

Greatest Photo Ever?

This is so full of win I think it could actually be the best thing to ever grace the Interwebs.



Courtesy of my new favorite random blog, Fuck You Penguin.

Tony Siragusa Is a Big, Fat Idiot

Generally speaking, I am filled with loathing and annoyance at the NFL's roster of colorful players-turned-color commentators. Sure, every sport has its own unique blend of obnoxious, know-it-all personalities, but during the NFL Sunday telecasts the smug superiority just runs a step above the others.

Among the very worst of these offenders is the lard-assed, loud-mouthed sideline reporter extraordinaire Tony Siragusa. Siragusa's bon mots of nothingness routinely pepper various FOX broadcasts throughout the season, and occasionally offer a welcome relief from the blandness of Kenny Albert and Daryl "Brains of a Moose" Johnston. Today, however, Siragusa harped incessantly on something at the end of the game that really boiled my blisters.

Teams utilize what is known as a "prevent" defense when up by more than one score very late in a game. The theory is that -- by keeping play moving and on the field through allowing small, incremental passing gains -- the clock will continue to run and eventually expire before the offense can accumulate enough points and yards to come from behind.

This defense is not new, and regardless of how frustrating it can seem to the average viewer, it is a part of the standard conventional wisdom of professional football. After all, if every team does it, and has done it for decades now, there must be some logic or reason for it, right?

But the bloated and blubbery man known as Goose knows better of course. He repeatedly called for the Philadelphia Eagles to aggressively blitz and not play the Prevent during the final New York Giants rally of the day. "Prevent defense only prevents a win!" he declared.

Really, you don't say?

One cannot help but wonder if the Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens defenses that Siragusa anchored during his career ever ran a prevent defense under certain scenarios. Did the Goose refuse to play when the coach meekly called in this surefire losing strategy? Did he vehemently argue and do all he could to convince his team to huddle and offer an alternative, attacking gameplan? Or is he just, you know, pulling shit out of his ample posterior to sound authoritative and controversial?

Oh, the Eagles won, even playing the prevent defense, by the way.

One of Those Posts...

First off, here's a recent excerpt from the Web comic XKCD. If that's not devastatingly brilliant I don't know what is.



So yeah, I'm going to write one of those posts, dear readers. You have been forewarned.

With respect to the above, it gave me a little pause. Talk about an encapsulation of woman in this humble blogger's life of past, present, and likely future, eh? You'd think I'd have learned by now.

But no matter, that's not what I wanted to write about. Instead, let's perform the ultimate display of geek-fu and tie my love life into the movie...Star Trek: Generations. Shut up, it was on last night!

There's a scene in that movie that is actually stunningly poignant and moving. Once he has been sucked into the "temporal nexus," Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard gets a chance to realize his own personal definition of ultimate joy: a traditional Christmas celebration with the fictional wife and family he never had. You see, he has had many gifts and opportunities in his life and career, but the one thing he really wanted all along was the one thing he never had.

What makes it particularly moving is that, as only Picard can do, he manages to realize that this newfound reality is not, in fact, real. Despite the warmth and joy, he knows this was not the path he chose for his life, and eventually rejects it to return to "reality" (with the help of a certain James T. Kirk) and save the day from the evil Dr. Soran.

So, I guess I need to find my great quest that will save the universe.

Feds Release Official Bailout Application

First time maybe ever I've chuckled at something that came out of Vanity Fair.



H/t to The Big Picture.