Jon Stewart's (not so) Furious Anger

Jon Stewart's first segment of last night's Daily Show, where he verbally struck down Fox News with great vengeance and not so furious anger those (Fox News) who would attempt to poison and destroy his brothers, was a tour de force. Man crushing went to DEFCONs "Question Sexuality" and "Would You Convert."

There's not much that I can add to his perfect mix of legitimate anger and clear disdain towards the Fox News talking points, aside from the all too clever reworking of the famous Pulp Fiction quote, so please just click the link and watch for yourselves.

WARNING: may cause possibly incurable man crushing. You may want to consult with a medical professional if you have a family history.


PHOTO: I'm assuming from Comedy Central, via Google Images, via katywidrick.com

VIDEO: Samuel L. Jackson being Samuel L. Jackson-y in Pulp Fiction via YouTube.

The REAL Mittens Showed Up... Or Did He?

Ever since Mother Jones' fateful unveiling of Mitt Romney's 47/53 opinion from a private fund raiser, there has been much talk across the journobloggingtalkinghead-o-sphere about whether we've FINALLY seen the real Mitt Romney. Depending on who you were reading, these opinions have taking both good and bad connotations. Personally, in your humble bloggers opinion (IYHBO?), I agree that it is impossible to pin down the REAL Mitt Romney politically and still think that this WAS the real Willard.

Wah, wah, wwwaahhhhh, you say? Well, I do not necessarily believe that the talk revealed much of anything about his political beliefs and that he would be anything to anyone to get elected POTUS. At the same time, from my long experience having dealings with self-entitled douchers, it fits a pattern where, at each turn, Romney peels a layer to further reveal his self-entitled doucher core. The first instance of this was revealed when it came out that he was the ring leader of a group that harassed a fellow student by pinning him down and cutting his hair. Many cried homophobe when this was revealed, but it sort of just seemed like the seedling of a self-entitled prep school doucher (of course, the most common of all douchers). This trend has continued with his absolute refusal to release any tax returns outside of the two years he already has, despite requiring his VP candidates to give him 10 years of tax returns, essentially telling the American public to just trust him on this. Self-entitled douchers who think their deserved presidency is an essential fait accompli do NOT show the general public anything more than what they want to. Facts. In his mind it is probably unfathomable that he would not be President considering that the markets would rise upon his election.

The truly indicative phrase in Governor Romney's talk at the fundraiser, however, was not about the 47% of the electorate who will never vote for him. Do no misunderstand me. That little tidbit was certainly damaging and the coup de grace of calling them too lazy to rise up was horrible. But to really get into the mind of Mitt Romney (the self-entitled doucher) look no further than these words:

By the way, both my dad and Ann's dad did quite well in their life, but when they came to the end of their lives, and, and passed along inheritances to Ann and to me, we both decided to give it all away. So, I had inherited nothing. Everything that Ann and I have we earned the old-fashioned way, and that's by hard work and…[applause] I see that—

I say that because there's the percent that's, "Oh, you were born with a silver spoon," you know, "You never had to earn anything," and so forth. And, and frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you could have, which is to get born in America. I'll tell ya, there is—95 percent of life is set up for you if you're born in this country.  

These are the words on a man who was born on third base but continues to suffer from the misperception that he hit a triple. Or, to be fair to a man who did work hard to get where he is but still had a TON of help and advantages along the way, the words of a man who hit a blooper for a single and then got to third thanks to a series of unforced errors. Though it IS fantastic that he did very well for himself in private equity and gave away any money left to his family from both sets of parents, he still does not recognize that he was still born with a silver spoon and all the built-in advantages that infers. This idea was further reflected in Ann Romney's admittedly great RNC speech where she talks about their struggles living in Boston while Mitt pursued his graduate degrees while leaving out the fact that they were living off of a vast, and bequeathed, stock portfolio that most people couldn't dream of.

Though clearly not the same level of megalomaniac, Romney's self-perception reminds me of figures like James Dolan or Woody Johnson (sorry about the NY sports team references but they are the only examples I can bring to mind of this phenomenon, since they are the co-banes of my existence; pun not intended) who go about doing whatever they want, infuriating their fan base, because they think they deserve it.

Anyway, long story short, Governor Romney probably does not hold disdain for 47% of the voting public. I doubt that he really thinks about 90% of the voting public at all. He's just a self-entitled giant doucher, surrounded by people of his ilk, who felt comfortable to let out his dawgs contained douchiness. I think his own self-entitlement matter a lot more in that talk than any other entitlement that he addressed.


IMAGE: Mittens goes for the full Boehner at the Univision Forum from miamiherald.com

An RNC Mystery Speaker... OOOOooooOOOOO

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Republican National Convention has scheduled a speaker in the televised prime time spot just before Sen. Marco Rubio speaks. As most big name Republicans are already scheduled to speak, and since both former President George W. Bush and former veep Dick Cheney have said they will not be attending, some are very intrigued by who it could be. Donald Trump triumphantly mounting the stage (sexually) in a "I haven't been asked to speak" fakeout? Sarah Palin "Mama Grizzlying" her way back into the GOPs hearts and bestowing her many blessings upon Willard? General Petraeus finding politics and setting the stage for a possible 2016 primary run against his body type opposite in Chris Christie?

Nope. They are all wrong. The only possible explanation is Ronald Reagan's hologram. You've lived up to your name and started a revolution Tupac. Makavelli lives on and he's bringing his eff'n GOP homeys.

IMAGE: Ebony.com

'Nuff Said, Featuring Amare

My buddy sent me the above link. The following is my e-mailed response, verbatim. 'Nuff said.

So much to love about this video. Amare had nuthuggers while Hakeem has shorts below his knees. The bug sunglasses. The fact that there is something that exists called STAT TV. Just epic all around.

CLASSIC Amare!

LIBOR and Self-Regulation

While the head has been cut off of the snake at Barclays PLC, with the CEO, Bob Diamond, the COO and the Chairman of the Board all resigning, the proverbially shit still has a far way to go before it hits the fan. Although the collusion between banks to set the rates, the implicit wink and nod from the Bank of England to get Barclays to lower their rate and, especially, the callous collusion between traders in various banks to rig the market so they could make more money are all shocking, how LIBOR (the London inter-bank offered rate) was set in the first place provided the biggest offense. As described in last week's The Economist:

For LIBOR, a borrowing rate is set daily by a panel of banks for ten currencies and for 15 maturities. The most important of these, three-month dollar LIBOR, is supposed to indicate what a bank would pay to borrow dollars for three months from other banks at 11am on the day it is set. The dollar rate is fixed each day by taking estimates from a panel, currently comprising 18 banks, of what they think they would have to pay to borrow if they needed money. The top four and bottom four estimates are then discarded, and LIBOR is the average of those left. The submissions of all the participants are published, along with each day’s LIBOR fix.

Emphasis added. This is patently Linsane as is it that anyone is surprised by this. The banks involved are only required to give an estimate, based on nothing else than what they think/feel is right, and people are surprised that this system did not work like gangbusters? The article goes on to point out that banks/traders were actually incentivized to rig the numbers as millions of dollars stood to be made based on where the LIBOR was at. I mean, I know hindsight is 20/20, but how did no one think about this beforehand? We are supposed to ignore the obvious conflict of interest and hope that those good chaps in the white shoe financial firms will work in everyone's best interest? This scandal again illustrates the ridiculous amounts of problems with self-regulation in banking. As much as folks like Jamie Dimon state that regulation will handcuff, prevent growth and curb stomp the entrepreneurial spirit because firms will not invest, why would anyone believe that self-regulation is remotely possible in an industry where tinkering with a few numbers or changing a few assumptions in a few projections can mean the difference in hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars?

Self-regulation is clearly not the answer, but government regulation has to be, if not effective, then at least competent. The Wall Street Journal pointed out last week that Tim Geithner was at least somewhat aware of these problems in 2008 and wrote to Mervyn King, the Bank of England Governor, suggesting possible changes that could improve the LIBOR. The simplest change, however, seems obvious: to affix the LIBOR to what it actually costs banks to lend and borrow. In most cases this process would become straightforward and could easily be backed up by hard data. The Economist concurs and goes another step:

Two big changes are needed. The first is to base the rate on actual lending data where possible. Some markets are thinly traded, though, and so some hypothetical or expected rates may need to be used to create a complete set of benchmarks. So a second big change is needed. Because banks have an incentive to influence LIBOR, a new system needs to explicitly promote truth-telling and reduce the possibilities for co-ordination of quotes.

The Economists recommendation, as delivered by Rosa Abrantes-Metz of NYU Stern, is to increase the number of banks on the LIBOR panel drastically so that the average is harder to game. That's all find and dandy, but we are long passed the era of the gentleman banker. In the 1970s and, especially the 1980s, with the rise of more aggressive money making schemes through hostile takes overs, LBOs and the development of overly complicated derivative trading strategies, gentlemen banks were replaced with ravenous financial wolves on the hunt for pure profit. Promoting truth-telling seems foolishly naivete. Hopefully, after one of these scandals, people will start to see and accept that.

IMAGE: The Telegraph Online

Is It Linsane Not to Match?

UPDATE: The New York Times is now reporting that, as of 4 PM today, the NY Knicks have essentially decided to not match the Rockets' offer.


In one man's opinion, well not just one as there's Stephen A. Smith (wait am I about to agree with Stephen A. Smith. *Shudder* Momma. I feel so cold. What's happening? Were the Mayans riight??), it is not, in fact, linsane.


First and foremost, for a Harvard guy of (apparently) good, moral, Christian upbringing, it is hard to believe that Lin was stupid enough to take Jim Dolan's assurances that the Knicks would match back to the Rockets in hopes of getting more money. I mean, don't get me wrong, in general this is a smart business move to leverage whatever information you have in order to further solidify your position and get more money. ShaoLin, however, was dealing with Jimmy Dolan. So go ahead and throw "general situations" out the window. OF COURSE, Dolan was going to take that personally as a breach of trust. He's a selfish, solipsistic man-child. Further, it backfired. Lin made no more money, I believe the offer actually went down from a balanced $28 million with $9 million a year, the Rockets just went the "poison pill" route and backloaded his contract in hopes that the Knicks would not match because of that monstrous $14.9 million (or whatever) third year. This would put the Knicks far over the cap in Lin's third year and cost them an additional, roughly, $35 million in luxury tax penalties under the new CBA.


Despite Bill Simmons' opinion, I don't think a ton of the actual Knicks fans care that much. Casual fans surely will be disappointed (only so many players have caused people's moms to comment on the Knicks; "How 'bout that Jeremy Lin, huh?"), but they'll also move on within a couple of days. Sure, Linsanity was an exciting run, but it was also a run primarily under Mike D'Antoni. There is no guarantee that Jeremy would be anywhere as good under Woodson's ingenius(ly repugnant) continuous Carmelo Iso, especially considering what a turnover machine Lin was. Unlike Jason Kidd, Lin doesn't have the cache to direct Melo; as any Knicks fan saw on more than one occasion last year. Simply put, the sample size was far to small to dedicate this type of money to the kid. As much as I despise everything about Dolan, and despite how much I distrust the front office to do anything that makes a semblance of sense, I cannot blame them from deciding against making what amounts to a $40 million gamble. And, yes, I hear y'all saying that worst case scenario is that Lin gets traded in the 3rd year as an expiring contract but who says that will work out. And who are the Knicks going to get in return so that the contracts work out? The league's love of expirings does little to take away from the gamble. 


If it's true that Lin is gone, I wish him all the luck in the world. He seems like a good dude and a hard worker, so I'd like him to succeed. But all the screeching from various sectors about how this is more Knicks front office ineptitude, or that Knicks fans should switch allegiance to Bk if Lin isn't resigned (ahem, pump thebreaksGrantland, ahem), needs to stop. If nothing else, you are not really a Knicks fans if you can't let front office ineptitude roll off your back like so many rain drops off a duck's and just hope for the better. And if Lin IS back. Eff it. Kidd's going to mentor him and we'll figure out year 3 later. Woot. Let's roll into '12/'13 'Bockers.


At worst, I can just continue to nourish myself on the Jimmy Dolan haterade. 

In recent days, two people briefed on the Knicks’ deliberations said it was unlikely the team would keep Lin. Yet both cautioned that the decision was not final and would ultimately be made by one person: James L. Dolan, the Madison Square Garden chairman.

Either way, win-win for me.


UPDATE: For a conflicting but still astute take on the now confirmed decision to not match the Rockets' offer to Lin, check out Jay Caspian Kang over at Grantland. We both agree though, wholeheartedly, that Jimmy Dolan, like many trust fund babies, sucks at life.


IMAGE: NBA.com

The Newsroom- A Critique of the Critics

Everyone has seen the complaints. Yes, the show is preachy as hell. Even the fucking song in the show's open credits seem preachy  in it's attempt to reach back to the simpler, more morally correct, broadcast news time of yesteryear; an attempt to copy Mad Men but to a much poorer effect. But everyone knows that Sorkin is preachy. Who cares?. And, sure, Sorkin always seems to come off as a world class doucher. But where is the surprise here as well? No one who's heard him speak denies that. It almost seems like the casual backlash always given to the popular for no reason a la Dave Matthews fandom in the 1990s. The fact of the matter is, in my humble opinion, its a fairly enjoyable show. It is hard to go too wrong when you are throwing Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer and Sam Waterston out there (I particularly like Waterston as the seemingly perennially drunk Charlie Skinner). Then you have the supporting cast of Dev Patel, Alison Pill and the somewhat surprisingly good Olivia Munn. 


I can certainly see how preachy could get annoying, but maybe what we need is some preaching. In the latest episode, Will McAvoy, although nominally a republican, comes out swinging hard against the Tea Party. But who is to say that that is so wrong. I found it particularly enjoyable and certainly wished that some of the questions he asked HAD been asked in 2010. We are now in the media world where objective news reporting and phrases like fair and balanced are now a punch line. Literally. By Jon Stewart nearly every night because of the unadulterated horseshit coming from certain sectors of the news media and the pussies in the rest of the news media  who treat all stories as if they were created equal. And this point was actually made, almost verbatim, through the show as I felt myself unconsciously nodding in agreement. Furthermore, I found the business argument presented by Jane Fonda's character extremely interesting and something that I don't think many people ever think about when consuming their news content. News media seems to get a pass these days and I think it is great that there is a show pointing out these flaws, albeit in a sometimes annoyingly quirky Sorkinian patois.


Anyway, in my view, this seems like much ado about nothing and very similar to the insanely nit picky questions raised about Girls, a phenomenal show, right off the bat. And, yes, maybe the critics who got to screen the episodes in advance are correct and the show falls off the map in next week's episode 4. I, however, plan on riding this one out for a bit and seeing where it goes. I think after the fawning critical love of many of Sorkin's previous shows, he deserves that much.


IMAGE: Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy via hbo.com