Dave Ramsey Weighs In

As many of you know, MissSpeech and I are YOOOGE Dave Ramsey fans (in fact, we've taught his Financial Peace courses a few times), and I was really curious what he had to say about all this bailout mess. Well, he didn't dissapoint. He has a LOT to say, and it pays to read (or hear) it all.

Start here.

The main article.

Download the whole rant here.

Some excerpts:

Economist Wesberry is saying that if we change that one rule and don't force them to market down to market and just let them hold on to all the stuff, and say just on sub-primes for this period of time you can change that rule -- a temporary change -- that'll free the market up. It's seized right now; it's frozen. This will thaw it out and get it going again. He says that'll solve 60% of the problem ... and I think he's right.

That one accounting rule is what made Merrill Lynch sell out. That one accounting rule is what's driving other ones into the dirt. Would you rather let them change their accounting rule or loan them $700 billion for us to buyout their bad paper?

I'd rather them work their own crap out than change the accounting rule.

...Call your Congressman. Call your Senator. Tell them to change the mark-to-market accounting law and to extend insurance but extend no loans. If they extend loans - if they borrow the money on the national debt in order for us to all go into the mortgage business a trillion dollars - you're going to fire their butts and send them home.

I've talked with several people today, and it's on the tables in Washington, but it's not something you're going to see on TV. If you'll let your Congressmen know you know about this and that you'll vote against them if they don't vote to change the mark-to-market law and you'll contribute your money to make sure they never serve in office again. That's what you need to tell them early and often.

If you're pissed, this is the time to step up and do something about it, America! You can stop this! It's be railroaded down your throat, but you can stop them if you call them in mass starting now. READY ... SET ... GO!

That, my friends, is an epic rant.

BOOYAH!

The FBI is now investigating AIG, Lehman Bros, Freddie and Fannie for fraud.

WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating four major U.S. financial institutions whose collapse helped trigger a $700 billion bailout plan by the Bush administration, The Associated Press has learned.

Two law enforcement officials said Tuesday the FBI is looking at potential fraud by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and insurer American International Group Inc. Additionally, a senior law enforcement official said Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. also is under investigation.

The inquiries will focus on the financial institutions and the individuals that ran them, the senior law enforcement official said.

It's about time. Somebody needs to burn for this.

Farker In Congress

This was posted on Drudge today, and I LOL'd. It's a congressperson at the bailout hearings today.

Sarah Palin's Email HAX0R3D!!1!

Friggin' figures. The day I decide to take a breather from politics, somebody hacks Sarah Palin's email account. This is a big deal.

If you want an easier to understand version, try Gawker.

Here's the story so far (fairly nitty-gritty):

THE INCIDENT

WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR:

- Very recently an anonymous poster on /b/ claimed to have hacked Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account.

- Sarah Palin used the e-mail address gov.sarah@yahoo.com for public communication. Several media outlets have confirmed this fact prior to this "incident".

SOURCE: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/10/palin-email-privilege/
SOURCE: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/15-7

- The e-mail address that the poster hacked was gov.palin@yahoo.com. This second e-mail address, previously unknown publicly, was used for private communcations.

- Yahoo e-mail addresses, unlike .gov e-mail addresses, are not subject to archiving and oversight. This fact has led to controversy from several sources, including fellow Republicans, asking her to release e-mails from her Yahoo account.

- The anonymous poster apparently panicked, and released the password onto /b/.

- Several other posters on /b/ took screenshots of the Inbox and various e-mails.

- Some of the screenshots reference several people in Alaska state government. One of these people is Sean Parnell, Lieutenant Governor of Alaska. Parnell mentions KFQD Radio's Dan Fagan, to whom he gave an interview about Palin's ACES initiative. Lt. Gov. Parnell's e-mail address is verified via an Alaska Republican Central Committee contact listing.

SOURCE: http://gov.state.ak.us/aces/
SOURCE: http://www.alaskarepublicans.com/centralcommittee.aspx

- One of the screenshots references the Yahoo account fek9wnr, Todd Palin, Sarah's husband who is at the heart of the controversy over her use of Yahoo e-mail for public dealings. The fek9wnr account was verified as being Todd Palin via a public posting to an automotive enthusiast BBS from August 2006.

SOURCE: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/centurionconversions/message/2309

- Several photographs of her family were allegedly downloaded from the e-mail account.

- A scan of profiles.yahoo.com put gov.palin@yahoo.com's profile update date at 04/05/2008, long before any VP nod was apparent. If this were a fake, the perpetrator would've had to travel into the past and create an account or be very good at guessing who the VP candidate would be 5+ months later, not to mention faking an overwhelming amount of e-mails, photographs, verified private cellphone numbers, and other information.

- A good samaritan in the /b/ thread reset the password account with the intention of handing it over to Palin, a process known on /b/ as "white knighting". This locked everyone else out of the account. The "white knight" posted a screenshot to /b/ of his pending message to one of Palin's contacts about how to recover the account, but made the critical mistake of not blanking out the new password he set.

- Several other people in the /b/ thread then apparently logged in using this new password, and they all attempted to reset the password at once, causing a security trap at Yahoo to automatically put a 24-hour lockout on the account.


THE AFTERMATH:

- Sarah Palin was likely notified of the breach by morning, as she had then deleted both the gov.sarah@yahoo.com address (the one subject to the disclosure controversy in the media) as well as the gov.palin@yahoo.com address (the one that was hacked).

- The outright deletion of the accounts can be verified by attempting to pull up the public profile on both addresses, which both existed during the incident.

SOURCE: http://profiles.yahoo.com/gov.palin
SOURCE: http://profiles.yahoo.com/gov.sarah

- Both accounts were deleted simultaneously, thus linking the publicly-known e-mail address "gov.sarah" and the private e-mail address "gov.palin".

- This outright deletion may have the potential to be viewed as destruction of evidence, considering that the e-mails in the now-deleted accounts are the subject of several legal controversies.

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303210_pf.html

- Several ZIP, RAR, and 7Z compilations of the downloaded screenshots, contacts, and photos were made available by anonymous individuals.

- 4chan is actively (some say over-actively) banning and deleting any posts of the screenshots of Palin's account, contacts, or family photos.

- An anonymous poster to 420chan, using information from the e-mail account's contact list, attempted to call Bristol Palin's cellphone number using the AT&T phone relay service. Several others allegedly called the cellphone number itself and got Bristol's voicemail. These posts were quickly deleted by 420chan moderators.

- A poster on /b/ did a lookup on the cellphone number which returned this information:

Type: Cell Phone
Provider: Dobson Cellular Systems
Location: Palmer, AK

- An anonymous individual has uploaded some of the screenshots to a photobucket account.

SOURCE: http://s405.photobucket.com/albums/pp134/anoncrack/

- A poster in /r9k/ e-mailed the compilations to ABC News producer Eamon McNiff who he/she claims is a personal contact of his/hers.

- Someone submitted a summary to Digg. As of this writing it has only 12 diggs.

SOURCE: http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/The_Incident_Did_4Chan_Anon_Hack_Palin_s_Yahoo_Email

- As of right now the media related to the incident sits mostly confined to 4chan and rapidshare, and thus either deleted, censored or under the radar.

For all the Obamatons saying she broke the law by using a personal email account to send gov't emails, here's a pro-tip: It isn't illegal under Alaska law. There's no law that was broken, no evidence of a cover up, nothing other than personal emails and draft documents that would be perfectly discoverable on the receiving end.

The idiots who did this are the ones who committed a crime - they violated federal law - the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030. That means that the Secret Service has jurisdiction here. That means prison time on conviction. That means that these morons are going to be in a world of hurt. Messing with Scientology is one thing. Invasion of privacy and CFAA charges are another.

Apparently, Bristol Palin keeps getting phone calls, too. Will watch with much interest.

UPDATE: Looks like WikiLeaks has a ton of corroborating evidence (if you can get it to load).

UPDATE II: Drudge, Foxnews, and CNN have it on thier sites.

McCain Camp responds:

"This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law," campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement. "The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."

The 5 Most Badass Presidents

This post is a freakin' hoot. It details what Cracked.com takes to be the 5 greatest examples of badassery in US Presidential history. Interestingly, there's no one mentioned more recently than the 1960's. Says something, don't you think? Anyway, content warning for language, sexual innuendo, and all around testosterone dripping manliness. I think Andrew Jackson gets my vote for "Most Badass". Not just for his name, which in fact means "manly", but for this:

Andrew Jackson was the first president on whom an assassination attempt was made. A man named Richard Lawrence approached Jackson with two pistols both of which, for some reason, misfired. With the possibility of an assassination taken off the table, Jackson proceeded to beat Lawrence near death with his cane until Jackson's aides pulled him off the assassin.

No Politics Today (This One's For Dad)

I gotta say, I'm already getting a little weary of "election stuff". I'm sure I'll get interested again soon, but for the time being, I taking a quick break from politics (for a couple of days).

So, I'll be posting a few things that have caught my fancy recently.

Last weekend, my dad (who is recovering from knee-replacement surgery) and I watched Katsushiro Otomo's masterpeice Steamboy. It's one of the best anime movies made, and rightfully deserves it's place as an animated masterpeice. It's simply beautiful to behold, has an entertaining and involved story, and characters that are simply a hoot (Scarlett's got to be my favorite). Anyway, in honor of my dad's first experience with anime, and the good time we had, I decided to post my favorite AMV of Steamboy, which sadly, I did not create. It's set to My Chemical Romance's Welcome To The Black Parade, which is just a fantastic song all around.

Ferguson Farking NAILS It

Craig Ferguson has replaced The Moustache (John Stossel) as my man-crush. You see, Craig recently became a US citizen, and he loves this country. On his show last night, he laid out what is wrong with our media, our politics, and our public. This is solid, deep fried, sugar coated, GOLD:



"If [Walter Kronkite] were dead, he'd BE FURIOUS!"

And the money shot:

"Here is what I am saying to you: If you don't vote, you're a moron. "Not voting is a vote" - no it isn't!! Not voting is just being stupid. Voting is not sexy. Voting is not hip. It is not fashionable. It is not a movie. It is not a videogame. Frankly, voting is a pain in the ass. But here is a word, look it up, it's your duty to vote!"

And part 2:



YOU WILL WATCH EVERY SECOND OF THE VIDEO. You won't be sorry.

Homerun!

Mrs. Palin's speech last night was spectacular. I won't repost the whole thing, but I think she scored some major points, adn really got some waning republicans fired up. My faovite part of the speech? This total pwnage:

"I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn't need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

Did I just get SCHOOLED on national TV?

And Sarah Keeps Gettin' Better...

Take a look-see:



Wheee-ahhh!

My Friends, We've Got Ourselves A RACE!

McCain picks Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska as his VP.

She's staunchly conservative, has 5 kids, hunts, fishes, and is all around pretty cool.

Even though it wasn't me, I have to admit: AWESOME choice.

An old white guy and a woman going up against a black dude and an old white guy. Now THAT's an American election for ya. This'll be interesting to watch. The dem's are already talking about her "lack of experience" as she's only been the Governor of Alaska for just over a year. What doesn't occur to them is 365 days is more than twice as long as the Obamessiah has been in the Senate (145 days). So maybe that's not a good argument. This will be so much fun to watch.

Some Thoughts On The Obamessiah's Oratory Last Night

Great speeches do not a great president make. But apparently that's all people want these days. It was nothing but platitudes and unfulfillable promises. Such as:

More money for teachers:

Makes sense. You can obviously turn bad teachers into good ones by paying them more money...wait. Well, you can attract better teachers by offering more money....but the union won't let you fire the current teachers, so....wait. Anyway, it should be easy for the federal government to up their salaries since most teachers are federal employees.....uh, never mind.

Cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families:

Super. After all, we can't get rid of any of our wasteful spending, so we'll just tax the bejeezus out of the those nasty rich people. I mean, they didn't do anything to deserve their money anyway.

Make cars more affordable:

Because that pesky free-market thing just won't do!

Hope, change, changes, hopes, hopefully changing hopeful change:

I think I farted a rainbow.

This country deserves better than Obama OR McCain.

Sad News

My friends, it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that I am NOT, in fact, John McCain's choice for Vice President.

I just wanted you to hear it from me first, so you're not suprised when he announces who he has picked. Thanks for all your support.

How Old Does This Make YOU Feel?

Beloit College has published thier annual "Mindset List", a list of things the incomming class of college freshman "have always known." It's a really interesting insight into thier world, and a really tiring insight into mine and most of my readers (except ZACK! I kid, I kid). Anyway, here's the list (shamelessly ripped from thier site):

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.

Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.

They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.

GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.

Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.

Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.

Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.

Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”

Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.

Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.

All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice.

As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”

Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.

Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.

Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.

Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.

Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.

WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling. (Holy crap, has it been THAT long?)

Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.

The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.

Students have always been "Rocking the Vote.”

Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.

Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism. (For better or worse, right?)

We have always known that “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

There have always been gay rabbis.

Wayne Newton has never had a mustache.

College grads have always been able to Teach for America.

IBM has never made typewriters.

Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.

McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.

They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.

There has always been Pearl Jam.

The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.

Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.

They never tasted Benefit Cereal with psyllium.

They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.

Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.

Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia.

Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.

Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.

Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone.

Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born.

Personal privacy has always been threatened.

Caller ID has always been available on phones.

Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.

The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.

They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”

Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.

Soft drink refills have always been free. (well, depends on where you eat)
They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.”

Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.

Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.

The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum.

The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.

98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.

Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.

Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.

Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.

There have always been charter schools.

Students always had Goosebumps.

Now, how old does that make you feel?

Michael Phelps Fun Facts

In honor of the Almighty Phelps, the (admittedly not-as-Great-in-comparison)Moose brings you fun facts about Michael Phelps. Read, and be amazed:

Fact: Michael Phelps actually failed to swim the English Channel, but only because he kept swimming right past France.
Fact: Moses didn't part the Red Sea, it was Michael Phelps wake.
Fact: The whitewater kayaking team once trained in Michael Phelps wake. May they rest in peace.
Fact: A Michael Phelps flip-turn is the only phenomenon in the universe capable of canceling out the force of a Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick.
Fact: Michael Phelps once doggie-paddled up Niagra Falls
Fact: Michael Phelps doesn't get wet while swimming. The water 'just' avoids and moves around him to not get him upset.
Fact: Michael Phelps can walk on water, but he's too modest, so he swims instead.
Fact: Global warming is actually the planet's attempt at appeasing Michael Phelps by giving him more water to swim in.
Fact: Shamu is free to leave SeaWorld at anytime, but refuses to go back into open water due to a gambling debt in which he owes Michael Phelps $20.
Fact: A Michael Phelps flip turn produces 1.21 Gigawatts.
Fact: And if they increased the pool length by just 5 more meters he would reach the necessary 88 mph for time travel.
Fact: Michael Phelps can swim through pack ice. Take that, Shackleton.
FACT: Michael Phelps won a gold medal in the Phelps-athalon. That's where you swim the 400 meter freestyle, eat a 3000 calorie breakfast, and wrestle a crocodile. Simultaneously.
Fact: Cats actually like water. They're just too afraid of Michael Phelps to go in.
Fact: US food prices are up because Michael Phelps was training for the Olympics
Fact: Whales beach themselves to escape the humiliation of Michael Phelps outswimming them.
Fact: Failboat was caused by Michael Phelps.
Fact: The real reason Congress won't allow off-shore drilling is because Michael Phelps needs the entire U.S. coastline to swim his warm-up laps.

More to come, I'm sure.

That's Probably Not Good...

Russia has invaded Georgia, a democratic country, and the two countries are now at war.

Via Reuters:

MEGVREKISI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russia sent forces into Georgia on Friday to repel a Georgian assault on the breakaway South Ossetia region and Georgia's pro-Western president said the two countries were at war...

...A senior Russian military commander said parts of Russia's 58th army were approaching the rebel capital, where fighting raged between Russian-backed separatists and Georgian forces sent in on Friday to seize it.

Seeing as this is the opening day of the Olympics, it will be interesting to see what the media decides to cover: a new war or the sporting event intended to promote peace between countries. Eh.