Late Sunday, When It's Really Monday

I am up late, and alone, and it's dark out on the patio. I am listening to Lisa Gerrard, who people often mistake for Enya, though her voice sounds nothing like Enya's. Every time people hear something ethereal they label it "Enya", because often people don't know what they hear, and are willing to believe anything that seems familiar to their sensibilities. They don't question, and then seek answers to the questions, because they are content to bathe in ignorance. It's what they want to believe, and they accept it.

I am [          ]. Usually I am always somewhere in the middle, not sad or happy. My mind is calibrated to be calm when things are not quite what I have wished, modulating the hope of  the future and my dreams against any unpleasant current reality. Bad things pass. Good things surprise. Equilibrium.

But I am [       ], and can't put a finger on it... just sort of floating in this music. There is work in the morning. There is always work to do, inside and out of my house. My heart, my body, my apartment, my job, my state, my country, my world all need work done, and I can barely lift my head off of the floor. 



 

Comedy Central Bans Sarah Palin's Image on South Park

It's so hard to take Sarah Palin seriously, even when we find agreement on some of the social issues. Further, some people can be accidentally dangerous, and Sarah is one of those people. Her words are so disconnected from objective truth, and so distant from an authentic Christianity, and so non-reflective of a true patriot, that her ability to lead people's minds off an intellectual cliff should be cause for some concern.

Here then is one of Palin's better photographs, sans her delicate coat of makeup:

Where is Grace Kelly, and Will She Let You Go?

Jimmy Stewart is my favorite actor, and probably my favorite iconic American. Whether I am watching him in You Can't Take It With You, Bend of the River or Rear Window, I know that I am getting an actor who gives the impression of being an authentic character and a regular guy. I view his George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life as the prototype of the person I consistently fail to be, but my model nonetheless. I want to love and to care, and to be loved and be cared for.

But it's his costar Grace Kelly who is on my mind today, and who is all done up and profiled in May's Vanity Fair. She floats in Rear Window, and despite being a male and indifferent to my own clothing, I can't help but see her clothes as an object of affection. You are pulled in by the elegance. Then again, I understand the drift in several of Stewart's films, where women can turn you around, hold you back, change your focus or dream, or lead in you directions you had no intention of going in and with possible regrets.

Women often fight that idea, that if you get serious with them, then your trip around the world (literally and figuratively) becomes comically moot. (You never explain to them that half the adventure of foreign lands is meeting mysterious foreign women, or suddenly deciding to stay and becoming the total opposite of what made them want you in the first place).

Females who want you to love them will propose themes along the lines of the "power of two": that anything you can do, the two of you could do it better, and that she would joy in your journey. Of course if you pose the hypothetical-- is it okay to spend my last $200 on pitching my screenplay in Hollywood or should I use that for buying groceries for our starving three year old--well, pauses and reframings ensue. There is a vague sense of unpleasant closure when either sex faces the permanence of relationship, which is why so many of us eventually bust out to toward the mirage of freedom.

Every woman hopes to be your Grace Kelly, but very few really qualify, and even then you wonder if what you are getting is well worth all the infinite possibilities of everything that you might have to give up. Women might argue that they face the same sort of choice, but then they are never usually the ones arguing to leave you behind to see the world, or moving to New York City to start some new totally unnecessary social networking startup.

Let's not go on and upset the readers. Let's enjoy Grace, via Laura Jacobs in Vanity Fair, and leave our musings about women unsubstantiated.

Time Magazine Puppets S.E.C. Themes, Lacking Due Journalistic Diligence

Here is Time Magazine giving its thoughts on Goldman, Sachs, and like others, getting the story wrong. Again, the Abacus deal by all factual accounts had two parties that were well aware that the transaction was two sided, with one party long, one party short. Synthetic CDOs are like that, and that's the way it is (per RunDMC).

Time states:

The question is, now that we know what we know about what has become of Wall Street, what do we do about it? The SEC case against Goldman shows that the agency plans to do more to combat fraud. That's a big change. Under former commissioner Christopher Cox, Wall Street was basically self-regulating and the SEC hands-off, which helped enable the greatest Ponzi schemer of all time, Bernie Madoff.

(Time)

Given the actual details of the case it's nearly impossible to prove Goldman engaged in fraud because, it didn't. So right off at a time when people are having very delicate emotions about the reliability of the government (much of this due to relentless negative theming by Republicans), the S.E.C. chooses to put forward a case that it cannot reliably win. When they lose the case, what then will people have to say? Wall Street and the government will stand equally corrupt in the eyes of the masses of people who really have no ability to see nuance or truth.

Other News:

CNBC reports on the Abacus deal, and not in an S.E.C. friendly way. ACA Management may have been as stupid and inept as Goldman and Paulson knew (but don't now imply) they were.

Get Thee Behind Me Satanic S.E.C, We Do God's Work Here!

LLoyd Blankfein Stands Up

The New York Times reports that Goldman employees are rallying around Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein, and we honestly don't blame them. The S.E.C is being highly selective and arbitrary in its attempt to manufacture some justice. We understand the Administration's desire to get financial reform done, or give the people some sense of justice.

But if you are gonna take action, and bold action at that, you had better have precedent and the facts on your side, and it remains to be seen whether the government can prove Goldman violated the standard Wall Street way of placing CDO offerings. If Goldman was not unique, then we should expect a ton of further actions against other firms, for consistency's sake. But if you are bringing similar charges against everyone, you are either saying everyone was corrupt, or nobody was. We doubt either option is a preferred option, but that is the corner wall the S.E.C. is about to bang its head against.

In the days since, Goldman’s board and employees have rallied around senior management, including Mr. Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive. Goldman employees are shocked, even angry, that the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a civil fraud suit against their bank. Goldman is ready for a fight, and Mr. Blankfein, his defenders insist, will prevail.

(N.Y.Times)

What we like here is Blankfein's refusal to back down under the pressure from people who really have no ability to comprehend the details of the transaction. Very few people even realize how much Wall Street facilitates business and capitalism. People are outraged over someone making money, and of Goldman coming out on top and being unrepentant, but at the end of the day a crime has to be proven. It's not enough to talk of "moral bankruptcy" with retroactive fervor. Goldman was one of the few firms that diligently managed its own risk and responsibilities, and for that they should be admired.

Hopefully Lloyd won't cave. Nor should we expect a return to a firm dominated by investment banking, when the trading culture proves more suitable to profit making in any economic environment.

Love One Another

This has already been talked about by others earlier in the year, but this is still an amazingly beautiful PSA. Figures it's from the U.K.

Abacus Cadabra, You're Busted, Says S.E.C. to Goldman Over Abacus Vehicle

Sophisticated Investors

The government, via the S.E.C., is finally going after Wall Street's Goldman, Sachs, and an interesting attempt at misguided justice it will be. While the Republicans continue to fight against passing any legislation that is not exactly what they want, thus holding up needed financial reform, the powers have also decided that Goldman will be one of the fall guys for our financial sins. The specific crime? The argument is that Goldman, with the help of an outside client, devised faulty investment products--designed for failure--and that the buyers were not forewarned that the outside client had a hand in creating them, and planned to bet against their success.

People have pointed out the timing of the suit, and the possibility that getting the masses fired up over Goldman aids in the process of getting financial reform legislation passed with enough support from a broad sector of Congress. Whether they succeed remains to be seen, given Goldman's desire to fight.

Only a few investment banks agreed to help him. One was Deutsche Bank. The other was the mighty Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Paulson struck gold. His prescience made him billions and transformed him from a relative nobody into something of a celebrity on Wall Street and in Washington.

But now his brassy bets have thrust Mr. Paulson into an uncomfortable spotlight. On Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Goldman for neglecting to tell its customers that mortgage investments they were buying consisted of pools of dubious loans that Mr. Paulson had selected because they were highly likely to fail.

By betting against the pool of questionable mortgage bonds, Mr. Paulson made $1 billion when they collapsed just a few months later, the S.E.C. said. Investors, who bought what regulators are essentially calling a pig in a poke, lost the same amount.

Mr. Paulson, 54, was not named as a defendant in the S.E.C. suit, but his role in devising the instrument that caused $1 billion in losses for Goldman’s customers is detailed in the complaint. Robert Khuzami, the director of enforcement at the S.E.C., explained that, unlike Goldman, the manager of the hedge fund, Paulson & Company, had not made misrepresentations to investors buying the security, known as a collateralized debt obligation.

(N.Y.Times)


The problem with all of this is that 1) the government is filing the case against Goldman and saying that outside client A influenced the content of the product being sold, acting as some sort of portfolio selection agent, while at the same time also saying 2) we are not going to go after client A because they were not involved trying to sell said product to other customers.

"Client A" in the form of a hedge fund run by John R. Paulson, made a fortune betting against mortgage backed securities that Goldman sold to sophisticated investors, and the kicker is that Paulson has denied any involvement in the creation of the product. The government, according to the Times, says otherwise.

It would seem that you would have to prove Paulson's involvement in structuring the product, while also proving Goldman was not just hedging its own book, if you want to win the case in court. We suspect that the government is hoping for some large, well publicized settlement opportunity, because this is a lost cause.

Goldman is not about to go down on the record for this, and shouldn't. All parties involved were supposed to be qualified informed buyers. The only good part of this is that it puts the lie to conspiracy theorist's nonsense about Goldman controlling the government. (Not that the civil fraud suit will sway the conspiracists, who will view anything short of the firm's collapse as evidence of their controlling hand).

It's actually hard to read through the first few pages of the Abacus document and not be quite aware of the disclaimers and warnings about investing in the product. At what point do we make people responsible for their own stupid choices?

Romney, Palin, and Paul Battle It Out in Fantasy President League

I'm Huge!

Progressives and left wingers often express wonder at why Obama is so hated by the right wing, given his rather lax dedication to the goals of liberal idealists. There are two answers to that. Obama is splitting the difference, which means people on both extremes will be unhappy. Also, some conservative types are not really inclined to give the black president any credit for what he is doing in the real world. He could stabilize the economy, car companies and banks; reduce nuclear proliferation; bring healthcare to kids; give a tax cut and housing credits; and propose energy policy, and he will still be seen as the black hand of Satan. Conservatives are stuck in a type of moral and intellectual inversion, and it's dark in there when your head is inside out.

The Republican Party faithful met in New Orleans, land of black culture, to talk strategy, say mean things, and play at choosing the next president.

The results of the straw poll: Romney, 24 percent with 439 votes; Rep. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, 24 percent with 438 votes; Palin, 18 percent with 330 votes; Gingrich, 18 percent with 321 votes; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 4 percent; Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, 3 percent each, former Pennsylvania Rick Santorum, 2 percent; and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, 1 percent.

(McClatchy)

Seems to me they have a problem. Romney will be seen by hardcore conservatives as inauthentic, in addition to his having supported enforced healthcare initiatives in Massachusetts. The next two, Paul and Palin, are both unelectable, lacking credibility and intellect respectively; it would be a circus if either won the nomination. Gingrich carries the burden of being a retread, and an adulterous one at that, and not likely to garner enthusiastic support among those who think Obama is a socialist Satanic menace. That leaves Huckabee, who is probably the only sane candidate that would satisfy real conservatives. Or maybe Jeb Bush will appear at the last minute (our theory).  But if the real nominations track the straw poll (unlikely we think), Republicans are in for a world of hurt.

Other News:

• The recently christened Party of No signals to Obama that they might say something like... no, if Obama nominates a liberal activist non-mainstream judge. Of course pretty much any judge will be labeled liberal and activist if they are not of the strict constructionist, conservative bent. Of course we don't entirely mind that, preferring judges friendly to religion. We do mind if Obama's wider agenda gets sabotaged by Republican brou ha ha over nominees however.

• Leonard Sax, a psychologist and author, asks why so many girls--15%--self identify as gay or bisexual versus the historical norm of 2%. He dismisses one of the obvious answers, that boys like it when girls kiss, and girls like it when boys pay attention. The issue of porn comes up as well, and how so many boys at a young age now have access to it through the internet.  We would reduce it down to two factors: the availability of porn, and the enthusiasm by which creators of pop culture embrace female to female sexuality (in effect, Hollywood's male controlling powers extending their private porn sensibility in a more PG or R-rated direction). It's a way men get their jollies, and women can acquire a sheen of being sexy or independent while not actually being any sort of true independent. Women like to say they are bi for the same reason more women (like all of them) are now strutting around with tattoos. A safe way of expressing some sort of individual identity, but largely a kind of manipulated path of action induced by male preferences and/or pop culture's influence. If enough young starlets start calling themselves Broccoli, or if the porn world starts pushing ATM, or if Hollywood presents going to Vegas and getting wasted as hip, so too young minds will follow. In other words, so many girls are bisexual, or say they are bisexual, because some powerful, horny man in Hollywood really likes chicks doing it. Men have long enjoyed that, but morality has always been the gatekeeper between porn and the wider culture presented by Hollywood. Now there is no gate, and various things are slipping through.              

•  Bad credit? No money? Need a job? Can't get job because your credit is bad? Yea we thought it absurd for employers to be able to base hiring decisions on credit scores given the lack of causal connection between credit and workplace performance. Now some pushback against the irrational idea that those with money problems should not be able to get a job.    

Newt Gingrich's Careless Whispers Stoke Anarchy

Yay. People Like Me Again!

The stupid is on a snowball roll which should make for a doozy of a 2012 election year when that snow fancies itself a man and tries to run the country. The meltdown will be fantastically funny; it will take just that type of circus to get the Republicans back to a more sensible framework of pushing real ideas, respecting those who disagree, and being a true alternative to those of us who don't buy into the whole Democratic Party agenda.  Some of us are too smart to cast our lot with the vapid (Palin), the hypocrites (Newt) and assorted other liars (Limbaugh), knaves and thieves.

And what to do with the stirred up crowds and individuals who can never find a patriotic instinct worthy of following? Like... what do you do with a man who decides to blow up 36 post offices?

A man accused of dropping more than 30 explosive devices into mailboxes and other locations across east Texas did so out of anger toward the government and was acting alone, federal authorities said Thursday.

Larry Eugene North was indicted Wednesday on charges of possessing an illegal firearm or destructive device. Authorities said they would evaluate whether to pursue more charges.

(A.P.)

All this manufactured anger, built on lies, and spread by people like Newt Gingrich and Beck, trickles down to the fertile minds of the stable and unstable alike.

When Gingrich eventually got to the podium, he delivered a self-assured address peppered with historical allusions. Democrats in Washington, he said, had put together a "perfect unrepresentative left-wing machine dedicated to a secular socialist future."

Mr. Obama is "the most radical president in American history," Gingrich said. "He has said, 'I run a machine, I own Washington, and there is nothing you can do about it.'"

(C.B.S.)

Seems like all the Republicans are doing these days is encouraging resentment on a mass scale, and doing so by misrepresenting Obama's intentions and accomplishments. This from a party that had control of the government in recent times, and accomplished nearly nothing. How quickly people forget what Republicans did not accomplish when in power, though the promises were all the same.

You save the country from economic collapse. You pass some type of healthcare reform. You save a couple of banks and auto companies from collapse. You pull troops out of Iraq and save some lives. You sign a far reaching but limited arms agreement with Russia. You reform the education loan market by redirecting government funds from middlemen bankers to students. You pass a tax cut. You send tons of money down to the states to help support the education and jobs of local people.

And all some Republicans can muster is talk of tax cuts and socialists. They can knock the bank bailouts and health care initiatives while heralding the small businessman, the very same man who must go to banks to finance his dream, and who is burdened under ever rising health insurance costs.

Our repeated refrain... nonsense to all that. We can hardly take advice from Gingrich, who spent his entire early career on the government payroll, great healthcare and all.

Hedge Funds Defy The Opposite of Human Nature and Make Money Still

The top hedge funds continued to do well, leapfrogging the disaster of 2008 that knocked many smaller or less adept firms out of the business. 2009 turned out to be a very good year largely due to some funds buying when others were to afraid to take a risk. Even now with the signs of the economy perking up, a few average minded citizens we know well remain transfixed to the idea wide collapse, drinking from the elixir of fear peddled by certain conservative and religious minded leaders, leaning in their minds to buying gold or growing their own vegetables... and despite the continued existence of stocked shelves at the supermarket. That's how it goes though as people rubberneck through economic life, looking sideways and back.

The journalists are often no better, unable to predict, and pointing out the obvious when it hardly matters.

The Lazarus-like recovery of the nation’s big banks did not benefit just the bankers — it also created huge paydays for hedge fund managers, including a record $4 billion gain in 2009 for one bold investor who bet big on the financial sector.

(N.Y. Times)

The error here was to assume that the industry was dead or dying to begin with.

We on the other hand are blessed with wisdom, but cursed with no money and a deep affection for waisting what little we do have on inconsequential things (like food). But we did note a while back that Wall Street would continue to function, and that people who work with money will continue to work with money in whatever permutation necessary to get the job done. Indeed to predict such is hardly wisdom, but rather an observation of the nature of man exerting itself. That anyone imagined hedge funds would fade or disappear or have to reduce compensation indicates a clear and present lack of understanding of what makes many men tick. The general reporter remains in the habit of lumping all things together, thus missing the answers hidden in the distinctions.

In the case of hedge funds, what you basically are talking about is going to work with your friends in an office of your own design and choosing, in the location of the world you prefer, and where you will be paid untold sums of money, and can hire whomever you like, and where your staff can skew beautiful or extremely attractive (provided your traders and systems are top notch), and you answer to nobody. You can set your own hours, but probably like the locale, the office, the people, and the challenge of running your own ship in a world filled with slave-like devotion to things that either don't pay well, or that you don't believe in.

Hedged out, you sit in your Minneapolis lake office watching the wind surfers; you are in your Manhattan 20th floor corner office glancing at the skyline or hustle below; from the medium sized trading room in your Connecticut office you hear the sounds of ducks barking on the lawn. You smile.

What will we have for lunch? You are in Princeton and there is an independent little shop that sells baked goods and gourmet sandwiches... roasted duck with this hickory cheese that you just love. You and your crew tell the support staff to call in your order. Next month is the meeting in Bermuda for the international investors in your offshore fund, and then the company retreat in South Carolina. You contemplate whether the offices in Virginia, London and Hong Kong are enough, or whether to add another in Switzerland, Singapore or Shanghai.

All the while, no matter what the geographical location, or what you are eating, or how beautiful the locale (and the locales are always beautiful because you can do your business anywhere),  you are the master of your fate, with the challenge every day of making enough money to remain master of your fate. The rewards are numerous, but actually making it to the lofty level of those like Steve Cohen in Connecticut or James Simons on Long Island is difficult. But it's a challenge that many men will joyfully take.

Which is why there should not be any shock or surprise about the continued "business as usual" in the hedge fund and financial world.

Often these revelations of pay bring outrage, since people don't really understand the structure of the businesses in question, and often assuming they are like banks, or are somehow utilizing public money. Bottom line is that these are people playing with their own money and deserve whatever rewards they can muster. The only real issue is one of taxation, and whether the huge gains should be taxed as ordinary income, and whether any changes should apply to partnerships at large.

See Dick Read... Badly

Dick Enthusiast and Dick

Let's be clear. There are some people, let's call them stooges and manipulators because they are, who have been actively working to destabilize the respect most Americans have long held for the government. One of the manipulators is Dick Armey, a former Texas Congressman. He came to Congress around the same time as Newt Gingrich, helped devise the "Contract for America", a kind of conservative manifesto, and he fancies himself a wise intellectual and astute reader of culture and economics and history. He is more like the Wizard of Oz, but without a heart or the ability to understand and acknowledge his own limitations.

He has used his own organization, FreedomWorks, to fight healthcare reform efforts, and to thwart debate over healthcare reform.

McClatchy writes about conservative efforts to correct history books and balance against a perceived left wing bent in many books, and Dick Armey's efforts at redefining people's perceptions about the nation's historical past.

Armey has been out there giving speeches and talking history, and doing it badly. When caught in the big lie, that lie is then papered over with denial or more lies. Which is how much of the shameful and unusually destructive Republican Party has been lately functioning.

At the same event, Armey urged people to read the Federalist Papers as a guide to the sentiments of the tea party movement.

"The small-government conservative movement, which includes people who call themselves the tea party patriots and so forth, is about the principles of liberty as embodied in the Constitution, the understanding of which is fleshed out if you read things like the Federalist Papers," Armey said.

Others such as Democrats and the news media, "people here who do not cherish America the way we do," don't understand because "they did not read the Federalist Papers," he said.

A member of the audience asked Armey how the Federalist Papers could be such a tea party manifesto when they were written largely by Alexander Hamilton, who the questioner said "was widely regarded then and now as an advocate of a strong central government."

Armey ridiculed the very suggestion.

"Widely regarded by whom?" he asked. "Today's modern, ill-informed political science professors? . . . I just doubt that was the case, in fact, about Hamilton."

Hamilton, however, was an unapologetic advocate of a strong central government, one that plays an active role in the economy and is led by a president named for life and thus beyond the emotions of the people. Hamilton also pushed for excise taxes and customs duties to pay down federal debt.

In fact, Ian Finseth said in a history written for the University of Virginia, others at the constitutional convention "thought his proposals went too far in strengthening the central government."

(McClatchy, in an article on the rewriting of education texts by conservatives)

Hamilton of all people was actually responsible for the type of economic decisions (centralized banking anyone?) that would have driven modern Republicans, libertarians and state's rights activists bonkers. But Armey is not one to let truth dominate the process of making a seemingly important point. He functions almost like Sarah Palin, but smarter, and willing to manufacture intellectual arguments, or mock others when challenged on the details. Note Armey's misrepresentation of history. Examine how he suggests those that don't agree with him do not cherish America like he does.

That, dear reader, is wrong. This crowd, this cabal that would interrupt Congressional town hall meetings, that would mock the President of the United States with lies and distortions, that work against honest discussion of legislation that clearly is designed to help others, that would define American by "us" and "them" or "real" or "iunreal" or American or un-American, needs to be sat down. This group of liars and extremists and manipulators of the truth need to be challenged and forced to honest accounting. This group of situational "patriots" needs to be challenged about their selective concerns for the nation's situation (economic or otherwise), and put to the test over their inconsistencies. These "citizens" who would fill their hearts with darkness, their minds with lies, and their mouths with false witness needs to self-reflect on the real reasons for their sudden vitriol for the elected leaders of the United States. They mask their ignorance and hatred with the history of this wonderful nation.

Dick cannot read. Dick misbehaves. Dick sit down and be quiet.

Obama Pours Oil On Republicans

It certainly caught us by surprise to see President Obama announcing that he wanted to pierce America's sacred no-no spots and withdraw that sweet, sweet liquid. Oil. We hardly relish the idea of the entire Eastern seaboard being swamped with all sorts of oil industry apparatus, what with oil drifting into vacation spots and the fishes and lobsters being forced to make hast to safer climes. We assume that Obama is being selective and that the technology is sufficiently benign and industrial doom won't happen.

Others have wondered why Obama is giving this "gift" to the Republicans, with speculation leaning toward the idea that a comprehensive energy policy can better be had if everyone has a little something worthwhile to gain.

Our view is that it's a trap for Republicans. Given previous intransigence, the Obama Administration is hardly deluded into thinking that Republicans will vote for what they want (oil drilling), if voting for what they want means someone else--the great, socialist Satan--gets what he wants. They will say no.

But by announcing all of this, Obama immediately gets those on his left more engaged and ready to put up a fight, while rather freezing those on his right, who cannot claim to dislike something they have been requesting, even if this version is more limited than their desire. Republicans will say "no". Obama knows they will say "no".

At the end of the process he can say, "I tried to work with them, but they did not want real change," and he will do some version of whatever he wants, but with greater inoculation from false charges. Given his opportunity in power, he is determined to do something and leave a mark, however perfect or imperfect.

Other News:

Californians openly scared drilling off East coast is a Trojan horse for drilling off the West coast.

Skanky, nasty women are outraged over whoring, two-timing Tiger Woods. Vanity Fair spices up the nasty-cakes and gives you a bite (via New York Mag).

Is morality a genetic process? Here doctors find moral judgments are influenced by magnetic pulses, where the same sample group changes their assessment of a situation after being pulsed. This can take us in interesting directions. On the other hand, if we are creating a temporary  4-year old type mental state, a type of transitional retardation, it may not be that surprising at all. If some of those with special disabilities lack higher level moral functioning, inducing a slowed, mental state in a standard person ought to have similar outcome.

Eric Brown, a consultant for the Republican Party, spent nearly $2000 at a night club filled with things your moms, wives, and fellow conservatives might frown on.What's worse, or amusing, is that Brown was just covering a bill by an RNC staffer whose credit card would not accept the charge.  The RNC's recruiter of young donors, Allison Meyers, was dismissed for her role in asking Brown to cover her bill and for seeking reimbursement for the charge.

Ricky Martin is proud to be gay. He is telling us now. We knew this. Ages ago. Sometimes you don't know who is gay. This was not one of those times.