kimmy

Just out of curiosity I did a bit of searching on Wikipedia, and came up with some candidates: "I Saw Her Standing There" by The Beatles "I Will Follow" by U2 "Can't Get Enough of Your Love" by Bad Company (I only looked this one up because I thought "Bad Company" might be the opening track. ) "Astronomy Domine" by Pink Floyd Of the ones mentioned so far in this thread, I think "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Break On Through" are the best choices, both for the same reason. As soon as you hit "play", they blow you back into your seat. -k

I have no opinion on whether Trudeau might be able to win an election. However, I think this was an amusing quip. -k

Yeah, Shady knows what's up because he's plugged into the best sources, like Breitbart and Fox News. Quick impression: "Romney Landslide! Romney Landslide!" -k

The fact that Dot-Com shares were over-rated in the late 1990s doesn't have any bearing on the case. Whether the eToys shares should have been trading for $77 at the end of the first day on the market is irrelevant, the fact is, they were. Buyers thought they were worth that much. Trying to excuse Goldman-Sachs' ethics based on hindsight information about the eventual fate of eToys is a no go. If GS had set the price at $20 and bought most of the shares themselves, it would be an obvious conflict of interest. No way on earth the client-- eToys-- would have agreed to that arrangement. Setting an artificially low price for the shares, selling to collaborators who are in on the scam, and being repaid in the form of kickbacks, clearly just boils down to a con-game to abuse a position of trust while avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest. That's really all there is to it. They exploited a position of trust as an opportunity to line their own pockets and reward their cronies, and their internal correspondence indicates they believed they were entitled to do so. "Uh-oh! Somebody is saying something bad about Muslims bankers! Better change the topic by posting something negative about Israel government programs!" The Naomi Glover Gambit returns. -k

There is another interesting lawsuit going on right now involving Goldman Sachs. It's interesting because it shows that the bankers weren't just ripping off "the little guy", they were also ripping off John Galt. You know, the hallowed hero of American idealism, the guy who goes out and builds a company with his bare hands and ingenuity to create jobs and create prosperity with his entrepreneurial spirit? Yeah, Goldman Sachs is in court right now because they ripped off that guy too. Here's how it goes: A company is ready to go public and sell shares. They are selling a portion of their company, in exchange for operating capital to expand, as well as a chance for the founders to reap some equity for the work and investment they've put into building the company to this point. It's called an IPO. They hire a company-- Goldman Sachs in this instance-- to manage the IPO, in exchange for a 7% commission. And obviously, if Goldman Sachs helps the founders of the company get the most out of their IPO, then Goldman Sachs profits too. So far so good. Win-win for everybody, right? Well, not so fast. In the lawsuit in question, the founders of an online retailer called "eToys" allege that Goldman Sachs deliberately screwed them out of hundreds of millions of dollars in their IPO, and documents obtained from Goldman Sachs back them up. Goldman Sachs privately believed that the shares would be trading at $80 by the end of the first day... but they priced the shares at just $20. The IPO raised $164 million for eToys... but the shares they sold were worth over $630 million by the end of the day! The shares immediately shot up in price from $20 to $77, as Goldman Sachs believed they would. By deliberately underpricing the shares, Goldman Sachs cost the founders of eToys $470 million. Even if they'd priced them at just half of what they expected them to trade for, eToys would have had an extra $160 million dollars. And Goldman Sachs' share of that $160 million would have been $11 million. Why would Goldman Sachs deliberately miss out on $11 million or more? That's where the story gets really interesting. Why deliberately underprice the shares so badly? The answer to that lies in who had the dibs on these underpriced shares: friends and clients of Goldman Sach were allocated most of the shares that hit the market. Goldman Sachs calls up their friends, says "we've got a hot IPO about to hit the market, you want in?" These friends buy up big blocks of shares, then sell them later the same day at a massive profit. And then they repaid Goldman Sachs through commissions. One person has testified that "70 percent of his trading activity in May 1999 was done to generate commissions for Goldman, pursuant to an understanding with his Goldman broker that he needed to generate money for Goldman in order to receive I.P.O.s. " In other words, they understood that they had to give kickbacks to Goldman Sachs if they wanted to be allocated shares in the next IPO. It's a scheme that sounds like something Quebec mayors and construction contractors would hatch. Or Chretien staffers and Quebec ad agencies. The guys who founded eToys made $164 million dollars for 2 years of work that they'd put in. Which is pretty good. But the friends of Goldman Sachs made $470 million for one day of flipping shares. Which is utterly absurd. The documents recovered from Goldman Sachs indicate that they felt that they should receive about 50% of that to be returned to them in the form of kickbacks. So assuming that 50% figure, here's how it breaks down: $164 million for the guys who built the company. $235 profits for the guys who were sold underpriced shares by Goldman Sachs, then immediately flipped them at 4x the price they paide for them. $235 million worth of kickbacks for Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs' defense in this lawsuit is not that they didn't do this. Their defense is simply that none of this was actually against the law. They argue that they had no "fiduciary duty" to eToys to maximize the return from their IPO. They feel that eToys might have hired them to run the IPO, but eToys had no right to expect Goldman Sachs to act in the best interest of eToys. This might just be one case, but it's the one case that's in court right now. There's no reason to assume that Goldman Sachs handled other IPOs any differently. Indeed, the same documents indicate that they felt entitled to receive "secondary business" in exchange for letting big clients in on hot IPOs, and that they felt that IPOs were "a currency" that they could use to please valued clients and acquire new customers. In short, this case might be about eToys, but there is plenty of reason to assume that Goldman Sachs (and probably their competitors as well) exploited other IPOs in the same way. The story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/nocera-rigging-the-ipo-game.html?pagewanted=all The documents: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/nocera-goldman-sachs-etoys.html?_r=0 Lots more available from Google, as always. -k

The irony of that comment is that with the exception of Texas, the "Red States" are the biggest beneficiaries of progressive policies. The deadbeat states of the old Confederacy are the biggest recipients of federal largesse. Florida's large seniors population had Willard campaigning there on the promise of uncutting $700 billion from Medicare and assuring them that only young people would pay for Medicare reform. The rural folk of the great plains believe in rugged individualism and hate government handouts... except when it comes to agriculture subsidies. "Everybody else gets too many government hand-outs, except me... mine are completely deserved!" Your red state people aren't "going broke for progressive policies". Progressive policies are keeping them from going broke. -k

Is that your response to the question of why $5.7 trillion in tax cuts is important at a time when the deficit is allegedly the great issue facing America? -k

And? -k

Yeah, so how does $5.7 trillion of tax cuts help the deficit? -k

"He who does not pray to the Lord, prays to the Devil." -Jorge Mario Bergoglio. "If you're not with us, you're against us." -George Walker Bush. Jorge, I christen thee Pope Dubya the First! -k

Ryan can go around and argue that massive tax cuts for rich-guys is a great idea if he wants to, but we already know how that played with voters. -k

Your original point was nothing to do with "leftists" and "dictators" and "the collective", it was a the proposition that the Republicans could succeed if they just "told the truth". And now to illustrate your idea of how successful politicians "tell the truth", you provide examples of politicians who are arguing for their values better than their opponents argue for competing values. Thanks, you've made my case for me. Perhaps if the Republicans had a Margaret Thatcher to argue for conservative values, they'd do better. But it's not a question of "telling the truth", it's a matter of explaining to voters why your values should matter to them too. The Republicans have become terrible at explaining why their values should matter to anybody outside their base of rich-guys, old-people, and Bible-thumpers. -k

I disagree. Good politicians have no problem deciding what to say.I've only bothered watching the Trudeau video, but it illustrates my point perfectly. He is not there "telling the truth", he is discussing competing objectives and making a case for his choice of security over liberty. In my earlier terms, he is saying "yes" to security, and "no" to people like the interviewer who believe that liberty trumps everything. There's no way to frame this in terms of "telling the truth", because there's no objective fact to be discussed. Trudeau argues for security, Benjamin Franklin famously took the opposite view, and neither is "right" or "wrong". -k

The Tax Policy Center says the Ryan budget is a pile of crap. They say that the tax cuts would cost $5.7 trillion in revenue, and it's "hard to imagine" how the Ways And Means committee could make up for that amount. They also point out that the tax cuts are a minimal amount for most Americans, but a huge windfall for the wealthiest 1%. In other words, it's the same stuff Romney/Ryan lost the election on. But instead of talking about the tax cuts, he has spruced up his marketing message by talking about how bad the deficit will be for the poor and middle class. As I read through his PDF, the message was clearly the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit. But if your message is the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit, and your budget includes massive tax cuts for the wealthy and no plan to replace the lost revenue, your message just isn't honest. -k

Most people, connected or not, would not have ended up in that cell. Nobody goes to jail for jaywalking. The charge of riding transit without paying might be a clue... I saw hobos and vagrants and panhandlers get busted for that more than once, when I lived in Edmonton. Most people could pay the fines for these offenses out of pocket, and would prefer to do so than spend 2 days in jail. That's speculation, of course, but in trying to figure out how somebody ends up in jail for jaywalking and an unpaid ride on the LRT, that's the answer I come up with. Dude was a bum. That's not to say what happened to him is any less tragic. But I think it gets at what the mentality of the staff at the remands center might have been. We've got one scruffy looking dude, we've got another scruffy looking dude, we're short of space, they can share a cell. Obviously having "connections" would help in any situation. But to August's point, you don't need to be married to a Trudeau to avoid doing jail time for jaywalking. I strongly suspect here that the issue is more along the lines of how the law deals with "the dregs of society". I live near what passes for downtown in this town, and often see police interacting with people who look like vagrants. They approach them and make conversation for no reason other than to let them know they're being watched. You don't have to marry a Trudeau to avoid this kind of attention, you just have to look like you have a place to live. -k

I love the tilting bolt mechanism in my Russian rifles, but the short recoil mechanism in the TT-33 is even more ingenious. I gather it was invented by Browning for the 1911? Anyway, I've now got all the paperwork to make everything official. Now when the RCMP come to my place to ask me to turn down my stereo, instead of knocking on the door they'll kick it down with guns drawn and shout "WHERE ARE THE GUNS? WHERE ARE THE GUNS??!" On the shotgun front, I have read that some people think that the ultimate in versatility is a 12g break-action shotgun with a kit of gauge adapters that let you shoot a variety of ammunition. An outfit called "GaugeMate" even makes 10-inch rifled adapters for most pistol calibres. A short double-barrel "coach gun" with an adapter might make for a handy pack gun. -k

I might make a leather wrap for it, using my super arts-and-crafts skills. I bought a crappy leather jacket at Value Village for $5, and I've unstitched all the seams. I've started making a scabbard for my Model 60, and I'll have lots left over. I have been thinking of making butt-stock covers for my Russian rifles as well. I could probably do up something pretty nice for the TT-33. -k

My TT-33 is here! It's a 1938 Tula. I'm pretty pleased with the condition. It's obviously seen quite a bit of use, as there is visible wear on some of the parts, but overall it's in nice shape. One part I'm not thrilled with is the grips. They seem to be made out of BakeLite, or some equally crappy Russian equivalent. One of them has a small chip missing off a corner. The hammer has a half-cocked position which is nice. Completely locks both the slide and the trigger. I ordered a package of snap-caps from Pachmayr on the same day I bought the gun. I never imagined that the gun would arrive before the snap-caps. Once they get here I'll be able to play with the mechanism and get a better idea of how it feeds and ejects. I've already disassembled it and reassembled it and cleaned it and done all the maintenance. Everything looks like it should work. As advertised, it came with a leather holster, 2 magazines, a cleaning rod, and a lanyard. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the lanyard. -k

Ha ha, no. Just no. The universe *will* end. There's two ideas how that happens. One way is that the universe just continues expanding forever and ever and entropy claims everything. The other is that at some point the universe stops expanding and is pulled back toward inward by its own gravity... everything ultimately ends up crushed into a singularity. Which is more likely? That depends how much mass there is in the universe. At the time Stephen Hawking wrote "A Brief History of Time", the prevailing view was that entropy was the ultimate fate of the universe, because they didn't believe there was enough mass to draw everything back together. Hawking said the question wasn't settled because they keep discovering more mass. The discovery of the Higgs Boson gives scientists another clue in figuring out whether the universe will die from entropy or from being crushed into a singularity. Scientists here on our little blue marble did not destroy the universe by creating a new particle. They did not create anything new at all. They observed something that already existed but had never been observed before. -k

Dishwashing expert. I actually read through his budget last night. While he talks about how awesome it'll be to have lower deficits and lower interest payments, he has no concrete suggestions on how to get on his "Path to Prosperity". His "Path to Prosperity" isn't a plan of action, it's just a green line on his graphs that shows lower deficits. And then he goes through many pages talking about challenges facing America and declares generic libertarian principles to be the answer to everything. Problem: tuition fees are rising out of control! Solution: Freedom! Liberty! Problem: slow economic growth! Solution: Deregulation! Empower the job creators! Problem: Medicare is unsustainable! Solution: Choice! Rugged individualism! There's really not much to talk about. -k

Well, Canada and other western nations have already publicly denounced the various incarnations of Uganda's "Kill the gays" laws in the strongest terms, so I don't think that's the issue. After my last post, it occurred to me that if they're trying to network with and assist members of Uganda's gay community, that sort of thing would by its very nature be kind of under the table. Partly because the people you're trying to network with are considered criminals in their country. And partly because trying to effect political action in another country could be considered an affront to their sovereignty. And as Mrs Kadaga illustrates, in Sleipnir's 2nd article, proponents of this law could use nationalism as a means of rallying support for it. "The white man still thinks we are a colony and that he can tell us what our laws should be! Let us show the white man that we make our own laws now!" So perhaps it is for the best that the average Ugandan on the street not be aware that the government of Canada is trying to undermine the "Kill the gays" laws. -k

I am glad to hear that Canada is actively, if quietly, assisting efforts to oppose these disgusting laws. -k

Komrade Hickok test drives a TT-33: Aside from demonstrating the capabilities of the gun and disassembling it, he also talks about the mystique of historical weapons around the 17 minute mark, while he's reloading. I want to be able to shoot like this guy some day. -k

He's complaining that GM is selling a car named "SS" anywhere in the world. Whether they are being driven in Minneapolis, or just parked on driveways seems like an inane counterpoint at best. You trimmed my quote to make it appear as though I've contradicted myself. The complete sentence was: That's a low-class tactic. I do believe that if the name caused offense in a local market, it would be the polite (and sensible) thing to change the name to respect the locals. I have not found text of the Parliamentary resolution tabled by MP Campbell. If his resolution was to request that Kia not use the name in the UK, then I have no complaint. If he did in fact request that Kia not use the name "Provo" anywhere in the world, then I think he's as whiny as Baruch Shuv. In fact, I think that's exactly what I already said on the subject. If you can provide me with the full text of Mr Campbell's resolution, I can give you a firm answer on whether I think he's a big crybaby. I just think he's a crybaby for complaining about what a company wants to sell on the other side of the planet. Since the car itself is a concept-car model made only for a car show in Switzerland, and since Kia has no planned production and no plan to sell this car in any country in the world let alone the UK, and since the name "Provo" was chosen by an Italian styling studio, not by Kia themselves, I find it completely unsurprising that Kia has no plans to use the "Provo" name. -k

David Frum has been branded a Republican In Name Only-- a "RINO"-- as have the rest of the increasingly rare breed of Republicans who have the unmitigated gall to suggest that they should focus on economic conservatism, and that extreme social conservatism is alienating large groups of voters. If you don't talk about JEEEZUSSS, don't support a constitutional ban on gay marriage, don't support Fetal Personhood, and don't take the Grover Norquist pledge, then you're a RINO. -k