So, how many of these scenes do you recognized? Hat tip to John August. ..bruce w..

It’s interesting how easily “Groundhog Day” could well have been done as drama/horror. Hat tip to Sippican Cottage. ..bruce w..

Fake movie trailer mashups are among my favorite videos on the ‘net. This one imagines a 1951 version of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, staring Charlton Heston as Indiana Jones. Quite well done. with some great footage. ..bruce w..

And the luck of the Irish to you!

. . . will be later today. Right now, it’s Tuesday morning, so it must be link time:

President Obama’s War on Business continues. As I noted yesterday, I’m not happy with the AIG payout, but it is both unseemly and dangerous to have the President of the United States singling out and using taxpayer dollars and government officials to attack specific private businesses for clearly legal actions, just as it is even more unseemly and dangerous for him to single out private individuals who are exercising free speech.  Obama’s actions are beginning to smack of some of the worst abuses during the Wilson and Roosevelt administrations (such as actively investigation and prosecuting people who were using legal tax loopholes; cf. The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes, pp. 205-208).  It frankly smacks of true fascism, as this report by Ace of Spades shows the consequences of such an approach (viz., angry mobs outside of AIG offices).

Meanwhile, Megan McArdle looks at the outrage (real or fake) over the AIG mess and asks the profoundly pertinent question, “Do we want to make a point, or do we want to make money?” Sadly, I think the Democrats (including Obama and the current Congress) have answered that question repeatedly.

And even more meanwhile, Patterico reminds us just which Noble Government Servants received lots o’ money from AIG.

And still meanwhile, Conor Clark notes the introduction of an unconstitutional effort in the House to tax those AIG bonuses, but what else is new?

And, of course, we have people like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to remind us that Republicans can be grandstanding idiots as well.

The real irony is that it was the ethically-challenged Sen. Chris Dodd (D-finance industry) who put the compensation guarantee into the bailout bill. And guess, just guess, who was the single largest recipient of campaign donations from AIG last year?

When Grassley isn’t ranting like a loon, he makes a very good point about the continuing tax problems of Obama nominees:

“I want to stress that the Finance Committee is not doing anything different now from what it has always done under the leadership of either Senator Baucus or me,” Grassley said, referring to Democratic chairman Max Baucus of Montana. “We are vetting nominees for the current administration the same way we vetted nominees for the previous administration.”

“The tax issues of the nominees considered by the committee this year came to be public only because the nominees chose to proceed.”

Grassley said the committee has always requested three years of tax returns from nominees, and always employed experts to review them. And in the past, he added, “many nominees” faced questions based on their tax returns. The reason tax problems seem more prevalent now, Grassley explained, is that in previous administrations those nominees chose to quietly withdraw. Now, they try to stick it out, leading to sometimes embarrassing controversy. “Chairman Baucus and I agree that if a nominee chooses to proceed after tax issues are identified, then the public should be informed of those issues,” Grassley said.

Read the whole thing.

Richard Cohen defends . . . Jim Cramer. And he does so using the remarkably logical and simple explanation that the executives of most of the failed or damaged financial firms held onto their own stock. If they thought their firms were OK, then how could anyone else have known (as Jon Stewart claims) that there were serious problems? Kudos to Cohen for going with logic over cheap shots.

Here’s a debate. Robert Shrum is arguing that Obama is doing the right thing by tackling all of his policy initiatives at once, and that his real risk is from recalcitrant Democrats. On the other hand, Clive Cook is arguing that Obama is creating a “log jam” of policies and at the same time is quickly squandering his political capital. My money’s on Cook.

Obama may be close to losing Ed Koch, who pointedly supported Obama over McCain despite his focus on national security issues.

And speaking of national security issues — gee, I feel safer already.

Speaking of which . . . shall we start a pool on when the Obama Approval Index goes negative for the first time? I’m willing to be it’s before April 1st.  (On the other hand, he did bounce back to +5 today!)

Y’know, once again, this is the very thing that the Left accuses the Right of — probably because the Left is already doing it.

And speaking of the press, the New York Times editorial staff has flip-flopped so often depending upon who’s in power that this hardly seems like news. But it’s important to document their hypocrisy.

A return of “that 70s horror show“, economically speaking? I remember it well, since I graduated from college in 1978 and almost immediately faced double-digit inflation, followed by double-digit interest rates, followed by double-digit unemployment.

Forget Afghanistan (well, not really, especially since my nephew is headed there and my son [they're both Marines] is likely to follow): the next hot spot for the US is likely to be along the Mexican border. Mexico may not be a “failed state”, but it sure is a troubled one.

As my good friend (and former boss) Tony Gibson likes to say, when times are tough, cash is king. And China appears to understand that very well.

Well, with the shoe on the other foot, the Republicans are changing their tune on filibusters of judicial nominees. The Democrats have no room for complaint, since they started this whole mess during the Bush Administration. And, of course, the Democrats are now considering new “end runs” around normal legislative procedures. They may want to rethink that, since there’s a good chance that Republicans are going to gain ground in Congress next year and in 2012.

On the other hand, Red State warns the Right against schadenfreude. Yes, Obama’s poll numbers are dropping, but the Republicans numbers are worse. I fully blame Bush and the idiot Republicans in Congress during the 2000-2006 period for the current Congress and Administration; it’s going to take more than a few votes against the wretched Simulus package to regain the public’s trust and good opinion.

On the other hand, the Right can probably indulge in schadenfreude regarding the drop in traffic on liberal blogs.

Doesn’t anyone in the Obama Administration remember that the Smoot-Hawley Act made the Great Depression ever worse? So why are we looking at a new round of trade protectionism? And the backlash is already beginning.

“The Media loves conservatives, but only if they hate Republicans”. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

“How elite environmentalists impoverish blue-collar workers.” Not news by any stretch, but a good thing to remember in our current crisis.

And speaking of environmental idiocy: we’re turning away from nuclear power right when we should be embracing it.

Here’s a new kind of environmental protest:

A Halifax bus driver will be suspended with pay while Metro Transit investigates why he jumped out of his bus and used a stick to beat a toy seal being used as a prop by anti-seal hunt protesters.

Someone needs to track down this man’s address so that we can all send him thank-you cards.

The sun is blank--no sunspots.

Climate report from Spaceweather.com:  “The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in almost 100 years.” But of course, this has nothing to do with the general cooling of the earth that’s been going on for the last several years, does it?

Meanwhile, folks at Edmonton are wondering why they keep seeing record low temperatures.

Oh, and by the way, it turns out that the Sun was pouring more energy into the Earth’s climate system back when “global warming” was going on in the 20th Century.

But, of course, the science on anthropogenic global warming is settled and unanimously agreed upon — except for a few crackpots here or there.

Weird link of the day: Cow abducted by UFO? (from the Tiffany of news networks, MS-NBC)

As someone who runs his own firm, I like the site Freelance Folder, but I do have to say that right now finding more personal time is not the pressing challenge for most freelancers; it’s finding more work, clients, and billable hours.

And for your St. Patrick’s Day enjoyment (hat tip to Ace of Spaces):

Have a great St. Paddy’s Day!  ..bruce w..

Yesterday afternoon the conservative blogosphere was erupting over news that President Obama had given his first television interview – to Al-Arabiya:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – President Barack Obama chose an Arabic satellite TV network for his first formal television interview as president, part of a concerted effort to repair relations with the Muslim world that were damaged under the previous administration.

Obama cited his Muslim background and relatives, practically a taboo issue during the U.S. presidential campaign, and said in the interview, which aired Tuesday, that one of his main tasks was to communicate to Muslims “that the Americans are not your enemy.”

The interview on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel aired as Obama’s new envoy to the region, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

I have two thoughts on this, firstly it might be yet another in a list of “rookie mistakes” that Obama is committing. So far several of his opening moves have been off-key or call into question some of his pre-inauguration pledge to set a new post-partisan tone.

Secondly, it might actually have been a brilliant foreign policy move on his part. By giving such prominence to a middle-eastern network, he is using a unique situation to grab the attention of a large number of people who have at times worked against US goals and interests. By leveraging his arabic name, and the fact that many people in the middle east assume he is at least a closet muslim, he has a great deal of credibility to deliver a message.

If this is the case, I am sure he is under no pretense that any hard core jihad thugs area going to care one bit about what he has to say. I would think what he is trying to do is to begin a long, slow process of trying to peel away some layers of support for the radicals. To some extent putting a more muslim face on the “great satan”.

While some on the right have claimed that this smacks of disloyalty to the country, I think it is actually a logical extension of Bush’s policies. We have already shown that we can be tough and determined against our foes. Perhaps the Obama white house is trying to say “Maybe you should try talking to us”.

Sadly, if history is any example, this is likely to be a worthless gesture. But I would think he loses nothing in the attempt. The people most offended were the press (who are going to love him anyhow) and some hardcore national security right, who are certain that he is not an American citizen and were not going to support him anyhow.

Having spent a bit of time in the UK, I can attest that in general the programming on television is just as mindless and annoying as the US has on average.

But like the US, there are some patches of real brilliance. For example the below clip from the car focused show “Top Gear” where the crew work hard to help the City of London determine which is the best bus… by racing them.

Men’s magazine loses 130,000 inflatable breasts

A men’s magazine has lost a shipment of 130,000 inflatable breasts en route to Australia. The breasts, worth £100,000, were planned to be a free gift in Ralph magazine – but vanished before arriving at their destination. A spokeswoman said the container left docks in Beijing two weeks ago but turned up empty in Sydney this week.

The magazine has put out an alert to shipping authorities but the breasts need to turn up in the next 48 hours to make the January issue. Ralph editor Santi Pintado urged anyone with information to contact the magazine, saying: “Unless Somali pirates have stolen them it’s difficult to explain where they are.

“If anyone finds any washed up on a beach, please let us know. We want our boobs back.”

The Maritime Safety Authority said it had no information on any lost consignment.

Rickrolling is an Internet meme typically involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. The meme is a bait and switch: a person provides a Web link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video.

When a person clicks on the link given and is led to the web page he/she is said to have been “Rickrolled” (also spelled Rickroll’d). By extension, it can also mean playing the song loudly in public in order to be disruptive

So there I was, watching the Macy’s parade. The dopey Cartoon Network float is rolling by, and in the midst of whatever song they were doing, the whole things stops and out pops Rick Astley. I have not laughed that hard in at least a year.

Some folks may have noticed that we have yet to update our trend animator with banking data for the first quarter of 2008. It’s not because we don’t want to, it’s because the FDIC has yet to release their data.

Yes, that’s right – one of the more interesting quarters of the US banking industry since the start of the Great Depression, and the FDIC is still trying to compile the data. I don’t think they are trying to hide reality from us, rather there may be some problems getting the biggest banks to cough up the information required by law.

Some things I am really looking forward to shining our floodlight on
• Increase in non-performing loans
• Level of 90+ day late mortgages they are holding
• Changes to how much money they are getting from the discount window and other more exotic funding sources from the US Federal Reserve

We will have this all in graphical glory the moment we can get our hands on it.

Many folks were very keen on the animated charts we created for the FDIC data on the looming banking problems. The charts are quite similar to the groundbanking work of gapminder.org, which was purchased by Google some time ago, with the promise that their wonderful charting tools would be available “soon”.

Since then, we have decided we are going to make the chart code (in flash) open-source. The project is here by available on Source Forge as OSG Trend Animator

Feel free to download the code, experiment with it and do good things.

Salute to Nathan Redding who did the coding for this great component.