or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
December 16, 2008
My High-Level Emergency Working Group
Wow, I'd forgotten this Hillary Clinton proposal from last March on how to combat the foreclosure crisis:
A High-Level Emergency Working Group on Foreclosures to Investigate How to Achieve Broad Restructuring of At-Risk Mortgages...[Hillary Clinton] is calling on President Bush to appoint an Emergency Working Group on Foreclosures to address this question within the next three weeks. The group could be headed by eminent leaders like Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, and Bob Rubin...
This is a great idea, and I hope it can be implemented as soon as we've established my proposed High-Level Emergency Working Group on Preventing Cannibalism headed by Jeffrey Dahmer.
HA HA HA: Of course, with Obama we're essentially getting two out of the Emergency three.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at December 16, 2008 07:15 AMAs a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the RAF who now suffer the largest casualties in this area.
Posted by: abb1 at December 16, 2008 07:52 AMAnd when I say there is no buggery in the British Navy I mean there's some.
Posted by: alansmithee at December 16, 2008 08:51 AMthey're missing an important name... bernie madoff. how could they do anything without him? he has so much to teach!
Posted by: almostinfamous at December 16, 2008 09:02 AMthey're missing an important name... bernie madoff. how could they do anything without him? he has so much to teach!
Posted by almostinfamous
Hey, anyone who can screw over Stephan Spielberg, the owners of public-financed sports stadiums, and many other big-money creeps, is okay by me.
(I know, there are a lot of ordinary people caught up in this - people who saved carefully, invested, and now have nothing. I'm not making fun of them. Madoff deserves prison and more, but I am having a laugh at people like greedy team owners, the real welfare cheats.)
catherine
What's the "more" in "prison and more" that Madoff deserves?
No wet bar in his cell? Hot tub privileges revoked? Public flogging? Take an on line accounting course from the Harvard Business School?
Daily conjugal visits by his country club buddies?
Posted by: abb1 at December 16, 2008 02:40 PMBIGGER, better, faster printing presses is the ONLY thing that can save US now.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at December 16, 2008 06:23 PMAs I recall, President Reagan put his Vice President, George H. W. Bush, in charge of the task force for stopping illegal drugs coming into South Florida (recall the 80s bumper sticker "CIA=Cocaine Importation Agency"), and to head the group to deregulate S&Ls. I wonder if these guys actually spend their task force meetings shoving money into their pockets.
Posted by: Bob In Pacifica at December 17, 2008 09:49 AMprison and more:
The 'more' might suitably be volunteer hours and hours of service to the people Madoff fleeced -- the ones with no money left over. I'm not sure who those people are, exactly, unless you count the indirect effects of the collapse.
Direct Madoff investors were all big-money people. Quite a few were warned off, but stuck with him. A number of hedge funds just bought into Madoff's "black box" and took a 1% fee without doing the slightest due diligence. But hedge funds themselves can only accept investors whose net worth is over $1 mil.
Posted by: Nell at December 17, 2008 02:42 PM
