Off-day blogging, and what made the news
If I had turned in yesterday's blogs as an assignment, this is what I would've gotten back
After reading some of the posts I wrote last night, I’m left scratching my head. Maybe it’s just me, knowing what I was trying to say. I guess writing should be treated as driving, if you are too tired then you need to stand clear.
I had a lot to blog about earlier today. The bank stocks made some good strides for the day, that was good news. A couple mixed the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with “Beverly Hillbillies” by moving from LA to the sticks of Oregon to work on a farm. A couple of nurses were fired for taking cellphone pics of an x-ray showing a “Sex toy” up someones rectum then posting it on Facebook. Some poor guy was released from jail after DNA evidence cleared him of a murder.
Yet when I get home, sit down, and get ready to put into words what these things mean to me, I’m just too tired. But I guess I’ll give it a shot.
First in bank news. Stocks for the major financial players were up for today, and although they took a dip for the final half of trading, most of them still ended up trading higher. Is this a sign of things to come? Maybe not I should presume. I think now that most people have had some time to digest the news and some of the more fearful traders have moved out, the stocks are moving back to a value that better represents their respective corporations. People are also buying into the news of the stress tests. With the governments plan somewhat in place, many are beginning to believe that the government A) won’t let these banks fail and B) won’t nationalize them. I’ll be curious to see what happens on the day the results are released; I’m sure that day will see some negative movement.
Namely, I’ll be interested in seeing which banks can back up their claims capitalization in comparison to the government tests. These banks all should have internal processes in place for running stress tests. That should be a part of their risk management systems. Some probably won’t work as well as others, so a standardization of it is key in giving a clear approach. Although I fear that any bank that significantly fails it will be dogged in the markets, hurting it from gaining the required private capital needed before government intervention.
Any bank that manages to pass it though should see significant forward momentum in the short term, until some of the gloomy guys return and bring it back down a little.
So who are my picks out of the top 10 banks for having enough capitlization? Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp. BofA is my wildcard spot, but it seems to be a in better position than many put it in.
Onto the farm: A couple moved from a 1400 sq ft apartment in Beverly Hills to a 300 sq ft Airstream travel trailer (the Silver Bullet!) on a farm. With this economy, desperate times call for desperate measures, and that is exactly what they did. I’m actually pretty proud of them. I’m a city rat myself, and after spending 6 months in the country life, I was ready to come back to the city. For those who didn’t grow up to the sounds of fire trucks and police sirens, traffic, police helicopter, etc., then you would never understand how loud silence is. Or how difficult it is to go from having a world of options for fun and leisure to, well, shoveling manure.
Apparently the husband, Ed Wright, lost his 6 figure income as a result of this crisis. Leah, his wife, still had her job, but things had gotten tight. Ed’s parents invited them to come live on their for a while to save money. So they packed up the stuff (and put it in storage), bought a trailer, and moved to the boone docks. Now they are shoveling manure, showering less than daily (there is no shower in the trailer), and learning to live off the land. I’m impress though. Leah, a city rat, is getting into the groove of things too, even talking about buying a cow and growing a vegetable garden. Wow, she dived in head first!
Maybe we need more people like them though. America has gotten soft and learned to depend on others to provide. With a cow and a garden, they can get their vegetables and milk, and not really have to really on much more (still gotta buy the meat though, don’t want to cut up bessie!). They’ve learned to roll up their sleeves and go with it, and they’ll be stronger for it when things turn around. It’s what they call building character.
Naughty nurses
Man oh man! First off, I’d probably would’ve done the same thing. A x-ray of a sex toy stuck in somebody’s ass would be too good to pass by. But seriously, are we THAT stupid to post the damn thing up on your FACEBOOK! Occupation: Nurse. Hrmmm, wonder where they got that from. Isn’t there supposed to be patients rights somewhere, the whole confidentiality of medical records. Yet they couldn’t press any state charges against them?! Get real, the DA’s office was just trying not to laugh when they said that. I hope the feds pin these nurses good for it. Not that I have anything against such a great picture, but it would be better to anonymously post it on some type of humor site. Not your facebook account.
But since I got to thinking about the topic of objects inserted into a bum, I had to google it. While I haven’t found the picture from that story – yet – I did find a rather humurous blog on the matter, including some interesting X-Rays. Check out What The Devil Is In Their Anus.
Wrongfully accused
Stories like this one really piss me off. You see, we have this whole concept of justice in America. Innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, far too often we are guilty until proven innocent. Take this poor schmoe in Colorado, Timothy Masters. He found a body of a girl who was dead in 1987. He ended up being convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison back in 1999. All of a sudden, DNA evidence shows it wasn’t him, but the victim’s ex-boyfriend.
Now he is sueing. Usually I don’t take too much time in such matters. If there was enough real evidence to convict someone, then you know, sometimes the luck isn’t with you (you’re a type II error according to statisticians). But as you read along, you start to question the original conviction. Convicted of circumstantial evidence, evidence that could clear him being withheld, refusing to listen to the facts. These men who put him behind bars sound like they really needed a conviction, and quick. Those same prosecutors are now judges. If it is shown they did in fact do these things, they should be disbarred. Period. They ruined a young man’s life. He’s in his 30′s now, trying to get by, trying to get beyond everything. Can you imagine going to a job interview? They look at your background record and see that you were cleared of 1st degree murder. But he was a suspect, and convicted, and spent 10 years behind bars. If they ask “where do you see yourself in 10 years,” all he can say is “not in that damned prison!”
Innocent until proven guilty is great. But when you have unscrupulous prosecutors looking for a conviction, not because he is guilty but because he is there, then we have a problem. It took me back to the Duke Lacrosse scandal. When the news first broke I thought it was terrible, but the more that I heard, the more I believed that those guys were the real victims. End the end I was right. If you listen for the bullshit you can find it, and that DA (Nifong) had a pile of it. Now he’s going to be paying for it. He’s already lost his job and been disbarred, embarassed in front of the national media for being that blatently cruel and irresponsible, thoughtless in his actions, for a selfish gain. Let’s send him to jail to get gangraped like that stripper claimed happened to her. Sloppy police work too on that matter. Durham Police and the District Attorney messed things up so bad, it was the only time I have ever felt bad for Duke University (go Tarheels!)
For more info on the Masters’ case, check out this article on Reuters. And if you have no clue about the Duke Lacrosse scandal, check out this interesting Wikipedia entry.
