the best show on tv.

brilliant.

the absurd notion that somehow we can fix everything...

is it only me, or does anybody else find it disturbing that the economic reality we are facing today has been met (bush: the economy is strong...), or presently: 'we can rebuild, and america will once again lead the world..' is fundamentally flawed?

why do we collectively think that we (western ideology) can make everything better?

while we have been happily sailing towards the cliff edge, nobody cared, and yet as soon as the house of cards starts crumbling around us, we expect miracles (and immediate ones, at that).

greed, credit, and leverage, and a policy of deregulation created the problem, and it's not going to be fixed until we address the root cause - however unpalatable the consequences may seem, both for 'main street', which is media-financial speak for you and me, and the the investors of this world and those that work in the industry.

so here's my take:we're all in a big ditch. and we are just going to 'be' in this ditch until someone gets us out. but i can't tell you exactly when the tow truck will arrive...

...nor how deep the ditch actually is.

as for the so-called 'best & brightest' on wall st. they ALL got it wrong.

perhaps it's time to revisit whether the profit motive of the individual actually benefits the long term of the whole.

and by that, i mean the poorest of the world as well as the richest.

and there is an awful lot of the very poor that didn't benefit from all the past's wealth creation in the industrialised nations of this planet ...

or to put it another way:

why does the business cycle exist?

daytona 200

watched the daytona 200 race last night on speed channel.

if this is north america's most prestigious motorcycle road race i must be missing something.

a rolling start, safety car, cautions...the last few laps were a farce.

boring!

nascar on two wheels.

this chap won the first ever race there in 1937.
i imagine it was a lot more interesting.

better than watching the news...

been watching the long way down - a motorcycle trip from john o'groats in scotland to cape town, south africa.

liked this one more than the earlier 'long way round', perhaps because i'd seen it, and africa is such a vast, mixed continent.

adventure.

brilliant.

at least the racing's good...

great opening round from phillip island in round 1 of the world superbike championship.

haga won by just 0.032 sec in the first race, with ben spies notching up his first world superbike win in the second.

it promises to be a great season.

(among all the economic gloom & doom).

Dow Below 6,800; Lowest Close Since ’97

AIG reports biggest ever quarterly loss by a company ($460,000 a minute)


...and that's after receiving $150,000,000,000 of taxpayer money.

i must be a little slow...

credit created the problem, so we're solving it by creating more credit and securitization, so that those securities can be sold to investors that bet on them. sound familiar?

...and just what figure does 'systemic risk' amount to?

if the banks aren't willing to lend, they'll have no income. so make them give up their so-called toxic assets at a bargain price to the taxpayer, and let all americans profit when the economy turns around, instead of existing shareholders.

why do 19 banks have more say than 300 million people?

everybody else is having to 'deleverage'.

oh well, i guess it's just bad luck if you're retiring soon and you had all your savings in equities...

but that's your problem, right?

six nations - ireland vs england

england play ireland today at croke park (ireland).

have to pick ireland at home.

:(

5 weeks to change the past 30 years...

it took obama just 5 weeks to reverse an economic policy in america that has prevailed since reagan took office.

let the rich pay, instead of the poor.

like i always say, it has to get really bad before it gets better.

wait for the sell-off on wall st, when 4th qtr GDP figures bring home reality to what's going on.

comet in the night sky

o.k. the challenge is to spot it from heavily light-polluted downtown washington, d.c.

that very bright 'star' you see in the early evening night sky is actually venus.

i'll have a go this evening using binoculars.

saturn should be easy, but i'm not too hopeful about spotting the comet (at least it will be clear - er, and very cold up on my rooftop)



see:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/35992534.html

it's not all bad news.

2009 world superbikes begins next weekend.

philips island in australia.















and yes, that is a bmw (not the girl).

New York Post Apologizes for Chimp Cartoon

how can one cartoon manage to fuck up on 3 levels?

the woman who was attacked.

the new president who has to fix the mess the last one got us into.

oh, and racism.

that's pretty good going.

your future - brought to you by the american people who put him in office..TWICE

republican = tax cuts. just ask californians, whose republican governer can't even get his own party to support him in an effort to balance the budget.

that's it.

welcome to a new era.

i predict that the S&P will go down to 650, and the DOW will tumble to 6,500 before we emerge from the greatest financial crisis since the great depression.

just think about that. greater than a world war and the oil crisis, and 9/11.

it's the great unwind of credit-created assets and wealth, deregulated financial markets, and an ideology that simply has been proven wrong.
free markets clearly don't work without a government protecting the interests of the taxpayer.

obama can't 'mend' the economy in an instant, just like we didn't get here in an instant. the only difference is that this time, everybody will feel the impact. and it's going to take time.
only this time you will be paying.

in 4 years time, when it's time to re-elect, remember how successful tax cuts and 8 years of a republican president has worked out for you.

it could be worse...McCain could be your 'trickle down' president, right now.

the republican party looks so 20th century.
sorry, make that 18th century.

apologies for not blogging enough...

A-Rod signs new endorsement megadeal.

...along with every other MLB baseball player.

image of the day

bank loans - simplified

...and we have to give you $700,000,000,000 of tax payer money to keep you in business.

why doesn't the government just give each working, retired and unemployed american, school kid, college student, 3-month old baby, et al, a check for $2,300?

now that's a stimulus package.

motorcycling in god's country...

it's true - michael phelps is dope

feel-bad photo of the day award...

it's your typical superbowl sunday at the whitehouse

yes, it's business as usual at the whitehouse...

five of the 15 lawmakers invited to join obama are from pennsylvania, and two are from arizona. there are four senators and 11 representatives. the group includes 11 democrats and four republicans.






kurt warner - always praying to god and giving thanks when he wins, but whenever he fucks up, he's like a teenager who can't get laid.

biden is also hosting a Superbowl party at the naval observatory.

if arizona wins, flat eric says he will go without beer for a whole week...

spot the wanker...

a few photos from inauguration day

to those we knew and those we didn't.

what a great day.























flat eric seemed to be having a good time...

cheers to this family that drove up from north carolina and slept in their freezing cold car overnight, just so that they & their children could witness this historic occasion.

brilliant!

a new beginning...

and the best photo from the international motorcycle show goes to:

a real hero, and one that isn't in the US military (although he used to be)

wow. there actually is some good news.

this pilot, his co-pilot, and the crew of the airbus that landed on/in the hudson really deserve special recognition from the city of new york.

of course, Al-Qaeda are now looking into how to go about training flocks of geese into suicide birds...

"i'm not bad, i'm just drawn that way..."

the definition of cognitive disonance:

steve jobs' health, and apple's ability (the most image conscious company in the world) to send a clear message to its consumers and those that invest in the company.

the absudity of humanity in the 21st century

what is it about us humans that makes us so special/different from every other living entity on planet earth?

we seem capable of achieving incredible things:

intensive care units and the people, knowledge, and technology that today can save a human life.

touch-screen cell phones!, with streaming video, and the internet? - i watched star trek as a kid, and i'm pretty sure i didn't spot a single one.

and then of course, the same old shit: we are just seemingly incapable of not killing each other, because we hold different views.

global warming? - fuck global warming. if the human species wants to survive, we'd first better start to learn how to get along.

in case anyone hasn't noticed, we don't have anywhere else to go...planet earth is our ONLY HOME, for the foreseeable future.

...thanks, israel, for making the start of 2009 so fucking different.
you really are a bunch of cunts who, along with your enemies deserve to wipe each other out.

after all, isn't that exactly what you've both been doing since i was a kid, growing up, going to school, and watching star trek?

1,000 palestinians dead. and the west just wags it's flaccid finger in response.

the peace process is just too fucking predictable.

who the fuck believes there will ever be peace in the middle east?

cheers, god.

because if he exists, then he's biggest cunt of all time.

and for for all you christians, i'll tell him so if i ever get the chance (conveniently, when i'm dead, of course...)

but somehow, i rather doubt that.

image of the day goes to:

international motorcycle show

https://buytickets.motorcycleshows.com/tickets.aspx?sh=533

we're going today.

International Dark Sky Association

it's 400 years since galileo first turned a telescope to the night sky and changed science forever.

sadly, most of us living in light-polluted cities never get to see what's up above because of wasted energy continually pumped into the night sky.

you can do something.

join:

http://www.change.org/the_international_dark-sky_association_inc

http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do

i will post a change.org invitation shortly

a bigger & faster galaxy - and it's ours.

from sky & telescope:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/37151649.html

The team finds that the galaxy's rotation rate is 270 kilometers per second (600,000 miles per hour). This is 15 percent faster than previously thought. And that in turn means the Milky Way is more massive than previously believed. In fact, it puts our galaxy on equal footing with our nearest large neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).

Because Andromeda has more stars than the Milky Way, astronomers have generally assumed that it was about 50 percent more massive. But this new result agrees with a study published two years ago by Mark Wilkinson (Cambridge University, England) and his colleagues. By studying the motions of satellite dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, they found that the Milky Way is at least as massive, and maybe more so, than Andromeda.

“We should no longer think of the Milky Way as the little sister of the Local Group of galaxies,” says Reid. “The two galaxies are basically fraternal twins — equal in mass.”

and we are all moving at 600,000 miles per hour...

2009: a new year of technical frustration begins...

Welcome to QuickBooks Sales Chat. You are now chatting with 'Madel'. I'll be your QuickBooks Business Consultant. How can I help you today?

Madel: Hi. Thank you for chatting with us today! May I have your name please?

you: i am a bookkeeper and run QB Pro 2007. i have a new client who runs QB mac 2006 (i think). he has joined with a company who runs QB Pro 2008. what version of QB will he need in order to access 2008 files on a mac?

Madel: I'll be happy to assists you with your concern!

Madel: You can access the 2008 file to QuickBooks 2009, however the Windows users need to have the same version of Mac to be able to access the files.

you: so he can access the existing 2008 QB pro (windows) files on his mac by buying 2 versions?

Madel: Yes that is correct!

you: what a rip off!

you: existing quickbooks customers now not only have to deal with your pointless yearly upgrades, but amazingly have to buy 2 more versions!

Madel: I do understand how you feel, if you really want to open the files into 2 different platforms then you really need to have 2 versions.

you: i doubt very much that you have purchased quickbooks for clients and had to go and tell them they have to upgrade...

you: why no mac version for 2008?

Madel: Our Product Development Team spend 2 years in giving a newer and better QuickBooks for Mac platform, that is the reason why we do not have Mac 2008.

you: newer & better is relative. certainly not from my & my client's perspective.

Madel: Would there be any other questions for me that I may answer for today?

you: to open a company file (a company having purchased 2008 pro) my new client now has to buy 2 more versions?

Madel: Will your client be staying on Mac platform or windows?

you: er...he's a mac user. why do you think i am writing this?

Madel: I will be right with you.

you: this is an impressive exchange...

Madel: Just want to clarify things so I can provide you your options.

you: my options look like buying 2 more of your products. yes?

Madel: Yes, if you want to be able to access 2008 files on a Mac.

you: so what other options are you talking about?

Madel: You can stay with Windows by just using one software.

you: he's Mac user!

you: i shall post this exchange on my blog.

motorsport also suffers in global downturn

suzuki announces that they are to quit the World Rally Championship,













honda will not compete in F1 in 2009,

















subaru also confirmed they were to end their 20-year involvement in the sport immediately.















and kawasaki are set to pull out of motogp.