Memnison Journal

Hedge Fund founder who lost a serious bundle in the Madoff ponzi scheme commits suicide, and no, he didn’t jump out a window.
The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank are a political nightmare that any government will have serious problems with and neither main party coalition wants to deal with.  Of course, government policies [...]

Saudi man needs money, and essentially sells off his eight-year-old daughter for $5000 for marriage to a 58-year-old-guy.  Horrified mom takes it to court.  Court sides with the dad, and says the kid can make the decision to go for a divorce - when she’s older.   Like puberty.

HBO production and presently running on that network.  My take on it is that it’s a once-funny;  I have a hard time watching gangster movies because I really don’t get off on people beating and killing each other, especially if the people involved doing the beating are serious scum.   This is SOPRANOS GO BAGHDAD; [...]

He also mooted the possibility that the Russian government would buy some of its metal products to shore up falling demand.
At under $50 a barrel, the Russian government is taking a beating, because their Big Ticket was oil and gas.   The entire economy was not based on industrial production, but in raking in petrodollars.   [...]

Panic in various circles over the mistaken notion that ‘Obama’s going to shut down gun shops and confiscate our guns‘.
Various people who were proclaiming Obama’s victory in  OMG terms now doing a ‘never mind’ response.
Dogs are adopting kittens in Jiangmen, Meredith’s home town in China, but you can’t adopt or foster children if you aren’t [...]

Details after the cut.

Bill Kristol on Fox News suggests that Bush give Musharraf asylum in the USA, then naturalize him, and have Obama pick him for VP. Har har.
Moooo-slim.  Daaaar-ky.  Harharhar.

I’d pay attention to the Georgia / Russia if I were you guys.   There’s more than you think at stake.

4/07 - MRS. BUSH:
Oh, I know that very much. And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this, and certainly the commander in chief, who has asked our military to go into harm’s way.

4/07:  BUSH, interviewed by Charlie Rose on Maliki possibly wanting the US to leave [...]

Wikipedia article here, and discussion on LiveJournal here and here about this shortlived British dependancy in what is now Greece - where some outer islands sought British protection after freeing themselves from the Ottoman Empire. When Greece became a nation, they joined up and the British left.

The interesting part of the last week, of course, was to watch McCain be seriously stupid in the face of Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe. The whole thing started off with McCain double-dast-daring that gormless Obama guy to be a real man and walk down a Baghdad street like he did, [...]

After the last week of major screwups from McCain, including the whole “surge is when I say it is, ignore history business”, and things like accusing Obama of being responsible for the rise in gas prices and willing to ‘lose the Iraq war deliberately in order to win the 2008 election’, it looks as if [...]

McCain: And not only, that, but Obama’s chicken to go to Iraqi like I did.  Chick-en!  Bgawk!
Obama: Wha?
Army: Do we need to get all those armed guards ready again for the trip through the marketplace?
McCain: (makes more chicken noises, flaps around)
Obama: Cripes, what a loon.  What the heck, let’s go.
Various Foreign Leaders: Wow, an American [...]

Bushco: Ok, just sign here that we can stay as long as we like, do whatever we want in Iraq without being bothered, and sign over all your oil to our pals for development.
Iraqi PM Maliki: Screw that noise. No deal.
Bushco: Dude, we own you.  For good.
Iraqi PM Maliki: ‘Fraid not. Hey, Salim?
Assistant: [...]

…and besides, unlike the wife, I’ve never gotten through his works.
Regular readers will note that the tags I put on posts are plentiful and sometimes sound goofy; that may be because it’s conceptual shorthand to me. ‘kubler-ross’, ‘renmin’, or ’sep_reality’, for example. The first has to deal with posts on death and [...]