A Lawyer Mom's Musings

"Giving Back to the Community" the Romney Way

2012-01-25T16:53:00.024-06:00

Romney's tax rate is more like 40 or 50% or something, he said today. Good grief, what took him so long to get that out?

And Romney says paying his taxes is "giving back to the community."

Let's face it: only silly conservatives would deny such a progressive truth, and he ain't one.

In less taxing news, you can put your tissues away for Warren Buffett's secretary. Debbie Bosanek is actually a one-percenter, grossing a boat-load of at least $200,000.00. Say, Debbie, have you room in your boat for me?

In Nancy-the-Nanny news, she, uh, really doesn't know anything about Gingrich that isn't already public record. Sigh. The titillation was sure fun while it lasted.

Finally, in case you missed last night's riveting State of the Union address, here are the salient points:

Or, you can skip the video and read my executive summary: "Been there, haven't done it yet, give me four more."

Copyright © 2012, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Come About, Sir Romney. Come About!

2012-01-21T19:19:00.012-06:00

Greetings this evening as watchful souls turn to their eyes to South Carolina.

During the interminable intermission I've read oodles of analyses on Newt's risings, and two theories emerge: "voters love Newt because they loathe the liberal media" and "Newt is just a place holder until the real savior comes along."

A brokered convention would be amazing. Fascinating. A veritable popcorn festival. And right now, I don't know which end is up.

But a brokered convention is entirely possible. Because if South Carolinian GOPs can embrace an old wart-hog like Newt, the national GOP will bear-hug a barely-vetted Daniels in Tampa.

Aye, but speculation is my hobby. Tonight puts me in mind of my (limited) sailing days, when the captain would shout, "Come about! Come about!" And Romney got hit by the boom.

Ahoy, fair maties. May the best man win.

XOXO

Copyright © 2012, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

As South Carolina Turns . . .

2012-01-19T18:10:00.034-06:00

We're well into soap-opera territory tonight, folks.

Rick Perry has pulled out and endorsed Newt.

Newt's ex-wife Marianne has an interesting definition of "open marriage."

As for Romney . . . um, where should I start?

He lost Iowa, for starters.

He's an awkward, well-heeled, gosh-golly-gee: the Mr. Rogers of the GOP, with millions in the Caymans and a Mormon family crest.

His own tax returns are like a cross to a vampire for some inexplicable -- and thus, increasingly intriguing -- reason.

Worst of all: those devastating debate clips from 1994.

On reproductive rights, gay rights, and Reagan:

Romney, Romney, we never knew ye! But we sure would've liked ye!

So tune into night for another episode. 8PM Eastern time, CNN. Our multiple choices have been pared down to four. Although with Romney, I suppose you do get a few more.

Copyright © 2012, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Ruh-roh! Obama Gets His Bane On.

2012-01-13T19:07:00.076-06:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

It's called . . . Solyndra. And it ain't pretty.

If Obama intends to make Bain Capital the bane of Romney's existence, well . . . sauce for the goose, all's fair in love and war, and all that.
But at least Romney's Bain capital came from willing, informed, private investors -- rather than hapless, oblivious, no-choice-in-the-matter taxpayers (But umm, c.f. this little number --

. . . from Ted Kennedy's campaign back in the '90s. It alleges Bain took taxpayer $$. Oh my. Haven't researched this enough to venture an opinion but I include it because, say what you will, I do strive to be fair and balanced.)

At least Bain's plays weren't offensive political ploys to buy union votes.

At least Bain's investors (which might include your own 401(k) or pension fund) enjoyed ~~decent~~ huge returns -- unlike the regular-folk tax-payer chumps who lost every penny in Obama's "green" game. Obama, and Obama, alone, took all the Solyndra gains.

Obviously I could go on and on.

And obviously, I'd rather not be writing a blog post about the GOP front-runner prefaced with so many "at leasts." It's no secret that a Romney fan I am not.

He's too hair-sprayed, too stiff, too controlled. He's not authentic and lays everything on way too thick, with a George Hamilton Chiclet face. Shivers!

There's something (hard as it might be to quantify) that, as my hairdresser put it today, "creeps me out about the guy." If he's the nominee, you'll get no grass-roots coffee-tea-come-meet-the-GOP-nominee from me.

Nevertheless, if Obama wants to invite comparisons of his policies to Romney's profitable adventures in capitalism, it shan't end well. That venture will prove to be a Pandora's box of hell. So how shall I put it? "Bane On"?

(h/t Hotair.com)

Copyright © 2012, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

God Bless You Please, Mr. Robinson

2012-01-11T00:21:00.013-06:00

Look, I'll just say it now: no one in the GOP field makes me want to jump out of bed in the morning except, perhaps, Ron Paul. And if he weren't as big as he is, Chris Christie should be afraid to meet me in a dark alley. But if Rick Santorum is an extreme "culture warrior," as Eugene Robinson ~~codes~~ labels him, what then is Mitt Romney? A cultured Mormon?

Give a listen, as Mr. Robinson favors us with his omniscience:

Here's the money quote, if you want to skip the video:

“I certainly didn’t mean to offend anybody, especially Mr. Santorum. But it was in a discussion of his views, and, you know, which I consider extreme, and Santorum himself who is a cultural — culture warrior extraordinaire, whose faith — and we all appreciate someone of deep faith — but it is — it is extremely deep, and it’s a kind of faith that some people, I think, are going to be… if not surprised by… at least want to know more about.”

The context? Robinson was walking back -- ish -- his remarks about Santorum's grieving over his newborn who died shortly after birth. As for the rest of his comments, Robinson lunged forward with a sword.

Santorum's religious views are "extreme," Mr. Robinson pronounced. "They're offensive and objectionable, and so totally wrong." Santorum, he declared, "is a guy who should never become president."

At last we have a religious arbiter. Why has no one alerted the Pope?

So, Mr. Robinson could you try on another one for size, and tell us whether it is also "totally wrong"?

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so."

-- Brigham Young; March 1863 Journal of Discourses 10:110

(Psst: speaking of the dead, did you know Mormons baptize living people in the name of, and to save, the dead? Why no comment on this, Gene? Is it just too weird for you?)

True, Robinson did criticize Obama's longtime pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. But he was really decrying Wright's "egocentric" derailment of Obama's campaign, not attacking (much less, ridiculing) the merits of Wright's religious convictions. Convictions like:

“Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.”

—James Cone, whose words were cited on Rev. Wright’s church website.

In Mr. Robinson's self-esteemed judgment, neither Wright's faith, or Obama's, was the "kind of faith people will at least want to know more about."

But why not, sir?

Isn't that determination racist in itself, Mr. Robinson? Vilifying Hillary Clinton -- simply because she was born white -- is racism in its most invidious, evil form. Surely you find these beliefs totally objectionable and offensive, as well. So please, sir, explain your silence.

Fact is, Santorum's religious beliefs are no more or less worthy of our scrutiny than Obama's. Or Romney's. Certainly Mormonism, like Black theology, is "an extremely deep kind of faith" that people "want to know more about." Count mine as an inquiring mind.
Years ago when I was a young lawyer, I worked for a Mormon. He was a lovely man: kind, thoughtful, decent, and utterly devout. He could never be alone with a woman at any time, for any reason, no matter what (unless she was his wife).

As an example, we once settled a case at the courthouse, just before trial. Being the baby lawyer on the matter, I was saddled with all the boxes of documents and I'd parked miles away. He'd gotten a spot right there at the courthouse curb, so I asked him for a ride. But he couldn't take me to my car because his religious beliefs prohibited him from being alone with me -- even briefly, in plain view, in broad daylight, in a bustling downtown.

So yes, I do wonder: could Romney meet Condoleeza Rice alone in the Oval for an emergency 3AM briefing? Or might he decide it's just easier not to have a woman in his cabinet at all?

In asking these questions, I'm not questioning Romney's faith. Absolutely I believe Romney is a devout Mormon. But I do want to know the tenets of his faith. What do Mormons believe? How is it wrong or unfair to ask whether Romney's religious beliefs would affect his cabinet appointments or any other decision that touches me?

There's nothing anti-constitutional or discriminatory about it (notwithstanding Kenneth Starr's poorly-reasoned, pastry puff piece to the contrary). Mr. Robinson pretends the other extreme, purporting to pick on Santorum's religion because gosh, his faith is so "extremely deep" and "surprising" that we "want to know more about it."

Talk about "pious baloney." Is Obama's faith not also deep and equally interesting? Or Romney's? Mr. Robinson's gobsmacking gander deserves some sauce:

"One reason the world’s best and brightest still want to come here is that the Constitution protects freedom of worship. No matter what the prejudiced purveyors of anti-Islam vitriol might say, this guarantee covers Muslims just like everybody else."

But no matter what the prejudiced purveyors of anti-Christian vitriol might say, this guarantee doesn't cover Catholics -- at least in your book -- now does it, Mr. Robinson? Because they are not free to practice their religion if they also seek public office, are they?

And perhaps Robinson is right. I say we examine and meaningfully discuss -- not summarily diss and dismiss -- the religious beliefs of all the candidates. Questions about a candidate's beliefs are not off limits, or taboo, nor do they "offend the Constitution." If a Christian Scientologist or fundamentalist Muslim were running for president, would anyone seriously argue we should all stay dumb and mum?

We absolutely ought to be asking about an office-seeker's religious beliefs and whether and how those views would affect his decisions in office. There's nothing offensive about it, and don't let anyone -- not even Ken Starr -- persuade you otherwise.

Now, I'm no fan of Rick Santorum. But the hypocritical Mr. Robinson reaches new heights of viciousness when he executes a selective Catholic smack-down -- under the guise of, "meh, I'm just informing voters about a 'weird, dead-baby grieving story'" -- as he labors to keep Obama's religious views under lock and key.

But God bless Mr. Robinson anyway, even if he is just an attacking little meringue.

Copyright © 2012, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Introducing the Voters of 2012

2011-12-31T01:25:00.011-06:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this video captures a million gourds. Fair maidens, ring in the new year with the Voters of 2012!

The intelligence! Oh the intellect!
Rejoice! There is so much to cheer.
We've a steady supply of workers yet –
Isn't Social Security still here?

What's that, you say?
Chin up, jobless friend!
In 2012, we ought all be gay.
Still hopeful, though changeless,
More Obama portends
This ode's mere political hay.

Ode to the Welfare State
(circa 1949, by Rep. Clarence J. Brown)

Father, must I go to work?
No, my lucky son.
We’re living now on Easy Street
On dough from Washington.

We’ve left it up to Uncle Sam,
So don’t get exercised.
Nobody has to give a damn –
We’ve all been subsidized.

But if Sam treats us all so well
And feeds us milk and honey,
Please, daddy, tell me what the hell
He’s going to use for money.

Don’t worry, bub, there’s not a hitch
In this here noble plan –
He simply soaks the filthy rich
And helps the common man.

But, father, won’t there come a time
When they run out of cash
And we have left them not a dime
When things will go to smash?

My faith in you is shrinking, son,
You nosy little brat;
You do too damn much thinking, son,
To be a Democrat.

Cheers!

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Target Nursing, Paula Deen, and a Few Things In Between

2011-12-28T18:25:00.162-06:00

Happy days between holidays, frothy play-dates to all. And to all fair maidens, a very good knight. And now for my rumblings, where to begin?

The nurse-in at Target? Umm, no, my kid's ten. Our economy's crashing and I've no rat's-a** to give.

Then, there was the Muslim "honor" killing in Texas on Christmas Day. But it's heartbreaking, and depressing.

And besides, why blog it when the "honor killing" jihad facet is already getting top billing in the mainstream? (Psst - skip the local paper's fussy registration by going to this obscure site for a full reprint.)

Not least, and not last, there's the effervescent Fed.
I thought about blogging a "toldjah" post on ~~the Federal Reserve's~~ your bail-out of Europe. But my feel-goodness stems from my firmly-held prediction that this bail-out would be utterly obfuscated, shrouded in confusing Fed-speak.

Alas, I was right. Alas, my vindication came too soon. Still, all I can say is it's bad for our country and I'm powerless to explain why. This hardly feels good.

For now, I'm only equipped to leave it at this: Bernanke is bailing out Europe via extremely complicated currency swap lines. (But I did email my man-crush at Khan Academy today, begging him to do a video on currency swap lines. Laugh not. He actually responded to me once, and I want that on my tombstone. So, fingers crossed.)

In closing, let's fill these in-between days with a lighter note. It's a Paula Deen Krispy-Kreme/hamburger video, set extra S-L-O-W. (And a big h/t to my sister for this one):

(The first comment on YouTube? "I have a weird boner right now." Lawd, I about wet my pants watching this one).

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The Humanity

2011-12-22T16:35:00.019-06:00

Lord, but retail politics can be excruciating.

Here, Newt takes a Piggly-Wiggly by storm.

But after paying your dues, you can have a bit of fun.

(h/t Hotair.com)

Update: This one was fun, too.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Going the Extra Mile (Hypothetically)

2011-12-15T16:12:00.086-06:00

Maybe it's just a tall Texas tale, but I've been told that every once in a while, a jury will cut a fellow loose because he had such a terrible lawyer. They take pity on the poor guy and find him not guilty. But I've never seen it. And "ineffective assistance" rarely succeeds on appeal. At least in Texas, bad lawyers almost always hurt the client -- and hurt 'em bad.

Years ago when I interned for a judge, I watched a personal injury trial. A woman had been badly hurt when a car rear-ended her; she had a legitimate claim. But the jury gave her nothing. After the verdict, I interviewed the jurors to find out why. They said they believed she'd really been hurt, but they gave her a big fat zero anyway because her lawyer was so bad. "She just needs to get a good lawyer and try again," one of them said. "She'll get some money next time."

Well, since "next times" are almost never, Jerry Sandusky may want to get a new lawyer now. Because the newest addition to his defense team, a Mr. Karl Rominger, is making me feel kind of sorry for old Jerry, and a wee bit sick.

In a television interview, Rominger suggested that showering with boys as old as fourteen was all part of Sandusky's Second Mile duties because, well, some of them just don't know how to bathe at that age. To wit:

"Teaching a person to shower at the age of 12 or 14 sounds strange to some people, but people who work with troubled youth will tell you there are a lot of juvenile delinquents and people who are dependent who have to be taught basic life skills like how to put soap on their body.”

So you see, there was nothing strange about it. Sandusky was just going the extra mile, teaching basic life skills to boys in the throes of puberty.

Dear God in heaven, that sort of logic is so twisted it hurts my head. But wait. It gets worse.

Shortly after this disastrous interview, Rominger clarified: he was simply offering a hypothetical explanation for why a grown man might touch a boy in a shower. He wasn't saying Sandusky actually touched boys in the shower.

Ohhhh. Well now that clears things up considerably. He was just explaining how something that never happened might have . . . happened. And happened innocently! I get it. Eureka. Anyway, as I was saying, I don't think the stupid-lawyer trick is going to work out too well for Sandusky.

Granted, Amendola's Gomer Pyle defense might not have worked either. But at least it made sense.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Feeling Mercurial?

2011-12-12T22:23:00.023-06:00

You want more "sky is falling"? Baby, I can give you more sky. Watch this.

Without any light bulbs, it's no wonder Corzine wouldn't break.

For more blue-sky-fallings, see below.
______________________________________________

No more incandescent light bulbs will be sold in the U.S., beginning in 2012. But hip hippie hooray. The new CFL (compact fluorescent lighting) bulbs are greener, and cheaper. These amazing creatures will enhance orgasms and organisms, save planets, save lives!

My God, they're from Europe. What more need ye know?

Except when they break. But oy vey, the sorrow when they break -- especially if you have children in the house. Because CFLs are filled with mercury. A helpful tip from U.S. News? Put a drop cloth down before screwing one into a lamp!

Because if one of these CFL lovelies gets broken when you're rushing out the door to soccer practice or carpool, oh, no. Oh, woe. You are so screwed.

In the event of breakage, the EPA has this to say (here, for convenience, let me summarize: haz-mat, evacuate, and renovate):

Before Cleanup

Have people and pets leave the room.

Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment.

Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.

Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:

stiff paper or cardboard;
sticky tape;
damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.

During Cleanup

DO NOT VACUUM. Vacuuming is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken. Vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor.

Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.

Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.

After Cleanup

Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly. Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.

If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.

If you can't follow all these steps but you're still concerned about mercury ~~poisoning~~ exposure -- and rightly so! Call your doctor, says the confidence-inspiring pass-the-buck EPA.

And all this time, I thought the autism lobby was huge.

(Umm, did I never tell you about the time my kid and his friend squashed an outdoor Christmas light bulb on the street, just for fun? Well, the resident special-needs-kid-lawyer-mom was not happy. Her email to me read, "and the exposure your son caused to said mercury was a foreseeable and proximate cause" of death and pestilence and so on and so forth. I wrote back, "Is this a pleading, or what?" and that was that . . . at least for now. I'm waiting for the statute of limitations to run before I can be sure.)

But moving right along with the autism lobby or not, I'm not buying one of those damn CFLs. No how, no way. Call me mercurial, call me crazy. Call me anti-litigious. And I'm not the only one.

No, I'm going fully intuitive on this full moon, off to Amazon to continue my stockpiling. Now then. For all those in favor of more government in our bedrooms, say "~~aye~~ fry!" No mood-setting dimmers for you!

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The Unbearable Darkness of Being

2011-12-08T09:11:00.055-06:00

Image: Pawelmorski
The "will work" circle is pure fantasy. NOTHING will work.

Greetings and ~~glad~~ sad tidings during this epochal Euro intermission.

I do hate being the bearer of bad news, but for all fair maidens with brokerage accounts-- heck, maybe even CDs or mutual funds -- this is must reading. It's the scariest thing I've read all year, frankly. Maybe the scariest thing ever.

But despite the "hypothecation," it's an article you can understand, written in plain English. So give it a go. Never let it be said I didn't tell you so. Ignorance will not be bliss.

No wonder we're kicking the can down the road. Except it's a nuclear bomb we're kicking and it's already set to detonate. Plus, we're running out of road. And kicks. Yeah, those, too.

Brace for impact.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Eurocalypse: Towards a Simpler Explanation for Lay Moms

2011-12-05T15:44:00.026-06:00

Before we turn to world affairs, let me first mention the free and trusty Stat Counter so many bloggers have come to ~~love~~ hate. It tells me loads of people are visiting my blog these days but it's cold comfort since most are middle easterners searching for "s*x" with soccer moms.

Still, Stat tells me I have a few true blues and you guys encourage me to keep on keeping on. As one favorite TED lecturer Sir Ken explains, it goes sort of like this: if a man speaks his mind in the forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong? I figure if my tried-and-trues read me, well then, I must have written something.

But moving on to the point of my post. My sister and I were talking about the sovereign debt crisis the other day and I realized my last Euro post was singularly unhelpful for multi-tasking non-econ moms; I started way too far down the learning curve.

Photo credit: True Woman blog

So here's my do-over: a plain and simple explanation of the Euro crisis, why a Euro crash means we'll get a crash over here a lot faster, and a question or two for the experts about dollar printing and the aftermath.

Our story begins with Francesca, a kitten-loving, sexy single mom who volunteers at the animal shelter. Once upon a time she was a successful, driven lawyer. In her high-powered days she had excellent credit, lived high on the hog, and amassed a bunch of credit cards and a mammoth debt to her dentist.

Photo credit: Leaving Law

Francesca's neighbor, Jerman, had a big crush on her and, just to be gallant, he co-signed on her car loan, her mortgage, her boat note, you name it. (Her dentist, alas, was secured only by her crowns of gold, making foreclosure without Guido nigh impossible.) Jerman's gallantry pleased Francesca, but not enough to sleep with him. But moving right along, as things quickly did . . .

All went well until it suddenly didn't. Francesca's income dropped like a stone. Her clients sent her fewer and fewer cases and demanded she reduce her hourly fees. Still, Francesca held on for a while, buying gas and groceries on her credit cards and spending money on her children like there was no tomorrow. (She's uncannily prescient, our Francesca.) Everyone -- even Jerman -- ~~ignored her balance sheet~~ was fooled.

Photo credit: Primped and Primed

But the day finally came when Francesca hit the wall. She could buy no more. At Target, the credit card terminal beeped, "DECLINED." Francesca blushed and fled the store, leaving her groceries and toilet paper behind. She saw her dentist in the parking lot and promptly threw up.

She applied for another credit card, but the ~~bond market~~ credit card company, Triple A, said hell no, girlfriend, you must be on drugs. Within days, Francesca couldn't even make the minimum interest payments on the credit cards she did have. The ~~bond vigilantes~~ tele-collectors began ringing her at all hours of the night.

Then Francesca's spoiled children (who would never dream of carrying a paper route or otherwise contributing) rebelled against her austerity measures: rice and beans, no cable TV, no tennis camps, no Christmas Wii. She even sold their ipads on Craigslist.

They spit on her, jumped on the beds, continually disobeyed her, and let the toilets overflow. This brought on a nervous breakdown and Francesca became completely unable to negotiate with anyone for anything. Overnight, her children ousted her and the family's gardener took control.Worse, Jerman turned his back on her. Since she'd refused to sleep with him, he had no use for her now. Sometimes at night she could hear him in his backyard, drunk, cursing her. "Screw you, Francesca Silk Pajamas! You are stupid, stupid, stupid."

So what should become of Francesca? Should we say she made her bed and she alone must lie in it? A reasonable response, certainly. Except that would put Jerman the tippler in a pickle since he'll be forced to pay off her loans. Recall that in his quest to bed her, he guaranteed most of her debts.

Photo credit: Sexy Food Therapy

Also factoring in, Jerman's neighbor Porgy was smitten with Francesca's sister Italiana. Jerman had agreed to set up Porgy and Italiana on a blind date if Porgy promised to help Jerman in the unlikely event high-powered Francesca went belly up.

Porgy readily agreed to backstop Jerman because Francesca's demise was unthinkable at the time. Besides, Porgy's brother Ire owed him a bunch of money and Ire owned a million dollar ranch in Nappa. Porgy told himself that if Francesca ever defaulted -- and surely she wouldn't -- he could collect from Ire and seize his pricey ranch, if need be.

There are many other side deals between these people I haven't told you about, because not even I, the story-teller, know them all. Suffice it to say, these fiercely independent, emotional folks are intimately connected and wildly co-dependent.

They live in the same subdivision and their kids go to the same schools. Some immigrant Muslims live in the neighborhood, too. This is fine by Porgy and Ire, who love diversity. But Francesca and Jerman are most suspicious of the Muslims and have excluded them from all block parties.

And this just in: Ire owes UniSta big money. If he doesn't pay, UniSta will go bust.

But back to Francesca. If we don't bail her out, you know the drill.

Jerman will get called to pay her bills, and Jerman will look to Porgy. Porgy can't help, though, because he had been counting on Ire if he ran into trouble and Ire is broke because his Nappa ranch is worthless. And UniSta is counting on Ire. Unbeknownst to all, UniSta took up with an unsavory prostitute named Fannie Prey and it's nearly insolvent.

Last but certainly not least, Francesca's dentist has hired Guido to get back his gold crowns. Guido will have to kill Francesca when he "repossesses" them and her children will be orphaned.

Granted, this is complicated. Relationships always are. Still, it's not rocket science. Just about everything, always, revolves around sex, money, and religion. No, we certainly can't say the story is dull. But there's a horrific domino effect if we leave Francesca out in the cold.

Now imagine these histrionic characters are real countries: France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and so on. And UniSta represents the American banks. If one of these foreign characters goes down, U.S. banks will get hit as well. And I guess we can go ahead make the UK the angry dentist in our sordid tale.

Alrighty then. You understand sovereign bonds, liquidity crises, credit default swaps, hedging, netting, credit markets, and contagion. So be intimidated never more by the fancy financial analysts you hear on TV. And (sorry, fair maidens, but it must be said): you are all grown-up now. The pundits -- nay, most economists -- are no wiser than you.

Now assume with me that if a European country fails, U.S. banks could fail, too, from panic if nothing else. Customers would get their FDIC insured deposits back, but the shareholders and bondholders and creditors would get ~~haircuits~~ not so much. And money market funds? Oy, vey. Don't even go there. So, given this backdrop, what should the Fed do?

Well, we already know Bernanke believes that if our banks fail, the world will come to a fiery end -- Mad Maxxy pandemonium, with people hoarding food, ammo, guns, gold and whiskey. To wit: the secret $7.7 Trillion TARP, which was done to stop runs on our banks.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

But to avoid the END OF THE WORLD as he views it, Bernanke's Fed has printed, and will continue to print US dollars fast and furiously, into eternity. The Fed will loan these newly minted dollars to the IMF, which will then loan them to the ECB ("European Central Bank" -- or the EFSF. Whatev.).

The ECB or EFSF will then loan the money to the various European countries who can't make the minimum payments on their ~~credit cards~~ bonds, and can't borrow (i.e., sell bonds) any more. And the Fed will have rescued Europe, at least for now. Scared foreign money will fly into our markets and the DOW will easily hit 13,000. But be ye not lulled; all is not well.

[NB: When the Fed bails out Europe, Bernanke's masterfully confusing explanations will leave your head spinning. Media reports will say stuff like the Fed was "easing liquidity shortfalls" or "injecting stability into the markets" or some other obfuscatory horse shit.]

Once trillions more U.S. dollars have been printed, and our dollar is so weak from inflation that it can't be trusted to hold its value, other countries will stop trading in dollars. They'll ask us to buy their oil in kronas or yen instead. Speaking of Mad Max, what then?

Peter Schiff likes to say, "Remember the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules." I say, "He who controls the money supply controls the world." Same thing, I guess.

My blog-crush, the Epicurean Dealmaker, says I can flush out good stuff from experts by pretending to be one and then opining from an erroneous premise. The experts, Epicurean claims, will be drawn to my drivel like moths to a porch light, eager to argue and offer their wisdoms.

Photo credit: "trevorpersons" -- Flickr

So I'm turning on the porch light with this premise: the Fed will bail out Europe via the IMF to save our banks and, I opine, the currency war we are already in will get very scary.

No one has declared a Fed-cum-IMF bail out a fait accompli except me. (Oh wait -- just in, there's this). Now I'll grant you, in a game of chicken, you never know who will first blink. But come on, fellas. This is not a hard call, hope as I might to be wrong.

So yoo-hoo, all ye experts, tell me I'm crazy. Or if I'm not, what happens when our dollar is worthless? Because we've got little kids, a little cash in the bank, and we want to know how a currency collapse plays out in our back yards, in our 401ks, at the grocery store.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Obama Gets a Dad and Other Life Lessons

2011-11-29T21:52:00.013-06:00

Every year, just before Thanksgiving, my kid's school has a special day called "Great Friends Day." It's a big deal, complete with cookies and Kool-Aid, a Christmas Carols choir, and valet parking.

Now, this special day started out with a fairly conventional name: "Grandparents Day." Which is precisely what it is. But over time it transmogrified into "Grand Friend's Day" and, finally, the current and peculiar "Great Friends" that it is today.

The well-intentioned, loving thought behind the nomenclature was that to have a Grand Parents Day when some children don't have grandparents -- much less grandparents who are alive -- would do too much to emphasize this heartbreaking disparity among our little ones.

Fact is, some kids have grandparents, and some don't. But God forbid we do anything that acknowledges that fact -- no matter how benign -- and pour salt on the wounds of the grandparent-less. Life's not fair, but don't tell anyone. Just pretend it is.

In high school I suppose they'll hold a "No Cars" Day, in hat-tipping tribute to the pitiable teenagers without four wheels. Except that would rather emphasize the point, and "Great Friends Day" seems to be highlighting the great divide already, quite nicely. Ah, best that we not talk about such things.

Another hard lesson in life's inequality? Some of us don't have fathers. The most fortunate of the fatherless are left with dreams, but dreams we can only posthumously celebrate. So it is with great delight I am able to report that yesterday, Leon G. Cooperman, a wizened old fellow, stepped up to serve as Obama's dad.

Here's the letter he wrote dear Barack -- I hope you'll read the whole thing. This spade-calling man doesn't mince words, and I can only imagine what he'd say about our school's Great Great Something Day.

Warning: although the letter is suitable for workplace viewing, your monitor might start smoking.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The Inimitable Charlie Brown

2011-11-25T22:14:00.011-06:00

How can we not be thankful for this?

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Mika's in theTomato Soup

2011-11-21T12:19:00.034-06:00

A conservative friend of mine loves Morning Joe on MSNBC. Hardly a day goes by that he doesn't call or text me with something like, "Did you see that? Did you see it? Boy, Joe really got 'em good this morning!"

But last week, it was my turn to text him. While watching good old Joe, I saw Mika Brzezinski announce that it was Valerie Jarrett's birthday and she was taking her gal-pal Val some homemade tomato soup. "That's it," I texted my friend. "~~Mika is so modest, so fair and tenderhearted I can't watch her without crying. She makes me feel so inferior.~~ Not watching it -- ever again."

Though I haven't seen mention of Mika's tomato-soup love offering on any conservative blogs, there are several posts about the increasingly non non-partisanship on display at Morning Joe.

For instance, after Joe's pious pontificators had a marvelous time spewing their cutting witticisms about the GOP candidates, Mika brought up what I call the "Solyndra Scandal: Part II."

You may have seen -- likely, on a conservative site -- that the Obama Administration begged Solyndra executives to hold off announcing their massive lay-offs until 11/3/10, the day after mid-term elections. And oh, by the way, said Administration officials, we're giving you that next draw on Solyndra's DOE loan. But your December draw? Umm, that's still up in the air. Now, about those lay-offs . . .

After Mika brought up this "pressure" from the White House, a silence fell over these normally decisive, bitingly incisive fast-talking heads.

More curious still, Jon Stewart's take-down of OWS -- the movement Obama virtually adopted as his third child -- was no where to be seen.

Could it be Morning Joe let this Daily Show clip slip on by because the protester's distinction between "property rights" and his own "personal property" would have bewildered these high-brow pundits? I'm just a low-brow blogger mom and it sure baffles me.

(h/t Instapundit)

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The Euro and You

2011-11-14T08:09:00.100-06:00

No doubt we've all read the headlines: "The End of the Euro?" "Berlusconi Resigns," "Monti takes the helm" and so on. But sovereign bonds, bilateral netting, and yield curves make for thick reading.

So before I jumped into a pile of primers (and I've linked to an excellent one), I had to ask: does the Euro crisis matter to you and me? After all, we've got soccer games, dinners and lunches to make, dry cleaning, carpool, and field trips to take.

Sadly, the answer is yes. A lot. Because -- and apologies in advance for bringing up that pesky credit default swap thing again -- U.S. banks are heavily exposed to European sovereign debt.

In plain English, that means that not only have U.S. banks bought government bonds from European countries ("direct exposure"), our banks also sold so-called "insurance policies" (remember AIG's "policies" on subprime mortgages?) on the bonds of Greece, Portugal, Italy and so on. CDSs, or credit default swaps -- you remember the term "derivatives"? -- represent the banks' "indirect exposure."If one of these countries defaults on its debt (or the Euro crashes, triggering a "credit event") our banks will have to pony up. And all of a sudden -- and likely quite sudden -- no one will know who owes what to whom, and whether they're good for it. It will be the 2008 fetal position all over again, but worse. We're talking the mother of all credit contractions. The fancy schmancy financial reporters call this "contagion" and speak of "fire walls."

Could one of the PIIGS default? Or the Euro crash? You bet. This just in: the ECB (European Central Bank) started buying Italian sovereign bonds this morning just so Italy could borrow enough money to keep running. Last week Greece was forced to turn to Iran for oil because no one else would give it any credit.

The EFSF (which stands for the euphemistically named European Financial Stability Fund) did a bond issue and . . . oops! There weren't enough buyers for its debt so it bought some of its own issues -- a most ominous sign that borrowing has hit a brick wall, and hard.

In fairness to cooler heads that mine, you should know that JP Morgan and others say there's no need to worry; they claim they are well "hedged." In other words, if there is a "credit event" their net exposure is meh, no biggie. They can take the losses and pay "policy limits" on the CDSs they sold because, well, they bought these handy "insurance policies" as well.

And how well that worked in 2008, when there were runs on money market funds and Paulson begged Pelosi on bended knee for $700 billion to capitalize our banks before we ran on them too!

Ah, and Goldman-Sachs proudly claimed it was fully hedged back then, too. But only thanks to your bailout of AIG, and mine, was that true. Somehow, I don't think Germany's Angela Merkel is in a bailing-out mood. And heck, Sarkozy's got kid to support now.

So how much exposure -- meaning, "how much loss are we talking?" -- do our U.S. banks have to this Euro-mess? Relax. Only about $4 trillion -- if the banks are to be believed -- and that's if everything went to hell and we went into full meltdown. You know, if the old trusty bilateral netting move failed.

And that won't happen because someone will bail out these guys, just like they did AIG, right?

Move along, little dogies, nothing here to see . . . No, there's nothing here to see because the banks have cloaked their balance sheets.

Remember, hedges are lovely if your counter-party is good for the money. But in Europe, that's one hell of an IF. Equally problematic, when the yields hit the fan, is the lack of transparency. That alone -- a terrifying dearth of information on who owes what to whom -- will be enough to cause a rip tide.

Then again, we do have Obama at the wheel. The same capable Obama who got his advice on the economy from former NJ governor Jon Corzine (who brilliantly ran the now-decomposing MF Global). Alrighty then. More "stress" tests ahead! Sleep tight.

So keep some cash on hand and watch the yield curves on sovereign bonds, fair maidens. If they start rising -- like Italy's did last week -- it's time to fasten your seat belts and brace for the Eurocalypse. Something tells me -- oh, call it motherly intuition -- we're in for way more than a roller coaster ride.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Get Your Green On. Love, The One.

2011-11-09T12:16:00.116-06:00

Photo credit: damesofdialogue.wordpress.com

We've all heard our kids make these losing arguments once or twice: "it's not my fault!" or "yeah, but he did it, too!" Heck, you can't blame a kid for trying. But Obama is no kid. Still, he either blames Bush for his problems or claims Bush did it, too. Consider "Fast and Furious," and who can forget Solyndra?

Ah, but never mind Solyndra. Now our Boy Wonder is pushing another kind of green: Christmas trees. Yes, Saturday Night Live was killed in one fell swoop when the Obama Administration proudly unveiled the Christmas Tree Promotion Board yesterday.

This long-overdue board will do things "to strengthen the position of fresh cut Christmas trees in the marketplace and maintain and expand markets for Christmas trees within the United States."

Well it's about time. For more fascinating details, see 7 C.F.R. 1214.10 and 7 C.F.R.1214.46(n). "CFR" stands for the Code of Federal Regulations. Having personal experience with them, let me assure you they are a pleasure to read and comply with. Clear and concise, with handy egg nog recipes in the footnotes, they say things like:

Voting in the referendum is optional. If current domestic [Christmas tree] producers and importers chose to vote, the burden of voting would be offset by the benefits of having the opportunity to vote on whether or not they want the program to become effective.

Of course, as with any Federal board, this one needs money to operate. To that end, which can't come soon enough, sellers will pay a 15 cent tax on the sale of every fresh Christmas tree, assuming the seller sells 500 trees or more per annum. Savvy sellers will pass this Grinchy tax along to the consumer.

So if you were feeling all warm and eco-fuzzy with your artificial tree, stop the righteousness now. It's true green or no green. Oh, and Nina Totenberg? Don't even think about raising separation-of-church-and-state objections. It's our government's job to promote Christmas trees, even if CHRIST does appear in a federal board. Besides, George Bush ~~did~~ considered it, too. So ~~what~~ there.

Up next is a Sex Promotion Board. But a fee for sex would work quite well, if we require only men to report each act of copulation and pay the tax. Like the Christmas tree producers who came before them, profiteers like Viagra and Cialis would surely be game.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Baby Daddy Bieber? What took so long?

2011-11-02T19:06:00.037-05:00

Law nerds everywhere -- or maybe it's just me? -- wondered for a brief instant why Justin Bieber's accuser waited so long to claim he's, well, her baby daddy. Reports the LA Times,

Yeater said she and Bieber met backstage at a concert in L.A. on Oct. 25, 2010, where he propositioned her and then lost his virginity, knocking her up in the process.

"When I later realized I was pregnant with Justin Bieber's baby, I tried to contact him through his representatives but no one ever called me back," she told the court, according to Star. She gave birth to a son this past July 6, and stated in the suit that there was nobody else she'd had sex with in between.

Ordinary people elsewhere are probably more interested in the unfolding Cain saga (which is utterly exhausting), and why our luggage is safer than we are -- thanks, TSA! Why, we're safer folding ourselves into a suitcase than we are going through TSA's monkey-monitored x-ray machine. Imagine that.

But back to Bieber. Mariah Yeater's child is now a full three months old. Curious.

Sorry to disappoint, conspiracy fans, but I don't think the woman's lawsuit filing is tied to his just-released Christmas album. No, it probably has more to do with statutory rape and the statute of limitations.

According to his ~~perpetrator~~ accuser, he was 16 and she was 19. But twelve months after their alleged tryst, it looks like she's bulletproof -- at least under California law.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Good Vibrations

2011-10-25T08:48:00.018-05:00

Passengers may freak out when TSA agents find their vibrators worthy of note, but the voyeuristic TSA has always had its freaks out. So Big Sis's warm, personal endorsement of hands solo is really no surprise.

And at least now, we'll know how to pack. Heck, next time I travel, I'll tuck a copy of Hubris in my suitcase. If they don't catch the irony, maybe I can get on their good side. Or not.

In other expected news, the Occupier drummers appear to be freaking out, as efforts to get their own freak on have been thwarted.

The drummers' property has, umm, been redistributed, and drummers thus demanded $8,000.00 from the OWS "General Assembly." Moreover, drummers are furious that their drumming time has been curtailed by ~~the man~~ other members, so outraged they can hardly speak straight.

Indeed, at least one disgruntled drummer likened the new limits on noisy drumming to the silencing of the slaves, lo those many years ago, when Wall Street was first being built. Which analogy is perfectly understandable, because when you're a hammer . . .

Of course, we knew racism was bound to be ~~razed~~ raised by the Occupiers at some point. It just came a bit early and internally.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

On Second Thought, Maybe I Cain't . . .

2011-10-24T22:06:00.010-05:00

Alrighty then. I think I've seen enough.

(h/t HotAir)

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The Organizers v. the Organized

2011-10-22T16:19:00.029-05:00

Photo Credit: Andrew Burton/AP

Ah. Thanks to the Occupiers, we get to see anarchy and property redistribution up close and in person. The drums are causing quite a commotion, causing internal dissent. And speaking of "redistribution," the drummers are none too happy that the "organizers" are seizing proceeds from the tip jar.

Photo Credit: Iconicsurrealism.com

But I thought we were all equal, and mi casa es su casa! Down with capitalism! Down with greed!

Be careful what you wish for, Occupiers.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com, All rights reserved.

GOP Line Up: One Picture Says It All

2011-10-19T22:59:00.030-05:00

Photo credit: Washington Post

Alrighty then. I watched the GOP debate last night so you didn't have to. And I probably would have let the whole thing pass, were it not for Mitt Romney pulling, just minutes ago, what -- at least in bits and pieces -- appears to be a damn ugly attack ad. Talk about "splice and dice"!

So here's my analysis of last night's debate, in 50 words or less, moving, of course, from left to right:

Rick Santorum: stands like a normal guy. I wonder what this tells us?

Ron Paul: Ginger, hip-protective. "Is that a crack in the sidewalk?"

Herman Cain: "Hey, everybody! This is me!"

Mitt Romney: paper-doll cut-out. This thin-skinned tin man needs some oil.

Rick Perry: A Texas sidewinder in full plume. "Watch out for my Ben-Hur spurs, ya'll."

Newt Gingrich: Rubinesquely rounded shoulders, relaxed. Feminine, even. And, therefore, very wise.

Michelle Bachman: Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. She hopes we will enjoy the show.

But Stephen Green at PJTV, really captured the debate in his real-time chug-a-lug blog.

Cheers.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Facts are Stubborn Things

2011-10-12T21:29:00.020-05:00

And the facts on taxes, this OWS fellow doesn't much care for.

Indeed this young protestor seems only to care about free speech. Sadly, critical reasoning is wholly absent from his.

An informed "Occupy K Street" protest might be okay with me. But this --

Photo credit: Bruce Krasting

-- is just bread and circuses.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

I Think I Cain, I Think I Cain.

2011-10-09T20:54:00.083-05:00

Photo credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

At long last, a viable GOP frontrunner: Herman Cain.

Perry is plummeting in the polls.

And oh by gosh, by golly, some are even comparing Mitt Romney (who is far too hair-sprayed for my taste) to the focus-group-focused John Kerry. Lions, then tigers, then lions. Oh my!

Herman Cain, on the other hand, is skyrocketing in popularity, now that Palin and Christie are out of the picture.

Except for Cain's goofy take on being gay -- he says it's a "choice" -- I can't help but like this guy. He's the antithesis of victim (ooh, does saying "victim" sound racisty?) and happy, but not in a hyper or self-helpy way. More importantly, he makes excellent sense.

Though Cain supporters will never win with liberals: you're racist if you like him and damned racist if you don't. Which is plenty rich, since it's the leftist press's coverage of the GOP field that begs the race question.

But meh. The Left's recent attacks on Cain leave little doubt he poses a real threat to the One. Ah, politics makes for strange barometers, no?

The next debate is this coming Tuesday. Do tune in. Something tells me it will be the most interesting one yet.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Live-blogging Bernanke

2011-10-04T09:29:00.038-05:00

Well, let's see. He's not worried about inflation (he never is) and he really doesn't like it when people ask him about the Fed's "printing press." He says we're "innocent bystanders" in the Eurozone crisis. Oh, and with slow growth and 9% unemployment, that Occupy Wall Street thing is understandable. Heck, he's "dissatisfied" too.

Now some dude is railing about "overcoming" the "significant concentration of wealth" and hoping Bernanke will rail, too. Ben says he looks at Paul Volcker's picture every day; this seems to come as a great relief to the Committee.

Umm, I can't go on. It's too depressing.

But then, what isn't? See, e.g.,

* Case-Shiller's gloomy housing report
* More than half of all food stamp households aren't working and aren't looking.
* "White House Brushed Off Solyndra Alarms"
* Fast and furious gun-walking went all the way to Holder
* Obama really doesn't like us
* Chris Christie will likely be announcing a big no. (Thanks for that, WaPo)

Alrighty then. Anyone have a good recipe for hemlock?

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Soiled Green is Solyndra

2011-09-13T20:25:00.091-05:00

Just days into his presidency, Obama and his administration fast-tracked a half-billion dollar loan to the "green" company Solyndra. It was a loan the Bush administration had already looked into and shelved, for good reason.

The company's abysmal finances showed it was set to go completely bankrupt by 9/11. And these onerous projections were known by all at the time Obama forced the loan through. It's not like Solyndra only recently began crumbling.

At his presidential photo-op at Solyndra in May, 2010 -- remember, when he lauded Solyndra as one of America's great green pioneers? -- Obama said, "the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith."

Ah. So clean energy need not be taken on faith, just the ability of green companies -- who can't get money from the private market -- to repay government loans and stay fiscally solvent. Got it.

In any event, as predicted, like clockwork, Solyndra indeed went bankrupt this month. The creditors -- that would be you and me, dear -- are out half a billion bucks. You see, we're at the end of the line, behind Solyndra's investors. They get paid first. The Obama Administration saw to that. (Footnote: George Kaiser, a big Solyndra investor is . . . wait for it, a HUGE Obama contributor and fundraiser).

So can you blame a girl for being skeptical when we hear about all these "green" jobs Obama saved or created? And calls for us to spend more?

ABC did a little poking around in the green, and the news is not good. 80% of $2 billion in stimulus funds Congress appropriated for "green" jobs went overseas. I repeat: overseas. While "green" workers here at home were getting laid off or furloughed by American companies, American taxpayers poured millions of dollars into foreign companies. Thousands of jobs were created -- overseas.

For another happy example, take A-Power Energy Corp., a Chinese company. Shown below is its CEO (center), posing with union big-wig Leo Gerard (left) and Cappy McGarr. Cappy is an A-Power investor, of course, and a big Democratic contributor and money bundler for Obama.

A-Power got a cool $450 million of our "Competitive Recovery Act" funds. Really. It did. So get out of bed tomorrow with a spring in your step, and thank your husband for going to work, too.

Because we're all working to help Chinese companies compete against Americans. And that just makes good sense. As does raiding American manufacturers for suspected "green" violations, right?

Not surprisingly, on the subject of A-Power, the Obama Administration remains ~~transparent~~ tight-lipped and unapologetic. Oh, and on the subject of Solyndra, too.

Perhaps so many of our green dollars went to foreign or failing companies because of political ties to Obama. Then again -- or is it, better yet? -- maybe it's simply the fault of innocent, foolish government bureaucrats.

Pick your poison, girls. It's your money, after all.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

From Gate Rape to Court Rape: the TSA Strikes Again!

2011-09-06T22:55:00.089-05:00

Last week I watched a webcast for my CLE, certain it would be a big yawn. But an interesting lawyer spoke about how corporate clients should handle unfavorable blog postings and comments on the internet.

His sage, nay prescient advice? Leave bad enough alone and, in most cases, put down the big stick, oh ye who feel grieviously harmed. Because a heavy-handed response almost always backfires. Almost always.

When what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a miniature TSA agent and one burgeoning blogging deer.

After Amy Alkon endured an excruciatingly invasive, we'll-show-you-who's-boss-you-loathesome-ignorant-citizen "pat-down" at LAX (now, those adjectives are just my opinion), Amy demanded to know the TSA agent's name and exclaimed, "You raped me!"

Moreover, Amy told the TSA agent that she'd raped her IN A LOUD VOICE. AT THE AIRPORT. IN FULL VIEW OF THE TRAVELING PUBLIC. And, Amy SOBBED. LOUDLY. Can you believe it? The nerve! Oh, the ravishing, rapturous nerve!

Then, (after consulting a lawyer and being told she likely had no legal recourse -- sovereign immunity and the sheep mentality would be my guess) Amy took the First Amendment into her own hands. And by God, she blogged about it.

And that would have been that. Except our TSA heroine Thedala Magee hired a tiny law deer. (My opinion -- just my opinion!)

Ms. Magee then proceeded to demand $500,000.00 from blogger Amy, begat and issued henceforth a "cease and desist" letter, and threatened to sue her for defamation IN A COURT OF LAW.

Thedala, Thedala! You're breaking my heart. You're shaking my confidence daily. Once snuggled up anonymously in your warm government cocoon, safe and obscure with a government pension waiting, you've gone and thrust yourself sharply into the blinding glare of Google, the cold public eye. The horror, the horror. How harsh the bright lights.

Still, 'tis better, my dear, than a putrid, public, labia-parting, full-bore, hands-on genital inspection by a government power-hound. Of that you can be sure.

So, umm, cheers, Thedala. Cheers.

All views expressed herein are the opinions, and merely the opinions, of the Lawyer Mom. Not valid with any other participating offers, to employees, or in Puerto Rico. Not legal tender. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

From Warmists to Warmers: A Most Expensive Spoof

2011-08-31T20:52:00.048-05:00

Remember that smug mother I wrote about a few weeks ago, the mom who pushed her kid to claim Rick Perry "doesn't believe in science"? Today he might quip, "But madam, why don't you?" because her beloved "anthropogenic global warming" theory has just about died and gone to hell.

The theory formerly known as fact -- that man is primarily responsible for the rise in the earth's temperature -- has been all but eviscerated by the CLOUD study conducted by the prestigious CERN.

It's taken me hours of internet research to in simple words distill but, finally, here it is: Clouds block the sun's rays. Think: "clouds = awning." More clouds = cooler. Less clouds = hotter. Surely you've used an umbrella at the beach.

And what drives cloud formation? Why, cosmic rays from the sun, primarily. So what brings about global cooling? A bunch of clouds. What brings about global warming? The absence of a bunch of clouds.

Alas, brace for impact, maniacal earth-egoists, but mere mortals play a small, if even nominal, role in climate change. As Delingpole put it, "It's the sun, stupid."

Of course, earlier articles catalogued the erroneous assumptions built into the AGW models, but only ~~heretics~~ a few paid these writings any mind. The new study, though, from CERN seems to cinch the deal.

If you doubt me, consider the obfuscation in CERN's announcement. It is a painful, obtuse piece of scientific sludge, watered down because CERN is worried about the political optics of the study's import.

“Ion-induced nucleation will manifest itself as a steady production of new particles that is difficult to isolate in atmospheric observations because of other sources of variability but is nevertheless taking place and could be quite large when averaged globally over the troposphere.”

Translation: "We can't say it's completely due to the sun -- conceivably Willard the rat might play a small part -- but we are pretty damn sure it's the sun. Oh, but golly, who knows?"

The most curious thing to me in all of this is why the hard evidence was ignored, dismissed by the Warmers out of hand? Good grief, remember their violent 10:10 video?

Maybe it's because I'm a lawyer, but I need to understand why people do what they do before I can get on with it. I need to understand why the AGW people are so rabid, intent on vilifying any skeptic (Gore says naysayers are analogous to racists).

And I want to understand what -- certainly not the earth -- compels the AGW crusaders to race around an endlessly looping track like crazed horses in blinders, when the scientific evidence controverts their man-caused theory? It makes no sense.
Personally, I'd much rather admit I don't know something than pretend to when I don't. In law school, well-meaning students insisted I buy a "horn book" for this or that class -- yet none could explain the horn books' moniker. It drove me bonkers.

Call me quirky. Better yet, call me an effete intellectual. Ah. Now there is oxygen, now we can relate.

The most persuasive explanation I found for the Warmers' motive is presented here. Although it is a scientific report, it's a fairly easy read -- a fascinating, fast-paced thriller, if you ask me.

So from one high-brow liberal to another, surely you'll consider this singular task: Before you clamor to climb aboard the popular-girl AGW bus, or blindly embrace the preposterous notion that a skeptical scientist is no scientist at all (gah! how revoltingly pedantic is that?) at least educate yourself and read this.

And then you can tell me how the "anthropogenic" alarmists almost pulled off the most expensive global hoax ever.

See also: The Truth About Greenhouse Gases (William Happer); Watt's Up With That?

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The Fedcoats are coming.

2011-08-26T18:57:00.113-05:00

Listen fair maidens and you shall hear
Of the guitar my kid won in a raffle last year . . .

But I must say, it never occurred to me that the guitar wood might be illegal. No, in my lawyer-mom mind, I was all: is this reportable income? Could it be construed as a capital gain? How many zillion kids did mine piss off by winning this thing?

But the Feds are all over the wood. The government is conducting raids on American guitar manufacturers. And I'm talking real raids, not some gentle "knock, knock, can we see the receipt for your wood?" encounter.

This ~~business-friendly~~ hyper-enforcement affects American jobs, too. From the Tennessean:

[Gibson Guitar Chief] Juszkiewicz bristled at the notion that Gibson could import fretboards finished by Indian workers, but that allowing partially finished fretboards to be completed by American workers is illegal.
“Over the last two years, we have hired 580 American workers,” he said. “We are one company that is manufacturing in the United States, that is hiring people ... and yet the government is spending millions of dollars on this issue.
“We feel totally abused.”

In other irritating news, some funky libertarian-types are under fire in Antelope Valley, a desolate desert area on the edge of Los Angeles County. Reason TV did an excellent story on these eclectic free birds, now feasts for the government vultures.

It's worth watching, even if the narrator does sound like a discouraged Dexter understudy.

(h/t HotAir)

Okay, so yeah, they're a bit kooky. I'll give you that. But it's still a subjective call, no? Maybe I call pink flamingos "suburban blight" or steal your garden gnomes under cover of night. What happened to "Stay You!" I'd like to know. Why won't the government leave these people alone?

Get off of my cloud. We've got massive government creep and I'm getting claustrophobic. That's all I'm saying.

So stay free, fair maidens, on this Friday eve. Meanwhile I'll get back to reading Brave New World and pondering "soma." (Oh, I get why Huxley called it soma. But what the hell was Chico's thinking, naming its lingerie store Soma? "Hey, mom, look at Chico's flirty new skirt for fall. It's called Fistula!")

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

"Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay."

2011-08-25T09:32:00.012-05:00

Our generation's Yogi Berra, you've got to love Kinky. Here he is today, in the Daily Beast:

So would I support Rick Perry for president? Hell, yes! As the last nail that hasn’t been hammered down in this country, I agree with Rick that there are already too damn many laws, taxes, regulations, panels, committees, and bureaucrats. While Obama is busy putting the hyphen between “anal” and “retentive” Rick will be rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.

So . . . tell me again, who are those crazy "Tea Partiers"?

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

By His Lonesome

2011-08-25T09:11:00.015-05:00

"Number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that now we have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back. $30,000.00 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. That's unpatriotic!"

-- Barack Obama

Pot, meet Kettle.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Dogs Know

2011-08-25T08:26:00.019-05:00

Photo credit: Lisa Pembleton

U.S. Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson died after the Taliban shot down his Chinook. His beloved dog Hawkeye stayed by Jon's casket during the entire funeral service.

Video clip here.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Herding Donkeys

2011-08-24T15:24:00.029-05:00

Here's a new political ad from Roger Williams, zinging madly around the internet -- at least in conservative circles. It's clever.

("The Donkey Whisperer" -- h/t HotAir)

But I think his serious commercial is even more effective.

On a semi-related note, who will bet that Hillary jumps in, now that Perry has apparently risen to the fore?

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

It's Easy to Fire Teachers!

2011-08-19T13:00:00.039-05:00

Sure, it may take six years or so to terminate a teacher who sends a sexual email to your kid, or a suggestive note that the two of them meet behind the dumpster after school.

And five DWIs in 7 years? Well, that may be a bit tougher.

If she's just flat-out incompetent? Umm, sorry, but forget about it.

But if he "frightens and intimidates" your straight kid because of a pro-gay Facebook posting? Well then, baby, you've hit the motherlode. It's game on, sister!

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Kidding Up

2011-08-18T13:23:00.010-05:00

What do you say to a woman who uses her little kid to needle a presidential candidate? It's not "man up" . . .

Think he wanted to tell her this?

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Hell Hath No Fury . . .

2011-08-17T15:12:00.020-05:00

Like a caucus spurned.

But I must admit, I'm feeling a little jilted, too.

Credit: AP/The Asbury Park Press, Tom Spader

Leading

2011-08-16T23:29:00.016-05:00

Now that Perry is in the race, at least one political strategist says Romney is done.

Perhaps. Perhaps.

But I find this clip from Chris Christie, on Obama's "leading from behind," more inspiring.

"Leading is not a political strategy. It's a moral strategy."

Amen.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Backdrops

2011-08-15T23:33:00.013-05:00

Gosh, you don't even have to click on the videos to see the problem.

On the one hand you've got, "Beef: it's what's for dinner."

And on the other you've got escargot -- an expensive snack . . .

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

7500 South Normal

2011-08-09T18:15:00.104-05:00

Mugging in London

In this unrecovering, stultifying summer, it is a fleeting glint of irony that one of the violent flash mobsters in Chicago lives in the 7500 block of South Normal.

Because this summer has been anything but. There have been violent flash mobs across the country -- in Miami, Charlotte, Boston, Long Island, Rochester, Philadelphia . . . .

Black youths riot at a water park in Alabama.

Greensboro, NC had a rash of flash mobs this summer.

Today we awoke to horrific images of buildings burning and flash-mob black-on-white beatings and lootings throughout London. The U.K. prohibits citizens from fighting back to defend themselves and the plunderers had their way.

Indeed so nannified is the U.K., clean-up volunteers -- who formed their own flash mob of sorts -- were turned away, forbidden from helping because of safety rules. Broken glass is scattered about, after all.

For a time, there was little national coverage of the growing flash mob brutalities in our own country -- only bits of news here and there -- perhaps because of the glaring racial component.

Drudge was excoriated for reporting the crimes. Gawker bitterly complained that they were nothing more than unrelated teenage skirmishes Drudge was using to generate a race war.

And perhaps the media were reluctant to cover the stories out of copycat concerns or fear that more exposure would fuel these fires.

But the worrisome racial aspect is a fact now being acknowledged. "These are majority African-American youths and they need to be called on it," the head of Philadelphia's NAACP chapter told the Washington Times.

In any event, just what is going on?

Janet Daley writes,

Also collapsing before our eyes is the lodestone of the Christian Socialist doctrine that has underpinned the EU’s political philosophy: the idea that a capitalist economy can support an ever-expanding socialist welfare state.
* * *
We have arrived at the endgame of what was an untenable doctrine: to pay for the kind of entitlements that populations have been led to expect by their politicians, the wealth-creating sector has to be taxed to a degree that makes it almost impossible for it to create the wealth that is needed to pay for the entitlements that populations have been led to expect, etc, etc.

On the subject of handouts, Instapundit linked to a bold blogger who wrote, "I have no issue with a social safety net. I just think the beneficiaries of this net should be grateful and embarrassed." But hold your fire.

He wrote about his grandfather during the Depression, how he would come home exhausted after working all day for the WPA. He was ashamed he needed help from the government and he wanted to give the taxpayers a fair day's work for his wage.

Is the blogger's solution to the welfare problem harsh? Most assuredly. But his bigger point is the same one this U.K. blogger makes, a tad more elegantly: the welfare state is a failure. Max Hastings was much blunter.

Speaking of welfare, Hot Air highlighted a video by Bill Whittle that irrefutably demonstrates the poor in our country fare much better, on average, than the average "regular Joe" in Europe. As our rich get richer, our poor get richer, too. A rising tide lifts all boats, put another way.

But what Whittle most pointedly assails is that no one on public assistance ever thanks the taxpayers who support them.

Rather, we see the bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you principle at work, and it's only escalating. Welfare recipients, he argues, are angry, bitter that they aren't getting more.

In other (related?) news, the Navy Seals conducted urban warfare exercises in Boston last week. Hmm. What impeccable timing, I'd hate to later say. But if the Seals are busy, fear not, fair maidens: our trusty TSA is on the way.

Alrighty then. This all takes me back to the allegorical squirrel tale, which sums up the global mood pretty well. Will it be dependence on the government or independence? Government checks or employee pay checks? Strip searches or . . . ?

Until these questions are decided in 2012, welcome to the south side of Normal.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Dependence or Independence?

2011-08-05T20:02:00.024-05:00

This summer, the popular conservative blog Power Line had a prize contest: dramatize the national debt in any artistic medium. Here's the winner:

Mr. M and I watched it together. At the end, he said, "So, mom, what do the squirrels do?"

The takeaway for me was that in 2012, we will all have to decide whether we want to be dependent on the government or independent. What do I mean by that? Well, take a quick look at this:

Oh, and this just in (after the markets are closed, naturally -- knock me over with a feather): S&P just downgraded our debt to AA+ after a 70-year AAA rating.

Alrighty then. So let's hear it. What should the squirrels do?

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com, All rights reserved.

Constituent Me

2011-08-01T11:07:00.009-05:00

Dear Congressman Sessions,

Sorry to hear you and your wife have split up. You look a bit ambushed in this picture. And it's hard to tell from your news release -- "a decision has been made that my wife and I are separating" (a passive voice if ever I heard one) -- whether you agree with this decision. I trust that you had some input. Still, that's your business, not mine.

But as one of your constituents, can I share some of my business with you? Because it could end up being your business, too.

Here's how I live: I drive a car that's paid for, I've got a debit card -- no credit cards -- and I spend only what I've got in my checking account; sometimes, less. The only debt I owe is to my dentist, and it weighs on me.

If I'm at Target and I don't have the money to buy that new Bay Blade my son is begging for, I don't pull out a credit card and charge it. I just don't buy it.

It's never happened, and I doubt it will, but if my son wanted an educational DVD to learn Mandarin Chinese and I didn't have the money, I wouldn't buy it -- no matter how worthwhile I thought it was -- period. I'm not bragging here; my austerity is borne of necessity. It's extreme, I know.

Does saying "no" all the time make me popular with my son? Nope. But as his mother, I've explained to him repeatedly, my job is to keep him alive and teach him how to behave. It is to act in his best interests, not mine.

This summer we took a road trip and had a lot of time to talk. He was interested in why the economy is so bad, and my explanation reflected my conservative views. We covered the Community Reinvestment Act, corrupt GSEs like Fannie and Freddie, not blaming Wall Street for saying yes to free government money.

We talked about government corn subsidies and tobacco subsidies. Oh, I could go on and on. But what it all boiled down to, was this: Congress is just plain stupid.

And because Congress is so predictably, unfathomably foolish, my son will be handing over 60% of his paycheck to the government when he grows up, if he's lucky enough to land a job. His self-employed dad gives you guys 40% right now. In 2013, when he'll have to pay even more, we'll look back on 2011 and say these were the good old days.

The debt limit came up in our conversations, of course. We talked about how it has transmogrified into leverage Republicans can use to cut spending.

And we talked about how telling different special interest groups that you just don't have the money for them doesn't get you votes. But we decided that not getting re-elected is just too damn bad.

Because we can do the math on our country's finances. It's not hard. In 2010, we took in $2.2T and we spent $3.4T. For 2012, Obama hopes we'll take in $2.6 T and he wants to spend $3.9T.

Our budgets read like science fiction. We go into the hole by at least a trillion, every year. Yet you guys in DC keep on keeping on, spending trillions more than we make and charging the difference to our kids, year after year.

We know Visa isn't going to call President Obama and tactfully tell him the country has reached its credit limit. But the bond market sure as hell will. And it won't be gentle in the telling. We'll be bloody and bludgeoned before it's all over.

So stop already. We're not stupid. We know "cutting the deficit" is just fancy government-speak for "we're still borrowing, just not as much."

Quit voting to increase the government budget every single year. We don't have the money. This is not rocket science.

Where was I a few years ago, you may ask, when you guys were raising the debt ceiling time and again and no one seemed to care? I don't know, sir. Raising a kid, I guess. Living my life and not feeling the pinch yet. But I'm here now.

And now that I'm here, can you please tell me what's so bad about the Mack Penny Plan? What is so "extreme" or "tyrannical" about balancing the budget over eight years, pray tell? Tear up the credit cards now, Pete: stop issuing more treasury bonds. Stop borrowing and start balancing -- for my kid's sake and yours.

Because between Hattiesburg and Jackson, Mississippi, my son asked me a question I had a hard time answering. "Mom, since the people in Congress are so bad, why don't you do something? Why don't you go be in Congress and fix things?"

He had an inarguable point. It's called "quit your bitching." How can I criticize you, sir, for putting my money where your mouth is, if I won't do anything about it?

But I'm just a soccer mom, I tried to tell my son, a part-time lawyer, a cafeteria volunteer, and I curse like a sailor. I'm a nobody and nobody knows me. And skeletons? Got a house full of 'em; plus, I've driven a mac truck all over the internet.

Not to mention, I am no tea-party pal -- not if the Tea Party is defined by social issues -- no, sir. True, I'm not a global warming gal, but when it comes to gay marriage, I'm all for it. Because I'm all for getting the government off of our backs and out of our bedrooms. As for abortion? It wasn't an option for me personally, but I'm glad it was an option for me legally.

But Pete, try explaining all that to a kid -- and a kid who can argue the pants off of you, at that. I sure couldn't. I told him I'd just be a huge wart hog, but he said he didn't care.

And now that I'm getting older, damn it, I've grown a thicker skin and a ridiculous, consuming compulsion to die with a clear conscience, to be able to look my son in the eye when I'm on my deathbed (assuming I have advance notice) and say, "well, at least I tried."

So what do you think, Pete, can you help me out? Take a few pointers from Marc Rubio and just do your job now, so I won't have to run for it in 2012?

True, you may not get elected again if you do the right thing, but you'll be a bigger loser if you don't. Because your job as an elected representative is to act in the best interests of the country, to keep it alive. It is not to act in your own.

Sincerely yours,

Constituent Me

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Homeland Security Starts with You, Bro!

2011-07-21T09:00:00.050-05:00

The other day I overheard a businessman leaving a voicemail. It went something like, "Hi, Joe, please call me so that we can schedule an interactive telephone conference." "Wow," I said, "are you guys going to Skype or something?"

"Huh? Oh, no, " he replied, "we're going to talk on the phone." And I whistled. I was impressed. I mean, who says "call me" when you can say so much more?

Anyway, here's a nice little piece of government work for your edification, replete with great big bureaucratic words. Thanks for paying to make it, all you taxpaying fair maidens.

Now see there, what did I tell you? Our big government is smart. Creating new words like "elicitation" and showing us how bad guys set about "aquiring" information. Sure, that's a big [SIC], but so what? If it's close enough for government work, it's close enough for me.

Anyhow, notice how every person who "sees something" and "says something" is a minority. In fact, all -- but one -- are black.

The first watchful citizen to appear is a black man. He walks into an empty parking garage late at night, astutely observes that the security camera has just been covered up with spray-paint, and spots a suspicious white van occupied by two white guys parked nearby, engine running.

But does our hero turn around and go back into the building? Nah. It's more like those babysitter horror movies, where the teenage girl keeps opening closet after closet, looking for the bad guy.

So the petrified black businessman just keeps on walking to his car while Jawsy music plays in the background. Finally we can sigh with relief when, secure in his car, the man calls the police on his cell phone.

So why does our government show a black man acting foolishly? No one with half a brain would keep walking into that parking lot.

And why are only minorities -- mostly no-Afro blacks, at that -- picking up the phone to call in the odd behavior of long-haired white guys? Is our government implying that blacks are inherently suspicious of the police and trying, in this "educational" video, to change their thinking? Or suggesting the only intelligent bad guys are all white?

And what are we to make of an unseen white male's repeated mention of "fusion centers." The white authority figure assures us in a strong, yet soothing voice that the information we report will be relayed to a fusion center. What the hell is that? Some ebony-citizenry/ivory-military harmony play?

I'm just sayin' the whole thing seems racist to me. And that you paid for it.

Well, I best get back to my beachitating, or ya'll will start commentating that I've been cogitating too long, got the sunstroke or something, that I'm all disorientated and elicitating.

Copyright © 2011 www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Oh Me, Oh My!

2011-06-30T09:55:00.012-05:00

A spontaneous, truthful utterance on live TV, and by a liberal, to boot! Wow.

Here's the longer, more entertaining clip from Mediaite:

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

TSA Gets Cranky When It Can't Feel Up Granny

2011-06-27T17:09:00.055-05:00

Talk about a likely Al Quaeda recruit. Just look at her! Well traveled. Strong-willed. Weighing in at a whopping 105 pounds. And get a load of that cane she's wielding. Boy, do I feel safer now.

Because after an intrusive, 45-minute search, the TSA told this 95-year old woman she could either (1) go home and not fly or (2) remove her Depends underwear because "it was wet and firm" and impeded a full inspection of her clearly suspect crotch.

Jean Weber, the daughter of this metal-bound menace, filed a complaint and told news outlets that the TSA ordered her cancer-riddled mother to remove her Depends diaper or else they would not clear her for boarding.

On Sunday, before word of its utter lunacy and humiliation of this old woman had spread throughout the land, the TSA held to its pat party-line: "our agents acted professionally and in accordance with proper procedure."

Naturally!

But after a few too many sheep began mewling too loudly, today the TSA changed course:

Whoa there, folks. ~~Keep your pants on.~~ We never made that old lady take off her diaper. We simply told her she couldn't fly unless she took it off, because it was impeding our "inspection."

Well, now. That just changes everything. Thanks for the clarification.

So hey, if the TSA has to terrorize us to catch the terrorists, I'm down with that. Whatever it takes to keep me safe!

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Facebook is the Devil

2011-06-26T15:05:00.046-05:00

Call me a party-pooper, but whenever I have teenagers in my office, I feel compelled to give them my standard lawyer-mom spiel, the one I repeat to Mr. M almost daily:

1. Don't drink and drive
2. Don't go to ___________ (a nearby town whose police routinely goad teenage boys into arguments and then beat them up)
3. NEVER get a tattoo.

But a "tattoo" is more than you think. Because everything on the internet is a tattoo. Every email, every blog post, every comment, every blurb by or about you on a facebook wall . . . is permanent. It will never, ever go away.

When I talk to people about privacy and the internet, most of the time what I hear is, "Well, if you've got nothing to hide, what's the problem?" And this so misses the point.

Is there no value in privacy? Is there no indignity we won't cheerfully endure, or intimate detail we will not share with the world?

When I was in high school, if you screwed up, you could start over. Off to college you could go, in another state, with a clean slate. Not any more. Our children will get no fresh start. Their mistakes will follow and haunt them forever on the internet, thanks to social media sites like Facebook.

The latest creepy development is Facebook's facial recognition software. Once a person has uploaded a photo and identified you, Facebook can identify you in every photo uploaded by anyone. Watch Nightline's story on it below.

Spend an hour considering the implications of this, and you won't be able to come up with them all.

Imagine your 12-year old son is with a group of other boys and they download something raunchy from Youtube. They're young and dumb and they proudly pose around the computer screen for a picture. Then one of the boys uploads the photo to Facebook and tags all the boys in the photo. Boom. It's there. Forever. And your son can now be identified in any photo posted on Facebook, in perpetuity.

So when your son, older and wiser, applies to theology school? Well, he just might get rejected.

These foolish boys are surely tagged forever.

It's true that, at least for now, the only people who can "tag" you -- or so Facebook claims -- are your "friends" (and we all know how fair-weathered friends can be be). But we also know how eager kids (hell, even adults) are to amass more "friends" on their Facebook page. So don't tell me to calm down because only "friends" can "tag" me.

As for subpoenas from law enforcement that can require Facebook to hand over every single photo on its massive data base that has your kid's mug in it? Well, don't even get me started.

Facebook, my friends, is the devil.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

In Praise of Palin's Emails and Other Odds and Ends

2011-06-17T12:24:00.038-05:00

First, a shockingly complimentary story from the New Republic on the cogency of Sarah Palin's scandal-less emails. After you finish it, you may be tempted to pulverize all those distracting devices our children pound and pounce on, in lieu of social interaction and reading.

Next up, an article by David Brooks(!) about the mammoth role our government played in the downfall of our economy.

If you're tired of scrabbling for ammunition -- hard, quantifiable facts -- to refute the misinformed, oft-repeated, "Republican deregulation caused the collapse of our economy," refrain, here it is.

Remember Franklin Raines' incredible testimony to Congress in 2004? Republicans concerned that the lending standards of these GSEs were too loose called a hearing. Democrats reacted to GOP worries with outrage and fury.

Fannie's President Raines claimed, with a straight face, that Fannie's mortgage loans were "riskless"!

In other news, the IMF announced today that the U.S. is no less in the grease than Greece.

For shame, for shame.

Happy Friday.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Screwy Things

2011-06-15T20:25:00.066-05:00

Doug Kass, a fairly prominent hedge fund manager, has coined a new word that aptly describes the middle class's plight: screwflation. You can catch him and his coining, in all of its dryness, here:

But alas, Obama clings to utter cluelessness. Here, his latest, jaw-dropping blather:

The company Obama highlights -- Cree -- is indeed creating jobs. Overseas. With your tax dollars! C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E good times. Come on!

Yet more confidence-inspiring is Obama's assertion that his last visit to Cree -- back in 2008, so many years ago! -- was "before the financial crisis happened." 2008 was "before the bottom fell out" of our economy.

Oh, dear God. Seriously? What doof was running his gig this time? The one who prompted Obama's toasting faux pas at Buckingham Palace during "God Save the Queen"?

Go ahead, call me a geek. Call me an alarmist, or histrionic. But I well remember where I was when two huge Bear Stearns hedge funds collapsed (summer of '07, in the mountains in N.C.) as vividly as I remember where I was when the Challenger exploded (the "ladies room" in a generic office building, tinkling to the Muzak before the solemn interruption).

For heaven's sake, the financial collapse is the reason Obama beat McCain. And it started in 2007, if not sooner.

At his Cree crow-fest, Obama went on to extol, with a confounding fatherly pride, all the progress Cree has made since Obama last visited it three years ago. Indeed he mentioned his 2008 visit several times, as if it had anything to do with . . . anything.

By Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images

Oh, brother. Get a grip!

Obama also (now, infamously) drew haughty laughter from the panel when he wittily quipped, "Shovel ready jobs were not as . . . uh . . . shovel ready as we expected."

Oh, he's a clever fellow, that One.

A close friend of mine -- who was forced to sell her house in a short sale rather than lose every penny of her equity and suffer the humiliation of a foreclosure -- texted this acronym after Obama's charming one-liner: LMAO. And a hearty laugh was had by none.

The strong of stomach and light of heart can read Neal Boortz's worthy comments on the gaffe-filled affair here.

Meanwhile I'll return to researching Facebook's stealthily compiled biometric data base that enables it to identify anyone whose face has ever been posted on its website.
(And, you may reasonably ask, why should you even care? Because, my dear, when your teenage son is photographed or videoed in an unflattering high school antic and it's uploaded to Facebook by his "friend," that picture will follow your son to his grave. No mistakes allowed. No such thing as a "clean slate" or "starting over" -- not any more.)

But frankly, sadly, I must confess the fact anonymity and privacy are fast becoming oxymorons depresses me less than the lameness of Obama. I used to think -- dare I say it, hope? -- that he was crazy like a fox. Now I think he's just plain Keynesian-Krugman dumb.

So if I don't go back to my old-fogy Facebook-is-the-devil days, I'll have to start scrutinizing the GOP field: Tim Polenta, Rick Sanitarium, Michelle Fostermom, No-Gin Rummy, Pizza Cain, and Scary-Bangs Perry. And then you'll have to call in the white coats.

UPDATE: re Facebook-is-the-devil, here's a perfect example.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Just In: Weiner Asks for Leave of Absence

2011-06-11T21:10:00.040-05:00

David Karp/Associated Press

Abstinence and absence might make our hearts grow fonder. And this poor victim of a man most certainly needs leave of his senses.

Today, Weiner wisely announced he will be seeking a Congressional leave of absence and checking himself into treatment, "to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person."

Quite right.

Bill Maher and the Glee lady, Jane Lynch, did a dramatic reading of Weiner's textversations with a Vegas card dealer. It just about killed me.

But before you watch it, or this Xtranormal version, be sure to remove all minors from the room.

Meanwhile, back at the farms and on other homefronts, the economy flounders.

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Wow: Weiner Plays Back-up to Breitbart's Band

2011-06-06T16:44:00.034-05:00

Richard Drew/AP Photo

Remember all the stories from the left, accusing Andrew Breitbart of doing a hack job on the poor, "manipulated" Anthony Weiner? The claims that Breitbart had hacked into Weiner's Twitter account and posted the member's member himself?

Well, Breitbart took care of that today. In a big way.

Weiner called a press conference (finally) to 'fess up to his numerous, illicit twitters. As it happened, Breitbart was staying at a hotel just a few blocks away and . . . he decided to take a stroll.

Here's Breitbart in fine form, lambasting the left-wing journalists who maligned him when all the while, Weiner was the one telling the lies.

(The long version of Breitbart's press conference can be seen here.)

Our man A-Rod was all atwitter as he served as Breitbart's back-up band. His tearful, moving confessions -- to "several inappropriate conversations" -- were captured by another Huma at ABC.

(h/t: The Right Scoop, Hot Air)

Copyright © 2011, www.lawyermommusings.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.