Saw Ryan last night and took him for dinner. He's lost weight since he got out of the pokey, but he looked pretty good.

He's now an indentured servant.

Ryan's working for a guy who restores classic cars, from tires to antennas, rebuilding, painting, the whole thing. He helps with that work as well as rebuilding the barn the guy uses as a shop, bracing the posts as the whole structure is on the verge of collapse. Read more…

Obama donors get access to top advisers" (not the small online donors, silly!)

"Aides to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) scheduled pricey luncheons, roundtables, readings, VIP receptions and policy dinners with campaign officials and advisers, offering donors a taste of his potential administration. ..."

Get their ears even before the election-- Buffet, and Daschle, and Cutler, and Tanden, and Jarrett, etc. (Article also includes a very non-complete list of just some October big $$ events.)

Well it seems Citigroup has decided that even with the help of F.D.I.C. that it just did not want to take on even part of the bad loans/debt Wachovia had from its' earlier mergers. According to the NYTimes , Wells Fargo gets to have it all and create a $1.42 Trillion company stretching coast to coast.
Citigroup wants to sue Wells Fargo for $60 Billion for interfering, but may not be able to because: Read more…

even the sports blogs are weighing in on some of the inanities of the "emergency relief in this bill, (found while waiting for the Phillies game to start)- NASCAR . (via Yahoo )
And the House bill started out in 10/2007 as a bill from Rep Rangle (NY) as H.R.3997 - "An Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax relief and protections for military personnel, and for other purposes." They couldn't pass a bill to provide financial help to our soldiers and families in over a year, but Wall Street and bankers...

The party in Denver continues.

I would like to know if anyone can suggest five simple things each of us can do to change the world, no matter what the politicians do, or don't do.

Like carrying a reusable bag to the grocery store, so you don't need either plastic or paper.

Like changing your expectations -- a vehicle should be something dependable, but shouldn't it be something you can afford to repair, rather than replace? What about a printer? What about a television or a cell phone?

Like turning the thinking on ROI upside down. How big a scam, exactly, is the 401K program? How much money are small investors risking / losing, compared to what the same amount of money would have been worth in the (former) pension plan? Read more…

Via Prom6, here's a data point that is troublesome. Take those worthless greenbacks elsewhere, Yanks.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar's value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands.

"Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here," said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. "It's hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office."

That's because the smaller currency exchanges -- despite buy/sell spreads that make it easier for them to make money by exchanging small amounts of currency -- don't want to be caught holding dollars that could be worth less by the time they can sell them.

The dollar hovered near record lows on Monday, with one euro worth around $1.58 versus $1.47 a month ago.

What are the candidates going to do about the dollar's decline, specifically? That's my question.

Susan Madrak of suburbanguerillas says truth here. Better yet, she and others are working to do something about it:

There is not even a little doubt in my mind that, if The Rittenhouse Review's Jim Capozzola had remained a Republican, he'd be alive right now. He would have been in a well-paid think tank job, living the high life. (He did, after all, have a masters degree in foreign policy.) Most importantly, he would have had health insurance for the past six years.

And what did his talent and dedication get him on the liberal side of the political noise machine? Some free books. A life that, as intellectually stimulating as it was, reduced him to living on the charity of strangers.  Read more…

Shorter Chris: "What have you done for me lately?"

Chris is right. They can't control us, and we can't "prove" that we bring them a specific, monetarily valuable benefit. OTOH, $300 million isn't a drop in the bucket, and without that there wouldn't be the Congress there is today. I think that's a lowball number as well- how can one quantify all the activism, awareness and media exposure blogs brought to fore during the last three election cycles? That's worth hundreds of millions to be sure.

There is only one answer to the "Maria Leavy" problem.

Unioninze.

When bloggers get serious about this, and give each other and their communities what they deserve for their efforts, we won't have to, as Chris puts it, "ironically" pay the consulting class that is the very embodiment of the problem we're trying to fix. Democratic leaders will always listen to money first, followed closely by media. We say we are the "new" media, it's time to act like it. Particularly because we have the potential to be the money and the media. Read more…

$500,000,000.

Naomi is rapidly becoming one of my favorite women here, and she reminds me of a point I've been meaning to make (again). Previously she asked:

The presidential campaign season has never opened this early before. And who is driving it? The MSM. Who is failing to ask the probing questions? MSM. Who seems to be promoting certain candidates from both parties? MSM. Who, as gatekeeper of information, has a rotten track-record on fairness, balance and accuracy of reporting? MSM. I mistrust what they report and, most importantly, their motives. And so should you. The MSM protect their executives and shareholders at the expense of Freedom of the Press. And the MSM may have an agenda to pick the worst or least-electable Dem candidate for us… Read more…

I'm on the road, so I have to keep this short, but let me say that I agree with Steve and I'd be even more strident if I had time today to write a whole post. It's not only just time to start formulating not "new ideas" but actually implementing them. Do you think Mr. Rich Ranger Republican whines when Rove calls and says, "I need you to give us $100K stat, we've got a meme problem and I need to pay some journalists to crush it before people start talking about it?" No, he coughs it up. If you really trust the blogosphere to do a better job telling you the truth, then it's time for you to consider, and express your support by agreeing to commit to a subscription or other regular donation, for the first bunch of bloggers to put together a reporting-centric site with funded investigations. It's not like the Democratic Party is going to do it for you, and frankly, after six years of reading Atrios, FDL, Kos, etc., I'd really like all the talent out there to be put to a greater use instead of reading the same "the media lies!" headlines day in and day out :

 Read more…

I hereby announce a crusade to get Billmon to give up whatever the hell it is he does for a living nowadays (something to do with economics and going to conferences as best as I can tell) and take up travel writing. Swear to God this is the best stuff I've read since David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day. Go read. Oh, and put something waterproof over your keyboard, screen and other soakables if you are consuming beverages. You have been warned. Read more…