It is America's Fault

The Federales have taken down El Teo, said to be a big-time Tijuana drug boss whose hobbies include marinating rivals in lye. The MexFeds showed him off at a Mexico City press conference and:

Police displayed about a dozen seized handguns, along with several laptop computers and bundles of cash.

The damned computers worry me. You can walk into any computer store along our southern border and walk out with all the gigibytes you can carry. Cash on the barrelhead, no questions asked.

Definitive proof of global warming

And it comes from no less an authority than our own Jinglebob. Read it and weep for the future of our climate.

I can hardly wait

My state is broke. So is yours, so don't go accusing me of parochialism here. My governor is somewhat dimwitted. (So is yours so dont...etc.) In an hour or so he's going to deliver the annual "condition the state" address and has conned the media out mountains of time and ink by promising a "huge surprise ... bold initiative ... major innovation" on education.

And I'll bet I'm the only guy in the whole wide world who thinks his major big surprise is that His Obamaness is printing more money for the teachers' unions and is going to send us some of it. I reckon I'd even bet a little that "Race to the Top" figures in the mystery of what Chet will say."

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As a matter of cute historical interest, my governor is one Chet "Y' Big Lug" Culver of lucky sperm fame. His daddy was one-term Sen. John Culver, about whose sperm I know nothing and don't need to. His luck was being a very close Harvard buddy of one Ted Kennedy, much of whose fortune and clout was made available first to father, then to son. Before he started spending his inheritance on getting elected to to office, Chet's career acme was as a voc-ed teacher and football coach..

EDIT: Cheshire cat grin. Polishing fingernails on lapel. Buncha fed "Race to the Top" money in the mail with a nice card from His Obamaness.

Sometimes most everything you need to know is in the headline. From Reuters this morning,

"Wall Street slips as investors brace for earnings start"

The market has been up quite a bit lately because of the possible end of the worst of the beginning of the recession's middle. And because we are getting out of Iraq. Or not. And because the Iran government is about to fall. Or isn't.

I don't think most investors are quite that spooky, but it seems that the bulk of the experts who write for them are common-loon crazy.

Because every three months, about the time quarterly earnings are announced, it occurs even to financial "journalists" that the value of a company's stock depends on how much money that the company (a) now has and (b) can earn.