I had great plans for tonight’s post. I was going to weave asparagus cultivation, the prosecution of Bush administration officials, the existence of bailout fraud and the curative properties of Vitamin D all together into one perfect, little Chinese puzzle box of a post. And I had it all worked out as to how I was going to do it, too. But then I fell asleep putting Clementine to bed, and, when I awoke, it was all gone. So, you’re on your own tonight. Please do your best to keep each other company.
[Ad tonight’s open thread is sponsored by Aubree’s, where you still have about a week and a half to enjoy the incredible MM.com pizza coupon.]
41 Comments
It’s starting to come back to me. The connection to Vitamin D had something to do with sunlight. I think sunlight was the common denominator between all of them.
Plenty of sunshine coming our way, zipidy doo-da, zippidy-ay.
I put this in another thread, but it probably belongs here as well, as it may involved the fraud investigations.
David Kellermann, 41, the acting chief financial officer of ailing mortgage company Freddie Mac committed suicide last night in Virginia. He’d had the job since September.
No comment as yet from the guy in congress who suggested that people start taking their lives.
I think that Obama wanted to prosecute Bush administration officials from the get go, but that he didn’t want to be leading the charge. Now, he can go after them, but he can make it look as though he’s being pushed by the public to do so. This way, it doesn’t look vindictive or overtly political. It’s not about a Democratic president going after a Republic predecessor, but about restoring the rule of law.
Paw, Obama is not going to prosecute Bush officials because he doesn’t want his administration to be prosecuted in four years when he is voted out of office. It sets a precedent that will forever change our political landscape when a newly elected offical can prosecute a former.
The beginning of spring in Michigan is wonderful, and I’m glad it happens 6-12 times every year.
That’s true BA, it is a beautiful day in Southern Canada.
OMG. I have to tell you this story. The last (and only) time I was in Ann Arbor was last summer. I work in marketing for a pharmaceutical company and came in to update the Ann Arbor office on some new product. So I’m training these three woman and one of them gives me this weird vibe right from the get-go. She just… stares at me a lot. It was three days of training and on the second day she invites me to this women’s “business networking” happy hour that afternoon. It sounded better than wandering around downtown by myself, so I went. It was in a upstairs restaurant at a hotel by the mall, and there’s an open bar and munchies. No speaker or anything, but everyone is super friendly– I chatted with lawyers, a local bank VP, a vet; just small talk about life in Ann Arbor, work, where I’m from, travel, etc. It seemed like people knew that I was new and made it a point to talk to me. I had a few drinks and lost track of Terri, the girl from the office who brought me. At some point I go to the bathroom and when I pass the coat rack in the hallway I look over and see Teri behind it just totally snogging with this other chick!!! They are sucking each others tonsils and this woman has her hand in Teri’s blouse! When I get to the bathroom, I sit down and hear this “mmmm” and lip smacking next to me. I look down and see two sets of shoes facing each other in the next stall. WTF!! I head for the elevator and when it opens a tired looking server is standing there. On the way down, I ask her what the event is on the floor I came off. She nonchalantly says, “Our GM’s a lesbian and she has these ‘stoplight’ parties the first Wednesday of every month. What color’s your name tag?” I look and it’s yellow. She says, “That means you might be available.” WTF!?!?? “Green means you want to hook up and red means you don’t. She has a block of rooms on the top floor people can go to.” OMFG.
I finished the last day of the training. Terri wasn’t there.
I got an invitation today from a group hosting a sustainability event. They said there would be pine nettle stew. It would seem they thought that would attract people to their cause.
If there’s something out there that makes your pee smell better than asparagus, I don’t know what it is. And, by “your pee”, I mean my pee.
I am not a smoker but I hate that UM has banned smoking outdoors on campus. One can’t walk across the Diag smoking and would need to put out their cigarette at S.U or N.U or State before stepping into the Diag. Seems intrusive. Michigan Sen. Hunter of Detroit (D) today introduced a bill to put a ban on workplace smoking to a vote in 2010. This would I believe cover bars, restaurants, etc. as well as an office. I hate these efforts because they are limiting people’s access to legally smoke in the State and are making it in effect, illegal to smoke. It feels akin to the Prohibition Era. There are limits imposed on most workplaces already which is fine. Not smoking in the office makes it not only healthier for those around a smoker but a more pleasant place to work. There are age limits to purchase which is fine. But I just can’t fathom making illegal a practice that is legal by continuing to ban where a smoker can smoke. And what’s the punishment? Fines? Jail? That would really be going to extremes which again is making a legal practice illegal. It feels like a Constitutional breach to me, maybe under the equal access clause, freedom of expression, etc. But something about it bugs me and I will not vote for a ban on smoking that goes to the extremes.
You are perfectly free to masturbate and shit on the floor in your own house. You can’t do these things as you walk across the diag.
Joanne, I think some people have a mental illness that compels them to meddle in other people’s lives through legislation. It makes them feel important and helpful, without the painful self-discipline of not being imposing dicks, or of having to produce positive results. Luckily, such laws usually work about as well as prohibition did, or gun-control does, or outlawing marijuana does.
I have to say though, that if UofM wants no smoking on their own property, they have every right to. However, if bar owners want to allow smoking on their own property, they also have every right to. By going to either property, you are consenting to abide by the property owners’ wishes. I think most people have abandoned this principle to our detriment.
Apparently the police in Vienna, Virginia can’t decide if CEO David Kellerman hung or shot himself. Initially they said they found him “hanging in his basement” but have since suggested he was shot in the head. I noticed that Fox News doesn’t even mention the method of suicide whatsoever. Now THAT’S fair and balanced.
Monday, just outside Chicago, CEO Steven L. Good, was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Jaguar. Mr. Good, 52 years old, was chief executive of Sheldon Good & Co., one of the nation’s largest real-estate auction firms.
As the Father of the Constitution that went into effect in 1789, I read with great interest the following words, posted by Joanne, who was addressing the issue of smoking at the university of Michigan campus:
“It feels like a Constitutional breach to me, maybe under the equal access clause, freedom of expression, etc. But something about it bugs me….”
I am unfamiliar with any “equal access clause” and I wonder if someone could explain it to me. And has it come to the point now that the rule of law has been reduced to subjective “feelings” that some Constitutional breach has taken place? Whose feelings are the ones that should count? Don’t Americans believe in the institutions of representative government?
I’m sorry, Steven L. Good died in January. My mistake. I thought that just happened this past Monday. That was the first I had heard about it.
Madison-Equal Protection clause in the 14th Amendment, not access. You’re right. However, that doesn’t change my point that it feels unconstitutional to me, that it is making illegal a legal pratice, and that because of these two issues, I would not vote for a law that would ban smoking inside of every workplace across the entire State. In fact, the Equal Protection clause would in theory apply here because it says that states cannot pass laws based solely on a classification of person. But smokers as a classification aren’t covered under the clause which covers only race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity. But smokers would, under the clause, have a good place to begin an arguement.
I guess Kellerman was actually “acting” CFO, not CEO. It doesn’t appear that he had any reason to kill himself, as he was not one of those tainted by the scandals. It doesn’t look like it makes any sense.
Thank you, Joanne, I appreciate the clarification. I have heard vague reports on this Fourteenth Amendment; from what I know, it seems like a very bad addition to the const., which was NOT devised to protect anybody’s rights, but rather was devised to protect the stability of the entire society. Somehow, along the way after we created the constitution, The People got hold of it and transformed it rather drastically.
Still, that said, it hardly follows that all things we wish for are defined as either legal or constitutional issues.
If I seem pedantic and unpleasant in my comments, well, that’s to be expected of a Founding Father who was sent to hell for owning slaves. I’ve been paying for that “sin” for nearly two centuries, and it seems the United States has not yet paid for it either.
I’ll use this open thread to let y’all know that the great guitarist Laith Al-Saadi, who used to have weekly gigs at the Tap Room a number of years ago, will be performing at Elbow Room on Monday nights. Yay!
Any time anyone connected to politics dies by suicide, am I the only one who immediately thinks that that perhaps the person was ‘suicided’ because they knew something that was potentially damaging?
Secondly, Obama will never prosecute those involved with torture. If he does so, the process involved will ruin us. Think about it – torture not for the purpose of getting ‘terrorists’ to provide valuable information that will expose potential plots and prevent them from happening, but torture to get the bad guys to admit to a connection between Al Queda and Iraq when there was none. Justification that advances a political agenda, a war, and the associated profiteering; not justification to keep American citizens safe. Perhaps someone in Congress has the balls to move forward with an investigation – I doubt it.
Makes me want to grab a bottle of Vodka, put on Billie Holiday records, and contemplate moving to France.
I always intended in my teachings that people should be wary of ideologue 60’s-counter-culture-stain historians who seemed to speak with authority, but couldn’t back their theses up with original sources to save their lives.
Somewhere along the lines a bunch of smelly hippies came along and fucked up my whole vibe with their rediculous spoiled westerner bullshit.
Laith Al-Saadi is pretty fantastic. You should go see him play, if you haven’t done so already.
Go use this coupon. Seriously. It’s good pizza. And it’s a good deal. And your time is running out.
One of these days, I need to go and try the Aubree’s in the Township. I’ve still never been there.
notsayin@nowhere should go tell the stoplight story to the lesbians on craigslist….they’re always moaning about how dead the scene is around here.
Dow Jones Newswires: “Police spokesman Lucy Caldwell told AHN that other people were present at the home at the time of Kellermann’s death, in Reston, Va., and that there was a gun and a gunshot wound.”
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200904220957DOWJONESDJONLINE000695_univ.xml
ABC News: “Law enforcement sources said David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, was found hanging in the basement of his Vienna, Va., home, dead from an apparent suicide early this morning.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7399376&page=1
hey mark: don’t know if you’ll see this in time…on Detroit PBS tonight,
http://www.asparagusthemovie.com/
8PM
Damn. Looks like I missed it…. I knew I should have check the site earlier…
And you’re running out of days to use this coupon… Better hurry.
I want to be the first on my block to own one of these new glow-in-the-dark dogs:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090428/ap_on_re_as/as_skorea_cloned_dogs
Does anyone know how to make homemade antacid? I need some, but I don’t want to leave my house. Is it something that I can make out of pesticides and household cleaners?
Do you have papaya in any form? Barring that check any meat tenderizers you have on hand for “papain” and mix some up with water…
Was wondering if that guy in Ypsi with the fleet of Segways had snow plows for them.
Not only that, but, in case of blizzard, he’s the guy designated to declare martial law and take over.
There’s an article in Crain’s about Ann Arbor’s Eve Aronoff and her new venture, Frita Batidos.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110203/STAFFBLOG06/110209952/eve-aronoffs-eden-8211-frita-batidos
“Does anyone know how to make homemade antacid?”
Just heard some researchers on the radio at Johns Hopkins or Duke or somewhere say they put people with acid reflux on Atkins diet. So water and tons of meat. Go figure.
Are you planning to write about the New Yorker piece on Scientology?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright?currentPage=all
How about the New York magazine piece written by Davy Rothbart on porn, masturbation and libido?
http://nymag.com/news/features/70976/
Both are troubling.
Does anyone know where I can get a handjob in Knoxville?
I’ve never hated anyone so much as the woman in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ZZHGO5sXw
I saw the footage this morning as well. You’ll be happy to know that there’s a movement to get her.
http://i.imgur.com/b5gKw.png