skippy the bush kangaroo

Labels: music, skippy's music club, youtube

Labels: flickr, losers, politicians, republicans

a hedge fund investor who poured millions into saratoga's equine economy has abruptly stopped all new construction on his huge horse farm and wants to sell his thoroughbreds after losing some $7.5 billion in the bernard madoff scandal. - times union

Labels: financial markets, horses, madoff, new yawk, wall street

despite recent storms, state surveyors reported tuesday that snow levels in the sierra nevada are below average for this time of year, making water rationing almost certain in 2009 with california's water supply in crisis.

...in october, the agency announced that it would deliver just 15 percent of the water requested by cities and farmers statewide in 2009 - the second-lowest level since deliveries began in 1962.

 - sfgate

Labels: california, drought, water, weather

Labels: music, skippy's music club, travel, youtube

what an awful way to ring in 2009. it turns out that viacom claims it has been trying to negotiate a "fair" renewal of its prized cable channels for months and months, but reputedly time warner cable has been unresponsive and "unreasonable" so talks have stalled.

...at 12:01 am on january 1st, just after the ball drops in time square, time warner cable's 13.3 million subscribers will lose 19 viacom channels -- comedy central; cmt: pure country; logo; palladia; mtv; mtv 2; mtv hits; mtv jams; mtv tr3s; nickelodeon; noggin; nick 2; nicktoons; spike; the n; tv land; vh1; vh1 classic; vh1 soul. - nikki finke laweekly

Labels: corporations, hollywood, teevee

Labels: history, los angeles, youtube

...we'd heard that along with hollywood boldfacers jeffrey katzenberg and steven spielberg, bacon and his wife, kyra sedgwick, lost money in madoff's devastating $50 billion ponzi scheme, and bacon's rep, allen eichorn, confirmed it for us. "unfortunately, your report is true," he wrote. - new york magazine 

Labels: financial markets, hollywood, madoff

people pulling up to pawnshops today are driving cadillacs and bmws

...lee amberg, owner of aa classic windy city jewelry & loan in affluent evanston, ill., said he's been seeing cartier watches, two-carat diamonds, david yurman jewelry and pieces from tiffany's. one client, he said, brought in a fur coat from saks fifth avenue that retailed at $9,000. she told him she needed a loan to help buy private-school uniforms for her child. - wsj

Labels: economy

Labels: climate change, energy, environment, food safety, ocean, pollution

Labels: skippy's music club, youtube

bristol palin, the 18-year-old daughter of former republican vice-presidential candidate sarah palin, gave birth on saturday to a healthy 7 lb., 7 oz., baby boy in palmer, alaska.  

...the baby's name is tripp easton mitchell johnston and he was born at 5:30 a.m - people

Labels: alaska, family, palin, veep

while bush has been briefed on the situation by secretary of state condoleezza rice and national security adviser stephen hadley, he has opted not to interrupt his final vacation as president to make a public statement on the crisis. for someone who has enjoyed the most vacation days as sitting president — including days spent relaxing in comfort during hurricane katrina and in the lead-up to 9/11 — it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that bush prioritizes vacationing over crisis management. - think progress

Labels: aWol, israel, middle east

the breeze is critical in planning for diablo canyon emergencies, but scientists doubt pg&e's model is good at tracking it. if so, it won't be able to predict where winds would carry nuclear contamination in case of an accident. - san luis obispo new times

Labels: energy, environment, nuclear power

the incomperable marvin gaye - "what's going on"

Labels: music, skippy's music club, youtube

yes, ohio, there is a santa claus!

and in the small town of ashland, ohio, about 50 miles southwest of cleveland, santa’s name is lance.

well, lance, inc., actually – it's a corporation.

a rarity in recent times, lance inc. is in the news -- not for something negative like excessive executive pay in the face of shareholder losses and employee firings – but for compassion and kindness. for no apparant business reason, the snack food corporation swept into ashland and gave 274 unemployed bakery workers a reason to celebrate this year.

the story begins in october when the archway cookie factory was closed by its owners, a private equity firm. despite assurances that the closing was temporary, within days, the locks were changed, bankruptcy was filed, and the almost 300 employees were left without jobs or benefits. even in ashland, hard hit by the economy and losers of over 200,000 jobs during the Bush administration, the closing came as a blow.

...as of last week, 60 of the original 274 archway employees were back to work, with their seniority, health benefits, and pay intact, as lance re-opened the bakery with plans for full-capacity production by the end of 2009.

not satisfied with bringing good cheer to the 60 rehires, lance gave each of the former archway employees a $1,500.00 gift card and the promise that bringing all of them back to work is the intention. - examiner.com

Labels: cookies, corporations

adam feingold is rolling in dough. cookie dough, that is.

the 15-year-old sandburg high school freshman is hawking tubs of cookie dough to raise money for next month's trip to washington, d.c.

he and the entire 160-member marching eagles band will perform at president-elect barack obama's inaugural parade.

each member is responsible for raising $598 for the trip.

so far, adam, who plays the clarinet but can also play the trumpet and tenor saxophone, has raised about $150.

not bad, considering he's also been cramming for finals. and he's not just selling the dough. he's actually baking it.

...tubs of cookie dough cost $14.50, and they come in about a dozen different varieties.

to buy a tub from adam or to make a donation in his name, contact carl sandburg highschool at (708) 671-3100 - southtownstar.com

Labels: cookies, food, obama

Labels: climate change, coal, ecology, energy, environment, global warming, governator, nuclear power, organic, pollution

Labels: skippy's music club, youtube

“cerberus capital management lp and a group of private equity investors bought mervyn’s from target corporation in 2004 for $1.25 billion. the investor group, which structured the buyout as two separate purchases – one for retail operations and one for the chains valuable real estate holdings, has earned more than 250 million in profits…the mervyn’s store chain, by contrast, is in liquidation…”

by stripping out mervyn’s valuable real estate, selling premium parcels and then leasing its own buildings back to the store at exorbitant rates, cerberus guaranteed a big profit for itself and bankruptcy for mervyn’s. - california progress report

...well-connected cerberus executives john snow (former secretary of the treasury), cerberus executive dan quayle (former vice president of the united states under george bush sr.), and an army of highly-paid lobbyists will be working behind the scenes to get cerberus off the hook as quickly and cheaply as possible. so far this year, cerberus has spent nearly $2 million on lobbying, while chrysler has spent $5 million, according to senate records. - chrysler death watch

Labels: bankruptcy, cars, corporations, greed

a giant straw goat erected each christmas in a northern swedish town has been burned down - yet again.. - bbc

images from a webcam posted near the world-famous gävle goat showed a blackened skeleton and clouds of dark smoke were all that remained of the once towering straw goat. - the local

Labels: bbc, fires, holiday, scandals

Labels: california, economy, foreclosure, housing bubble

Labels: labor, teevee, youtube

the ex-wife of billionaire broadcom co-founder henry t. nicholas 3 has sued to break up their joint trust, alleging nicholas misspent $60 million of their fortune, ordered his private investigators — once dressed in gorilla masks — to stalk her and threatened to have her “whacked.” - oc reg

she also claimed that her ex-husband spent $1 million on detectives who tailed her, their three children, and her boyfriend as far as europe, and once "stalked [her] in gorilla masks and cameras outside a coffee shop when she was with a girlfriend." - ceo.com

nicholas, broadcom’s co-founder and chief executive officer from 1991 to 2003, was indicted in june on 21 counts of securities and accounting fraud for conspiring to backdate — and inflate the value of — $2.2 billion in employee stock options. also charged in the case was william j. ruehle, broadcom’s former chief financial officer. - ocreg

the register is publishing an article about the e-mail because it sheds new light on this influential business leader during a period in which the government charges that, as ceo of a large public company, he was breaking laws pertaining to securities, accounting and illegal drug use. the e-mail is now in federal authorities' hands. 

...according to the four-count drug indictment against nicholas, the warehouse was a lavishly decorated retreat in an industrial park on el camino real, near his laguna hills mansion, which nicholas created "to distribute and use controlled substances."- ocreg

...one possible e-mail in the dispute is an april 2002 message nicholas sent to his former wife in which he wrote that he was “not fully functioning” because he was using cocaine, methamphetamines and other drugs while working as broadcom’s chief executive officer. - oc reg

..perhaps the most astonishing story of all involves henry t. nicholas, former chief executive of semiconductor firm broadcom. a colorful civil suit claimed nicholas built a secret "sex cave" under his california home to host drug- and prostitution-fueled parties.

a subsequent 2008 indictment from the u.s. district court in santa ana, calif., charges nicholas with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, ecstasy and speed, and alleges that nicholas had hired prostitutes for himself and clients and supplied the prostitutes with drugs. the trial begins in 2009. - financial post

the former manager of billionaire henry nicholas’ personal fortune has pleaded guilty in federal court to two misdemeanor counts for attempting to conceal bank withdrawals exceeding $10,000, a plea that could send him to jail up to 18 months under sentencing guidelines. - oc reg

broadcom corp. today “terminated” a senior vice president whose resume listed degrees from uc irvine that he never earned.

...manian, who has worked at broadcom since 1996, earned $3.28 million in 2007 - oc reg

Labels: ceo, corporations

golf.com has performed an important service. it has posted five photographs, taken by apphotographer gerald herbert, that shows president-elect barack obama on vacation in hawaii playing golf. this is invaluable as we all know that nothing, not even a cnn special called "obama revealed," reveals the soul as ruthlessly and efficiently as how one plays the old scottish game. - golf.com

Labels: golf, obama

how many kangaroo steaks will australians eat this holiday season? not enough, according to a growing body of academics who say that giving up beef and lamb for kangaroo would reduce australia's greenhouse gas emissions and ease pressure on a drought-stricken land.

...it is not a new concept. environmentalists have long touted kangaroo as an ecologically sound alternative to hard-hoofed livestock, which erode australia's drought-parched soils and damage its delicate waterways. but the push to address climate change has given new impetus to an old idea. - international herald tribune

Labels: environment, food, kangaroo

Labels: california, horses, sports

Kangaroo, Pouch -5- (Macropus rufus) by RS
Originally uploaded by Robertsphotos1

Labels: flickr, kangaroo blogging friday

the one and only eartha kitt has passed away.

a family friend of the sultry entertainment legend has confirmed that she died of colon cancer today. - black voices

Labels: passings, youtube

Labels: elvis, holiday, music, youtube

Labels: music, youtube

forty years ago, the biggest tv audience in history tuned in to watch humankind's first close encounter with another world, as the crew of apollo 8 reached lunar orbit. here, the apollo historian and film-maker dr christopher riley gives his perspective on the mission and how that christmas eve of 1968 changed the world. - bbc

Labels: environment, space, youtube

an environmental disaster of epic proportions just happened in tennessee. monday night 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the exxon valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at tva’s kingston coal-fired power plant covering 400 acres up to six feet deep, damaging 12 homes and wrecking a train.

according to the epa the cleanup will take at least several weeks, but could take years. officials also said that the magnitude of this spill is such that the entire area could be declared a federal superfund site.

...as many people in the blog world are noting, it's this sort of thing that really makes the proposition of clean coal so absurd. even if you can scrub all the co2 out of it, you still have so many other toxic waste products associated with burning coal that have to be stored that carbon emissions are just a part of the problem.  - treehugger

Labels: disasters, energy, environment

Labels: banking, criminal, food, los angeles, restaurants

liposuctioning unwanted blubber out of pampered los angelenos may not seem like a dream job, but it has its perks. free fuel is one of them.

for a time, beverly hills doctor craig alan bittner turned the fat he removed from patients into biodiesel that fueled his ford suv and his girlfriend's lincoln navigator. - forbes via ecorazzi and autobloggreen

Labels: cars, gas, los angeles

kevin d. johnson returned from a dreamy jamaican honeymoon in october eager to check out wedding photos and help his new wife open stacks of beautifully wrapped wedding gifts.

before getting distracted by the fun stuff, the 29-year-old entrepreneur opened the mail. johnson’s mood soured when he got to a letter from american express, saying it had slashed the credit limit on his account.

johnson was surprised, since he has a perfect payment history and a high credit score. and he was floored by one of the reasons american express cited: it didn’t like where he shopped. 

“other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with american express,” the letter said. johnson complained to american express by phone and letter.

...american express declined to discuss johnson’s account. but it confirmed that it examines spending patterns. it’s just one of many tactics that credit card companies are using to try to keep default rates from growing higher. along with studying shopping habits, american express considers which mortgage lender a customer uses and whether the customer owns a home in an area where housing prices are declining. - atlanta journal constitution

Labels: banking, class warfare, consumerism

a new report by the u.s. army war college talks about the possibility of pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

“widespread civil violence inside the united states would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the war college report.

...u.s. sen. james inhofe, r-okla., and u.s. rep. brad sherman, d-calif., both said u.s. treasury secretary henry paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the wall street bailout in september. paulson, former goldman sachs ceo, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.- bizjournals

Labels: bailout, class warfare, economy, war

Lego Hair
Originally uploaded by squarecircle

Labels: kennedy, senate

san onofre nuclear plant under tighter federal scrutiny. federal inspectors said monday they will ratchet up scrutiny of the san onofre nuclear power plant after discovering that a battery meant to power safety systems had been inoperative for four years. 

...apart from the battery, the commission discovered seven additional safety flaws that it described as minor in themselves -- including poor documentation and inconsistent follow-up on potential problems -- but that taken together formed a troubling picture.- latimes

Labels: energy, nuclear power

Mr. Mugabe said he had taken control of agriculture by seizing nearly all white-owned farms, and that it is now time to take over all foreign companies, in particular foreign-owned banks.

Labels: aWol, banking, foreign policy

one reason civil rights are important to me is because i'm denied them. my partner of 15 years and i are can't get married. and pe obama thinks that's fine. he also thinks i should be fine with listening to a man whose compared my relationship to polygamy and incest giving the invocation at his inauguration. as a christian (the whole 9 yards, steward of my church, teach sunday school etc), i am offended at the choice of a preacher of such hatred in the name of christ to represent my sectarian identity. as some who believes in the separation of church and state, i'm offended that there would be an invocation or benediction at the inaugural at all. and as a queer, i have only one conclusion - pe obama wanted a sister soulja moment to make the chuck todds of this world happy. for obvious reasons, the democrats need a new minority group to slap around. it's my misfortune to be in the one you've chosen. i hope you've succeeded in making the villagers happy.

please remove my name from all your mailing lists. after more than 30 years of active participation in the democratic party, i’m changing my voter registration to unaffiliated. maybe rick warren's parishioners will phonebank for you in 2012.

Labels: questions

Labels: food, obama, white house

Labels: iraq war

alaska gov. sarah palin's home church was badly damaged by arson, leading the governor to apologize saturday if the fire was connected to "undeserved negative attention" from her campaign as the republican vice presidential nominee.

damage to the wasilla bible church was estimated at $1 million, authorities said. no one was injured in the fire, which was set friday night while a handful of people, including two children, were inside, according to james steele, the central mat-su fire chief...

Labels: lawlessness

u.s. president george w. bush had two shoes thrown at him sunday during a news conference in the iraqi prime minister's office in baghdad.

the man who threw the shoes, apparently a journalist, shouted an arabic phrase, which reportedly translated as, "this is a farewell kiss, dog," the new york times reported sunday.

bush ducked and narrowly missed beingstruck by the first shoe, and the man threw a second shoe, which also came close to hitting the president.

"all i can report is it is a size 10," bush said jokingly...

Labels: funny stuff

Labels: questions