"HI GUYZ! KAN I PLAY"

Harry Markopolos from Whitten, Massachusettes came out with guns blazing when he began his judicial enslaught on the SEC.

Over 8 years ago, Mr. Markopolos began informing Government officials of the Bernard Mardoff ponzi scam. When asked why he did not come out sooner, he replied something to the extent of “They would give my name to a hitman and have me killed.” Republican Congressman Spencer Bekas points out that Markopolos “laid out in full detail” the extent of the corruption all while wearing gloves to conceal his fingerprints. Markopolos attributes the lack of response to “fear of taking on a big player” as well as a high level of incompetence.

UPDATE: Tomorrow, Harry Markopolos will release information on another Madoff Scam.

Below is a video detailing the events that transpired recently in court.

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Business, Fraud, Harry Markopolos, Ponzi scheme, Republican Congressman Spencer Bekas, SEC, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, United States Hide

Target released information just over an hour ago saying that they’re going lay off more people. In addition to those already laid off, the unfortunate employees of the big red dot are numbering in the tens of thousands. Although they did not release an exact number, it is assumed that these executions will be handed down from the corporate level and not within the stores.

“Like many other companies, Target is taking actions to manage payroll and non-payroll expense in the current economic environment,” Target said in a prepared statement. “We believe the decisions we are making, though difficult, represent appropriate actions to manage our business and maintain our competitive advantage going forward.”

Someone from target mentioned that more information would be made available later in the week.

Other companies in employment hell: Sprint Nextel, Caterpillar, Texas Instruments, and Pfizer. Nationwide, we’ve lost about 200,000 jobs so far this year.

The layoffs are the latest in a brutal round of job-cutting by large corporations. On Monday, about 50,000 new layoffs were announced at a variety of companies, including Home Depot, telecom giant Sprint Nextel, construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, semiconductor maker Texas Instruments and pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Already, 170,000 jobs have been lost nationwide in January.

WAY TO GO AMERICA!

000, 10, caterpillar, Home Depot, layoff, pfizer, sprint, Sprint Nextel, target, Target Corporation, Texas Instruments, United States Hide

We just had an earthquake in California about 10 minutes ago. Approx. 1km south of San  Bernadino. I am in Sherman Oaks and I felt it for about 30 seconds. My whole oak desk was flopping around, so I can only imagine it is quite big. Here are some earthquake assistance hot lines for anyone who may be in trouble.

The Berkeley Seismological Laboratory maintains an “Earthquake Hotline” which is open to the public. The taped message is updated after earthquakes of note, generally within 20-60 minutes. Both local and distant earthquakes are reported. The Hotline phone number is 510-642-2160.[more]

Northern and Central California
Earthquake Update Hotline - USGS, Menlo Park, California: (650) 329-4085 or (650) 329-4668

USGS Office of Communications
24-Hour Earthquake Hotline for Media: (206) 331-0335 or (707) 499-1210
After hours: (650) 329-4011

USGS National Earthquake Information Office (NEIC)
24-Hour Earthquake Hotline: (303) 273-8516
Live person: (303) 273-8500 [more]

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Bernardino, California, Earth Sciences, Earthquake, Geophysics, Menlo Park California, San, Seismicity Reports, United States, United States Geological Survey Hide

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. 

Motherfucker. Every time I walk to the store, I have to step over heaping mounds of feces. Its not that I live in a bad area. I live in a very nice part of the San Fernando Valley. Its these yuppie hipster douchebags and their fucking pomeranians.

This guy has the right idea:

It looks like the New England Patriots will take it at about the 18 Yard line.

For those of you who dont know, the little strip of grass that buffers the road and the sidewalk IS FOR YOUR DOG TO SHIT ON. 

Seriously, the next fucking person I see who lets their dog shit on the sidewalk and leaves it is getting a swift Maddox-style kick to the NUTS.

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Business and Economy, California, Counties, LOS ANGELES, new england, New England Patriots, San Fernando Valley, United States Hide

Please, save the hatemail. I know these arent real games, but a guy can dream right? Here are the Top 10 Videogame Based Porno DVD titles and their taglines.

10. Super Mario Hoes

Enter a magical world of mushroom stamps, pipe plunging, and a pair of nympho plumbers. Maria Mario and Luigina Mario feverishly horde all the spare change they can find whilst constantly battling the ever-present mushroom stamping Goomboys.

9. Call of Booty

A POV based film, geared toward the Nazi fetish crowd. We follow Pvt. Johnson as he escapes the evil Nazi sadomasochism dungeon and get back to good ol’ USA to bang out his Blonde Bombshell.

8. World of Whorecraft

This porno is a little different than your normal everyday flick. In order to get the the next DVD chapter, you must first watch the previous chapter 300,000 times in a row, complete 4 masturbatory quests, and shell out another 60 dollars in order to expand your package.

7. Assteroids

Simple. Our main character, Assy, flies through space dodging creampies and 2 girls with a very special cup.

6. Pokemom

Your standard japanese hentai tentacle MILF porno. Any Questions??

5. Ghosthrusters

Find out what happens when Egon and Ray finally ‘cross the streams’.

4. Castleveinia

Vampire Nymphos try and suck the Hero dry.

3. Titris

Titris is a classic Russian porno starring, well, Russian tits. Vladimir, the lead, arranges a series of oddly shaped boobs so they form 1 perfect pair of tits.

2. Counter-Stroke

Suprisingly, this sub-par DVD will not only have you glued to your screen for 12 hours a day, but probably everything else within arms distance… after you’re done of course.

1. Duck Cunt

This interactive DVD allows you to ’shoot’ the vagina of your liking using the remote controller. Afterwards, a bitch will run across the screen and slurp up your load, smiling.

Arts, assteroids, asteroids, call of duty, castlevania, castleveinia, counter-strike, counter-stroke, duck cunt, duck hunt, DVD, ghostbusters, ghostthrusters, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, luigi, Mario, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Nazism, pokemom, pokemon, Russian language, tetris, United States, Video Games, World of Warcraft Hide

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President-elect Barack Obama on Monday called the financial crisis one of “historic proportions” and said that he and the Bush administration are “united” in their efforts to get the economy back on track.

As Obama unveiled his economic team, he said there isn’t “a minute to waste” when it comes to rebuilding the economy.

“My commitment is to do what is required. President Bush has indicated that he has the same approach, the same attitude,” Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.

Obama’s remarks came just hours after the federal government announced a massive rescue package for Citigroup — which President Bush said he’d spoken about with Obama before it was announced.

Obama said Monday that he has asked his newly formed economic team to develop recommendations for his economic plan, which he outlined Saturday, and to consult with Congress, the current administration and the Federal Reserve on immediate economic developments over the next two months.

In selecting his economic team, Obama said he sought leaders who share his fundamental belief that “we cannot have a thriving Wall Street without a thriving Main Street.” Watch Obama call the economic crisis one of ‘historic proportions »

CNN.com

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Barack Obama, Bush administration, Chicago, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve System, George W. Bush, United States, Wall Street Hide

mccain doll given away on conan obrien

Tonight on Conan, he announced that a doll company had given them their entire surplus of John McCain Dolls. Seeing how Obama won, they had no use for the dolls and decided to give them to the show. He started giving out giant bags of action figure goodness to the audience members and it hit me, these dolls are going to be worth a small fortune on ebay tomorrow.

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Reporting from Washington — Employers slashed jobs from one end of the economy to the other, pushing the unemployment rate to 6.5% — the highest in 14 years — and making a deep recession a virtual certainty.

The Labor Department reported today that the economy lost 240,000 jobs in October, the steepest one-month decline in a contraction that began last January. It also revised downward the number of jobs lost in September, to 284,000 from an initially reported 159,000.

“The October employment report indicated that businesses sped up their layoffs as the financial crisis deepened in September,” Kretzmer said in a note to clients. “With the economy in recession and GDP declining at about an average 3% . . . we expect rapid payroll declines to continue well into 2009, before gradually abating.”

Jared Bernstein, a labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said the deteriorating conditions for U.S. workers are likely to intensify calls for Congress to pass another economic stimulus package.

“Job loss is very pervasive right now across industries,” Bernstein said. “It’s hard to find industries that are creating jobs, other than health care and government . . . and not coincidentally, those sectors both have heavy government involvement.”

“When the private sector engine stalls, the public sector engine needs to kick in,” Bernstein said.

The unemployment rate soared 0.4% in one month, rising from 6.1% in September to 6.5% in October — a sign that employers, facing slackened demand for their goods and services, are responding by cutting jobs.

“A consumer-led recession is upon us, and it promises to be a serious one,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., a New York economic forecasting firm.

The last time the unemployment rate was so high was in March 1994, when the economy was still struggling to recover from a recession.

The unemployment rate is a survey of those who have lost employment and are actively looking for new work. It does not include people who are working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job, or workers who have become so discouraged that they have stopped applying for jobs.

Read more at LATimes.com

Economic Policy Institute, United States Hide

VIENNA, Austria – She was a stranger, and she kissed me. Just for being an American.

It happened on the bus on my way to work Wednesday morning, a few hours after compatriots clamoring for change swept Barack Obama to his historic victory. I was on the phone, and the 20-something Austrian woman seated in front of me overheard me speaking English.

Without a word, she turned, pecked me on the cheek and stepped off at the next stop.

Nothing was said, but the message was clear: Today, we are all Americans.

For longtime U.S. expatriates like me — someone far more accustomed to being targeted over unpopular policies, for having my very Americanness publicly assailed — it feels like an extraordinary turnabout.

Like a long journey over a very bumpy road has abruptly come to an end.

And it’s not just me.

An American colleague in Egypt says several people came up to her on the streets of Cairo and said: “America, hooray!” Others, including strangers, expressed congratulations with a smile and a hand over their hearts.

Another colleague, in Amman, says Jordanians stopped her on the street and that several women described how they wept with joy.

When you’re an American abroad, you can quickly become a whipping post. Regardless of your political affiliation, if you happen to be living and working overseas at a time when the United States has antagonized much of the world, you get a lot of grief.

You can find yourself pressed to be some kind of apologist for Washington. And you can wind up feeling ashamed and alone.

I’ll never forget a ride in a taxi in Vienna when the world was waking up to the abuses wrought by U.S. troops at the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

My driver, a Muslim, was indignant. “You are American, yes?” he asked in that accusatory tone so familiar to many expats.

“Uh, no, Canadian,” I said.

And it wasn’t the first time I fudged where I was from. I speak three foreign languages, so I have a bit of flexibility when it comes to faking. At various times, I’ve been a German in Serbia, a Frenchman in Turkey, a Dutchman in Austria.

I’m not proud of it. But when you’re far from home, and you’re feeling cornered, you develop what you come to believe are survival skills.

Last spring, after the Bush administration recognized Kosovo’s independence, a Serb who overheard my American-accented English lobbed a beer can at me in central Vienna. He missed, but spat out an unflattering “Amerikanac” and told me where to go.

On another occasion, an Austrian who heard my teenage daughter chatting with a friend pursued her, screaming, “Go Home!”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_re_eu/eu_election_an_american_abroad

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Austria, Barack Obama, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Military of the United States, Politics of the United States, U.S, United States, Washington Hide

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By Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Nov 5 (IPS) - They sat glued to their television sets as the new president-elect of the United States. Barack Obama, during his acceptance speech in the early hours of Wednesday, made reference to those listening “in far off places” around the world.

As they danced, honked car horns and used their mobile phones to communicate with friends and relatives not only in the United States, but throughout the region, Caribbean nationals acted as though Obama had won the presidency of the entire English-speaking Caribbean and not the United States.

“If he (Obama) continues in the inspirational vein of the election campaign, it could mean a change in the world, especially in how the U.S. relates to the rest of the world,” said Chris Zacca, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ).

The respected Caribbean journalist Rickey Singh suggested that the U.S. has undergone a “cultural and political metamorphosis, undoubtedly and ironically partly influenced by eight years of the ideology and governance politics of George W Bush“.

“Let therefore, all Caribbean citizens, not just those of the diaspora in the USA who will have voted for him, join president elect Obama in scoring one for a resounding triumph over racial bigotry,” Singh wrote.

Caribbean leaders have unashamedly expressed open support for the first ever African American to be elected to the White House, and in St. Kitts-Nevis, where Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas is due to face a general election soon, the ruling party staged a “dream is real” outdoor rally that allowed thousands of citizens to view the U.S. election results in a festive atmosphere.

“The St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party was built on the exact same principles as Barack Obama’s campaign to empower the working-class and the downtrodden,” the party said in an advertisement, urging citizens to “celebrate the long-fought dreams of men like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,” a reference to the iconic U.S. civil rights leader.

Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson, who has extended an invitation to Obama to visit his Caribbean island to recuperate from the arduous election campaign, said he was “thrilled” at the result.

“This is a dream come true for millions of Americans — and especially African Americans — who were anxious to see their country redeemed from an unflattering image emanating from a number of factors, including its civil rights history,” said Thompson, who was the only regional leader present at Obama’s presidential nomination earlier this year.

The president of Guyana, which in recent months has had a public squabble with Washington over efforts to eradicate the illegal drug trade, said the victory of the Democratic Party’s candidate over Republican John McCain was “well earned and historic”.

“We in Guyana are very excited about the prospect of change in the United States…and we look forward to working with him in the future,” President Bharrat Jagdeo told the state-owned Guyana Chronicle newspaper.

“I don’t think any president of the United States of America will have the kind of empathy that he will have with people from different countries and poor people because he understands it firsthand, and that is why I think he will understand the difficulties that small, developing countries face,” he had earlier told reporters.

The 47-year-old Democratic senator from Illinois, who will take the oath of office on Jan. 20 next year as the 44th president of the United States, sealed his victory on Tuesday, winning 349 electoral college votes against 163 for McCain.

As the new commander in chief, Obama moves into the Oval Office as leader of a country that is almost certainly in recession, and fighting two long wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan. 

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African American, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, George W. Bush, John McCain, President of the United States, U.S, United States Hide