Fortune’s Pawn

Today was a work day, but I started out with a delightful breakfast from yesterday’s marketplace acquisitions. Yum yum! After work I settled in for dinner and then to catch up on some news you may not have heard about.

First off, as I mentioned a few days ago, England is gripped with the Exes Scandal. This refers not to ex-spouses, but to expenses. In particular MPs allowance expenses. Members of Parliament are supposed to domicile in the constituencies, but really need to keep an abode in London in order to attend Parliament. Back in the 1970s, MPs earned a relative pittance, and so adopted an expense reimbursement system which would pay rent or mortgage offsets against a secondary residence, as well as allow for maintenance and upkeep of those.

The idea was that if you hail from Bath, and needed to pay for an expensive London flat so as to attend Parliament, the taxpayers should help pay for that. Over the years, however, this privilege has evolved into a massive slush fund.

Well, the scandal has dragged on for 9 days now. The Telegraph, a reliably Tory paper have been serving up little bits of the story in daily doses for over a week now. So far there have been at least three MPs, cabinet ministers or aides who have resigned, and several are under investigation by one or another law enforcement group.

We haven’t heard the last of this, yet. Elections loom just three weeks from now…

Next up in the news is a little scandal of large proportions. I’m speaking, of course, of what is locally dubbed the “Tempest in a D cup,” the Marks and Spenser Bra pricing debacle. A while back, Marks and Sparks decided that since bras larger than D cup require more material and more expensive architecture they should carry a £2 premium. The ensuing outcry was just too much for M&S to ignore, and last week they finally caved. “We Boobed” declared the full page ads which ran in all the papers, in front of an amply filled bra.

In order to make amends, M&S, who celebrate their 150^th anniversary next week, will for three days sell 20 products ranging from ties to bags, scarves, make up and others for pennies (reflecting their start as a penny retailer). I plan to be there, at the Oxford Street flagship store, when it all starts on Wednesday morning, with celebrities and big bras in attendance.

Lastly, tonight is the Eurovision Song contest final. England is more hopeful than ever as this year’s entry is Jade, a protégée of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. She has been all over the press these past weeks, and the best thing to come from tonight’s show is that this phenomenon will hopefully end quickly in the wake of a final decision.

If you’re not familiar with Eurovision, it is a contest to find the best of the banal. The songs which compete are almost all of the monumental anthem class, at which Lord Webber so excels. You would think that this would make Jade, whom Lord Webber will accompany on piano for tonight’s performance, a shoo-in. Not so fast. Eurovision has complex rules, entirely new this year after last year’s winners, Russia, were chose with huge advantage from almost all former Soviet bloc countries. Up till this year the voting was entirely by the public, with each country’s citizens intelligible to vote for their entrant. Now, given last year’s scandal, half the weighted vote will come from industry insiders.

The Russians, as last year’s winners, are hosting tonight’s event. They have spared no expense, reportedly spending upwards of $30 million to stage the event in the 30,000 seat stadium built for the 1980 Olympics. They claim that fully 30% of all LED screens in existence are being used in this production. From what I have seen so far, they’re right about that. The staging is lavishly over the top.

I cannot watch this at my local, as I hate this type of music, and could be counted on to say the wrong thing at the wrong time in a public house. So, I will suffer at home, and silently root for Jade, and her ilk, to fail in favour of some more palatable sounds from some other country. The French entry is singing now, and I like her. Sounds like Marianne Faithful might if she were French… of course, “everyone hates the French,” as the morning papers reminded us all. This audience, from the sound of the applause, didn’t read those stories.

Ta!

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Is it just me, or is anyone else getting just a little tired of hearing “Toxic Asset” as though the term were something we should all just accept, like “Home Improvement” or “Nightly News”?  I mean, come on, “Toxic Asset”?!?  What is that, a pseudo-ironic rock band name, like Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead or Velvet Revolver?

Who coined this phrase?  Toxic Assets… How about “The Scattered Shards of Countless Shattered American Dreams”  At least that would reflect the actual basis of these stakes.

What is the flip side to a Toxic Asset; Healthful Liability?  Invigorating Death?  Happy Foreclosure?  Gleeful Depression?

Count me out.  I want to call these what they are — Bad Bets.

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Hell Dear
I am Dr. Chuma Wills, a Director with the Department Of Minerals and Energy Affairs R.S.A. I need your co-operation in an urgent Fund transfer. Please kindly open the attach to read the full detail of my Business proposal to you. Thanks.

chuma@chumawilson.com

Regards,

Dr. Chuma Wills. (+27 71 263 5167, personal No.).

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There are wiser folk than Pawn commenting on the current Calamity on Wall Street, and here are some of the gems:

“After 7 1/2 years of drift, President Bush has finally returned to his compassionate conservative roots with a heartfelt plea to Congress to help a needy and deserving group: those Wall Street CEOs who, for all their hard work, have been unable to lift themselves up by their wingtips,”

Dana Milbank writes in his Washington Post column.

And this from Rick Klein over at The Note at Mickey Mouse dot com:

And maybe we should feel bad for the bailout bill.

After all, it was born morbidly obese in a town that likes to pretend it’s all about being lean. Its parents never really wanted one like it — and we know they’ll be out of the picture in a few months anyway.

The men who would be president sure aren’t eager to adopt it.

And conservative commentator George WIll, over at Real Clear Politics had this to say:

“The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said without even looking around.”

— “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama. Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated.

Perhaps the most succinct commentary comes from Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif.:

“Cash for trash.”

Nothing makes for tasty bon mots like a certifiable calamity.  Keep it coming…

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Last night, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, bragged on herself for being a reformer saying, ” I told the Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks,” on that Bridge to Nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves.”

Okay, Sarah, let’s see how this worked. You were a small town mayor, whose town of 6,000 had never gotten much Federal largess until you hired one of Sen. Ted Stevens’ favorite lobbyists (yes, that Ted Stevens, the one now under Federal indictment), and then you suddenly got more than $12,000 per capita in Federal bucks. You then run for governor as a reformer. You tell the Federal government that, you know, that bridge you gave us $230 million to build? Well, we won’t build it. Did you return the $230 million to the American taxpayers? No, but you did make a special refund of $1,200 to your fellow Alaskans, most of whom are already earning a $2,000 income directly from the state in the form of oil payments.

So I don’t care what sport you root for, Sarah, and I don’t fancy pitbulls whether or not they’re wearing lipstick. I just want my $1.00 from that bridge you decided not to build. I figure at least that much of my tax dollars went to fund it.

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This article caught my eye in today’s Independent Online:

When Banksy offered one of his highly sought-after canvases to Labour to auction for Ken Livingstone’s ill-fated re-election campaign, the party’s high command was jubilant.

They were left with a conundrum, however, when they realised that the secret identity of the famously elusive graffiti artist would cost their hard-pressed coffers tens of thousands of pounds.

The winning bid for Sketch for Essex Road, a canvas of two children with hands on hearts pledging allegiance to a Tesco carrier bag on a flagpole, was £195,000. But that meant Banksy’s painting would have to be declared as a gift to the party, requiring it to release his true identity on the internet along with hundreds of other donors – blowing apart his well-guarded anonymity.
He’s anonymous, so Banksy’s gift is impermissible - News, Art & Architecture - The Independent

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Pawn was in a deli this morning, having breakfast, and another diner came in and took his seat at the counter. He leaned in conspiratorially and asked the waitress if she wanted to hear an Obama joke. He then proceeded to tell it.

Obama goes up to heaven and approaches the Pearly Gates. St. Peter is there waiting for him.
St. Peter: Can I help you?
Obama: I’m President Barack Obama.
St. Peter: You were president? I don’t think so.
Obama: Yes sir, I was.
St. Peter: When were you inaugurated?
Obama: Ten minutes ago.

The waitress looked at him with a blank expression. “Get it - he got assassinated. Ha, haha”

Pawn was inclined to offer this version of the joke:

McCain goes up to heaven and approaches the Pearly Gates. St. Peter is there waiting for him.
St. Peter: Can I help you?
McCain: I’m President John McCain.
St. Peter: You were president? I don’t think so.
McCain: Yes sir, I was.
St. Peter: When were you inaugurated?
McCain: Ten minutes ago.

Get it - he keeled over dead with a heart attack, or was it cancer…

Let’s face it, if the joke is offensive and just as unfunny when the shoe is on the other foot, then maybe it doesn’t need to be told.

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Every four years, like clockwork, the far-left fringe of the Democratic Party comes out of the woodwork with one or another idea which is sure to polarize the electorate against them, driving vast tracts of voters into the waiting embrace of the right, and ensuring another insufferable term of Republican leadership. I know, I am a member of the far-left fringe. But, I can see this for what it is; a bad idea with the potential to screw the party out of yet another opportunity to lead.

“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said during a Capitol Hill news conference. “I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time.”
Legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use - CNN.com

Four years ago it was Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, who just couldn’t wait for the law to catch up to his ambition, and almost single-handedly started the stampede towards same-sex marriage in California. This time it’s Barney Frank and marijuana. Jeez!

Must we? How does this do anything but help the right? Barack Obama will have to choose between endorsing the move, giving a potentially powerful wedge to McCain, or opposing it, further disenchanting a sizable chunk of the youth vote who are already disillusioned by his rightward tack on FISA and other recent changes (be they real or perceived).

Why did Frank have to bring this up now? What possible purpose is served when he knows, and he must know, that it will not possibly pass his own house, hell even his own caucus, let alone get to the president’s desk.

Yikes what poor legislative reasoning he has. Must have an old pot debt to clear.

Do us a favor Barney, go back to reading the New Yorker.

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In a move that puts the ass in classic, Geo. Bush left his final G8 summit with this parting shot:

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

President Bush made the private joke in the summit’s closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry.
Bush to G8: ‘Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter’ - World Politics, World - The Independent

Remind me again why we should be anything but grateful to see him leave the world stage?

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Pawn was visiting western Wisconsin this past weekend, and read this bizarre missive in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a response to an article about same sex marriage. I am still not sure exactly what the writer, one Charles Charnstrom, of Watertown, was trying to get at:

Whenever objection is raised to GLBT issues or same-sex marriage, name calling is invoked, usually either “hate-filled” or “homophobic.” I am against same-sex marriage and I am not homophobic or hate-filled.

Civilization is fragile and marriage is hard. Living with a person of the opposite sex is much more difficult than living with someone of the same sex. If same-sex couples are granted the same benefits as married couples, people will cease to get married and have kids.

Proof can be found in other Western countries. Babies are not being born from Japan to Italy. Russia even made a national holiday for workers to stay home and procreate.
Letters to the editor for Sunday, June 29

Last time I checked, neither Japan, Italy or Russia permitted same sex marriage, so he can’t possibly mean that those countries were lead to extreme measures due to such a move. If I read it correctly, the only reason men and women marry is because it helps to compensate for the onerous duty of living together and having sex. At least I think that’s what he’s trying to say.

Hmm….

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