AIG Commercial

Conan played a tragically funny new AIG commercial that I think hits home on the surface of the bailout abomination. Of course if Conan had really wanted to portray it accurately we would have seen Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Timmy Tax Cheat and The Bernank saying the same thing regarding AIG's bailout: Go F#$@ Yourself America.

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CNBC's Brian Sullivan is a blithering idiot

For someone who has spent years covering stocks and financial markets, this guy is completely clueless about some really basic stock fundamentals.  He doesn't know the difference between market price and a balance sheet.

Take a look beginning about 1:15 of this video.

Sullivan: "Three-fourths of the stock price is effectively cash or short-term investments... you're paying for about 25% of the business is [sic] the stock price.  That's why we look at cash," he knowingly lectures CNBC viewers.

He's referring to this statistic compiled by CNBC gofers:



Yes, cash is 75.1% of total assets for Priceline.  That just means, like a lot of internet companies, they don't have a whole lot of physical assets like factories, retail stores, and inventory.  Duh.  It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the stock price.  The stock price, in fact, is around $690, giving Priceline a market cap of about $35 billion.  That's seven times the $5 billion in cash and equivalents on the balance sheet.  Here's some remedial math for CNBC:

 3/4 ≠ 1/7

"That's why we look at cash" indeed.

It can't be chalked up to a simple mistake or misreading of the graphic.  Anyone who thinks a high-flying internet stock like Priceline could be trading anywhere close to cash on the balance sheet has absolutely no clue what is going on in the market.

I can't believe they ran a whole segment on this and nobody told Sullivan he had no idea what he was talking about.

Anybody who uses CNBC for financial information and insight is duly warned.

LAPD goes full paranoid rage; starts shooting citizens for driving the wrong kind of truck

In two separate incidents, pants-wetting LAPD officers have now shot at innocent people for driving trucks that resemble the vehicle of the killer the cops are the target of.

In the first, the police shot two reportedly elderly Asian women delivering newspapers.  Because obviously they looked exactly like a giant lone bald black man.

In the second shooting in Torrance, no one was injured.

It's time to disarm the police.  Only civilians can be trusted with guns.

LA Times

LA Times

Psycho cop Christopher Jordan Dorner's manifesto

Only the police should have guns, you know.

The shocking double murder of a young couple in Irvine turns out to have been suspectedly committed by a disgruntled former LAPD cop.  The female victim is apparently the daughter of an official somehow involved in the suspect's firing from LAPD.

Oh, yeah.  He's still on the loose, armed to the teeth, batshit insane, and angry as hell.

UPDATE: Randal Quan, the victim's father, acted as Dorner's legal representation during his termination hearing.  And here is the origin of the firing:

According to documents from a court of appeals hearing in October 2011, Dorner was fired from the LAPD after he made a complaint against his field training officer, Sgt. Teresa Evans, saying in the course of arrest she kicked suspect Christopher Gettler, a schizophrenic with severe dementia.

Dorner denied the allegations, KCBS says.

Following an investigation, Dorner was fired for making false statements.
Richard Gettler, the schizophrenic man's father, gave testimony that supported Dorner's claim. After his son was returned on July 28, 2007, Richard Gettler asked "if he had been in a fight because his face was puffy" and his son responded that he was kicked twice in the chest by a police officer, he testified.

UPDATE: unredacted manifesto here.

UPDATE: The "unredacted" version above is only half of it.  Shockingly, the media have not mentioned the other 11 pages where Dorner reveals himself as a left-wing Obama-lover and die-hard fanboy of the left-wing media including Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, Piers Morgan, etc.

Manifesto:

California school district builds brand new high school it doesn't need and can't afford

San Diego Union-Tribune:

A number of teachers and parents are asking the Carlsbad Unified School District to delay the planned August opening of Sage Creek High School, arguing that it will strain resources and isn’t needed at this time.

“This new high school is just going to be a ruination of the district,” said Sheila DeKosky, a Carlsbad High teacher who created the website www.delaysagecreek.com last month.

[...]

Moors and board President Elisa Williamson said the district’s plan to open Sage Creek follows through with the commitment it made to build a second school when voters passed the $198 million Proposition P bond initiative in 2006.

But DeKosky — along with several people who have spoken to the board and posted comments on her site and a Facebook page — argue that the new school is unnecessary and too costly to open at this time.

“Most of us are all for a new high school when and if we need it, and when we can afford it,” she said. “But we are certainly not in that situation now.”

They truly don't need a new high school for capacity. Enrollment is actually declining in this area as young families can't afford the cost of living.

This situation arises because Carlsbad, like almost all California school districts, has an unsustainable operating budget because of bloated pension and administration costs. However, the capital budget is quite another story. California's voters almost never reject bond issuance "for the children," no matter how obscene the amount or absurd the intended use. But these bonds can only legally be used for construction, not to help with the operating budget. So you get what we had here in Carlsbad: ridiculous, unnecessary, unaffordable construction, and no operating budget to run the place.

Greenspan's Body Count: Phillip Marshall, Alex Marshall, Macaila Marshall

or, the Celebrated Murdering Maestro of Calaveras County.

Calaveras County is in the California gold country in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  It was made famous in the Mark Twain short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

It was not the 19th century gold rush, but the 21st century real estate rush, that brought us today's tragic tale.

The Calaveras County Sheriff's Office has identified the three people killed in the suspected murder suicide in Murphys.

The body of 54-year-old Phillip Marshall, and his two juvenile children, were found inside their home in the Forest Meadows subdivision yesterday afternoon. All three died from gunshot wounds to the head. The children were 17-year-old Alex Marshall and 14-year-old Macaila Marshall, both students at Bret Harte High School. The family dog was also found dead. The Sheriff's Office believes that Phillip shot his children, and then turned the gun on himself. Phillip's estranged wife, and mother of the two children, was out of town at the time of the shootings. 

The home at 1259 Sandalwood Drive was purchased in 2004 for $584,000.  It is now worth $344,616 according to Zillow.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 239.