Thursday 23 June 2011

Revealed: Derivatives are a bunch of worthless IOUs

[A suitcase full of IOUs. A pension fund's nightmare- Dumb and Dumber movie]

I want to take out a derivative today.
I want to hedge my bets against my company failing.
So, I create a CDS. Not 'buy', create.

How do I pay for it?
Who is the counter party?
Who wants to bet against me?



I don't need anybody else. I just create a formula such that the opposite side
of the bet is ME. So, I have both sides on my balance sheets.
Unfortunately, this 'legal' stuff is complete and utter bullsh*t.
There's no check on this, no taxes, no true risk, and no reserves to pay off a loss.
If this causes a failure, I get bailed out.
["That's a Lambourghini. Keep that one. 275 thou"]

That's sh*tty if you're a pension fund.
The banksters took all your money and
left you with nothing but worthless paper IOUs.
Government pension funds around the world have been hit.
Now that the Boomers are retiring, they will take the last of the money
and then, it's back to the 19th century for the rest of us.


Even though banksters have robbed us, the banking system will still
all come crashing down. Why?
Their theft was legal,
but it was not enough to cover their foney derivative paper losses.
can you say "13 Trillion dollars"?

Even without that problem, palliated with OUR future tax money,
some think that the original sin, sub-prime loans will do them all in.
They're still falling in value.
I thought they were gone, but they're back, like hungry zombies.



-Cos67 ¬(%^D>

Papandr-IOU one big haircut

[PM Papandreou- WilliamBanzai7, ZeroHedge]

Greece is gonna get out the sheers sooner or later.

Economist N. Roubini seems to think Greece will have to chuck all of its debt.

In the meantime, EU/ECB leaders are enjoying enslaving Greece and selling
off it wares. Let's see who laughs last.

The debt pile that Greece've been given is going nuclear, simply to please banks.

Those banks, and I can see it clearly now, are going to kill of much bigger countries,

very soon. The only way to stop this cataclysm is to give banksters all
a monk's haircut, in public.
[Catholic Monk look]
So, if you think Greece is a bad country full of baaaaad, lazy people,
it's actually a scapegoat, and Greece will be the first country to
give the banksters a haircut, and it's gonna become a popular activity.

The haircut will get so bad, banksters are gonna need to buy a toupe'.
---
UPDATE: to take an idea from TRRN.com, you can't attach a toupe' if you've got no scalp,
and banker scalps is what the people wanna get.
A commentator said, why stop at scalps, when heads should be rolling in the streets. See Max Keiser's guillotine diatribes.
----
Then, we'll move on to back hair

Then, we'll shave their backsides, and teach them to walk backwards, on all fours.

We'll get our pound of folicles, one way or the other.

The only way to make everything work is to reverse everything
from Reagan/Thatcher, onward.
That reminds me of the 80s & Haircut 100


Screwing workers to feed banksters just
makes banksters more greedy, thereby killing your country.

Nature will kill off the banks, but countries are still in trouble.
The simple antidotes, to start balancing things out:
1 Companies, increase wages. NOW!
[for an explanation, find Steve Keen on Max Keiser's show]
2 Start taxing millionnaires (yes, that includes billionnaires)
& tax them BEFORE they offshore their money
e.g. tax capital gains at source, at normal tax rates (about 35%).

Otherwise, the banksters' economists are already saying
that we should all be accepting Chinese wages,
because of wage arbitrage. Of course, not all jobs
can be exported, but still, it's pretty scary how nobody in the media is allowed
to criticise this cataclysmic concept.

-Cos67 ¬(%^D>

checkitout: from creditwritedowns.com
[HIS ADVICE WILL MEAN NOTHING TO POLITICIANS, I ASSURE YOU -COS67]
Roubini: "Greece is clearly insolvent"
Political Economy | Edward Harrison |

Nouriel Roubini recently spoke to Handelsblatt, the German financial daily, about the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. I have translated the article reporting the conversation below. If I could sum up his words in a sentence it would be: “Greece is clearly insolvent”. I think this is significant for a number of reasons.

In a debt crisis, the basic role played by regulation, financial aid, and lenders of last resort should be to discriminate between the clearly insolvent and the rest. We can see that as a result of the panic in 2008. When the US was bailing out its own indebted entities, I wrote a post called “Bailouts: catching a falling knife”, saying:

Fear creates an environment in which it is extremely difficult to discern the difference between illiquidity and insolvency. Propping up bankrupt institutions only increases doubt and fear, adding to the economic death spiral.

What needs to be done is to comprehensively review financial institutions in a way that makes clear which are insolvent and which are not. Once this issue is taken care of, solvent institutions can be induced to lend if they are infused with enough capital to reasonably cover capital needs for future writedowns of assets already on the books.

As we move forward, you should be watching to see if policy makers understand these facts. If they do not, they will be bailing out insolvent institutions - and taxpayers will be catching a falling knife. We would expect writedowns to increase further from unnecessary dead weight economic loss, lengthening and worsening the recession.

Note that US financial institutions made an accounting gain of $29 Billion in the last quarter. My view is that banks are under-provisioning for loan losses and that the writedowns are still going to come – in great measure during the next cyclical recession. The credit environment is one reason why growth is going to be poor during this cycle. By propping up weak institutions, the bailouts as conducted will have lengthened the downturn through at least the next business cycle. You could quibble and say that if enough losses are socialised, the downturn will only be lengthened, but not worsened.

The same logic is true regarding the European sovereign debt crisis. What investors would like to know is which debtors are clearly insolvent and how the euro zone will deal with those debtors that stand a chance of avoiding principal reduction.

Greece is clearly insolvent. The Europeans should put a plan in place to deal with Greece and to reduce contagion. The contagion to Italy and Belgium is happening right now because of the debt crisis' uncertainty and the inability of the EU to put forward a credible medium-term solution to the sovereign debt crisis. At the same time, the EU should demonstrate credibly how it plan to deal with Ireland, Portugal and Spain’s problems – and how they are not bankrupt.

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Female warriors are not as well armed anymore

Back in the day, Jean D'Arc was leading the charge in France,
with her heaving bossom as captured by Delacroix.



Nowadays, female warriors in the field of sport, are finding that
large armaments are a detriment to their follow-through.
So, the scalpel was drawn.


[Simona Halep of Italy- before. Torpedoes at the ready]
I'd show you the after, but it's too depressing.

This reminds mythology fans of the Amazons, the war-like women of the Hellespont:
"Hippocrates describes them as: "They have no right breasts...for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm." (See breast ironing, a current practice in which breast growth is deliberately stunted.)" (Wikipedia)
The reason?
"Among Classical Greeks, amazon was given a popular etymology as from a-mazos, "without breast", connected with an etiological tradition that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out, so they would be able to use a bow more freely and throw spears without the physical limitation and obstruction;[7] there is no indication of such a practice in works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although the right is frequently covered." (Wikipedia)
[An Amazon, by Franz von Stuck. Note the right protuberance]

-Cos67 ¬(%^D>

Atlas separated his shoulder hoisting bankster debt


How's your Galt doing?

In a sick a twisted world, the entrepreneurs, in the banks, are all under attack.

They've foisted their toxic sh*t on all of us, and yet, we cannot find
the compassion to show them the respect that billionnaires deserve.

Crystal Harris out of critical condition


The Hef's fiance was to become his next wife soon, but she fell ill.

She'd been eating some meat that has been hanging for around 85 years,

and went into toxic shock.

She'll be alright. Soon, she'll be back to downing regular, fresh meat.

it doesn't matter who wins. Fans are sh*theads, either way

I've believed from my early adulthood that professional sports fans were idiots.
I don't mean the well-meaning, calm people who go religiously to games,
spend a ton on legal memorabilia, and shitty stadium food.
They're fools, with nothing else to live for, but I have no beef with them.

I'm talking about the people who "live and die" for their team, and join groups,
and do crazy stuff in the name of their 'boys'.
Vicarious, innit? Kinda homoerotic, too.
Lots of that in football circles in the UK, even without the hooligans.

As an adult, I "tried" to be a normal fan, for a bit.
When my hometown got a new hockey team, I bought tickets for a couple of seasons.

But I soon realised that if your soul is not into rooting for your team,
then it's just a very expensive night out.
And it's regular too,
to add to the boredom, if you're a season-ticket holder.
Redistribution of wealth,
from the stupid workers to the millionnaires,
ladies and gents.

To watch a bunch of lazy, sh*t-scared professional hockey players regularly
is more than I could bear, even though I grew up idolising hockey players.
I just saw how little they actually tried.
I saw how easy it was for lazy teams to tie up the good players,
or break their bones.

I knew that fans benefit, psychologically when their team wins. However, as the video shows, this is just chance. And if they don't win?
Are you supposed to be
angry? sad? suicidal?
are you supposed to riot?
No thanks, buddy.

Molyneux also mentions how the kind of us-vs-them fighting is great prep for war.
That's why governments give their money for an 'industry' that creates nothing
but a bit of sweat.
They do it because it controls the idiots who go watch. It trains them for war.
and it drains their pockets, making taxes for the gov.

According to psychologists,
by joining a gang or a fan club,
males can acquire a sense of belonging,
and even of male-ness,
which is rare these days, outside of an army.
However, all those guys could be asked to sacrifice their own lives and health
for the group, which is just stupid.
Oh, the chivalry.
I dare say, f%^&*&k off!
Mouseketeers. Jack-offs.

You're government wants you to do that.
Your government wants you to die so that they can accumulate your taxes
and not give you a pension.

so, GO CANUCKS! ....too late.

-Cos67¬(%^D>

Tuesday 21 June 2011

My health is worsening. I better get my ass to jail

No, it's not an escapee choosing to stop running. It's a free man
deciding that he can't afford health care, because he lives in the US.
So, his solution is to committ a crime to get in jail and be taken care
of by his fellow countrymen.

It kind gives him a sense of national pride.


more soon

checkitout:
Jail for his health
Meet The Guy Who Robbed A Bank Just To Get Healthcare In Jail
Robert Johnson | Jun. 21, 2011, 6:42 AM

With a undiagnosed growth on his chest and two ruptured disks, Richard James Verone needed medical attention and to get it he handed a note to a bank teller demanding $1.

Verone walked into an RBC bank in North Carolina, handed the teller the note, and she gave him the money. Then, according to the Gaston Gazette, he sat down and waited for the police to show up.

He said, “I didn’t have any fears. I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police.”

Never in trouble with the law, Verone worked fort Coca-Cola for 17 years, but was laid off three years ago. He's had part time jobs since, but nothing steady, and nothing with health insurance.

“If you don’t have your health you don’t have anything,” said Verone.

His plan includes a three year stint in prison, multiple surgeries, and then release -- just in time to collect social security.

Click here to see 20 mindblowing facts about inequality in America >

Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.
Follow Robert Johnson on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/guy-who-robbed-a-bank-to-get-healthcare-in-jail-2011-6#ixzz1PuSkgxSt

bowing 4 those above us

[Hello, Auntie. Cameron is about 30th in line to the throne.]

This country, the UK, is not Japan. So, bowing is not normal for most people.

However, some people, in important places, are privately educated at great expense
to know their place in the world (more or less near the very top), and yet to
know what they should do when they meet those few who are above them;
For them, they must bow or curtsy.

Today, UK PM David Cameron had visitors to 10 Downing Street, his crib.
It was the Queen and Prince Philip. So, he bowed.

I wonder if he does that for the bankers in the City, nearby.
Why not?
They run the politics of the country. They paid for his campaign. They're out of control.
They've got him squeezing the sh*t out of the British taxpayer.
So,
Just Dave,
curtsy (but don't forget your y-fronts)


Then , bend over. History will screw you over, quite nicely.



-Cos67¬(%^D>

stop, or he'll shoot himself and you and me and them

what follows is the very definition of the clusterf^%&k.

Greece owes money to banks throughout Europe,
particularly French and German.

These banks are being held together by government money from their own countries, because they're broke and holding toxic paper.
They will take taxpayer money from all over Europe, money which will wave at Greece
as it goes back north, to those banks.

And if Greece defaults, the Euro banks will not necessarily default.
Euro banks took out $129 billion in CDS which were bought by US banks.
So, behind the scenes,
the ECB/EU are holding a gun to Greece's back, saying
"you better do x,y,z or you won't get any money"

Behind that scene,
the US is holding a gun in the back of the ECB, saying
"you better give them Greeks some money"
[sorry, I was raised on westerns and cop shows. Motive = gun]
The IMF is also playing an interesting role, being essentially American
in practice, now that DSK is gone.

[guns pointed in everywhich direction]
Who's gonna drop first?

For a sane review, let's go to a Greek economist:

Monday 20 June 2011

I'll bet that I'll lose. that way, I'll win

You know how you can hedge against your own f^%&k-ups?

Well, I did mention that Greece's PM, as I read, got his hands on a derivative
that says "Greece will bankrupt", as security in case it does,
that belonged to the Hellenic Post Bank (government-owned)
and sold it to a consortium including his friends.
Its value has gone up to 27 billion (20+ times investment)
So, the question is, does he have any skin in this game?

Will he profit if Greece goes bankrupt?

If he has skin in the game, he will be trying to have Greece go bankrupt.

More news: I've heard a rumour, for the first time, that Greece will be
dragged behind the bus for 3 years and then allowed to go bankrupt.

I like to read the last page of a book, too. Don't you?

Saves you suffering through all the theatrics and you get right to the climax.

the US Republicans sense libertarian danger

I mentioned, a couple of stories ago, that Ann Coulter is a Republican
front operation, telling the Drooling end of the market how to vote.

She says "Ron Paul is the antichrist", essentially.

Now, I'm not a Ron Paul fan (and I don't vote in the US anyway) , but he certainly
is a breath of fresh air, i.e. not visibly corrupt.

Anyway, I can now see the campaign is mounting to get rid of Paul

Time Magazine is getting in on it.
I rest my case.
I didn't add it, below, but one talking theme was the pull-back from wars that Paul wants.
So, he's getting an audience and talking about stopping war, so who's behind all
the Republican screaming? MIC?

There's no other reason for them to be bleating so early.
Therefore, you can now see how the media (Ann Coulter and Time) is being
controlled by the powers. It sure looks like it, doesn't it?

checkitout: from Daily Bell
Time Magazine Attacks Ron Paul Conservatives
Monday, June 20, 2011 – by Staff Report

Conservatives used to be the ones with heads firmly based in reality. Their reforms were powerful because they used the market, streamlined government and empowered individuals. Their effects were large-scale and important: think of the reform of the tax code in the 1980s, for example, which was spearheaded by conservatives. Today conservatives shy away from the sensible ideas of the Bowles-Simpson commission on deficit reduction because those ideas are too deeply rooted in, well, reality. – Time Magazine

Dominant Social Theme: Leviathan cannot provide prosperity for all and you better not forget it.

Free-Market Analysis: This article, written by CNN correspondent and CFR member Fareed Zakaria provides us with a good idea of the arguments that the Anglosphere elites are trying to use against the growing Internet Reformation. This sociopolitical and economic movement is one that likely cannot be stopped but the elites will do their best to slow it down and further manipulate it if they can.

The article is apparently based on the recent Republican presidential debates that no doubt frightened elite apologists. In the years since the last set of debates, the libertarian ideas of Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) have gained considerable ground.

Much of the recent presidential debate turned on foreign policy and the idea that US imperial overreach was not feasible anymore. These were arguments that Paul was making four years ago and they were not well received by other Republican candidates. Today they have resonance. Ron Paul is making them again, with even more power and vigor.

Sunday 19 June 2011

Benny and the Dogg

coming soon


it must have been this special in NY


Snoop Dogg: 'Women are getting empowered. Now I have a daughter, I understand'
As Snoop Dogg, Prince Harry's favourite hip hop star, nears 40, he reflects on how his family has changed him… and on the talents of Benny Hill

o Elizabeth Day
o The Observer, Sunday 19 June 2011
....Snoop Dogg has always been a mass of contradictions: the credible rapper who went commercial; the stoner with an admirable work ethic; the one-time pimp who married his high school sweetheart, and the former murder suspect who now coaches his son's youth team. He seems to delight in confounding expectations. When the woman from his record label tells me he has a soft spot for Benny Hill, I'm barely even surprised.
"I love Benny Hill," Snoop enthuses when I bring it up. "He one of my favourites of aaall time. Like, the way Benny did it, he was just amazing. Just seeing how he put songs together and comedy and the timing and the sketches. He was way ahead of his time."
Does he, I wonder, see a bit of himself in Benny Hill? Snoop leans back in his chair, legs spread apart. He turns to look at me through slanted eyes, his face sharp, eyebrows minutely raised. "I would like to play Benny Hill in the Benny Hill movie," he says, enunciating every vowel like he's eating molasses. "I'll even paint my face white." He laughs, delighted at the thought. Knowing Snoop Dogg and his capacity for self-transformation, the idea is probably not as far-fetched as it sounds.

a way of life older than the Bible

[Moulin Rouge, 19th c.]
[the Dita]
[grabbing the great behind]

this might not make too much sense but I like to look at the big picture.

We have some people who make their living by the use of their bodies,
either for sex or for (naked) show, or as models. We're talking mostly about women.

They are working, not for their health, but for money. Money is necessary in a modern
society for doing anything: to eat, to have a roof over your head.

So, there's supply and demand.
there's also people who view the body-trade as immoral.
they may be right.

The question is, what would people be doing without money, in order to live?
Would they be offering their bodies to someone to look after them?
Some would say that a society means that people meet clothed and decide to marry.
Fine, but say there was no society.

If we operated like animals. Would women not be giving themselves to the strongest
males in order to have food, family and protection?
Is that what feminists are upset about? that some women depend on men for their
living?
Perhaps while we're very advanced, as a society, anomie means that people view
most others as 'what can you do for me?'
Bodies in two dimensions and three are part of business.
Yet, we are returning to an animalistic interest in bodies and ignoring morals
and family.
But in the wider context of all other levels of society being without morals:
I mean Politics and Business
I would say that body-trade is the least immoral of all those. It won't take away your future.
In fact, it's one of the few trades where incomes for workers are going up.

So, who's getting screwed?

Let's just say that the maxing out of our economy by bankers is making it clear
to the last monk on the last mountain that the price of something is its value.

I'm not just talking about sybaritic lifestyles, just a bit of skin.

copyright my arse

[the Saturdays- creativity starts with a band's name. i.e. zero stars]
copyright for lifetime plus 70 years means that the Beatles could be beetle food for 70 years
and their wives (all 8) would be living the high life.

This actually is happening when the recording companies are losing market left and right.
I think that people are more interested in new, unique, free, downloadable, historic and otherwise found music, and less on stars that Stock Aiken and Waterman pump up.

Which is the latest bunch of gurning hoes? the Saturdays. At least they're
multicultural

It's always the technique of the rich to notice when a market is dropping,
and to start working ceaselessly to corner that market for themselves.

Thatcher and Reagan both knew that the world was heading slowly towards
smaller growth. So, they decided to get as much for themselves and their rich
friends as possible. Freeing the banking system and letting them steal from
workers' savings and countries, bankrupting countries.


more soon

you're a ten, minus 4. goodbye

The dating site for beauties only, has had problems figuring out
who's cute and who's average,
so they kick out lots of people, after they get in.

Don't you hate it when ugger chuds crash the party
when you're being beautiful with your beautiful friends?
I could just break a nail.

[here's what I think of your beauty]

checkitout:
Dating website for beautiful people dumps 30,000 members
'Shrek' virus exposes site's ruthless policy as owners set up a counselling helpline for rejected applicants
• Rupert Neate
• The Guardian, Monday 20 June 2011
Swedes of both sexes are among the most accepted applicants to dating website BeautifulPeople.com Photograph: Sisse Brimberg & Cotton Coulson/Keenpress
It was meant to be a dating website exclusively for the use of "beautiful men and women", where members ruthlessly selected and excluded those who did not match their definitions of good looks.
But last month when BeautifulPeople.com was attacked by a computer virus, some claim standards slipped and around 30,000 new members gained admittance. Now, in a move which has made those rejected "apoplectic" with rage, they have been unceremoniously booted off at a financial cost of more than $100,000 (£62,000) to the site's operators.
The virus was quickly named Shrek – after the animated film about how looks should not matter – as it attacked the software used to screen potential members. A helpline has now been set up with counsellors on hand to help the distressed rejects from the site.
"We have to stick to our founding principles of only accepting beautiful people – that's what our members have paid for," said Greg Hodge, managing director of BeautifulPeople.com. "We can't just sweep 30,000 ugly people under the carpet."
Hodge reckoned the Shrek virus – which may have been posted by a disgruntled former employee – had affected the software that existing members use to rate prospective new entrants, allowing anyone to join. The website boasts that "beauty lies in the eyes of the voter" who are able to rank aspiring members on a type of traffic light scale where red is "absolutely not" and bright green is "beautiful". The site posts applicants' photographs alongside information about their weight and height and ask candidates to describe their "body type" as well as whether they own a car or home along with their zodiac sign.
"We got suspicious when tens of thousands of new members were accepted over a six-week period, many of whom were no oil painting," Hodge told the Guardian.
The brutal axing of the 30,000 hopefuls is not the site's first brush with controversy. Last year, about 5,000 members were removed from the site after they had appeared to put on weight during the Christmas period.
This month, the website triggered anger in Ireland when it said that Irish men were among the ugliest in the world. This was based on the reasoning that only 9% of male Irish applicants to the site were accepted. Only 20% of Irish women are accepted, compared with nearly 70% of Swedish women who sign up. [it's your own faults, you Irish narses- Cos67]
The prospects are even worse for British men, as according to Hodge, they are the most likely be rejected. "It's a bit of a sting as I'm a Brit," said Hodge, who is based at the site's head office in Los Angeles. On average one in seven people are rejected from the site which has around 700,000 members in 190 countries.
He said Norwegian women and Swedish men have the greatest chance of being accepted into the club, while Brazilian and Danish men are also popular – along with women from Sweden and Iceland.
Conceding that the latest set back was a "very embarrassing day", Hodge said he felt "very sorry" for the "unfortunate people who were wrongly admitted to the site and believed, albeit for a short time, that they were beautiful".
He attempted to placate the rejects. "I sent them all a very carefully worded email, trying to be as sensitive as possibly," he said. "But naturally many of them are finding it a bit of a sting to have been rated beautiful by their peers only to lose the accolade overnight." The company has paid out $112,500 in refunds to 4,500 of the 30,000 who had paid $25 a month for membership of the site. The others were still on a free trial period.
Hodge said the site, which started life in Denmark in 2002, was investigating the origins of the virus but said it appeared to have been planted by a disgruntled member of staff.
"At first it looked like one of the 5.5 million BeautifulPeople rejects planted the virus, but further investigations point towards a former employee planting the virus like an evil Easter egg last month," he said.
Rachel Godfrey, a 31-year-old Australian nanny living in LA, said she received an email telling her she was rejected two weeks after being accepted. "I was getting on really well with this American guy and we were going to go on a date and then they said I'd been chucked off and they locked me out of the site," she said. "Now I can't get in touch with him."
Godfrey said she is planning to have a makeover and professional photo shoot before reapplying to the website. "What if he's the one? This is only way I'll be able to get in touch with him," she said. "If that doesn't work I'll see what I can do with Photoshop."

Saturday 18 June 2011

garage sale: marbles going cheap




Now the vultures are circling.

they're staying in hotels in central Athens, for a working vacation and a casual country rape.
Steve Forbes is there as well as the Internation Chamber of Commerce.

Meanwhile Max Keiser was in the constitution square, inhaling tear gas. He managed to find Forbes hanging out with his 'crew', the International Chamber of Horrors, er , Commerce.


checkitout:
from Greek rich list
Greek Power Summit 2011: Helping Greece Rebuild, Athens,
June 14 and 15, 2011
Posted on May 31, 2011 by GRL Admin
Steve Forbes and a significant number of the world’s most prominent professionals and entrepreneurs will gather in Athens for a two-day event to exchange views and ideas on how Greece can attract major investments, re-enter the path of growth and create jobs, all under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
A two-day Summit of discussions and interaction where more than 40 renowned professionals of the Greek Diaspora and prominent Greek professionals will have the opportunity to discuss and exchange views on how Greece can maximize opportunities for international investments and growth. They represent the key dynamic sectors of the Greek economy – tourism, construction, banking, commerce, industry, shipping, energy and technology – and all are interested in seeking potential ways of cooperation. The 1st Greek Power Summit will include a gala dinner with Steve Forbes President and CEO of Forbes Media, publisher of Forbes Magazine, and a Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 1996 and 2000.
On the second day of the Greek Power Summit, two discussion panels will be moderated by anchorman and political commentator, Pavlos Tsimas, with eminent members of the Greek Diaspora including John Calamos, President of Calamos Investments (USA), Nick Lazares, Founder of Admirals Bank (USA), George Koukis, Founder and President of Temenos Group (Switzerland), Stephen Cucchiaro, CIO of Windward Investment (USA) Krysztof Walenczak, Secretary of State and Finance Ministry (Poland), Mihalis Pagidas, President of the Association of Chief Executive Officers (Greece), Professor of INSEAD Spyros Makridakis (Greece) as well as Steve Forbes.
“I expect the Greek Power Summit will be a valuable opportunity for political, corporate and civic leaders to generate ideas that will lead Greece into its next era of prosperity and economic progress.” John Calamos.
“I think the Greek Power Summit will be a powerful catalyst in helping Greece to overcome its current challenges and move on to a new Golden Age.” Nick Lazares.
“This gathering couldn’t be more timely.” Steve Forbes
The 1st Greek Power Summit is organized by Honeystone Limited, publishers of the Greek Rich List Magazine since 2007, and International Advantage Corporation (IAC) established in 1993.Georgette Alithinos, of IAC stated: “We are very happy that we have attracted so many important professionals from around the globe in a two day gathering of sharing knowledge and experience that will be invaluable for the creation of a new Greek economy and the entrepreneurship needed to make it a reality”.

Shhhh, I'm screwing the help


I guess money is an afrodisiac. Lots of rich folk are f%^&king around, and
instead of being embarrassed in the media, they take out an injunction to stop the story being published.
A super-injunction means that you can't even talk about the injunction.
I guess the courts are making a penny on this stuff.

The rich can use the courts to squelch journalism, and to sue people.
They have all the money in the world, and the power that it buys.
All they have to do is to behave reasonably.
If they don’t, they’re public figures and must pay the price.

So, they shouldn't diddle their sister-in-law, and try to hide it. Ryan Giggs did his s-i-l, and then he took out a super -injunction.

The old boss of RBS screwed one of his underlings and then took out a super-injunction. But we still found out. His bad banking also screwed the rest of the country.

Parliament revealed Giggs name, knowing that no parliamentarian would be charged for breaking this law.
BUTT, this is also a Twitter revolution. Salacious tweets are flittering about, all day, every day. Rich fornicators can't hide anymore.
Maybe they'll give up their cash and go live on an island.
screw 'em if they can't take a joke.

checkitout:
1 Daily Mail
We will not be gagged, M'lud: As Ryan Giggs is named in Parliament as cheating star after weeks of legal farce, MPs launch a defiant message
By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 1:06 PM on 24th May 2011

Ryan Giggs paid the price of his secrecy battle yesterday as Parliament launched a dramatic fightback against the judiciary.

Days ago, judges had suggested MPs could lose their centuries-old right to speak freely at Westminster.

But yesterday – hours after a court insisted his name must be kept secret – Giggs was identified in the House by a campaigning Liberal Democrat backbencher.

John Hemming’s intervention, applauded by fellow MPs, signalled a looming constitutional crisis and the end of the Manchester United star’s fight to maintain his reputation as a faithful husband – despite an alleged affair with model Imogen Thomas.

Less than 24 hours earlier, 37-year-old Giggs had presented his wife Stacey and two young children to a 76,000-strong crowd at Old Trafford and a global television audience.

Today PR guru Max Clifford suggested that Giggs may have kept his relationship with Miss Thomas private if he had not taken out an injunction to protect his privacy.

Mr Clifford, who is Miss Thomas's publicist said she had never intended to sell her story.

He told ITV1's Daybreak programme: 'I will see what she wants to do but, because of the previous conversations, I know that she never had any intention of selling her story.
'She came to me because she wanted to make sure the story didn't come out, and I told her 'Phone Ryan Giggs and warn him that The Sun are looking into this, and knocking on your door, because if you don't talk, and Ryan Giggs doesn't talk, no-one will know'.
Stacey Cooke appeared at Old Trafford with the couple's two children as the club celebrated winning the Premier League

Stacey Cooke appeared at Old Trafford with the couple's two children as the club celebrated winning the Premier League

'And that's the irony of it - if Ryan Giggs hadn't taken out a super-injunction, probably we wouldn't know what had been going on. It's only because of that, and of course the fact that, in that super-injunction that he got to protect his privacy and that of his family, he named Imogen, that the whole thing started down that trail that led to it coming out in Parliament yesterday.

'If he hadn't taken out a super-injunction, no-one would probably have known about this relationship.'

Mr Clifford said it was 'easy' for him to phone a lawyer to take out injunctions to stop newspaper stories coming out about his clients.

'It doesn't make it right, though, because it's only for rich people.'

Asked if the other 80 people with injunctions should be worried, he said: 'I think all the ones I'm aware of - and that's probably most of them - are worried, because people around them know, so with what's going on, there's a chance that it will come out.

'But hopefully the days of the super-injunction are numbered, because it's only a law that protects the rich.'

Giggs has spent at least £150,000 on lawyers to keep the affair secret – even though tens of thousands of computer users have posted his name on Twitter and other internet sites.

Yesterday morning David Cameron admitted he knew who the mystery footballer was after Giggs’s name had been published in newspapers around the world, including in Scotland.

The secrecy battle over the footballer’s alleged affair is growing into a full-scale clash between Parliament and the courts.....

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389841/Ryan-Giggs-named-Parliament-cheating-super-injunction-star.html#ixzz1PgKnPWdM

2 Telegraph
Sir Fred Goodwin, former RBS chief, obtains super-injunction
Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, has obtained a super-injunction banning the publication of information about him, it has been disclosed on the floor of the House of Commons.
By Steven Swinford

2:13PM GMT 10 Mar 2011

The existence of the draconian injunction - so strict it prevents Sir Fred being identified as a banker - was disclosed by John Hemming, a back-bench Liberal Democrat MP, in a question during a business debate at the House on Thursday morning. His comments are protected by parliamentary privilege.

He said: "In a secret hearing Fred Goodwin has obtained a super-injunction preventing him being identified as a banker.

"Will the government have a debate or a statement on freedom of speech and whether there's one rule for the rich like Fred Goodwin and one rule for the poor?"

Leader of the House Sir George Young said a forthcoming Westminster Hall debate would explore freedom of speech, adding: "I will raise with the appropriate minister the issue he has just raised."

The terms of the injunction are so strict that the Daily Telegraph cannot reveal the nature of the information that Sir Fred Goodwin is attempting to protect.

Friday 17 June 2011

Ann Coulter: Bell weather or bell end?

if you recall, I added Ann to the Miss Republican contest a few months back.

Lots more people are gonna see how stupid she is because of increased coverage
of the other 'contestants', Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman.

Anyway, Ann made the news in March when she said that 'radiation is good for you'.

I interpreted that as meaning that it's on its way, and it's bad for everybody,
except for Ann and her friends who have shares in US healthcare insurers,
who will refuse to treat radiation sickness because
'it's good if people glow'.
So, although she talks bollocks, if you
take the inverse and backwards version of her message,

you catch an important Republican media meme.
I'll go one step further. She works for the Republican party by translating their message
into 'Drooling Idiot-speak', a recognised dialect in the US.

Thought of another way, she is speaking Republican dog-whistle type talk.
The message is received by those backwards-ass Republicans who understand the world as either
'mine' or 'a piece of sh*t',
and hates the government,
unless they can make money off it.
I happen to be a linguist, so that's how I figured it out.
Methodology: listen to the AC message, and watch Republican reaction. That's it.

Here's her latest meme, on Republican Pres Candidate Ron Paul (in Daily Bell):
".. So Rep. Paul is a swashbuckling individualist when it comes to civilization's most crucial building block for raising children, but willing to be a run-of-the-mill government statist when it comes to the Ponzi-scheme entitlements bankrupting the country. He's like a vegetarian who says, "I'm not a fanatic – I still eat meat." "
[Daily Bell commentary] We have read this excerpt several times and we're still not sure we understand it. She asks a lot of questions about children and wills and health care and makes it clear that if government does not handle these issues, then the world will fall into mass confusion. Why should this be so?
Ms. Coulter has spent decades dissecting government incompetence with her rapier wit [Daily Bell's sarcastic wit- Cos67]. Yet in this article, she makes the case that government is absolutely necessary for life's basic relationships. She even makes the case that if state governments don't keep track of marriages then adoption will become unfeasible along with custody and child support issues.
---end

So, 1 the Daily Bell is guilty of using logic to analyse the words of an idiot.
2 The message is 'hey Republicans. Watch out for Ron Paul. He's not one of us'
3 This means that Ron Paul is a threat, either for the Republican nomination, because
he's picking up some "Tea Party themes" (like spending, and shutting the Federal Reserve)
which will mean that Coulter's friends will lose money. SHE's into the Ponzi stuff, not Ron Paul, regardless of what she says above. And even if Ron Paul doesn't get the nomination because of spy subterfuge, he could run as an Independent and screw the Republican candidate, and possibly beat him in the polls, giving the win to Obama.
4 She uses an emotive issue of family, and in so doing, behaves like the government is important to people's lives. That's treading in dangerous territory for a Republican. However, Republican rubes will only hear
'my family is threatened by Ron Paul, who's probably gay'.
5 my main point: Ann Coulter is stupid, but crazy like a fox.


-Cos67 ¬(%^D>
note:
bell end (British slang)= idiot. etymology? see 'phallus', as in 'the fat end of...'

Sunday 12 June 2011

teach folks to fish for $365 000 dollars

teach a man to fish, and he can eat for a lifetime.


Let a teacher teach a man to fish, and the teacher learns how to live off of government training programs.

-Cos67 ¬(%^D>
checkitout:
Mish blog-
Illinois Insanity: State Spend $365K Taxpayer Dollars to Teach People How to Fish

Illinois has a budget deficit of $8 billion and has billions of dollars in unpaid bills. Those problems persist after the largest tax hikes in history.

However, Illinois is wasting millions of dollars in programs that many would consider absurd even in good times. For example, please consider $365K In Taxpayer Dollars To Teach People How To Fish?

In his winter budget address, Gov. Pat Quinn pledged that “all unnecessary state spending will be eliminated.” Now it appears the state is preparing once again, to spend a third of a million dollars – taxpayer dollars – to teach people how to fish.

“I don’t think teaching people how to fish in urban areas or rural areas is a core government service,” says CEO John Tillman. And he complains that in this year’s budget, “they’ve increased it from $351,000 to $365,000.”

Friday 10 June 2011

finally, well-spent gov money, but why the monkey?

I can't understand what could be learned by feeding all our
favourite alleyway drugs to simians.
Call me a luddite.
I think they're trying to create the proper conditions for ...
Planet of the Apes
How long would it take for simians to get stronger and smarter than us?
crack and meth make you super strong and car-jack dangerous
[test beast- don't give him money]
-Cos67 ¬(%^D>
checkitout:

hookah WINNER: Dope-Smoking, Menstruating Monkey Study Got $3.6 Million in Tax Dollars
Thursday, June 09, 2011
By Christopher Neefus
(CNSNews.com) - The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a division of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), has spent $3,634,807 over the past decade funding research that involves getting monkeys to smoke and drink drugs such as PCP, methamphetamine (METH), heroin, and cocaine and then studying their behavior, including during different phases of the female monkeys’ menstrual cycles.
The study also uses “interventions” as “treatment models” for monkeys who have been taught to use drugs.
NIDA wins CNSNews.com's "What Were They Smoking Award"—symbolized by The Golden Hookah (see video)—for sponsoring an outrageous government spending program that sends taxpayer dollars up in smoke.
Precursor research on drug-using monkeys, also funded by NIDA, discovered that after smoking cocaine monkeys exhibited “dilated pupils and slightly agitated, hyperactive behavior”—which helped researchers conclude that the “physiological effects” of cocaine on monkeys “were similar to those reported in studies of human subjects.”
In yet another federally funded study of drug-taking monkeys, the monkeys were sometimes given “trail mix” after “their daily experimental sessions.”
Back in 2001, the NIH gave $328,364 to a project called “A Primate Model of Drug Abuse: Intervention Strategies.” The principal investigator for the project was Dr. Marilyn E. Carroll, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota.
The description of the grant published by NIH said: “Goals of the proposed research are to use a rhesus monkey model of drug abuse, to study factors affecting vulnerability to drug abuse and to evaluate behavioral and pharmacological treatment interventions. Routes of administration that have been developed in this laboratory will include oral drug self-administration and smoking.”
“Vulnerability factors to be examined,” said the NIH description, “are sex and phase of the menstrual cycle as well as patterns/duration of access to drugs.”...

If I were guilty of attaching my dick to an e-mail, I'd want Alec Baldwin defending


Sexuality, manhood, womanhood. They're all screwed up, if you read the media.

1 man send pic of dick by e-mail.
some do the moral outrage thing, others defend him [both a bit nuts- no pun]

2 women get pissed off at Canadian cop defending rape as being about
"she was dressed like a slut, so she deserves it"
women do "slutwalk", in broad daylight.
Next night, woman dressed like 'that' gets raped, not because of clothes
but because of wrong-place-wrong-time Karma. Are they gonna march about that?

3 men are beasts, men aren't beasts.
generalisation are too general

4 I wouldn't let my daughter do that, so it's gotta be illegal
The Freakonomics guy uses that test for everything from drugs to moon landings.
F%^&ks up on alcohol and gambling addiction. So, daughter might become addicted to one of those, or both.

Sorry, I've only got headlines today

-Cos67 ¬(%^D>
checkitout. News stories for above:
checkitout:
1
Alec Baldwin
Actor
Anthony Weiner Is a Modern Human Being
My friend Morgan Rank owned an art gallery in East Hampton several years ago. He moved to Italy, living in the quiet countryside there for nearly a decade. We had lost touch and then, at an art event in New York, someone approached me and said, "Morgan is back." I got a phone number and called him.

Morgan really lived off the grid. No internet. Little telephone usage. When we spoke awhile back, he commented on the digital age he found, in full force, upon his return. "Theses kids with these devices in their hands every minute of the day," he said. "They will never get to know each other the way we did. They will never stare at each other over a candle, jammed into a bottle of Mateus, on a red checkered table cloth in some restaurant."

Which brings me to Anthony Weiner.

The Internet, as I understand it, is best for sharing information, ideas and even feelings. We send our thoughts and feelings, our very spirit, over the airwaves, with astounding velocity. At times, as human beings, we want to attach the body to the feelings, as well. Photos of ourselves and loved ones. Pets. The view out our window. The image of a child's purity.

Photos used to sell something. Houses, apartments, cars, headshots, horses, music downloads, cookware. ...

2
Why I'll be joining the London SlutWalk
The language of 'slut-shaming' varies around the world, but this is a protest against the scrutiny that tries to control all women
o Asiya Islam
o guardian.co.uk, Saturday 11 June 2011 09.30 BST

Back home in a small conservative town in India, it would be considered perfectly acceptable to "Eve-tease" me if I went out in "western" attire (aka fitted jeans and T-shirt). In the capital city of the UK, things are surprisingly not very different – I run the risk of being called a slut if I "dare" to go out alone in the night wearing a short dress. The two scenes might not be exactly the same, but there's a common thread running through them – you are a slut provoking sexual attention if you don't conform to male definitions of modesty. And that is exactly what SlutWalk is protesting against.

Feminists have, however, been divided on the protests, which have already been held across the UK, in Canada and in the US. The main issues that have arisen in the debate is SlutWalk's use of and attempt to redefine the word "slut" and its alleged white supremacist and classist nature, which fails to be representative either of women of colour or of "real" sluts or sex workers.

3
Martin Robbins, Guardian, Man vs Beast
Like many children my penis didn't come with an instruction leaflet, or even adequate washing instructions, but somehow I've brought the beast under control. That's not to say that my penis doesn't occasionally do unfortunate things, just that when it does it's usually in collusion with my brain. A sort of double act, like Pinky and the Brain. If Pinky were a penis, and not a... a pinky.

My education has come from a combination of parents, peers, popular culture, trial and error (like at least one incident the subs edited out of my magnet post), and the sex education that some conservatives want to get rid of on the analogical basis that if a child has a loaded gun in his pocket, the safest possible way we can deal with it is for everyone to just pretend that nobody has noticed.

John McEntee's penis is apparently self-guiding. It is a biological tragedy that leads him to empathize with footballer and fellow philanderer, Ryan Giggs:

"...Giggs was only following the well-trodden path of his species and doing what us men can't seem to help doing. I don't mean going to expensive lawyers but remaining monogamous. Women can vow to love, honour and obey at the altar and stick to that promise. Men, it seems, can't ... we can't seem to stay faithful to the love of our lives.

The assumptive 'we' includes my entire gender. "Men," McEntee

4
Steven Levitt's 'daughter test' fail
Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame has come up with many brilliant insights, but his latest gambit is spectacularly dumb
o Jennifer Abel
o guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 June 2011 19.00 BST

...Levitt says nothing about reviving Prohibition, yet I guess it would be wrong to presume, by logical extension, "since Steven Levitt wouldn't ban booze, he won't mind if his daughter becomes an alcoholic." Perhaps he has sense enough to realise that "If she does grow up a problem drinker, entangling her in America's criminal justice system will only make matters worse." At any rate, Levitt mentioned his "daughter test" not to justify such bans, but to illustrate the idiocy of others:

"The 'daughter test' makes it clear why I find the US government's stance against internet poker so ridiculous. When I imagine my daughter growing up to be a professional poker player, my reaction is to think that would be a great outcome!"

Assuming she's any good at it. I guess it would be wrong to presume, then, that "since Steven Levitt wouldn't ban gambling, he won't mind if his daughter grows up heavy in debt to Russian mobsters." Perhaps he simply has sense enough to realise: "If my daughter does get involved in gambling – or any other currently illegal business – entangling her in America's criminal justice system will only make matters worse."....

no money for starving folks

It used to be that I had millions of reasons at the ready
for anybody who asked me to give money to charity.

1 Most people raising money for charities are paid (telemarketing, etc)
so the charity gets 50% or less of the money
2 Charities need buildings and employees. Even less money goes anywhere
3 Charities wine-and-cheese the government
4 Here in the UK, charities are make-work projects for Oxbridge grads
5 You have more faith than me if you think your money will get to that
crying naked kid you see on tv
6 money given to Third World governments ends up in tax havens and London
THAT is the UK government's charity trick.
7 it's western business/government policy that is starving countries of cash
and killing their markets. THAT is why they're starving. Isn't anybody gonna complain?
(see below) The US has single-handedly destroyed Haiti. Forget the hurricane,
the real killer is wrapped in the stars and stripes. IT's FREAKIN' SICK!

[what a grandstander and a hypocrite. this guy knows all the sh*t on Haiti. He deposed President Aristide and sent him to the other hemisphere. I sh*t you not.]
[she doesn't know what her government is doing. She's a grandstander, but puts on a good show, likely to get normal folks to shell out money. fools]

Now, the main reason, for me, is that the world is upside down, right now.
The rich are running wild in the Hamptons, and us workers are
suffering. And yet, because workers are humans, we are more
moved by advertising and give more in donations, though we have less.

Enough already! No Bullsh*t, no more!
I know bums on the street with more marketing skills than most charities.
If Oxfam had any brains, they'd go do a protest in Switzerland
in front of the Bilderbergs. There's gotta be a Trillion dollars in there.
take a page from Greenpeace. Absail off the building. Get arrested.
Shed your blood. Rain flyers with the crying baby all over the place.
Video those rich arse-wipes turning you away.
I guarantee you, it'll fill theatres. Charge entry.
Get off your f%^&king arses! and
now, if you'll please, LEAVE ME ALONE!
I thank you.

-Cos67¬(%^D>
checkitout: cjr.org
[How's your f^**king free-market capitalism, now?-Cos67]
A Pulled Scoop Shows U.S. Fought to Keep Haitian Wages Down (UPDATED)
By Ryan Chittum

The Nation has a scoop—or had, actually—from Wikileaks cables showing that the Obama administration pressured Haiti not to raise its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour, or five bucks a day.

The magazine posted the story the other day and has now pulled it, saying it will repost it next Wednesday “To accord with the publishing schedule of Haiti Liberté,” its partner on the piece.

But you can’t stuff the news genie back in the bottle. They already put it in my browser and many others, so I’ll summarize what it said (and I’ll link to it once The Nation republishes it).

Two years ago, Haiti unanimously passed a law sharply raising its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour. That doesn’t sound like much (and it isn’t), but it was two and a half times the then-minimum of 24 cents an hour.

This infuriated contractors for (UPDATE: I originally wrote that the companies themselves did this here, but The Nation wrote that it was contractors for the companies, so I’ve added “contractors for” here) American corporations like Hanes and Levi Strauss that pay Haitians slave wages to sew their clothes. They said they would only fork over a seven-cent-an-hour increase, and they got the State Department involved. The U.S. ambassador put pressure on Haiti’s president, who duly carved out a $3 a day minimum wage for textile companies (the U.S. minimum wage, which itself is very low, works out to $58 a day).

The Nation:

Thursday 9 June 2011

advertising causes crime and ruins movies

[the next President of the US]

this is a one-two punch against advertising

1
Morgan Spurlock (pic) after Searching for Bin Laden (solved) and getting Supersized,
has taken on the fizzy drink companies.
He got advertising for product placement in his movie for $1 million.
But then, if you watch his documentary, the bosses at Pom Whatever
started telling what to do or say and what not to do or say in his movie.
So, the story is "here you can see how business ruins creativity, but with all the other movies that take cash from big business (because they can't find it elsewhere) has to pay the piper, and toe the line."

2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jYUS3Q4Fw (the Guardian won't let me embed)
Anyway, if you check this out, Spurlock tells the story of how Sao Paolo stopped all the ridiculous advertising waste and cleaned up the city.
No billboards
no flyers
no posters, etc

Normal folks love it, but the surprise is:
crime is way down.
criminals care about esthetics?
well, maybe they felt sh*tty for living
in a ratty city full of images of stuff they
haven't got, and now they see trees
and scenery instead.
Excellent!
try this at home!
Message to the middle classes, because it's the middle classes
that thieves knock off. The rich have protection.
The message: just don't make the poor jealous.

-Cos67 ¬(%^D>
checkitout:
Everything Morgan Spurlock touches turns to sold
The Supersize Me star puts product placement under the microscope at Sheffield's Doc/Fest.
Morgan Spurlock

If anyone could sell spoons to Sheffield, it'd be Morgan Spurlock. On the outside, he's a game, genial guinea pig. Within lies a salesman who could flog you anything, and plenty of it.

1. Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold
2. Production year: 2011
3. Country: USA
4. Directors: Morgan Spurlock
The Doc/Fest audience was accordingly putty in his hands yesterday, after so much friendly pummelling. Spurlock peddled and peddled and peddled. With the Guardian alone he did a video, podcast and an interview for Film & Music, then there was the press conference, the meet and greet, the Q&A after the film, the party; on Saturday, he's back to host a masterclass). But this is a Barnum whose USP is transparency. These are light touch jazz hands: a breath of confident showmanship in a genre not notorious for it.

It helps he's hawking quality wares: Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a very cute movie. An examination of the mechanics and effects of product placement and advertorial tie-ins at the movies, funded by exactly that, it's a touch less gimmicky than McDonalds-for-a-month experiment Super Size Me. And a lot more tone-appropriate than bounty-hunting travelogue Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? (which, despite a critical mauling, has apparently done a roaring trade on Netflix since the man himself was located).

The other aspect of the film which makes it such an easy sell is that the story since the shoot is part and parcel of the movie itself. Indeed, its promotion at Sheffield is a spin-off of the contractual obligations demanded by the 15 corporate investors who, between them, demanded alarmingly high target media impressions and cinema runs.

The headline sponsors, who paid $1m in exchange for their brand running above the title, were, it turns out, about 39th on Spurlock's list of target beverage companies. Yet they have, said Spurlock yesterday, got "more press out of this than they knew what to do with" - particularly welcome in light of a US Federal Trade Commission legal challenge to claims about the benefits of Pom with regards to cardiovascular and prostate health. ("If I were to drink this for a year," claimed Spurlock, "I'd get the greatest erection ever sold.")

Spurlock managed to avoid screening the film for any of the sponsors before its Sundance premiere, fearful that a cold showing in an office filled with lawyers might lead to trouble. The ecstatic reception it enjoyed in Park City meant that even companies who had been eager to emphasise the non-monetary nature of their involvement, such as human/equine shampoo Mane & Tail, were then lining up with proposed promo ideas.

Spurlock himself has been bombarded with offers to direct ads – even by the very companies who initially rejected his overtures. His own brand (identified as "mindful/playful" by a commercial strategist in the film) has been enhanced no end, after the dip following the release of Bin Laden. For all his humour, he's a canny operator, with more ethical savvy than many of his more superficially serious-minded colleagues. "It's not a question of selling out 30% or 40%," Spurlock said yesterday, in one of the few moments of controversy in a cosy press conference. "When you take this kind of money, you have been corrupted 100%. That's just how it is."
.....

chicken or the egg or the coke?

When health nuts tell you that sugar-laced beverages will make you fat,
you could easily reply
"I thought it was this double cheeseburger that was doing it"


Is it the Coke/Pepsi/Doctor Pepper or the other fatty foods?
Well, they may both be right.
Now, we know which one comes first.
I'll show you research that says:
-sugary drinks kill taste buds
-sugary drinks make people crave fatty/sugary foods
because of the diabetic spike in blood sugar
and the numbing of tastebuds.

-Cos67 ¬(%^D>

checkitout:
Two sugary drinks a day can dull taste buds, study claims
Research suggests regular consumption of such beverages dulls sensitivity and causes cravings for high-calorie food
* Steven Morris
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 June 2011 16.25 BST

Consuming just two sugary drinks a day can dull the taste buds and lead to cravings for high-calorie food, a study claims.

The research suggests that within a month those who drink sugary beverages are left with a dulled sensitivity to sweet tastes. This leads to an increased preference for high-calorie and sugar-laden foods, creating a "vicious cycle" as consumers look for their next treat.

Those who do not have a sweet tooth are particularly at risk of developing one after drinking sugary beverages, even if they are slim and active.

Experts who carried out the research at the universities of Bristol and Bangor expressed surprise at how quickly tastes could be dulled by exposure to sweet drinks. Lucy Donaldson, of the University of Bristol, said: "We have known for some time that the way we perceive different tastes can change under different circumstances. Finding that two sweet drinks a day over a short time can dramatically change taste was a real surprise."

In the trial lean and obese people rated their perception and enjoyment of sweet and salty tastes. The obese participants tended to rate identical drinks as less sweet than the lean ones did.....