Bonus Image of the Day
By · Mar, 08 2010, Comments
Walking Down Memory Lane: Debrecen Edition
By · Mar, 08 2010, CommentsAttentive readers will recall that Keyser was an undergraduate at Medio-Oriental Hungary State (Debrecen), so it should come as no surprise to them at least that Keyser was pleased by this image that he just came across:
«RIBBON RHYTHM: Russia’s Evgenia Kanaeva competed in the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup in Debrecen, Hungary, Sunday.»
You know, this girl may be some Rusisan, but the picture brings back to Keyser’s mind memories of gymnastical exercising with Treszka Mednyánszky. Put a few glasses of Zwack Unicum in her, and you’ve got a fine evening of writhing contortions ahead of you! (She was good with twirling a wand, too.)
Whew, That Was a Close Shave: Driver’s Ed Edition
By · Mar, 08 2010, Comments
Ever see someone do something stupid on the road while engrossed in a phone conversation and you say, “Hey, idiot, put down the phone and pay attention”? Well, here’s a new take on that theme:
As authorities nationwide warn motorists of the dangers of driving while texting, Florida Keys law enforcement officers add a new caution: Don’t try to shave your privates, either.
Florida Highway Patrol troopers say a two-vehicle crash Tuesday at Mile Marker 21 on Cudjoe Key was caused by a 37-year-old woman driver who was shaving her bikini area while her ex-husband took the wheel from the passenger seat.
“She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West and wanted to be ready for the visit,” Trooper Gary Dunick said. “If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have believed it. About 10 years ago I stopped a guy in the exact same spot … who had three or four syringes sticking out of his arm. It was just surreal and I thought, ‘Nothing will ever beat this.’ Well, this takes it.”
One thought that occurs to Keyser is, doesn’t shaving normally involve water in some way? That seems out of the question in a car, so how exactly was the ex doing in the passenger seat while this woman was off to see her boyfriend? The boyfriend may explain the “ex” bit, but what was he there for?
Maybe he’s her personal hygiene advisor. “Deod?” “Check.” “Pits done?” “Check.” “Anal beads?” “Check.” “Nether regions cleared and ready for action?” “Oh, shit! Quick, take the wheel.”
But then what? Keyser’s not sure he wants to know the details.
Speaking of which, check out the link. The remainder of the story is worth a gander.
Proper Image of the Day: Beaux Arts Edition
By · Mar, 04 2010, CommentsOkay, the last one was cheating. Here’s a proper one.
Image of the AIG Day
By · Mar, 04 2010, CommentsKeyser’s trying to get his blood pressure down after the latest post about AIG, and in the effort to find a suitable “image of the day,” came across this one:
That, it would seem, is a “Manchester United girl” (must be some sort of soccer groupie), and Keyser found out from the source of the image that the English soccer team changed some sort of sponsorship deal they had from the loathsome AIG to the rather less high-profile Aon, which oddly enough is another American insurance company. Why insurance companies want to support underage-looking soccer tarts is beyond Keyser, but there you have it. Loyal readers may recollect that Keyser mentioned Aon when discussing the names of skyscrapers in Chicago some time ago.
Anyhow, looking at her is a lot better than contemplating the outrage that is AIG!
What Did You Say, Asshole?: AIG Edition
By · Mar, 04 2010, Comments
Keyser’s been pretty tolerant of the massive payoff going on with the “financial” industry these days. (Though when did “financial” become a synonym for “massively fraudulent”?) But God’s blood, this takes the cake (as in Marie Antoinette’s), and is more than a normally restrained Pannonian can endure:
During the national furor that erupted last year after American International Group paid more than $165 million in bonuses, the voices of those vilified for receiving the payments remained silent, at least in public.
But behind closed doors, employees at AIG’s Financial Products division — the very unit whose trading had hastened the insurance giant’s collapse — were defiant, saying they were merely getting what they were due, recoiling at public accusations that they were behind their capitalizing on the company’s massive taxpayer bailout.
“I will stand behind every action I have taken in this company from Day One,” one employee said, according to a newly obtained transcript of a conference call the division’s head held last March with some of his staff.
To some extent, Keyser can understand the outrage of people who came on board after AIG went belly up, and now are being blamed for the mess. But let’s review one statement here again: “I will stand behind every action I have taken in this company from Day One.” Now, it’s not entirely clear when “Day One” starts, but the vibe given off isn’t that it was the day before yesterday. So, if this jerk is referring to anything prior to the destruction of Keyser’s company back in the fall of 2008, then
MAY YOU GET CANCER OF THE EYE SOCKETS AND DIE THE MOST AGONIZING DEATH POSSIBLE, YOU ARROGANT, GREEDY, SELFISH MOTHERFUCKER!
There, that felt good. Let’s try that again.
MAY YOU GET CANCER OF THE EYE SOCKETS AND DIE THE MOST AGONIZING DEATH POSSIBLE, YOU ARROGANT, GREEDY, SELFISH MOTHERFUCKER!
Ah.
Now, let’s recap things. The stupid assholes at AIG got it into their pig-ignorant greedy little brains that they could make money hand over fist by guaranteeing “AAA” mortgaged-based securities via “credit default swaps.” That is, they issued “insurance” against the possibility of the securities going bad. After all, the fucking things were worth their weight in gold and would never actually default, so it was a great way to make large sums of money for nothing. So let’s lard up the whole fucking company with these things, and even though we’ll make next to nothing on each transaction, we’ll make a ton through volume. And the great thing is that since this shit is unregulated (still is), we can make as many of these CDS’s as there’s paper in the “Financial Products” division, with absolutely no capital backing up the guarantees, so that if the securities do go back, AIG is caught owing hundreds of billions of dollars it doesn’t have to fuckers like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
Only problem? You fucking assholes were totally pwned by the smarter swindlers over GS (and this malevolent swine), who laughed to themselves as the cooked up shakier and shakier securities on increasing dubious mortgages, as they made huge commissions for themselves as they created the things and guaranteed further profits for themselves by taking out CDS’s from the retards at AIG against the shit they were knowingly and willfully creating. It’s as if you’d give homeowners insurance to a guy who intentionally built a house for himself with faulty wiring (though of course it was guaranteed as “AAA” by the evaluators unindicted co-conspirators over at the credit agencies.
And as it turned out, when the whole charade finally exploded in the fall of 2008, the vile thieves on The Street got their regulator “best boy” Timmy “Hey, lemme wipe the spunk off my eyes before I blow the next one” Geither, then head of the New York Fed, got on his knees to do everything he could keep Goldman and the Boys happy by stealing the company from its equity holders (including Keyser) and honoring the CDS’s to the penny, despite the fact that there was no need to. God forbid the satanic minions over at GS should suffer a bit of discomfort amidst the disaster they had knowingly wrought.
Oh, well, let’s be fair. Since the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury are, as it turns out, wholly owned subsidiaries of Goldman Sachs, there is a reason for them to do everything in their power to help out those fuckers. Just no excuse than can be repeated in polite company, so it’s a good thing that nobody on Capitol Hill gives a shit about the trillions of dollars that have been squandered keeping Goldman Sachs happy.
Oh, here’s a bit more from one of the spoiled little shits at AIG:
Another was even more irate, lashing out at the public for scapegoating AIG employees. “To be honest with you, I really hope it blows up. I think the U.S. taxpayer deserves to lose a trillion dollars over this thing for the way they have behaved.”
Oh, cry Keyser a fucking river, you poor put-upon little shit. In case you hadn’t realized,
IT’S YOUR OWN FUCKING GROSS INCOMPETENCE AT BEST, IF NOT WILLFUL CRIMINALITY, THAT HAS COMPLETELY WIPED OUT THE EQUITY HOLDERS YOU WERE SUPPOSEDLY WORKING FOR, AND NOW YOU WANT THE TAXPAYERS TO GET STUCK WITH EVEN MORE OF A BILL BECAUSE THEY DON’T FEEL SO GREAT ABOUT SHOVELING HUGE BONUSES AT A PACK OF MANIFEST IMBECILES WHOSE IDIOCY IS AT THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE DEBACLE?
How’s about this for “unAmerican”? Getting paid $165 million in “bonuses” after destroying the company. What sort of fucking bonus is that? Sounds like more of a “malus.” In case anyone hadn’t told you, the system exists to REWARD THOSE WHO SUCCEED, and maybe they don’t teach this at the Wharton School of Swindling or wherever fuckheads like this come from, but DESTROYING YOUR COMPANY IS A FORM OF FAILURE and in the system as it was intended to function before it was taken over by these self-indulgent motherfuckers the price of failure is LOSS not massive “bonus.”
Every single one of these cocksuckers who worked at the Financial Products division of AIG should have been instantly fired at the very least, and in any decent system they would have been doused with gasoline and set alight. Or would that be too quick? Anyway, the unmitigated gall of these fuckers is completely beyond belief.
Where in the hell did these people (all of them, not just the fuck-ups at AIG) get the idea that the whole fucking world exists for no other purpose than adding a bunch of zeroes to their bank accounts?
Christ, Keyser has to step away from the keyboard. This is just too much to endure…
Potemkin Village 2.0
By · Mar, 04 2010, Comments
So, everyone knows what a Potemkin village is, right? Gregory Potemkin (the guy they named the ill-fated battleship after) was a minister of Catherine the Great (the woman they named the wheel after), and when she was going to visit some new conquests in the south, he conjured up the image of prosperity by having fake villages created along the path of the imperial progress. Since her majesty wasn’t expected to actually enter any of these places, it was easy enough to pull off this trick. All you had to do was build the façade, which was pretty simple to accomplish.
Supposedly, the Soviet Union was to some extent a huge Potemkin village. Well, whatever the truth of that, the British have borrowed the idea in their quest for economic recovery the delusion of prosperity.
As High Streets are decimated by the recession – fake business facades have been installed to create the illusion that shops are still occupied.
North Tyneside Council is trialling the new window treatment that at first glance gives the impression that units are occupied.
The crumbling facade of a vacant clothing store in the centre of Whitley Bay has made way for a smart shop front with the question ‘Delicatessen?’ and close by ‘This retail space could be yours …’
Before:
After
Now, you might say, “Oh, that’s just some real estate stunt,” but it’s actually a good metaphor for all fiscal and monetary policy being followed by the suicidal officials in the UK, the US and elsewhere. All their “quantitative easing” and massive state borrowing is a way to pretend that the massive losses suffered in the huge expansion of credit in the last decade or so and the concomitant built up of excess consumption and the plant to feed it really don’t exist and everything’s hunky dorey. While everyone in Washington is busy with the great project of imposing a new bottomless entitlement on the economy in the form of some Rube Goldberg medical “reform,” no one seems to be bothered in the least by the fact that US government spent nearly $1.5 trillion more than it took in, while the Fed spent more than another$1 trillion buying up shitty securities that no one else wanted (otherwise, why would the Fed have to buy them?).
What the hell kind of insane world do we live in some $2.5 trillion dollars that the people spending it don’t actually have can go pretty much unnoticed? Let’s look at it this way. You own a store that just suffered a big fire, and now you’re now on the hook for a look of money to fix it. You can’t actual afford the necessary amount, so you go out and take out $100,000 on your credit card and put up a façade in front of your store that shows how it used to look. Does anyone in his right mind actually think that this solves the problem or that you’re now in the clear?
Well, they do in Washington. Unfortunately, this time Catherine might actual go in to have look. There’ll be hell to pay when she does…
Todayitudinous Image
By · Feb, 26 2010, CommentsBoy, this has been one hell of a tiring week. Grading daemonology midterms really takes it out of a Pannonian. For relaxation, Keyser’s reading some magical texts in Sahidic Coptic. (Bohairic is just too clumsy for words!) At least, there’s some hope that the snow will melt. You have no idea how much Keyser wants to get back in the saddle again! (And, as always, you’ve got a dirty mind. Good on you!)
If you’re curious, this is an illustration by Georges Barbier for Les chansons de Bilitis. Vive l’art deco français!
