Autumnal Cinema 2011

After whining about some films I wanted to see having disappeared from Sundance's schedule, Mr. Burns up at The Daily Page looks that the fall Screening Room calendar.

It begins with two of the greatest living documentarians: Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. If you missed Tabloid last fall when Morris was in town, here's your chance. I was surprised to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams on the list as I e-mailed Sundance a few weeks ago to ask if they had plans to show it and was told that they didn't because they couldn't screen 3D films. I never bothered to ask why the 2D version wasn't good enough. Check out the full listing.

Rob Thomas of 77 Square has posted a run-down of the fall Cinematheque schedule. The program is being expanded with flicks showing Friday-Monday on most weeks and at new venues as well - the theatre at the new Union South and the one at the soon-to-be-opened Chazen expansion.

Jim Healy is the new director of Cinematheque and he comes out swinging when he describes the new Premiere Showcase: "Not long ago, Madison was a place where one could expect to see the latest independent and foreign films regularly screened in theaters with an appreciative audience. But in recent years, nearly all of Madison's arthouse cinemas have either shuttered or sacrificed their programming space to Hollywood blockbusters, leaving local cinephiles stuck waiting for new films (many of which are modern masterpieces) to arrive on DVD." What does he mean "nearly all"? There are no arthouses left here.

Looking at the Cinematheque schedule I see that November weekends are full when there is usually a space reserved for the Madison Polish Film Festival. I don't know if this means there won't be one this year or if it will just be moving from its usual digs in Vilas Hall.

I also see that MMoCA's Spotlight Cinema returns next month with The Interrupters about former gang members in Chicago hitting the streets of their communities attempting to prevent violence. That screens on the 22nd with the rest of the schedule to be announced later.

Lastly, how does the Orpheum stay in business? They abandoned showing films, much to my dismay, and now there are only a handful of concerts on the calendar. (Including the suckiest band ever - Primus.) Is everything still in the air while the ownership/liquor license issues play out or has anyone heard something I haven't? I'd love for them to start showing films again. And I'd love for them to do midnight movies. Beer and Hobo With a Shotgun at midnight? Perfect.

Taco Truck in Library Mall

I see that the El Toril taco truck is parked in Library Mall by the north entrance to the Humanities building. How odd. I've only ever seen it at Heistand Park when there are soccer games happening. I wonder if this is a one-off thing or if it'll become a regular gig.

While I'm on the subject, with all the national recognition Madison's food carts are getting, I think it's about time we get a Korean taco cart. Or truck.

Don't Blink

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

Whereas William Cohan's House of Cards looked at the bursting of the housing bubble from the vantage point of within a Wall Street firm, Michael Lewis takes a view of those same events from without. Well, kind of, anyway.

The Big Short follows two small bands of investors along with a lone maverick as they take full advantage of the housing bubble. The first person we meet is Steve Eisman. He began inside Wall Street working at Oppenheimer & Co. before moving on to Chilton Investment. Cynical by nature, Eisman grew disillusioned with the consumer finance industry when he saw how the mortgage company Household Finance Corporation was "tricking their customers". His road to Damascus moment came when he was at a luncheon and heard the CEO of a large bank describe free checking accounts as simply a way to rip off the poor. Eisman went on to start his own hedge fund called Front Point Partners which would end up being owned by Morgan Stanley. Along for the ride was Vincent Daniel whom Eisman had hired at Oppenheimer and who had proved his mettle sniffing out problems in the subprime mortgage industry from databases provided by Moody's, the rating agency.

The loner in this tale is Michael Burry. As a child he developed cancer and the treatment claimed one of his eyes. He grew up something of a loner, shying away from face-to-face contact. The world of finance became his idée fixe but at the time he was training to be a doctor. In the late 90s he started a blog at which he gave explanations for his stock trades that were remarkably prescient. Soon he gained a loyal following and abandoned the idea of being a doctor to instead start Scion Capital, an investment firm.

The trio is rounded out by Cornwall Capital Management which was formed by Jamie Mai and Charlie Ledley. Although they'd worked at a private equity firm, they didn't exactly have experience calling the shots and deciding where people's money went. Cornwall was formed in a friend's garage by Mai and Ledley who had $110,000 between them.

You can see why Lewis felt these gentlemen would make for a good story. Besides the fact they made investments which left them richer than Croesus when the housing bubble burst, they make for a very interesting cast of characters. Eisman and Daniel are portrayed as Robin Hoods out to fuck the system; Burry is like this mad genius holed up in his office obsessed with numbers; and Mai and Ledley started an investment company in someone garage. While most of these guys didn't just fall off the turnip truck, they're still, in one way or another, outsider enough to qualify as Alice-like characters roaming around the Wonderland of Wall Street.

Lewis tells their stories in similar ways. He starts with a little background and explains how they got into the world of finance. Then these investors train their gazes on the subprime mortgage industry and see that it's a house of cards. The book describes how the firms founded by these guys struggled to find capital at first but eventually found investors. They all started buying up credit default swaps which were like insurance policies on groups of subprime mortgages that paid off if they went bad. Everyone saw that the whole thing was like a pyramid scheme and that people who, in the bad old days, would not have gotten a home loan were getting them in droves.

There are two main elements which make The Big Short a good read. The first is simply the stories of the men profiled. Burry, we find out, has Asperger's Syndrome which accounts for his ability to focus so intensely on things and why he can spend hours just looking over numbers. His tale involves a lot of waiting. He sees what's happening and needs to keep his querulous investors at bay until 2007 when the first wave of crappy mortgages go under and his investments come to fruition.

The guys at Cornwall are sort of like a collective Jefferson Smith. Lewis calls them the “Accidental Capitalists”. They're this fish out of water that can't believe that it's stumbled on the investment opportunity it thinks it has. For instance, Cornwall's accountant knew Ace Greenberg, former head of Bear Sterns and Wall Street legend the firm's account is moved to Greenberg's. They were a bit incredulous at their luck. “So how is it that Ace Greenberg is our broker?” After enough prodding, the guys actually meet the man. But the encounter is so fleeting that they left the room wondering if they'd actually met the man. In another their Bear Sterns rep invites them out to Vegas for a big subprime conference. There he would get to shoot Uzis at a firing range and, in Lewis' words, try to find someone to tell them why they were wrong to be against the subprime mortgage market.

Eisman is the anti-Wall Street investor who rarely misses an opportunity to speak his mind. And so there are some great scenes where he calls bullshit on various Wall Street establishment figures. He too was at the aforementioned conference in Vegas and confronted the CEO of Option One which had a subprime loan portfolio. The guys said that Option One was expecting a rather small loss rate on the loans of five percent. At one point Eisman puts his hand in the air and makes a zero with his thumb and finger then tells the CEO “There is zero probability that your default rate will be five percent.”

Aside from the character studies, the other great thing about this book is Lewis' ability to explain just what the whole deal with subprime mortgages that took down the world economy was. I've read a lot of Matt Taibbi's articles about the housing bubble but it was after reading The Big Short that I finally understood what it was all about, albeit from a very high level. Subprime mortgages were bundled together into a financial instrument that was sold off. There was a lot of money to be made in creating these things and passing them onwards and so, when good mortgages to be packaged were in short supply, bad ones were used. Wall Street couldn't get enough bad mortgages to bundle and pass on. The rating agenices Moody's and S&P were complicit in the whole deal. In one section Lewis describes how they abdicated their responsibilities by not investing the mortgages within these packages. Instead they just asked for the average FICO score of the borrowers. This number got fudged so that some mortgages from creditworthy people could hide the fact that the instrument was composed of a lot of risky loans. With the good average score, the agencies could give the investments good ratings to make them look safe. It was like putting lipstick on a pig.

Yves Smith, the head of a financial advisory firm, has made some trenchant criticisms of The Big Short and you can read them here. The main one for me is her argument that the guys Lewis portrays as being heroes actually made the subprime mortgage collapse worse.

Eisman recognizes that the subprime market is a disaster waiting to happen, a monstrous fire hazard that, once lit, will engulf the housing market and financial firms. Yet he continues to throw Molotov cocktails at it. Eisman is no noble outsider. He is a willing, knowing co-conspirator. Even worse, he and the other shorts Lewis lionizes didn’t simply set off the global debt conflagration, they made the severity of the crisis vastly worse.

So it wasn’t just that these speculators were harmful, and Lewis gave them a free pass. He failed to clue in his readers that the actions of his chosen heroes drove the demand for the worst sort of mortgages and turned what would otherwise have been a “contained” problem into a systemic crisis.

I take her at her word but I never really thought of Eisman and company as being heroes. They were in the business of making money for their investors and themselves, not engaged in a sociaist redistribution scheme to funnel money from the rich to the poor. They didn't take their earnings and open homeless shelters and soup kitchens. So I am not all surprised that the guys in the book actually made things worse but I read it as a glimpse inside an industry of which I know precious little. For me The Big Short is a description of how Wall Street works as seen through the lens of intra-Street conflict, not a heart-warming David vs. Goliath story.

You can judge for yourself. I found The Big Short a fun read because of the characters and interesting because of Lewis' ability to explain the market in ways I could understand.

Boy, Am I Glad Dave Cieslewicz Is No Longer Mayor

Ex-Mayor Dave's latest blog post disturbed me.

He's been reading Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts and notes how similar middle class Germany was in the early 30s to today's American middle class plus just how close Hitler came to never gaining power. (Sounds a lot like Henry Ashby Turner Jr.'s Hitler's Thirty days To Power: January 1933.)

The disturbing part is how Ex-Mayor Dave ends his post:

The point is that sometimes one person does matter and the notes they choose to play on the public stage get echoed back and can change history for good or evil. It's what Lincoln meant when he called on Americans to find the "better angels of our nature." And it's why I still support Barack Obama. Because at the end of the day, despite my frustrations with his policies, he appeals to the things that are best in us.

Emphasis mine.

So, while the actions of the most powerful man on the planet may be bad or harmful, but he gives Cieslewicz the warm fuzzies. So, while the Commander-in-Chief OKs drone strikes that kill children left and right, Dave is sitting at home feeling all gushy inside. I think there's a Norman Rockwell painting here somewhere.

So Mr. Cieslewicz, how many more children will have to die, how much will Social Security and Medicare have to be cut, how many more innocent people will be given a special vacation to one of our black op sites to be tortured, how many more wars will Obama have to enter, how many more times will Wall Street executives screw us over and get away with it, how many more whistleblowers will be prosecuted for giving us a tiny, brief glimpse of what our country really does in our name and with our tax money before you'll stop looking at the stars for a bit and instead look around you? There's more to being President of the United States than hitting some harmonious notes while reading a teleprompter in front of a TV camera.

Personally, I feel that Obama can go suck an egg. I'm tired of him pissing on my back and then telling me that it's raining.

Uncertain About Uncertainty

Today I read that Wisconsin lost 12,500 private sector jobs. Gov. Walker, who took credit for previous job gains, was quick to pawn the blame off on others.

Gov. Scott Walker, who last month credited his administration's business-friendly policies for big job gains in June, attributed the July job losses to turmoil in the national and international economy as well as to uncertainty created by the state's special recall elections.

Asked whether he should be held accountable for July's decline as long as he also wants credit for June's gain, Walker responded by describing what he called "incredible uncertainty both at the federal level - in terms of the debt ceiling and all the tension of that, and the negative impact that had on the economy - combined with July and August, when you saw the height of the recall commercials. And I think for a lot of employers we talked to, that created a high level of uncertainty, not knowing what was going to come next."

Uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty. I am sick of hearing about it. Even the secretary of DWD is parroting it: "The wild market fluctuations during the debt ceiling negotiations, the European debt crisis and other factors contributed to a great deal of uncertainty, which may very well have affected Wisconsin's job numbers given our state's ties to the national economy." Does Walker e-mail talking points to his appointees every morning? "Be sure to use the word 'uncertainty' as much as you can today. And blame unions wherever possible."

I thought that Friedrich Hayek, a favorite economist of conservatives, covered this in The Constitution of Liberty. Wasn't one of his book's themes "Of course there's uncertainty. That's the world in which we live in."? Isn't that one reason he argued for capitalism against a planned economy? You know, we cannot know the future and markets are better equipped to handle the vagaries of economic life than a lumbering government whose plans can topple like a house of cards if something unexpected happened.

After reading the article, I was reminded of "Why 'business needs certainty' is destructive" by Yves Smith. She describes the whole idea of business needing certainty in the form of the absence of regulation as "propaganda that needs to be laughed out of the room."

Commerce is all about making decisions and committing resources with the hope of earning profit when the managers cannot know the future. "Uncertainty" is used casually by the media, but when trying to confront the vagaries of what might happen, analysts distinguish risk from "uncertainty", which for them has a very specific meaning. "Risk" is what Donald Rumsfeld characterized as a known unknown. You can still estimate the range of likely outcomes and make a good stab at estimating probabilities within that range.

Uncertainty, by contrast, is unknown unknowns. It is the sort of risk you can't estimate in advance. So businesses also have to be good at adapting when Shit Happens.

So why aren't businesses investing or hiring? "Uncertainty" as far as regulations are concerned is not a major driver. Surveys show that the "uncertainty" bandied about in the press really translates into "the economy stinks, I'm not in a business that benefits from a bad economy, and I'm not going to take a chance when I have no idea when things might turn around."

If businesses needed certainty in order to hire and invest, then they'd never do it because there's isn't much certainty in life except death. (Corporations have figured out how to elude taxes.)

Other than giving a bullshit mantra, Walker also irritated me when he said, "In the first six months, the policies we put in place helped create certainty in the state." Certainty of what? That you can carry a concealed handgun? I want to see some proof that anything Walker did significantly helped the Wisconsin economy instead of factors over which he has no control. I guess I'm just cynical to think that recall elections aren't a big factor to most companies as opposed to, say, not having a lot of people who want or can afford to buy your product.

Hey Sundance, What Happened to All the Movies?

Until recently, Sundance here in Madison had a couple flicks listed on their Coming Soon list that I was keen on seeing: Another Earth and Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest plus a third that I had little interest in, The Names of Love.

I talked to a friend of mine last night who is a big Tribe fan and he said that it had disappeared from the schedule. Thinking that it had just gotten bumped back a week owing to the popularity of a feature length edit of the British TV series The Trip, I checked for myself and discovered the above movies had gone POOF! out of existence at Sundance's website. Bloody hell!

So, if you want to see The Trip, download the full six episode series and watch it at home like it was meant to be seen instead of settling for an expunged version that is taking up precious real estate. We can free up some screens and get some good movies in.

At least Wayne Wang's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is still on the list.

The Checker Shadow Illusion

A nice demonstration of Edward Adelson's Shadow Checker Illusion. Damn cylinders always casting shadows throwing off our optical system!



(h/t to Jerry Coyne.)

Michelle Bachmann Having Fun at the Iowa Fair

So is this what Michelle Bachmann is talking about with that whole "submission theology"?

Pre-Great Tasting 2011 Edition

I headed to Maduro's to meet a friend after work but he texted me saying that he was at Madison's as they were giving away beer for free. When I think of Madison's, I think of it as being where Republican legislators and cougars hang out to drink and snort coke. Hell, it may have been all of my second time there, if not the first. I found my friends and that, indeed, Goose Island was on tap at no charge. Not wanting to get totally kerschnickered, I had a Summertime. For a Kölsch, it tasted vaguely fruity and like it had not been lagered. So it goes. I stepped up and ordered a Lolita for me and a friend, Amy. Looking at Goose Island's website, I think we instead got Juliet because the beer in our glasses was not red and did not tasty like raspberries. Amy didn't care for it so I quaffed her glass as well.

Some other folks in our group wanted to head to the Tap Haus and so we went. Walking in, I noticed Kirby chatting with some folks. At the bar we all went with a sample of the Eternal Flame which was being poured at no charge. This new brew is "a blend of Autumnal Fire and a formula for something we whipped together and called 'Imperial Fire.'" Half of this batch is being tucked away to be blended with fresh brew next year. As for this year's, it was quite tasty. Being a doppelbock, it's all about the malt. First I'll note that the stuff is smooth on the palate but its flavor was more sprightly and less syrupy than Autumnal Fire. Still, it had that warm bite at the finish. Eternal Flame will be a great fall sipping brew.

I followed it up with a Dark. Turning around I ran into Kirby. Poor guy. I feel sorry for him having to deal with me. Since I had his ear I told him that, however this whole ownership thing pans out (and you could see the frustration on his face when I said this), please don't go down the rustic road to ale oblivion. "Your dunkel and pilsner are my go-to beers. If you want to brew a Kölsch or an alt, I'd love it but please don't stop brewing German styles."

He looked at me and replied, "We're not a microbrewery. We're not a craft brewery. We're a Wisconsin lager brewery." Amen, brother! He followed this up by saying how irritating it is for him to have people ask about IPAs. I can imagine it must get old hearing that. Kirby also mentioned that Hop Cream revision B is due soon. He wasn't satisfied with the Northern Brewer hops in the first batch so he was going to change the hop bill. Lastly, I asked him when he was going to tap the bourbon barrel aged Imperial Doppelbock. He explained that he's not interested in setting specific times. It's going to be on tap out of the gate so, if you want some, get to the Capital booth early. After we finished chatting I noticed that the Hop Cream was on tap so I got a glass of it. I found it to be very smooth and light. The Northern Brewer hops imparted a very grassy flavor. Personally, I liked the contrast of the creaminess and the hops. I might not be able to drink this brew as a session beer but for a one off, it was good.

Later, as Kirby was walking by, I pointed to my friend Amy, who's never been to Bock Fest, and told him that she's never had chub thrown at her. Kirby gave her a look that I never want to see from a brewmaster directed at me. Amy cowered and promised to finally go to Bock Fest for the first time next year.

We left the Tap Haus and wandered to Brickhouse BBQ which was hosting Central Waters, Shorts, Nebraska Brewing Co., and Lift Bridge. I went with Shorts' Smoked Apple Ale. It had a really nice smoky flavor with a bit of apple sweetness at the finish. One of the guys from Lift Bridge returned his pour saying he could taste band aid in it. I think that kind of flavor comes from a phenol of some type. While I've read about it, I can't recall the details. (Are you reading this Joe?) Anyway, I couldn't taste them. I followed the rauchbier up with their organic pilsner. It wasn't bad but it lacked a real lager crispness. Then again, I couldn't taste the band aid so maybe my palate was off here as well.

A companion had a Summer Rye from Nebraska Brewing and she let me have a sip. This was good stuff. That rye crispness coupled with Citra hops and their attendant grapefruit-like flavors.

I'd like to give Brickhouse props for offering the beer in both 16oz pours and 4 oz samples. (The bigger brews came in 10oz pours max.) If you didn't like something, you weren't out as much money and you didn't waste as much beer. And you could sample a larger variety of beers before you were in the bag.

It was a fruitful night of consumption. I had the chance to sample some great beers and a few that I now no longer have to attempt to get at the Taste today.

Dark Girls Trailer

This one will spark some conversation at my house. (When we watch it via Netflix or DVD as I can't see any cinema in Madison daring to show it.)

Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang

Ha-Joon Chang takes issue with Thomas Friedman's flat world. Friedman says that developing nations must don a what he calls a Golden Straightjacket in order to join the First World club. This perverse bit of fashion involves neo-liberal policies such as privatizing public industry, deregulation, smaller government, et al. Chang does more than take issue with Friedman, he flat out calls bullshit.

For Chang, Friedman and others who promote such ideas are the bad samaritans of his book's title. They are denizens of rich countries and they use organizations such as the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank to impose the above neo-liberal policies and others as well. However, these people are either ignorant of or ignore the fact that their own countries managed to become industrialized by using distinctly un-neo-liberal policies such as high tariffs and government-owned enterprises.

Examining what he calls "the official history of globalization", Chang shows how it is largely a myth and proceeds to poke holes in it. The official history goes something like this: Britain went all free trade in the 18th century as it was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. These policies were such a success that other countries adopted them in the 19th century. (Including the United States.) The world economy started to take a real digger after World War I so governments reverted to protectionist schemes in a panic. After World War II American economic dominance saw things swing back towards the free trade side and by the 1980s they had come into full force.

Chang uses the Opium Wars as an example to show how "military might, rather than market forces" had a defining role in the initial burst of globalization. Furthermore, while rich nations were colonizing the poor ones, they kept the tariffs high at home. What was good for the goose wasn't good for the gander back then. As he says, "virtually all the successful developing countries since the Second World War initially succeeded through nationalistic policies using protection, subsidies, and other forms of government intervention."

I enjoyed the looks back into the history of today's rich nations. Chang discusses how the Tudor monarchs protected Britain's nascent wool industry, for example. We in the U.S. owe Alexander Hamilton a debt for pushing for the development of manufacturing here instead of following Adam Smith's advice to the contrary. Not knowing much about economic history, I was surprised to learn that the U.S. had the highest tariffs on manufacturing imports in the whole world until WWI. Chang says that "Despite being the most protectionist country in the world throughout the 19th century and right up to the 1920s, the US was also the fastest growing." The book looks at the growth of other nations as well such as France, Sweden, Japan, and his native South Korea as well as issues like intellectual property and ethnic stereotypes. This last one begins with the observations of an Australian consultant which concludes that the people he observed were lazy and have a culture that promotes laziness. These were the Japanese in 1915.

Chang's primary message here is that it's foolish for First World neo-liberals to think that a country like, say, Zimbabwe, can rid itself of government intervention in markets and directly compete with the United States. The situation is inherently lopsided. The U.S. didn't throw the doors open and try to compete with Britain mano el mano back in the 19th century; it used protectionism to build its manufacturing industries to the point where they could go toe to toe with the rest of the world and then let them at it. Now that the U.S. is a world power, it's ridiculous to demand of other countries what we ourselves wouldn't and didn't do. I don't think Chang is against the IMF, WB, and WTO on principle, but he does think that they err when they impose neo-liberal policies as a one-size-fits-all solution for developing nations. He wants these organizations and the wealthy nations behind them to tailor programs to suit the individual country.

For someone like me who is knows little about economic history and even less about economics, Bad Samaritans was an enlightening read. There's a lot of history here but Chang assumes the reader to be a typical American, i.e. – don't know much about it, so it's all laid out for us. And there's no formulae demonstrating how the cosine of the derivative of the price of ladies underwear relates to inflation. Chang does discuss some economic concepts but, as with the history, he patiently explains them and provides examples.

The book ends on a note of optimism. Chang says that the majority of bad samaritans aren't greedy or bigoted. For many it's all about following the intellectual path of least resistance. It's much easier to conform to orthodoxy than it is to investigate the history and do the math. Rich countries weren't always bad Samaritans so there's always hope that these people can have their assumptions challenged and their views altered. Let's hope so.

It's Not an Excuse, It's An Explanation

I guess this is Mark McGowan, a London cabbie. It's about time someone with a Cockney accent explains things instead of posh pundits.

Just For the Record...

...I sampled the side of vegetables with JM and Nichole. First let me say that there were no corporate overlords standing over their shoulders directing the grading process. To those who commented that the review was in some way unfair, I can only respond that I think Nichole was on the right track with her B+.

The vegetables were good. And so was the rice. I appreciated that the dish was dressed with sesame oil and not drowning in it. However, I would add that, if you're going to lay down a big pile of starch, then give it some salt. I have no recollection of JM giving his opinion on the vegetables so I cannot explain his C grade. However, I can certainly understand someone feeling that the dish was under-dressed or lacking in salt.

Cosmos Sequel to Star Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive

Cosmos is getting a sequel and it's to be hosted by the sexiest astrophysicist alive, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The producers of the show say the new series will tell “the story of how human beings began to comprehend the laws of nature and find our place in space and time.” They go on to boast: “It will take viewers to other worlds and travel across the universe for a vision of the cosmos on the grandest scale. The most profound scientific concepts will be presented with stunning clarity, uniting skepticism and wonder, and weaving rigorous science with the emotional and spiritual into a transcendent experience.”

That’s the good news. The bad — or at least, potentially bad — news is that, because of MacFarlane’s involvement, the series will air in prime time, and on Fox.

On Fox?! Good lord. It'll probably be saturated with CGI graphics of robots stepping on Saturn for a transition.

Anyway, check out this photo of Neil found at Boing Boing. Looks like he's gonna barrelhouse all night long. I think he should grow those sideburns back.

U.S. FICO Score Takes a Hit

I see that S&P has downgraded the credit rating of the federal government.

I chuckled when I read this because this is the same rating agency that, along with Moody's, gave sterling AAA ratings to Collateralized Debt Obligations comprised of high risk junk mortgage bonds for years and helped create the housing bubble which burst and sent us into a recession. In the words of Michael Lewis,"A CDO, in their view, was essentially just a pile of triple-B-rated mortgage bonds. Wall Street firms had conspired with the rating agencies to represent the pile as a diversified collection of assets..."

Emphasis mine.

S&P along with Moody's and half of Wall Street should have been driven out of town with brickbats a few years ago for being a bunch of crooked bastards. I wouldn't trust a rating agency as far as I could throw it. So cui bono?

Put Down the Pomegranate Juice

Poor pomegranate. Anti-oxidants don't work.

Few medical remedies have a more sterling reputation than that assortment of foods, pills, and general life maneuvers known collectively as "antioxidants." At last, here's something that promises better heart health, improved immunity, a pellucid complexion as well as relief against cancer, arthritis, and the blahs—and it's all-natural! What's not to like?

Well, there is a wee small problem in our ongoing anti-oxidize-athon: As it turns out, we have no evidence that antioxidants are beneficial in humans. (Though if you're a Sprague-Dawley rat, there's hope.) In fact, as Emily Anthes wrote last year in Slate, the best available data demonstrate that antioxidants are bad for you—so long as you count an increased risk of death as "bad."

New Summer Brews

Point has a new summer brew coming out soon called Drop Dead Blonde Ale. It will apparently get a soft release at the Great Taste this year and other such events. I presume this means that their current summer seasonal, Nude Beach, will be going away.

The label for Capital's Eternal Flame has been approved.





Seems a little early to seek approval considering the stuff isn't going to be out until next summer. They don't procrastinate over there in Middleton, I guess.

Eternal Flame is a "vertical" beer. Here's a story with an explanation:

On April 17, Brewmaster Kirby Nelson will brew the seed beer for what will become "Eternal Flame," a vertical beer that will begin with a hybrid recipe of the brewery's Autumnal Fire and Eisphyre beers.

The 50 barrels brewed April 17 will sit for a year. Then next April, Nelson will brew another 50 barrels and blend it with the 50 barrels brewed this year. After a two-month aging, 50 barrels of the mixture will be bottled in June 2012. The remainder will age for another year and then another 50 barrels will be brewed in 2013 and be mixed with the aged beer. Another 50 barrels will be bottled and sold in four-packs, with the remainder stored for the following year's batch. The process is intended to go on for years.

Good lord! You'd think a doppelbock weighing in at 9.1% would be something you'd release in the autumn or winter.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

It's no longer surprising to hear about an official with the Catholic Church getting busted with kiddie porn. But, in this instance, his job was to fend off the paedophiles.

Married Jarvis, 49, a former social worker, was employed by the church following sex scandals about pervert priests.

His job was to monitor church groups to ensure paedophiles did not gain access to children in the church’s congregations.

But he was caught by police in March with more than 4,000 child porn images on his home computer and his work laptop.

He admitted 12 counts of making, ­possessing and distributing indecent ­images when he appeared before ­magistrates in Plymouth and is likely to face jail when he returns to court for sentencing next month.

Hitler Learns of Next Doctor Who Episode: "Let's Kill Hitler"

If you haven't seen the first half of this season yet, do not watch. SPOILERS!