Byron Dorgan (D-ND), in 1999:

Part 1

Part 2

Via DKos – Click for transcript.

Can you tell the difference?

If you’re a ferret, you will…because you die.

Thankfully this never made it to human subjects. But WTF?

via George-o-matic

I’d been wondering what I end up paying for all the BS and bloviations about the bailout, so I was pleased when Nick Johnson did the math for me (text from near bottom of post):

What’s Your Share?

Assume we have something like 120 million families or living units in America. (I’m going to use 100 million to make the math easier.) Assume all accumulated debt ($55 trillion, plus $11 trillion, plus, plus) is near $70 trillion headed for $100 trillion. The interest on $100 trillion, at 5%, is $5 trillion a year. Your family’s share? How’s $50,000 a year — just for the interest alone — sound? Your family’s share of the entire debt? About $1,000,000. So what’s happening is that these folks who’ve come from, and will be returning to, the Wall Street financial community, have decided to give you responsibility for paying off the mortgage on a one-million-dollar home — but one you’ll never get to see or live in (not incidentally because they’re already living in it).

Should I just declare bankruptcy now?

In all seriousness, how do we say ‘no’ to this crap? At some point the market will need to be allowed to punish all those morons that mis-mananged, deregulated and over-leveraged their complex/completely bullshit financial fairy-tale by allowing them and their companies to be completely wiped out. That the fools at Citi get to keep their shirts AT MY EXPENSE makes me want to puke.

No wonder people go for stuff like this.

Dems keep reminding me why I de-registered as a Democrat. It’s beyond stupid that they’d keep him on, especially in a senior position.

Read this whole thing if you need to start understanding what’s happening in the financial markets and another reason to be anti-McCain.

Just read below if you want the kicked-in-the-genitals part:

How big did this market become? Here’s business correspondent Bob Moon and host Kai Ryssdal on American Public Media’s Marketplace from back in the spring.

BOB MOON: OK, I’m about to unload some numbers on you here, so I’ll speak slowly so you can follow this.

The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.

The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.

The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.

OK, you ready?

The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.

KAI RYSSDAL: That’s a lot of money, Bob.

As in three times the whole US gross domestic product, Bob. And the truth is that Moon probably underestimated. The unregulated and poorly reported credit default swaps may have actually passed $70 trillion last year, or about $5 trillion more than the GDP of the entire world.

It is in fact a heart wrenching, make you cry subject. But it is something you should have an opinion on.

• This is Angelique. She wanted to die with dignity.

Sad and fascinating story:

An Affair To Remember

She was 82. He was 95. They had dementia. They fell in love. And then they started having sex.

It’s hard to think about ‘adult’ topics as applies to those on in years. When does one lose the independence of who to love?