Friday, March 18, 2005

A big bouquet to Ashley Smith for defusing Brian Nichols before he killed again. Is that lady cool, or what? Give me one-tenth of her courage and grace under fire and I’d be happy.
Is Warren getting Buffett-ed by Maurice? Has AIG been intimate with General Re in an earnings manipulation maneuver? Did Prince Eliot get the octogenarian King Maurice tossed from his AIG throne? Will Emperor Warren the Clean’s reputation be sullied? Will Berkshire’s stock come crashing down from yesterday’s per share close of $88,200? Answers: Not much, Maybe, Yes, Not much, Probably not. Whatever, don’t cry too hard for King Maurice—he’s got enough gold to buy a bunch of thrones.
Not poor old Bernie though. Ratted out by his former wing-man, Scottie Sullivan, Bernie flinched his way through nine for nine GUILTY verdicts. The way I got it figured, Bernie, you’ll be a hundred and fifty when you get out—possibly just in time to put together an intergalactic communications company that you can name OuterSpaceCom. Meanwhile, maybe you’ll get lucky and end up in the same joint as Scottie.
Play STEROIDS Ball. Opening day for the Washington Congressionals: March 17, 2005; opening day for the Washington Nationals: April 14th, 2005. Boy, talk about shrinking giants. Sad days.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Martha, they said you did the crime, you said you’d do the time, now we say please shut up lest we start to think you might actually be guilty, and that’s not a good thing.
TOYS ‘R’, er, uh, W’R’ US? Five billion in debt, boys and girls, that’s what KKR, Vornado, and Bain—think Darth Vader—are piling on to the fat $2.3 billion already sagging TOYS’ shelves. Here’s the problem: since the current owners can’t compete against WalMart now, how can this new troika, smart beyond smart though they are, hope to do so with an additional $5 billion in debt in a rising interest market? That’s gonna take a lot of Lego’s baby, or maybe they’ll buy WalMart.
So one day Little Red Riding Hood decided to skip through the dense forest surrounding her granny’s big white house, fully expecting to find Big Bad Wolfie hanging out, whereupon she planned to give him such a piece of her mind. Well, imagine her chagrin when she discovered granny had kicked Wolfie out, sent him packing to the World Bank she had. “But what about all those poor little dictatorships that want to borrow billions and billions of dollars?” she asked. “Eh? What’s that? Borrow billions? Dictatorships? WMD’s? Don’t worry sweetie,” granny grinned with her big teeth.. “Wolfie has a plan.”