January 5th, 2009
That’s the question on the table in Washington today. Lawmakers are trying to figure out how the Securities and Exchange Commission, a vital part of making sure our economy doesn’t collapse, has allowed our economy to collapse.
Yahoo News reports many of the questions SEC officials will face from the House Financial Services Committee revolve around Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Regulators apparently received tips about Madoff but didn’t do anything about them, costing more investors billions of dollars.
It’s understandable how that little fiasco might have slipped through the cracks, though, as the SEC was busy doing things like preventing the collapse of investment bank Lehman Bros. Uh, wait, they didn’t do that either. Seriously, what are those regulators doin’ over there? Watching Lou Dobbs and Suze Orman reruns? If government officials catch stuff like this on the front end, there is a lot less need for them to offer bailouts on the back end.
Tags: Bernard Madoff, Financial Fraud, SEC
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By brian -- 0 comments
January 1st, 2009
Sometimes celebrities make this too easy. Matt Dillon, who of course lists the hit movie Crash among his credits, got arrested Tuesday for driving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.
MSNBC reports on Dillon’s speeding jaunt and subsequent arrest on a Vermont highway. They mention Crash and a more recent role in You, Me and Dupree. That is arguably more embarrassing than the speeding arrest, Matt. He just narrowly missed being the first celebrity arrest of the New Year. Since we’ve brought that up, does anyone want to make some predictions or place some bets on who will be the first celeb to begin/continue career meltdown in 2009?
Tags: crash, It Was Just a Movie, Matt Dillon, Slow It Down Matt
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By brian -- 0 comments
December 29th, 2008
Oh, you made us nervous in your game against Green Bay. But when the going got tough, you laid down and quit by allowing 17 points in the game’s final 15 minutes.
Christ! That’s more than a point a minute. I’m not sure you can do that on Tecmo Bowl. There are basketball teams that don’t average a point a minute. Congratulations, Detroit Lions. You are the worst football team of all time. Don’t listen to any of the talk about the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers who went 0-14. Those guys could totally kick your asses. I don’t mean in their prime, either. I’m pretty sure if we could get those guys out of the NFL Witness protection program and line them up against you now, they’d still win despite being 70 years old.
Read More - You Did It, Detroit Lions!
Tags: 0-16, Detroit Lions, Is This A Bad Football Team, Man, Rod Marinelli
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By brian -- 0 comments
December 26th, 2008
Admit it. When you get a package with bubble wrap in it, you or one of your family members 
takes the wrap and pops all of the bubbles. What, you don’t do that? Man, people in our family fight over the bubble wrap!
And for those people, a New York City man designed the perfect calendar. It’s a poster-sized calendar with a bubble for each day of the year. Just make sure you don’t pop them all on the first day, or you won’t have much to look forward to!
Apparently he’s already sold thousands of the calendars, which range in price from $30 - $50.
File this one under “Why didn’t I think of that?”
[Image: bubblecalendar.com] [Source]
Tags: cool stuff
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By Becky Scott -- 1 comment
December 26th, 2008
At Simply Dumb, we are all about athletic achievement. Oh, not the kind that folks ordinarily celebrate. No, we’re more into guys shooting into the wrong basket, running the wrong way and generally doing things that earn ridicule.
It’s not easy being the worst team ever. That’s why what the Detroit Lions have a chance to accomplish this Sunday is so unbelievable. It is so hard to lose all 16 NFL contests that no team has ever done it before. The league’s only completely winless team, the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, did it with only a 14-game schedule. Sixteen games has been the magic number at which even an abysmal team like the Cincinnati Bengals figures out how to win one or two games.
Read More - Detroit Lions: On The Cusp of History
Tags: 2008 Detroit Lions, Rod Marinelli, Winless Football Teams
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By brian -- 0 comments
December 25th, 2008
A little boy wrote to Santa in hopes of improving his family’s Christmas. His letter was found by postals workers and The Fresno Bee ran a copy. (What happened to opening mail being a crime? Not that we’re complaining in this case. But what makes Santa letters exempt?)
The boy wrote in his letter that he didn’t have clothes or toys. And his dad couldn’t find work in their small California farm town. And worse, people made fun of him because his dad found clothes for him in the trash - where the father also looks for bottles.
In the spirit of the holiday, we thought we’d run this piece. You see, people in the town have been calling school officials to ask how they could help. And so much was donated that it looks like they may have had enough clothing for the kids in both the elementary and middle schools.
It looks like little Cesar’s wish came true. And then some. Now that’s what the holidays should be about.
[Image: Newscom] [Source]
Tags: Christmas, touching
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By Becky Scott -- 0 comments
December 23rd, 2008
HuffingtonPost reports that the brown, thick-soled “Model 271″ shoe the Iraqi reporter hurled at President Bush is now a bestseller. Istanbul-based producer Baydan Ayakkabicilik San. & Tic may even look into hiring an ad agency to help with the shoe’s sudden popularity.
The company has received orders for 300,000 pairs of shoes since the Bush incident, more than four times what they ordinarily sell in a year. I wonder if the outgoing President Bush has anymore Middle Eastern trips scheduled between now and January. If so, the Secret Service is going to want to do some crack shoe-catching training. I’m sure secret operative Al Bundy will be more than happy to help with that.
Tags: george bush, Shoe Throwing, Strange Political Protests
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By brian -- 0 comments
December 19th, 2008
Here’s a very bizarre story of mistaken identity from the Houston Press blog. It seems some Galveston police were responding to a call complaining about prostitution. They went to the wrong address and allegedly attacked 12-year-old Dymond Milburn in the process of trying to arrest her.
Not only were the officers apparently at the wrong house, the callers complaining described White suspects and Dymond is African-American. A statement by the officers claims they thought the girl was a prostitute because of the “tight shorts” she was wearing. Sigh. It gets even worse than that. You’d think the offending officers might be contrite and help the city try to avoid the inevitable multi-million dollar settlement here. Nope,the officers went to Dymond’s school (where the 12-year-old is an honor student) and arrested her for assaulting a public servant.
Um, I put the question to our readers, specifically our female readers. If three strange guys jump out of a van and start trying to haul you off, aren’t you going to resist? Seems any rational person would. The officers were in plain clothes so it’s not like a 12-year-old could be expected to have any reaction other than being terrified. Today’s lesson from Simply Dumb? The only thing that puts you in worse shape than being completely wrong is being too proud and/or stupid to admit it.
Tags: Bad Police Work, False Arrests
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By brian -- 0 comments
December 18th, 2008
Boy, Barack Obama has got to be really nervous right now. We’ve learned that if you want to take down the President of the United States, apparently all that’s needed is to attach a weapon to your shoe.
By now you have no doubt seen the footage of the Iraqi reporter hurling footwear at the esteemed leader of the free world. This guy gets both shoes off before anyone stops him and it wasn’t even a Secret Service agent that stopped him. It was another reporter who blocked the line of sight to the Prez.
Seriously gang, in about a month every skinhead, racist crackpot and prejudiced psycho is going to start trying for their Klansman merit badge. You might want to tighten things up so that people can’t start hurling random objects at the president. I’m just saying.
Tags: george bush, Muntadar al-Zeidi, Shoe Flinging
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By brian -- 1 comment
December 15th, 2008
And that’s saying something, folks. There are calls from both sides of the aisle for embattled and embarrassed Gov. Rod Blagojevich to resign. He was arrested last week for allegedly attempting to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama’s election to the presidency.
FBI wiretaps allege the governor called the seat “f-ing golden” and that he said he wasn’t going to give it away for “f-ing nothing.” Do you kiss your constituents’ babies with that mouth, governor?
The question many political experts are trying to answer now is does this make Illinois the most corrupt state in the union? It’s got to be near the top. Four of the state’s past eight governors, including Blago’s predecessor George Ryan, have gotten indicted for corruption charges. That’s a stretch even Louisiana, a state many consider Illinois’ closest rival for the most corrupt, can’t match. Although former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards is looking to George Bush for a pardon. If he can get out and get re-elected, Louisiana can gain serious ground quickly.
If Blago somehow escapes conviction on the corruption charges, somebody should file an indictment regarding that hair. Seriously, that guy makes Donald Trump’s do look like vintage Fabio.
Tags: Illinois Corruption, Obama Senate Seat Scandal, Rod Blagojevich
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