New Meme: "Too Big to Save"

"Fact #1. Too big to save. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup, Inc. have combined assets of $3.9 trillion, or 43 times the size of the Treasury bailout funds they've received to date.

"Fact #2. Bigger losses ahead. Even before any further declines in the economy, an unusually large portion of their assets are already in grave jeopardy — commercial real estate loans going sour, credit cards loans tanking, auto loans sinking, and residential mortgages turning to dust. Now, as the economy continues to tumble, avoiding much larger losses will be almost impossible.

"Fact #3. Big derivatives players. Bank of America and Citigroup are the nation's second and third largest high-rollers in the derivatives market, with a combined total of $78 trillion in these bets outstanding. That's over ten times the derivatives that Lehman Brothers had on its books when it failed last year.

"Fact #4. They've bet far too much on each other's failure. Bank of America and Citigroup are also the second and third largest participants in the most dangerous derivatives of all — credit default swaps. These are the big bets that financial institutions make on the failure of other major companies."

More here.

Texas Transportation: Zombies Ahead

We knew that; but the news is, I'm approvingly citing Fox: "[t]ransportation officials in Texas are scrambling to prevent hackers from changing messages on digital road signs after one sign in Austin was altered to read, 'Zombies Ahead.'"

History (and thus the Future) Belongs to Those Who Re-Write It.

Are you a Wikipedia editor?

Doing Great:

" . . . McDonald's said Monday its 2008 net profit soared 80 percent from a year [ago], lifted by growing demand from consumers seeking low-cost meals in a deepening global recession." More here.

Animal House

Sorry, my source didn't source it. Click on the pic to enlarge.

Words to Live By:

Select All; Command Copy; Command Paste; Command Save; Select; Command Delete; Command Save.

From c-cyte Aphorisms.

Obamaction

Go here, and be sure to scroll all the way down.

(Thanks, Paul!)

Why Republicans are Delaying Holder's Confirmation:

" . . . U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former U.S. Attorney and Attorney General for Rhode Island, today sharply criticized the argument some Republican members of the Committee are making for delaying a vote on the nomination of Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder:

"'Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have asked Eric Holder to make a commitment, before he is even confirmed, that he will not prosecute any Bush Administration officials for their involvement in acts of torture during the last administration.

"'Anyone familiar with the criminal justice system . . . should know that a prosecutor should make no determination about who to prosecute before he or she has all the facts, and particularly not in response to legislative pressure.'"

I.e., we'll block you 'til you promise not to do your job ( -- exactly what we've had from Repub. gummint for the last 8 years {no one hired unless they could be relied on not to do their job}).

And if that weren't bad enough:

"'I believe they are delaying Holder's nomination to shorten the time between the day Holder takes over and the day the statute of limitations on [the] violations of FISA [that] Bush committed on March 11, 2004 start to expire -- that is, March 11, 2009, just seven weeks away.

"'At yesterday's Progressive Media Summit, I had an opportunity to remind Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of that timeline. I reminded him, too, that Bush seems intent on delaying the time when an Article III judge assesses the evidence in the al-Haramain document, which probably proves Bush broke the law.'"

I have not personally verified the facts or all of the law re- the statute-of-limitations issue, but I can confirm that if there's an applicable statute of limitations, and no prosecution is commenced before it expires, the "evil-doers" are home-free.

If you find this delay unacceptable for that or any other reason, pls tell the two senators blocking the nomination, Senators Spector and Cornyn (I'm especially talkin' to you, Pennsylvania and Texas residents!), which you can do here.

More details here, here, and here.