I strongly encourage everyone to watch this video as former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer gives  thoughtful, reasoned insights into a whole host of recent topics related to our financial crisis, including AIG bonuses, Obama's performance, the media's impact, regulation, etc.

I recommend the 20-minute Fareed Zakaria CNN interview in its entirety, but if you only have limited time, Spitzer offers a concise explanation into the cause of our current economic situation for a few minutes starting at about the 10:45 mark.

Oh goody. Looks like we're about to hear the details of Geithner's long-awaited financial stability plan, which has as one of its key components a public-private investment pool designed to help rid our system of the toxic assets rotting away on bank balance sheets.

Apparently, the Treasury will hire four or five private investment managers to run a fund that will purchase the assets. The government will then match whatever monies the private firms manage to raise and invest.

No, I am not referring to bankers. I'm speaking of the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on war crimes charges. Bashir is a force of evil in the world. His leadership has directly contributed to the suffering, murder, and genocide of millions. He deserves the most severe penalties we can in good conscience apply.

Great. Now there's a backlash to the backlash to the AIG bonuses, and everyone is scolding Congress for acting so rashly in crafting a bill designed to recover 90% of the bonuses in taxes.

Conservatives are complaining the bill is unconstitutional and unproductive. In his Obama interview, Jay Leno said he's frightened about its implications, and our own Genghis is mocking the effort.

Gimme a break.

Congratulations to the august members of the House of Representatives. You just saved America $148.5M. Of course, after countless hours of wrangling with the Senate, that will surely be reduced by half. And then, there will be the lawsuits challenging the bill-of-attainder tax on a particular company--a really, really, really bad company which deserves to be disemboweled and which we would definitely do if that pesky economic depression weren't in the way.

Well, except for a couple of close final games (sorry A-man about the Illini loss), it was a pretty uneventful first day in the 2009 NCAA March Madness tourney (you know it can't have been too interesting when your girlfriend correctly selects every game but one - she feels your pain A-man!).

So I figured instead of discussing the actual games, I'd quickly mention an interesting side issue surrounding CBS Sports' online coverage of the tourney.

After much speculation on the matter, Diebold has issued its mea culpa:

Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) admitted in a state hearing Tuesday that the audit logs produced by its tabulation software miss significant events, including the act of someone deleting votes on election day.

The company acknowledged that the problem exists with every version of its tabulation software.

As the U.S. sinks deeper into recession and China gorges itself on ever greater quantities of American debt, you will start to hear about the "Chinese model" and the end of American hegemony. Yet China remains tethered by a stiff leash which will ultimately choke the charging tiger once it runs out slack: its government.

I finally have a celebrity crush!

For the first time in 35 years, there is finally a woman out there whose posters I want to plaster all over my bedroom walls, whose biographical trivia I want to accumulate like so many rare golden nuggets, whose live and TV appearances I want to schedule my life around (while still respecting all applicable stalker laws, of course).

There are moments in life, in some lives, in my life, when one becomes unmoored. Something or someone cuts the bond between anchor and ship, and the sailor is cast adrift. Perhaps a violent squall snaps the tether; perhaps a villain slashes it in the night; perhaps you sever it yourself in a drunken flourish of enthusiasm or at a tranquil moment of lucidity; perhaps you simply wake up one morning and find that you've drifted out to sea.

Apparently, $175 billion doesn't buy what it used to.

AIG has decided that it has no choice but to pay out $165 million in bonuses to employees due to contractual obligations. And the government has decided it has no legal recourse to stop the payments.

RapeLay is a Japanese video game that has been around since 2006. You can read about the details in an incredibly disturbing review at HonestGamers.com. Although the game has never been for sale in the United States, it's existence became news last month when an individual put a copy for sale on Amazon.com.  After receiving complaints, Amazon.com removed the game from it's Web site and eBay followed suit.

I have railed against CNBC host Jim Cramer for some time. I enjoy him greatly as an entertainer, and when he focuses on the inner workings of the stock market, I think he does a pretty decent job of educating regular investors as well.

My mother has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for about 15 years, and for each of them, I could write for days about the horrors of insurance, or lack thereof, about doctors and nursing homes that forget that for every patient there is a story and that, for the family that story involves real and raw pain, and about my visceral reaction to losing my mother, over and over again, for almost my entire adult life. But the one thing that I couldn't write about was my memory of her. 

So some jackass reporter decided to ask White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to grade President Obama's performance after a whoppin' 50 days in office. Seriously? You could pass the question off as harmless, silly journalistic tripe, but I think it's symptomatic of a rush to judge and criticize anything and everything Obama is trying to accomplish. It's unhealthy, unproductive and unfair. The time to hand out grades will eventually come, but for now, how about giving the president a break and let him do his job.

Seeking qualified candidates for leadership role with a top American political party who will:

I am usually the bearer of such depressing market and economic news, I have to at least give some props when there are some good things to talk about.

There is a vast amount of stupidity in this world and an even vaster amount of self-righteous and willful ignorance. So, congratulations to the Vatican for releasing perhaps the most monumentally ridiculous statement of the decade. With Republicans running amok, that is some accomplishment. Says the (all male) Vatican:

Nothing has contributed more to the emancipation of women than the washing machine.

No, not New Orleans.

When you think about music and Argentina, do you immediately think tango?

You’re not alone. Argentina is known for unleashing the sexy style on the world in the early twentieth century. Over almost a hundred years, the tango has been an obsession of many, even leading to an explosion of tango-themed vacation tours.