The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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    The dagbuzz for 3/17/09: (Ashton, Oprah and Generation Twitter)

    I AM DEADMAN. HEAR ME TWEET!

    Big news today. Ashton Kutcher just attracted his one millionth follower on the microblogging service Twitter, a milestone which has generated a fair amount of fanfare, but it's only the beginning as cult leader Oprah is going to feature Twitter on her talk show today and send her first tweet over the air.

    Oh, how wonderful.

    Excuse me if I don't join in the celebration - if I'm not all, ahem, atwitter with the news - but I have very mixed feelings here.

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    The dagbuzz for 3/23/09: (The Geithner Bank Stability Plan)

    Details of the Geithner bank stability plan came out today, and Wall Street for one loved it. And why not,  for the plan basically allows financial institutions to take the worse of the toxic assets rotting away on their balance sheets and pawn off the vast majority of the risks of nonpayment onto the U.S. government (and ultimately the U.S. taxpayer).

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    The dagbuzz for 3/17/09: Zombie Banks and Executive Suicides

    Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley yesterday went on the radio and suggested AIG executives do what their Japanese peers often do when the proverbial shit hits the fan and either "resign or go commit suicide."

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    The dagbuzz for 3/11/09: Grading Obama's Presidency??

    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.

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    The dagbuzz for 3/3/09: (Fallon's Poor Debut and The Bachelor's Stunning End)

    If you've been following my blogging at all, you know how little shame I have. In today's dagbuzz, I take the shamelessness to a whole new level by admitting I got emotionally involved with this past season of The Bachelor, which ended last night in spectacular fashion. It is so very very wrong that I think I may have gotten myself more worked up over what Jason did to Melissa last night than anything AIG, Madoff, Thain or Rush have done during the past year.

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    The dagbuzz for 3/2/09: (Abuse, Co-Dependency and Fear of Change)

    Today, I discuss codependent, abusive relationships, and our general resistance to change. Deadman understands the deal. He, too, just wants to relive the good old days and focus on things that will always stay the same, like the Middle East conflict.

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    The dagbuzz for 3/1/09: (Obama's War on the Wealthy)

    Been away all week on business, listening to my colleagues and the talking heads on CNBC bitch and moan about Obama's budget and economic policies. They believe he's declaring war on the wealthy and is going to destroy the economy with his increased tax hikes.

    Are you fucking kidding me?!?

    Oh yeah, I feel a rant coming on ...

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    The dagbuzz for 2/22/09: (Slumdog, the Oscars and a Happy Ending I Can Live With)

    I usually hate happy endings in movies. They may be fine for movies like Rudy, but for many films, happy endings often ring false and feel like cheap cop-outs. Yet for reasons I explain in the video below, I actually enjoyed the ultra-gooey finale of Slumdog Millionaire.

    Perhaps because America's economic story and outlook has become almost as depressing as the childhood of Slumdog protaganist Jamal Malik, it's somehow fitting that we allow ourselves to be gloriously deluded by inspiring, well-earned Hollywood ending bullshit.

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    The dagbuzz for 2/17/09: (Obama's New New Deal?)

    (Video below)

    So Obama is signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law in Denver this afternoon. I've heard several pundits calling the $787 billion stimulus package the beginning of Obama's New Deal. In today's dagbuzz, I discuss why that comparison is foolish, and why we probably couldn't even afford a new New Deal even if we desperately needed one.

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