Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, apologized today for his firm's strong earnings in 2009. In a press statement, he took responsibility for the profit and promised to lose money more aggressively for the remainder of the year.

The American Conservative Union (ACU), which proudly boasts of being "the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization," proudly demanded $2M+ from FedEx in return for endorsing its position in a legislative dispute with UPS, stating, "We stand with FedEx in opposition to this legislation."

The Supreme Court nomination process is one of the weirdest games in American politics. By tradition, the confirmation process is supposed to be non-partisan. Many Americans subscribe to an ideal that judges should objectively interpret the law without political bias. Of course, everyone admits that there is no true objectivity, but many of us still hope that our judges will come as close to objectivity as possible in a political institution.

CNBC has a bad rap. It began with Rick Santelli's made-for-youtube tirade in which he blamed home-buying "losers" for causing the mortgage the crisis. Then Jon Stewart skewered the CNBC journalists who promoted the banks that most analysts blame for the mortgage crisis, sparking a minor media war with Jim Cramer that left Cramer appearing petulant and self-important. A few weeks later, Cramer exploded at blogger Dan Solin and stormed off the set of the CNBC's Power Lunch.

The NYT reports that Google is planning the most direct challenge to Microsoft to date: an operating system.

The software, called the Google Chrome Operating System, is initially intended for use in the tiny, low-cost portable computers known as netbooks, which have been selling quickly even as demand for other PCs has plummeted. Google said it believed the software would also be able to power full-size PCs.

In her surprise resignation speech, Sarah Palin confidently quoted Gen. Douglas MacArthur to the hastily assembled press corps, "We're not retreating, we're advancing in another direction."

The media continues to lionize Michael Jackson with a deluge of tributes, retrospectives, and eulogies, and a stream of breathless reporting about what his doctor said and what his sisters did and where his kids stayed. Some of my co-bloggers have compared him to John Lennon. Other articles have placed him in a triumvirate with Lennon and Elvis Presley.

When Abram turned 99, God came to him and said, “'I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be perfect.”

Commentary: Yessir, God definitely had a man-crush on Abram.

Abram complied by falling flat on his face. Then God promised several more times to give Abram many, many offspring until Abram was about ready to tell God to shut up about the offspring already.

But then God demanded a price for his largess: circumcision.

Commentary: A kinky man-crush.

BREAKING: Having issued a number of bellicose threats in recent weeks, the government of North Korea has run dangerously low on epithets and histrionic adjectives. Though North Korea is the world's leading producer of hyperbole, the prolific output of the government controlled Central News Agency has outstripped their supply. Analysts fear that without wrathful verbiage, North Korea will resort to military force and patriotic parades.

Is it me, or does Nixon become more racist with every release of White House tapes? Ironically, the latest batch show him embracing moderate ideas for racist rationales.

For instance, it turns out that he supported a woman's right to have an abortion...in order to avoid those horrible mixed-race babies:

There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white.

I guess that Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, didn't get the memo.

From the official Korean Central News Agency:

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all."

A week ago, in response to U.S. threats to inspect cargo coming to and from North Korea, the same news agency vowed that North Korea would treat such actions as a declaration of war of promised a "100 or 1,000-fold retaliation with merciless military strike."

In the end, it was Sarai who solved the fertility problem. She suggested that Abram have sex with her Egyptian slave, Hagar. Abram enthusiastically followed her suggestion.

Commentary: I suppose that I shouldn't ask whether Hagar was consulted in this arrangement.

The Kang Nam, a two-thousand ton North Korean freighter, is powering towards Southeast Asia. An eight-thousand ton American destroyer, the John S. McCain, trails behind it. As the two-ship mobile standoff crawls along the east coast of Asia, telephones have been ringing in Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo, as the leaders of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan scramble for a strategy to confront North Korea's weapons smuggling operations.

Watch for the Mega-Shark cameo...

About this time, Abram discovered a small flaw in God’s divine plan to make his offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth: his wife was sterile. So when God came to him in a vision with more promises of greatness and plentiful offspring, Abram pointed out that Sarai’s advanced age and well-documented sterility could present a problem.

There was at this time a war between nine kings of various tribes of ites and ims. Four of the kings defeated the other five, including the king of Sodom. The victors pillaged the possessions of the vanquished and took their people captive, including Abram’s nephew, Lot, who had been chilling in Sodom. When Abram heard of the kidnapping, he chased the four kings with 318 of his servants. He split his forces (all 318 of them) and rescued the captives and their possessions.

Commentary: Obviously, these were not the most powerful kings ever to rule the Middle East.

So Abram, Sarai, and Lot, enriched by the prostitution business, headed back north to Canaan. They were so rich that the land couldn’t support all their flocks, and their herdsman started to squabble, so Abram told Lot to go one way, and he would go the other. Lot went east to the wicked city of Sodom, and Abram went west.

Commentary: Lot did not have a good head for real estate.

When Lot was gone, God promised Abram that all the land as far as he could see would soon be his and that his offspring would be as numerous as the dust of the earth.

Follow the tragic experiences of an Iranian student on twitter as the protests in Tehran unfold: http://twitter.com/change_for_iran. I'll display the latest tweets on the right panel of this page. Here are some samples of recent tweets in chronological order:

When Abram turned 75, God told him to move out of his father’s house.

Commentary: I have to agree with God on this one.

To encourage him, God promised: “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you great. You shall become a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and he who curses you, I will curse. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

Commentary: I think that God had a little man-crush on Abram.

The descendents of Nimrod, the mighty trapper before God, settled in the valley of Shinar. Once they were settled, they decided that it would be fun to build a really tall tower that reached the sky, so that’s what they did.

Then God came around to check out their tower, and he apparently wasn’t too pleased because he said,

“They are a single people, all having one language, and this is the first thing they do! Now nothing they plan to do will be unattainable for them! Come, let us descend and confuse their speech, so that one person will not understand another's speech.”