Larry Kudlow asks where's Madoff's money?
Yet while everyone can now cheer that the greatest crook in financial history will die in jail, Madoff also may die keeping his secrets with him. So far, prosecutors have come up with very little about this case. And under the tutelage of the clever lawyer Ike Sorkin, Madoff has given almost nothing up. No singing in jail. (Maybe he should have been waterboarded.) We don’t know if his wife or two sons were part of the scam. Nor do we know where most of the money -- estimated up to $65 billion -- has gone. There’s a number being used that bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard has recovered $1.2 billion of the $13.2 billion in estimated net losses. But the strength of those numbers is somewhat in doubt.Where’s the money? Who are the accomplices? And what about some of these big-time fat cats who invested with Madoff, people we thought were victims but may turn out to be the real winners in the story?
There are several reports about Jeffry Picower and Stanley Chais, two rich businessmen who may have taken $6.1 billion in returns from the Madoff fraudulent funds -- more than they put in. There’s also businessman Carl Shapiro, a close Madoff pal. And while there is yet no number as to what he took out of the funds, years ago the guy sold his garment business for $20 million and grew that sum to nearly $1 billion -- most of it from investing with Madoff.
Madoff is obviously keeping quiet because his former partners-in-crime have threatened to kill him and his family if he talks.
Lots of outrage over a firefighter who killed his two dogs to save on boarding costs:
A Columbus firefighter admits that he took his two dogs to the basement, tied them up and blasted them with a rifle so he and a girlfriend could vacation without paying to board the animals. ...He was convicted of "needlessly killing ... a companion animal" on Dec. 3, according to the charges filed 10 minutes before the hearing in Municipal Court. One dog was shot six times in the head.
Santuomo, who did not give a statement in court, will spend 90 days in jail, pay $4,500 to cover the cost of his investigation and serve five years' probation, Judge Harland H. Hale ruled.
"This is a travesty and abhorrent behavior to those in this community who work to save the lives of animals," said Jodi Buckman, executive director of the Capital Area Humane Society.
And yet killing unborn babies for the sake of convenience is a "right". The people who evince the most outrage over animal abuse tend to be the most vociferous supporters of abortion.
Dana Perino points out the bizarre nature of Mark Sanford's affair.
Now we have a real doozy — another promising politician, he, too, with a full head of hair, white smile, and nice family, in the most bizarre scandal to date. Ditching his detail, flying to the southern hemisphere for an assignation, while his staff told reporters that he was . . . hiking . . . the Appalachian trail? Say what? I’d like to have been in the room when the spokesperson drew straws to determine who was going to go out an explain that whopper. Had they not seen the e-mails the media now has posted for all to see? Do any of these characters — and I use the term loosely — think of what their wives and children are going to go through? Do they really think they’re going to get away with all of this?
It's so bizarre that it's almost inconceivable to me that a sitting governor could expect to get away with this. The wife and I were talking last night, and we're both convinced that there's more to this story than has so far been revealed. The details thus far simply don't make sense. Something is being covered up that's worse than the supposed affair.
President Obama would make sure his family got the "best care" rather than settle for the public health care plan he's pushing.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it's not provided by insurance.Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he's proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.
So... it's good enough for us, but not for his family?
(HT: Ed Morrissey.)
Greg Mankiw asks a great question about how America's "high" health care costs are labeled.
On the issue of doctor training: Suppose that in country A physicians get free training through a taxpayer-financed educational system, while in country B physicians finance their own education and then, once trained, are paid higher fees. If country A classifies these training expenses as education rather than healthcare spending, which country would report higher healthcare costs? Is that difference in healthcare costs real or an artifact of labeling? In which country would doctors, once trained, have more incentive to work long hours? In which country would there be more doctors? Which country's system, in your judgment, is more efficient and equitable?
America is country B, and most other countries are A. Maybe this kind of labeling phenomenon affects not just our perceived too-high costs of health care, but also our perceived too-low education spending.
I'm actually not quite sure why this is funny, but I've received it from multiple sources so I may as well post it.
Cesar Rodriguez was the closest thing the USAF had to a modern air combat ace:
Over Cesar Rodriguez’s desk hangs a macabre souvenir of his decades as a fighter pilot. It is a large framed picture, a panoramic cockpit view of open sky and desert. A small F‑15 Eagle is visible in the distance, but larger and more immediate, filling the center of the shot, staring right at the viewer, is an incoming missile.It is a startling picture, memorializing a moment of air-to-air combat from January 19, 1991, over Iraq. Air-to-air combat has become exceedingly rare. Even when it happens, modern fighter pilots are rarely close enough to actually see the person they are shooting at. This image recalls a kill registered by Rodriguez, who goes by Rico, and his wingman, Craig Underhill, known as Mole, during the Gulf War.
The F‑15 in the distance is Rodriguez’s.
“The guy who is actually sitting in the cockpit staring out at this, he’s locked on to me with his radar, and that,” he said, pointing at the missile, “is about to hit him in the face.”
“So this is an artist’s rendering?”
“No,” said Rodriguez. “That’s actually the real picture.”
A special-operations team combed the Iraqi MiG’s crash site, and this was one of the items salvaged, the last millisecond of incoming data from the doomed Iraqi pilot’s HUD, or head-up display. It was the final splash of light on his retinas, probably arriving too late for his brain to process before being vaporized with the rest of his corporeal frame.
Mike Rosen-Molina talks about using social networking systems for online evangelism.
There are many websites that try to harness Internet connections for missionary work, explaining how churches could use online video and Twitter feeds to catch web surfers' attention. Andrea Useem's Congregational Resources explains and demystifies social networking for religious leaders, while Carlos Whittaker blogs about his faith and social media at Ragamuffinsoul. Sites like these emphasize that one big obstacle to Internet evangelism is that the Internet is, at heart, a pull medium -- meaning it's often more difficult to reach a reluctant audience using the web than it is using older media such as television or radio. So while static webpages might be good for drawing in people already curious about a religion's tenants, actually getting the attention of someone who wasn't... that was a little more tricky without coming across as spam. That is, until the advent of social media, and its accompanying ability to build relationships online."Creating a web site is perhaps the most basic way to use the Internet for evangelism," agreed Rev. Michael White, a United Methodist pastor and author of Digital Evangelism: You Can Do It, Too!. He noted that newer social networking sites offered more opportunities for outreach because they could better enable conversation than a static page.
"People of faith can use such social media as Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc. to reach out both to 'seekers' (those looking for more information about religious faith) and believers alike to share the tenets of their faith, encourage deepening one's religious faith, answering questions of doubt, and much more," he said.
Lots more at the link.
(HT: SO.)
I'm fairly ambivalent about Ann Coulter, but she often has the pithiest pointy elbows on my side. Here she is on the killing of abortionist George Tiller:
I wouldn't kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one.
Someone please enlighten me as to why she's wrong, but Tiller was right.
