From thismodernworld, a 1999 NY Times article about repealing Glass-Steagall:

Congress approved landmark legislation today that opens the door for a new era on Wall Street in which commercial banks, securities houses and insurers will find it easier and cheaper to enter one another’s businesses …

“Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. “This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”

The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation’s financial system.

LOL, God bless those handful of dissenters with their dire warnings, forever lurking around in the lower depths of news articles, spreading doom and gloom.

By the way, I forgot how short Bob Mould’s guitar strap was; LOL, his flying V is flying pretty high up in the sky there, pretty far from the ground, cruising altitude 40,000 feet, LOL.

EGG ON MY FACE ALERT: Just off the ol’ Blackberry with a major Hollywood insider who says the rumors of a Claymation Transformers II reshoot are way off base.

This source sez the robot scenes are being reshot using Clay Aiken in a series of robot costumes.

This new process has been dubbed “Clay-Aikenimation.”

After ditching the CGI footage for looking “like some wack-ass Atari shit,” and deciding against Claymation as “too messy,” Transformers II director Hakim Bey decided to cast Clay Aiken in the role of ALL THE ROBOTS.

“Clay has been very patient throughout the whole process,” according to my source. “He’s getting a kick out of playing all the robots — the Transformers and the Deceptitrons (sic), or whatever they’re called, I can’t really remember because frankly we’re all a little drunk right now.”

Apparently the computer nerds who developed the CGI effects are furious that they’ve been kicked to the curb. “I can’t wait to see Clay Aiken try to turn into a truck, yeah, that’s gonna look GREAT,” said one CGI-programmer geek I talked to.

Said another CGI designer: “I don’t care how much yoga that dude (Clay Aiken) knows, ‘Downward Facing Dog’ doesn’t mean you can bend yourself into looking like a [EXPLETIVE] jet fighter plane.”

OUCH!

This story is still developing … I’ll add more deets as they become available …

That’s why they should spell it HOLLYWOULD, people — because where WOULD we be without it?

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“Doctors and Mental Health Professionals Volunteer to Help Torture Survivors”

LOL, at least join the CIA where you can get paid to do it.

Dr. Go-offsky is in the building, and he’s writing prescriptions.

That we even need a new raft of compensation regulations strains the boundaries of credulity. It makes you question the values of your countrymen. They were the principle beneficiaries of a decade-long bubble that they inflated. These Ivy League bundles of privilege were given every possible advantage and then took yet more than that. They took the advantages of high school seniors applying to college this year or entering the workforce next year. They took the advantages of seniors who had saved for retirement and parents who had invested to build their own business. And now they’re refusing to help defuse the bomb at the center of our economy unless we pay them retention bonuses. Worse, they’re threatening to flee the scene of the crime andmake money off the carnage. That, it’s been argued, is why we need to keep paying meeting their demands: Because we need them working for us rather than against us. It’s chutzpah as the Yiddish define it: A child who kills his parents and then begs for lenience because he’s a pitiable orphan. It’s shameful.

I love thinking about patriotism and its relationship to money/the economy. Remember when people jumped down Biden’s throat when he said paying taxes was patriotic? WTF? OF COURSE IT IS. It’s how the government gets the fucking money it needs to function.

“Shared sacrifice” and “shouldering the burden” and “honor, honor, honor” only come up in the context of the military. Why is the financial system not bound to the same codes, the same goose-bump vocabulary? “He made the ultimate sacrifice; he had his bonus stripped.”

LOL, I hope all the kids serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are totally pumped to protect our way of life right now. Everyone should go AWOL tomorrow.

More big news about the Claymation Transformers sequel … whispered in my ear by a little bird named “Anonymous Big-Shot Hollywood Producer” … apparently there’s concern that the Transformers production will actually run out of clay … sez my source: “Things got tense on set yesterday when (Director Hakim) Bey realized a fight-sequence reshoot would require 50,000 additional tons of clay … he threw a craft-services bagel at his PA and yelled, ‘Where are we gonna get all this [EXPLETIVE] clay?’”

BONUS SHOCKER: Per my source, Bey went on to throw a craft-services yogurt cup at his DP and screamed, “Everybody go dig up some dirt and soak it in water and make me some [EXPLETIVE] clay, I need everyone to dig in the dirt right now, we need more clay, this is a [EXPLETIVE] clay emergency!”

Another source weighs in to say: “The production is now way over-budget and way under-clayed; Bey’s afraid he’s been played — he thought he had it made in the shade with an A+ grade, but those days have faded like Fannie Mae did, and now dismay is the way of the day, I say.”

I’ve been working the phones to find out details, and just heard this from a SFX guy in the loop: “Optimus Prime is only halfway constructed and he’s looking all dirty and grimy with clumps of grass sticking out of his shoulder because they didn’t have time to clean the clay before they started building the robots.”

Seems like only a clay miracle can save this troubled production now …

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Guys, if you haven’t noticed, the economy is in trouble. The money isn’t working like it’s supposed to. 

I think what we should do is, keep all the financial guys who’ve been running the show in charge, but pay them more money, so they’ll do a better job. 

Just off the phone with a major Hollywood agent … he tells me shocking news about the Transformers sequel … apparently they’re ditching all the CGI because “it looks really cheesy and fake,” and instead they’re going to re-shoot the robot scenes using CLAYMATION … and yes they are modeling the robots at actual size, in case you were wondering … these will be the largest claymation models ever produced … Wallace and Gromit, you’ve officially been dethroned … needless to say my interest in this film has spiked … some grumbling from the cast members about how they have to “stand around for like twenty hours while the crew moves Optimus Prime’s arm forward one inch at a time” … this has wreaked havoc with the production schedule … new release date: August 2050 … can they maintain the buzz until then? We’ll find out …

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If you haven’t noticed, I’m starting an online fundraising appeal to help me buy a laptop so I can blog anywhere, anytime, without notice.

All I have right now is a big desktop computer, and it’s too difficult to lug around from the coffeeshop to the library to the train to the living room, etc.

Whereas, a laptop computer? It’s designed to be portable. That’s the whole point. You can throw it in a bag and hop on a horse and then, next thing you know, you’re blogging from McGillicutty’s Gulch, or wherever.

Don’t you want me to blog from McGillicutty’s Gulch?

YES. Yes, you do. Because what if I’m panning for gold and then I find a big fat nugget? Wouldn’t you prefer if I could immediately whip out my laptop and blog about it, rather than waiting until I gallup all the way home and then hitch my horse and then take a shower and then dry my hair and then turn on my desktop and then wait for it to warm up, then crash, then warm up, then crash, etc. etc. and then by the time I’m ready to blog about “Hey guys, I found some gold nuggets in the gulch today,” them dirty ol’ Coolidge Boys have taken over my claim and now I’m sitting in front of my desktop computer with nothing to blog about like a punk.

Are you starting to see what I’m getting at?

Maybe next week I’ll make a bunch of different levels of donor premiums like NPR does, in case any high-rollin’ readers want to make a big donation to my laptop fund. What would be a good premium? I’ll think about it and get back to you.

In the meantime, please consider donating to my laptop fund!

THANK YOU