One year ago, a 32-year-old trader at a giant hedge fund named Amaranth held huge sway over the price the country paid for natural gas. Trading on unregulated commodity exchanges, he made risky bets that led to the fund's collapse -- and, according to a congressional investigation, higher gas bills for homeowners.

But as another winter approaches, lawmakers and federal regulators have yet to set up a system to prevent another big fund from cornering a vital commodity market. Called by some insiders the Wild West of Wall Street, commodity trading is a world where many goods that are key to national security or public consumption, such as oil, pork bellies or uranium, are traded with almost no oversight.

Part of the problem is that the regulator, the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has had a hard time keeping up with the sector it oversees. Commodity trading has exploded in complexity and popularity, growing six-fold in trading volume since 2000 -- the year that a handful of giant energy companies, including Enron, successfully lobbied to get Congress to exempt energy markets from government regulation.
"Energy Traders Avoid Scrutiny," Washington Post, 10/21/07

( Mental )

When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderberg conference—the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger—she was already a woman of major means.

A corporate lawyer and telecommunications entrepreneur, the sparkly blond ex-wife of former New York politician Andrew Stein had made more than $100 million from the sale of cleverly acquired wireless broadband licenses. She was also sexy, charming, and dazzlingly well connected. Two years later, after the smitten Sir Evelyn divorced his second wife, Victoria Schott, the mother of his three children, Forester became the third Lady Rothschild. After marrying in November 2000 at a London synagogue, they honeymooned at the White House, guests of Lynn's good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Today the New Jersey-born Lady de Rothschild—the flashiest hostess in London—is mates with Tony and Cherie Blair, among other topflight Britons. She's also mistress of the former John Singer Sargent home in Chelsea and of Ascott House, the 3,200-acre Rothschild family estate in Buckinghamshire, and the chief executive of E.L. Rothschild, the holding company that she owns with her third husband to manage investments in the Economist and various enterprises in India.
-Portfolio.com

"...frankly, I don't like him. I feel like he is an elitist."
-Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild on Barack Obama, CNN


(Via Rumproast by way of Balloon Juice)

Meanwhile, hinging less on interpersonal tipping points than on wry mayhem and post-Tarantino banter, Getting Away With Murder represents the perhaps-inevitable synthesis of Say Anything ... and Grosse Point Blank, the John Cusack role falling to one John Gilbert, who looks like a slightly darker, earthier version of indie actor James Urbaniak.

Long before Rush Limbaugh, Helms was on the airwaves dismissing the University of North Carolina (UNC) as the "University of Negroes and Communists."

This is one of the disturbing legacies of Jesse Helms. Though you won't see it mentioned in the media coverage of his retirement, Helms was in fact an avowed and unapologetic segregationist. As a campaign worker, he helped elect segregation candidates before his own run in 1972. Unlike neoconservatives who espouse state's rights on principle, despite any unwanted outcomes on racial issues, Helms backed state's rights specifically because he wanted states to have the right to segregate. If Helms's position on 1960's civil-rights legislation has changed since then, he hasn't mentioned it.

Death of a Conservative Great   [Mark R. Levin]

I wish the Helms family peace, and I thank Jesse Helms for helping to ensure the election of Ronald Reagan, being a warrior against the Soviet Union and for the release of Soviet Jews and other abused minorities, and being a voice for millions of unborn babies. 

I have noticed some of the smears lobbed at William Buckley in other places since his death; Jesse Helms is in for even more of it.  Other prominent conservatives will face the same.  Unfortunately, such is the nature of these things now.

The Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) is a Christian right lobbying group based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It promotes "family values," supports creationism (which it calls "origins science"), opposes teaching evolution in public schools, promotes Louisiana's covenant marriage law, and opposes same-sex marriage.
-Wikipedia

Arguments over the teaching of creationism as science are headed for the Legislature this session.

Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, has introduced the Louisiana Academic Freedom Act in the form of Senate Bill 561. The bill is now in the Senate's education committee, which Nevers chairs.

The Louisiana Family Forum suggested the bill, Nevers said.

. . .

If SB561 passes, it would take effect next school year.
-Hammond Star, 4/6/08

The “Louisiana Science Education Act” (SB 733), formerly the “Louisiana Academic Freedom Act” (SB 561), unanimously passed the Louisiana Senate 28 April 2008.
-aibs.org

A proposal that would let science teachers change how they teach topics like evolution, cloning and global warming in public schools was overwhelmingly approved Wednesday by the Louisiana House.
-AP, 6/11/08

Attention Kmart shoppers, love can wait.

The retailer is generating a lot of buzz this week over a clothing item for juniors that some blogs say promotes abstinence. The $16.99 sweatpants come in various colors with the message “True Love Waits” on the front and back.

"These athletic pants boldly proclaim just where she stands by pointing out that "True Love Waits" in a large screen print on the front and back of these pants," the retailer's Web description of the item reads.

There is no similar product for young men.

A spokeswoman for Sears Holdings Corp., which owns Kmart, told The Buzz the pants have absolutely nothing to do with taking any kind of position, either way, on abstinence. "It was not associated with any group or any cause," said Amy Dimond. "It was just a graphic put on the pants."

Piper & Blue, Kmart's private label brand, designed the sweatpants as part of its summer collection that hit stores in late April.

Although the pants were not designed to make a statement, Dimond admitted that "there may be some (customers) who made the (abstinence association), but it was not the intention."
-The Buzz, AZCentral.com

Bold abstinence screen print
-pants description, Kmart.com