Actor Peter Graves died Sunday at the age of 83. As spy squad chief Jim Phelps, he opened each episode of the CBS TV series Mission Impossible(1966-1973) by listening to his assignment on a tape recorder. Each tape ended with the announcement “This message will self-destruct in five seconds.” And it did, in a puff of smoke.
We could not locate clips of the self-immolating tape spools. Recordings of those recordings must have …well, you know. There are clips of opening montages set to Lalo Schifrin’s Grammy™-winning theme music.
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
An FDA recall of contaminated acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) has led to scrutiny of this misunderstood ingredient of industrial food products. HVP sounds like a means of adding nourishment to manufactured foodstuffs, but it is actually a flavor-enhancer, a neuro-exciter. Active ingredient: glutamic acid. You may recognize one of its salts, monosodium glutamate (MSG).
Is it a liquid asset or collateral? Both! That’s the magic of Repo 105.
A report on the Lehman Brothers bankrupcy lifts the curtain on the unregulated market in repurchase agreements (repos). In repos, financial instruments are sold with an agreement to buy them back at a later date.
“Lehman’s trick was to use a clause in the accounting rules to classify [a] deal as a sale, even though it was still obliged to repurchase the assets at a later date. That meant the assets disappeared from the balance sheet, and it could use the cash it received to temporarily pay down other liabilities…. [Repo 105] was crucial for maintaining the group’s credit rating as rating agencies and investors began to focus more on leverage and demanded lower risk.” – Simon Kennedy, Market Watch.
A British law firm provided Lehman with cover for double-counting billions pledged to back short-term loans as liquid assets. A U.S. law firm had previously disapproved the practice. Lehman’s auditors, Ernst & Young, did not object.
Syracuse University has appointed Mary Hudson as the school’s first pagan chaplain. Just in time for Ostara!
The University of Southern Maine is the only other U.S. college known to have a pagan chaplain (Rev. Cynthia Jane Collins), but schools in Canada, Australia, and Britain have them.
Like her Constitution-redacting Dad, Liz Cheney would deny counsel to Gitmo defendants and tar and feather any lawyers who try to represent them. The Cheneys would brobably throw John Adams in jail for defending Boston’s Redcoats if that lousy, traitorous Founding Father hadn’t conveniently died (the socialist coward!).
DC political reporter Jonetta Rose Barras has moved her WPFW-FM radio show to Thursdays, 11 AM to Noon. Tune in today.
Jonetta Rose Barras publishes the Barras Reportand writes a column for the Washington Examiner. An experienced reporter, analyst and commentator, she has written for the Washington City Paper,the Washington Times, and other publications, and appeared on WAMU-FM for several years.
The logo for British chef Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution crusade is strikingly similar to that of Mark Bittman’s New York Timesblog. Coincidence?
Mr. Oliver’s revolution will be televised, on the ABC Network.
The Bitten logo is likely a trademark of the New York Times; the JOFR name and logo are no doubt trademarked by someone-or-other. They are used here in the spirit of inquiry under the Fair Use Doctrine. Since both logos mimic Spanish Civil War,Soviet, and Vietnamese posters and echo Delacroix, lawyers should probably stand down anyway.
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
The snow has melted, but Washington’s cherry trees are bare – except on public television. WETA is running a program called The Washington Cherry Blossoms: Beauty on the Basin, and sun-washed pink blooms wave across your TV screen, accompanied by inoffensive music.
