Well, I've lost my advertising here. Looks like Google is insistent that I validate my address by entering a PIN that they supposedly sent me. I've requested that it be re-sent twice, and still have not received one. They won't send me another. So I'm trying to deal with their customer service people, who apparently don't exist in any real form.

My address is correct, I check the box a couple of times a week, and still nothing has arrived. They provide no other way for validating your existense.

All of which begs the question of why Google would feel the need to do this in the first place. Don't they realize that their users are -- probably more than anybody else -- unlikely to do much snail-mail at all? Personally I don't even check the box most days of the week. I've gotten to the point where everything is electronic. Except, apparently, Google's mechanism for validating my existence.

For a little guy like me whose ad revenues basically pay for the hosting and not much else, it's sort of a waste to have to deal with it. I may just remove ads altogether, or see if there's some other solution out there. In the meantime enjoy the Google PSAs.

-btc

Finally feeling something close to normal again after starting a new relationship, seeing her go away for a few weeks, refreshing my WFR Certification and cleaning up the office.

• So I see that Larry Kudlow is trumpeting "Home Sales Up!" in one of his 15 second mid-day promos on CNBC. Once again proving that he is nothing but an lying sack of shit scumbag shill for the Bush Administration who would have been fired long ago by any news organization that respected itself. If you haven't seen the real numbers, here they are courtesy of Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture:
  • Resales increased 2% to a 4.99 million annual rate (4.89 million pace in April) [note, this is month-over-month, and May is always higher than April, so big whoopee...]
  • Median existing house price dropped 6.3% from May 2007
  • Sales were down 16% versus May 2007.
  • About one-third of total sales last month were “short sales'' that reflected foreclosures or distressed properties;
  • Banks repossessed twice as many homes in May as in the same month last year;
  • Inventory of unsold homes at the end of May fell 1.4% to 4.49 million; [again, month over month, so big deal....]
  • Mortgage Bankers Association's index of loan applications to purchase homes fell last week to the lowest level in more than five years...

  Yet from all this, Larry manages to conclude that "sales are up." Guess it just shows that if you have an agenda and are willing to pick the weakest and most irrelevant numbers, you can always find something to justify your pre-ordained point of view.

• Of course, any self-respecting news organization would have fired Jim Cramer long ago too, especially after proving himself to be a scumball liar once again, as documented in the attached video.
  
  

  Jim, all those "critics" out there aren't "missing the point," "failing to understand how to watch the show," or anything else of the sort. They're merely noting that on Friday June 13, you told your viewers that your oscilator said the bottom was in and that the trade was to buy all the weak stuff -- financials, tech, etc. -- while getting out of everything that had been strong -- energy and commodities -- then exactly one week later you told them they were idiots and weren't paying attention to the show if they hadn't done the exact opposite. Guess what Jim, I have been paying attention and there's only one conclusion: You are nothing but lying scum.

• With all due respect to my buddies Toddo and Cody, Fox Business News isn't much better. Too much fluff, too many half-truths, maniuplated numbers and failures to note stuff that should be obvious to anybody who looks even halfway behind the numbers. But I guess you don't get free rides on the Citi jet if you actually think for yourself and report accordingly.
• All of which explains why on your typical day I don't do much other than running the TV with the sound off so I can see the ticker and maybe some of the scrolling headlines. Increasingly I don't even do that. It's all virtually worthless and in many cases has actual negative value.

"Why is it that the people who are against abortion are the people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place!?"

- George Carlin

Took balls to open a show at Carnegie Hall with that one.

Goodnight funny guy.

-btc