Open Thread

11 Comments

1. 

   Oscar In Dallas on March 20, 2009 at 10:17 am

   My bracket would be perfect if not for President Obama – I followed his lead and picked a VCU upset which never materialized.

   • 

     BooMan on March 20, 2009 at 10:46 am

     came down to the last shot, though.

2. 

   Teacher Toni on March 20, 2009 at 10:18 am

   Lincoln Logs

3. 

   Superpole on March 20, 2009 at 10:40 am

   How does THIS happen?

   A nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Hartford, and an amphibious vessel, the USS New Orleans, collided early on Friday, the US Navy Fifth Fleet said.

   The incident is being investigated and damage to both ships is being evaluated, a navy statement said.

   The New Orleans’ fuel tank was ruptured in the crash, causing a spill of 25,000 gallons (90,000 litres) of diesel.

   No injuries were reported aboard the New Orleans, according to the statement from the Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain.

   I suppose Iranian-built drone dolphins had something to do with this, how else could a sub totally not see a ship 100 feet away?

   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7955185.stm

4. 

   Brendan Skwire on March 20, 2009 at 10:53 am

   bob casey’s flirting with joining evan bayh’s group of douche dogs.

   well, i guess that’s not so much “interesting” as “predictable”.

   • 

     Errol on March 20, 2009 at 11:51 am

     douche dogs – can we ascribe them a different color?

   • 

     dada on March 20, 2009 at 1:14 pm

     both of our’s already have… not totally unexpected, but disheartening nonetheless.

     udall and bennet join “the moderate dems working group“.

     • 

       BooMan on March 20, 2009 at 1:32 pm

       I find that whole group to be annoying and depressing.  But I watch votes very carefully, and so far I am not seeing much of a pattern of them voting together.  

5. 

   Andrew Longman on March 20, 2009 at 11:53 am

   It was snowing a bit ago.

   And I looked out the window to see that Lowes had delivered to my driveway four pallets of bamboo flooring I hadn’t ordered.

   Took a bit to clear that up.

   • 

     Second Nature on March 20, 2009 at 12:08 pm

     I might have had it sold on Craigslist before they discovered their mistake. 😉

6. 

   Brendan Skwire on March 20, 2009 at 12:43 pm

   geithner admits dodd put in bonus-related clause at treasury’s request:

   VELSHI: Let’s just talk a little moment again about those payments and the legal ramifications of doing anything about it. Senator Dodd says that he had a clause that was put into the stimulus bill that basically allowed these payments to be made to people at AIG in this particular unit and he says that somebody at Treasury asked him to put it in.
   GEITHNER: Let me just start by saying that Chairman Dodd has played an enormously important leadership role in this and he’s doing the right thing in trying to make sure that the assistance we provide don’t go
   to benefit people that shouldn’t benefit from these things. And I am enormously impressed by the importance of what he’s trying to do in this case.
   VELSHI: But somebody – have we figured out who told him to put this clause in?
   GEITHNER: This provision? We expressed concern about this specific version. We wanted to make sure it was strong enough to survive legal challenge. But we also worked with him to strengthen the overall
   framework and his bill has this very important provision we’re relying on now to go back and see if we can recoup payments that were made that there was no legal ability to block.
   VELSHI: But inadvertently might somebody at Treasury have told Senator Dodd to do something that has now resulted in these payments not being
   able to …
   GEITHNER: No, again, what we did is just express concern about the vulnerability of a specific part of this provision, the legal challenge, as you would expect us to do, that’s part of the legislative process, but again, his bill also has this very important provision that allows us to go back and see if we can recoup these payments and we’re going to explore that, but in any case we’re going to make sure that the American people are compensated for any payments we can recoup.
   VELSHI: Do we know who in Treasury had this conversation with whomever on the banking committee?
   GEITHNER: Treasury staff were working Senator Dodd’s staff throughout this process. Again, that’s part of the legislative process.
   VELSHI: But you weren’t involved in that directly?
   GEITHNER: I did have with other officials some conversations with Chairman Dodd as he was going through this process but other
   provisions.
   VELSHI: So not about this particular one. It wasn’t you telling …
   GEITHNER: No, but I’m not sure that’s relevant because Treasury staff did express concern about whether this provision was vulnerable to legal challenge.

   toldja treasury and the administration leaned on him.