Have you noticed how everyone is being so nice on the campaign trail all of a sudden? Oh wait, I forgot about the Republican debate last night. Let me rephrase; have you noticed how everyone who matters is being so nice on the campaign trail all of a sudden? As you know, John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race yesterday. You would think Hillary and Barry would be like all happy and shit, but OH NO all of a sudden they are all reflective about what a great guy John is and how he has a real stand up family. What gives? Others may suggest ulterior motives, but being an expert political analyst allows me to know the truth. And the truth is that watching John step down reminded the Clinton and Obama camps that life is short, they both have a common goal, and can’t we all just get along? No more of this petty sniping at each other. It is time for the Democratic lovefest!

Still got your lunch? Good, because you will need the strength to read this Very. Special. Edition of Hot or Not? featuring the man who brought peace to a campaign, John Edwards. In the spirit of this newfound love of everyone’s favorite son-of-a-mill-worker, please welcome a very special guest, an anonymous Edwards admirer and wanton political slut who I will refer to as Megan. Join our Snappy Hour fun after the jump.

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So if you have been around anything that plugs in and projects pictures or sound at any point in the last two days, you know that Prezident Chimp gave his last State of the Union address last night. From everything I’ve read (i.e. nothing) it was a snoozefest of epic proportions, tax cuts, killing Muslims, evil terror, applause, applause, applause. Taking a break from her normal activities of pickling beets or smoking brisket or whatever they do there for fun, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius gave the Democratic Party rebuttal that was from most accounts as boring and pointless as anything shrub had to say. From what I copied and pasted from the AP article I skimmed over on Yahoo news, she is “a red-state Democrat touted by congressional leaders as a symbol of bipartisanship.” Asleep yet?

Well, just this morning HFA Comrade Be.Right.Back gave me a little heads up that this story may be more interesting that previously believed possible. It seems that Gov. Sebelious has a young artist son, whose website can be found here. And it raised an important political question: John Sebelius, hot or not? BRB and I discuss in a format which you might recognize after the jump. Welcome to the first Snappy Hour. Read the rest of this entry »

Meet Jerome Kerviel. Monsieur Kerviel is a trader at Societe Generale who seemingly evaded all of its controls to bet $73.5 billion — more than the French bank’s market worth — on European markets by hacking computers and “combined several fraudulent methods” to cover his tracks, causing around $7.1 billion in losses. Now, there are many who think that the entire story has not come out yet and that Jerome here may be a scapegoat for the company’s larger sins at a time of economic uncertainty. Comrade Blogenfreude is one such person, who has already covered this story here. But needless to say, it has roiled an already jittery world economy that this week has been having it share of ups and downs (but mostly downs).

But finance stuff is boring and sooooooo hard to understand. Sure all of my (modest) mutual funds are way down, but someone will come in and fix that, right? I want to get to the important questions: Jerome Kerviel: Hot or not? Let’s discuss after the jump.

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