“I’m going to need another term to finish the job.” – Barack Obama
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Hush money
Oh, goody! Now it comes to light that the Federal Reserve made the largest bank bailout in history… and didn’t tell anyone.
The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.
Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.
Forget about occupying Wall Street. We should be grabbing our pitchforks and storming the god-damned Federal Reserve.
The largest bailout went to CitiGroup. The second largest went to Bank of America, where I do most of my banking. I knew things were dicey for the big banks, but I had no idea they were desperately trafficking in loans and lies.
If I could, I’d pull all my assets out of BOA and move everything to a credit union. Unfortunately, I’m stuck with BOA for the short term, but I’m going to start moving other accounts away from Big Banking.
Any credit unions out there interested in a small business customer?
I Heart Beer
Beer as health drink? Daily brew can be good for your heart – NY Daily News.
Researchers found that people who drank about a pint of beer a day had a 31 percent reduced risk of heart disease.
Stuffing is both a noun and a verb
Happy Turkey Day!
The holiday bug
Here’s a holiday card illustration I just finished for Sterling International (makers of the RESCUE!® brand of pest control products). They make some awesome bug traps, and now they’ve caught another bug: The Holiday Bug.
Sterling International has caught the Holiday Bug!
The illustration was an all-Painter project, from sketch to final.
Watch out for Bloomsday zombies!
What if Bloomsday were a movie? Better yet, what if Bloomsday were a zombie movie? That’s the concept of the latest Bloomsday ad, which was just sent off to the publisher today.
We had actually planned on the zombie movie ad for last year, but other ideas pushed it to the side, so we deferred it till this year.
I had a lot of fun pulling the illustration together. We had some volunteers (Huntter and Cole Niles) come over one evening to pose as zombies, along with Mrs. Sigmadog and The Kid, and I shot a bunch of reference photos using a halogen worklight shining up from the floor. The references proved invaluable, allowing me to quickly render different poses and lighting characteristics – things that can be extremely hard to make up out of thin air. We had another friend who was begging to be the model for the main character but she couldn’t make it to the shoot, thereby forfeiting her big Hollywood break (zombies wait for no one). For that character I was forced to do a quick 3D model in Poser to use as a reference.
The initial sketch was penciled on onion-skin paper, which was then photographed (I don’t have a scanner big enough) and enlarged to roughly 23 inches and imported into Painter 12. That was on a Friday. I spent the next two days digitally painting and finalizing the artwork, mostly finishing up (leaving only a couple minor edits) on Sunday afternoon. The ad layout was then done the following Tuesday, and final approval came in this morning.
Bloomsday goes to the movies again in 2012!
Posted in Art / Design, Illustration Tagged advertising, Bloomsday, movie poster, zombies Comments closed
With leaders like these, who needs terrorists?
When it comes to our elected leaders, my views range from white-hot fury, to dull rage, to exasperated, arms-in-the-air resignation.
Today, I’m going for the arms-in-the-air version, combined with snorts of derision directed at the total ass-hattery on display. There are just some days when mockery is the only reasonable option.
Today is one of those days, for two reasons:
I give up. Really. I have no faith left in government.
I’m certainly not alone. Lots of pundits complain about voter apathy, and political parties put a lot of effort into getting people to show up at the polls. But given the stories above, and the other evidence of incompetence that hit us every day, I’m frankly astonished anyone votes at all.
Our elected leaders. Phah! These are the people who demand more money to solve problems they created by spending too much money, and they can’t tell the difference between a pizza and a carrot, and don’t know what water is for?
With leaders like these, it’s a good thing we aren’t facing any major crises at the moment.
Oh. Wait…
At long last – our legal nightmare is over
Just received word that The Kid has found a lawyer job in Alaska.
It’s been a long, frustrating job search (almost 2 years). But she landed a position with a legal aid organization and will be working in the bustling metropolis of Kenai.
Now the fun begins. Lots of stuff needs to happen (transportation arrangements, living accommodations, etc.), and pretty quickly, since they want her to start very soon.
We’re all very excited around here.
Congratulations, Kid. I know you’ll make a great lawyer. Just watch out for bears.
Other than the nice blankets, why are we there?
The other day a few of us were talking about Afghanistan, and I asked, rhetorically, why we are trying to protect so many people that hate us.
Well, I’m not alone in my questioning of our continued presence in Afghanistan. Tom Ricks at Foreign Policy is of like mind, as he demonstrates in his list of
19 true things generals can’t say in public about the Afghan war.
The list starts out with a couple obvious truths:
- Pakistan is now an enemy of the United States.
- We don’t know why we are here, what we are fighting for, or how to know if we are winning.
… and goes on from there. It’s an interesting list, but even more interesting are some of the comments, many by active military, some who defend our presence and others who agree with Ricks.
