• Lex: Reinforcements
  Lex has been writing about the efforts of Florida's US Rep. Alan Grayson to get an audit of the Federal Reserve done, and soon. Apparently Rep. Grayson now has a Senate counterpart in Delaware's Sen. Ted Kaufman. Lex pulls a quote from an interview with Grayson in which he's asked what the Fed's been up to:

  "Congressman Grayson: They are performing a truly remarkable, surreptitious transfer of wealth from public to private hands. They are taking their ability to print money and shore up failed banks. They are simply stuffing money into the pockets of private interests."

  (tags: economics government)

• Triad Biz Journal: Winston-Salem home sales down 20%
  "There were 445 sales of existing single-family homes in the Winston-Salem area, compared with 558 in August 2008, according to data compiled from the Triad Multiple Listing Service and released by the Winston-Salem Regional Association of Realtors."
  (tags: realestate winston-salem)

• Lex: Can we PLEASE let the smart people run things for a while?
  Lex posts about an item concerning a film on Darwin that can't find a US distributor because the subject would be too divisive for US audiences. Huh? Here's the scariest part to me: "US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution." Can that 39% figure possibly be right? I'm hoping it really is the result of a loaded question like, "Do you believe that Darwin or God was right?" Somehow I doubt it, though.
  (tags: science culture)

• Triad Biz Journal: GSO home sales drop in August
  "Greensboro home sales in August, at 490, were down 21.7 percent compared to August 2008, when 626 homes were sold, according to data released by the Greensboro Regional Realtors Association. The August total also was down about 4.3 percent from July, when 512 existing homes were sold."
  (tags: realestate greensboro)

• Wal-Mart and McDonald's gift cards used as a lure for syphilis testing
  According to this article health officials here in Forsyth County, NC are using Wal-Mart and McDonald's gift cards to "bribe" people to submit to syphilis tests. If I'm a brand marketer at either company I'm not sure I'd be happy with this news.
  (tags: healthcare health)

• Fear was no excuse to condone torture
  From an opinion piece in the Miami Herald written by two former Marines (Charles C. Krulak was commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999. Joseph P. Hoar was commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994): "We have seen how ill-conceived policies that ignored military law on the treatment of enemy prisoners hindered our ability to defeat al Qaeda. We have seen American troops die at the hands of foreign fighters recruited with stories about tortured Muslim detainees at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. And yet Cheney and others who orchestrated America's disastrous trip to “the dark side'' continue to assert — against all evidence — that torture “worked'' and that our country is better off for having gone there."
  (tags: war government)
• Michelle Malkin and the anatomy of the 2 million protester lie | Media …
  How an official crowd estimate of 70,000 for the conservatives' march on Washington turned into a reported 2 million on some media outlets. Keep in mind that rally/protest numbers in DC are ALWAYS disputed and the holder of the rally always questions the estimate of the whoever's in charge. For that reason the National Park Service stopped providing estimates for the number of people on the National Mall during events, and you'll notice that the 70,000 estimate came from the DC Fire Department. Still, 70k to 2m is a little outrageous.
  (tags: government politics)
• AVC: Speaking My Mind
  Fred Wilson nails writes about his right to speak his mind on his own blog: "I am not an expert in everything I write about. But that is not going to stop me from speaking my mind about things other than venture capital and web startups. It might annoy or piss some people off. It could even hurt our business because those people are less likely to do business with me or our firm.

  But I've made the decision to put myself out there, speak my mind publicly, and say what I think. And I am going to continue to do it."

  What he said.

  (tags: blog blogs)

• Upcoming Plastic Bottle Ban Has Some Counties Moving
  "State officials are educating public and private solid waste management facilities to separate the banned items from the waste stream before those items arrive at a disposal facility. If necessary, enforcement of the disposal bans will be applied primarily at disposal facilities such as landfills and transfer stations by the N.C. Division of Waste Management. The law does allow for accidental or occasional disposal of small amounts of banned materials. However, starting a recycling program for the banned materials is the simplest and easiest way to ensure compliance."
  (tags: environment recycling northcarolina)

Behold what happens when you’re late getting home from work and you need to get to your soccer coaching gig. The girls and other coaches got a good laugh out of it.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

• Bloomberg: Stiglitz Says Banking Problems Are Now Bigger Than Pre-Lehman
  Oh, happy days: “'In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.'”

  h/t to Ed Cone for the link

  (tags: banks economics)

• Daily Mail: A million march to US Capitol to protest against 'Obama the socialist'
  Daily Mail online article talks about the number of marchers in Washington over the weekend. It's always entertaining to see the debate about the count of protesters in DC. The Park Service used to get beat up on it every time (remember the Million Man March?) and so they stopped doing estimates at all. Whether it was tens of thousands or a million, it was still a lot. If you watch the video at the bottom of the page you'll see a woman carrying a real classy poster: "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy". Way to elevate the debate there.
  (tags: healthcare government)

• Life in Forsyth: BUDGE, v.intr. To alter a position or attitude.
  (tags: ping.fm)

The new Winston-Salem Journal with the smaller format on top of the old, larger Journal.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

• Google Reader
  (tags: ping.fm)
• People of Walmart: a collection of all the creatures that grace us with their presence at Walmart, America's favorite store.
  (tags: ping.fm)

• Zero Hedge: Some Friday Socialism Courtesy Of The FDIC, Ahead Of Bank Failure Friday
  Do you know where your taxes are?: "In an act unprecedented nobility, granted using other people's money, the FDIC sent out a release today, encouraging its loss-share partners who have acquired failed banks on the back of taxpayers' footing the bulk of the balance sheet risk and cost, essentially guaranteeing profits for these same partners, to "consider temporarily reducing mortgage payments for borrowers who are unemployed or underemployed." The FDIC's recommendation: "to reduce the loan payment to an affordable level for at least six months." And the kicker, once again subsidized by those taxpayers who live within their means yet do not find it critical to live in a house they can not afford: "losses incurred in subsequent foreclosures or short sales are covered losses.""
  (tags: economics)
• Zero Hedge: One Bank's Failed Attempt At Convincing Paulson And Bernanke It Was Too Big To Fail
  Color me depressed: "What is certain, is that neither Paulson's, nor Bernanke's actions, have forestalled another bubble collapse, and in fact, through their actions have made a certainty that we are currently living in the last bubble: one whose viability is tied with the existence of America itself. Yet this bubble too will pop, and when it does and the wealth destruction, foretold in the Lehman presentation, will be exponentially more pronounced than what even Dick Fuld could imagine."
  (tags: economics)

• NY Times: Accountants Misled Us Into Crisis
  "Unfortunately, some seem to have learned exactly the opposite lesson. Accounting rule makers at FASB and its international equivalent, the International Accounting Standards Board, have been lambasted for efforts to improve transparency by forcing banks to disclose what their dodgy assets are actually worth, as opposed to what the banks think they should be worth.

  Both boards have tried to resist, but have been forced by political pressure to back down on some specifics."

  H/T to Ed Cone for the link.

  (tags: finance accounting economics)

• AVC: Don't Forget About Email
  "Our portfolio company Etsy operates a market for handmade items. Etsy has been operating for over four years. For most of its life, Etsy had little to no email communication with its buyers. In the past six months, they built a number of email services and now email is one of the top traffic drivers to the site, passing popular new traffic sources like social networks, blogs, and communities."
  (tags: email marketing communication)
• RexBlog: “A life recorder that may be this century’s wrist watch” – cir. 1945
  Rex Hammock post reiterates the point that everything old is new again. Love the reference to the Memex.
  (tags: information technology)
• Guest Post: The "Other" Real-Estate Issue Revisited | zero hedge
  Commercial real estate situation is looking ugly. h/t to Lex for the link.
  (tags: economics realestate commercialrealestate)