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Regulatory Control is Critical for Integrity of the Markets- Bad KPMG…Get the Newspaper…

It is amazing after the Enron debacle and multiple other examples which KPMG probably sees on a first-hand daily basis, that a senior partner of KPMG would assist in causing the first waves of the mortgage meltdown. This is a clear example why independence from the auditee is essential for for an effective audit. This is clearly a violation of investor trust and shady back-room executive decisions. It is sad that even the major oversight bodies cannot be trusted to ensure the validity of yearly statements. Unlike Arthur Andersen, KPMG will probably survive this misconduct. However their actions are even more vile than the actions from New Century. KPMG was expected and was relied upon by the public trust to find misstatements and cheating. The fact that they were a willing participant when the basis of their duty was to protect the public interest is equal to Arthur Andersen and should be regarded similarly.

Tags: KPMG, Audit, Mortgage, Mortgage Meltdown, Idependence, Misconduct, Regulatory Control, Arther Andersen, Enron, Enron, NY Times, Public Interest

Green collar jobs?

Really? Do we need that distinction? NY Times Link

Tags: Employment, Economy, Politics, Labor

Tough Time to Bee the Bat

According to the New York Times, the die off of large populations of bats and bees is one of the worst calamities and mysteries to hit these populations in US recorded history. On average 90 percent of the hibernating bats in four caves and mines in New York have died since last winter. Other states measured have similar results.

It’s ironic, until last year most of my time was spent trying to delist it,” or take it off the endangered species list, Mr. Hicks, a mammal specialist with New York state’s Environmental Conservation Department said, after the state’s Indiana bat population grew, to 52,000 from 1,500 in the 1960s.

“It’s very scary and a little overwhelming from a biologist’s perspective,” stated Ms. von Oettingen, an endangered species biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. “If we can’t contain it, we’re going to see extinctions of listed species, and some of species that are not even listed.”

Get the mosquito repellent ready for this summer!

“Logic dictates when you are potentially losing as many as a half a million bats in this region, there are going to be ramifications for insect abundance in the coming summer,” explained Mr. Darling, a Vermont wildlife biologist.

Tags: Science, Bat, Bee, Extinction, Nature, Disease, Mystery, New York Times, Preservation, Wildlife, Ecology

You know you’re a crappy actor when…

….Cat crap fever

This is an old Salon article from 2007, but it is still amusing…

He may be pulling in millions a film and deified by women everywhere, but George Clooney is not beyond digging around in cat scrat for the sake of a good joke.

Actor Richard Kind (Paul from “Spin City”) and his pet cat had a first hand lesson.

“Richard had this cat that he loved and adored,” Ben Weiss,
a “Friends” assistant director and another Clooney crony, recalls in
the upcoming issue of Men’s Journal. “So George would go in the
bathroom, and that’s where the litter box was. There would be cat shit in there, so George would clean it up and flush it down the toilet.

Then Richard would go in there and say, ‘God, it’s so weird. My cat hasn’t taken a shit in forever.’”

This went on for days. The cat was crapping Clooney was scooping and
flushing. Eventually, Kind grew concerned for the health of the cat.

“Richard went to the vet to get some kind of thing to make the cat go to the bathroom,” says Weiss. “The poor cat. The cat’s shitting, and George is still cleaning it up.”

At some point the madness had to end. So the “ER” star capped it off with a splash or maybe a thud.

“Finally, George stood over the cat box and took a giant shit,” Weiss tells the magazine. “And finally Richard goes in there and says, ‘Oh, my God! Kitty!’”

These guys definitely live above it all. It is nice to know the mega superstar can enjoy the same lowbrow jokes any college roommate might enjoy…

Tags: GeorgeClooney, Practical Jokes, Salon, Richard Kind, Cat, ER, Friends, Scrat

The Higgs boson particle also commonly referred to as the God Particle

Maybe it is referred to the God particle because investment in finding this unknown elemental particle ends up being much like giving a titheing to the church. As a general explanation, this particle is suppose to have mass only in close to a perfect zero vacuum of space. Once in this type of space, this particle, yet to be identified, will suddenly have just enough mass to be able to pull together the elementary particles and break-up a potential perfect stasis between other evenly spread out distantly scattered particles. This particle is unseen and all encompassing (think of it like “the force” in Star Wars).

Finding it has investments of billions of dollars from military, governments and scientific organizations. There are 2 major teams battling out for first right to discovery. The huge and very expensive accelerators at CERN and Fermilab are the centers for these teams in their experimentation. Some fear these experiments because the end result in finding such a particle is completely unknown and playing around with it might be even more devastating. Such as, who wants to go see the black hole now that was once the country of Sweden (CERN headquaters)?

Who knew that science had so much in common with religion? Scientists are searching for something on faith, investing tons of time money and resources on something that can give them a fundamental understanding of the universe and our place in it. Sounds a bit more like some sort of state sponsored religion…Probably everyone here should pray a bit that the Fermilab finds it first- at least it could suck down Gary, Indiana which is the armpit of the world…any change there is always an improvement.

Tags: Physics, Fermilab, God Particle, Religion, CERN, the force, Higgs boson, Faith, Science, Experiment