Tagged, I'm It

J at the essentially eponymous J-TWO-O has tagged me with the dreaded Six Random Things tag.

It turns out there are numerous rites and rituals associated with this. For starters, the SIX RANDOM THINGS RULES:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Herewith, the Random Things:

1. I have, or had, perfect pitch. (I do not know if this is something that changes over time.)
2. I shook hands with Boris Yeltsin once and was mugged once. Both took place on the same day.
3. My primary formative humor influences were Bob Newhart (reinforced by my dad, who bears a strong physical and humorous resemblance) and Monty Python.
4. I have never seen "It's a Wonderful Life" and now it's basically a contest to see how long I can go without seeing it.
5. I have had dreams with soundtracks, end credits, and subtitles (though not all in one dream).
6. When visiting a major (i.e. named on a map) body of water, I try to put at least one foot into it or, ideally, step into it. Super bonus points for swimming in it.

Here is where I do the blog equivalent of standing in the middle of field in a suit of armor waving a nine-iron over my head during an electrical storm. I am not big on chain letters and honestly do not remotely know six other bloggers who would pick this one up (J took all the good ones). I hereby throw caution to the wind and expressly fail to follow rules Four and Five. Apologies to those offended.

Stepping Gingerly into the Breach

Since the usual suspects have not, to my great surprise, responded to my call for short jokes in re the most nefarious member of the Subprime Six, I hereby offer, in the spirit of my recent post on the subject:

Shalala? Talk about a reach!

Thank you.

Subprime Six Feel Effects of Deflation

So I finally had a moment to sit down and read the article upon which JJV built his case for/against the so-called "Subprime Six." Now that various sites have started flogging this, let's run down the list and consider the cases individually.

Dodd - Yep, this was a no-no although it does not appear to have affected his actions in the Senate. Please present your wrist to the Ethics Committee and get out the special checkbook used to give stuff back.

Conrad - Please get in line behind Dodd.

Jackson - Got the nice deal while a private citizen. Too bad about the whole HUD thing though.

Shalala - Ditto on the private citizen thing although she was president of the U of Miami at the time of the loan - aha, corrupt lefty academia strikes again! Whew, that was close. And by the way, where are all the short jokes? It's not just cutting and pasting out here, fellas, you have to do some heavy lifting from time to time.

Holbrooke - Again, private citizen. The Serbs probably cold-called Countrywide and got the ball rolling on this one.

Johnson - Head of Fannie Mae but when you're talking multi-million-dollar properties a rate cut isn't going to lose you that much.

What I find hilarious is the hordes of free-market capitalist types finding fault with a private company acting in its economic interest (throwing a bone to rich people to gin up additional/future business). Sure, Countrywide screwed up elsewhere but my guess is that it wasn't their VIP program that sank them.