It’s official: Moue is no more. Blame it on the economy, folks. Thank you to the wonderful staff, our loyal readers, and the stray people who ended up disappointed when a search for “amputee porn” brought them here.

Good night and good luck.

Bob Harmon, my grandfather, was a newspaper man. He was hired in 1954 to serve as a sportswriter for The Advertiser-Tribune, a small newspaper serving Tiffin, Ohio. In 1976, he moved on to other projects- he coached baseball, worked as a salesman and, later in life, discovered a remarkable talent for painting- but the journalism experience stuck with him. Twenty years later, he returned to The Advertiser to write a lifestyle column that would make him a local celebrity. These columns always ended with his trademark phrase: “At least, that’s the view from here”.

Zach Carter has an article up at The American Prospect detailing how the ratings agencies stand to benefit from the Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF). TALF is the Fed program announced last winter (but just getting into action) that puts forth $1 trillion in non-recourse loans to holders of AAA rated asset backed securities (the “assets” here being a wide variety of new loans). The problem Carter highlights comes with that “AAA rated” part.

This is a chart of the CDS spread from yesterday, courtesy of Baseline Scenario, and it paints a less rosy picture of Citgroup than the company’s memo (and Wall Street’s reaction). Credit default swaps (CDS) are essentially insurance policies issued against bonds (or bond-like investments) that allow the investor to put most of the risk in the hands of others for a fee. They have serious drawbacks (see: AIG, near collapse of) but have historically served as indicators as which direction things are heading.There are those who think that the market is so broken at this point that CDS spreads don’t offer reliable readings but there are others who think they’re still worth a glance.

The art from Loser Pet Shop allows you to root for the underdog. Well, there’s not actually a dog but there is a seasick goldfish, night blind owl and frog that fears the undead. All the prints are 8″ x 10″ and cost $20.00, though the cat and frog are also available in a 5″ x 7″ size for $12.00.

It is impossible to name one culprit behind the current economic crisis because there were so many correlated pieces that went into this disastrous puzzle. But collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) -specifically, those of asset-backed securities (ABS)-were, continuing the puzzle metaphor, a large corner piece.

It is a rare occasion that I watch a movie outside the horror genre. I’ve read Fangoria, stopped in at Bloody Disgusting and squealed in delight when I discovered that my digital cable package included free movies from Fearnet. I know the territory well. It isn’t lost on me that the genre has some glaring flaws- namely misogyny and racial stereotyping (or exclusion). But there are a lot of horror films that don’t suffer from that at all.

Originally published: Aug. 11, 2008
If it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear to you which side of the Russian-Georgian conflict the American media is supposed to be on, the Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili entitled “The War in Georgia is a War for the West“. I’ll summarize the article for you: “I underestimated how much Russia would overreact to my country’s attempts to forcibly reclaim South Ossetia with poorly trained troops. And I thought you guys in the West would have my back. …

Carbon offsets offer a chance to feel better about ourselves, but how much to they help the environment? In practice, there are significant problems in which projects they support, and how they affect our long-term environmental policies.

Philadelphia based artist Roo Vandegrift discusses watercolors, scientific exploration, zygotes, truth seeking and Vivaldi in this installment of GalleryM.