Was Shakespeare a Fraud? The Monty Python View

The movie Anonymous is out now. It's a dramatic take on the old issue of whether William Shakespeare really wrote the plays and sonnets attributed to him. This is an issue that former US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has spent most of his adult life examining. It's something I spent two minutes on a time or two listening to this Monty Python bit called Stake Your Claim. The thing that I find so shocking is that Youtube doesn't have English language video of this bit, so the English is dubbed on the German Python television special. I think there is a conspiracy among "truthers".




Now that's what I call entertainment.

Is Portfolio Recovery Associates one of the 100 BEST Small Companies in the US?
The Googleteer checks it out.

Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. has been named by Forbes magazine as one of the Top Small Companies in the US. If you are a consumer lawyer, you are already headed for the vomit bag - but it gets worse. PRA made this list in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.
You have to wonder if Forbes got their lists mixed up. The Googleteer(tm) wondered. He flew in the window after a much overdue vacation and did the following search

"portfolio recovery associates" (complaint OR complaints)

More than 69,000 hits.

These complaints are not frivolous. PRA is among the worst of the "bottom feeder" or "zombie" debt collectors. Just last year, Portfolio Recovery Associates was in the news for using affidavits signed by Martha Kunkle to prove its debt. Who is Martha Kunkle? she was a woman who died more than a decade before her signature was affixed on the affidavits.

Grammar Alert:

"Americans Driving Less Miles" - Ouch

There are many links to a news story that says Americans are driving less. There's nothing wrong with that. You can say Americans are driving fewer miles. That's okay too. You shouldn't say "Americans are driving less miles." That just hurts my ears. It's just another weird convention in the English language. "Less" can be an adverb, as in "Steve stinks less than last week." It can be an adjective also, but only when describing a noun that isn't being separated into tangible fixed units. In other words, you can use it with "love" or "credibility" or even "water" - when you aren't breaking it down into units. "There's less water in the pool right now."
Boy, you'd think these people never heard of Al Yankovic.

Conan takes on the iPhone 4s

One of my colleagues just got an iPhone 4s. Why don't you get one, Steve? Are you kidding me? I can't even stop watching the squirrels. Giving me an iPhone with Siri would be like giving Charlie Sheen a million dollar gift card to Meth, Coke and Beyond. Here's Conan O'Brien's take on the iPhone 4S.

English Lesson of the Month: WTFC?

The lesson that I learned this month is not to use the acronym WTFC in an email. The reason: the recipient might not know what I'm talking about. I could be talking about Wintrust Financial Corporation. I could also be talking about the "not for profit" Women Together Fighting Cancer, a/k/a the "other" pink ribbon charity. Dear readers, the next time one of your learned correspondents sends you an email with WTFC? Ask him or her whether he or she means Wintrust Financial Corporation or Women Together Fighting Cancer. Stomp out ambiguity before it spreads.

Mr. Green in the Drawing Room with a Frozen Armadillo

From Fox News, in Texas (and only in Texas hopefully) a man was accused of beating a woman with a frozen armadillo.

I think it was a wise person named Steve Altland who said, and I'm paraphrasing:

"If frozen armadillos were outlawed, only outlaws would have frozen armadillos."

Truer words were never spoken.

Publish Post

GM to Finance Cannonball Run Remake?

New York magazine is reporting that General Motors is in talks to finance a remake of the 1981 movie Cannonball Run. Some say that the original Cannonball Run is the worst movie in the history of the world. Some say Cannonball Run 2 was. (I say that honor goes to Little Buddha.) Naturally, if the general is paying the bills, this will be a GM product placement extravaganza. One can only imagine the venom expressed on talk radio when a "Government Motors" movie debuts.

Bank of America no longer largest US Bank

It was news today that, thanks to "shrinkage", Bank of America is no longer the largest U.S. bank. That title now goes to J.P. Morgan Chase. Don't worry BofA, you're still the worst. - So you have that going for ya.

Bank of America also reported that they made their first quarterly profit in a long time - $6.2 billion worth. They also fessed up that that profit was due to an accounting adjustment and gain on sale of assets. The accounting change should come as no surprise. I have long suspected that BofA outsourced its accounting to the Bizzaro world. As recently as this past July, Reuters reported that Bank of America, along with other top banks , continues to use robosigners to sign massive quantitites of mortgage documents. Keep in mind, robosigning isn't the problem as much as it is the symptom of a problem; and that problem is that the paperwork supporting Bank of America's loans all to often doesn't support Bank of America's loans. The financial press has been rationalizing that everything will be fine with Bank of America, because if worst comes to worse, it could just bankrupt its Countrywide division. Not so fast says really smart financial blogger Alison Frankel. She says one trial court has already decided that BofA's acquisition of Countrywide was a "defacto merger", and as such, can't be separated from Bank of America as a whole.

Anyway - time for the marginally relevant video of the day.

Bob King's Father Couldn't Be Prouder of Him

Autoblog Discusses UAW Politics

If you want to read about the current state of UAW politics, click on this article at Autoblog. I'm all for disclosure, but, judging from the picture, Bob King is getting a little too personal for my tastes. Might there be a little bit of exaggeration there, Bob?