| Our one-way trip to disaster
A second bus is standing by, and you gratefully scramble aboard. The engine starts up, but then the bus lurches dangerously onto the road, going too fast. Only then do you see that this new bus has the same driver, and he has learned nothing. Welcome to the United States of America. And welcome to the annual State of the Union address. Every year, the nation looks up from the wreckage, only to see that the same unskilled and careless driver is still at the wheel, bombing along. Each January, he explains himself. You already know what he will say. His one admirable quality is that, over the years, he has always said exactly what to expect. A review of the Bush speeches has an "I told you so" quality, going back to the start. That raises the question, Why have you repeatedly been surprised? It was, after all, in his 2002 State of the Union address that President Bush defined the purpose to which he has been dedicated ever since.
Mary-Kate Sticks With Her Fur
Methinks those rumors about the Olsens trying to patch things up with PETA must be false, because Mary-Kate was typically decked out in fur ducking out of a restaurant in NYC over the weekend. Clearly it was not an occasion that merited hair washing. She was also rocking her new favorite sunglasses and various other parts to create an all-around bizarre ensemble. At this point she wouldn't really be MK without all this nonsense, right? .
Two more pay price for Merrill's sub-prime woes
Merrill Lynch declined to comment on the position of Mr Gibson. Analysts said that Mr Fakahany should also bear some of the blame for Merrill’s writedowns, since he backed the appointment in 2006 of the executives who oversaw the loss-making bond investments. He was promoted to co-president in May 2007. Mr Thain, a former president of Goldman Sachs, has hired Noel Donohue, head of risk management at Goldman for ten years before joining Dune Capital, the hedge fund, as chief operating officer in 2005. Since his appointment, Mr Thain has arranged about $12.8 billion of capital injections from groups such as Mizuho, the Japanese bank, and Temasek, the Singaporean Government’s investment fund. Analysts fear that Merrill Lynch could take further multibillion-dollar losses before it can draw a line under the sub-prime crisis.
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