Lighten up, folks.

I'm snipped, and so are my four boys.

If I had to do it again, I might not have had them snipped.

That said, I'm OK with the choices we made.

It seems like the #1 issue with snippage is loss of sensation during sex.

Frankly, I'm not sure that this is a real problem. The last thing I need would for sex to be even better.

I'm snipped and I'm happy. I'm sure plenty of unsnipped guys feel the same way.

Let's find some other trivial issue to fight about.

Go, Joe.

Through him some dough: http://www.sestakforcongress.com/

Where did the rule of law get violated?

These guys didn't agree to a haircut, so they'll have their day in bankruptcy court.

Contracts get restructured all the time. As has been stated ad nauseum, unions have conceded on *contractual agreements* for pensions, health care, and the rest (an aside- as someone who works in the industry, my opinion is that the UAW has been extremely accommodating over the past few years; they saw the handwriting on the wall long before the current crisis and have made many, many concessions).

The optics for these smaller creditors are terrible. Yeah, fiduciary responsibility, etc., but generating incredibly bad PR for your firm isn't exactly in your clients' best interests, either. Going Chapter 11, even surgically, introduces huge risks- dealers, who know a thing or two about the legal system, could really throw a wrench in the works here. And that could put some suppliers over the edge, which could spill over into other, healthier carmakers, etc. (I know for a fact that some other automakers are stockpiling some parts in anticipation of supplier failures).

And if indeed these small guys are found to have CDS on Chrysler, this is going to get mighty interesting.

You might want to read the article again; it neither claimed that VMware was a startup, nor did it discuss VMware's role in Amazon's "ecoystem." The point of the article is to predict what Amazon might do, using VMware's past actions as a model.

The thesis of the article may or may not be right, but it's defensible. Further, puff pieces generally don't do things like point out shortcomings (e.g. need to manage instances in EC2, which is a potentially significant PITA, or the deficiencies of VMware's original management console).

smushmoth makes a valid point which the article omits that provides the dramatic tension in these situations. Startups that seek to augment and extend platforms are playing a risky game- if they are successful enough, quickly enough, they'll become good acquisition targets, and win. If they don't make enough progress, in terms of technology and/or market penetration, they risk getting pushed out by the platform maker.

Life is too short for that.

You can come up with better imagined dialog than that!

Obama has proved to be the master of rope-a-dope.

While it might not always be the best strategy (delaying doing anything drastic re: the banks carries real risk for further damage), it's also not a bad strategy to play to your strengths.

I also think the contradictory leaks, if planned, are pretty smart. They set the range of expectations, so of the results come out somewhere in that range, no one will really feel surprised (hence no panic).

The jury is still out, and won't weigh in with a verdict for a couple years, but I tend to think that Obama is playing his (incredibly crappy) hand pretty well.

I am waiting until 2010 or so until I really reach a firm conclusion about Obama et al. For all the criticism he and his team (esp. Geithner) have received, there's increasing evidence that he actually has a strategy, and it actually may be a pretty good one, given the various needles that he has to thread.

I am holding my breath.

Thank you for the categorical debunking. Apparently you know something that scientists dating back to Svante Arrhenius (author of "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground" (1896)) don't.

It's a pity the author gave up on Lost; it's managed to pull of a pretty incredible plot line for nearly 5 seasons now.

But right now Lost features some serious time travel issues that I'm not sure will reconcile themselves satisfactorily. I do hope so. But clearly JJ and co. are harping on a common theme here.

DADT should be repealed, no question.

However, the unfortunate reality is that there are political issues involved in abolishing DADT that can't just be ignored.

And Obama has to show progress in two difficult wars.

And turn around the economy, etc.

It's frustrating that this issue has to take a backseat. But it's the right strategy.

And Lt. Choi, give 'em hell!

Anyone holding Chrysler debt at this point knews what they are doing.

A lot of these "non-TARP" guys were funds that specialized in distressed debt. They knew the risks, they took them, they lost.

The immediate impact is that the price for GM debt sure got a bit lower. Which means the GM bondholders will accept less in negotiations. Which will help speed/avoid a GM bankruptcy. Which is, in my opinion, a good thing.

Longer term, this is kind of a footnote. Remember that the credit markets froze already? I know, I know, they froze in anticipation that Obama might drive a hard bargain over $300M of bonds one day...

Used to subscribe to eMusic, and loved it because it was one of the few sources of legit, non-DRM music.

But I found finding 40 half-decent tracks a month was becoming time-consuming just as Amazon launched and iTunes dropped DRM.

So I buy mostly from Amazon or iTunes now. The biggest factor on the source (other than availability) is whether I'm buying something I came across or was reminded of on a website, in which case Amazon usually wins, or if I'm messing about in iTunes already, in which case iTunes wins...