On The Turning Away

Another day, another political scandal. Foley is on the headlines today. ABC News has an excerpt of the sexually explicit IM between Rep. Foley (R, FL), under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, and an underage page. Foley made repeated references to sexual acts and body parts. ABC has reported it had interviewed Foley, 52, about the lurid messages provided by current and former pages under the age of 18, according to WaPo.

The Raw Story has the “sick” emails. And AP has jsut reported that Republican leadership in the house learned of Foley’s “over-friendly” emails in Fall 2005. The NYT blogged about the Foley fallout and reported that Foley’s “resignation threw Congressional Republicans off stride.”

Amid the first reflections on Foley’s fall from grace, Andrew Sullivan believes that “the closet corrupts”.

A kind soul just tipped us off - before calling it a day, we got to think of something clever to say to anyone “richer and more powerful” than us. Thought we can’t do any better than this -

Courtesy of gapvingvoid.com

To remedy our awfully inadequate coverage of hedgies (who are in the news lately), we’ve trawled the blogosphere - so you don’t have to - for racy stuff. Apart from Cicarelli sex video, there really isn’t much that would pump you up.

Undeterred, we kept digging until this Nick Maounis - who reportedly earned anywhere between $50-75 million in 2004 - photo turned up.

You cannot possibly fail to grasp the signficance of it, besides “poking some fun at the money, power and mind games of Wall Street and beyond”, can you?

Although today’s the last workday of the 3rd quarter, financial types are ambushed by legendary financier George Soros - no, he’s not into Amaranth, or Pirate Capital. Instead, he’s quitting politics.

According to NYPost, Soros was at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting and said, “In the future, I’d very much like to get disengaged from politics.” But he also clarified, “I’m interested in policy and not in politics.”

Oscar Wilde wisely said, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” Bloomberg must have heeded the advice. Besides, who would resist the temptation not to talk watch the sensational video of a ML private banker and a top Brazilan model frolicking having sex on the beach?

Various versions are circulating on the internet, but according to Bloomberg “Malzoni and Cicarelli were granted an injunction Sept. 27 prohibiting the broadcast of the video by YouTube Inc.; Internet Group do Brasil; and Globo.com, the Internet content site of Organizacoes Globo, Latin America’s largest media group, Judge Carlos Teixeira Leite Filho said.”

Why the injunction? It helps draw attention to this weekend’s presidential election in Brazil, which we would never have heard of from MSM, let alone catapults the couple to stardom, a la Paris Hilton.

According to the Raw Story, Congressman Foley has been accused of sending ’sick’ emails to a 16 year old boy. Upon reading news about Foley’s resignation, we went on to the Website of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics but found this error message:

Problem with data select - Alert:
Can’t find file: ‘./citizens_website/alert.frm’ (errno: 13)

Was it hacked? Because the scandalous emails that brought down Foley were purported to be posted there.

There’s a sample of IM between Foley and the page at AMERICAblog.com. Ironically, Foley was the chairman of the house caucus on missing and exploited children and has long crusaded for tough laws against those who use the Internet for sexual exploitation of children.

It’s Friday, like us, you’re most likely brain dead, or otherwise in a metaphysical coma induced by a Filipina conversative firebrand turned moral crusader for young girls, so let’s share Wonkett’s “somebody might be sort of hypocritical” outrage. We’re afraid the photo is too racy for the fainthearted like us.

Of course, the debunking is out. And perhaps de-debunking is in the works…

You need to look no further than YouTube, the hangout place du jour, to know that Clinton’s contentious interview with Fox News last Sunday has become a cultural phenom. In fact, the Clinton clip was the most-downloaded video, and as of yesterday, three of the site’s seven most popular downloads are related to the now famously contentious interview, including a Jon Stewart “Daily Show” riff, according to MediaPost.

In less than a week, Clinton’s popularity at YouTube blows past that of another pop culture phenom, Lonelygirl15, in terms of total viewings. Perhaps it’s the mid-term elections that’re only weeks ago, or Clinton’s star power, or anything in between. One thing is certain, though, Clinton sure got his message across.

Looks like Sen. Allen’s “macaca” moment has led him into political quicksand. First he apologized, profusely, for using a racial slur on Indian Americans, then his denial-turned-embrace of his Jewish heritage, followed by allegations of his frequent use of the N-word on blacks.

Now Sons of Confederate Veterans want Allen to apologize, accusing him of trying to appeal to liberal voters with his new position. “The denunciation of the flag to score political points is anathema to our organization,” said Brag Bowling, a former past commander of the group, WaPo reported. Political expediency can backfire sometimes.

Long a fashion accessory for the image conscious, Starbucks has now added books to its menu, starting with Mitch Albom’s “For One More Day“. This comes on the heels of a price hike on its premium coffee drinks.

Starbucks has moved beyond selling coffee in recent years. It’s offered CDs, sold Cranium board games, and promoted movies. Now to further distinguish itself from other coffee shops, amid ever more stiff competition, it banks on the premise that coffee drinkers are book lovers, or browers, at the very least. The move also highlights the trends that publishers, grappling with declining book sales, are going out of their way to market books in new venues. But whether books will be a permanent item on Starbucks’ menu remains to be seen.