Manning / Snowden 2016.

I almost get the feeling I’ll end up seeing more of these types of political statement — or apolitical statement — bumper sticker insignia than the “Hillary 2016” (and brace myself for a smattering of Rand Paul — except for non Portlandians not too many more mainline Republicans will be bumper stickered in… like, wait a few months to see what that pick up truck derby dredges in.)

I assume it had something to do with the appearance of Obama, a conservative counter-demonstration of some kind, but there was a giant convoy of pickup trucks each adorned with usually two but sometimes just one American flag driving into a central location.

This does present the interesting facet where, when there’s a Republican President coming to town you can pretty well spot the demonstrators as being on the “left”.  A Democrat — particularly one right here right now pursuing a neo-liberal agenda — will get left, further left, and right.

Left…

Who knows?

But I’m back to the question — who or what were those flag adorned pickup trucks heading toward?

David Cameron wins another term in office.  Confirming the postulation of a “Shy Tory Syndrome”, the idea that the vote for the political party and candidacy is under-reported in the polls, from 1992’s election of the dorky culturally out of touch John Major from the party that had just thrown out the now unpopular Margaret Thatcher as the Party of Greed and self interest — people were embarrassed to admit they’d vote to put John

This year you would think this would have been off-set by a “Shy Labor Party” — with people embarrassed to admit that they would vote to put the very much mocked Ed Milibrand in power — who was “defeated by a bacon sandwich” and was mocked as Wallace of Wallace and Gromit.  But no… The Torys were shier than the Shy Laborites.  Everyone’s embarrassed by their candidates — but one side was more willing to admit to swallowing their spit and say they were voting for theirs.

Well, this is… a confluence of … one flavor of insane meeting with another flavor of insane.

Over under for Bernie Sanders.  Examining his “Liberty Union” party era voting totals.

United States Senate special election in Vermont, 1972
Bernie Sanders (Liberty Union) – 1,571 (2.2%)

Vermont gubernatorial election, 1972
Bernie Sanders (LU) – 2,175 (1.1%)

United States Senate election in Vermont, 1974
Bernie Sanders (LU) – 5,901 (4.13%)

Vermont gubernatorial election, 1976
Bernie Sanders (LU) – 11,317 (6.1%)

What states will he beat out the 6.1 percent thresh-hold?

I also note Carly Fiorina has thrown her hat in the ring.  In 2004, the Democrats — wanting to blunt the impact of Al Sharpton being in the race — brought in Carol Mosley Braun.  I wonder if the Republicans urged Carly Fiorina in for some gender political purposes in getting some attacks against Hillary Clinton out that would no suffice from a man.

Also, should be “in it to win it” — so to speak — can we please get a reprise of the “Demon Sheep” ad she ran to win the Republican nomination for California governor — maybe have a whole zoo full of demon animals for each of her opponents?

So.  Just what happened that one day in 2010 when… out of nowhere… the stock market dived and collapsed?

Some guy did it.

On Tuesday, United States prosecutors said that much of the blame for the event could be pinned on a single person: a 36-year-old man who had been boldly manipulating markets from his suburban rowhouse just a few minutes from Heathrow Airport outside London, where he was arrested. […]

For the latest case, it took the authorities five years to track down a rogue actor making enormous trades. And, they were led to him only with the help of an outside whistle-blower.

Reading this skeptical report...

The flash crash was essentially over in five minutes. But it took regulators nearly five months to come up with a theory about what happened. And in late September 2010, when the SEC and the CFTC—the same agency now charging Sarao with causing the crash—released a joint report on what happened, they didn’t mention spoofing, let alone Sarao. Instead, they blamed a large trade by a firm out of Kansas City.

It’s not even clear that the feds’ new explanation is correct. As Matt Levine notes over at Bloomberg View, regulators believe that Sarao continued to place massive fake sell orders in the years after the flash crash, but somehow that activity never triggered another crisis…

In any event, more questions from sources that at first glance strike me  not without their own agenda.

Shall we believe that a single low-tech trader living in a leafy street of a London suburb contributed in any significant way to the Flash Crash?
Who said the Age of the Lone Amateur unencumbered by the Massive Organization is dead?

Was Waddell & Reed behind the unnamed whistleblower in an effort to clean its name and enhance its reputation?
Leading question.

Wasn’t one Flash Crash enough to better police the markets and stop Sarao for good?
Hm…

Speculators and speculating that Jay Leno on David Letterman…

… as it seems confirmed that whatshisname… Bill Murray, guest number one on both the NBC and CBS program … will pop in for the last program.

One more possible final guest?  The one I think everyone wants to see… a favorite from the old Daytime tv show and the early years of the late night show.

Andy Kaufman.  That would be very much like him, wouldn’t it?

April 20th is an odd date — see…

1939 – Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday is celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany.
1961 – Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba.
1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 21 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.

You can throw April 19th in while you’re at it.

1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, USA, is bombed, killing 168.

And in a drip of notations about media spaces on these inglorious anniversaries, I had a small spit take when I saw this one this is a very strange article.

It’s been sixteen years since Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris reigned terror upon an unsuspecting Colombine High School and changed a community forever.  The two, dressed as members of the Trenchcoat Mafia, painfully reminded America of our own homegrown-terror threat posed by white supremacy groups.

That case, and the thing that is called “School shootings”, was always a Rorschach test, but this is a peculiar one.

The perpetrators were a) sinister circle of teenagers who flirted with the edges of the US’s extreme right-wing.

Basically what you have with this one is an attempt to co-opt the story into the framework of their political cause against extreme right wing groups.  It’s difficult for me to tell if the writer believes what they’re writing, or is cynical, but it is worse than the usual — which at least approach various concerns of media violence, gun culture, and bullying — that relate somewhat to the tragedy.