Dark Investor Humor: Batman Pattern Discerned in VIX Chart

From Bill Luby via the Seeking Alpha blog....Rare Batman Pattern Forming in the VIX

If you look real intently at the right side of the VIX volatility index chart below you see the pattern...oh boy it has been a long and stressful time for those investors.

Just as it seemed as if the end of the world was nearing, I am pleased to report a rare Batman pattern forming in the VIX (and in the implied volatility of the SPX and SPY).

The chart below shows the right wing formed two weeks ago, just as panic was first setting in; the head was completed last week, when the situation looked most bleak; and now the left wing is taking shape as the forces of good seek to gain the upper hand over the forces of evil.

Once the batman pattern is completed, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, I can only conclude that Gotham City will likely be spared the full force of the financial Armageddon that appears to be bearing down on us.

Godspeed, Batman. Every minute counts…

Park Slope Brooklyn New York Ladies Go Palin Around! for a Barack Fundraiser

Yes Park Slope ladies raised money for Barack by gettin' Palin hairstyles.

A truly Brooklyn way to support their candidate!

Palin around! Sarah lookalikes raise big bucks — and hair — for Barack

The Politicrasher

Politicrasher: Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery in “real America,” but in Park Slope, the liberal ladies who dressed up like Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin on Saturday decided it’s definitely not sincere and it’s certainly not flattery. more

Our Solution to the Pope Pius XII Sainthood Controversy and Ben Macintyre's Essay

Was Pope Pius a coward or a saint? asks Ben Macintyre, columnist for the Times of London.

At this blog we've had this issue on our agenda for some time. And now I am happy to report that we have solved the issue of whether the church ought to canonize Pius as a saint.

I came up with this solution while brushing our teeth last night. I find the rhythmic motions of my tooth-brushing to stimulate problem solving by releasing my right brain holistic ideas and insights and allowing them to commingle with my right brain judgmental concerns.

Accordingly I was humming the current catchy words of Pope Benedict that Pius “worked secretly and silently” to “avoid the worst and save the greatest number of Jews possible.”

And then it hit me.

The church simply needs to establish a new category of sainthood for Pius!

Secret Silent Saint

Now of course the church will not be able to bestow this title on Pius with the same fanfare that they do for other more public and vocal saints.

But then again they also will not need to open up the archives of the church.... and answer all those nagging factual and historical questions.

Mr. Macintyre's essay that follows below is more nuanced and diplomatic than my proposition and therefore, of course, cannot suggest a pointed, powerful and proper solution, like the one I have put forward just now.

Was Pope Pius a moral coward or a saint?
How the wartime pontiff responded to his agonisingly difficult predicament can be judged only with more evidence
Ben Macintyre

The streets of Paris ask an insistent moral question, now more than half a century old but as pertinent as ever. On many street corners, small plaques commemorate those who faced up to Nazism: “Here died so-and-so, résistant de guerre.”

When I lived in Paris, I often pondered the question posed by these small memorials: what would I have done? Would I have done anything? Some Frenchmen and women actively collaborated during the war; many quietly acquiesced to protect themselves and their families. Those who chose to resist fascism did so in different ways: some secretly and discreetly, some with guns and actions, others with words. Those who spoke up, and out, were perhaps the bravest of all: the saints, and the martyrs.

Exactly 50 years after the death of Pope Pius XII, supporters of the wartime pontiff are demanding his beatification, the last step on the road to sainthood, reigniting a long-running battle over whether he did enough, early enough, to condemn the persecution of Jews.

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel carries a deliberately provocative depiction of the Pope's wartime role, including him among the “unjust”. Hardline supporters of Pius have tried to ram through the process of sainthood with little regard for Jewish sensitivities. Pius has been condemned as “Hitler's Pope” by some critics and lauded by Pope Benedict XVI as a great leader.

In some quarters the Pope was considered to view Nazi doctrines and deeds with too great detachment

For all the fury and posturing, the story is essentially about how one very powerful man responded to the most pressing moral question of the age. This is not some distant historical dispute among scholars. It is a defining issue that asks, just as insistently as those Paris plaques: what would you have done? Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pius XII in 1939 and reigned at the Vatican until 1958, was an extraordinary man: compassionate, pious and utterly dedicated to his faith. He was no anti-Semite; far from being a Nazi sympathiser, he loathed Hitler with righteous passion, considering him “an untrustworthy scoundrel and a fundamentally wicked person”.

In Pope Benedict's words, Pius “worked secretly and silently” to “avoid the worst and save the greatest number of Jews possible”. There could be no direct orders to intervene, since the Vatican was officially neutral, but thousands of Jews were saved thanks to the Catholic Church, hidden in churches or issued with false passports.

But set against all this is the silence of the Pope. By the end of 1942, Pius had learnt details of the Holocaust's ghastly progress from at least nine different countries. Hungarian, Danish and Bulgarian church leaders spoke out, yet Pius made no formal protest or condemnation. A single sentence in his 26-page Christmas message of 1942 lamented “persons who, for no fault of their own, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death”. He made no specific mention of the Jews, Hitler or the genocide then under way.

Under mounting pressure to make a stand, Pius was privately appalled but publicly cautious, even equivocal. The British envoy to the Holy See was astonished that the Pope seemed more concerned with the possibility that Rome might be bombed than “Hitler's massacre of the Jewish race”. One Foreign Office memo described Pius XII as the “greatest moral coward of our age”.

That is unfair. Pius's silence came not from cowardice, but calculation, his perceived duty to his Church, and fear of provoking Hitler to even greater crimes, endangering non-Aryan Catholics and Catholicism itself. “No doubt a protest would have gained me the respect and praise of the civilised world. But it would have submitted the Jews to an even worse fate,” he reflected. “The Pope cannot speak. If he spoke, things would be worse.” But how, in December 1942 with the gas chambers and crematoriums working day and night, could things possibly have got any worse? The argument that a condemnation of Nazi brutality would have made that brutality worse is unprovable.

Even the most powerfully worded encyclical might have had little effect on the accelerating brutality of the Nazi high command, but it would have placed the Church firmly on the moral high ground, and might even have galvanised anti-Nazi feeling among German Catholics.

After the Liberation of Rome, Pius could have threatened senior Nazis with excommunication. After the war, he could have explained why, as a virtual prisoner within the Vatican, he had opted not to make a solemn formal protest against the greatest crime of all time. He did not, offering neither regrets nor rationalisation for his silence.

Pius left no diary or notebook that we know of to explain his thinking. The Vatican archives that might finally answer these questions remain sealed, although a single word from Pope Benedict would open them. So far, the only evidence released has tended to bolster Pius's credentials for beatification. As a group of prominent Christian-Jewish scholars pointed out in a letter to The Times this week, without all the evidence there can be no consensus. The silence of the archives compounds the silence of Pius, and fatally undermines his claim to sainthood.

Looking at those Paris plaques to resistance fighters, I wonder again whether I would have offered a similar reason to remain silent: fear for my family, fear of reprisal, fear of unleashing something worse. Pius argued that it would have been irresponsible to protest openly; you and I might well have made the same excuse. But irresponsibility is a part of true courage.

Pius suffered moral agonies over his decision; he acted for the best, as he saw it, in an excruciatingly difficult situation; he did much to help the Jews, but not enough. All this makes Pius XII fascinating, fallible and important. But it does not make him a saint.

Video: Is MN Representative Michele Bachman a Jesus Freak?

Yes, as this video suggests, Michele Bachman, the US Representive from Minnesota who called Barack Obama "anti-American" on the Hardball Chris Matthews show last Friday is a total Jesus Freak who is "Hot" for Jesus. I do not want to know what that means!

Times: Pope Benedict Stops Sainthood for Pius and Won't Visit Israel

The Yad Vashem museum displays a photograph of Pope Pius XII with a caption that says he recognized the Nazi regime and did nothing to condemn its racism, anti-Semitism and extermination of Jews.

---

Bizarre connections fog the minds of the present Vatican leaders.

Benedict stopped the sainthood process for Pius - because of the Jews? This claim is bizarre beyond words.

The man cringed before the Nazis. He was no hero. He watched the Holocaust unfold from his Vatican window. He was so utterly "silent" and "secret" about saving Jews that no sainthood ever should or could be bestowed on him.

The Vatican knows saints. The Vatican invented saints. Not every pope was a saint. The Vatican should admit that by dint of his own actions, by any objective estimate and evaluation, Pope Pius was not a saint.

But according to the story in the Times, the actions of the Vatican on this subject are beyond bizarre.

Are they now blaming the Jews for crucifying Pope Pius?

More utterly bizarre according to the report: The Vatican suddenly demands that a plaque criticizing Pius be removed from the Israeli Museum Yad Vashem!

Without doubt, the Church is not served by the strange actions this Pope and his minions.

What now? A leader who acts in a bizarre and erratic fashion ought to resign. Will Benedict resign? Can a pope resign?

Controversy Over Pope Pius Continues
By RACHEL DONADIO

ROME, Italy — Tensions heightened this weekend between the Vatican and Israel after a Vatican official said that Pope Benedict XVI had halted the beatification of Pius XII, the pope during World War II, for fear of repercussions from Jewish groups.

The official, the Rev. Peter Gumpel, a Jesuit priest who is directing beatification efforts, also told the ANSA news agency on Saturday that the pope would not visit Israel until a plaque criticizing Pius was removed from Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

Pius, who was pope from 1939 until his death in 1958, has been criticized as not doing enough to speak out against deportations during the Holocaust. On Sunday, Italian newspapers carried front-page interviews with a former leader of the Italian Jewish community, Amos Luzzatto, who said beatifying the pope would “open up a wound that will be difficult to heal.”

Last year, the Vatican passed a decree recognizing Pius’s “heroic virtues,” a key step toward sainthood, but Benedict has not yet approved the decree. Earlier this month, Benedict said Pius had worked “secretly and silently” to save Jews and that he hoped the beatification “can proceed happily.”

After the Rev. Gumpel’s remarks this weekend, Vatican spokesmen took pains to ease the situation.

Benedict’s spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, said the pope was still studying the decree. “It isn’t right to submit him to pressures on one side or another,” he said. “He needs the time he thinks necessary to reflect further.”

Fr. Lombardi said the Vatican had raised its displeasure with Israel over the plaque at Yad Vashem, but that it wasn’t “the determining factor” in whether the pontiff travels to Israel. He said the security and political situation were more significant. In 2000, Pope John Paul II became the first pope to visit Israel. In his three years as Pope, Benedict has not yet taken that step.

In the Obama Campaign You Can Volunteer to Call Peer Jews in Pennsylvania

Sign up at www.barackobama.com...

Kabbalah Does Not Save Marriage of Madonna and Guy Ritchie

Update: Even  the power of the Holy Kabbalah could not save Madonna's marriage.

Original post 7/6/08:

This is a perfect example of how the Kabbalah Center is helping to perfect the world through Tikkun Olam. by restoring the broken vessels and recovering the lost sparks. How lucky we are to have the great asset of the KC to make things right in this topsy turvy world for all of us poor simple folk... I guess.

RABBI HELPS MADONNA SAVE
MARRIAGE

Madonna and Guy are fighting for their future

By Mike Parker

MADONNA and Guy Ritchie have turned to a rabbi for counselling in an effort to save their marriage.

Rabbi Yehuda Berg is founder of the Los Angeles Kabbalah Centre, which practises the mystical offshoot of Judaism of which the singer is a devotee.

“He still believes they love one another,” a fellow worshipper said last night. “He believes they can work through their problems and feels that any resentments they are holding can be overcome in time.”

Madonna, 49, and film director Ritchie, 39, have both spent time with Rabbi Berg since Christmas. Madonna is said to phone him two or three times a day.

Ritchie, who embraced Madonna’s beliefs before their wedding at Skibo Castle in the Scottish Highlands in 2000, was rumoured to have become disillusioned with the doctrine.

But the follower said: “I know from Rabbi Berg and others that he is still firm in his faith.”

The rabbi has spoken of the devastating effect divorce would have on the couple’s children – their biological son Rocco, seven, adopted son David, two, and Lourdes, 11, Madonna’s daughter from her previous relationship with her personal trainer Carlos Leon.

“It might be considered to be old-fashioned these days,” said the Kabbalah devotee, “but their kids do come first and both Madonna and Guy are very worried about how they would react to them splitting up.

“The kids might just end up being the glue that holds them together, but both Madonna and Guy as well as Rabbi Berg are aware they have a lot of negative personal issues to resolve if they are to survive as a couple long-term.”

In an ironic twist, Madonna is helping to console a fellow celebrity whose wife has left him. Baseball star Alex Rodriguez has been a regular late-night visitor to her Manhattan flat.

He and Madonna, who share the same New York agent, both deny they are having an affair.

And the Sunday Express can reveal the truth about their relationship. Rodriguez, 32, is also a devout Kabbalist and has been seeking
spiritual advice from Madonna about his marriage problems.

His wife Cynthia, 34, left him just two months after the birth of their second daughter and was last week said to be in Paris with rock star Lenny Kravitz, 44.

A source said: “Madonna has become his shoulder to cry on at a time when it looks as if his own marriage has vanished down the pan completely.

As a fellow Kabbalist and a friend already, it was kind of logical he should turn to her.”

Meanwhile, Madonna and Ritchie, who flew into New York last weekend in an effort to patch up their differences, are said to be taking their own marriage crisis “one day at a time”.

A member of Madonna’s family said yesterday: “You’ve got to admire Guy for flying in and making it very obvious to everyone he does care and doesn’t want their marriage to end.

“We’re all hoping she sees it that way too.”

What is the Archetypal Definition of Corporate Greed and Excess?

This news item just about sums up the archetypal definition of corporate excess and greed.

Goldman Sachs head wants $55M for Nantucket house
Thursday October 16
Goldman Sachs co-president Winkelried asks $55M for Nantucket estate -- record price for island

NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) -- The co-president of financial services company Goldman Sachs is trying to sell his Nantucket estate for a record $55 million.

Jon Winkelried's asking price for the 5.75 acre property, which includes two shoreline parcels, is more than double the record sale of $26.5 million set last year.

The main house includes a wine room, billiard room, four fireplaces, a swimming pool and five bedrooms. The property also has a guest house and two garages.

Winkelried bought the two parcels in 1999 for just under $7 million and built the main house afterward.

The taxes are nearly $68,000 annually.

Winkelried owned $345 million worth of common stock when he took over as co-president of Goldman Sachs in 2006. His compensation last year was $67.5 million.

Is Neel Kashkari Jewish?

No, Neel Kashkari is not a Jew. He is an Indian-American, born on July 30, 1973, in Akron, Ohio. He grew up in the Akron suburb of Stow, Ohio. He attended Stow–Munroe Falls schools before transferring to the Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1991. His parents, Chaman and Sheila Kashkari, are Hindus from Kashmir, India.

As Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability in the United States Department of the Treasury, he heads the Office of Financial Stability, the office set up to buy troubled financial assets from U.S. financial firms under the $700 billion U.S. Government Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Time: Ancient Rabbis' Talmudic Cure for the Economic Crisis?

Wow. Now I am really worried. Time magazine has despaired of contemporary expert opinion on the economy.

The Financial Crisis: What Would the Talmud Do? By David Van Biema

A religious Jewish Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) scholar reads from the Talmud holy book during his studies at leading Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri's synagogue August 4, 2004 in Jerusalem, Israel.

The article starts with a picture of a Kabbalah student. Huh?

Is Time being serious? I find that hard to imagine.

So what's the purpose of this article? Is it a thinly disguised slap at all present-day economists and money managers? Is it a way to mock regulation of the market by suggesting that it's best left in the ancient religious libraries?

Or perhaps Time is saying: You financial guys have led us so far into the wilderness. Even the ancient rabbis could have done better!

In any event, I think this Time revelation comes with a big smirk. They are saying, here is a sideshow to entertain you in this bleak financial period. To me it seems that Time is in no way sincere or serious.

Carolyn writes to us:

I think "Kaballah" was a mistake. Perhaps someone used the word "halacha" and the reporter, unfamiliar with it, wrote down the more publicly-heard word, "kaballah".
Nothing in the article had to do with mysticism or kaballah.
Chag sameach!
All the best,
CLKL
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