† Judge Rips BofA For Hypocritical Defense Strategy: Southern District of New York Judge Jed S. Rakoff "reluctantly" approved an agreement to settle two Securities and Exchange Commission actions against Bank of America over required disclosures during its 2008 takeover of Merrill Lynch, because “the law requires the Court to give substantial deference to the S.E.C. as the regulatory body having primary responsibility for policing the securities markets, especially with respect to matters of transparency,” reports New York Law Journal:

In a 15-page ruling, the judge called the settlement "far from ideal" because it will effectively "transfer $150 million from all shareholders to those current shareholders who were victimized by the non-disclosures."

Judge Rakoff said if he were reviewing the settlement de novo, he would be compelled to reject it as "inadequate and misguided." 

The SEC had accused the bank of not informing shareholders that Merrill lost billions of dollars in the two months before the merger and failing to disclose that it had authorized Merrill to pay up to $5.8 billion in bonuses in 2008.

† Putting The “Boo” In Boomer (second item): Baby boomers (AKA aging hippies) have resumed pot smoking, reports The Associated Press:

The number of people aged 50 and older reporting marijuana use in the prior year went up from 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent from 2002 to 2008, according to surveys from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The rise was most dramatic among 55- to 59-year-olds, whose reported marijuana use more than tripled from 1.6 percent in 2002 to 5.1 percent.

Observers expect further increases as 78 million boomers born between 1945 and 1964 age. For many boomers, the drug never held the stigma it did for previous generations, and they tried it decades ago.

Some have used it ever since, while others are revisiting the habit in retirement, either for recreation or as a way to cope with the aches and pains of aging.

Some geriatric specialists warn that the higher you are, the harder you’ll fall – which will mean more broken hips and the resulting debility that could lead to a long, expensive stint in a nursing home. Pot can also cause cognitive impairment, which may lead to an incorrect dementia diagnosis and unnecessary treatment and/or nursing home placements.

Illicit drug use by the first wave baby boomers – it’s not just pot, BTW, but harder drugs, too – will exponentially exacerbate their already budget-busting healthcare costs under Medicare. It’s not just Generation Y and Millennials who should be worried: When the tail end of the boomer cohort (who prefer to be known as Generation Jones, so as to distance themselves from the wilting flower children of yore) needs Medicare to deal with typical aging-related health issues the druggies will have sucked up all the resources.

† R-E-S-P-E-C-T: You Get As You Give: Noting that “[t]he George W. Bush years were good for more than just oilfield-services companies and waterboard manufacturers [but] also a boon for liberal political magazines, whose circulation soared on the wings of the Bush hatred that swept much of the country,” Vanity Fair editorial associate Matt Ressman, who “writes frequently” about media, culture, and entertainment for the magazine’s Web site, examines whether the converse is true, and concludes that what goes around, comes around:

The year 2009 was a tough one for magazines in general, with circulation down 2.23 percent overall, according to ABC (the decline in advertising revenue was far greater and more detrimental, but that’s another story). The three leading liberal political magazines, however, fared particularly badly. The Nation’s circulation in 2009 was down 7.4 percent from 2008, Mother Jones was down 6.7 percent, and Harper’s was down 5 percent. …

If you compare their 2009 circulations to their average circulations from 2003 (when the Bush-hatred phenomenon truly took off) to 2008, it looks the same or worse: off 6.6 percent for The Nation, 14.3 percent for Mother Jones, and 11.3 percent for Harper’s.

What about the conservative magazines? The most prominent and biggest-selling, The National Review, definitely seemed to experience an Obama-hatred bump in 2009. Paid circulation was up a solid 4.8 percent from 2008, and was 16 percent greater than the magazine’s 2003-2008 average. The Weekly Standard rose by 8.4 percent, with an especially big spike in the second half of the year. As for relative newcomer Newsmax, which has less name recognition than the Standard but a higher circulation (an average of 101,370 copies in 2009 versus 77,470), its circulation held steady.

These circulation trends may seem modest, but for a single year they are pretty remarkable, because the six magazines in question rely overwhelmingly on subscriptions … [which] take months or years to run out, and many people renew simply out of habit. It wasn’t until two or three years after Bush took office that liberal magazines began to see major circulation bumps.

Ressman points out that the conservative magazines “still have a lot of catching up to do,” as their combined average 2009 circulation was roughly 365,000 vs. roughly 550,000 for the liberal magazines. Yes, but the circulation gains of the liberal magazines accrued over five years, meaning that in the remaining three years of President Barack Hussein Obama’s only term in office the conservative magazines could conceivably reach or surpass the half million mark. Which will prove that Obama will have been good for Iranian nuclear scientists and foreign steel, wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers.

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: More people out of work means fewer people popping into fast-food joints to grab coffee and a breakfast sandwich, reports The Washington Post:

Breakfast sales had grown at a ravenous pace during the boom years as busy workers scarfed down sausage biscuits on the way to the office, fueling a $57 billion business and accounting for as much as a quarter of sales at some fast-food chains. Chains opened earlier and expanded their morning menus to accommodate the traffic as lunch and dinner sales flatlined.

But as the jobless rate hit 26-year highs fewer people headed to work, and even those who did worried about their spending. So they poured bowls of cereal at home or simply slept in, putting breakfast on the back burner.

"Typically, if you're unemployed, you're not getting up at six and not going through the drive-thru," said Jeffrey Bernstein, an analyst at Barclays Capital. "There is a direct correlation between unemployment and breakfast sales." …

The decline is also part of the broader trend of Americans eating more meals at home because of tough economic times. Food consulting firm Technomic last month lowered its annual forecast for restaurant sales to a drop of 1.6 percent, driven in part by weaker fast-food sales.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for restaurants, because of the king-sized profit margin, notes the WaPo: “Coffee is mostly water, and eggs are cheaper than beef.”

† Updates To Previous Posts(sixth item, Not Giving Credit Where Credit’s Due): Afghanistan-born Najibullah Zazi admitted that he and two classmates from his high school in Queens planned a “martyrdom operation” to bomb the NYC subway system during rush hour, when the most people could be killed, and pleaded guilty to charges that included conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to al-Qaida. The New York Times reports that Zazi “seemed unaffected by his circumstances, even smiling through his dark beard on several occasions”:

[W]hen he spoke, he did so in an unapologetic, matter-of-fact manner, explaining that he was driven to terrorism by his concerns about the United States’ military’s actions in Afghanistan.

Born in Afghanistan, raised in Pakistan and later attending high school in Flushing, Queens, Mr. Zazi said he decided to go to Afghanistan with friends to join the Taliban in fighting the United States military.

While in Pakistan in the summer of 2008, he received training in making bombs, and was persuaded by Qaeda operatives to return to the United States where he would be a suicide bomber, a term he bristled at in court.

“I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the United States military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan,” he said.

Noting that “[i]t’s not clear what information Zazi has,” The Christian Science Monitor assures its readers that “[t]errorism officials believe the government probably would not have agreed to let him plead guilty with the prospect of some leniency at sentencing, if they did not believe he had information that could be helpful at preventing more attacks. But as in other major terrorism cases where the accused convicted themselves by pleading guilty or confessing, Attorney General Eric Holder is putting the disposition of Zazi’s case in the win column to justify his decision to try underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court.

One upside to Zazi’s accepting guilt without being proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt: several of the others charged in the case - Zazi's uncle and father, former classmates Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, and Queens imam Ahmad Wais Afzali – may also plead guilty. Attorney Ron Kuby, who represents Afzali tells AP, "As a general rule in these cases, once the alleged mastermind takes the plea, the miniminds sign on as well."

For his part, Fordham University School of Law Professor James Cohen said Zazi represents a cautionary tale for infidels (that is to say, Christians and Jews) in this country because U.S. foreign policy and national security positions have caused Zazi and other Muslims to feel “left out and … very angry,”  adding, “That's what we have to come to grips with. An identifiable part of the Muslim population is willing to do just about anything in terms of suicide bombings. Believe it." Blame the victims or terrorism, eh, professor? In any case, Cohen unwittingly supports The Stiletto’s contention that Americans have good cause to worry that the radicalized Muslim next door could be planning murder and mayhem.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Scientists Who Refuse To Toe The Line On Global Warming: Part II): Neither global warming alarmists or skeptics are thrilled with President Barack Hussein Obama's choice of Thomas Karl to head up the new National Climatic Data Center, accusing him of suppressing contradictory scientific data on climate change, reports FOX News:

Karl, who has played a pivotal role in key climate decisions over the past decade, has kept a low profile as director of National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) since 1998, and he has led all of the NOAA climate services since 2009. His name surfaced numerous times in leaked "climate-gate" e-mails from the University of East Anglia, but there was little in the e-mails that tied him to playing politics with climate data. Mostly, the e-mails show he was in the center of the politics of climate change decisions. …

Karl shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore and other leading scientists based on his work at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and he was "one of the 10 most influential researchers of the 1990s who have formed or changed the course of research in a given area." …

But Roger Pielke Sr., a climatologist affiliated with the University of Colorado who has crossed horns with Karl in the past, says his appointment was a mistake. He accused Karl of suppressing data he submitted for the IPCC's most recent report on climate change and having a very narrow view of its causes. …

Pielke said he agrees that global warming is happening and that man plays a significant role in it, but he said there are many  factors in addition to the release of carbon into the atmosphere that need to be studied to fully understand the phenomenon. He said he resigned from the IPCC in August 2005 because his data, and the work of numerous other scientists, were not included in its most recent report. …

One of the key areas of dispute, he said, was in describing "recent regional trends in surface and tropospheric temperatures," and the impact of land use on temperatures. It is the interpretation of this data on which the intellectual basis of the idea of global warming hangs. …

He said the people who run the agencies in charge of climate monitoring are too narrowly focused, and he worries that the creation of the new office "would give the same small group of people the chance to speak on the issue and exclude others" whose views might diverge from theirs.

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Ruth Werstler, the “their Life Enrichment Director” at Bethesda Retirement Center, who granted the wish of resident Elizabeth Barrett, 68, one of several who “fantasized” about what went on inside the Evil Olive, a biker bar that she and the others often drove past during day trips. Werstler arranged for a group from the nursing home to dress up as bikers and hang out with the “demonic” denizens, WMAQ-TV (Channel 5-Chicago) reports:

Lydia Scheltes woke up in her bed at one morning with pinkish hair, a tattoo on her arm and a hangover. Not a typical morning for the 90-year-old.

“Seniors are more fun than you’ll ever know,” she said.

Scheltes wasn’t alone: Seven ladies and one dude – aged 65 to 97 – all had a similar hazy look in their eyes after they hung out with bikers at bar in Wicker Park on Feb. 11. …

Werstler indulged her crew and reached out to various people who could help transform the retirement home crew into a boss biker gang. She recruited hairstylists, make-up artists, a professional costumer and a tattoo artist … to donate their time to make the ladies look fearsome.

About 100 people showed up to the club, including members of the Latino American Motorcycle Association and Chicago’s Chapter of A.B.A.T.E.

“These women were serious, man,” said Evil Olive General Manager Eric Bollard. “They showed up with pink hair and skull caps. It was for real. One woman walked straight up to the bar and ordered a Dirty Martini. It was great.”

They even turned the event into a semi-fundraiser. Werstler is trying to raise $25,000 for a touch screen computer system for the non-profit retirement home so that the women can learn and use the Internet. The bikers who showed up pitched in about $250 toward the “Never-Too-Late.”

The bikers carried one resident in a wheelchair up the stairs, and flirted and danced with all the ladies (one 97-year old reportedly “shook her booty good”). LAMA and A.B.A.T.E. plan to ride over to the nursing home come Spring to take the ladies for a ride. Scheltes has already called dibs on being the first to go riding two up.