Weekend Tids and Bits

NAKED TRADING  is giving the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro strong second thoughts, and it’s not about knowing for certain which traders are really going long and which are going short. It’s about folks who are licensed to trade on an exchange renting their access to clients. Clients pay to shave fractions of a second in executing trades. The SEC worries that it’s like renting a license to drive, fly an airplane or practice medicine, and that naked trading, along with other schemes, is tilting the playing field to favor sophisticated investors who make money by trading huge volumes of securities on minimal price differences.

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NAKED MISDEMEANOR? Maybe so in Springfield, VA, where a 29-year-old man was arrested by police after a woman and her kid walked by his home and saw him naked inside. With a potential year in jail riding in the balance, the case seems to turn on intent. If the guy intended to be seen, it’s indecent exposure. If he didn’t intend to be seen, it’s not. Lawyers are researching to fine points of Virginia law on whether letting it all hang out without closing the curtains get you hung out to dry.

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FEDS FINDING BETTER THINGS  to do after a directive that says busting folks using pot in the 14 states that allow medical marijuana isn’t a good use of time. That’s a change from the Bush administration, which said never mind state law, a joint is still a ticket to the federal joint. Look for this to mushroom into a major state-rights issue as cash-strapped California seriously considers legalizing and taxing pot across the board, which would remove the medical-use-only fig leaf and update “Just Say No” to “Just Pay The Tax.”

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BUNS TO BOOBS has to be the name for a procedure that takes fat liposuctioned from an overspreading bottom and uses it to enhance an under-blooming top. An uplifting report on msnbc.com says a Miami surgeon pioneered the technique that takes the fat from where women don’t want it and puts it where they do. No implants need apply.  No word on whether the procedure gets points for using a renewable resources or other recycling kudos.

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REST IN (SHARED) PEACE may be coming to Britain, which over the centuries has started to acquire more dead bodies than available burial space and is trying to make the idea of shared graves take wing in London. Seems the earliest tenant is dug up and reburied deeper, making room for the newcomer. There are, as they say, some marketing issues.

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Have A Great Weekend!

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