The 16th President of the United States, who supposedly preferred being called by his last name, was born on February 12, 1809.

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• Forceless:  Obama’s proposed anti-ISIS authorization for the use of force prohibits ground troops.  (NRO)
• Guilty until proven innocent:  IRS says it’s sorry for seizing small business bank accounts.  (NY Times)
• Power failure:  Electric car-maker Tesla’s 4Q performance is below expectations.  (IBD)
• Bad gas:  US retail sales fall 0.8% in January on 9.3% drop in gas station sales.  (IBD)
• Did he fail Econ 201?  Obama attacks Staples over healthcare.  (Reuters)
• Backing out:  Tiger Woods is taking a golf leave of absence over lousy back, lousy play.  (Sports Illustrated)
• Revealing:  Sports Illustrated stirs up controversy with its swimsuit edition cover.  (localsyr.com)

Brian Williams: Daydreaming of a fabulist vacation?

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• The Big Apple:  Apple first US company to manage $700 billion market cap, 2x Google, 8x McDonald’s, 12x GM.  (WSJ)
• Goldman Sachs CEO to banks:  Stop whining about regulations.  (NY Post)
• Be careful while looking for love:  More than 60% of dating apps vulnerable to hacking.  (Intl Business Times)
• What a twit:  Twitter CFO’s account hacked.  (engadget.com)
• Who believed him anyway?  Obama never opposed gay marriage.  (Time)
• Coincidence?  Brian Williams suspended; Jon Stewart to leave Daily Show.  (NY Times and USA Today)
• Not for the little people:  Tickets to today’s Jeb Bush fundraiser are $100K each.  (Politico)
• Holocaust chic:  In a typically moronic move, Urban Outfitters sells tapestry that looks like a Holocaust uniform.  (Yahoo)
• Put that trophy down:  Little League Baseball strips Chicago team of US championship.  (ESPN)
• Obituary:  Hall of Fame coach Jerry Tarkanian, 84, dies. (ESPN)
• Good thing he clarified:  Ohio State qb Cardale Jones offers more details on crushing hospital kids in video games.  (Deadspin)
• Shoe trade:  Man pawns 283 pairs of Nike Air Jordans to buy apartment.  (CNN)
• American ISIS captive Kayla Jean Mueller is dead.  (NBC)

Get pumped: Baseball’s spring training starts next week.

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• Idiot son:  New York Knicks’ owner James Dolan, offspring of Cablevision founder Charles Dolan, tells disgruntled fan, “…mean while (sic) start rooting. (sic) for the Nets…”  (NY Daily News)
• Rope-a-dope:  Rope used in Saddam Hussein’s execution up for auction.  (Washington Times)
• Shack attack:  Analyst initiates on Shake Shake with price target half of current level.  (IBD)
• Be sure to read the fine print: Seasonal adjustments helped the January jobs number.  (NY Post)
• Bruce Gender:  1976 decathlon winner admits he’s taking hormones as part of gender shift.  (Page Six)
• Swiss Leak:  Details emerge, including names (Christian Slater?), on global bank HSBC’s multibillion-dollar money laundering/tax-evading operation.  (Zero Hedge)
• Alabama makes 37:  Supreme Court decision makes Alabama the 37th state to allow gay marriage.  (Bloomberg)
• Word ban:  U Michigan’s Inclusive Language Campaign banishes words like “crazy” and “insane.”  (The College Fix)
• Not “Lovin’ It”:  McDonald’s sales in Asian markets drop 12.6%.  (Fortune)

Did Comcast fondly rename a customer “Super B—– Bauer”?

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• New identity:  Comcast customer disservice may have given her a name change.  (CNN)
• The other side speaks:  FCC Commissioner blasts FCC Chairman’s net neutrality proposal.  (Daily Caller)
• I have (and am) a pain in the arse:  Saying, “My glutes are shutting off,” Tiger Woods withdraws from Farmers Insurance Open.  (sbnation.com)
• The Lockjaw speaks:  Tom Brokaw wants Brian Williams canned.  (NY Post)
• The high horse is no doubt reserved for the President:  Spouting moral equivalencies at a breakneck pace, Obama gives the worst speech of his presidency.  (whitehouse.gov)
• Jobs “surprise to the upside”:  Employers add 257K positions in January, while December and November figures are revised upward.  (USA Today)
• Pulling the plug:  Radio Shack goes belly up.  (Fortune)

King Abdullah II of Jordan is taking inspiration from this man…  (Photo: Worldbulletin.net)

…Eastwood character Bill Munny, who said, “I’ve killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I’m here to kill you…”

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• Here comes net neutrality:  FCC Chairman Wheeler will propose rules to regulate ISPs.  (USA Today)
• Why he cut the Super Bowl’s “poopdown” celebration:  NBC director attributes decision to his late mother.  (Sporting News)
• How about a drink?  US booze sales up 4% in 2014, now 35.2% of market (beer 47.8%, wine 17%).  (Fortune)
• Holy cow:  Coke to sell milk.  (Washington Post)
• The curse of Edward Snowden:  Altegrity, security company that vetted leaker, goes belly up.  (Herald)
• Writer’s block has ended:  Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, to release a companion novel, Go Set a Watchman, in July.  (The Atlantic)
• Jordanian King channels Eastwood:  In wake of depraved pilot immolation, Abdullah II quotes from Unforgiven, promises relentless war against ISIS.  (Independent)

Taking a bite out of local politics: Jimmy the groundhog chomps on Sun Prairie, WI Mayor Jon Freund. (Photo: The Star, Christopher Mertes/AP)

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• Office affair:  Staples and Office Depot in merger talks.  (WSJ)
• Gallup Inc. CEO:  Unemployment rate is a Big Lie.  (Gallup)
• They’re not smartphones:  Tablets sales register first y-o-y quarterly drop, down 3.2% in 4Q.  (zdnet.com)
• He’s yellin’ at Yellen:  Harsh words for the Federal Reserve chair.  (NY Post)
• January hedge fund performance:  Best and worst.  (Zerohedge)
• S&P pays up: McGraw Hill subsidiary agrees to pay $1.5 billion in penalties over pre-recession mortgage ratings; Moody’s in cross hairs next.  (Investor’s Business Daily)
• Chris Christie in the spotlight:  Vaccine comments draw fire while NY Times attacks over travel.  (Courier Post and New York Times)

Pete Carroll can’t believe he just pulled a Rutigliano.  (Photo:  New York Post)

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• Red Right 88:  Pete Carroll channels Sam Rutigliano and secures spot in Hall of Shame in loss to Pats.  (Wikipedia)
• Place your bets:  Hedge funds increase their bullish wagers on gold to a two-year high.  (mineweb.com)
• If it moves, tax it:  Obama proposes a one-time tax on overseas earnings.  (WSJ)
• What’d you say?  NFL is on the case!  League is investigating Falcons for ersatz crowd noise.  (ESPN)
• Imprisoned in Iran, Washington Post journalist draws hard-line judge.  (Huffington Post)
• Off-season rehab work?  Johnny Football enters “treatment.”  (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• The Groundhog speaks:  Six more weeks.  How’s Phil’s track record?  (Live Science)
• Say “no” to government bonds:  Billionaire investor says holding gov’t debt is “quite nutty.”  (Bloomberg)

Customer “Asshole Brown” will probably be taking his business elsewhere…

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• Customer disservice:  Comcast changes customer account name to “Asshole Brown.”  (The Hill)
• Goose egg growth:  Many so-called experts expect no 1Q earnings growth for companies in S&P 500.  (CNBC)
• Insider trading is getting easier:  Manhattan Attorney General drops five cases.  (Reuters)
• GDP growth slows in 4Q.  (Investor’s Business Daily)
• I’m not paying the bill:  Obama proposes 7% spending increases.  (USA Today)
• NFL fines Lynch for crotch-grabbing but is happy to make money from the the photo.  (sbnation.com)
• George Will on Bud Selig:  The revisionist history is already starting for the man who almost ruined baseball.  (Washington Post)
• Canada Bill Jones picks the Deflators over the Crotch-grabbers, Williams over the moaning, groaning, orgasmic Sharapova, and the Cavs over the Blue Devils.  (Canada Bill Jones)
• Jack Nicklaus looks untouchable:  Tiger Woods shoots 82.  (ESPN)
• That’s an understatement:  Crazy Joe Biden speaks, admits decisions “hard to explain.”  (CBS)

The 1973 Knicks preferred a deflationary environment. (Photo: George Kalinsky)

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• 1973 Knicks took the air out of the ball.  (NY Daily News)
• So much for the independent Federal Reserve:  Fed Head Yellen has private lunch with only Senate Democrats.  (Wall Street Journal)
• Are you a legal illegal immigrant?  Border agents told to ask illegals if they qualify for president’s new amnesty plan.  (The Oregonian)
• Sister Act:  Nuns are renting out rooms at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery for Super Bowl Sunday.  (Arizona Republic)

Internet drug dealers rejoice! Coinbase opens first Bitcoin exchange in US.

Models are dumb: Late Monday afternoon, the National Weather Service was still calling for 20 to 30 inches of snow in NYC.  The actual high was 12.1 inches in Queens.

Bud’s Round-up of Daily Drivel:

• McDonald’s CEO calls it quits.  (Wall Street Journal)
• The Fed speaks.  (Reuters)
• The ongoing saga of GAAP vs non-GAAP:  Facebook’s GAAP earnings are “unched.”  (zerohedge.com)
• Go Greek:  Econ Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller says it’s time to invest in Greece.  (greekcrisis.net)
• In Saudi Arabia, the First Lady forgoes headscarf.  (Telegraph)
• “I” got it:  Obama’s gives 33-minute speech and refers to himself 118 times.  (Investor’s Business Daily)
• Last quarter, Apple sold 34,000 iPhones per hour.  (NY Post)
• The Peter Principle at work (or “Those Who Can’t Do, Teach”):  New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon named chairman of MLB’s finance committee.  (NY Times)
• Unused boxing gloves for sale:  From Ali-Liston “Phantom Punch” bout.  (SFGate)
• Photographer sues Nike over iconic Jordan “Jumpman” photo.  (NY Times)
• You might be too late to buy that giant fake rock:  Skymall files for Chapter 11.  (LA Times)