S-E-X At The SEC
When the economy disintegrated, The Teller, along with every one else, wondered, where was the SEC? And when Bernie Madoff stole $65 billion, the nation asked, no, really, where is the SEC? Seriously, if they’re not busy catching crooks, just what is it that those bums do all day?
Wel, now we know: They were cruising the Internet for porn.
Our journalistic friends over at ProPublica first got wind of an investigation into the SEC’s porn-viewing habits more than a year ago. Since then, the investigation by the agency’s inspector general has widened to encompass dozens employees and contractors.
Now, blog Gawker has obtained an internal report detailing just what government employees were looking at when the rest of us were watching the economy implode.
Over the past two years, one group of a dozen employees and contractors tried to view pornography on government computers at least 8,273 times. That’s nearly 32 times, every work day, and we haven’t even factored in vacation time and sick days!
But if that seems like a lot, apparently, it isn’t. One man said his daily porn viewing at work was limited to "no longer than an hour and a half a day."
Good to know…
NAR’s Scandalous Reporting… And Reporters
The mighty and powerful National Association of Realtors has attracted its fair share of enemies over the years, from the eagle-eyed anti-trust lawyers at the U.S. Department of Justice to a fair chunk of its own membership
And with more than a million Realtors out there, you’d think there’d be more than enough readers to provide an audience for an online scandal sheet focused on NAR brass and their shenanigans.
At least, that’s what the forces behind the recently launched Web site NARScandal.com, hoped.
Sadly for the mystery bloggers, while the NAR has plenty of enemies, it doesn’t have very many ready to start shelling out $19.95 a month for a fresh supply of haterade.
Even more sad is the fact that the writer(s) behind NARScandal.com have declined to reveal their own names (or the sources for their accusations), leading to a surge of interest among industry watchers not in the site’s allegations, but in its authors. Several well-known bloggers have publicly declared their disgust with NARScandal’s decision to hide its identity.
NARScandal claims that, "Due to the nature of the content we are presenting at NARscandal.com, there have been "multiple perceived threats against our personal safety." The Teller is not sure whether a "multiple perceived threat" is the same as an actual threat, but that’s beside the point.
That decision not to reveal their identities may be a moot point before long, however, as a number of amateur web sleuths have been digging away to uncover the names of NARScandal’s mysterious backers. By poking through the site’s domain registrations and error messages, they have uncovered links to a California-based web design and photography company that focuses on real estate.
With the hounds of web-ville this hot on their tails, The Teller only hopes we’ll be able to get the popcorn buttered in time to watch the denouement.
