This is just fantastic. After sitting through Carl Levin and John McCain spewing a bunch of nonsense about how Apple doesn't pay enough taxes (despite being the #3 taxpaying company in America behind ExxonMobil and Chevron), Rand Paul lit them up about what a travesty it was to blame Apple for doing the same thing every American taxpayer does, for how our convoluted tax code actually chases money overseas, and how Congress owes Apple an apology for wasting their time. He then pointed out just how bad our corporate tax code really is and proposed a permanent 5% repatriation tax on cash held overseas. This is excellent stuff:

It's been a rough couple of weeks for Stevie Cohen and his crew, and the situation is growing more "fluid" with each passing day. I kinda kept one eye on it all weekend after the somewhat cryptic announcement on Friday that SAC would no longer be "fully" cooperating with the government's investigation into insider trading at the fund.

Then came the announcement that Cohen himself had been subpoenaed, and the previous announcement was interpreted to mean that he planned to take the Fifth rather than testify before a grand jury.

Now the rumor is that Cohen may be cutting a deal with the feds that would close the fund to outside investors altogether. This deal would include an admission of guilt on the part of SAC in exchange for deferred prosecution (meaning no criminal liability unless the firm were to break the law again).

I'm not sure what compelled me to see Assault on Wall Street over the weekend. I guess I just figured "How bad could it be?". Well, consider that question answered: it's truly execrable, but not without a few unintentional redeeming qualities.

We all know the basic premise of the movie: big evil banks drive some poor bastard into the poorhouse and he shows up on the trading floor with an Uzi and exacts sweet revenge on the behalf of little guys nationwide. For a ham-fisted propaganda piece, the movie is just what you'd expect. Where the movie fails to get it's anti-Wall Street message across, however, is in just how unlikeable the main characters are.

The movie centers on an armored car driver and his sick wife. Neither one of them is memorable in any way, and to prove this I can't even remember what her malady was. Leukemia, I think. Anyway, these two knuckleheads make a series of idiotic decisions which lead to financial catastrophe. The funny thing is that their problems weren't even caused by Wall Street.

Mode note: Blast from the past - "Best of Eddie" - this one is originally from December 2010.

Monty09 may have gotten the best plug yet for his Energy Rodeo in Houston next month, and it came from none other than the New York Daily News. The Daily News piece on the ridiculous cost of living in New York pointed out that it takes six figures just to make it into the middle class in the city, and a New Yorker has to earn $123,322 a year just to match the lifestyle $50,000 a year buys in you Houston. On top of that, $60,000 a year in Manhattan is the equivalent of just $26,000 a year in Atlanta - just over the poverty line.

What the article doesn't mention, however, is perhaps the most compelling reason to choose Houston or another southern city over the Big Apple: GRITS.

No, I'm not talking about the delicious breakfast staple. I'm talking about Girls Raised In The South.

In what will go down as one of the worst trading decisions in my PA of all time, I sold all my GOOG back in January at $721 to buy more AAPL at $460, $450, and again at $427, and I don't even like AAPL. What's worse, all that averaging down only brought my average cost on AAPL down to $535, so I still need a 25% run up from yesterday's close just to get back to zero.

Meanwhile, GOOG continues to rampage through the market, closing up another thirty bucks yesterday to finish at $915 a share. It'll probably hit $1,000 today, and AAPL will probably go below $400 the way my luck's been running lately. But let's talk about what's driving Google's rise.

Yesterday they announced their new streaming music service (I love how Reuters felt the need to point out that they beat Apple to the punch in the article's friggin' HEADLINE). But the more immediate impact will be felt by their overnight upgrades to the Google+ platform. I'm usually pretty skeptical about changes to a social network (thanks Facebook), but this one is really good.

David Tepper is easily my favorite hedge fund manager to watch interviewed, and he doesn't disappoint in the following clip where he lays out his case for thinking the market goes much higher. He makes short work of explaining monetary policy over the next six months, and basically comes to the conclusion that no matter what happens, the market goes higher. He even recommends short sellers keep a shovel handy to dig themselves out of the holes they'll find themselves in betting against the market. Hard to argue with this guy.

Well, this is surprising. Dan Loeb is on the verge of picking another huge fight, this time with Japanese giant Sony Corp. For starters, he's calling for the divestiture of Sony Entertainment. The insurance division too. Oh, and he's also looking for a seat on the board. And did I mention that Third Point has put away 6.5% of Sony's stock?

It might be a tough row for him to hoe, however. Japanese corporate culture doesn't take kindly to outsider interference, and Japanese companies are notoriously insular.

You guys are gonna have to get me caught up because I have literally been living in a cave for the past week. Well, several caves, but I'll get to that in a minute. I just got back from what was possibly the least relaxing (but most interesting) vacation of my life. In true WSO fashion, I spent the week getting in touch with my Neanderthal roots.

Let me explain. France is home to some of the best and most complete pre-historic sites in the world, at least as far as anthropology is concerned. There's a good 50,000 years of human history in the caves of southwest France, from Neanderthal encampments to Troglodyte villages all the way up to Cro-Magnon man (who was discovered here and named for the area).

In addition to all the pre-history in the area, there is also some breathtaking spelunking to be had. I spent some time in the Gouffre de Padirac and it was easily the coolest thing I've seen in the past year. When you're a mile underground and you have to get into a boat to make it to the next section of a cave it's pretty wild.

Mod note: "Blast from the past - Best of Eddie" - This one is originally from March 2011 .

That handsome guy to the left is my boy Hudson. As you can probably tell, he's a pretty cool customer. We rescued him after Hurricane Katrina, and he'd been living on his own for a month in the flooded city. When I found him, he was about two-thirds dead; he was starving, dehydrated, and somewhere along the way he'd been shot in the leg. He didn't trust me at first so I had to trap him, which is always a risky thing with a wild and desperate dog. I guess he just didn't have any fight left in him though, because he just sort of collapsed in my arms and let me carry him to the truck. He's been by my side ever since.

At one point in the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko advises Bud, "If you want a friend, get a dog." Truer words were never spoken. But dogs aren't just great for companionship, as I've learned from hanging out with Hudson the past several years. Dogs have innate instincts that would make them successful traders if only they had opposable thumbs. Let's face it: open outcry pits sound like a dog pound most days. Here are 5 things a dog can teach you about trading: