Cocaine! Shiksas! Oy! Put yourself in Bernie Madoff's office space. See page 47 of the new amended complaint in Wexler v. Tremont.

When Bernie Madoff wasn't slapping on his yarmulke to go rip off fellow Jews, he was using their money to slap the bare asses of shiksa strippers and escorts and fill his nose with cocaine. Right there in his offices in the Lipstick Building. And he was letting his feeder-fund pals into the fun.

Shiksas gone wild! No wonder the guy didn't make a single trade. He didn't have time. That's the story in court papers filed just yesterday in the monumental Wexler case against the Ponzi schemer.

Check out the new filings in the New York state court case, Wexler v. Tremont Partners. It's free reading, but you have jump through some hoops. Start here, use this case number, 101615/2009, and go to the October 20 amended complaint.

"The Economic Burden of Health Inequalities in the United States," from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

The figures are stark: A new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland reveals:

From Security Spending Primer: Getting Smart About The Pentagon Budget

Confused about the federal budget? Don't worry, so are your congressmen and congresswomen.

Here's a guide from the National Priorities Project that explains the process and zooms in on some of the political wrangling. Security Spending Primer: Getting Smart About The Pentagon Budget includes the obligatory charts, so you're welcome to stage a pie fight when you're done reading.

The above chart breaks down the "discretionary" budget, the stuff that Congress and the White House wrangle over. As the NPP's summary of its report notes: "Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama Administration is not cutting defense. In fact, the Pentagon budget is projected to grow 25 percent over the next decade."

Oh, you say, it's those nasty Iraq/Afghan wars, right? Wrong. "Even without including current war allocations, U.S. military spending is at its highest level since World War II," the NPP report says. "This takes into account the war-time budgets of Vietnam and Korea."

Especially because it may spare Samberg further pain. Like an angry chancre, an extremely painful SEC investigation into Samberg and Pequot from 2006 has still not concluded. Rather, it has popped up again.

Oh, there's so much to read about Samberg, the grandfather of hedge funds, and the long-running (in fits and starts) investigation into allegations of various dark inside-trading conspiracies involving him and pal John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley. Tales of a whistleblowing SEC investigator named Gary Aguirre and of senators and hearings and the GAO and probes of various natures. Neither Samberg nor Mack has been found to have done anything wrong, but the case has bubbled up again, and Samberg himself cites it as the reason for his dissolving Pequot.

So much to read, but start with this document: Senate testimony from December 5, 2007 by the SEC enforcement chief Linda Thomsen.

Click here for not only Thomsen's testimony but also rarely seen documents of an actual SEC probe. It gives a good glimpse into the workings (and non-workings) of the SEC.

You may recall that Thomsen was roasted by senators and dumped from her job in February in the aftermath of the Madoff scheme's unraveling and Harry Markopolos's complaints about the SEC's foot-dragging.

The SEC faced similar complaints from senators in the Pequot case back in 2006, so Thomsen turned over details of the SEC investigation that supposedly found no real crimes or violations by Pequot, Samberg, Mack, et al.