Jon Methven is the author of This Is Your Captain Speaking, due out in 2012 by Simon & Schuster. He can be reached here, or follow him on Twitter @jonmethven.

*The Wizard of Menlo Park READ MORE

A day after news of the Lebanese Bernie Madoff comes word that Brooklyn has a Ponzi schemer of its very own. (Honestly, shouldn't all the Ponzi schemers have been flushed out by now? There's only so much longer that someone can be referred to as [Name of Location]'s Bernie Madoff.) Anyway, meet Philip Barry of Bay Ridge. Barry was charged yesterday with operating a $40 million scam. But were there any signs that might have made the friends and neighbors bilked by Barry over a period of 30 years suspicious? READ MORE

Meet the man described as Lebanon's Bernie Madoff: "Everyone trusted Salah Ezzedine. A billionaire Shia Muslim businessman and financier from southern Lebanon, he organised pilgrimages to Mecca, ran a major Beirut publishing house and a children's television station, held major investments in east European oil and iron conglomerates, and – much more to the point – was a close personal friend of very senior leaders of the Hizbollah. Indeed, many members of the world's most powerful and successful guerrilla movement, along with the families of their 'martyrs' in the war against Israel, placed both their faith and their inheritance in Mr Ezzedine's hands." READ MORE

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's choice for lieutenant governor (a new office in the Garden State) is Loretta Weinberg, "the first Bernie Madoff victim to run for public office." Plus, she describes herself as a "feisty Jewish grandmother," so she may have a good line on a kidney if you need one.

Notes on incarceration: "The severity of Madoff's sentence changes his options. A lighter sentence might have allowed Madoff's team to negotiate his placement from medium security to low, based mostly on his age and notoriety, says [attorney Alan] Ellis; a 150-year sentence means he will now have to lobby to go from high security to medium. Medium security facilities look similar to low-security institutions, but the inmates are much more likely to be inside for violent crimes. If Madoff gets medium security, says [sentencing consultant John] Webster, 'He will be assaulted, there's no doubt about that.' It's that much of a certainty? 'God, yes. Oh, God, yes.'"

Bernie Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison for his Ponzi scheme. That's the maximum sentence, although Madoff has reportedly hinted that he could turn it into 350 for you with almost no risk. Anyway, now that justice has been done, our nation's most entrepreneurial swindlers can get started on the next great scam.

Uh, yeah, good luck with that: "Attempting to mitigate a maximum sentence of 150 years for a client whose name has become synonymous with greed, defense attorney Ira Lee Sorkin of Dickstein Shapiro asked a federal judge this morning to set aside the 'hysteria' generated by of the largest Ponzi scheme in history and give Mr. Madoff only 12 years in prison. In a letter to Southern District Judge Denny Chin, Mr. Sorkin argued as a fallback that a 15-to-20 year term would accomplish the goals of the sentencing laws 'without disproportionately punishing' Mr. Madoff."