We can connect that headline to Madoff in three links

The Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme ranks as one of the most surprising and fascinating webs we’ve ever tracked.

Not since the early years of the AIDS virus has a contagion so clearly illustrated the down side of a social network, where an evil can travel the globe by passing from one trusted person to another.

Each day brings word of a new node on the Madoff net - money manager Ezra Merkin, a country club in Florida, a synagogue on Manhattan’s upper east side.

Kevin Bacon

Now comes the news that Kevin Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgwick were investors.

Bacon is an emblem of social networks because of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. The pastime, invented by college students more than a decade ago, is based on the premise that any movie actor can be connected to any other through roles played alongside Kevin Bacon. Players try to connect names through as few links as possible.

Bacon appeared in a Visa commercial that parodied the game, and named his charity SixDegrees.org. There’s also an Oracle of Bacon web site.

With Bacon’s addition, it might seem that the Madoff web has finally stretched to its outer reaches.

But who knows that the next week won’t bring one or more of these headlines:

• Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich admits that he tried to sell Barack Obama’s former Senate seat to cover losses from the Madoff scam
• California and Arnold Schwarzenegger go belly up because of losses from the Madoff scam
• Cerberus is found diverting funds from the auto and GMAC bailouts to cover losses from the Madoff scam
• Sam Zell has to stop taking from Tribune employees and actually dip into his own assets to make up losses from the Madoff scam
• The Bushes can no longer afford to buy a home in Dallas because of losses from the Madoff scam. They ask the Obamas for permission to stay at Blair House. Permission denied
• There was no mortgage crisis. Banks and financial institutions were merely trying to camouflage losses from the Madoff scam

None of these stories, of course, is true. As far as we know.

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