A very wet bar

Very cool video taken from inside a ferry boat during stormy seas. Big props to some true drinkers for not spilling their beer, even as they're sliding across the floor.

Backyard Stonehenge

If you have a few minutes, this is a great video you can actually watch at work.
It's about some guy who has figured out simple ways of moving and lifting multi-ton pieces of stone so he can build a mini-Stonehenge in his backyard. I can't fathom how "Wally's" mind works. I mean, how long does it take him to figure out these contraptions? I hope he's an engineer or something...

Is that even English?

Here is a cute story about the father of the assistant conductor of the BSO saving his son's ass. But what the hell does this mean???

The latter quality was immediately apparent on Tuesday; not a note had been
taken for granted, with even the most prosaic passages refracted through a
powerful intellectual prism.

What? Is this about a concert or a science fair experiment?

Class warfare rant, Part 1

I'm pretty livid over the whole housing market collapse. Not because I personally have lost anything -- in fact, it's happening at the perfect time for me. (By the time the market finally bottoms out, I should be able to actually afford a home on the South Shore.) I'm livid because the collapse is largely predicated on asinine investment strategies that involved giving massive home loans to people who clearly couldn't afford them. Basically, an entire sector of our economy was as stable as a house of cards built upon the back of a three-wheeled pickup truck. The fact it took so long to collapse is actually pretty amazing in itself.

Now, the housing market implosion is so bad, people are actually forecasting a freakin' Depression, thanks in part to the hundreds of billions of dollars of bad credit the banks are choking on. And now Wall Street wants a federal bail-out? Eff them! We shouldn't hand them a dollar until, they've downsized their workforce, taken massive paycuts, lost health insurance, and made every other effeciency that the average worker has had to eat in recent years. There is no way that the CEO of Countrywide should be allowed to sit on hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth that he made destroying the economy.

Rant over. Read this for more.

It's so wee-yud

Look at this picture and tell me you don't want to click on this link.

Economic woes

Here are two good economic stories:

The first one is a projected blueprint on how America is on its way towards a Depression. Not a recession, a Depression. It's scary, and not entirely implausible. The economy has been killed by the collapse of the housing bubble, it's being driven down even worse by inflation of fuel and food prices, and the weak dollar gives us little leverage to finance our way out of this mess.

I think we're in line for a nasty recession. But I've always believed that -- despite what the financial markets want you to think -- so much of economics is impacted by gut feelings. You think there could be trouble in the Gulf, you bet high on oil futures, and gas prices go up. A new president instills some confidence in the populace, suddenly Consumer Confidence Levels rise, triggering similar rises elsewhere in the economy.

The second piece is a brainiac story on why the dollar is worth so much less than the Euro. Again, it comes back to just poor economic policies, such as giving massive home loans to people with no money and no credit. Whoops!

ABC (Anyone but Clinton)

Andrew Sullivan has nailed it. He's written the essay I would have written about why I just can't support Clinton for President. It's not the policies, it's not the shrillness, it's the constant need of/pull towards drama. Bill Clinton should have been known as one of the greatest peacetime presidents ever (Sorry Repubs., but its true: longest period of sustained growth in the nation's history, balanced federal budgets, declining national debt, foreign relations successes). Instead, as Sullivan outlines, they sought or invited drama at every turn. Another four years of a Clinton White House will be four more years or polarizing debate, of snarky stories from a scorned media, and "Shrillary" insults from the Right. After 16 years of non-stop partisan bitching, we need someone else.

Sounds kinky

Richness through blogging?

Hmmm...maybe I should actually try at this whole blog thing...

One of my ayem must-checks just got purchased by Break.com Read about it here.

I love wallstreetfighter.com because its all over the place. Aside from crazy stuff like inflatable sauna pants, it always finds a way to wet my nerdy palate with some quality financial links, like these Fed charts. I don't neccesarily know what all those terms mean, but I know that sharp inclines and declines are never good.

Yowch

This chart makes me both laugh and wince.

I laugh at GateHouse, wince knowing the impact its having on the Ledger.

Touche

Here's a list of the greatest comebacks and retorts in history.

It starts strong with a classic John Barrymore line and then just gets better and more filthier from there. Missing however, is the classic "I know you are, but what am I" made popular by Mssr. Pee-Wee Herman.