Sylvan Migdal Nails It

Will Wall Street drag Brooklyn over a cliff?

(bonus points for including two of my favorite NYC landmarks -- the Brooklyn Bridge and the WIlliamsburg Bank building)

 

Toles!

Toles!

The Nation Needs His Two Cents

McCain announced that he needs to put off being whupped by Obama in the debate so he can use his complete lack of economic knowledge to help save the economy.
Tenderfoot and I were having people over for beer and shouting at the TV! The Fret in Lafayette! The De-bate in the Dirty State!
If Obama doesn't reject this completely, the Republicans could drag out the bailout legislation until November and blame everything on the Democrats. Or at least until no Friday night prime time slots are left.

So the Markets Are Falling Apart...

...I thought Bear, Lehman, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG failing was the end of the world until I just read this:  the IAEA is pretty sure Iran is designing nuclear missiles.

Now that's the end of the world.

Crude!

(pun intended)

 

NYT article on reports by Earl Devaney, the Interior Department's inspector general, about shenanigans at agency that collects oil and gas royalties.  You know, it's just the usual "financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct."

 

According to one report, about one-third of the program's staff accepted prohibited gratuities from oil companies.

 

The report also indicates that staff improperly steered business to former agency employees, abused expense accounts, and accepted tickets to a Toby Keith concert (which should be a capital offense).

 

The program's manager (allegedly) "mixed official and personal business, and took money from a technical services firm in exchange for urging oil companies to hire the firm," and "ha[d] intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine."

 

And on, and on, and on.  A pirate ship has less corruption than this place.  And if it'd been prowling the Gulf when Katrina hit, probably could have saved more people than FEMA did...

 

Anyway, the best excerpt even has a pun:

On one occasion in 2002, the report said, two of the officials who marketed taxpayers' oil got so drunk at a daytime golfing event sponsored by Shell that they could not drive to their hotels and were put up in Shell-provided lodging.

The same two women also "engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts," the reports' cover memo said, adding that "sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length."

Roger Cohen

...expresses just how I feel when I fly back to the States these days...

My favorite Wikipedia editor's note

This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate details which may only interest a specific audience.

 

See, e.g., klaatu barada nikto. 

Or this great xkcd cartoon.

Our Country Is Now A Game Show

"Barack?" Our future president doesn't even go by his last name?
WHO WILL BE AMERICA'S NEXT TOP OFFICE HOLDER?


So, uh, yes, I DID sign up to be the FIRST TO KNOW.


I think Obama's going to randomly select one person's email and make that person his vice presidential candidate! Kind of like the boule in old Athens...

Keep your fingers crossed -- you could be calling me "Mr. Veep!"

Cejudo!

Here's a great story about Henry Cejudo, who just won the gold in freestyle wrestling at 55 kg for the U.S.

Toddlers with MTA-mania!

This piece in the NYT by Christoph Niemann about his young sons' shared obsession with the NYC subways is bizarre -- and great!

Until TODAY?

Whoa, whoa, whoa--

Robert Mugabe was knighted by the Queen of England, and she only stripped him of his knighthood today?

Scandalous?

Hundreds of Same-Sex Couples Wed in California, reports the NYT.

 

A day for celebration, but ... now that gays can get married in California, am I supposed to disapprove of this couple because they had a baby outside wedlock?

Or... one of them did?  Or they adopted?  Someone help me re-learn how to be judgmental!!

 

 

Also, that baby looks bored.

G3T M0NK3Y B@N@N@, HUM@N!

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, and you're probably expecting something worthwhile.

And HERE IT IS.

Monkeys controlling robot arms with their brains!!

 

If there has ever been more exciting news, I want a monkey to grab the article and show it to me with a brain-operated robot arm.

 

Seems a little rough on the monkeys, but I'm sure they'll let us know their displeasure in five years when they're tromping through the ruins of Manhattan in their giant robot exoskeletons.  Better have a piece of banana with you then or it's ... WHAM! Robot Arm in Face! time for you and the other human refugees.

Lock and Load, Arizona!

How much do we love guns?

So much that when we're afraid of gun violence, our solution is -- more guns!

Think I'll design a hipster derringer with an integrated MP3 player, cell phone and digital camera so people get used to having guns waved around and pointed at them.  Steve Jobs, are you reading this?

Check This Animation

Very cool.

Here is the guy's website.

Yub! Yub!

Today's NYT reports that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, threatened Israel and accused it of killing terrorist mastermind Imad Mugniyeh.
He threatened to take the fight outside the "natural battlefield" of Israel and Lebanon.
Which would be a lot more of a threat of Hezbollah didn't already do things like blow up Jewish community centers in Argentina.
And if he didn't look so much like an Ewok:

Tram Hacker!

A 14-year-old kid in Lodz, Poland built a remote control device that he used to switch the city's trams to different tracks at junctions, causing several derailments and other accidents.

 

This is why I wear a tinfoil hat.  No genius teenager's gonna malfunction my junction!

Mission, Movie, Move?

Overcompensating inspired this inspired trivia quiz in which you guess whether a phrase is an operation in Iraq, an action movie, or a wrestling move.

Iron Fury II?  Three Swords?  Big Boot?

 

 

Watch Out Below

I work in the new New York Times building. On windy days, panes of plate glass occasionally snap off the skyscraper and shatter on the sidewalk below.
And hurt people.

Another one blew off today, on the 40th street side of the building.

I think that deep down the architect, Renzo Piano, believes he won't be respected as an artist until his work kills someone. Like Christo with that killer beach umbrella.

In apparently unrelated news, building management just announced that the birch and moss garden in the lobby will now house three live velociraptors behind new "unbreakable" glass.