Beware, I Live!

"[A]s Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America [....]" -- Sarah Palin

I know I'm a bit late to this one, but just saw it and cannot get rid of the image of a giant putin-head floating into alaskan airspace. All I can think of is [turn your volume up]: this, and this, and this.

"He recused himself...."

Really, really painful to watch Palin taking even the first questions from legendarily hard-hitting Katie Kouric. If you turn the sound all the way up during the long pause after the very first followup question, you can hear Palin thinking, "I said what they told me to say, and it's not working! It's not working! What do I do?!?? .... I'll just repeat it again."

Secret Republican Brass Meeting

"Ok, screw it. We don't like McCain and never have. He's turning out to be even worse as a candidate than we feared. The last thing we need after Bush is more embarrassment. So let's call it an election and start working on getting Obama out of office in 2012."

eBailout

I have some more great ideas about how to use public funds to bolster the economy.

1. Treasury promises to meet the reserve on every item listed on ebay. The inability to move undervalued secondhand goods is crippling our economy. Once private owners get these items off of our books, our balance sheets will look much better.
2. Treasury will buy up soup overstock. Everybody loves soup. Lack of turnover impacts (ahem) liquidity in the soup offerings. Guaranteed soup repurchase will encourage restaurant creativity and menu changes, stimulating custom and getting the "stay at home and eat catfood" crowd back on the path of helpful consumer spending.
3. Treasury will fund professional sports stadiums. Too many sports stadiums are funded by cities and states. It is excellent that these privately-owned, profitable franchises are receiving direct public benefit, but why at only the local level? Federal public monies should do their fair share to help the sports industry, too.
4. Hank Paulson will reglaze my windows. They're getting a bit shabby. I'll paint them, but I expect the feds to repurchase if I buy too much paint.
5. Treasury will buyout distressed 401k investment choices. My retirement balance sheet is looking better already.
6. Houses for Polar Bears. When fed helicopters are not busy dropping money onto wall street, they will be used to airlift foreclosed homes to the arctic circle.
   

Quite A Week For Financials

High drama.

• The Lehman building in midtown is a tourist stop now. Lots of people stopping to take photos of it, even after all the TV crews finally lost interest. I personally don't see the attraction of having a snapshot of it proudly displayed in your home albums, but I guess people want documentary evidence that they were there, or something.
  
• Also noteworthy is how crappy the NYT coverage was. As a general NYT fan and an IHT subscriber, I was appalled.
  
• I kind of felt bad for McCain. He was trying to keep up, sort of, but was obvious he had no idea wtf he was talking about, especially as he struggled to read aloud various scripted proposals his people had telepromptered in front of him. I was hoping someone would ask him to describe what the SEC, the Fed, and the Treasury actually do. Especially seems like a fair question after he called for Cox to resign. I wouldn't bet that he knows.
  

Accurate Campaign Description

On news this morning, a reporter from thestreet.com was asked about McCain's blaming "wall street fat cats", and she noted that this was how you might, incorrectly, explain it when "talking to a 5-yr-old".

Panic on the streets of midtown.... (a singalong)

Hang the blessed banker
because the instruments they constantly trade
add nothing of value to society
hang investment bankers
and the instruments they constantly trade

hang the banker hang the banker hang the banker....

Lie About Everything

There's growing dismay over the McCain campaign's increasingly blatant strategy to lie about anything and everything, no matter how provably false any given claim is. DailyKos suggests this is a test for the press. It's not. It's a test for the public. The NYT could cover nothing but McCain campaign sleaze between now and November, and for the depressingly large segment of the public that is informed solely by talk radio and a bit of tv news, it won't matter. So we'll see.

New Wii Games

One of my many next careers will be game designer. The boys and I already have 2 in the product development pipeline:

1. Pleasant Evil -- a world with lots of zombies, but instead of shooting them in the head, you train them to do housework and such.
   
2. Dr. Shinbone's Annoyathon -- we admit we haven't gotten past the title and the high concept that no mothers will like this game.

Proximity Effect

I'm still intrigued by the notion that proximity = experience in the realm of international affairs. The Kremlin is actually closer to the capital of Maine than it is to the capital of Alaska. Which state fosters the most international experience by virtue of proximity? Do borders count or just distance? Do we use the least squares method to calculate international exposure for a given place? So, for example, would Kansas rank higher than either North Dakota or Texas? Does water count differently than land? Would Hawaii be at an advantage or disadvantage? If "seeing" counts, do states with higher viewership of BBC shows or other international content get bonus points?

Football Injuries

With Tom Brady out for the year after a few minutes in the first game of the season, there's renewed talk about injuries in football and how to prevent them. The unintended consequence of more and better "protective" equipment in the sport was a corresponding rise in injuries. The only rule that will ultimately reduce injuries is one that bars the use of protective equipment. No helmets, no pads.

Can't Wait For Debate

Have calmed down now. Palin is a distraction. Lord help us if the general election turns into a referendum on whether Americans "like" Sarah Palin or not.