Month: January 2009

The End of the Financial World as We Know It

I thought this was good, not great, but it’s all the rage today so maybe you should take a look at Michael Lewis and David Einhorn’s The End of the Financial World as We Know It from Sunday’s New York Times.

The link is to the first of two parts. The second part is How to Repair a Broken Financial World.

In this morning’s column Krugman says, “The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.”

The 10 Best American Movies

Stanley Fish has a top 10:

“… like everyone else I have a list, in my case a list of the 10 best American movies ever. Here it is, with brief descriptions and no justifications. Only the first two films are in order. The others are all tied for third.”

Go take a look. I think I’ll add the ones I haven’t seen to my Netflix queue — and maybe the ones I have seen need another look, too.

I do agree that his number one, The Best Years of Our Lives, is among the very best films ever.

The lifesaving songbook ‘Rise Up Singing’

Emily Bazelon sings to her child and tells us where to learn the songs. Interesting review that begins:

Bedtime at our house has two rituals: stories and songs. (Yes, some children take nightly baths. Ours prefer dirt.) The books come first, the lights go out, and then Simon, who is 5, asks me or my husband, Paul, to sing. Three or four or five songs later, he asks us to sing some more.

We oblige. Going to sleep has never come easily to Simon. And so the lullaby medley at our house often turns into a miniconcert, in terms of quantity if not quality. This is all very sweet, I know—whenever I complain about the singing, people whose children have grown up tell me I’ll miss it desperately someday. But at the moment, singing night after night gets tedious. I’m tired of my standard repertoire, and so is Simon. He has ruled out “Tender Shepherd” (“No more sheep”), “Hush Little Baby” (“I’m not a baby”), and “I Gave My Love a Cherry” (“Mommy stop singing that boring song!”). Also, almost anything in Hebrew and absolutely everything from Free To Be … You and Me. This is why, in our house, the songbook Rise Up Singing represents a nightly form of deliverance.

Bush first ex-prez to face limit on Secret Service protection

President George W. Bush’s “after-life,” as Laura Bush calls the post-presidency, is shaping up to be pretty comfortable, with a Dallas office, staffers, Secret Service protection, a travel budget, medical coverage and a $196,700 annual pension, all at taxpayers’ expense.

However, Bush will be the first president not to benefit from one former lifetime benefit: Secret Service protection.

The McClatchy Washington Bureau has the details.

In B.C.S., Dollars Are the Only Relevant Numbers

. . . Under the rules, the championship teams of the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pacific-10 and Southeastern Conferences go to the B.C.S. automatically. This season, the first team in each conference to qualify receives $18 million — win, lose or draw — and that money is distributed in that team’s conference. If a second team from a conference qualifies, the conference shares an additional $4.5 million.

But the rules for the other five conferences are different. One champion from one of the non-B.C.S. conferences gets in if it is ranked in the top 12 or ranked in the top 16 but higher than a B.C.S. conference champion. That is how Utah, ranked sixth, found its way to the Sugar Bowl against Alabama and an $18 million payday, to be shared among the five smaller conferences.

But no other small-conference team made it. Boise State went 12-0, won the Western Athletic Conference and finished the regular season ranked ninth in the B.C.S. For this, the Broncos earned a trip to the inventively named San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl and collected $750,000 — a set of steak knives compared with the Cadillac that is a B.C.S. berth, even after sharing the revenue. Boise State lost that game to Texas Christian, another non-B.C.S. program. The Horned Frogs finished second to Utah in the Mountain West and ranked 11th in the final B.C.S. standings.

Boise State and T.C.U. ranked higher in the B.C.S. than the Orange Bowl participants: No. 12 Cincinnati, winner of the Big East, and No. 19 Virginia Tech, winner of the Atlantic Coast. For their efforts, the Bearcats and Hokies came away with $18 million each for their leagues to share. Strange? It becomes even stranger.

Notre Dame, an independent, goes to the B.C.S. if it ranks eighth or higher in the standings — not a consideration this year because the team made no one’s top 25. But no matter: Notre Dame gets an automatic $1.3 million payout whether it makes it to the championship series or not.

Keeping Score – NYTimes.com

January 4th

Don Shula is 79.

Dyan Cannon is 72.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is 66.

Patty Loveless is 52.

Julia Ormond is 44. Ormond plays 39-year-old Cate Blanchett’s daughter in a small part in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Issac Newton was born on this date in 1643. The NOVA website devoted to Einstein talks also of the genius of Newton.

There is a parlor game physics students play: Who was the greater genius? Galileo or Kepler? (Galileo) Maxwell or Bohr? (Maxwell, but it’s closer than you might think). Hawking or Heisenberg? (A no-brainer, whatever the best-seller lists might say. It’s Heisenberg). But there are two figures who are simply off the charts. Isaac Newton is one. The other is Albert Einstein. If pressed, physicists give Newton pride of place, but it is a photo finish — and no one else is in the race.

Newton’s claim is obvious. He created modern physics. His system described the behavior of the entire cosmos — and while others before him had invented grand schemes, Newton’s was different. His theories were mathematical, making specific predictions to be confirmed by experiments in the real world. Little wonder that those after Newton called him lucky — “for there is only one universe to discover, and he discovered it. “

The physician, political leader and signer of the Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush was born on this date in 1746 — or on December 24, 1745, depending. When he was six, Britain and its colonies converted to the Gregorian calendar, skipping forward 11 days.

Is it Grimm’s Fairy Tales, or Grim Fairy Tales?

It’s the birthday of Jacob Grimm, born in Hanau, Germany (1785), one of the men responsible for collecting fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Snow White,” “Rapunzel,” and “Hansel and Grethel.” He and his younger brother, Wilhelm, collected more than 200 German folk tales and published Grimm’s Fairy Tales in 1812.

Lots of people thought the stories weren’t appropriate for children. There was violence, grief, an old woman who ate kids, abandoned children, and young women chopping off pieces of their feet to fit in slippers. But the book was still a big success, and it changed the way scholars collected folklore — trying to present straightforward narratives as people told them, instead of taking the basic story and turning it into a sophisticated literary piece.

In “Hansel and Grethel,” Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm wrote: “The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day with her.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

The Milky Way

Have you ever seen the Milky Way? Here’s what it looks like at 16,500 feet on a dry, dark night.

The Milky Way

Click image for larger version and to learn more.

Reposted from one year ago because it’s so cool.

The Trials of the Auto Dealer

A report in The Wall Street Journal tells of hard times for many car dealers, some of whom probably deserve it.

GM alone has 6,426 dealers, the company says. Toyota, with U.S. sales equaling about 85% of GM’s, has just 1,461 dealers.

In seeking federal aid, the Detroit companies promised to close or combine thousands of dealerships. Although the recently approved loans for GM and Chrysler don’t require this, the recession has been lowering the numbers anyway. The dealer association estimates that 900 auto dealers in the U.S. closed in 2008 — 86% of them sellers of domestic makes. It expects about 1,100 more dealerships to close in 2009.

G

Mega rap star Lil’ Wayne has been chosen as one of the voice-overs for the newly designed Gatorade beverage.

In a new commercial for the popular sports drink, Weezy is heard narrating a description of what “g” represents, as popular sports figures like Dwayne Wade, Serena Williams and Bill Russell glare into the camera.

“[G’s] the emblem of a warrior, it’s the swagger of an athlete, a champion and dynasty,” Weezy says in the commercial. “It’s gifted, golden, genuine and glorious. It is a lower-case god. It’s the goat. Ha-ha. The greatest of all time.”

As the 60-second video continues to scroll past other public figures, including the Yankee’s Derek Jeter holding a bat and Muhammad Ali facing off with his fists, Weezy wraps up the meaning of “G.” “What’s G,” he asks. “It is the heart, hustle and soul of the game. That’s G.”

SOHH.com

‘Earthquake swarm’ continues to rock Yellowstone

The Denver Post reported yesterday on the activity at Yellowstone:

“It’s not business as usual,” said [Utah University professor] Smith. “This is a large earthquake swarm, and we’ve recorded several hundred. We are paying careful attention. This is an important sequence.”

Smith noted that beginning in 2004, there was “accelerated uplift of the Yellowstone Caldera” that covered the entire caldera.

In 2007, Smith and his University of Utah colleagues said the current rise in the caldera was “unprecedented” but concluded that because there were no major earthquakes or “earthquake swarms” accompanying the uplift, they found “little indication that the volcano is moving toward an eruption.”

The last major earthquake swarm was in 1985 and lasted three months, Smith told The Denver Post.
The Yellowstone Plateau, which comprises Yellowstone National Park, is one of the largest super-volcanoes in the world and has gone through three volcanic cycles spanning two million years that included some of the world’s largest-known eruptions.

Through 5 p.m. Dec. 31, the swarm had included 12 events of magnitude 3.0 to 3.9 and approximately 20 of 2.5 to 2.9, with a total of 400 quakes large enough to be located.

The observatory said similar swarms have occurred in the past without triggering steam explosions or volcanic activity. However, the observatory said there is some potential for explosions and that earthquakes may continue and increase in intensity.

So uplift with no earthquakes, no problem. Now we have the uplift and earthquakes, problem?

Best line of the day, so far

See, John Parker Wilson stands at a bar at Bourbon Street, and he’s wondering what to drink. There’s a lot of beers, see. Tons of them. There’s Abita Amber, Abita Turbo Dog, Bud, Bud Lite, Corona, Coors Light, Harp, Guinness, PBR. So many options! He’s just about to decide, he’s looking, he promises he is and he’s looking….he reaches his bruised arm into his pocket to get money.

The bartender asks: “What do you want?”

And in the moment, just when John Parker Wilson is about to decide, he is tackled by three defenders wearing Utah jerseys. They take his money and mock his bangs before heading to Pat O’Brien’s to drink Hurricanes until their eyes cross.

From EDSBS (Every Day Should Be Saturday). Awesome win Utes, 13-0. The nation’s only undefeated Division 1 football team.

Futility, Cardinals Is Thy Name

Through 89 seasons, today’s contest is just the eighth post season game for the Chicago-St. Louis-Arizona Cardinals. And it’s only the second time they’ve played a playoff or championship game at home — the other time was in 1947, when they won the NFL Championship at Comiskey Park as the Chicago Cardinals.

59 out of the 89 Cardinal years have seen losing seasons.

Making the Bad Worse

Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, reports:

Remember how the Smithsonian’s American History Museum always felt like a museum that was fun and interesting in spite of itself? Like, the museum itself was so antiquated and the exhibits were so boring and old-fashioned…yet you still enjoyed visiting simply because the items they had to display were so great?

Well, they closed the museum for more than two years, spent more than $85 million and managed to make it…even worse.

Oh my gosh, we went there today and we were so disappointed. They’ve renovated the building, but they have the same old exhibits, except even smaller and more cramped, with fewer items on display. All the exhibits are like cramped in corners and there is very little to see, and lines everywhere to even get into these tiny rooms.

We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Reid was SO UPSET because we’d promised him he could see Indiana Jones’ hat. Nope. The entire entertainment/music/sports exhibit is now one room about the size of my living room with about three interesting things in it (Kermit, Oscar the Grouch, and the Ruby Slippers).

Yuck. At least the Museum of Natural History never disappoints.

The Best Sportswriting of 2008

The Daily Fix is a blog at The Wall Street Journal that takes a “daily look at the best sportswriting on the Web.”

The average Daily Fix contains a dozen links to sportswriting from around the Web, which over a year adds up to some 3,000 sports stories we thought were worthy of a look. Some pieces stuck with us weeks and even months later. For the fifth straight year, we’re picking the 10 columns or features we found most memorable.

Here they are.

Random stuff

I read somewhere that a survey sent to economists asking when they thought the recession would end did not even include any dates in 2009.

We saw Slumdog Millionaire Wednesday evening and it lived up to its hype. Definitely one you should see and a likely prospect to take the best picture Oscar. The audience stayed longer into the titles than any in my recent memory and I’m thinking they didn’t want the experience to be over. (It’s a story of a young man who succeeds remarkably on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” He is accused of cheating and explains how he knew the answers with flashbacks to his growing up. The child actors are phenomenal; the whole film fascinating and poignant.)

You know how sometimes after you’ve been driving too long, even after you get out of the car it still feels like you are moving? Yesterday when I finally turned off the TV after the Orange Bowl (way to go Virginia Tech!), I could still hear football announcers in the house. Three games back-to-back is really too much for me.

But I must confess I switched back and forth a lot during the Orange Bowl to the movie Waitress on HBO. The film had all the signs of a Lifetime channel movie, but was entertaining nonetheless, perhaps because Keri Russell is about the cutest person on the planet.

The guy that invented the button on the remote that jumps back-and-forth between two channels ought to be given a damn Nobel Prize.

When do you take down your Christmas decorations (including the tree)?

What’s With the Home Underdogs in the N.F.L.?

Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt looks at this weekend’s NFL games and concludes:

Home underdogs are of particular interest right now because, remarkably, in all four playoff games this weekend, the home team is the underdog. If I were a betting man (or more accurately, if I had an account I could bet on), I would be hammering the home underdogs this weekend.

Click the link to read Levitt’s reasoning.

January 2 is the hottie birthdate

Tia Carrere, 42.

Cuba Gooding Jr., 41.

Christy Turlington, 40.

Taye Diggs, 38.

Paz Vega, 33.

Kate Bosworth, 26.

Sally Rand was born on this date in 1904. Ms. Rand was a burlesque dancer, famed for her feather fan and bubble dances. She was portrayed in the movie The Right Stuff, shown performing for the Mercury Astronauts in 1962 when she was 58. Ms. Rand died in 1979.

Issac Asimov

… was born in Petrovichi, Russia, on this date in 1920. The Writer’s Almanac profile today includes this:

His family immigrated to the United States when he was three years old, and his parents opened a candy shop in Brooklyn. He spent most of his time working in the family store, and he was fascinated by the shop’s newspaper stand, which sold the latest issues of popular magazines. When his father finally relented and let him read pulp fiction, Asimov started reading science fiction obsessively.

He started writing science fiction as well. He published his first story when he was 18, and published 30 more stories in the next three years. At age 21, he wrote his most famous story after a conversation with his friend and editor John Campbell. Campbell had been reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature, which includes the passage, “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which has been shown!” Asimov went home and wrote the story “Nightfall” (1941), about a planet with six suns that has a sunset once every 2,049 years. It’s been anthologized over and over, and many people still consider it the best science fiction short story ever written.

Asimov died in 1992.