In the interest of transparency, the Obama administration is providing online the records of White House visitors. Is the Shawn Carter that's listed in the visitor database the same Shawn Carter who goes by the nom de plume Jay-Z aka Jigga aka Hova? And was George Clooney his plus one?
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Check out the far too coincidental to be an accident message in a recent veto letter by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. The first letter of each word on the left side spells out the pleasant, productive phrase, "F-U-C-K Y-O-U." I do respect the imagination by the Governator. I recall vaguely from my Model UN days in high school some country submitted a proposal where the first letter of each sentence spelled out "OJ DID IT" or something like that.
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While some people nostalgically look back on the 1950s and '60s as the golden epoch in our country, this 1962 textbook "When You Marry" actually is a reminder of how fucked up things were might then! The scans of the book pages also captured notes in the margins by some diligent student.
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Calvin Trillin shares in The New York Times a theory he hears in a bar about why the financial system nearly collapsed this year, which puts the blame on smart guys from MIT and Cal Tech.
"When the smart guys started this business of securitizing things that didn’t even exist in the first place, who was running the firms they worked for? Our guys! The lower third of the class! Guys who didn’t have the foggiest notion of what a credit default swap was. All our guys knew was that they were getting disgustingly rich, and they had gotten to like that. All of that easy money had eaten away at their sense of enoughness."
[Thanks Lauren!]
Bret Stephens shares some food for thought over at the Wall Street Journal about why "far from being an aberrant choice, President Obama was the ideal one, Scandinavianally speaking" for the the Nobel Peace Prize. It's an interesting read about what the columnist states is a "much misunderstood prize." Stephens explains the prize's historical legacy whereby it's contextualized in a manner where the surprising selection of President Obama isn't actually so surprising.
"...most of the prize winners draw from the obscure ranks of the sorts of people the late Oriana Fallaci liked to call "the Goodists."Who are the Goodists? They are the people who believe all conflict stems from avoidable misunderstanding. Who think that the world's evils spring from technologies, systems, complexes (as in "military-industrial") and everything else except from the hearts of men, where love abides. Who mistake wishes for possibilities. Who put a higher premium on their own moral intentions than on the efficacy of their actions. Who champion education as the solution, whatever the problem. Above all, the Goodists are the people who like to be seen to be good."
Not sure if I agree, but it's a nice counter-point to the Twitter echo-chamber about this story.
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I don't recommend this path for everyone, but for these people the whole not-needing a high school education thing kind of worked out.
- Dave Thomas - Founded Wendy's and SQUARE burgers. SQUARE!
- George Bernard Shaw - Playwright and curmudgeon.
- George Eastman - Founded Kodak, anonymously donated a crapload of money to universities, left a suicide note saying, "My work is done. Why wait?"
- Quentin Tarantino - Director and foot fetishist.
- Richard Pryor - Funniest man ever.
- Peter Jennings - Anchorman
- Peter Jackson - Director and God to geeks everywhere.
"Did you know...that 'abracadabra' is the only 11-letter word that you can type out on the left-hand side of the keyboard?"
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This item that I've been meaning to post is a little dated, but if you haven't seen it yet, I think you'll still find it somewhat interesting. After director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland, an internal memo from an AP editor to a reporter was accidentally published online in various news outlets including the New York Times. The memo actually hints at a possible political motive behind the arrest, although I haven't seen this theory really getting much play anywhere so it may be nothing.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled program To Catch a Predator with Polanski himself (yes, the video is fake).
Kottke calls this flag that used to represent the Benin Empire (the "pre-colonial African state of modern Nigeria") the best flag in the world. I'm inclined to agree, although the Mozambique flag featuring a Kalashnikov is a close second.
To my Nigerian friends: Why'd ya'll change your flag?! Your flag today looks like the damn thing for the Republic of Leprechauns. Damn.
Lindsay Robertson describes in New York Magazine what the swine flu feels like after her hellish experience with it.
The worst of it came in slowly on Saturday afternoon: an excruciating, horrifying, unimaginably painful sore throat, the likes of which you haven't experienced unless you've had strep as an adult. But, unlike strep, which quickly improves within the first few hours of antibiotics, this sore throat is caused by a virus, and it will last for a week. It will make you ask yourself questions like, "If I knew I would have this sore throat for the rest of my life, would I choose to go on living?" And the answer will be, "No."
The upside as one commenter pointed out is Vicodin and weight loss. Jokes, people. Lose weight the right way by healthy eating and exercising.
Here is the draft William Safire, then a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, wrote for the President in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong didn't return from their trip to the moon. Also: Notice that the draft was sent to H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's White House Chief of Staff. Haldeman was later found guilty and imprisoned for 18 months for his role in Watergate. Safire passed away recently on September 27, 2009.
A list of the top 100 registered .com domains. I'm not sure how yourmom.com wasn't first. [Via]
"Hair" is the story of the day: Chinese Yu Zhenhuan is the "mane" attraction wherever he goes on account of his title as the hairiest man in China. Recently he decided to undergo laser hair treatment. Good decision.
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Vanity Fair published their annual ranking of the top 100 VIPs with Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs), Steve Jobs (Apple), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Warren Buffet (Old dude with a shitload of money who never makes a bad investment), and the Google Three Musketeers (Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin) sitting pretty in the top five slots.
Chen Wenling's crudely awesome commentary on the global financial crisis with his aggressive sculpture "What You See Might Not Be Real" is currently on display in Beijing. The bull obviously represents Wall Street while the pinned man is suppose to be Bernie Madoff.
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A 507.55-carat diamond roughly the size of a chicken egg was discovered recently at a South African mine.
I present the weather for this week in Anchorage, Alaska. Now you know. Stop asking me.
More fun "If you printed the Internets" facts. Also a fact: Your mom is so fat, she goes to a resturant, looks at the menu and says "okay!" Yeah. Fact.
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