HT: Tommelot.
Archive | March, 2011
CEO Hunting Elephants In Zimbawe
31 Mar
Bob Parsons, founder and CEO of The Go Daddy Group, fed a village in Zimbawe earlier this month. Go Daddy’s peers are not impressed.
HT: swansontom.
Viral Varieté
31 Mar
Barry Ritholtz: Regulations was not the biggest threat to the economy.
The race to succeed Warren Buffett is now down to these 5 men, WSJ story here.
James Altucher: Nouriel’s $5 mm apartment and how loud media is ruining my party.
How to succeed in in Singapore.
NYT Op-Ed Contributor: Where the Bailout Went Wrong
It’s official, Obama has his own computer.
How corporate logos reflect company principles.
Eniko, A 20 year old model, photographed as if she was 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60.
Beautiful New Yorker cover «Nuclear Flowers».
World Battleground – 1000 Years Of War
30 Mar
All notable battles over the last ten centuries – from Wikipedia’s List of Battles. Sizes of the explosions & labels are proportional to the number of casualties. Music: Ride Of The Valkyries, Richard Wagner.
The New Face Of Urban Economic Power
29 Mar
For tomorrow’s top urban players in the global economy; look to the Eastern Hemisphere. McKinsey Report here.
Click for a larger image
Social Tech Bubble?
28 Mar
Is It a New Tech Bubble? Let’s See if It Pops.
Evelyn M Rusli / Verne G. Kopytoff, NYT, March 27, 2011
Via The Big Picture.
Caspian Sea Monster: Ekranoplan
27 Mar
- Originally developed in the Soviet Union, serving as high-speed military transports. Details on these massive vehicles here.
HT: ymo.
Weekend Virals
27 Mar
Police and hard-core anarchist rioters clash late into the London-night as 500,000-strong march against government cuts ends in violence.
Bob Herbert Op-Ed in NY Times: «USA is pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life at home.» More here.
Someone in the Republican media strategy dept. should get fired.
Brave Pakistani actress takes on cleric accusing her of immoral behavior on an Indian version of «Big Brother».
A 1910 French prediction for education in the year 2000.
American regulations: Delaware authorities, escorted by state police, tore down basketball hoops in neighborhoods in Claymont.
Here are some thoughts on how and why regulators multiply [via Marginal Revolution].
Dog owners in NYC: I will walk your dog (Upper East Side).
Morning after letter.
The Insider: Pirate Profits
26 Mar
Description via YT:
«Somali-Canadian Mohamed Ashareh hopped a plane with his video camera in 2009, posing as a middleman for an American businessman interested in turning a profit by funding a pirate operation.»
Words Of Wisdom
25 Mar
«Economists are often asked to predict what the economy is going to do. But economic predictions require predicting what politicians are going to do – and nothing is more unpredictable.»
«The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.»
Thomas Sowell
Hat Tip: Carpe Diem.
Friday Flash
25 Mar
A Nation of Dropouts Shakes Europe: Only 28% of the population between 25 and 64 has completed high school.
Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (or Not).
Altucher learned 8 Unusual Things From Warren Buffett.
Better than evil knievel? I give you ray!
Rebecca Black redux: Dimitri finds out today is friday.
Government Business
24 Mar
Michael Moore has been busy on the social media scene the last couple of days:
«In 2009 European governments, including Britain and France, sold Libya more than 470 million usd worth of weapons; fighter jets, guns and bombs. The Obama administration was working to provide Gaddafi another 77 million usd in weapons.»
Via Orangutan.
Betting With The Tax Auditor
24 Mar
The IRS decides to audit Ralph, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor is not surprised when Ralph shows up with his attorney.
The auditor says, ‘Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I’m not sure the IRS finds that believable.’
I’m a great gambler, and I can prove it,’ says Ralph. ‘How about a
demonstration?’
The auditor thinks for a moment and said, ‘Okay. Go ahead.’
Ralph says, ‘I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.’ The auditor thinks a moment and says, ‘It’s a bet.’
Ralph removes his glass eye and bites it.
The auditor’s jaw drops.
Ralph says, ‘Now, I’ll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.’
Now the auditor can tell Ralph isn’t blind, so he takes the bet.
Ralph removes his dentures and bites his good eye.
The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Ralph’s attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.
‘Want to go double or nothing?’ Ralph asks ‘I’ll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.’
The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there’s no way this guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.
Ralph stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor’s desk.
The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Ralph’s attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.
‘Are you okay?’ the auditor asks.
‘Not really,’ says the attorney. ‘This morning, when Ralph told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and piss all over your desk and that you’d be happy about it.
HT: DentalNylon.
Various Virals
24 Mar
America Has The Most Progressive Tax System: No Country Leans on Upper-Income Households as Much as U.S.
The UK Chancellor makes a surprise raid on the oil companies, as he pushes «pro-growth» budget .
E-Books: Under current royalty configurations, the real losers aren’t the publishers; it’s the authors.
Despite Recent «He-Covery»It’s Still a Mancession.
This iPhone Fell 1,000 Feet From An Airplane -And Still Works.
An Ode to the Brain, by Symphony of Science.
Dancing Ninja Assassin Prank #lol!
Experimental animation turns bike wheel into cyclotrope.
Here we go again: Lesbians that look like Conan O’Brien.
Norwegian Nature
24 Mar
Due to the near perfect reflection in the water, it’s almost impossible to determine what’s up and down.
Quote Of The Day
24 Mar
«Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.»
John Steinbeck
Krugman’s Greenspan Rant
23 Mar
«He’s no longer the Man Who Knows; he’s the man who presided over an economy careening to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression — and who saw no evil, heard no evil, refused to do anything about subprime, insisted that derivatives made the financial system more stable, denied not only that there was a national housing bubble but that such a bubble was even possible.»
More via The Concience Of A Liberal.
The New American Civil War?
23 Mar
Buffett via Wikipedia
Latest statement from Warren Buffett:
«There’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. »
Critical commentary from MarketWatch, in contrast to Forbes’ more cheerful take on Reaganomics. Be sure to read this WSJ-article as well:
«The real class war today is between government and the people who pay for it. And the government’s been winning.»
More here.
WSJ Markets
- Fed's Varied Voices Leave Market GuessingBernanke said the Fed could start reducing bond buying "in the next few meetings" but warned against premature action, amid conflicting messages that roiled markets.
- Gap Is Starting to Look OverdressedAhead of the Tape: Profits never go out of fashion. Sadly, the same can't be said for the wares on display at Gap and its competitors.
- Ghana Looks to Join Bond BandwagonGhana hopes to become the latest African country to ride the wave of cheap borrowing with the sale of a new bond aimed at international markets for only the second time in its history.
- Copper Rises on Supply ConcernsCopper prices settled near six-week highs but pulled back from earlier peaks, as worries about the future of the Fed's monetary stimulus tempered suggestions of tighter supplies.
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