StumbleUpon is a search engine of sorts that works on the "let what you're looking for find you" principle. It takes Google's "I feel lucky" concept to new heights. Instead of typing in what you're searching for, you just click the big "Stumble" button, and the site serves up pages that it thinks you want to see.

This is a fun chart to look at - thanks to http://dshort.com. Assuming this market meltdown proves to be a reasonable fascimilie of the big, bad one, as I believe it will, we have a long way down yet to go.

We are so overdue for a decent-sized short-term relief rally, I think we may get one as soon as next week, but I bet when all is said and done we get much closer to that down 89% total.

In honor of the upcoming International Women’s Day (March 8th), last night the documentary film A Powerful Noise was screened simultaneously in 450 theaters nationwide. A panel discussion followed the film, and included five individuals involved in some capacity in aide work.

It was a tough battle for the My One Favorite Thing award this week, with some noteworthy candidates. Certainly, jilted bachelorette Melissa Rycroft, who was forced to undergo a breakup on national TV a  mere six weeks after being proposed to on national TV (live by the reality show sword, die by the sword, I guess) was a top runner-up.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

I don't know many very happy people. I know people who are content enough, I suppose. I know plenty of people who do a decent job at hiding their discontent. (As for myself, I'm probably somewhere in between those two categories, leaning toward the former).

Last week, I wrote a piece called This is the House That George Built. TheraP at TPM suggested that I make a video. This is the video.

I've been sitting on this one for a bit now, but I feel it's time to break the silence.  For those that don't read him, Glenn Greenwald has been quite persistent in covering this story.  For my money, he's the best read on the topic.

Today, I discuss codependent, abusive relationships, and our general resistance to change. Deadman understands the deal. He, too, just wants to relive the good old days and focus on things that will always stay the same, like the Middle East conflict.

Because of distance and three adorable and energetic kids, my best friend and I rarely have the luxury of spending time alone. But last Friday, we had the pleasure of spending an entire afternoon together. After lunch, we found ourselves at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and after wandering the galleries for about a half-hour, I asked an innocent question about other museums in the area. With a mischievous grin, my friend informed me that the Creation Museum was just a short drive over the state line into Kentucky.

So, I'm assuming that plenty of people have seen this gem by now:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

From the Guardian:

In a breakthrough that could have huge implications, British and Canadian scientists have found a way of reprogramming skin cells taken from adults, effectively winding the clock back on the cells until they were in an embryonic form.

The work has been hailed as a major step forward by scientists and welcomed by pro-life organisations, who called on researchers to halt other experiments which use stem cells collected from embryos made at IVF clinics.

Been away all week on business, listening to my colleagues and the talking heads on CNBC bitch and moan about Obama's budget and economic policies. They believe he's declaring war on the wealthy and is going to destroy the economy with his increased tax hikes.

Are you fucking kidding me?!?

Oh yeah, I feel a rant coming on ...

I didn't really believe the headline when I read it, but here's the deal:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama - who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana - will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.

So, I've gotten kind of impatient with waiting for Geithner or Bernanke or someone to explain exactly what they're going to do with the banking system.  I know that nationalization is way too scary to contemplate, despite the fact that the process the word actually refers to in this context has been ongoing with smaller banks and doesn't represent anything even remotely approaching permanent government ownership of these institutions, but what is the "public-private partnership" of which they speak?

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. - Umberto Eco

Where the fuck is my wisdom?

Seriously, wisdom was supposed to part of the deal, the salve that soothes amidst aging's unceasing, unending parade of insults and torments. I am now well into my 36th year - my hair is thinning, my back is creaking, my sex drive is waning.

Wisdom should be accumulating, dammit.

The U.S. Presidential election of 2000 still evokes uncomfortable memories of election regularities, former Secretaries of State waxing legal and some stodgy butthole named Chad.  Even though the whole debacle had to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which seemed to take for-eh-ver, the resolution was reached in a tidy 38 days.

This is the house that George built!
These are men who lie in the house that George built.
This is the war that killed the men
That lie in the house that George built.

This is the fraud that started the war
That killed the men that lie in the house that George built.
This is the Dick that contrived the fraud
That started the war that killed the men
That lie in the house that George built.

I am going to try and keep this as short as possible because I'm off on a biz trip tomorrow (expect a lot less blog activity from me for about a week) and have things I need to get done before then.

But I just had to comment on the statement released jointly this afternoon by the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), and the Fed.

In contrast to my last post, I'm going to keep this one brief.

There's been no shortage of lot of talk lately about bipartisanship as a way forward.  Of course, we all know that the President has made this one of his central themes in assuming office.  Over the course of watching the stimulus legislation, many pundits have been all too happy to pronounce this notion DOA.  If you want to be completely cynical about it, you could say that it was a naive notion to begin with.