So if you pay any attention to the news, you'll know that youth riots have crippled Greece over the past week. Essentially it boils down to a bad economy and a frustrated populous, topped off by the murder of a teenager at the hands of the police and you have some really awful riots.
Here's a photo gallery that made the top page of Digg today.
So the Economy is failing. Really failing, actually. It's impossible to ignore, even for someone that lives on cash, like me. The numbers may seem unreal, and the entire structure of the global credit market can be at times surreal with all those trailing zeros.
Personally, its been a tremendous learning experience for me because I was never interested in economics in school, and barely remember passing high school econ. But I'm a shrewd and curious person, so when I started hearing about the subprime mortgage crisis earlier this year, I began to look into it.
That was about the time that I started listening to This American Life religiously. And of all the unlikely news sources, I've learned the most about the global credit crisis from this oft-kilter left of center Saturday afternoon radio show.
TAL has a great way of breaking down the relationships and steps that have led to 3 weeks of roller coastering stock averages and a freeze up of the credit markets that are threatening to plunge America, and the world for that matter into depression.
Admittedly, I was upset about the bailout when it was first propsed. Partly, this is because the politicians in this counrty aren't capable of properly explaining such a complex problem. Although the roots of this are spurious and deplorable, its imperative to stop the freezing up of credit markets and attempt to bring stability to the stock markets.
And most important of this whole thing is to learn to regulate again and vote for responsible leadership. I don't necessarily think Barack Obama has all the answers, but I think of either of the candidates he is more to listen to intellective advice instead of an anti-intellectual base.
Here are some useful links:
Planet Money - An extension of This American Life's financial coverage.
So my older brother, Max, was mentioned in the New York Times today. Its pretty exciting stuff, here's the blurb:
Maxwell Breed, a lawyer for Ms. Escano’s landlord, Mon-Rose Realty Corporation, said: “Our policy is not to comment on pending litigation.”
Way to get our family name out there bud! Despite being generally construed as being on the side of evil, my brother's foray into the tabloids was largely successful. Little else relating to my kinfolk was mentioned. Here's the link to the article:
So on the top of Digg today was an article from Cracked that did some serious LHC bashing. If you don't know what the LHC is, its the LargeHadronCollider the largest and most expensive science experiment ever created. Its a particle accelerator, the largest of which ever created and is already in the early stages of firing up, finally shooting off for realz sometime in October.
Its sad and kinda pathetic to see an article whose main purpose is to fear monger and spread misinformation. I guess thats what plays after 8 years of george bush.
But the LHC isn't going to create a black hole, re-recreate the big bang or otherwise destroy the universe, and some editor at cracked chicken-shitting around about it isn't gonna change a thing.
And its big and cool.
On a technical note, exactly what the LHC is going to pretty fucking cool. Essentially, it fires off particles at incredible speeds, causing them to break apart. By shattering these fundamental particles which compose atoms, scientists can ascertain properties hitherto unknown, like the mechanics of the strong and weak nuclear forces. This all applies to the Standard Model, of course.
Crucial to the LHC's creation is the search for the mysterious Higgs Boson. Its difficult to explain. Just read the wiki.
Here's a neat video showing a time lapse of the construction of ATLAS, pictured above. This is where a lot of the coolest experiments are going down.
So the DNC is kicking off this weekend, and just as expected protests are already starting. Not too surprising, but let's just hope this doesn't reflect poorly on Obama.
Caught in the midst of all this today was a lowly reporter from Fox News, who didn't do such a great job of making friends with a crowd of masked protesters!
Bottom line is that I'm glad that I made the choice to stay out of Denver this upcoming week. I turned down a lot of good work because I didn't feel 100% comfortable with the whole not being able to get out of Denver for over a week thing. And its gonna be a zoo with all the security, and Denver hasn't been ramping up its police spending for the past six months with no intention to use it. Live work is usually boring and stressful anyway.
Read more
Hire the mentally unstable and have them steal them for you, duh. Well apparently that sounded like a good idea to Toronto resident Igor Kenk, who's being charged with a few dozen counts of bicycle theft as well as some drug possession charges. There's an article about his plight at The New York Times. He had ten rented garages, a used bike shop and a house in an upscale neighborhood--all exploding with stolen bikes.
"That was just the beginning. An additional 200 bikes were seized in Mr. Kenk’s home. Ten landlords around the city reported that their garages had been rented by Mr. Kenk and were bulging with bicycles. As the police gathered the mounds of bikes, they also found cocaine, crack cocaine, about 15 pounds of marijuana and a stolen bronze sculpture of a centaur and a snake in battle."
This guy sounds like a hell of a good time, if your idea of a good time is getting loaded, high and stealing lots of bikes!
Having your bike stolen sucks. Especially if its ur only means of transportation. So I can't really feel badly for this guy, but its still really impressive that he was able to steal that many bikes.
The article speculates that he was holding on to them to potentially melt them down to play the commodities market, or possibly to unload them when gasoline reaches unreasonable prices. Also, Kenk claims to be a former member of the KGB, which is just icing on the cake. It'll be interesting to see this play out in the Canadian justice system. Via NyTimes
Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal. Seems like people are really into the Olympics this time around (Guess that's what happens when the economy sucks). via nytimes
Some nerds are petitioning Warner Bros. to 'let' Watchmen be "as long as it needs to be." Fanboys kill me. The film industry could really care less about people on the internet petitioning them about anything. The thing is apparently already cut anyway. via iO9
