Fun with Numbers

WASHINGTON (New York Times) — "Despite being bailed out with more than $170 billion from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International Group (A.I.G.) is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year..."

Feckin' quote of the day

French poet Paul Claudel: "For the flight of a single butterfly the entire sky is needed."

Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre photography

From The Ruins of Detroit: Michigan Station, abandoned since 1988.

Could they be twins or ... the same person?

Has anyone else noticed the striking resemblance between Wall Street rip-off monster Bernie Madoff and Founding Father, George Washington? Could they have been separated at birth? Are they indeed the same person? You never see both of them together at the same time...

I am so shocked by the size of my enormous knee

So I was sitting there, minding my own business, when all of a sudden, I was shocked -- shocked -- at the enormous size of my left knee.

They Worship the Invisible Hand

In today's Best of the Web Today, the Wall Street Journal can't accept that being a homeless child in America is really all that bad... because, writes a conservative purist idiot, so many of these homeless kids aren't homeless:

"Believe it or not, it turns out that the majority of "homeless" children live in homes. Seriously! The AP [report] includes a graphic that breaks down the "living conditions of homeless children." Fifty-six percent of them are "doubled-up," defined as "sharing housing with other persons due to economic hardship." By this definition, the Meathead on "All in the Family" was "homeless."

And with the same smug ignorance -- which originates ultimately in never having been homeless nor bothering to know anything about poverty -- with the same cynical logic, one could argue that if there is a roof-like device over your head, you are therefore not homeless. Quick! Let's all sit in a mall. Or stand under a bridge.

In the dreamworld of my mind, I imagine myself leading thousands and thousands of homeless people of all ages, down Broadway to the Wall Street Journal building. They occupy the building, so many of them that the NYPD turns up its collective palms, shrugs and says, "fuhgeddaboudit!

I find that sort of cynical mindset an especially upsetting one. It allows one to make a pretense of good journalism: "look at me! I'm digging into this story and showing up a false assumption if not actual deceit." But it's also mean-spirited. Just because some homeless people have some sort of roof over their heads does not mean that they have a home, or that the data presented is trying to deceive.

What kind of person wants to kick the homeless when they're already down? The type that says: "see? It's fine to not care. Not giving a crap about your fellow man is A-OK."

It's That Time Again...

First, two soldiers were shot and killed on Saturday in Belfast. Yesterday, a police officer was shot dead in Craigavon. The Real IRA has launched an apparent campaign of violence aimed at forcing the British to leave Ireland.

Ah yes - shooting British soldiers has always been the tried and true method to get the British to leave Ireland. See, there's two more just left Ireland - in body bags. At this rate, the Surreal IRA will have 'rid us of the Brits' within 32 centuries. Thirty-two! One for every county in Ireland!

I wondedr who thought that the above-mentioned murders was a good idea?