OK, who didn’t see THIS coming?
By Brian | October 12, 2008
And the winner of the most obvious typo award of the year goes to Rensselaer County in upstate New York for their 2008 presidential election absentee ballots:
The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as “Barack Osama” and “John McCain.” In the United States, the best-known individual named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City.
The typographical terror error was first reported by the Times Union of Albany.
When they discovered the mistake, officials shredded the remaining “Osama” ballots and mailed correct versions to the roughly 300 people who had already received them. McDonough said the “Osama” mistake was made in only one of the 13 ballot versions mailed throughout the county, located east of the state capital of Albany.
Voters who received both versions will be allowed to send in either one and have it counted, McDonough said.
Obama spokesman Blake Zeff said the campaign is “glad officials are working to correct this error and we assume it won’t happen again.”
Yeah, like in 2012?
(Hat tip: Joe Catania)
Categories: Political Rantings, The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on OK, who didn’t see THIS coming?
Imagine a Video…
By Brian | October 12, 2008
This has always been one of my favorite songs, but I so rarely see the video. In case you’re the same way, here’s the video (the one with the white piano):
Categories: Words about Music | Comments Off on Imagine a Video…
The Kiss of Death
By Brian | October 12, 2008
A truly odd story about a boy who died on his fifteenth birthday in 1909, while trying to avoid the affection of a group of girls who wanted to wish him a happy birthday:
(click to view larger image)
The tombstone reads, “Lost Life by Stab in Falling on Ink Eraser, Evading Six Young Women Trying to Give Him Birhtday Kisses in Office.
Categories: The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on The Kiss of Death
What Happened? A Summary of the Financial Crisis
By Brian | October 7, 2008
UPDATE: Those who find this post informative should also check out What Happened? A Summary of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, a similar analysis of President Obama’s plan to re-stabilize the mortgage market
When I was growing up, I remember being told that The New York Times was written at an elementary school reading level, so that any reader could understand it’s content. Now, living in the information age, where The New York Times has morphed into a plethora of newspapers, wire services, aggregation portals, blogs, 24-hour news channels and pundits, it occurs to me that they really do treat us like elementary school children – they speak in simple words, and they lie to us about complex subjects (the storks bring babies, Santa brings presents, stop that or you’ll go blind…) in order to hide the fact that they don’t know the real answer or to save themselves the trouble of explaining a series of uncomfortable details.
I say this as a 15-year veteran of the capital markets industry, an active investor, and an avid consumer of current events news. I say it today, in particular, because we’re going through one of those periods in history that my kids and grandkids will ask me about when they read about it in their textbooks (or whatever textbooks have become when they reach that age). I say it because the information coming from my commonly-used information sources has been so scrubbed, so watered down, so sanitized, and so reduced to inaccurate sound bytes and oft-repeated tag lines that I literally can’t watch it anymore. I’ve resigned myself to learning a college course’s worth of material during each eight hour workday, and then surfing the internet for Hollywood gossip and watching TV for sitcoms and cartoons. In times like this, one struggles to keep one’s sanity.
As you might expect, my friends and family have come to me frequently over the past few weeks with questions about what’s going on at work, and what’s going on in the financial sector in general. I’ve probably written around 5,000 words on the subject in the last couple of weeks, explaining basic terminology, squashing rumors, and reassuring people who are understandably flummoxed by the amazingly complex problem we’re all facing. I don’t claim to understand it all (people much smarter than I have, in the recent past, successfully proven that they don’t understand it all themselves), but I hope I can provide a basic primer to help navigate this ever-changing drama.
This lengthy post is intended to be that primer – a place I can refer people to rather than typing it over and over again in response to frequently asked questions. If you’re interested, I encourage you to click through and read it, and then e-mail me with questions or comments. As time permits, I’ll update it as we go with new information and correct errors that others find in my analysis.
Two warnings, though: first, this comes from me and from me alone. While I’ll do my best to remain factually accurate and politically dispassionate, no one should take this as a statement made by or on behalf of my employer. I haven’t vetted it with anyone at work, and I can’t say with any certainty that some of my colleagues wouldn’t disagree with all or part of it. Second, it’s rather long. I mention this not as an apology, but to reinforce what should be an obvious fact – complex situations require a lot of words to explain them. Our news media, pundits, and politicians have repeatedly tried to violate this basic axiom, and have failed repeatedly. There are no shortcuts here. Get comfy and read awhile. And when we’re done, maybe we’ll talk a bit about the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny…
Categories: Money Talk | 30 Comments »
Getting Along with Everybody
By Brian | October 6, 2008
Well, some of my regular readers (one in particular) will find this fascinating. It seems I’m a left-leaning moderate:
Your views call for roughly same amount of goverment and liberty that we have today, for both personal and economic issues.
It appears that you are relatively happy with the status quo. However, this could be wrong if you averaged out to the center by opting for a an equal mix of big and small government positions, vs. opting for mostly moderate positions.
Approximately 6% of the takers of this quiz scored in this area, 36% for all within the centrist circle.
Now, to be fair, I think this quiz paints with very broad brushes, and had it been weighed more heavily on fiscal matters and/or foreign policy, my yellow dot would likely have moved to the right a bit. Nonetheless, at least someone out there thinks I’m a left-leaning & happy with the status quo…
Categories: Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging | 4 Comments »
Familygreenberg.com Health Check – August & September Edition
By Brian | October 5, 2008
I’ve gotten away from my monthly features here on I Should Be Sleeping – the Health Check and the How People Found Me posts. This disturbs me (even as I know that it disturbs little, if anyone, else), and so I offer this as an attempt to get “back in the game” as it were…
I’m going to skip “How People Found Me” once again, because I’ve found that Google changes so frequently, that once you get past the first or second of the month, the cute/interesting queries that brought people to my site no longer register highly on Google, which makes it tough to track them. But the health check, that I can do retroactively. Here’s what the last couple of months have brought:
| Metric | July | August | September | Jul-Sep Chg |
| Visits | 2,196 | 3,079 (+40.21%) | 1,422 (-53.82%) | -35.25% |
| Pageviews | 3,724 | 5,262 (+41.30%) | 1,999 (-62.01%) | -46.32% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.70 | 1.71 (+0.78%) | 1.41 (-17.74%) | -17.06% |
| Avg Time on Site | 1:17 | 0:59 (-23.95%) | 0:57 (-3.18%) | -25.97% |
| Bounce Rate | 74.86% | 49.89% (-33.36%) | 82.07% (+64.51%) | -8.79% |
| % New Visitors | 87.11% | 92.11% (+5.73%) | 84.81% (-7.92%) | -2.64% |
August was a fantastic month, almost exclusively because of one of those link aggregators called StumbleUpon. Someone “stumbled upon” my 20 Most Overrated Movies post, and it generated a whopping 1,622 links, over a span of just three days. On this site, that’s enough to send the stats into the stratosphere.
Correspondingly, September was a lousy month. Not only was it a big let down from August (to be expected, given the unsustainability of a “Stumble Upon”), but it was also down 30-40% from July in most categories. This, despite 21 posts (relatively high for me, I think) and a variety of topical posts (politics, sports, etc.). I’m not sure what to make of this. Either I’ve become boring, or my loyal readers have become busy, or Google has been so inundated with posts on these topics that I’m not rising to the top of as many queries as I used to.
In any case, I’m motivated to do better. I know, you’re all a flutter in excitement. Try to contain yourselves… ;-)
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 1 Comment »
A week of funny images
By Brian | October 5, 2008
Three funny images in the inbox this week.
Categories: Money Talk, Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging | 1 Comment »
The Most Anticipated Movie Ever: You’ll Wish You Didn’t Know…
By Brian | October 5, 2008
Disney’s High School Musical 3 opens in London in three weeks, and London movie theaters have already sold more than
Categories: Movie Talk | 1 Comment »
My thoughts on the 1st Debate
By Brian | September 27, 2008
Since I’m sure everyone else will do this, I might as well get it out of the way…
Overview
I thought this was one of the best presidential debates I’ve seen in my lifetime. No one cared about what was on who’s lapel, who had what kind of salad, or whether or not the farm animals were wearing lipstick. Here were two men discussing, in detail, their thoughts on the economy and foreign policy. They drew distinctions between each other without resorting to talking-point “gotcha” phrases, defended their positions, and even admitted to agreeing with each other in several cases. I didn’t necessarily learn anything substantive about either candidates positions, but it was an invaluable opportunity to compare not only what they said, but their demeanor, their thought processes, and the logic that brought them to their conclusions.
The Candidates
I was impressed by John McCain’s command of the subject matter. The man has been to just about every nation on earth, is familiar with the geography, the relevant world leaders, and can confidently offer insight into what he thinks is happening next. Here, in my opinion, is the kind of insight that only comes with McCain’s experience:
Now, on this issue of aiding Pakistan, if you’re going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz, our great secretary of state, told me once, you’d better be prepared to pull the trigger. I’m not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I’m not prepared to threaten it, as Senator Obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan.
We’ve got to get the support of the people of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan. Now, you don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.
I was also impressed by Barack Obama. He displays an ability to break problems down into component parts and reason through them that I, quite frankly, haven’t seen since Bill Clinton. He also made the argument that good judgement is more important than experience. Of course, both would be ideal, but neither candidate is mentioning that these days. Here’s my favorite Obama quote, referring to McCain’s suggestion that we pay for the financial bailout with a freeze on all non-essential spending:
The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are under funded. I want to increase early childhood education and the notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this Medicare subsidy doesn’t make sense.
The Winner?
As is usually the case, I don’t think I could pick a clear winner (other than the viewing public, of course, but that’s a cop out answer).
My Debate Summary
Basically, here’s what I felt while watching the debate:
[McCain speaks]
Me: Wow, that guy is so impressive. I hope he wins the election.
[Obama replies]
Me: Oh, man, he’s good too! I hope he wins the election.
[Repeat as above until debate is finished]
Me: I don’t agree 100% with either of them, but I think we’re in pretty good hands for the next four years…
Now, the Biden-Palin debate on Thursday – that could generate some fireworks…
Categories: Political Rantings | 2 Comments »
McCain Can’t Catch a Break
By Brian | September 26, 2008
Check out the sponsored links in this article about John McCain deciding to attend tonight’s debate in Mississippi:
Yellow teeth? poor credit? Wrinkle Cream? Yikes…when it rains, it pours, huh?
As long as I have your attention, a quick thought on the last couple of days: Everything I’ve read and heard about the current financial situation says to me that we need the federal government to step in and help. I thought George W. Bush’s speech the other night was one of the best of his presidency – accurate, non-partisan, simple enough that “Joe Main Street” could understand it without being condescending. The key line was this one:
The government is the one institution with the patience and resources to buy these assets at their current low prices and hold them until markets return to normal. And when that happens, money will flow back to the Treasury as these assets are sold. And we expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back.
So while responsible citizens who pay their bills on time should not be burdened with bailing out wealthy bankers who made bad decisions, it also holds that responsible citizens who pay their bills on time should not be left unable to borrow money, keep their businesses open or send their kids to college because wealthy bankers made bad decisions.
Unfortunately, President Bush has spent more than 100% of his credibility and political capital at this point, so what he says about the bailout and the economy comes under almost automatic scrutiny and skepticism. Adding fuel to the fire is Congress, who appear more interested in posturing than in getting something done. The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) of the mid-90s is an obvious template here (in that case, by the way, all of the tax dollars invested were paid back, plus a small profit), and yet the parties bicker amongst themselves while the world waits and banks continue to fail. In his statement today, John McCain said it best: “much of yesterday was spent fighting over who would get the credit for a deal and who would get the blame for failure.”
These folks are not doing themselves any favors. Again.
Categories: Money Talk, Political Rantings | 2 Comments »