Month: January 2005

I’ve got some shirts on order from Threadless, which is also in charge of OMG Clothing (slogan-oriented t-shirts). Then I remembered Preshrunk.info, the t-shirt blog. And there, I came across things like 80s tees — which also inclues an anti-80s section with a shirt that says “Retro Sucks” in a big fat retro font. My personal favorite right now is Sharp as Toast with its Propaganda Panda. Or maybe Tiny Factory, which has some great designs and funny political things too. I had to restrain myself– but I am now sure that my t-shirt idea from a year or so back was brilliant, and if I had only followed through, I would have a very expensive and time-consuming hobby on my hands.

This is a serious resource on housing markets and the potential for a market bubble. I mean, I post the occasional link, but this is like, several essays and newsfeeds and what else who knows.

Links to: The Fed plays down a house-bubble, and on the other hand mortgage requests are down. Most notable, the ever-gloomy Stephen Roach points out that the US savings rate is approximately zero, and that “if it feels like a bubble, acts like a bubble, and looks like a bubble…”

I just like the feeling that someone is going to get hurt. I think it’s what drives people to tune in to American Idol.

The conspiracy theorists in the tax-denial movement remind me a lot of the right winger nutters, like, say, Phillys Shclafly (did I spell that right?) who was opposed to the equal rights amendment because paying fair wages to women would cause communism. Or something like that. Her logic wasn’t clear but it had something to do with free day-care for young children being socialist, unlike free education for kids over six, which is to be expected.

Anyway, “The Hearts of Men” told me a lot about what economic policy should be to achieve fair and just wages for women, and explained that the early-20th-century ideals of the “family wage” and the male breadwinner are basically gone, or at the very least can’t be relied on as instruments of social policy any more (if they ever were reliable). But it didn’t tell me anything about the nature of committed relationships or how to keep a man or anything like that.

No, I have decided that even the Lacatus II red wine is gross. Moulin de Gassac “Le Mazet” Old World Red Wine is a much better wine at the same price. Just so you know. Also Estio from La Purisima is a good choice.

Bookdwarf is at an event tonight with Jared Diamond, where he discusses his new book, Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed. His book is about how societies collapse and die: Rwanda, for example. Or Easter Island. When some guy chopped down the last tree on Easter Island, what was he thinking? Or that Viking settlement in Greenland which starved to death without eating any of the abundant fish in its waters. These societies chose a cultural imperative over survival. Whether it was creating giant stone statues, or sowing salt into the earth of a rival tribe, or killing all the Hutus around, or just plain refusing to compromise on the taboo against fish, they more or less chose to die.

I decided not to go to the event. I know, looking at our consumer products, that we have already chosen death.

Oooh, want to see something funny? Here are some of the top Google results for “Choose Death:”
Weird art site about death aesthetics
Anti-abortion screed

The Hardees Monster Thickburger has 1417 calories, according to the interactive menu and nutrition information page. Combined with a small Coke (the page doesn’t seem to display large size beverages…) and a large fries, it’s 2282 calories. Take it with some silver pills so your monster shit will be all sparkly.