Bad times are good for churches.

Toronto has a plan to reduce its landfill contributions by 70% by 2010. As part of this process, their city council has approved a ban on sale of bottled water in all municipal properties.

So, let me just string a few things together: (1) We, as a nation, put ourselves in debt by over-consuming. (2) Financial engineering, one of the U.S.'s primary exportable innovations in recent years, exacerbates this behavior by giving Americans ATM-like access to their home equity. Even sub-prime borrowers were included in the game because their loans could be sliced, diced, and securitized until the risks were well-contained...or so we thought. (3) This house of cards crashes, because nobody, financial wizards included, new how to appropriately price the risks involved. A global financial crisis ensues. (4) To top it all off, three people die--die!--shopping on Black Friday, a 'holiday' whose newly relevant name was supposed to bring hope to our faltering economy. We look like a bunch of idiots.

American consumer: YOU FAIL.

Again? This is why we participate in this.

Alternet's 10 Worst Corporations of 2008: A Banner Year.

Counter-protesters overwhelm the Westboro Baptist Church.

Gun sales surge after Obama's election. Get 'em while you can, suckers.

Worth reading (both the comments on Digg and the original article): "Undeniable proof that Arkansas is a backwards hellhole!!!"

Hate has prevailed...for now.

Ahhh...feels good not to be ashamed of our President.

This thread from Reddit says it quite effectively, I believe:

Dear Rest of The World
We didn't f*** it up
Signed,
America

Zzzz...

As my wife says, Sarah Palin is the kind of woman that's bad for women.

Zzzz...

Stormtroopers crack down on illegal vendors! Health police rescue untold thousands from unsafe and unlicensed food! Heavenly bacon wasted in an orgy of violence and self-importance! Pick your headline.

What makes a terrorist? Evidence runs counter to the conventional wisdom.

Follow up to this post about a Canadian censorship case... the defendant wins approval, but not recognition of his right to expression.
The plaintiffs make clear their motives:
"Obviously we didn't want [people making cartoons we find offensive] to continue, so [another goal was] perhaps to discourage people from further maligning our prophet and our religion... We wanted this to have a deterrent effect."
Details.

"....the WSJ is reporting, on your taxi's dash is a microphone that can be activated remotely, at any time and without the driver's knowledge, for a live listen into any one of Beijing's estimated 70,000 cabs. And then, if the folks on the other end don't like what they hear, they can take things even further.

The GPS-equipped devices also allow for remote disabling by "cutting off the oil or electric supply," effectively shutting down the engine and keeping it from being restarted."

A coalition of Islamic states is attempting to use the United Nations to enact international 'anti-defamation' rules. The kind of rules antithetical to the First Amendment.
Some legal analysis here.

The Trolls Among Us.

Shouldn't we be more excited about this? Test of Mars Soil Sample Confirms Presence of Ice.

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization.

Sysco: whether it's Wendy's, Applebee's, the local diner, a fancy restaurant, the cafeteria, or Guantanamo Bay, it's what you eat.

In related news, Bennigan's files for bankruptcy protection and shuts down 150 company-owned stores. Nobody cares.

A good discussion on Lifehacker the other day regarding car sharing.

There are now over 1,000 laws that will let the state's minions legally invade your home in the UK.

"A recent study by the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank warned that the 'proliferation and variety' of such laws mean householders can no longer 'realistically be aware' of their rights and legal obligations." Ya think?

Cast your vote for the worst company in America: Comcast VS Countrywide Home Loans.

"I won't just ask for your vote as a candidate; I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am president of the United States. This will not be a call issued in one speech or program; this will be a cause of my presidency.”— Barack Obama, December 5, 2007

Broken down a bit by Jim Lindgren...

So – if Obama means what he says – his civilian national security corps would cost at least another $100 billion a year, and perhaps as much as $500 billion a year. With total federal income taxes of $935 billion in 2005, Obama's proposal would mean using up to half of all federal income tax revenues just to fund his promise “to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the military.

Three quick reasons to fear this even if you really like the guy proposing it:
1. Cost.
2. Invasiveness- what part of the country wouldn't be covered by a corps?
3. Imagine this army of "armies" under the control of a president you don't like so much.

January 17, 2001 - The Onion publishes a hilariously prescient article just before George W. Bush's assumption of the presidency:

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Today is "the date of the calendar year on which the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state and local levels."
That is, for the average American, the government keeps every dollar the worker earned earned from January 1, 2008 up until yesterday.

The bulbous root is the only commodity for which futures trading is banned. Back in 1958, onion growers convinced themselves that futures traders (and not the new farms sprouting up in Wisconsin) were responsible for falling onion prices, so they lobbied an up-and-coming Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford to push through a law banning all futures trading in onions. The law still stands.

And yet even with no traders to blame, the volatility in onion prices makes the swings in oil and corn look tame, reinforcing academics' belief that futures trading diminishes extreme price swings.

...

Since 2006, oil prices have risen 100%, and corn is up 300%. But onion prices soared 400% between October 2006 and April 2007...

So do we really expect Congress to learn from history, or do we expect them to blame the speculators?

When Fox News Is the Story.

My Independence Day post, one day early:

Things to help you remember your love for America: great economic freedom; being able to eat what you want; being able to be an offensive jerk without speech police; growing freedom to love whom you want; still the place for science and genius.

Things that remind you of your disappointment with America: the low (48th) ranking in Press Freedom; not being able to eat what you want; our share of scary cops; 35 years of bad drug policy.

The founding of most nations, if you go back far enough, revolves around some guy with an army beating some other guy's army and carving out a kingdom for himself based on the spoils. That, and ethnic identity (England, i.e., land of the English).

I think it's pretty cool that country I call home was founded on some really awesome ideas, as imperfectly realized as they may be.