This is not a man with a blog.
Steven Pearlstein has an op-ed that essentially says the same thing as my theory about economic shocks like Katrina and their effect on the economy.
This guy is bemoaning the departure of wreck of an ex-girlfriend, who could, as he put it, ‘suck dick like a pornstar’. Dude, I don’t mean to get all Dan Savage on your ass, but take the emotional Cadillac you’re dating and make her into a bad, bad girl. If you love her enough she’ll…
During this past Labor Day weekend I began to resemble Dagwood Bumstead. I stole every chance to lay
on the couch, sit in the hammock, and generally not do anything. I even got hungry at midnight on Saturday and wandered into the kitchen to make myself a midnight sandwich. I also played a lot of poker.
[My previous article about Katrina’s effect on our economy is echoed in today’s New York Times, “Katrina’s Shock To The System”.]
Welcome to this edition of What I Think You Shouldn’t Miss in Sunday’s Papers.
I’m not enamored with most of the WP and NYT Katrina coverage, finding it either heart-rending stories of tragedy, boring and pointless analysis of the politics of hurricane relief, or updates on the relief effort that were went out of date within the time it took to print the paper. My cynicism at the politics around disaster relief are centered around the belief that no matter how badly the relief is bungled, the President will not feel any serious political damage, and therefore nobody from his cabinet will lose their jobs. The Bush’ are fiendishly loyal. In the rare case of complete incompetence, such as in the case of George Tenet’s al-Qaeda-ignorant CIA, the perpetrators are given medals of Freedom instead of held accountable. I admit that I am cynical, but my cynicism has been beaten into me by five years of no accountability, not affected out of laziness. If Bush’s Cabinet worked for Mindshare, I would have fired them all a long time ago. (And I hate firing people.)
Mathew Gross, one of my coworkers at Mindshare, is fascinated by economic bubbles. While talking on Friday about a client matter, I diverted him to a question that’s been eating away at me for days: "If economic shocks tends to pop or cement the deflation of a particular bubble, what bubble will be popped by the economic shock of Hurricane Katrina?"
Antigua won a judgement in the WTO that prohibits the US from unfairly denying Americans the right to gamble online with Antigua’s net-based casinos. Sometime around April 2006 the US will have to either change domestic laws for gambling to be fair across the board to both American and Antiguan operators, or stop harassing companies that facilitate business with gambling sites in Antigua.
I sat down at the President Casino’s $4/$8 game with only a little trepidation. I more or less broke even in this game the last time I was here, with no awful swings. I was avoiding the tourney this time since I fared so poorly in it last time. As I took my seat, I noticed a young kid (who plays like a maniac) on my left who couldn’t stop talking to me. I wished I’d brought an iPod.
Last week while I was in San Francisco I picked up the new Google Search desktop tool. I had the first
one but found it occasionally frustrating, and I didn’t enjoy having it index my hard drive, which seemed to take forever.
So it’s my first full day back from "paternity leave". I’ve been calling it "maternity leave", only to have Sarah correct my gender choice for the phrase. I only beg to differ because "paternity leave" sounds like someone forced me to take responsibility for a child I was denying was actually mine. But here, in front of all of you, I admit it. Sarah is my baby momma.
On Sunday, I started out my day in the Mission in CA and said to Sarah and a friend, "The NYT Magazine is the only thing worth reading in the Sunday paper!"
Ok, so I’m full of crap.