Hold on-- not in all college students, and not all in college students, and not in all college students in all times...

Time Magazine's A Frosh New Start describes Vanderbilt University's $150M public works project to create an all/every freshman 10 dorm "Commons" where-- if I read this right-- they "will help first-years get acclimated to college life."

I suppose it occurred to no one that the "college life" these first-years are getting acclimated to is exactly the kind of artificial world of the Commons?

Previously heterosexual Callie becomes involved in a relationship with a female doctor, Erica.  But when they "do it," as Callie later describes to Mark Sloan, she didn't like it.

"It was not good at all.  I choked,  I just couldn't go down there, I tried, but it felt so weird..." 

[Mark gets up and leaves.  Where is he going?]

"Two girls getting nasty and loving it; that's hot.  One girl talking about how much it sucked, it's depressing.  And wrong.  Just wrong."

The article is actually called The Lengthening of Childhood, but somewhere sometime the other phrase caught on, which is a shame, because this phrase is much more accurate.

You know that 17 year old kid who thinks Obama is Muslim and Europe is a country and any girl that doesn't sleep with him is a slut?  I found someone dumber than him.  Wasn't hard, either.

Guys, remember that time when you were 24 and you were on the subway, and you saw that girl  with the glasses reading a book wearing a black leather coat, and you were obsessing over whether to go up to her or not but then your stop came, and you were like, screw it, she'll probably mace me, so you got off and went to the library to study for your chem exam?

You chose wrong.

The Pew Research Center asked 3612 adults three questions:

1. Which party controls the U.S. House of Representative?
2. Who is the Secretary of State?
3. Who is the Prime Minister of Great Britain?

And they found something interesting that they did not report.

And if you dispute that, I am coming over to your house, pants down and guns blazing.

And what you think I'm going to say next reveals your educational and political biases.

The news is out: US to buy stakes in banks, first since Depression.

An Act For Establishing Certain Regulations For The Better Management Of The Affairs Of The East India Company, As Well In India As In Europe US Banking System

Whereas the several powers and authorities granted by charters to the united company of merchants in England trading to the East Indies to banking companies have been found, by experience, not to have sufficient force and efficacy to prevent various abuses which have prevailed in the government and administration of the affairs of the said united company, as well at home as in India abroad, to the manifest injury of the public credit, and of the commercial interests of the said company; and it is therefore become highly expedient that certain further regulations, better adapted to their present circumstances and condition, should be provided and established: ...

By these acts is established the United States of America Company.  We are all mercantilists now.  Auspico Presidentis et Senatus Americaniae.

(Original idea here.)

     Pearson's r = 0.943, that's amazing.
     Maybe CNBC viewers are exhausted.  But they're checking out, and if Professor Pearson has anything to say about this, VIX has to fall very soon.
     FYI, the VIX is at the highest point in 20 years.  Remember 800.  It is inevitable.
I'll write something funny, maybe about narcissism, for you all on Saturday.  You know, to go with the rum.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.  Move.

If you do not need to sell, don't.

The markets are tanking more than is necessary for even the most severe recession.  What makes it scary is that it is happening in days, not months, relentless-- it's happening in internet time. 

The S&P500 goes to 800 and Dow to 7500, these are inevitabilities.  But you can't trade it because the volatility is too high-- so don't.

Some people need to sell-- especially hedge funds caught the wrong way; or people selling the good stocks to raise money to cover debts, taxes, redemptions, whatever.

If you have cash and can wait for 800 and 7500, then feel free to buy then.  Stocks aren't falling, they are being stomped on, compressed.  When the real companies rebound, their stocks will likely explode higher, like.. a coiled spring.

Let me quote the late, great, Mitch Hedberg: "I'm tired of following my dreams. I'm just going to figure out where they're going, and hook up with them later."

Don't follow the market.  Just meet it at 800.

Financial turmoil directed by CNBC; a U.S. Presidential election so important that they are running a guy no one really ever wanted vs. a guy no one's ever heard of in an election subtitled  "More of The Same vs. Less Of Everything."  May you live in interesting times.

Here are five other things you don't want that are coming:

1.  The return of pubic hair and mustaches. 

(From The New Yorker)


You mean I get to pick?

This is not an anti- or pro-Obama article, so get over yourself.

Updated 12 years later.

Font, spacing, line spacing, color, layout, etc-- if anyone has an eye for design, some help would be appreciated.

And please no "one huge design flaw is you're an idiot!" jokes.  I'm already aware of those.  That's what the rum is for.