List of Unusual Deaths

An endless source of interest.

1959: In the Dyatlov Pass incident, Nine ski hikers in the Ural Mountains abandoned their camp in the middle of the night in apparent terror, some clad only in their underwear despite sub-zero weather. Six of the hikers died of hypothermia and three by unexplained fatal injuries. Though the corpses showed no signs of struggle, one victim had a fatal skull fracture, two had major chest fractures (comparable in force to a car accident), and one was missing her tongue. The victims' clothing also contained high levels of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter.

Steady State Scenario

So I think I've finally hit equilibrium with everything nowadays. I'm used to my job out here in Jersey, used to the landscape, used to the people. Overall, my decision to come out here hasn't been that bad of one. Even if I end up returning to Minnesota or moving on to somewhere else, I'm definitely better for the experience.

Anyway, this weekend is a big mystery to me so far. I was originally planning to go to a concert on Sunday night, but with my daytrip companion seemingly gone in a puff of smoke, I'm not exactly sure where those plans rest now. It sucks to waste $100, so I asked a few friends, but none could make the drive over to Atlantic City with me. Oh well. I may just end up giving the tickets to Whitney, 'cause hopefully somebody could make use of them.

In other news, I got my bills for the month today and apparently my electric bill is about 1/4 of what it was in July. My air conditioning must be ridiculously out of whack; for a 1000 square foot apartment, there's no way I could have used $340 worth of electricity unless there's something seriously wrong. The differential between July and this month is $260 for gas plus electric. This means that apparently running my air conditioning costs me just under $10 per day. Sweet. I guess I'll avoid using it for the next forever.

It's raining now, downpouring even. I can hear it through the roof of the building, which is weird since it's never happened before. If the giant ship on top of this building falls on me and crushes me as the roof caves in, Leigh gets my stuff.

God, it's October in 56 minutes. I've been living here officially for four months. This is my sixteenth week at work; already done with about 33% of a work year. Crazy.

This American Life

Now, I know I've been on a financial kick as of late, but this is truly worth checking out no matter what your opinion is of the whole bailout fiasco.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

Seriously. The most gut-wrenching part, for me:

"Steve Pennington: It means they're 90 days, basically delinquent on their loan.

Adam Davidson: Is this the matrix? Where the guy is looking at the green digits, and says there's the redhead and the blonde. Are you, Steve, seeing lives here?

SP: I definitely see lives.

AD: For the record, I see cccc36c36. I do not see human drama.

SP: The drama here is you have someone paying their loan, then something happened. They've gone 3 months, delinquent...They got to this point of 6, then fought back to current.

AD: Now that I've learned the code, I see it. Like here, he was on time for a bunch of months. This one, he was on time, 30 days, 30 days, then he went two months behind, came back. And now he's just behind.

SP: And what's really hard about this, is you can watch people cycle on and off."

As far as my schedule in the coming week:

Monday - 16:00 to 24:00 (8 hours)
Tuesday - 15:00 to 24:00 (17 hours)
Wednesday - 15:00 to 24:00 (26 hours)
Thursday - 7:30 to 16:00 (34.5 hours)
Friday - 10:00 to 16:00 (40.5 hours)

Very easy week. Already have three days of comp time built up, too!

Internet!

BREAKING: John McCain pulls fire alarm to avoid taking midterm

So the newsmedia has been abuzz about the "sudden" economic crisis everyone has seen coming. The solution has to walk a fine line; it has to be effective enough to pour confidence back into the market and lift the troubled firms back to a self-sustainable point, but it can't let Wall Street run rampant. That rampant running is what got us into the mess in the first place.

The solution? In my mind, the Democratic Congress needs to come up with a sound and comprehensive plan to dole out the necessary funds in a way that can be controlled, contained, and tracked. The discretion of such a large sum cannot be in the hands of a monarch or oligarch; it needs to be given a maximum level of scrutiny by economists working for the government. Without oversight, greed could take the reigns again and the bigwigs will hop out of the plane with their golden parachutes in hand.

The money may very well be necessary, or at least that's what a lot of top economists are saying. Without it, interdependent business could be dragged down next until only commodity stocks are left standing. This leads to a ridiculous amount (projected 20-30% by some sources, such as Bernanke's testimony) of dollar devaluation, slows imports, and loss of assets/liquidity.

The Democratic Congress needs to author a bill that they can accept, with the necessary transparencies and regulations strapped to it. They can't compromise on this; it can't be pushed through haphazardly no matter how necessary it is now. The bill must have an amount of oversight and control that allows the government to slip its tendrils into the banks it is helping directly. If the banks recover, they owe what they got back; it might take a phased recovery cycle, but it is necessary to hold the banks accountable for what they received in help. And if they fail? The US will have more problems than $700 billion of loans.

Once the bill is crafted and passed, Congress can adjourn. The President can take or leave the bill; if he accepts it, he's making concessions he doesn't like (oversight, regulatory changes, etc). If he vetoes the bill, well, hold on tight because in all likelihood it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The bottom line is that the Democrats need to grow a spine and stand up to the deregulatory, lock-step Republicans on this one. Put provisions in place that will tighten the regulations on the entire banking industry with the bill. Make sure this never, ever happens again.

EDIT: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=798161
Yes, let's inflate our way out of the problem. This is exactly the wrong thing to do; devaluing the dollar further is digging the hole deeper.

A very good description of a possible scenario
lending freezes up. Companies can't get short term financing to pay wages, fly their sales people around etc, and start falling over (LOTS of companies are profitable, but only get cash at certain times of the year depending on when people pay them, so they borrow for day-to-day and pay it back as needed.). People can't start new companies because nobody will lend them money. Tons of people lose their jobs at the same time. The 11 trillion dollar debt that the govt has probably wont help them attend to the unfortunates. Bio fuel farms are converted to cabbage farms to supply soup kitchens. unless this 700 odd billion dollar injection helps us deflate the bubble in an orderly fashion.

GNV FLA

"We have our history
Just you and me
But our future gets talked away
Steps three and four
Staying drunk and sit on this porch
Planning out how to escape
We're two trucks stops off the interstate
The promised land with a twist of fate
We're a town for all the lost and found
So sit tight in your smokey room
Still buzzed from this afternoon
I may be going broke
But i'm never broken down

He says Florida is slowly sinking
Sinking into the ocean
He says the housing tracts are built on half facts
And the rest on half fiction
And I can't argue that statistics
Are becoming the definition
Of just standing still between glass and steel
Drowning in this quicksand.

And the city's skyline hasn't looked the same
Since the boom in south Florida's real estate.
It's turning into more than I can take.
Too much too soon, too little too late."

Schedule for the Weeeeeek

So it's late but oh well.

Monday - 15:30 to 24:00 (8.5 hours)
Tuesday - 15:30 to 24:00 (17 hours)
Wednesday - 15:30 to 24:00 (25.5 hours)
Thursday - 11:30 to 24:00 (38 hours)
Friday - 7:30 to 16:00 (46.5 hours)

So plenty of overtime to be had, wahoo. Lots of late evenings, and a semi-painful Friday which requires me to get up somewhat early, but it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Hahahahaha. 1983 UN Resolution: Declares that education, work, health care, proper nourishment, national development are human rights (132 to 1; vetoed by USA). UN Resolutions against apartheid South Africa (110 to 1, 149 to 1, 140 to 1, 145 to 1; all vetoed by USA).

21:23 - An interesting graphic about the Security Council's veto activity.

Movies Are Always Better With Explosions

So apparently the 35W bridge magically reappeared this morning after thirteen months of being collapsed. The opening ceremony was muted, consisting of a couple troopers driving over first and keeping everyone from racing across to be the first across the newly-christened bridge. (If objects need names to be christened, my vote is for the new bridge's name to be Queen Elizabeth II) It'll be cool to go back and drive across it after the hullabaloo that was the collapse last August.

To appease Scott's numerous requests, I'll tell about a couple good sights I've seen in the past few months. First, on the evening when I went alone into Philadelphia to meet up with my friend Kate, I saw several interesting people. First of all, was a gentleman in a full cowboy getup. White suit, white slacks, boots with spurs, huge cowboy hat, and he carried with him one of those horse heads on a stick like you had when you were a kid. I was hoping in the time that I could watch him he would "mount up" and gallop regally down the street, but sadly he simply strode around the corner. Also of interest were the two lovable street urchins playing the fiddle and dancing. I wanted to ask them to play "Come On Eileen" for the dollar in change I gave them, but decided not to. The park near the 12th and Locust station was lack of any free benches thanks to the homeless people (stereotypically) sleeping on them with newspapers covering their faces.

My local 7-11 is now home to a very interesting character! I don't know where he came from or if he even works at the place, but I've seen him on three occasions cleaning up the parking lot. He sweeps up the trash into a dustpan-thing and then empties the dustpan by the door. I don't know if he later cleans it up, but it doesn't seem like the 7-11 parking lot has been any more sparklingly clean than usual. He also has a habit of muttering to himself constantly. I've seen him do this from my car several times, as his mouth is always moving. The time I walked by him into the store, he said "well that's what happens if you get in front of it, the spray's gonna hit ya" before I managed to escape earshot.