In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey

A couple of tunes for a Wednesday morning at 3 AM.

Enjoy!

--JUAN PENA

Do I owe Ron Paul money?
Chapter 2: Their Finest Hour

So, as I have mentioned before, this summer I sublet to a Ron Paul nut. He said that the stock market is going to crash and everyone is going to buy gold to use when the economy collapses and we abandon paper money. That sounded nuts to me.

So we made a bet on whether or not the price of gold and the Dow Jones Industrial Average would converge. The gap in July was about 10,000, and I said if that closed to less than 5,000 in the next year or so then I would make a substantial to Ron Paul's congressional campaign. Or whatever.

So for the last five months, I have been watching both the price of gold and the Dow Jones. August and September were very good months for me. The gap remained at about 10,000 almost the whole time; there were only three days when Bob's predictions were ahead of the curve.

But it's been pretty ugly since then. Here are the numbers:

October 21, 2008
* Dow Jones = 9,265.43 points
* Price of Gold = $795.00
* Difference = 8,470.43

November 21, 2008
* Dow Jones = 7,552.29 points
* Price of Gold = $738.00
* Difference = 6,814.29

December 22, 2008 (no data for 12/21)
* Dow Jones = 8,579.11 points
* Price of Gold = $835.75
* Difference = 7,743.36

It's not been pretty. Bob's predictions were ahead of the curve for 33 of the 63 business days in these three months. But there are two bright spots. First, the price of gold has not risen at all. In fact, it's fallen about a hundred dollars an ounce since this summer. That's good. It means not everyone is a panicky nutjob with an irrational fear of paper money and equally irrational faith in the magical powers of gold.

Second, like the rescue of defeated Allied forces from total annihilation at Dunkirk, bailouts from the Fed have prevented a complete economic collapse and Wall Street has bravely rallied in December to save me from losing the bet and having to donate to Ron Paul.

As my good friend Winston once said:

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the American economy and its stock markets last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

So, chin up, lads. And until next time, cheerio!

--JOHANN "FNORD" WEISSHAUPT

Froeliche Weinacht!

Das Bluemelein, so kleine,
das duftet uns so suess;
mit seinem hellen Scheine
vertreibt's die Finsternis.
Wahr'r Mensch und wahrer Gott!
Hilft uns aus allem Leide,
rettet von Suend' und Tod.

--DAS SCHMERZHAUS

It's evolution, baby

I was taught that the sex of children is randomly determined. Since each sperm carries with it an X or a Y chromosome, whichever one happens to get to the egg first will determine whether the baby will be a boy or a girl. So each child has essentially a 50-50 chance either way.

But I've always thought that boys run in my family. I have more than twice as many boy cousins as girl cousins. I have one sister and four brothers, two nieces and six nephews. This never looked particularly random to me.

So this guy thinks he has proved that it's not random. In fact, it's an inherited trait passed down from father to son.

"The family tree study showed that whether you’re likely to have a boy or a girl is inherited. We now know that men are more likely to have sons if they have more brothers but are more likely to have daughters if they have more sisters . . . " Mr Gellatly explains.

...

The study suggests that an as-yet undiscovered gene controls whether a man’s sperm contains more X or more Y chromosomes, which affects the sex of his children. On a larger scale, the number of men with more X sperm compared to the number of men with more Y sperm affects the sex ratio of children born each year.

Interesting stuff. And it means that I was right all along. As usual.

--YAHYA AL-RIIFI

Hey America, you're so fine

It's a good day. I spent the morning putting up a Christmas tree with my brother and his family. Then I got online and bought presents on Amazon's Black Friday sale. This afternoon we all went out and threw the frisbee around. And of course, I'm completely full of turkey and cranberries.

Thank you, America, for being awesome. And thank you, God, for letting me be born in America.

--THE HOUSE



PS - I played this game to see how much I love America. I got a 97%. Stupid Roe v. Wade... Can't believe I missed that one. So easy.

Post Apocalypse

I for one welcome our new insect overlords...

Apocalypto

Well, I voted this morning. It took me almost two hours of waiting in line, but I cast my ballot against Obama, for Palin, and-- to a lesser degree-- for McCain, and against Biden.

Despite the fact that I have been trying hard not to care about this race, I find myself quite tense. And so in these trying hours, I turn to the words of wiser men than I for solace:

Kent Brockman: Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?
Professor: Yes I would, Kent.

Mmmmm! That's good democracy!

--JACQUES LE PEN

The Dave Barry Initiative

So... One of my roommates is getting a new game for his Nintendo Wii. I think it's Guitar Hero World Tour, but it might be Rock Band 2. Or something. I don't know.

My contribution is to think of a name for the band. Hooray! I always loved playing that game. But it's harder now that I am responsible for coming up with one that everyone in the apartment will love. (Plus Mark's fiancee Andrea wants to play and she said the name can't be sexist.)

So here are the best ones I could pull out of thin air:

* Fat Alec Baldwin
* The Sex Bulimics
* Crapspackle
* Bride of Kong
* The Walden Pond Scum
* Invisible Motorcycles
* Occam's Toothbrush
* The Reverse Vampires
* Mount Vesuvius and the Latin Explosions
* Bolivian Beach Bunnies
* The Mighty Moon Worm
* Ultimo Diaz
* Toby and the Flendersons
* The Infamous Nose of General Charles de Gaulle
* Plucking Chickens

Now, I realize that some of you will say that most of these are not great. And that's true. So if you have any suggestions, or want to voice an opinion about my crappy list of ideas, then please feel free to rock the comment box. Which, come to think of it, would be a pretty terrible band name.

--REDBEARD

Spree

I thought this financial crisis thing was, you know, a crisis. People in Washington have been talking like it's the end of the world. But their actions tell me that it's just another day in Washington, with piggies crowding the trough. The bailout bill is loaded up with the same stupid useless crap as always. And when I say useless crap, what I mean is a bunch of earmarks for things like wool research.

As Mark Steyn says:

I'm willing to be persuaded of the merits of a bill for "wool research", or the merits of a billion-trillion-gazillion-dollar bill to save the planet from economic meltdown. But the same piece of legislation cannot plausibly contain both.

I'll start worrying about the fate of the global economy when Congress quits acting like teenage kids on a shopping spree.

--JOHANNES CLERK

Once again a knife-wielding maniac has shown us the way

Good editorial here about all the posturing that is going on in Washington about the current financial problems. Here's my favorite sentence.

You can try to prevent a financial meltdown or you can teach Wall Street a lesson, but you can't do both at the same time.

I agree, and I also think that you can't prevent a financial meltdown if your first priority is, say, getting elected. John McCain said he was suspending his campaign to go to Washington and get this fixed, and I hope I see that happen. But I haven't yet.

It's not that I know what to do about this. I don't. But nobody in Congress has shown me that they know what to do about it, either. I just see a bunch of goons trying to score points by talking about what a crisis this is. Well, if it's a crisis, stop talking to the cameras and go get this fixed. Start taking things a little more seriously.

And in the meanwhile, watch this video.

--ABDUL ALEM