A Glimpse of Humor in Troubled Times: The Nameless Distressed Financial Worker

There are no two ways about it, the economy is in the shitter.  Of course, there are countless articles online about why this is happening and what we can do about it, and since I have never taken anything that even resembles an economics class I will not try to tackle any of that.  Instead, I will be offering you a glimpse of humor in this dark hour that I’ve affectionately donned the nameless distressed financial worker.


The logical question you might be asking right now is: “Who is this distressed financial worker?” And here’s the kicker, nobody knows, hence the nameless.  For some reason, every day that the market tanks (which happens to be just about every day recently) all the major news outlets decide that the best way to really capture how bad the day truly was is to slap the picture of a nameless distressed financial worker on their front page.  Seriously.  Take a look, it won’t take long.   It’s a pandemic.  CNN.  Yahoo!  MSNBC.  Nobody is immune.  It’s pretty easy to spot one of these boys, his hands are usually up around his head and he has either a completely devastated or totally blank look on his face, depending on how that particular nameless individual chooses to convey his daily grief.

My favorite part is that there is never any explanation as to who this guy is, where he is working, or if he is even related to the market.  Yet he appears to know something about finances, is upset about it, and you should be too.  One might think that there are better ways to convey these difficult times to the masses, say a graph, or some actual numbers, and that’s just off the top of my head.

I have written several posts in the past about how poor our major news outlets are in terms of conveying real information to the masses but in this case I really think they hit it on the head.  So bring it on, at least while I watch my money swirl around the drain into oblivion I can take solace in laughing at those who are losing even more money.

-Ritt

Published in:  on October 24, 2008 at 7:40 am Comments (2)
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Star Wars Episode VII: We Can Blow up Satellites too China!

dannypolitics

Sure we’re in the middle of a historically close presidential primary and one of the world’s most infamous dictators just stepped down, but there are some big things happening out on the Pacific Ocean today. Really big things. Like shooting a freaking satellite out of orbit with a missile from a navy cruiser type big things. Yes, that is correct. As I am typing this CNN is reporting that the navy is “watching the sea and sky Wednesday waiting for perfect conditions to take a kill shot on an errant satellite 150 miles above them.” Wait, what? They are going to shoot a missile 150 miles into our atmosphere to shoot down a satellite? In the words of Larry David: “are you fucking nuts?”

Missile

Here’s the deal. In December, 2006 the United States launched a satellite that immediately malfunctioned and thus never made it into orbit. In other words, it’s falling towards earth, quickly. So, the government wants to blow it out of the sky before it could potentially hit earth carrying over a thousand pounds of unspent fuel. We’re talking potential for catastrophic damage here: complete extinction of every animal known to mankind including ourselves. Just kidding of course. Apparently worst case scenario is if the satellite even does fall to earth, which is certainly not a given, it would cause destruction of an area roughly the size of two football fields. To avoid the 200 yard crater scenario they’re going to blow it up in an attempt to break it into small enough pieces so it will simply burn up in our atmosphere. Sounds like a plan.

Sweet Explosion

But there’s a catch. Isn’t there always? Some experts are wondering what the motivation for taking this shot really is. A few years back the Chinese space program was forced to shoot down an old weather satellite that was in danger of meeting a similar fate. Is the United States really worried that this satellite would cause so much destruction, or are they simply spending a hundred million dollars to prove that we can compete with the Chinese? I personally think that’s the dumbest theory I’ve ever heard. Apparently there is a ten second window every day for the next two weeks or so during which they will be able to launch the missile, so cross your fingers and say goodbye to your loved ones. Or email CNN and ask them why this is their cover story when no one really cares anyway.

-Ritt

UPDATE: We did it! We’re going to be OK! CNN is reporting that the USS Erie has successfully shot down everyone’s favorite rogue satellite. The way they did it is actually pretty awesome. The missile was not loaded with any sort of explosives and simply relied on the force of the impact to blow the satellite to pieces. I guess a missile moving aa 5,000 MPH colliding with a satellite moving 17,000 MPH can create quite a bang.

Published in:  on February 20, 2008 at 11:31 am Comments (4)
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Fidel Castro Has Resigned, Is He Dead?

dannypolitics

I was on Fark.com earlier today, as I often am, and ran across an interesting article. It’s actually a blog entry by the site’s creator Drew Curtis. He brought up an interesting point: Fidel Castro resigned this morning, is it possible that he’s dead? Rumors have swirled around for years that Castro’s health has been failing and even that he kicked the bucket as early as 2006.  Could it possibly be true? Castro has not been seen in public in over a year and his resignation was announced through a letter “written” by Castro that is time stamped February 18, 2008 at 5:30 P.M. Oddly enough, news was not released until 3 in the morning that he had resigned. Of course word didn’t reach most folks’ ears till they awoke, but why release such a vital piece of information at 3 A.M?

castro

Something must have happened in the middle of the night that caused the release of perhaps some prefabricated letter in the event of his sudden death. Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming days. All three legitimate presidential candidates that are left in the race have already stated that they would support the removal of the ridiculous trade embargo if Cuba made significant steps towards democratic elections.  Power has been handed to Fidel’s brother Raul and some are questioning if any change will come to Cuba’s government at all. Whether Castro is alive or dead this is certainly something to keep an eye on.  For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t mind vacationing in Havana.

-Ritt

Published in:  on February 19, 2008 at 2:36 pm Comments (1)
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