Case in point: Almost 80% of NFL players near bankruptcy two years after they retire.

I guess if you’re going to have a military, you should teach your soldiers about the rules of war, somehow… But PowerPoint? Really?

One imagines that in the original .ppt version, these bullet points (pun intended?) “Civilians!” “Medical personnel!” and “Prisoners!” would fly in from the right side of the slide, with that car-zooming-and-screeching-to-halt sound effect.

Perhaps the excessive use of PowerPoint is the real war crime here…

Breitbart’s not done yet.  He is having so much fun he now wants to take down the “institutional left,” and he believes this will happen “within the next three weeks”:

He might be referring to his appearance on former Congressman (and radio personality!) Ernest Istook’s Harvard Institute of Politics study group, “Propaganda in American Politics.”  Breitbart is scheduled to be a guest speaker next week, which falls within the deadline he gave on a Fox News show that attracts more viewers at 3AM than CNN at 8PM.

This is a must-not-miss event.  What better way to take down the institutional left than to corrupt influence the minds of young Harvard intellectuals who will lead the institutions?  It worked for Peggy Noonan.

(EDIT:  Didn’t happen.  Some anti-global warming guy came instead.  The institutional left survives.)

[Media Matters via Gawker]

A newly released ad from Carly Fiorina features a red-eyed “Demon Sheep” which is a guy dressed up as a sheep. Most of the ad sucks, so if you don’t want to watch all 3 minutes of it, skip ahead to 2:25. [WP]

Brown began using Twitter as a way to connect to his fans after he pleaded guilty and was sentenced for beating his then-girlfriend Rihanna.

Whether it was an attempt to garner favorable public relations in the wake of an image-shattering event or just a late adaptation to the microblogging craze, Brown had spent the months after the incident using his Twitter account to reach and connect with 172,366 followers.

He tweeted regularly thanking his fans for their continued support and sounding off after concerts.

It was unclear what specifically sparked Brown to delete his account, named “mechanicaldummy,” He had started the day with a normal “good morning” message to his fans.

12/14/09.  NEVER FORGET.

Now they need to go back to more Tiger Woods coverage.

The title of the lecture is “From Ayn Rand to Ken Feinberg — How Quickly the Paradigm Shifts.  What Should Be the Rationale for Government Participation in the Market?”  We guess he will talk about how different New York would be if he could take down Wall Street and whatnot.  That and/or prostitutes.  [Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard] [Office of the Arts at Harvard]

For me this discussion went by the wayside until just recently, when Professor Jeffrey Frieden lectured about the “unholy/impossible trinity” in international economics (formally derived from the Mundell-Fleming model).  Basically, a country can at any time only choose two of three goals:  1) a fixed or pegged exchange rate, 2) an independent monetary policy, and 3) free capital mobility. Given a world where there is free capital mobility or capital controls can be avoided, countries will have to choose between 1 and 2.  Although this is a simplistic way of looking at the model, one could argue that the US, which lets its currency float, has chosen 2.  More information about this here and here.

What  does this mean?  Probably nothing.  Maybe the person in charge of achievements  had studied economics and was just having fun with the idea.  Or maybe “impossible trinity” is one of those blanket terms that can refer to many things that come in 3′s, not just economics.  Heck, I could write the religious hypothesis after this.  But that should not stop the mass speculation!  If you can only have 2 out of 3 characters, what are the GTA-specific reasons why you can’t have the 3rd?  Is Niko Bellic representative of fixed exchange rates or free capital mobility?

…

Ok, it was probably just a broad term or a reference to religion.  Extending economic models and hypotheses to try to interpret video game lore will just lead to a cluster****.

My instinctual reaction was to ask:  Hey, is Azarenka some newly formed nation-state in the WTO? Are other countries praising its commitment to lower tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade at the Doha Round?

Well, the name actually refers to Belorussian tennis player Victoria Azarenka.  The Doha debut is…a tennis match.  Oy, this needs to be tagged under both “n00bs” and “win.”

Choices, choices.

Found at a Best Buy in Cambridge, MA.  Right next to each other.

Then it happened. Possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life, and easily a moment I will eventually have to redeem myself for: Carson Daly walked in the Green Room…and I didn’t punch him in his face.

[. . .]

I saw him, my fight or flight response kicked in, and…well…I ran. Right to the bar, where I downed three vodka doubles in what felt like 30 seconds, got my courage up and went over to blast him in the face…and he was gone.  I know, I know. I failed. I am sorry.  I can’t remember the last time I was so utterly and completely disappointed in myself.  I promised many friends of mine that when I came out here, if I ever saw Carson Daly and I was drunk enough, I would beat his ass. I let my friends down.  But don’t worry–this has only begun. I’ll get Carson one day.

About a year later he added that he wouldn’t target Daly anymore:

He admitted on Conan that he is a douche-bag, which kinda steals my thunder. At this point, kicking his ass doesn’t really serve the purpose I wanted it to. If even he knows he’s a douche-bag, what fun is that?

And now with his appearance on Daly’s show to promote himself (and some movie project) the 180 is complete.  The end.

A local TV station that reported on Chicagoans NOT wanting the Olympics has been told NOT to run the report again, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT!  The Chicago Olympic Committee told FOX Chicago that its broadcast “would harm Chicago’s chances” to be awarded the games.  The station’s news director ordered staff to hold fire after the report aired once last Thursday morning, claims a source.

There is just something odd about the group’s website.  It looks too slick and polished to be from a source that does not have a vested interest in moving the Olympics to Rio (an interest other than saving Chicago money).  My initial guess was that President Lula da Silva created an elite Brazilian PR task force to besmirch Chicago days before the official selection.  After watching the Chicagoans in the video, Lula da Silva most likely hired a U.S.-based PR firm instead.  Even better, maybe some people in Madrid or Tokyo wanted to kill two birds with one stone and tried to do so by making Brazil look like crap for making Chicago look like crap.

That, or 4chan is playing a big lolnoob on everyone.

Let the countdown to the 2016 LOLympics begin!

EDIT:  FOX Chicago reports that the anti-Chicago website may be based in Rio. [FOX Chicago]

…it’s probably all just an inside job from the Chicago political machine.

The post is titled “Día de la Constitución y la Ciudadanía,” which is Mexican for “The day we give up our constitution to Mexico and give citizenship to Mexicans,” and in the Spanish version of the proclamation (which was placed before the English), Obama calls himself:

EL PRESIDENTE DE ESTADOS UNIDOS DE NORTEAMÉRICA

So Obama has given away the Southern half of America to Mexico! Get this on Lou Dobbs’ desk RITE NAO.