Read This Now - Wall Street Is Doing Fine, How About You?

In the WaPo Zachary Goldfarb gives the quick and dirty synopsis of how the Federal Government helped the big banks and Wall Street regain their footing and enjoy a quick return of record profits and growth while main street and the majority of Americans have been left to wallow in the depths of the Great Recession.

“There’s a very popular conception out there that the bailout was done with a tremendous amount of firepower and focus on saving the largest Wall Street institutions but with very little regard for Main Street,” said Neil Barofsky, the former federal watchdog for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the $700 billion fund used to bail out banks. “That’s actually a very accurate description of what happened.” 

I think the bigger takeaway is actually how quickly we've returned to business as usual with the big banks and Wall Street getting right back to crazy profits and no interest in fixing the things that got us into this mess.

It's a quick and worthwhile read.

(via @DRGrist)

The Republican Field Redux

Herman Cain is looking even less put together and Rick Perry is looking, well to be honest he looks pretty hammered.  Take it away Jon...

Here's the rest of the highlight reel from that Perry speech...



Um, just wow.

(via ND)

I Don't Watch TV Often...

And when I do it's online and with as few ads as possible and it never includes a whole episode of Jimmy Fallon's show; but every time he has Justin Timberlake on and they do one of these it's worth the time...

The Republican Presidential Field

Ladies and gentlemen, your current leading GOP hopeful is Herman Cain...

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Good luck with that.

The original ad is here.

(via TPM)

Oil Spill Skimming Breakthrough

So the BP Gulf Oil Spill last summer inspired an X Prize for oil skimming with a target of 2,500 gallons recovered per minute.  The industry average is about 1,100 gallons per minute and the team from Elastec won $1 million when they nearly doubled the 2,500 gallon per minute target.



(via NPR)

Police Academy Sound Effects Flashback

 We all remember Micheal Winslow even if we don't know his name, the Police Academy series forever cemented him and the Gute in the collective consciousness of our generation (I saw Tackleberry on something the other day as well).

Kottke unearthed this clip and I want to share it as well, forget everything you know about beatboxing and sound effects, Winslow's "guitar" work is quite literally unbelievable...



The host's face when Winslow gets going is classic.

Winslow has a website these days with more video and the like, apparently he does live shows as well.

On Food

It makes us happy, it keeps us healthy (if we eat the right things in the right amounts), it's pretty important, and it's the subject of the 2011 Blog Action Day - that's right Food!

I don't have a lot to say today on the subject, who are we kidding, I love food and have a lot to say and plenty of opinions.  Instead of rambling on and on about food though I'm going to share a couple of articles on seafood issues that have been bouncing around my to share list for a while now.  Most of these will make you think a bit, keep in mind that fishing and eating fish are complicated issues these days and no one article is ever going to give you all the info that you need or want.

Generally speaking my advice is to try to get closer to your food.  Where it comes from, who grows / raises / catches it, and how you prepare it.  Which sort of translates to stay away from overly processed stuff.

Talking Salmon - Good Food World takes a look at Alaskan Salmon fisheries and Pacific Northwest seafood retailers.

A Little Piece of Maine - Earth Justice put together a nice story on Port Clyde, ME one of the leaders in the community supported fishery movement.

To Eat or Not to Eat - A great back and forth from SeaMonster.net that I've only skimmed among a bunch of leading fisheries experts and researchers, it does get pretty wonky so be warned.


Every Last Bite - Four Fish author Paul Greenberg tells of making the most of his cod using an old Marcella recipe in the NYT.

That'll give you something to chew on for a while (see what I did there?).