I always thought drum and bass shows, the good ones at least, bore a conspicuous resemblance to radical evangelical Protestant church services. Apparently I'm not the only one who has noticed this. There are a whole bunch of these things out there:



This is both hilarious and bad ass all at the same time. BO SELECTA! OH MY GOSH!

Well, tonight was the first big showdown between Barack Obama and John McCain. When I watch debates like these, I tend to be pessimistic with regards to the prospects of my own candidate. I guess that's just a function of me being a Democrat: I'm accustomed to losing, so I'm always prepared for the worst. But over the last few days, McCain's behavior has been so damned strange that I half expected the guy to come unstuck and descend into hysterics right on the stage. Lucky for him he didn't do that tonight; in fact in some ways I think he commanded the debate in ways I didn't imagine he would do.

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I generally don't give a crap what celebrities have to say about politics, but this clip of Matt Damon speaking about Sarah Palin pretty much captures how I feel right now.



I think it is a terrible, terrible mistake to think that Obama has this election wrapped up, or to take for granted that typical voters have any idea what the sufficient qualifications for the office of the presidency are. The fact that McCain is getting a significant bump by nominating this wack-job is proof of the degeneracy of a huge portion of the electorate, and it happens to be the very same degenerate hoard that won Bush his second term. If Democrats can't mobilize sensible swing voters and non-voters to cast a vote for fucking reality, we will lose this election.

Starts from my place, ends at my place ...
Elm Bottom Hill Training

Sheldon Brown, Patron Saint of Bike Mechanics, has died.

It all started with this.

If you haven't been following the Anonymous raids on Scientology, it's worth checking out, if for no other reason than its a window into the weird world of underground internet activist doings.




http://partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology

http://chanology.ytmnd.com/


http://www.711chan.org/

http://www.myspace.com/doitforthelulz

As if anyone actually gives a shit what's going on with my fake stock portfolio, I feel the need to point out that my somewhat bearish, partly peak-oil inspired strategy seems to be doing modestly well on days when the market does poorly (requires a facebook login). Oil topped $91 today, and settled at $90.92, after sliding a bit following a couple of days of profit-taking, and I predict maybe two more such selloff episodes before we see oil close at $100 (Possibly one tomorrow, one at $95, and maybe one if we see a midday $100). Refiners are taking a turn for the positive after a long period of suckitude, which makes me think that gas prices are set to recouple to the price of oil after having been out-of-sync for a while, and margins on liquid fuel are likely to begin their recovery before too long. I've got way too much apple stock, which took an ass-eating today, but I'm still up 7%. I'll be getting out of the Apple position soon, but not today; I think there's still another run left in the stock. Meanwhile the total market is slightly down, which means I'm up somewhat. We'll see if my plan holds together once the shit really hits the fan ...

As all of the ringers know I've been out of the weblogging pocket for quite some time. This mostly has to do with two things: a lack of time, and a lack of conviction that any of my own opinions and observations about the state of the world constitute any kind of actual contribution to anything. But the election cycle is getting underway, and now that I'm out of school and on a new schedule, I have a few more opportunities to undertake some things of a creative or constructive nature. That means, among other things, blogging.

Among my more recent preoccupations in the realm of current events are the related phenomena of the housing bust, the declining value of U.S. currency, the rising cost of energy, food and other commodities, and the way all of these things manifest themselves in the abstract world of securities trading. This has led to my occasional perusal of the research pages of Sharebuilder.com, where I've taken a particular interest in Exchange Traded Funds. I've begun wondering: if I knew there was a recession on the horizon as a result of the above mentioned economic factors, what kind of portfolio of ETF would I do best to build, given the modest nature of my own financial resources?

The Peak Oiler in me says to invest in oil, the value of which is almost certain to exceed $100 a barrel within the next year. But what other kinds of things of value might I do well to buy? If the number of home foreclosures continues to rise, would I do well to invest in rental properties and commercial real-estate, or should I seek to get into housing while things are sucking, banking on the prospect that things have to get better at some point. I'm pretty certain ethanol is over-valued, but should I be buying basic materials and commodities? Will food prices keep rising?

Utilities will probably go up as well, but what about non-liquid fuel renewable energy, like solar and wind? Will shortages in these sectors keep prices high as demand grows, or will said shortages eventually depress demand?

And how about the dollar? Should I be buying up Euros and Yen while I wait for the U.S. currency collapse? Is there anything the fed can do to reverse this trend without creating a deflationary economy? The world's banks sure are skittish about the trustworthiness of American currency. Should I be?

Or is the best recession portfolio none at all?

You know an idea has taken taken root in the popular consciousness when they make a video game out of it. KAOS and THQ have developed a first person shooter, scheduled for release in early 2008, based on a quasi-apocolyptic Peak Oil scenario. Video clips ensue: