you wanted a hit

"when the constitution was destroyed, the u.s. ceased to exist. what exists today are power centers that are unaccountable. elections mean nothing, as both parties are dependent on the same powerful interest groups for campaign funds. the most powerful interest groups are the military/security complex, which includes the pentagon, the CIA, and the corporations that service them, the american-israel public affairs committee, the oil industry that is destroying the gulf of mexico, wall street (investment banks and hedge funds), the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies and the agri-companies that produce food of questionable content."

wow. that is not from some crackpot blogger, like myself. no, that is paul craig roberts, former assistant secretary of the treasury in the reagan administration.

read the whole thing here.

last night, an umpire blew a call in the ninth inning to steal a perfect game away from a tiger pitcher. a perfect game. again. we have had two this year and if he would have gotten the call right, we would have had three. with more than half the season to go. including the two from this year, we've had 20 perfect games in the history of baseball. if the ump would have gotten the call right, we would have 21. with 14% of them this year!!!! that's incredible!! the year of the pitcher is upon us.

tentative decisions

so what is high frequency trading (HFT)? well, i'm glad you asked.

several concepts should be understood first. they include (this comes from the PBS nightly business report website):

1. many tiny opportunities: HFT traders target opportunities to make minuscule returns and pursue millions or billions of those opportunities in a day.

2. advance tech: HFT is not possible without the rapid identification of a myriad of trading signals, a task that requires advanced computing technology.

3. latency arbitrage: HFT traders take advantage of latency arbitrage, which is defined as buying or selling a stock or other investment slightly ahead of other market participants who do not have the ability to rapidly identify small changes in prices.

4. raw feeds: HFT traders get their price data directly from stock exchanges. these raw feeds get them the data they need milliseconds before more consolidated data feeds reach other market participants, like fund managers.

5. co-location: HFT traders often co-locate their servers in stock exchanges to reduce the distance the electronic data has to travel and, in turn, reduce the time it takes for them to identify data and make trades.

why is this important? well it seems HFT might have played a part in the "flash crash" from earlier this month. there is a potential for something to go really wrong, really quickly. a lot of these buy/sell terms are based on price fluctuations and when the determined price is achieved, it triggers a buy or a sell. because of HFT, the buy/sell could be millions of options, as indicated in point 1 from above. the "flash crash" is a potentially small example of what might happen.

now that we know this, let's watch a funny video from samantha bee further detailing HFT.

also, here is an interview with james murphy of lcd soundsystem. excellent piece.

the national to houston

get out your october calendars. the national are coming to town.

never gonna give you up

i'm not in the camp that believes it's always sunny in philadelphia is the best show on the television. i don't think it's in the same category as seinfeld and it's for sure not in the same category as arrested development, seeing as how arrested development was the greatest television ever. period. seinfeld is firmly entrenched at number two, with the simpsons taking hold of the number three spot and newsradio holding firm at four. number five is TBA. number 135 on the list is mama's family. the mama's family with bubba, not the pre-bubba years. and how was bubba supposed to be a teen? the guy was 35 years old?

but, the episode where mac and charlie try out for the eagles is pretty funny stuff. mostly, the funny comes from one scene. mac and charlie are trying out for the eagles, ala, invincible. so, after the workout, they are psyched because they're going to meet donovan mcnabb, who is supposed to show up and talk to all the guys trying out. but when he gets there, it's obviously not him and charlie and mac notice this. but not only is not donovan mcnabb, it's actually the actor who played elvin on the cosby show. so charlie and mac start asking why was elvin from the cosby show there? and why was he peddling mcdonald's cheeseburgers? just the fact that they thought of replacing donovan mcnabb with elvin from the cosby show is comedic gold.

gold.

number 78 on the list is mr. belvedere, which inspired this hilarious snl skit.

strange powers

go here for the trailer for strange power: the story of stephen merritt and the magnetic fields.

here is the official website.

conversation 16

last night, i drove around the city watching a concentrated lightening storm to the west listening to the national with my windows rolled down. it was one of those nights. thinking. lots and lots of thinking.

i'm particularly moved by the line "i was afraid i'd eat your brains." that might be the best line on the album.

i also went to academy to spend a gift card that i got for my birthday last year. i wanted to buy a bandana, but they were $23.99. when i asked the lady why they were so expensive, she said simply "technology." and i asked, "like a radio?" she did not laugh.

i also watched the brothers bloom last night. great flick. i highly recommend it.

thinktank

from baseline scenario: wall stree CEO's are nuts.

from rolling stone: wall street's war

books of moses

i always create wish-lists for books and then lose them. so i'm making a very public book list that i know i'll be able to find again.

1. the end of the free market- ian bremmer
2. three felonies a day- harvey silverglate
3. the big short- michael lewis
4. 13 bankers- simon johnson
5. the black swan- nassim taleb
6. american lion- jon meacham
7. all music guide to rock- various

that's it for now.

superconnected?

(this post has generated major backstage heat. therefore, it has been removed by management. management would like to apologize for the misunderstanding. management also would like for people to take everything on this blog with two grains of salt and a stick of butter).

glosoli

hallgrimskirkja.

more fun facts.

another green world

this entry had begun as a visceral attack on BP. i was filled with righteous indignation. i had articles and articles of their complete incompetence, their spinning and their tail-covering. i had articles on the environmental impact of this calamity. i had everything. i was ready.

but i won't do that. nothing i post here will change the oil spewing into the gulf of mexico, trashing america's third coast. nothing will change the hard-liners who believe this is no big deal and nature has a way of cleaning itself and how the company is doing everything it can. they probably don't live here. they probably have never seen the coast.

the strange thing is, i smell oil right now. the more i read about it, the more my stomach churns and my nostrils are filled with the smell of petroleum. it's sickening. it's sickening for a company to post monstrous profits start to look to cap its liability when they have devastated the fishing and tourism industries of these areas and, not to mention, the marine and aquatic life. what is the impact of this? how should a company be allowed to do this and survive? where is the liability? where is the reason?

i wonder if the bonuses are still rolling in.

it's been more than a month of oil gushing into the gulf. more than a month.

i can still smell it.

the memory collector

jose lima passed away this weekend. houston has been full of big sports stars while i've lived and worked here. but most of them are boring. honestly, bagwell and biggio, two of the greatest baseball players in history played right here in houston while i grew up. the did amazing things on the field. but they were boring. jose lima was anything but boring. this dude seemed to never take anything seriously except trying to enjoy himself. i've heard a lot of interviews with him and a lot of stories about people bumping into him around town back when he was in houston. every one of them was hilarious. the guy just seriously enjoyed life. he'll be missed.

global chain reaction of debt? that sounds promising.

i never watched lost. not one episode. i assume it's about someone who has misplaced their favorite shirt. am i right?

this guy revisits f.a. hayek's road to serfdom and how it really got us or will get us. it still depends. actually, maybe not.

for all you facebook users, more and more stories about their ceo and business model are freaking me out. take a look at their privacy options.

dance yrself clean

i think that's what i'll try tonight.

failure is an option

i did not pass BEC.

honestly, i'm stunned. i thought i had it. now i have to take it again. with two more sections that i still have not passed.

this process is soul-sucking.

world sick

i believe i sent this link to most everyone i know. maybe i forgot some folks, so i posted it. the volcano in question is located at the southern tip of iceland. when we went on our honeymoon, we stayed in reykjavik, mostly. we went into the interior on one trip and that was to the glacier langjokull. we actually snowmobiled up that glacier. it was the quietest moment of my life. it was the only moment of my life where i felt like i was not on earth.

anyway, iceland is an incredible place. for more interesting facts on iceland, go here. while you're there, please disclose all federal offenses.

the fix is in

elbow continues to make me sweat.

"the fix is in, the odds that i got were delicious,
the fix is in, the jockey was cocky and vicious."

the family gardener

this is one of my favorite moments in the jeff tweedy solo tour DVD:

go here if you are curious.

excuses

with all the great albums coming out this year, one is being unjustly overlooked. the big echo by the morning benders is a freakin' great album. it was produced by one of the dudes from grizzly bear. check out the first track and it's overall beach boys tone. promises, the next track on the album, has a video. go here. you will not be let down by checking out this album. add it the list of great albums from 2010.

don't forget the flowers

this is an amaryllis flower. at my last audit, i was standing outside a building taking pictures of this flower to show my wife and the owner of company, who is like 80, i should say owner and founder of the company comes over and starts talking to me about the flower and he tells me to take three! he gives me his pocketknife and says take it and leave it with the secretary when i'm done and take three of them. that was awesome. what is funny is that i actually went to a banquet honoring this man a few months before hand. he is a kind dude.

anyway, enjoy the flower.

remember the alamo

last night i had a dream that for some reason we had to reenact the battle of the alamo. now most reenactments are staged, where no one really gets hurt or killed. this one, however, was going to be a real, brutal reenactment of the battle. i have no clue how i was picked. i just remember preparing the day before the battle was to take place and looking around going, "tomorrow, i'm going to die at the alamo." and everybody seemed to be okay with it. there were just a few of us, obviously, like the real battle. one was andy bernard from the office. he was there.

so the day of the battle, i called my mom and told her goodbye. she was upset about what was going to happen to me, but didn't question why the hell the battle was taking place in the first place. that's what makes me think it had to be done for some serious reason between the u.s. and mexico, like we had to do it again for mexico to feel better about itself or something. i don't know. but she was sad.

so they bused us over there to the alamo. now, mind you, this is modern day san antonio. so there are buildings all around the alamo. big ones. and hotels and shops and all sorts of crap. they bus us right up to the alamo and let us out and start putting us into place. my place was on top of the alamo, the actual cathedral part. i get up there and look out at about 5,000 mexican troops, who i believe were normal people like me. i started chanting U.S.A! U.S.A!, which got the crowd going, but i felt stupid afterward because i should have been chanting something about texas. that made more sense.

now if you have read this far, you will disappointed because i woke up. just like that. no battle. no start to the battle. nothing. i woke up before a single shot was fired. i had already picked out who i was going to shoot first and i woke up. i was so seriously worried about how i was going to die at the alamo that i think my brain let me off the hook and didn't make me worry anymore. it was terrifying.

that was my battle at the alamo.

here is pitchfork's review of the national's new album.

here is the avclub.