Tangents

You know, Ralph Nader would still like people to take notice of him. So he’s reduced himself to talking to parrot. Sadly, it’s a good idea. As Reagan proved, animals make for effective ads.

I find the following piece of financial news weirdly funny:

NEW YORK (Sept. 15, 2008) ― Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced component changes in the Dow Jones Financial Services Titans 30 Index.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (United States, Financial Services, LEH) will be removed from the Dow Jones Financial Services Titans 30 Index and replaced by Mega Financial Holding Co. Ltd. (Taiwan, Financial Services, 2886.TW). Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is being removed because it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Titans Index? The Mega Financial Holding Co. Ltd? These corporate types are such a bunch of weirdos.
Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming Jack Donaghy wouldn’t be out of place in this news item.

Each one of us was harmed by being brought into existence. That harm is not negligible, because the quality of even the best lives is very bad-and considerably worse than most people recognise it to be. Although it is obviously too late to prevent our own existence, it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people. Creating new people is thus morally problematic.

From David Benatar’s book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Noted at Crooked Timber. Interesting!

…if you account for the relative worth of medals won and the Gross National Income (purchasing power parity adjusted) of the countries. Puts Australian’s being “beaten” by Britain in context.

Unsurprisingly Jamaica does best of all. Here’s the table as cooked up by the number crunchers at Crooked Timber:

Here’s the Crooked Timber post.

If you haven’t watched it via bit torrents (like me) or on  the BBC (like my mum), then you should tune into RTÉ 2 at 11.30pm tonight for Mad Men. It’s an excellent drama set in the New York advertising industry in the early 60′s. Expect great production design, intricate character development, a wide ranging portrait of a ‘tribe’ of characters and to be totally engrossed.
The plots develop slowly, but that’s natural in a show of this type. Think of it in the same vein as The Sorprano’s or The Wire where the aim is to depict a complex group of people, their interactions and their place in the world. Season 2 is currently airing in the States.