This man, Jan Hatzius, is the highly respected chief economist at Goldman Sachs, and not likely one to get his predictions wrong. So when he writes a client and states:

We see two main scenarios for the economy over the next 6-9 months — a fairly bad one in which the economy grows at a 1½%-2 percent rate through the middle of next year and the unemployment rate rises moderately to 10 percent, and a very bad one in which the economy returns to an outright recession.

Then I am thinking things are looking bleak for the U.S., which will not be good for Canada or many other nations in the world. Worse, in the U.S., political leaders are planning to assume Hooverite positions when it comes to the economy. And we all know how well that went.

If you can stomach it, you can get the rest of the article here: ‘Fairly Bad’ or ‘Very Bad’ Economic Scenarios – Goldman’s Jan Hatzius Forecasts – NYTimes.com.

(Photo: Michael Falco for the New York Times)

Can be found here -> OK, Alright. Yes.

I like this in particular. A fine transformation of common objects:

If this song was Frig You, it would get alot less attention. And that would be a shame, for it is a brilliant song, with lots of reworking of classic pop/motown/soul/etc. remixed as only someone as talented as Cee-lo can do. He’s been doing this for some time now, but unlike hip hop, Cee-lo samples music from previous decades and incorporates them flawlessly into his vocals. He’s a great talent, and on this song, he continues to demonstrate that.

While there are a number of versions of this going around the Internet, this version is particularly great. He’s got the Robert Palmer thing going with the backup band, and he’s riffing on David Byrne with the pink suit. It doesn’t get better than this.

Here’s Cee-Lo Green – “Fuck You” from (Later with Jools Holland)

With Grover, no less. Just telling you that should be enough to get you to watch it…

Sesame Street: Smell Like A Monster

There’s LOTS of great music/live performances on SpinTV. Please do a search. For now, here’s one of my favourites:

Phoenix, “1901”

As hip and sexy as anything is the Noisettes doing Wild Young Hearts Acoustic on Nylon TV. Fantastic:

Bonus: here’s their hit, “Never Forget You”. Subdued, but still good.

Watching Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt dance to Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?, one of the first things I was reminded of was how she reminds me of Lucille Ball and he reminds me of Jimmy Stewart

and then I thought: these comparisons don’t mean much, other than as a “hook” into getting you to watch them. Still, there is that great quality to these performers, just like there is that great quality to Lucille Ball and Jimmy Stewart, that makes you think: I should pay attention and watch this. Whatever you think, I hope you think it is enjoyable.

And regardless of whether YOU do or not, you will want to read: Vulture Tells Keanu Reeves About ‘Sad Keanu’ — and He Approves!

Is on display here:

(From You Been Misled. You Been Had. You Been Took. – Ta-Nehisi Coates)

I don’t even want to know how much these Damien Hirst x Converse (PRODUCT)RED Chuck Taylor All Star Sneaker cost. There were only 400 of them, and anything associated with him equals big bucks. Still, I am somewhat surprised at people taking Chuck Taylors, originally a low cost shoe, and turning them into something anything but low cost. Besides these, found at Highsnobiety.com

I also found these for with Peanuts cartoons on them for €200+.

Thanks to @solangenoir on twitter for the pointer to the D Hirst’s.

I have been very impressed by the Free Microsoft Excel Templates and Spreadsheets as well as other documents found there. They have a good blog as well. And they aren’t just for Microsoft Excel: if you don’t have or can’t afford it, you can download Lotus Symphony free here at the IBM Lotus Symphony web page. (Disclosure: I am an IBM employee, but I would promote Lotus Symphony regardless.) Either way, you can use the templates to help record and track your goals and your activities.

Good luck!

Honestly, coffee will only get you so far. To go the rest of the way, you need:

YouTube – SANTÍSIMA TRINIDAD: Eso (Video oficial)

More great music from the Dr. Martens 50 list. This time it is the Noisettes. Super.

YouTube – Dr. Martens 50 – Noisettes cover Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen In Love With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve

Can be found at the Apartment Therapy New York blog. This room I love

But there are lots of great ideas for kitchens, kids rooms….brilliant.

Yabba Dabba Doo! And to mark it, Google has them on their front page! Also, The Telegraph has 15 things you don’t know about the show, including the fact the Fred and Wilma were the first couple to be shown in bed together!

This is an incredible story. I had thought that German reparations for the First World War had been shelved, but according to both the
Daily Mail Online and SPIEGEL ONLINE, they had not. There were a number of reasons why they had stopped, and why they started again, but now it is finally complete.

It is interesting to read the Daily Mail’s version of events. They make the Treaty of Versailles sound like someone everyone agreed to, when in fact it was something the Germans bitterly felt they were forced to sign. It’s also interesting to see them associate ‘quantitative easing’ with Germany’s hyperinflation. That’s ridiculous, since in it’s current use, quantitative easing is being used or considered because the central banks are up against the zero bound and inflation is too low. The central banks are considering it to deal with deflation, not hyperinflation.

(Treaty of Versailles image from Wikipedia).

In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

– Stephen Jay Gould

Stuxnet appears to be a very sophisticated piece of software that attacks industrial control systems, like those found in nuclear facilities. In particular, Iran’s nuclear facilities.

It’s always difficult to get to the root – pun intended – of these stories. However, this article, Who’s Behind Stuxnet? The Americans? The Israelis? – Security Watch, and this oneIranian nuclear facilities under “massive attack” by Stuxnet worm – Boing Boing both provide more detail than you might find in places like the NYTimes.com or Huffington Post. (Make sure you read the comments: there’s alot of useful information there.)

I am always suspicious of IT security stories. There is alot of secrecy and hype associated with them, and then journalists wade in and only acerbate that. It’s entirely possible it was written by some very smart engineer somewhere: indeed, I am more likely to go with that rather than believe it is “cyberwar”.  Let’s see how this progresses.

The superb blog, Letters of Note, has the story on this letter. I think it reads well without context, but I think you should visit the blog (now and often) to get it. It’s from an animator at Pixar to a young boy who wants to become an animator. But really, with some minor changes, it could be to anyone.

Can be found here

There are MANY great covers for Dr. Martens 50 on Youtube. I highly recommend you go look. In the meantime, here’s Buraka Som Sistema cover of the great tune Buffalo Stance.

YouTube – Dr. Martens 50 – Buraka Som Sistema cover Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance

Most Canadians have heard of Front Page Challenge. As a child I often watched it on CBC. (Heck, it was often the only thing TO watch.)

I didn’t realize that Malcolm X appeared on the show, just after he had left the Nation of Islam and had gone to Mecca, and just weeks before he was assassinated.

Fascinating. And though 45 years old, still timely, in many ways.

Boing Boing  steals a page from the Big Picture and has put together a superb photoessay that is well worth a look. Naturally, Muslims in Americans have vastly different backgrounds and widely vary in the way they look and in where they live. And this is only a small sample.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

If you love coffee and you are in Toronto, you owe it to yourself to check out the Indie Coffee Passport Toronto. The passport will give you a reason to visit some of the great cafes of Toronto and enjoy some superb coffee while you make your way through this great city. Smart.

GQ has a rundown of the fall trends for men in 2010. There’s something for everyone, from the high end three piece suit to the blue collar plaid shirt. Me, I like the lace-up boots and the black on black watches. Other things, like biker jackets, never go out of style, so get one this year and wear it/keep it for many more. See: The GQ Fall 2010 Trend Report, by Jim Moore: How to Build Your Perfect Fall Wardrobe: Wear It Now: GQ

(Three piece Dolce & Gabbana Suit, $1,995; vest, $425, available at Dolce & Gabbana boutique, NYC.)

The old expression, “you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar” may not be true when it comes to fruit flies. To see what I mean, check out this experiment at Lifehacker Labs: Capture Fruit Flies with a Cup and Apple Cider Vinegar. It turns out that the apple cider vinegar is just what you need. And now that it is harvest time, you may start having fresh fruit and fresh fruit flies appearing in your kitchen. Now you know how to banish them. Good luck!

(discovered via the Cool Tools section of Kevin Kelly’s site.)

If you are fortunate, you will have the chance to land in NYC at night. I have, and the view is stunning.

This shrunken image does it an injustice. If you want to see it and other gorgeous shots of the Big Apple at night, head over to this: Aerial views of New York | World news | guardian.co.uk.

If you fall in love with these photos, you are in luck: there is a book by Jason Hawkes called “New York at Night” that you can purchase. For more details, go here: merrellpublishers.com

It is frequently changing, but if you were to look at buying an eBook reader, you might be interested like me to know that the Kobo is now $128 while the Kindle is $139. Close, yes? Or is it? If you are interested in buying a Kindle, you really should read: What’s the real price of an Amazon Kindle in Canada? at the  Parenting: Curious Dad blog.

Caveat Emptor.

Interesting!

 Found this on Andrew Sullivan as well. It’s great, and worth a watch. But also notice the poster on the wall at the very beginning of the video.

YouTube – calls to repeal DADT!!!

Maybe this is the answer!

God as Lucy with the Football. From one of my favorite comics, Abstruse Goose

I see Lady Gaga trashed for a wide variety of things. I confess I was dismissive of her at first. However I am impressed by her theatricality and I am starting to be won over by her (even if I am not a big fan of her songs, but maybe that too will change).

What I am really impressed by, howrever, is this Public Service Announcement that she made in support of  the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network for the repeal of DADT.  Here it is:

She clearly explains what DADT and how it affects service men and women. Moreover, I thought how she ends it, with getting lost in phone mail hell, was great. It makes her Senators look bad, for one thing, but it also shows in a way the difficulty in getting through, even if you are Lady Gaga and you are one of the biggest names in music and show business.

YouTube – A message from Lady Gaga to the Senate Sept 16 2010

Migratory birds get trapped in the World Trade Centre Memorial.

It starts slow, but if you wait a bit, you can really see the birds, floating in the light like snowflakes swirling.

(From The Daily What)

YouTube – Abïme des Oiseaux – WTC Memorial Plane/Birds/Apocalypse

This article by Jonah Weiner in Slate Magazine, The rise of no homo and the changing face of hip-hop homophobia, gives hip-hop artists a pass on their homophobia. I don’t see why they should get one. Yes, there’s some progress, but it’s pretty small, and the contortions that hip-hop artists go through is ridiculous.

Ridiculous in a good way is this video parody of “Ridin’ Solo” by Jason Derulo. The Station do a superb send up of No Homo (and Jason Derulo). Check it out:

(Found over at Andrew Sullivan’s blog.)

Classic: Patti Smith performing Because The Night on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

YouTube – Patti Smith – Because The Night

Watching Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance  video, I thought: what does this remind me of:

So I did a search of All That Jazz and found this famous scene:

If you read the plot of  All That Jazz you can see it strongly aligned with the exotic theatrics that Lady Gaga loves. Anyone who loves Lady Gaga would love this film, I believe. The productions are obviously very different, but the approaches are similar. And in this scene from All That Jazz and the video from Lady Gaga, we see a baroque danse macabre. .

Excessive car commuting is the proverbial lemon that drivers would like somehow to turn into lemonade. If you are one of those drivers, I recommend you check out this article: Turn your car into an office on wheels.

Not everyone hates commuting: some folks love the life of the driver. Even if you are one of these, you will like this article.

This is a great story about the world famous graffiti artist, Banksy, and Fred Radtke, who is the “gray ghost” who paints over graffiti in New Orleans with gray paint.

What happened when they collided? You can see here in this great tale: Banksy vs. The Gray Ghost in New Orleans at WebUrbanist

What Camille Paglia thinks of Lady Gaga can be found here: Lady Gaga and the death of sex | The Sunday Times. Some of it is good, although the way Paglia goes on about Madonna makes her almost seem a parody of herself.

As for me, I think she gets some of it right, but she misses the way Gaga is most like Madonna, and that is that both women have a way of reinventing themselves to stay firmly in the spotlight. Madonna was constantly shape shifting, and Lady Gaga seems to be doing the same. And if Gaga steals from Madonna, well, who did more stealing of images and sounds than Madonna herself?

As for Lady Gaga’s avant-garde approach to popular culture, I think it can be said to be just that: pop avant garde. Avant garde, if it can be said to exist at all in pop music, won’t come from mainstream performers like Lady Gaga. That doesn’t make her any less enjoyable and fun to watch. But musically she is fairly mainstream. Where she is avant garde is in her performances. More and more, pop music performances are lip synched dance extravaganzas. And if you accept pop music as being more or less than that, then Lady Gaga is avant garde. However, that is a pretty limited view of pop music, and so while I think Lady Gaga is entertaining, I will look for advances in pop music and pop culture coming for elsewhere.