So let’s assume GM doesn’t get bailed out and they start to move to bankruptcy. This will likely further hammer holiday sales as there seems to be a direct feedback loop going on between the markets and the consumer. If you look back at the sales data for October vs. performance of the S&P you’d notice a striking corelation. Not saying it is causal… Just some food for thought. Some charts on the matter… and a study in pdf…
Love D la Rue
We spent the better half of today trying to get the next available flight to Greece because we have a sick obsession with visiting war zones.. Turns out the shit is going down in a big way. The cops shot a 15 year old kid dead - so the kids go together and burned the motherfucker down. We only hope that someday American teens unplug from from Facebook and decide to take matters into their own hands. We have an ample supply of black hoodies and red bandanas in case that day ever comes. Until then - dig on these photos:
Crap paper kills crap paper:
The NY Times is running a piece today about the never ending march towards war on the Indian Sub Continent. Looks like the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI) had a hand in helping the group suspected of launching/funding the attacks in Mumbai. This really isn’t much of a surprise to anyone that has followed this region of the world. Indeed the ISI was responsible for supporting the Taliban’s rise to power and triumph over the USSR with the blessing of the USA. Don’t be surprised to hear that a ton of new US troops are being deployed into Afghanistan….
So it looks like Wikipedia has now been labled a distributor for child pornography. This has essentially blocked a big chunk of users in Brittan from accessing Wikipedia. We could go on and on about how the kiddie porn nonsense has a chilling effect on speech. Or how the current hunt against kiddie porn is similar in many regards to the Spanish Inquisition, The Salem Witch Trials, or the American Red Scare…. But we won’t. The last thing we want to do is get caught up in that shit! That’s right. The chilling effect on speech works.
Silently,
D la Rue
Have you ever noticed that adults really don’t like it when you make fun of children? If you don’t believe me here’s an experiment. Grab a banana. Go to a park on a nice summers day. Find a woman pushing a stroller, make sure that she is a white woman because you can’t let racial bias taint the results. Go up to the woman and say “Such a pretty lady, have a banana for your monkey”. When you’ve finished picking up your nuts off the floor go home and drop us a line. We’d love to hear how that went.
We wish this was a link to the braggadocios rappers obituary, but that’s merely wishful thinking. While we wait for Kanye to finally make the “ultimate sacrifice” for his “art” we ask that you provide suggestions for his funeral celebrations. We’re suggesting that he be remembered as the “Elvis of Hip Pop”… Not because of any great advancement in the genre, but simply because he has done to French Electro-Clash what Elvis did to southern blues… Package it up, make it bubble gum, and sell it to white suburban kids.
Eternally yours,
D la Rue
We have no love for NASCAR. Cars drive around in circles for hours. How boring. For some reason it seems appropriate that FOX has chosen a gopher named “Digger” to represent this event. Here’s hoping that digger, much like NASCAR, dig themselves into a deep hole and we never see them again. It also seems approriate that Digger is only an N away from being a term near and dear to most NASCAR fans hearts.
Add this one to the list of stories we could not make up. It appears that a crank call made to the Pakistani President lead Pakistan to move to an offensive war footing with an intended invasion of India.
Hoax Highlights Fragile Peace Between India, Pakistan
So let’s say you just moved all your back office processing and development work to India. You’ve let go all your programmers, IT support, etc… So what happens when this shit pops off? For years now the risk appetite of large multinationals has severely dropped. Failure to account for geopolitical risk and its corresponding operational risk to your business is going to end up being a real “black swan” for a number of companies. Good luck, you’re fucked.
Love,
Douche la Rue