10065/Weekender

Airlines see us as supplicants, not customers.

Explanation: There was a huge sigh of relief in the stock markets of the world as it was learned that the Greek crisis was not only contained, it was over.  Stock in Gullibility, Inc. shot up immediately.

Another Look: While the market was celebrating the loss of 32,000 jobs, some people looked at the numbers and began to think something was wrong:  U-6 (the real unemployment rate) climbed 0.3% to 16.8%, and the BLS BS about snow and payrolls seemed pretty weak.

Blackmail:  A privately run bank took in a lot of money from foreigners and made a lot of risky investments and went belly up.  The foreigners saw how badly the economy had been ruined by the massive chicanery of the  bankers, and arranged for a $10 billion rescue – but only if the people of the country would pay back the losses of the foreign banks. Plug in where appropriate: Iceland, Icesave, IMF, UK, and big UK & Dutch banks.  Then tell me what is moral about forcing Icelanders to pay Brits for their foolish greed?  And why is the IMF acting as the enforcer?

Public Service Announcement:  The American Cancer Society has reinforced its recommendation against routine PSA screening, claiming it is an unnecessary procedure that seldom saves lives and leads mainly to anxiety and unnecessary biopsies.  They also think the doctor should keep his hands to himself.

Fundamentals:  Under the general rubric of two wrongs make us right, the same gang that wants to ban Darwin from the classroom also wants to anathematize Hansen & Company.  If the world is only 6,000 years old, then the 55 million year old Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum – which scientists use as an example of climate gone wild - simply isn't credible.  Ah, academic freedom.

On Again:  After 20 years of trying to make some other explanations account for the data, a panel of scientists now claim that a massive asteroid slammed into the Yucatan 65 million years ago and was the cause of the mass extinction that wiped out half the species on the planet, including the dinosaurs.  Definitive.  For now.

Bribery:  Pending sales of existing housing are falling again because even with the tax incentives as a lure there is very little demand.  Experts say that the government's tax credit ($8,000 or $6,500, depending) simply paid people to do what they would have done anyway, and that each additional sale that the bribes sucked in cost the US taxpayer $100,000 plus whatever is lost when the FHA insured Fannie Mae-held mortgage goes belly up.

Asked and Answered:  Will coral reefs disappear?  Probably not, but that doesn't mean they are going to thrive.  There will be a general loss of coral cover and a breakdown of the physical structure of reefs but there will be corals.  Some.  Somewhere.

Porn O'Graph:  Go ahead, splurge a little, you deserve it.