Overheard

At the Under-11s cricket this morning, someone shouted out "Who put pretzels in my pants?". And it wasn't me.

Jamie does what?

You'd think that with this financial crisis - and the talk about him being the next Secretary of the Treasury - that Jamie Dimon would be a busy man. (For those of you hand-knitting organic yoghurt as you read this, he's the CEO of JPMorgan Chase). But, at least according to the Telegraph, he's got time on his hands.

Headline reads "JP Morgan Chase chief Dimon sent death threats". I was afraid to read the article. He's supposed to be saving the world's financial system, not sending nasty notes to people.

Helen from Hurstville

There's a daily giveaway newspaper here, the Mx, and if I get the train home from work I often grab a copy to read. My train journey is one stop, it takes about two minutes, but that's usually enough.

There's a letter in there today, from Helen, who (if she exists) lives in Hurstville. That's a suburb of Sydney that's about as appealing as it sounds. She writes:

VOTERS don't care who former Secretary of State Colin Powell is going to vote for, or who former Secretary of State Colin Powell thinks voters should vote for. Voters choose who they want, not who former Secretary of State Colin Powell wants them to vote for. That type of pressuring should be illegal.

I'm trying to put myself in her shoes here, and it's not easy. Let's assume this is a real mail from a real person - Helen, who lives in Hurstville. As opposed to a university student with too much time on his hands. Somehow she's managed to get very upset about Colin Powell endorsing Obama, and I do notice that each of the three times she mentions Powell she calls him 'former Secretary of State Colin Powell', which is nice, at least. If a little clumsy.

She starts with "Voters don't care..", and then there's "voters choose...". By which I'm guessing she means that she doesn't care, and she's happy to generalise from there. (But of course the whole point is that she does care, otherwise she wouldn't be writing this, surely.) And which voters is she talking about exactly? The ones in her street? Other people stuck in Hurstville? More worryingly, is she under the impression that she and her neighbors are going to be voting in the US Presidential Election?

And then the final desperate flourish. "That type of pressuring should be illegal." She's seen a 15-second thing on the TV news about Powell endorsing Obama and she's feeling like she's being pressured. (I'm discounting here the possibility that Powell showed up at her house and kept badgering her about her voting intentions in some inappropriate way.)

Speaking of the US Presidential election, my sons will both be eligible to vote in 8 years time. So look out.

Nothing

There's a horrifying interview with Levi Johnston (father of Bristol Palin's daughter). First the good bit. He talks about the pressure of appearing at the republican convention, and says

"At first, I was nervous," he said. "Then I was like, ' Whatever'."

This is brilliant, of course. Superb use of 'whatever'. But then the bad bit. They ask him about Barack Obama. He says...

"I don't know anything about him. He seems like a good guy. I like him."

Yes, read it again, carefully. He doesn't know anything about Barack Obama.

Croc

Great headline in the Australian today "Human remains inside crocodile". Well he would, wouldn't he?

Bailout

There's an article in today's NYT about how the bailout's shifting towards direct capital injections into banks. So far so good, and it is interesting how the focus of the bailout has changed over the last week or so. It's a nice, lucid overview piece. And then it has this...

"Industry executives .... also begged Mr. Paulson not to impose tough restrictions on executive pay and golden-parachute deals for executives who are fired." Well they would, wouldn't they?

Your

I was browing some profiles on a personals site - purely for research purposes - and I found a real gem. A woman goes on and on about the sort of man she wants and then she finishes off with:

IF YOU FIND YOURSELF BLOCKED ITS NOT MY FAULT YOUR ILLITERATE