How the mighty have fallen. Raj Rajaratnam and others in this Galleon Group hedge fund have been arrested on insider trading charges.

Now I'm not feeling so dumb for not knowing what a derivative is.

I want to grow up just like Mommy

Hilarious. Don't judge a book by its cover: I want to grow up just like Mommy.

Meghan McCain

Please tell me that we have better things to do than worry about this story :-). So a senator's daughter who has a career of her own does something that receives backlash that gets tweeted and posted everywhere.... oh well, how am I any better? See for yourself, I present to you Meghan McCain, who is quickly becoming more famous than her papa John McCain.

Ballon Boy Update

So the potential hoax reported yesterday gained a LOT of steam when Falcon Henne admitted "we did this for the show." Terribly sad, and I can see how it can be frustrating for some.

Jennifer Burns and Ayn Rand

I'm hearing more and more about Ayn Rand lately, maybe due to a recent book by Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. Burns had an appearance on The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jennifer Burns
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Garth Brooks Out of Retirement

Gotta be honest, I didn't know he retired... it's like an annoying background noise that goes away... it's tough to know exactly when it died out. Ah well, at least he's not Chris Gaines this time around.

So, it's official, I guess. Garth Brooks is out of retirement.

Oh, and his first name is Troyal.

Keith Bardwell - Justice of the Peace?

Sounds like he's got some 'splaining to do. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in New Orleans' Tangipahoa Parish, has refused to marry an interracial couple.

Bardwell said, "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way. I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

He continued, "There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage. I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."

So he's not a racist, but there's a problem accepting a child from an interracial marriage?

Balloon Boy 6-Year-Old Heene - Hoax?

VERY strange story! And I see some are saying it might be a hoax. Nonetheless, all accounts seem to still have Falcon Heene missing, so our thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family.



To add more oddness (like it's necessary), this family was on ABC's Wife Swap.

Good quotes

Well, all I've got right now is this one quote, but since I'm the only one reading this, who cares:

“The people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption."
President James Garfield

Hoping to keep this an active post, adding quotes when I stumble across them.

Index of Economic Freedom

Very interesting article from The Heritage Foundation.

And a nice snippet on the US, full of those nice forebodings here:

Weaknesses remain in fiscal freedom and government size. Total government spending equals more than a third of GDP. Corporate and personal taxes are high and increasingly uncompetitive. In 2008, the sub-prime mortgage crisis had far-reaching effects, and the government's unprecedented interventionist measures could severely undermine economic freedom in the future.