Finding consumer equillibrium for babies?

Some people don't have enough: "Dr Zavos said yesterday that this was just the "first chapter" in his ongoing and serious attempts at producing a baby cloned from the skin cells of its "parent"...Little Cady died aged 10 in a car crash in the US. Her blood cells were frozen and sent to Dr Zavos, who fused them with cow eggs to create cloned human-animal hybrid embryos." Some people have too many: "The pregnancy was unexpected, and for one 32-year-old single mother in Syracuse, New York, the ailing economy became a factor in her decision to have an abortion." (funny story: the first time I saw that article, there was a picture of an ultrasound attached...It's gone now...)

On a lighter note, this type of thing is one more reason why I so enjoy baseball...What nerds. But how cool :) And there's nothing like thrift in government to inspire the citizenry. Obama has pledged to cut $100 million from his $3.4 billion budget. The one and only Greg Mankiw puts in perspective:

• "[I]magine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year--approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year."
  

But have no fear, says Roger Simon: "In the future, because of Janet Napolitano, may her name forever be praised, our executive branch will buy its office supplies in bulk."

Lastly, this article was handed out by our "development" (read: fund-raising) crew today...Read it. It gets a little creepy: "See if you can adopt the same breathing pattern as your prospect. In doing so, it is helpful to observe the rise and fall of your prospect's chest or shoulders for cues. Of course, use your peripheral vision to do this so you are always maintaining eye contact. Synchronized breathing between you and your prospect is such a subtle thing, yet people really pick up on it." Creeped out right about now.

Civilization!

I am incredibly excited about the fact that you can get student discount tickets starting from $10 for the Kennedy Center in DC!! Totally going to be taking advantage of that! (Although I might shy away from Legally Blonde: The Musical...)

The swelling is really starting to kick in, but overall my reaction to the Wisdom Teeth Adventure has been pleasantly surprising, if I do say so myself...I finished my reboot of the nd.edu/~pbrown6 site, so if anyone is visiting from there, welcome. 

Remember the whole sub prime mortgage meltdown? The way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decided to expand the gift of home ownership, even to people who couldn't afford it, thus causing a massive credit crisis and the biggest economic catastrophy ? Well, back in 1999, the New York Times reported that "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits." That's good to know.

iPod video podcasts are the best thing ever.