In The Name of God

The Prayer
Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

The Forsaken
Abid Katib/Getty Images

Billions Lost

It seems that the global economic downturn has even made paupers out of billionaires. Here is a top list, compiled by Forbes, of billionaire who lost billions of dollars from their net worth over the last year.

• Anil Ambani (was worth: $42 billion/current worth: $12 billion)
• Oleg Deripaska ($28 billion/$10 billion)
• Bjorgflur Gudmundsson ($1.1 billion/$0)
• Luis Portillo ($1.2 billion/$15 million)
• David Ross ($1.4 billion/$150 million)
• Tulsi Tanti ($3 billion/$500 million)
• Wong Kwong Yu ($3.5 billion/$2.5 billion)
• Larry Yung ($3 billion/$750 million)
• Konstantin Zhevago ($3.4 billion/$350 million)

You can read the full story on Billionaire Blowups of 2008.

Peace in the Middle East

Those involved in the Mid East conflict are not adherents of the Middle Way. To those that cry for ‘peace in the Middle East,’ I say ‘not in our time.’ The Bush administration warned the Palestinians to to stop firing rockets, but continue dying, and perhaps in the afterlife they can attain peace and a homeland. For peace in the Middle East can only be obtained by the total annihilation and submission of their people.

For every bomb Israel drops on the Palestinians equals to one more day in the war, and hate grows with compound interest. You can’t fight a conventional war, with tanks and heat seeking missiles against a people that don’t have land to stand on, don’t have food to feed their children, don’t have medicine to aid their sick, and don’t have an economy to gainfully employee its populace. There is no military honor, personal glory, and divine justice to fight against and crush to their tombs the disillusioned, desperate, and destitute.

Some defend themselves with tooth and nail, and others with armored vehicles and laser guided missiles. A man that walks into a bus strapped with a bomb is not a martyr, nor is he is a terrorist, he is a desperate soldier in a lost war. The terrorist is he that drops down hundreds of tons of bombs down on towns as it if they where rain drops, and the martyrs are those children dead.

Israel will never allow Palestine, and Lebanon for that matter, to flourish, it will prevent at all costs for its neighbors to grow economically, and it will disrupt any develop into a self sustained independent statehood. Israel feels secure by making those around it insecure, it wants to build a modern society amongst the ruins of those around it, and it wants to redeem and avenge the Holocaust with a long drawn out trans-generational genocide. The Israeli government has drawn out the Final Solution of the Palestinian Question.

Marketing Hall of Fame

Entrepreneur, January 2009 edition, has a nice compilation of the best use of marketing. I definitely have to agree on some of there selections, such as the following top five…

• Best Contest: Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest
• Best Slogan: Got Milk?
• Best Jingle: NBC Jingle
• Best Logo: Nike Swoosh
• Best use of Outdoor Advertising: The Goodyear Blimp

Keep Your Eyes on the Franchise

Franchise allow you to be your own boss while using an establish business plan. Entrepreneur magazine recently released their 30th Annual Franchise 500 list. According to the 2008 Franchise 500 list, the top 10 franchises are the following…

• Subway
• McDonald’s
• Liberty Tax Service
• Sonic Drive In
• Intercontinental Hotels Group
• Ace Hardware
• Pizza Hut
• The UPS Store/Mail Boxes Etc.
• Circle K
• Papa John’s

The fastest growing franchises are in commercial cleaning, fitness, and eateries. The top ten fastest growing franchises are…

• Jan-Pro Franchising Int’l Inc.
• Subway
• Instant Tax Service
• Stratus Building Solutions
• Snap Fitness Inc.
• Dunkin’ Donuts
• Jazzercise, Inc
• Bonus Building Care
• Anytime Fitness
• Vanguard Cleaning Systems

First They Laidoff…

Here is a modern economic crisis edition of the poem First They Came…

They laid off first the unskilled workers, and I did nothing because I wasn’t unskilled.
Then they trimmed the manual laborers, and I did nothing because I wasn’t a manual laborer.
Then they outsourced the blue collar worker, and I did nothing because I wasn’t a blue collar worker.
Then they cut back the middle management, and I did nothing because I wasn’t a middle manager.
Then they slashed the knowledge workers, and I did nothing because I wasn’t a knowledge worker.
Then the shutdown without giving the remaining employees any benefits because Bank of America refused to extend a line of credit to the company, and by that time no one was left to do anything since they where all collecting unemployment.

16 Things That Took Me Over 50 Years to Learn

Here is a short list of 16 things that Dave Barry, nationally syndicated columnist, learned in 50 years.

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’
3. There is a very fine line between ‘hobby’ and ‘mental illness.’
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Thought for the day: Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it’s up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

Epic Economic Fail

EPIC ECONOMIC FAIL
GREAT DEPRESSION II

Bailout Bonanza

Here is a stream of my tweets on the possible economic bailout.

• Bailout = No Bankers left behind. Stop Loss = Soldiers left behind in war zone.
• Strong economy, it is a bull market. Weak economy, a bear market. Economy collapses, a bear will maul you while a bull gores you..
• bull market ^ bull shit = collapse + bailout = taxes * people + prices hikes * products = bankers @ vacation homes.
• I am short on liquid assets, I want the fed to bail me out too.
• An idea that makes money, even if it doesn’t make any sense, will be considered a great idea. An idea is only dumb when it loses money.
• The government will not bail out the people, they will only bail out the system.
• If I fail, maybe my family will bail me out. If the bankers fail, with billions of investors money, then the government bails them out.

Honest Products

Here is a interesting contest on Worth 1000 that renames commonly used products to match their qualities. Some of my favorite logo hacks are the following FBI and Starbucks logos.

Department of Injustice

Caffeine Addiction