Thatcher's Poland

2013-05-02T13:39:00.002+02:00

My mistake was not waiting to light my cigarette until after I'd passed the pawn shop. The lombard, as they call them here, opened only a few months ago but it's quickly become a favorite hangout for young and old alike. Bizarrely, you're just as likely to see a group of old fogies as a gang of kids ogling the phones in the window, dreaming of the day when they can afford to light up the screens

XLVII - Brothers in Arms

2013-02-02T17:14:00.000+01:00

After falling one game short last year, the Harbaugh brothers will become the first brothers to coach against each other in the Super Bowl. Jim's San Francisco 49ers will take on John's Baltimore Ravens in the Superdome in New Orleans February 3rd, 2013 so the game has been given various monickers on the theme: the Har Bowl, Harbaugh Bowl and the Super Baugh. Having grown up in Canada I was

It's Not The End Of The World

2012-12-29T15:30:00.000+01:00

Whether by rapture, nature, or computer there have been countless predictions of the end of the world over the past three millennia. These harbingers of doom have had many sources, from scripture to soothsayers, but all have been shown to be nothing but conjecture as the world has continued to revolve, the sun to shine and man to (de)evolve. Unless you've been living under a rock, don't get out

The Audacity of Dope

2012-11-03T00:26:00.000+01:00

There's a million and one reasons Willard Mitt 'Mittens' Romney shouldn't be elected the 45th President of the United States November 6th, but only one reason he won't when looking at the presidencies of the past 20 years. Unfortunately, being a flip-flopping liar who will shapeshift into anything the polls say will help curry favor with a few voters won't hinder him as Obama has proven. Being a

Dictatorship of the Infotariat

2012-10-01T16:38:00.000+02:00

Editor's note: The writer understands the irony of writing this, and of your reading some but not all of it, thanks to the technology he is ranting about. Oh, and you can follow him on Twitter, like or share the post and enjoy listening to him read it by clicking just below to the left thanks to all these marvelous machines as well. "Not here/Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.”

Are They Ready For Some Football?

2012-09-03T16:01:00.000+02:00

It's hard to believe that once upon a time, over fourteen years ago (also hard to believe), there was a controversy about which quarterback the Indianapolis Colts should take with their #1 draft choice: Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf. Both were Heisman finalists the previous year finishing second and third respectively, Leaf led his Washington State Cougars to the Pac-10 championship, ending the

The Hazardous Morals of Bankers

2012-08-24T21:45:00.000+02:00

Warning: You must forgive the writer for the exceptional length of this piece as a combination of rust that accumulated over months away from writing, a little too much time on his hands and what is feared to be the initial stages of ambiguphobia all contributed to the problem. - ed. US federal debt will be more than $16 trillion by the time you read this. Student loan debt in the land of the

Why Not Be Evil?

2012-08-14T13:25:00.000+02:00

Can a corporation be evil? Seems these days the better question is "can a corporation not be evil?". From banks to camera companies, big oil to milk producers, one could be excused for mistaking the business page for a how-to crime wiki. Ask a hundred people to name a not-evil corporation and I'll bet many of them would come up with the name Google, the search engine that became a verb that

XLVI is XLII

2012-02-03T23:45:00.017+01:00

During the entire 2007 season David Tyree had a total of four receptions - just one more than he made in Super Bowl XLII, one of which went for a touchdown and the one you just saw, the velcro-helmut grab, generally viewed as one of, if not the, greatest play in Super Bowl history. When the New England Patriots and New York Giants faced off February 3rd, 2008 in Glendale, Arizona, the Patriots

Wrestling Greco-Roman Mythology

2011-11-20T14:34:00.001+01:00

"Greece and our money" You hear it all the time. The Greeks are lazy. Those indolent loafers deserve what they get seeing as they've been living high on the hog for the past decade on cheap credit. Retiring at 50 after a life on the payroll of the state where they took ouzo-filled three-hour coffee breaks filled with idle chit-chat about how to avoid paying their taxes before kicking off work

A Crack in the Curtain

2011-11-01T00:38:00.012+01:00

Wizard of Oz: pay no attention to man behind curtain Imagine how differently the Wizard of Oz would have ended if Dorothy and the gang had listened to that order from the great and powerful wizard behind the curtain. The scarecrow wouldn't have gotten his brain, the lion, courage, the tinman his heart and of course Dorothy may never have made it back home to Kansas. Well, ignoring the

Polish Political Predictability

2011-10-07T17:48:00.003+02:00

Here we go again. Poland goes to the poles October 9th to elect members of the lower (the Sejm) and upper (the Senate) houses of parliament. Owing much to the language barrier and the near-indecipherability of the alphabet soup that makes up the party system, I've learned more about politics in Afghanistan than in Poland over my five years of living here. But it's more than just words with

Bailout!

2011-10-04T01:25:00.001+02:00

That's the video for the single Bailout off Guitar Not So Slim's forthcoming album of the same name. Full disclosure - that's my brother Troy playing guitar and singing while the video was made by my beautiful and talented wife, with a little, non-technical, help from me. The story's pretty self-explanatory, the economic crisis caused by the greed of financial speculators who were then of

A Corporate Death Penalty

2011-09-21T23:41:00.008+02:00

Here at In Case You Missed It we like to fess up to our mistakes, errors, follies and bone-headed pleas whenever we can. A couple of years back we published one of our most popular posts titled Rent Seeking Parasites which accused the financial industry of parasitism, getting a free ride on the backs of its host, society - you and me. While this seemed a reasonable metaphor at the time operating

Set, 9/11, Hut, Hut!

2011-09-09T02:15:00.002+02:00

Whether you're in Poznan, Poland watching the road crews finally get to work seven months before the Euro 2012 tournament, or settling into the couch to watch the NFL kickoff tonight, all that matters is the game, futbol or football. It seems like just yesterday the Green Bay Packers took out the Pittsburgh Steelers to win the Super Bowl, a win clouded over by the threat of an owner's lockout to

Let Them Eat iPads!

2011-09-05T23:13:00.001+02:00

Whether or not Marie Antoinette ever uttered the phrase that modern myth-makers have attributed to the much maligned monarch to help spark the French Revolution, there is less doubt surrounding the harsh realities of a peasant's life in late18th century France. Rising bread prices, unemployment, rising war-related debt, an inefficient financial system leading to difficulties managing said debt

A Keystone XL Rube Goldberg Machine

2011-08-31T22:43:00.004+02:00

Not so long ago it seemed like the world had woken up to the fact that perpetual growth powered by finite resources on a finite planet was impossible. People spoke of a transition to a green economy in which little bunnies would frolic among solar collector panels while soaring birds would circle wind turbines. Gas prices were skyrocketing, people were talking about peak oil and it was clear that

Blindness

2011-08-13T14:59:00.002+02:00

Last week London was hit by mindless violence, so mindless it spread to Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham. Amazingly, the social safety net led to this by both existing and being torn apart. Daily Mail readers (US translation: Faux News watchers) have and will continue to read stories increasing their fear of the feral youths, part of an evil socialist experiment breeding a violent underclass with

Democrazy

2011-06-09T14:49:00.000+02:00

"Choosing between AIDS and cancer"So maybe not every democratic election is as bad as that in Peru. According to Mario Vargas Llosa, these were the alternatives facing Peruvians as they decided where to mark their ballot in last Sunday's presidential election. Yet, a closer look at the state of democracy around the world reveals an unsettling picture. Not only do most voters usually face a choice

A Post-Easter Trinity Post

2011-04-29T01:02:00.002+02:00

The fundamentalists are on the march again. It's not surprising, times of crisis invevitably bring about an upsurge in wackos as the true believers emerge from their caves to reveal the secrets revealed to them and only them. The coming week will bear witness to a triptych of delusion, a true masterpiece that deserves to be hung alongside Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights in the Prado. For those

This Month in Wingnuttery

2011-03-21T00:04:00.001+01:00

As events spin ever faster out of control it's getting harder and harder to tell if the tail is wagging the dog or if the mongrel is simply chasing his hind end in a circle. WMD's (weapons of mass distraction) flash from son of Hollywood royalty 80's pretty boy-shoot a fiance-beat a hooker or two-ex-wife restraining order champion but pay him a couple million an episode to appear in a sitcom

Balk, Talk and Walk Like an Egyptian

2011-02-23T03:15:00.001+01:00

"Tunis is the force that pushed Egypt, but what Egypt did will be the force that will push the world" - Walid Rachid, member of the Egyptian April 6 Youth MovementReading the headlines and commentary from the mainstream media one would think the revolutions in Tunis and Egypt have succeeded. The corrupt, authoritarian regimes have been toppled and a future of freedom guaranteed with the only

Memory Holes and Pyramid Schemes

2011-02-11T01:46:00.002+01:00

As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of ‘The Times’ and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.- 1984 George

XLV

2011-01-28T19:51:00.004+01:00

My third Super Bowl post, second with the Pittsburgh Steelers making it to the big dance. This time they'll be playing the Green Bay Packers in Jerry Jones' almost-new gladiator arena down in Arlington, just outside Dallas, Texas. XLV sounds cool. As does Steelers-Packers which means we're in for a treat. The fewer Roman numerals there are the bigger deal the event seems to be and this one has

From 50 Cent to $50 Billion and Beyond

2011-01-17T13:03:00.000+01:00

As the world's economy continues to lurch forward and stumble backwards, I noticed a few stories this week that exemplify the intractability of our economic problems. Stock markets have been performing well, banks have long returned to profitability (along with their absurd bonuses) and retailers are reporting the predicted strong Christmas sales. Conversely, the price of oil has been steadily