Random Thoughts...

[Francis Xavier]

Ants, ants, ants. I love ants. Ants really are fantastic. Here might be a good place for you all to start, and you really should start with EO Wilson. Don't be shy, it's really great stuff:

5HKl8Luuotw

you can watch the full thing here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eowilson/program.html

yf_ijizSTAE

[sushijerk]

Hahaha. I remember thinking those pills were hilarious because they're the exact same pills that got sold in China all throughout the 80s and early 90s to fight colds. Didn't work back then either. Whoever repackaged and sold that shit here must have made some nice bank.

[coochiemonster]

[HAPPYASALAMB]

Ants, ants, ants. I love ants. Ants really are fantastic. Here might be a good place for you all to start, and you really should start with EO Wilson. Don't be shy, it's really great stuff:

5HKl8Luuotw

you can watch the full thing here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eowilson/program.html

yf_ijizSTAE

wow that stuffs pretty damn interesting

[6ixes&7evens]

nsurance giant AIG to pay $165 million in bonuses

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – 27 mins ago

WASHINGTON – American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars .

AIG is paying out the executive bonuses to meet a Sunday deadline, but the troubled insurance giant has agreed to administration requests to restrain future payments.

The Treasury Department determined that the government did not have the legal authority to block the current payments by the company. AIG declared earlier this month that it had suffered a loss of $61.7 billion for the fourth quarter of last year, the largest corporate loss in history.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has asked that the company scale back future bonus payments where legally possible, an administration official said Saturday.

This official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that Geithner had called AIG Chairman Edward Liddy on Wednesday to demand that Liddy renegotiate AIG's current bonus structure.

Geithner termed the current bonus structure unacceptable in view of the billions of dollars of taxpayer support the company is receiving, this official said.

In a letter to Geithner dated Saturday, Liddy informed Treasury that outside lawyers had informed the company that AIG had contractual obligations to make the bonus payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so.

Liddy said in his letter that "quite frankly, AIG's hands are tied" although he said that in light of the company's current situation he found it "distasteful and difficult" to recommend going forward with the payments.

Liddy said the company had entered into the bonus agreements in early 2008 before AIG got into severe financial straits and was forced to obtain a government bailout last fall.

The large bulk of the payments at issue cover AIG Financial Products, the unit of the company that sold credit default swaps , the risky contracts that caused massive losses for the insurer.

A white paper prepared by the company says that AIG is contractually obligated to pay a total of about $165 million of previously awarded "retention pay" to employees in this unit by Sunday, March 15. The document says that another $55 million in retention pay has already been distributed to about 400 AIG Financial Products employees.

The company says in the paper it will work to reduce the amounts paid for 2009 and believes it can trim those payments by at least 30 percent.

Bonus programs at financial companies have come under harsh scrutiny after the government began loaning them billions of dollars to keep the institutions afloat. AIG is the largest recipient of government support in the current financial crisis.

AIG also pledged to Geithner that it would also restructure $9.6 million in bonuses scheduled to go a group that covers the top 50 executives. Liddy and six other executives have agreed to forgo bonuses.

The group of top executives getting bonuses will receive half of the $9.6 million now, with the average payment around $112,000.

This group will get another 25 percent on July 14 and the final 25 percent on September 15. But these payments will be contingent on the AIG board determining that the company is meeting the goals the government has set for dealing with the company's financial troubles.

The Obama administration has vowed to put in place reforms in the $700 billion financial rescue program in an effort to deal with growing public anger over how the program was operated during the Bush administration .

That anger has focused in part on payouts of millions of dollars in bonuses by financial firms getting taxpayer support.

In his letter, Liddy told Geithner, "We believe there will be considerably greater flexibility to reduce contractual payments in respect of 2009 and AIG intends to use its best efforts to do so."

But he also told Geithner that he felt it could be harmful to the company if the government continued to press for reductions in executive compensation .

"We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses, which are now being operated principally on behalf of the American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury," Liddy said

[Francis Xavier]

wow that stuffs pretty damn interesting

Thanks. I've loved them ever since I was a little boy. When I was little my mom got me an ant farm but I set them free... In the house. I wasn't allowed to have any more then. As you can imagine, I was upset, so I would play with them outside. Eventually I found a piece of square plywood in the small wooded area behind my house. When I lifted it, I found a perfect colony. I they had horizontal tunnels and I could see an entire complex tunnel formation right on the surface. I would visit them every day and feed them. I played with and fed that colony for years. A while back I was going to go back to where it was to see if they're still there. They were large black ants. I hope it's still the same brood.

[jeepster]

so far, Kings is super corny.

[Francis Xavier]

^^^

I had the feeling that shit would go either way with absolutely no concept of gray matter. Ambitious concept, though.

[jeepster]

super almost-gay thus far.

lots of homo-sub plots

I don't dig it but I'm stickin with it cause it's on hulu and I'm bored.

[mrchariybrown]

I like ants cause they're one of the strongest living things pound for pound

rhinoceros beetles still own though

[OMEGA JELLY JIGGLE]

I ate a poptart with a rubberband inside it. It tasted like chemical death.

Haven't had one since.

could I sue if I ate a microwave burrito that had some plastic wrap shit in it?

[jeepster]

Wow, Kings just keeps getting more predictable and gay. Like super-'mo

[evisu 2000]

of course it's predictable

it's kind david

and david and jonathan were mo

i watched up to the 'goliath' scene and was like fuck this shit

[jeepster]

right

?

I mean, of course its predictable

but fuck

there is nothing GAYER than this show right now

like

even when he makes out with the King's daughter, it was the weakest show of face time on TV in a longgggggg time

computer graphics are on some worse-than-Sci-Fi tip too

[bouwnt]

[Elysium]

and then...suddenly she not yo ho no mo

[Lab]

this game is gr8

darvish is a beast

[Lab]

dam ichiro owns

[samsikle]

right now mayonnaise is quickly becoming my favorite condiment. dijon mayonnaise, kewpie mayonnaise. amazing.

[Elysium]

you have to try:

[HAPPYASALAMB]

you have to try:

WTF?! shit would definitely kill anyone who eats all of it in one sitting

[Leonard Leroy]

Got the first part of something I'm writing down, need some people to tell me if it works.

Its really short (for now), 700 words, mostly dialogue. Just throw me a PM if you down.

[LaGourgandine]

Just post it dude

[minou]

i'm jizzing in my pants looking at damir doma's stuff on oki-ni. fuck

[Paean]

i cant believe i missed out on the black linda farrow x raf eyeglasses in black. I'd look like a clown with the ones that are up for preorders now.

[minou]

i still want those raf x doc marts. fuck fuck fuck. i'm selling myself for those... NOT!

[Leonard Leroy]

Yo, I'm reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, and the dialogue is fucking brilliant. The writing is brilliant.

I really shouldn't have Sparknotes'd this book in high school.

I also read bits of Men and Mules, again by Zora Hurston; she has a mastery of dialogue. Mastery. It comes from experience, and just being ingrained in her culture, but christ. I wonder how much you can attribute it to that, or pure literary skill, or anthropological field study. The point of the book is to document black folklore in florida, but its written like literary fiction. Its reflexive. A majority of it is dialogue, but I doubt she was taking notes -- its all hearsay, so she had to fill some of the characters from memory -- which takes skill. These people become her own creation through the dialogue. But aside from dialogue, although reflexive, first person, she only invokes the sense of sight -- observation. Like an anthropologist. Its a conscious decision, because she has mastery of senses as exhibited in Their Eyes Were Watching God. She was being sponsored by a white professor, looking to do some Westernized field study -- Zora played to this, however. She wanted to write something that would sell, but also have scholarly value. She combined her learned passion, anthropology, with her original passion, writing, in Mules and Men. Ok, caffiene tangent off.

She fucking good yo. Inspired as shit, just what I needed.

[Leonard Leroy]

Weebay so cool, but the drama of this scene was destroyed for me in recent viewings because of how i've used this gif.

[sistersuzie]

space shuttles don't seem too complicated... all i really wonder though, what's the feeling when the ground starts shaking, agitated with flames and smoke, and pro-(s)pelled, power, technology, explosions of complexions, with all these different lights..

[Leonard Leroy]

Its like when daddy used to put you inside the cardboard box and shake it while saying VROOM VROOM VROOM