(no subject)

Just got back from watching State of Play with elo_sf, well the first half of it anyway, and it is absolutely superb. The kind of twisty-turny murder mystery that the Brits do so much better than we Americans. The acting is superb (but with the cast they got it would be hard for that not to be the case), the writing first rate, and the camera work cinema-quality. I absolutely cannot wait to see how it's all going to turn out because for once I can't begin to imagine what's going to happen. Usually I can figure this stuff out within the first few minutes, but not with this one.

Also, John Simm has gotten naked at least once already.

Got home just in time to catch Primeval. Yeah, I know it's not terribly good but, well, they had me at "raptors loose in a shopping mall". Seriously I have to say that any show involving constant monster attacks and at least one gruesome, bloody death per episode is one I'm going to find hard to resist.

(no subject)

*sigh*

U.S. Stock Markets Soar on Financial Rescue Plan

In what amounts to a further restructuring of the financial market, the government said it would take on the bad debts of troubled financial firms, prop up money-market mutual funds and temporarily ban short selling of financial stocks. After watching the demise of Lehman Brothers, the quick sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and a $85 billion loan to salvage American International Group, investors appeared more confident that the government intervention could have a lasting impact.

“It’s a massive relief rally on the back of the comprehensive plan,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist for Merk Investment. “If you have hundreds of millions of mortgage-backed securities on your books that you cannot value — much less sell — you can now unload them to the U.S. government.”

Brad at Sadly, No!:

In other words: the stock market is rallying because stupid rich people won’t have to suffer any consequences for the shitty investments they’ve made over the past decade.

It’s times like these where I start getting pitchfork-and-torches angry. Make no mistake, this bailout plan will have a massive opportunity cost. National health care just became that much more difficult because we’re going to be spending $1 trillion to bail out a bunch of irresponsible Wall Street assholes. The sheer amount of shit that the American taxpayer is about to devour cannot be calculated. Our choice boil down to:

* Borrowing a crapload more money from the Chinese and adding God knows how much to our national debt.

* Paying significantly higher taxes and getting precisely nothing in return except for the knowledge that rich people won’t feel bad about themselves.

It’s time to bring back the pillory stocks, my friends. I want Bush, Paulson, Cox, Bernanke and the heads of AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Fannie and Freddie locked up for years on end so that we may hurl vegetables and feces at them to our hearts’ content. Because hey, if we’re going to be sacrificing our Social Security and our health insurance to save the Wizards of Wall Street, we might as well get *something* out of the deal.

(no subject)

Ok so the 221B sign outside Houses's home looks identical to the one I actually saw on the building on Baker Street in London when I did the Sherlock Holmes walking tour. I actually squeed aloud when I saw this. First the pilot episode's patient is named "Adler", then I find out House nearly gets killed by a guy named "Moriarty", then the sign. I think I want to have this show's children.

Also this vid is making me re-think my position on House/Wilson: