Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.04

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?
The ECON7-KRUGBOT MK-3000 takes time out of his busy day to explain to the country how the people in his profession could get the economic forecast and resulting financial apocalypse so wrong. Along the way he's kind enough to point out the other two economists who were, along with him, skeptical of these whole underlying theme of "housing prices will go up forever" that gripped the market. Well worth your time if you'd like to know what exactly went wrong.

White House Scaling Down Health Reform Ahead Of Address
ThinkProgress' Wonk Room takes a look and recent rumors that the President and the Senate are looking to cut back the costs of health care reform to $700 billion over 10 years. They're kind enough to point out that real reform that covers all Americans costs around $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Anything less and you're offering lower subsidies and giving people weaker less protective insurance. So keep that in mind when you hear they're trying to cut the cost of something that will be spread out over a decade or more: they aren't helping you.

Obsessed bin Laden wanted to kill Whitney Houston's husband
Listen I think we've all dreamed, at one time or another, of killing Bobby Brown. Hell, maybe Flavor Flav, Dane Cook, or the entire cast of the Hills as well. But surely we wouldn't want to risk our highly secretive multi-national terrorist operation to gain the affections of Whitney Houston, would we? Ah, but such are the claims of OBL's new biographer, who in addition to the Houston obsession notes that Osama's favorite shows are the Wonder Years and MacGuyver. Makes sense.

Ridge’s Groveling Tour: I Never Meant To Accuse The Bush Administration Of Politicizing Homeland Security
You know what's great? When a man makes a claim that's obvious to all and then supports it with his own personal experiences from inside the situation as evidence.....and then after he gets yelled at by his own party tries to walk it all back claiming that he never said what everyone heard him say and that he was misquoted in the book he wrote. We understand Tom, it's not that you lied, it's that you said too much of the truth. Keep on trying to distance yourself from your own book while you're out there promoting it.

Urinal protocol vulnerability
Finally, someone has mapped out proper urinal availability protocol with diagrams, cartoon, and a math equation. Finally there are answers for where one should unsheathe his junk if there is a two urinal gap and no possibility for an "every other" urinal lineup. Finally we know how to decrease levels of awkwardness. Thank you XKCD, I will make sure to give you an honorary "post-urination penis shake" the next time I put your theories into practice.