What Goes Down

Geoffrey Nunberg:

[T]he media give a lot more attention to greed at some times than others, and particularly when the economy is tanking and everybody's looking for something to blame. When you chart the frequencies of greed and greedy in the press, they turn out to be an almost perfect trailing indicator for the stock market -- the worse the Dow is doing, the more the media start talking about greediness.

Full essay (A Good Old-Gentlemanly Vice) here, and on Fresh Air.

Sidewinder

Check out Dave Sifry's new Technorati link sidebar: "I like going to my favorite news sources ... and when I find an interesting link, I paste it into the sidebar so that I can see what interesting conversations are going on about the article. ... It adds a metalayer to blogging."

Spit Vicious

Punk Rock Baby (home of punk tunes and others not generally nursery indigenous -- in lullaby form) emails news of its holiday festivities: "May the best little terror win."

Santa's On Atkins

Well, the title was for effect and unconfirmed, but there's no denying Santa's diet is on the protein rich side. [via Chuck]

Houston, We Have Wit

Reenhead: "I do have a recurring dream, however, of going to graduation in a hot air balloon and throwing hornbooks down on the unsuspecting crowd. If I could bean just one Career Services employee with a copy of Prosser on Torts, the rich irony would sustain me through any subsequent jail term I might receive." Ah, like the corners of my mind...