make your own here.

The third pillar is requiring banks to pay an insurance premium to tax payers against the risk that the tax payer will be required to bail them out. If such a market could be created, it would not only incentivise good banking and push the focus of regulation away from process to outcomes, but it would provide an incentive for banks to be less systemic. Today, banks have an incentive to be more systemic as a bail out is then guaranteed. The right response to Citibank’s routine failure to anticipate its credit risks is not for it to keep on getting bigger so that it can remain too big to fail, but for it to whither away under rising insurance premiums paid to tax payers.

From here. I find that a fascinating concept.

Oh, and: "On Intrade.com, the probability of a formal recession (two successive quarters of negative growth) in 2008 has fallen from the 70 percent range to the 30 percent range." Don't think we're out of the woods yet, but I think things look better than our media would lead us to believe.

Expedia is running an Indiana Jones travel promotion.

I hope that for the Jordan one, everyone gets a Holy Grail at Petra. I'm telling you, if those Arabs started selling those, they would be in the money.

(I'm also hoping that Tracey does get the job at Disney so B and I can get into D'World for free. We started talking about it last night.)

That is, if you are not a vegetarian. Sorry, Janey.

Chicken with Lime Sauce

Ingredients

4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
 Cooking spray
3/4 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons lime juice, divided
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon butter

Nutritional Information

CALORIES 260(26% from fat); FAT 7.5g (sat 2.7g,mono 3.1g,poly 0.8g); PROTEIN 40.7g; CHOLESTEROL 106mg; CALCIUM 32mg; SODIUM 382mg; FIBER 0.1g; IRON 1.8mg; CARBOHYDRATE 5.4g

Dear Portland Drivers,

Your car is not the place to pick your nose. I have seen two examples of this phenomenon in the last day.

PLEASE STOP. Your nose picking is slowing the rest of us down.

Booger love,
The rest of us

I want to play with a tilt shift lens.

And, The Fear Hierarchy.

I can't decide if these babies are CUTE or HELLA CREEPY.

Check out Britain's new coins, designed by a 26 year old. "Above, the new face of British currency, announced by the Royal Mint. The striking new designs, selected from an open competition that attracted four thousand entries, are the work of a 26-year old graphic designer named Matthew Dent. They are Mr. Dent's first foray into currency design."

I am drooling. Our Mint needs to get on better design, stat.

(Stolen from Isaac.)

Check out this video of the history of Stonehenge.

Then again, it'll be an interesting time to be in Washington, that's for sure.

Why an Obama presidency makes me uncomfortable, from here.

"I want change as much as the next guy, but 'We are the change' doesn't cut it. After three years in the Senate, Obama must know that Washington is a dense ecology of entrenched programs and bureaucracies and client groups, not one of which can be waved aside with blandishments about change. He must know that politicians follow inspiration 10 days a year and incentives the other 355, and that putting a new face in the Oval Office won't change those incentives after the honeymoon is over.

So what's his plan? I consulted The Audacity of Hope, his political book, and found it full of rhetoric such as 'what's needed is a broad majority of Americans -- Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill -- who are re-engaged in the project of national renewal' and 'we need a new kind of politics, one that can excavate and build upon those shared understandings,' etc., etc. But how will he actually bring about this political transformation as president? He warns that it won't be easy. He says it will require 'tough choices' and 'courage.' OK, but WHAT'S THE PLAN? 'This isn't to say I know exactly how to do it,' he writes. 'I don't.' Oh. I'm not sure if this is disarming modesty or outrageous chutzpah.

I don't think Obama is cynical, although he may be naive. I think he believes that once in a while a new kind of politician, with a new kind of mandate from a new kind of electorate, can set a new tone and direction. He's right, up to a point. Ronald Reagan showed in 1981 what a strong mandate from a changed electorate could accomplish, though only for a year or so.

But there's also a kind of pandering in what Obama is doing. A few years ago, a pair of political scientists, John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, looked at evidence from surveys and focus groups and drew some fairly startling conclusions. Most Americans, they found, think there are easy, straightforward solutions out there that everyone would agree on if only biased special interests and self-serving politicians would get out of the way. They want to be governed by ENSIDs: empathetic non-self-interested decision makers.

This is pure fantasy, of course. But indulging it is Obama's stock-in-trade. In today's Washington, the only way to get sustainable bipartisanship -- bipartisanship over a period of years, not weeks -- is with divided government, which Obama and a Democratic Congress obviously can't provide. True, Hillary Rodham Clinton can't provide that either. He might be better than she at working across party lines (although in the Senate she has been quite good at it, arguably better than he -- and John McCain has been best of all). But to promise 'a new kind of politics' borders on chicanery."

Since I missed International Ask a Question Day (3/14), I'm going to use the questions at the Edge Question Center to do my own meme. It's going to take a lot of thinking to answer these questions. There are more questions  than these, but some of them I don't feel qualified to answer. The answers I have read have been fascinating.

2008: What have you changed your mind about? Why?
2007: What are you optimistic about?
2006: What is your dangerous idea?
2005: What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?
2004: What's your law?
2001: What questions have disappeared?
1999: What questions are you asking yourself?
1998: What is the most important invention of the past two thousand years, and why?

Look for my responses to these in the upcoming weeks. I invite you to join me in thinking about these questions, and post your responses. (I also need to finish my Nine Choices of Happiness series.... so much writing to do.)

Maybe I'm behind the curve on this but

did you know you could make RSS feeds out of your specific searches on Craigslist?

Here are a couple I'm using to search for housing in DC. Those combined with my Google Reader makes Erin a happy camper.

Now you can be on top of the free stuff in Portland, or the missed connections, though I don't know how you would make a feed for that. :)

Dude, well dudes (two guys have done this) asking their special ladyfriends to marry them over Twitter.
Poll #1159653 Huh?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Marriage proposal over Twitter?

And 10 Self Portraits.

This one's my favorite:

A funny, illustrated version (if you can call a housing crisis funny): here.
A text-based explanation out of the NY Times: here.

This info is correct, I got it from my IRS source herself.

Stimulus Payment Schedule for Tax Returns Processed by April 15

Economic stimulus payments will be issued according to the last two-digits of the main filer's Social Security number. People who use direct deposit also will be among the first to receive the payments starting May 2. Paper checks will be put in the mail starting May 16. DIRECT DEPOSIT Last two SSN digits: Payment will be transmitted:  00 through 20  May 2  21 through 75  May 9  76 through 99  May 16 PAPER CHECK  Last two SSN digits:  Payments will be mailed by:  00 through 09  May 16  10 through 18  May 23  19 through 25  May 30  26 through 38  June 6  39 through 51  June 13  52 through 63  June 20  64 through 75  June 27  76 through 87  July 4  88 through 99  July 11 People who file a return after April 15 will receive their economic stimulus payment, but probably about two weeks later than the schedule shows. A return must be filed by October 15 in order to receive a stimulus payment this year. See the online calculator for an estimate of the amount you will receive.

There's some pretty funny photoshopping here. I will give you the highlights. Via theferrett.