For at least a year, probably longer, I have noted there is a phantom urinator in the office. Time and again I would go to the bathroom and find a pool of urine just sitting in the urinal. It was there so often, I started to think it was a ghost manifesting itself in the bathroom. I’d flush and watch, waiting for the urine to reappear out of nowhere, like a divine miracle. But it did not appear before me and my hopes of channeling the other side were flushed down the drain.

I thought perhaps our office neighbors were doing it. They were a team that appeared to be socially awkward programmers. It seemed like there was a good chance one of them was strange enough to piss and not flush. But once their office moved and we took over their space, the urine remained. Perhaps there was a wacko environmentalist around who didn’t understand the point of flushing and thought it was okay for our waste fluids to mingle. Whenever I was in the stall and heard someone come in to urinate, I took special care to note if they flushed. The times they didn’t I always tried to look under the door and see who dared to be gross, but never could see above their pant cuffs.

I resigned myself to never knowing, but today serendipity blessed me. For today when I went in to use the stall I noticed a certain dorky coworker drying his hands. No one else came in while I was there, and when I left the stall, there was a puddle of urine waiting in the urinal. Finally he had been caught! Unless this guy left the puddle alone and used the short urinal, which no one ever uses except in dire circumstances, he cavalierly left his urine for all of us to share.

After all this time wondering I do feel a certain completeness to know this gnome of a man is responsible. That is an accurate description by the way. This guy is very short and shaves his head. I guess it’s fitting that such a weirdo engages in such bizarre behavior.

The Daily Show has become a staple for young Americans who attempt to maintain of modicum of current affairs knowledge; at least the liberal leaning ones. I’ve enjoyed watching the show for years. I think I started in 1998 and I quickly became a fan. I even got studio tickets back then and I would have gone if a friend of mine hadn’t flaked out.

I look back fondly to the golden years when Jon Stewart was matched with the talents of Steven Colbert, Mo Rocca and Steve Carell. The show was genius then. Insightful and hilarious, the show reminded people that you didn’t have to be dull to pay attention to the world around you. I remember watching one day years ago and feeling a tinge of sadness when I realized that a show this good couldn’t last forever. I wasn’t worried about it being canceled. I just knew the show couldn’t maintain this riotous humor.

Sadly I was right. It’s nothing that’s happened recently. I guess part of it is the natural decay that success can breed. As the show grew in popularity, the recorded news reports suffered. They were hysterical because they were grounded in reality. The Daily Show staff went out and found a nutjob to put on TV. This person rarely knew what the show was about. They just figured they were getting national exposure for their crackpot cause. The fact that these people weren’t in on the joke, made it that much more delicious. Now that the show is so famous, that joy is gone and it shows in how these recorded reports are shot. It’s become commonplace for the correspondent to supply the humor; the complete opposite of the reports in the golden years. Back then the correspondent merely had to set up the interviewee, who would invariably say something crazy in support of their cause. Now the real crackpots won’t go on the show anymore because they know they will be the butt of the joke.

The show’s fame isn’t the only culprit though. I think Jon Stewart has let his own fame take over his on-show persona. Years ago he was much more reserved. He played the straight man as a news anchor, bringing order to the uproarious correspondents. When he read the headlines at the start of the show, his comedy was confined to a cutting remark or a juxtaposition to highlight a humorous hypocrisy. It was mostly sarcastic humor I guess, but he handled it well, giving it a respectable refinement. Now much of his time is spent yelling or doing funny voices. I wish I could plot the frequency of Stewart’s funny voices against time. I’d bet they correlate with the decline of the show.

I have to wonder if the quality of the show’s correspondents hasn’t declined as well. That’s more difficult to judge because as I said before, as the show’s profile has risen it gets more difficult for them to get the real crazies on the air. Could it be that I lionize Colbert, Rocca and Carell because they had much easier material to work with? I do remember when Rob Corddry first appeared and I didn’t like him at all. More than anyone, he pushed the show into that obvious, in-your-face style of humor. While the earlier correspondents would set their interviewee up to hang themselves, Corddry just clubbed them over the head with jokes.

None of the current correspondents shine though. I would say Ed Helms does have some gut-busting funny moments, but the rest disappoint me. Samantha Bee annoys me and I find Dan Bakkedahl a little objectionable. Bakkedahl only made me laugh once, when he played a complete loser living in a filthy, one room apartment in one of his reports. Demetri Martin’s Trendspotting reports are a jewel in this tarnished crown, but they are too infrequent to rest the show upon.

To borrow a phrase I heard on the old BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?, the Daily Show is past it. It has a few funny moments but the excitement is gone. It used to be a must watch show because you knew you would miss something you’d regret. Now I don’t really care if I catch the show or not.

I was lying in bed last night trying to fall asleep, but of course not having any luck, when I realized something. The fifty dollar bill is so useless. Can you remember the last time you held one? Have you ever?

A fifty is too large for everyday use, but still too small to use when you need to carry around a lot of cash. If you need to spend several hundred dollars, you’ll just use hundred dollar bills. Below a hundred, you’ll be happy with twenties and change. The fifty is just an awkward bill. There is no situation where the fifty has a place.

So just like the campaign to rid ourselves of the penny, let me be the first to call for the end of the fifty! Let’s stop wasting paper on a bill none of us bother with.

Which brings me to another numismatic noodle-scratcher… Once we sensibly rid ourselves of the fifty, should we replace it with a higher denomination note? I can see both pros and cons to this question. Authorizing a higher denomination would create an even higher risk of counterfeit damage to our money supply. The $100 supernotes already freaked out the Secret Service. Who would larger bills really help? Well probably drug cartels, but that’s not the best way to sell this idea. Sadly I have had few times in my life where the bulk of carrying so many hundreds was a problem, but it was a slight annoyance when I was paying cash for my couch.

However the Europeans have the need for a €200 note. They were designing a currency from scratch and they saw the need to design that bill. There must be a purpose to it that we’re missing here. Let’s replace the fifty with a $200 bill. I know exactly how to drum up some support too. The president on the new $200 will be Ronald Reagan. What better way to galvanize conservative support? They have already tried to put Reagan on the fifty and the ten. This way we’ll have a new bill and a new catchphrase. It’s all about the Reagans!

I know I’ve been pretty absent this week. Funny enough I’ve become obsessed with Offside, the latest book I’m reading. I spent about a month trying to slog through the dense, academic language the author uses. Once I finished that first chapter something clicked in my mind and the book became so much more enjoyable. I finished off the book on Wednesday night in only a week and a half. I’ll be posting a review later in the coming week.

What I’m writing about here is a band I first heard about through the Colbert Report. When I first watched their music video on the Report I found it pretty annoying (The music anyway. The treadmill dance is totally cool.). Somehow though the song grew on me. I must have watched this video ten times since then. I need to sit down and listen to more of OK go‘s music. Hopefully I’ve found a new band to follow. It’s been too long since I’ve gotten excited about music.

I have always been fascinated by the stories of contact between the Old World and the Americas before Columbus made it famous. I feel positive Columbus isn’t the whole story. João Vaz Corte-Real was honored for discovering the New Land of the Codfish. The odds are good he made it to Newfoundland about 20 years before Columbus, but we just don’t have solid evidence of it. What we do have is sketchy evidence Scandinavians made it to Minnesota almost 100 years before Corte-Real.

Everyone knows the story of Vinland, but that was just a brief sail along the North American coast and maybe a small coastal settlement at best. That’s no big feat for experienced sailors like the Vikings, especially when they could get supplies at Greenland. Getting inland as far as Minnesota is another matter.

The story begins back in 1354 at the Swedish court of King Magnus Erikson. By then word had reached Sweden that the Greenland colony had been abandoned. It was rumored the colonists abandoned the Church and sailed west to live among the native pagans. This could not be tolerated so an expedition was sent to discover the fate of the colonists. This part is fact, but the rest of the story is speculation.

The expedition sailed west of Greenland searching for signs of their heathen countrymen. Making it through Hudson Bay, up the Nelson River and south through Lake Winnipeg, the expedition was left on foot. I imagine they chose to head south because it seemed natural to search in the direction of the better climate. At the southern point of Lake Winnipeg there are no waterways that would interfere with this decision. South the expedition headed, while our story moves to 1898.

Olof Ohman was clearing his field of trees and debris before plowing. Lying face down and covered in the root system of a nearby tree, Ohman found a stone tablet with strange writing. This tablet would come to be called the Kensington Runestone. The runestone spent a few years on display in a local bank, briefly examined at Northwestern University then left in storage on Ohman’s farm. To Ohman’s credit, he never tried to make money off it.

Hjalmar Holand, a grad student at the University of Wisconsin, bought the runestone in 1907 for $10. Holand actively sought media attention and archeological examination of the artifact. Up until now the runestone had been dismissed as a forgery. Holand convinced some academics to take a fresh look at it. Although the original tree had been removed, by examining nearby trees, they estimated the original tree was 40 years old. Considering the county had only been settled in 1858, any hoaxer would have to be very quiet and patient. Newton Winchell from the Minnesota Historical Society estimated the inscriptions were 500 years old based on the weathering of the stone. However, Holand had never been successful in convincing any Swedish linguists the text was authentic.

Very little academic work involving the Kensington Runestone occurred after that initial examination in 1910. Not until 1998 did anyone re-examine the physical evidence. This new test determined the stone had undergone “in the ground” weathering for at least 50 to 200 years. Further, these tests noted an absence of mica from the inscriptions. A comparison of 200 year old gravestones showed deterioration but not the same absence as with the runestone. Although you do have to consider different weathering patterns since the two stones weren’t subjected to the exact same conditions.

The major dispute centers on the translation. The runes used are obscure and not typical of 14th century Swedish. Here is the latest translation.

Front Inscription:

8 Geats (South Swedes) and 22 Norwegians on acquisition venture from Vinland far to the west We had traps by 2 shelters one day’s travel to the north from this stone We were fishing one day. After we came home found 10 men red with blood and dead AVM (Ave Maria) Deliver from evils.

Side Inscription:

I have 10 men at the inland sea/lake to look after our ship 14 days travel from this wealth/property Year of our Lord 1362.

It paints a grim end to the story. Landing at the shore of Lake Winnipeg, ten men stayed behind to guard the ships. The remaining twenty headed south. Healthy men, traveling light, should cover approximately 30 miles a day. Petersfield, Manitoba seems to be the closest town to the shores of the lake. Petersfield to Kensington, Minnesota is roughly 360 miles. By my estimation that is a 12 day journey. The men who left the tablet did it in 14 days, which is a pretty good approximation.

One day north of Kensington, while some of the men were off fishing, their camp was attacked by the natives and ten were killed. The remainder probably fled south feeling scared, hopeless and alone. Half their party had been slaughtered. They’re in a far away land surrounded by hostile natives. Their ships are two weeks away and to get to them they will have to evade the same people that killed their compatriots. I think they left the stone because they figured they weren’t going to make it back but didn’t want their deaths forgotten.

This story is gut wrenchingly powerful. Imagine how strong their isolation and fear must have been. I want to believe this is a true account. The physical evidence is very favorable that this stone comes from the right time, and when you consider the degradation of the mica layer, you can’t say a hoaxer found a weathered stone and carved a prank into it. The written language is the sticking point that keeps this artifact from rewriting our history books. I wish someone would retrace the route from Lake Winnipeg and search for more Scandinavian artifacts. Others have been found but they were never recovered using proper archeological techniques, so they cannot be considered as conclusive evidence. If we could establish that the Vikings had made it into the center of the continent, we could accept the runestone at face value.

Hillary, oh Hillary, your staff has failed you. You don’t have to work in politics to know every official statement released by a politician has been checked and considered and deliberated, which is why I really enjoyed reading this news. Hillary Clinton first came out swinging against the plan to allow condos inside the proposed East River Park. Now she has “learned” since her first statement and is in favor of the plan.

What probably happened was some bright light in her office said it would be a good press to come out against the plan. It would endear her to NIMBYs, but since she’s not part of the local political scene, there’s nothing she can do about the condos. She can pretend to be a champion of the little guy but not actually be accountable. They must have thought this was a genius plan around the office.

So Hillary spoke out against the plan, and an icy chill swept out from the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Somehow no one in Hillary’s camp thought that this would piss off local politicians who already gave their support to the plan. Well either they didn’t think of it, or dismissed any furor it might start. Sadly, I’m not privy to that backroom politicking but given how fast Hillary switched sides, she must have received a flurry of angry calls from local Democrats.

Don’t feel too bad Hillary. By the time you announce you’re running for President, this goof will be forgotten; at least forgotten outside of Brooklyn Heights. NIMBYs are spiteful bastards so those guys will hold a grudge for a long time. On the bright side, if you get the nomination, you’ll still get their vote in the general election because no way will that neighborhood vote Republican.

I’m not normally a fan of aluminum siding. It covers huge swaths of New York’s outer boroughs and is quite ugly. I nearly cried when I found out my aunt covered our house in that stuff. Sometimes though life surprises you.

I haven’t seen the building firsthand but I’m assuming that’s aluminum siding on there. Whatever it is, it’s pretty good. Instead of blending in like the other million row houses all around the city, this one is visually stimulating. I wouldn’t have guessed something as simple as thin horizontal lines could make it pop!

The building still needs more work though. That painted brick stoop looks terrible. The paint is completely washed out against the new siding. The brick itself is just ugly too. I would like to see thick slabs of slate for steps. This emerald green would make a great color choice. I also see a wrought iron hand rail. I’m not sure about the thickness of the iron though. I’m still undecided on which way to go. The cornice needs to be painted, as does the brick foundation of the building, window frames and door frame. Those colors should match and should come from the color of the steps. If the emerald green was chosen, we would have to choose a fairly dark color paint. If we were to really go all out, I’d like to redesign the cornice and remove the 19th century detailing. There’s too many soft curves for such a modern looking building. Lets give the cornice a modern look too.

I’m starting to wonder if the phrase naming convention has become an anachronism. Never having gotten married I’m not sure how or when this decision is made, but today a newlywed couple have to decide what last name to use. Traditionally the woman takes her husband’s name. Some women keep using their maiden name, but I think that’s mostly confined to women with a famous name in their industry. Of course she can also decide to hyphenate her last name. I remember in high school there was a married couple who both used a hyphenated name. Finally you get the people who mashup their names to create a new one.

A British columnist declared the mashup to be a growing American trend that violated the English language. Thankfully Slate debunked the hype. Personally I find combining two names to be distasteful. The way I see it only people who have no regard for history can do it. Your last name connects you to your lineage. Generations of people that have lived, laughed and loved are tied to your name. You are a part of that history. At least until you go ahead and make up a new name. Then you’re wiping the slate clean.

This thought has been bothering me for the last couple of days. About a week ago, BP shutdown the Prudhoe Bay oil field because of a corroded stretch of pipe. Everyone expected to get a big pop in oil and gasoline prices because of the cut in production. The oil price jumped about $2.00 the following day and we were all certain of what was going to happen. Then my local gas station lowered prices by two cents. Then nothing happened.

Isn’t that peculiar? Prudhoe Bay accounted for 8% of US output. By removing that much from the market, you would think prices would rise. Today, oil is hovering at $70 a barrel. That’s an $8 decline from when the pipeline news broke. How could account for such a counter-intuitive result?

The thought struck me yesterday. The steep rise in global oil prices is assumed to be a response to rising demand around the world; particularly from Chinese economic growth. However, could demand be the sole cause of a $40 rise in the price of oil? I don’t think so. If that were the case, eliminating Alaskan oil should have caused prices to climb higher, but exactly the opposite happened.

I say most of the price rise can blamed on speculation. I see two possibilities that fueled this. What you believe depends on how much you feel oil is connected to the wider commodities market. If you think oil is special and independent of other raw materials, then this speculative spike we’re living in is a result of panic from political instability. Traders worried over a worsening Iraq situation, violence around Israel, nuclear tensions with Iran, the on-going worry of terrorism in the West, Islamist violence in Nigeria (an oil producer) and Somalia (near the Persian Gulf sea lanes), and economic nationalism in South America have bid up the price of oil out of pure worry something disastrous will happen and they will be caught short of fuel. On the other hand, if you believe oil is just like every other freely traded commodity, then this run up in pricing is just following the same path as other raw materials have. Check out the various commodities that have increased in the last few years. Aluminum is up 51% since the beginning of 2004. Platinum is up 52% for the same period. Coffee is up 57%. I don’t want to give you an incomplete picture of the situation. After all lumber is down 15%, so don’t think everything is getting more expensive. However, when such disparate commodities such as orange juice and palladium are rising at the same time, something odd is happening. I don’t think it’s fair to shrug your shoulders and say more Chinese are enjoying orange juice in palladium cups to explain this simultaneous price rise.

I can’t say for certain which is the correct explanation for oil’s increase but I’m leaning towards the latter. If fear of war and terrorism were really the cause, we should have had a greater increase before. Let’s look back to 2001. Oil started that year at $22.10 a barrel and ended the year at $18.24. Jump ahead to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Oil starts the year at $29.03 but ends the year at $28.13. A big terrorist attack and a war hardly changed the price of oil. That does not sound like panicked buying to me.

The explanation for our oil price woes lies in whatever it is that has goosed the wider commodities market. I’ve heard the usual “China Rising” explanation but that is so stale and overused I roll my eyes when it’s brought up. I’ve also heard analysts blame the weakening dollar for the price rise. I’ll have to look into that closer.

Europeans always astonish me; the French in particular. The Wall Street Journal had an article about France Telecom’s quest to slash their workforce. Once upon a time France Telecom was actually a part of the French government, so its employees had civil service status. That is the sweetest deal you can get. You’re guaranteed a job for life and you can refuse transfers out of your home area. France’s labor laws are so rigid, even the non-civil service jobs are nearly impossible to get rid of.

This new program France Telecom has started really shows how desperate they are to shed workers. To encourage workers to voluntarily leave, the company is assisting their workers in starting new careers. They’re helping employees to write business plans and get bank loans. One employee was sent to opera school. At first I thought this was unusual but at least it guarantees to reduce your long term costs. However, the program allows employees to return if their venture fails in its first three years! So after all that money and time invested, France Telecom could still end up saddled with an unwanted employee.

My mind is boggled that this is a cost cutting program. It’s so expensive and time consuming. Imagine how much these workers cost that this is a way to save money. It’s a wonder anyone can run a business in France.