Two Coke facts:
1. The price of Coca-Cola remained at one nickel for seventy years.
2. In the 1950s, Coca-Cola requested that the US Mint begin printing a 7.5 cent coin.

NYPost: “‘If there was a $5 monkey fee, even if they couldn’t explain it, you would still have to pay,’ sniped Danny Schluck, 28, of Bushwick.” I think monkey fees are pretty self-explanatory.

Via Perot Charts.

“The American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) is a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to encouraging and communicating economic research and analyses and exchanging ideas in wine economics.”

Nancy Haag does not understand the meaning of the word “ironic”:

Alaska has the highest per capita number of rape cases in the United States, according to FBI statistics.

“With a ranking that high, it’s ironic that the person who wins is a convicted sex offender,” Haag added.

It’s been widely reported that Sarah Palin spent over $150,000 of campaign money on clothes, but my question is, what did she buy for $133 at the Gap? Do you think she has the same socks that I do?

Oil prices have dropped by more than 50% since July. I’m buying a Hummer.

Thanks CNN, very helpful.

A (lengthy) explanation of why many former British colonies have currencies named “dollar” rather than “pound.” Tangentially related: did you know that the British pound was, prior to 1971, a non-decimal nightmare?

This graph show’s how McCain’s polling correlates with the health of the stock market as measured by the S&P 500:

Is it possible that nothing in the campaign has had any impact on the polls other than the economy? That’s sort of a sad thought.

Via State of the Union and Electoral Vote.

Occasionally I hear a non-American politician who doesn’t use our politicians’ standard technique of sunny optimism in the face of potential doom. I find it equal parts charming and terrifying. This interview with the Icelandic Finance Minister, dealing with his own country’s financial meltdown, is mostly terrifying. Note how sighs before answering most questions and phrases his answers in a “perhaps we won’t ALL die” format. Here’s my favorite bit:

Q: I gather that back in February Bear Stearns compared the risk associated with your country, with Iceland, to that of Kazakhstan. Of course, look at what’s happened to Bear Stearns.

A: Yes, [sigh], I don’t want to gloat but we weren’t particularly happy with that comparison. But, when you think about it, Kazakhstan isn’t a bad place and I think they actually have quite a good future because of their natural resources and we here in Iceland are also lucky enough to have natural resources and I still think that if we use them prudently we can still build ourself a good future and still be a very good place to live in relative to other places.

Instead of arguing that Iceland is far better off than Kazakhstan, you argue that Kazakhstan’s not that bad of a place? Yegads, things must be TERRIBLE in Iceland. Also, I like how he’s discussing how Iceland can, in the future, be a good place to live, not in an objective sense, but only in comparison to other places.

I’m afraid for Iceland.

I was in the bank today cashing in some residual foreign currency, and the bank teller pulled out a copy of MRI Banker’s Guide to Foreign Currency to check the bills’ authenticity. It has pictures of every unit of currency in over 200 countries as well as big warnings about which bills not to accept. It was great! I want a copy.

At this moment, my flight leaving the United States should have just taken off.

I say “should” and not “has” because I’ve handed off primarily control over RumorsDaily to my cadre of eager robots. From this point forward, unless I say otherwise, updates to RumorsDaily are being made without my direct control. I’ve asked the robots to keep you mildly up-to-date as to my travels, but they’re an unpredictable bunch, so who knows what they might decide to put up in my stead.

As a formal goodbye to RumorsDaily’s human master, here’s a picture of some of the currency I’ll be carrying with me:

Alright. All robots from here on out. Go go robot webmaster!

Via Empirical Legal Studies, Above the Law, and NAALP.

I’m going to start doing this to all my dollar bills. I love the attention to grammatical detail in adding the final ‘S’ to ‘DOLLAR.’ Bravo.

Via Found Magazine.

Will flip-flops once again be prominently featured at the GOP presidential nominating convention?

Obama 2007:

Question I-B:
If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?

Yes… If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.

Obama’s Spokesperson, 2007:

Obama’s spokesman Bill Burton said the senator “is pleased FEC took this important step in preserving the public financing system, which is why he sought the opinion. If Senator Obama is the nominee, he will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.”

Obama 2008:

Sen. Barack Obama told supporters Thursday that he has decided not to accept public financing for his general election campaign.

Hmm…

Here’s another Los Angeles housing price chart:

Via LA Land and Westside Bubble.

Woot! Totally free money that’s not coming from anywhere important and with no long term consequences attached to its payment and no obvious need to ultimately recoup it and not at all a flimsy government attempt to confuse the populace! I’m gonna buy a dirt bike!

What, are they coming up with ways to tax just me now? It’s getting so I can’t afford the little things anymore. It’s not right.

I signed up for Mint.com hoping that I could use it as a free, online replacement for Quicken. It turns out that Mint.com doesn’t allow you to enter cash transactions (for no clear reason) so my hopes were quickly thwarted. I still get emails from them sometimes, though, so I went to the unsubscribe page, linked from the emails, to try to opt out. Here’s the page:

Ignoring the fact that I can’t uncheck the final checkbox, take a look at the totally legible submit button (or is it a clear button?):

It gets no clearer when you mouse-over it:

Oh, and it’s not just Firefox, here’s the site in Internet Explorer:

Same legibility problem:

Same mouse-over problem:

It’s almost as if they don’t want you to be able to unsubscribe. Go figure. Boo Mint.com, I hate you.

While filling out my mandatory federal education loan exit interview, I was asked if I would like to calculate the amount of salary I would need in order to repay my debt.  Here’s the terrifying answer:

Debt Wizard
Question: How much salary do I need to support my student loan debt?
Answer: Based on student loan debt of $185,000.00 to be repaid over 10 years at 8.5 percent interest, my estimated monthly payment is $2,293.74.

To support repayment of the debt, I should earn at least:
# $165.41 Hourly
# $28,671.69 Monthly
# $344,060.29 Annually

The “Debt Wizard” isn’t anywhere near as cool as I was hoping he would be.

And in that vein, should tipping carry a social stigma?  Is it a “malignant evil” that “foster[s] a lord-and-vassal relationship”?

I’m filling out my California tax return and was just asked if I received any income from Ottoman Turkish Empire Settlement Payments.  Damn, don’t I wish?  Those Ottomans, they must owe me something, right?  There was no “more info” button provided, so I went to the Turbotax forums to figure out what this was:

In 1999, a class action suit against New York Life Insurance company was filed by the descendents of those that survived the unfortunate events of 1915 under the rule of the Ottoman Empire during WWI. The company was sued specifically for not being forthcoming in paying up for policies of those killed in mutual massacres. The suit was settled in 2004 for $20 million, and payouts began to individuals and some Armenian charitable organizations.

Here’s a new story about the settlement.   Next up, the Phoenicians… it’s about time for those jerks to pay up!