| We reported a while back that the true private mortality cost of smoking a pack of cigarettes is close to $222. It turns out smoking has a serious environmental impact as well. Assuming all 5.5 trillion cigarettes produced around the world each year get smoked, smokers produce 84,878 tons of particulate air pollution annually — about half the pollution . . .
| When entering your office pool this season, check out the collective wisdom on winners and losers, then bet against it. Slate‘s Chris Wilson explains. [%comments]
| During the boom economy, we took on historically unprecedented debt to finance our pursuit of the American Dream, all the while losing faith that we could achieve it. Now that the Wall Street party is over, we’re starting to dream anew. Vanity Fair contributing editor David Kamp has more, in an essay accompanied by some stunning photos of American . . .
| From a New York Times review of an art exhibit by Shepard Fairey, the street artist best known for creating the Obama “hope” poster: “Before the Saks campaign makes it painful even to think about this artist, who did more than any other to get our current president elected …” If that is remotely true, expect the salaries of . . .
| A Rice University study found that lenders may judge your creditworthiness based on how trustworthy they think you look. The researchers didn’t pinpoint which physical characteristics look most or least trustworthy, but if they do in the future, might plastic surgery go from a luxury good to a financially necessity? [%comments]
Toronto-based Hilco Consumer Capital won what many call the “holy grail of advertising,” reports NPR: the right to sell Bob Marley‘s name. The company partnered with the Marleys to begin rolling out Marley-branded products like salad dressing and a video game.
The obvious issue with the brand, as NPR‘s Katia Dunn puts it: “Marley was a major stoner.”
| Fewer Americans are choosing to quit their jobs than at any time in the last eight years, the Christian Science Monitor reports. So when you do quit in this economy, you’ve got to make it special. How special? W. Neil Berrett printed his resignation letter on a huge sheet cake and submitted it to his boss. (HT: Boing Boing) . . .
| Banking on Bollywood’s ability to sell almost anything in India, an Israeli arms firm thought it might work for weapons as well, and presented this song-and-dance missile commercial at an Indian trade fair. We already asked what Indian blog readers thought of the Bolly-infused, Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, so what about this commercial? Will it actually sell missiles? (HT: Mayur . . .
| Via Andrew Sullivan: romance novel sales are up — after generating $1.375 billion in revenue in 2007. Expect these numbers to rise, even as other areas of the entertainment industry suffer, because romance novels tend to do better in economic downturns. O.K., so if we’re spending the recession fighting off zombie banks, can we expect a big spike in . . .
| White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers recently summed up our economic trouble this way: “Greed gives way to fear. And this fear begets fear. That is the paradox at the heart of the financial crisis.” Daniel Gross sees the economy hunkering on a ledge, and he has one word of advice: “Jump!” [%comments]
| We tweet! There are a lot of ways to enjoy Freakonomics: while looking for a job (someone please hire this man), with hot chocolate on a rainy day, and as a tool for learning how to talk about incentives. Hello to everyone who follows us; hope it doesn’t creep you out if we follow you too. … [%comments]
| When the owner of a translation agency asked his international acquaintances how the recession is treating them. In Latvia, there was sarcasm: “Everything’s just peachy. The government resigned last week. … Prices rise so fast you can actually see the difference from one month to another. I miss living in the U.S.” In Russia, there was bitterness: “I see . . .
| Mormon church leaders have criticized HBO for planning to air a fictional version of a Mormon temple endowment ceremony on Big Love this Sunday, saying the ceremony risks being “misrepresented or presented without context or understanding.” But is it possible that more media exposure of Mormonism — like Salt Lake Tribune reporter Brooke Adams‘s The Plural Life blog — . . .
| Mad Money host Jim Cramer took a drubbing from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night (watch online). But talk about creative destruction — at the end of the interview, Cramer accepted a challenge to take a more hard-nosed, investigative tack on his own show. Imagine if Cramer had gone on Mad Money in August of last year . . .
Thanks to Flickr’s Creative Commons (made possible, in part, by Lawrence Lessig), where Flickr users make their photography available for public use, we often use Flickr images to spruce up this blog.
So how does Freakonomics show up on Flickr?
| In this crisis of capitalism, it’s all well and good to re-read John Maynard Keynes, writes Pulitzer Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in the New York Review of Books. But Sen also says that we tend to ignore Keynes’s rival Arthur Cecil Pigou, who said market fluctuations are partly driven by psychology, and that we do so at our own . . .
At the end of their latest radio piece on the financial crisis, Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson make a great point about uncertainty in the nationalization debate: Of course, if [Tim Geithner and the Obama administration] were planning to take over the banking system, they wouldn’t announce it beforehand. They’d probably say exactly what they’re saying right now, wait ’til . . .
| Just when you were convinced that your bike is a free alternative to driving, a bill is proposed in Oregon that would require cyclists to pay a $54 registration every two years. Wayne Kriger, the bill’s chief architect (and, natch, a non-cyclist), says bike riders should help pay for the roads they use. Just be glad he didn’t propose . . .
| Good news, Levitt: your dream of emergency-only E.R.’s may be more realistic than you think. A program in Camden, N.J., hospitals to cut down on repeat visitors (known to E.R. docs as “frequent flyers”) seems to be working. (HT: Megan Williams) [%comments]
| By two votes, the British Medical Association (BMA) has rejected a motion calling for a sin tax on chocolate in the United Kingdom. Dr. David Walker, of Lanarkshire, Scotland, says the treat poses at least as much a threat to health as alcohol does in the U.K., and should be taxed accordingly. “Obesity is a mushrooming problem. We are . . .
| Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty to securities fraud today. His scheme saved some lives, briefly, then ruined them utterly. Supermodel Carmen Dell’Orefice, for example … [%comments]
| Citing tough times, Haagen-Dazs claims it was forced to downsize its ice cream pints: they will now be 14 ounces instead of 16. But to rival Ben and Jerry’s, a recession (or even depression) is no excuse for less ice cream. The company responded to the news by reassuring its customers: “Now more than ever, you deserve your full . . .
| The new Kindle is nice, but it’s still playing catchup to replicate the solid, solitary experience of a printed book. Seth Godin thinks that’s silly. He has some ideas to make the Kindle better by making it social. [%comments]
| Do the characters of your favorite TV show end every episode by downing a tumbler of scotch? That on-screen booze cue is probably triggering you to end your day with one too, the BBC reports. (HT: Daniel Lippman) [%comments]
| In the 1930’s, Franklin Roosevelt started his day by reading half a dozen newspapers in bed. Today, you can read the printed front pages of more than a dozen major newspapers from around the world side by side right here on your browser, thanks to a feed from the Newseum, arranged by the design company Rayogram. [%comments]
Would you like your salt kosher or Christian? Either way, look out for the aptonym. Soviet breadlines were depressing and long — so it’s a bad idea to use them as models for managing traffic. (Earlier) It’s basically a cat brothel where patrons pay by the hour for feline companionship; you don’t pay them for love, you pay them for . . .
From recession-culture trends we’ve written about on this blog lately, a recession icon of sorts emerges, wrapped in a Snuggie, puffing on a pipe — and now with a copy of Ayn Rand‘s Atlas Shrugged on his lap. The Economist reports that the book’s sales rank on Amazon is far above what it’s been in previous years (and briefly topped . . .
Icelanders love taking insane risks. In 1973, when a volcanic eruption threatened to wipe out a town on the island of Heimaey, they bet they could stop the lava flow by shooting it with millions of gallons of frigid Icelandic sea water. Unbelievably, they won. Nobody in human history had beaten a volcano before, and nobody’s done it since. That’s . . .
The average responsible, fiscally prudent, law-abiding American can be forgiven for feeling not just battered by the recession but also confused. In recent months, she has simultaneously been frightened into tightening her purse strings while also being scolded for not buying more things so that people can keep their jobs. She is also told that the recession isn’t her fault . . .
Eric Morris has been busting Los Angeles transportation myths with his L.A.: Fact or Fiction posts lately, which may have changed the way you view the City of Angels. Photographer Mathieu Young brings us yet another view of Los Angeles, via GOOD magazine. Young took a 20 mile walk around the city, snapping photos of everyone he came across.
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