Wow, wrap your head around this

Last week, the gang over at Consumerist ran a short piece on the amount of money on the line for 2008's historic bailout. The numbers being bandied about are massive to the point of incomprehensibility and all of these numbers are being removed of all context in order to make the whole unseemly thing more palatable. Anyhow, Consumerist put all of it in an inflation-adjusted context and every one needs to see this. Check out this pie chart:

Mind bending. Really. Here's their inflation-adjusted breakdown:

Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion

Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion

Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion

S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion

Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion

The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)

Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion

Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion

NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3,920,000,000,000

2008 BAILOUT TOTAL AS OF NOV 2008: $4,616,000,000,000

This is being undertaken by a Republican administration. Can we please never hear the phrase "tax and spend liberal" in another campaign?

Try being Jackson Pollack for a change

Jackson Pollack was an American abstract-expressionist whose paint dribbles have become icons to the modern art world. Stand in front of one of his paintings at MOMA sometime and you can still feel the man's rages and furies even though he's been dead for 52 years. His work's exhausting, really. But now, thanks to the power of the Internet, you can try your hand at his now-famous painting method. Well, sort of anyway. You can't smear these or grind glass and cigarette ashes into them.

Go to this website, Jackson Pollack.org, and your cursor will turn into one of Pollack's dripping brushes and your screen a blank canvas, ready for an assault. Got a couple of minutes or a couple of hours to kill? Check it out!

Hah! I love a clever package

This was a package designed by a British printer and sent out as a Christmas present last year. Maybe it's from having hung out in art departments for so many years, but this is a hilarious pun. Cheers to Today and Tomorrow, the graphics blog where I found this. Confused? Send me a note and I'll explain.

Christmas cards from Jennifer Squires

Christmas is coming gang, as hard as that is to believe. If you're anything like me, you haven't sent your Christmas cards yet either. Oy, I need to get a move on it.

Anyhow, the great photographer Jennifer Squires dropped me a note this week with a solution to my foot dragging with regard to my Christmas cards. I've blogged about Jennifer's work before. Originally in September under the headline Fresh Photography for Hip Homes, and then again in November under the headline More Great Photography from Jennifer Squires.

Well Jennifer's at it again and this time she's turned her attention to the fact the Christmas is around the corner, and she's come up with two new cards for this year. You can find her cards and the rest of her work on her Etsy shop. Her cards and envelopes are made from 100% recycled paper and what a great way to spread around some cheer. At a loss for gifts? She's got you covered there too. Look over that Etsy shop of hers, I'm telling you.

She's a fixed! I think.

I think I fixed my feed problem. Let me know if you see anything strange with this blog please. Thanks!