Required Reading for December

• From ESPN's The Sports Guy: How to Brainwash Your Daughter into Hating the Lakers. Simmons should be up for Parent of the Year for this. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/101201&sportCat=nba
• From Slate: The Federal Reserve (after Congress forced its to) finally comes clean about the emergency measures it took in 2008. Here's an interesting fun fact: Goldman Sachs would have failed without Fed loans (about $35 billion a day at one point). Also scary -- companies as seemingly sound (and foreign!) as Toyota, Harley Davidson, and Caterpillar also used the Fed facilities (to roll over commercial paper). http://www.slate.com/id/2276605/
• From the Department of the Obvious and the Ministry of Hypocrisy (via Wikileaks): Booze, sex and drugs in the house of Saud. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-cables-saudi-princes-parties
• Personally, I think Ricky Gervais is hilarious. I also knew he worked his atheism into his stand-up, which I admire and respect. However, I didn't know he was this well spoken about his disbelief in God. From the WSJ, Ricky Gervais explains why he doesn't believe in God: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/ And the follow-up piece, Gervais answers critics of the previous piece: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/22/does-god-exist-ricky-gervais-takes-your-questions/ Merry Christmas!!