Rod counted 1,725 browser tabs closed in about a month, a number that scared Kottke who said he wouldn't bother counting for fear of knowing the answer. My solution? I've never closed any tabs ever. In ever, Jerry. Ever. Firefox hates me.

Episode 14 was kind of lame, wasn't it? Jack Bauer only raised the JBKC by 1 to 32 and only other moment of note in the entire episode was Senator Meyer getting shot. Actually, that's not true. Jack Bauer knocking the trailer over with a bulldozer was another notable moment. I'm hoping this is the week we introduce a vigilante militia, that's really the only thing we haven't seen on '24'.

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I read Elizabeth Kolbert's profile of Van Jones in the New Yorker a couple months ago and was struck by what he's doing tying the environment to the war on poverty. A couple weeks ago, the Obama administration tapped him to be the 'green' jobs adviser.

The profile of Jones is interesting on a couple points, Jones changed his name from Anthony to Van to create a new persona, his ability to speak to different audiences (“That was my street rap, you get to hear my élite rap later on”), and his single-minded approach to recognizing his goal.

I’m not looking for the points of difference. I’m looking for the points of commonality. I’ve trained my mind so that people can say twenty-seven things that might be objectionable, but as soon as they say one, that twenty-eighth thing, that’s in the right direction, that’s where I’m going to go in the conversation. I think that’s really important in a country as diverse as ours, to listen. So this guy, he says, I don’t want this, I don’t want that. But he says, I want everybody to be included. Well, that’s all I need. Dayenu.

The aspect I found most fascinating about Jones is how everything he says sounds like a sound bite (in a good way). I imagine this comes from his appreciation of Ronald Regan's speaking ability.

Ronald Reagan I admire greatly. You look at what he gets away with in a speech—unbelievable. He’s able to take fairly complex prose and convey it in such a natural and conversational way that the beauty of the language and the power of the language are there, but you stay comfortable. That’s very hard to do.

I'm not the first to say this, but I know I won't be the last. Van Jones is going to be a very big deal very soon. Mark it.

So says Sasha Frere-Jones in a short article in the New Yorker

In the end, it doesn't matter if Lil Wayne can rock or not what matters is that you remember it's ALL his fault.

I don't know how to reconcile this Boston Globe article naming Somerville the 'Top Spot to Live' for hipsters with this Somerville real estate description saying, for the past 15 years the “hip” and the “unhip” have flocked to its squares". I think of the quotes around hip and unhip as air quotes, which is fun.

Michael Lewis makes a lot of sense in his latest column for Bloomberg.com, but he's also on the wrong side of the blame game. Blaming the,

Millions of people [who] borrowed money they shouldn’t have borrowed and, not, typically, because they were duped or defrauded but because they were covetous and greedy: they wanted to own stuff they hadn’t earned the right to buy

is simplifying the issue and lets the lending banks off the hook. It's been said before, but it's important to remember (and will become painfully clear over the next couple years) that in the bank/borrower relationship, the lending party has the upper-hand. Finally, as the one guaranteed financial professional in the relationship, the lending bank, frankly, should have known better.

But then this fascinating nugget:

Goldman Sachs, which received about 8 percent of the pile, or $13 billion, has claimed publicly that the money was, to them, a matter of indifference, as Goldman had hedged itself against a possible collapse of AIG -- by making bets against AIG.

If I understand this correctly, Goldman was making bets against the insurance company it was paying to insure its bets. If that's correct, is it any wonder we're in the mess we're in?

He's great, I just don't know how long he'll last, and there's whispers he's hurting already this year.

Continuing the series of maintaining blogs for some of the authors I enjoy (Michael Lewis and Part 1 of Chuck Klosterman) because they won't maintain them themselves, here's another round of Chuck Klosterman on the internet.

Chuck Klosterman's favorable and effusive review of Benji Hughes' A Love Extreme:

Even after nearly three decades of MTV, we still tend to see musicians with our ears, which (I can only assume) is what the musicians would want.

Last week, Klosterman was on The BS Report with Bill Simmons (who calls Klosterman 'Close-terman' can we figure out if that's how it's supposed to be pronounced?) for 2 sessions. In the first they discussed the merits of pro sports (Simmons) vs college sports (Klosterman) and the second where they discussed newspapers, popularity and tenure.

Klosterman echoed David Carr's thoughts that newspapers should have been charging on the web since the beginning and colluding to do so now is one way to save them. He also pointed out Simmons' hypocrisy in criticizing sports columnists who have been where they are for ages. Simmons suggested that a lot of the best younger writers were leaving newspapers to go to the tubes, while Klosterman suggested that these guys might not be the best because internet is a popularity contest, judged by how much attention you can draw to yourself as opposed to how good you are.

Most interesting to me was a point Klosterman made a couple times that popularity begets popularity and the bigger websites are only going to keep getting bigger (though, wee Unlikely Words will soldier on!).

Lastly, spoke at the Highline Ballroom last night with all-girl Mötley Crüe cover band, Girls Girls Girls. I'll assume the evening went well and post a review if I see one.

Sarah Jessica Parker is horrible in practically everything, but she didn't ruin this one and Dennis Quaid was a successfully awkward professor. Smart People is worth watching and for some reason didn't get the attention it deserved. Uncle Chuck is awesome.