What One Unemployed Irishman Did With 1.4 Billion Euros

via Yahoo News



What would you do with $1.82 billion worth of shredded money? In Ireland, people build houses out of it — at least that's what Dublin-based artist Frank Buckley did. The unemployed artist originally wanted to create a gallery for his series of mixed-media artworks called "Expressions of Recession," but he ended up building a house instead.

Buckley has been working roughly 12 hours a day every day since the beginning of December. During the early part of the construction process, he made bricks out of the decommissioned Euros Ireland's mint lent him. In all, around 50,000 money bricks went into building the house that consists of a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room. He plans to continue expanding the house that sits on an empty office building to include a kitchen, a shower, and a patio.

If you're wondering how it feels to live in a house made out of paper currency, he said that it's quite warm inside: "Whatever you say about the Euro, it's a great insulator." Frank is one of the countless people all over the globe affected by recession, and he built the house because he "wanted to create something from nothing." It will take around seven more weeks to complete building his new home, but Buckley (who's been living in the house since December) welcomes any visitor who wants to take a look at his billion-dollar masterpiece.

Irish Times via Treehugger

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

Neil Gaiman on Lewis, Tolkein, and Chesterton

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2014230-a-speech-i-once-gave-on-lewis-tolkien-and-chesterton

Stephen Colbert with Maurice Sendak

Both videos are hilarious. Great line about e-books at the end of the second one.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 2
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Michael Lewis Discusses Boomerang on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Michael Lewis Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Michael Lewis Extended Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Michael Lewis Discusses Boomerang on Charlie Rose

Favorite quote from clip, "We have socialism for capitalists, and capitalism for everyone else."

2011 PHBC Book of the Year Awards Ballot

Book of the Year Award 2011
The process has begun and the ballots are ready...

Best Book of the Year
In the Heart of the Sea
Water For Elephants
City of Thieves

Worst Book of the Year
Plan B
The People of the Book
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Voting will take place February 1st! Stay Tuned!

January Book of the Month: Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis

via goodreads.com

The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.

Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.

Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.