for all you multitaskers.

Get out a deck of cards and take out all the 5's, 6's, 7's, and 8's. Shuffle them well, and then turn them over one at a time, putting each card in a pile according to number. Time yourself.

Now reshuffle them and repeat the exercise, except this time arrange them according to suit. Time yourself.

OK, now the tricky part. Reshuffle and again turn the cards over one at a time, but alternate between arranging by number and suit. The first card according to number, the second according to suit, etc. Time yourself.

How did you do? I scored 16 seconds on the first task, 18 seconds on the second task, but 26 seconds on the third task, and twice I had to stop myself from putting a card in the wrong pile.

This exercise uses the same parts of the brain (parietal lobe and visual cortex) that we use while driving, and shows the breakdown in reaction time and accuracy when our attention is split between two separate stimuli. Go ahead, superdrivers, give it a shot.

and allowing 4 of 16 inherited runners to score is nothing to sneeze at, either.

1. Biden

2. Kaine

3. Sibelius

4. Bayh

I'm not worried about the Biden "verbal gaffe" meme. Anyone that Obama picks will have their every utterance pored over, and anything controversial will be reported as a gaffe. Now that Obama's trip abroad is over, I expect him to concentrate more on domestic issues and pick a VP with serious foreign policy chops and a clear enough view of Iraq to realize that partition needs to be discussed. That's Biden.

in Athens, GA 20 years ago. That or Rolling Rock. No real mystery -- it was present in the clubs, it was cheap (.25 less than a Bud), and there was a significant southern rural presence among the hipster tastemakers. Last call would necessitate a switch to a Foster's oil can, the only real point to all this being to drink for as long as possible for as little as possible....

Wow, I'd forgotten about Drewry's -- we had a package store that stocked it by the case in returnable bottles. It was eight bucks a case, which matched the lowest price of a few other beers, but you got $1.50 back for returning the bottles. Best deal I could find. And it tasted...well, not very good.

The difference in coverage between the peacock and the supporting networks is night and day (or maybe primetime and night). The personal profiles I can actually handle -- I agree with King that they've encroached since Athens, but it's still nowhere as bad as it used to be.

And since I'm pulling for the US in general, focus on our athletes isn't a bad thing per se. But, as noted above, there comes a point where the America-centrism detracts from the reportage of the event. The commentators are supposed to be serving something of a reporting function, are they not? Where indeed were the Japanese gymnasts? Was it really necessary to get dozens of reaction shots from the brutally irritating Jonathan Horton? Never in my life have I felt so relentlessly updated on what another human being is "talkin 'bout!!!!!"

The worst offenders were the color commentators, especially Tim Daggett (gymanstics) and Rowdy Gaines (swimming). The pro-American boosterism and the almost gleeful scorn heaped upon any mistake made by an opposing athlete was over the top. The lead announcers tended to play it down the middle a bit better, with the exception of human oddity Al Trautwig.

So buyers agreed to mortgages they couldn't afford, lenders lent money that couldn't be paid back, bankers repackaged the bad loans into fancy securities, credit rating agencies gave the securities high ratings, investors gobbled them up, and government looked the other way.

This apportions blame appropriately. But the conclusion is actually the antecedent -- the Federal Reserve did not perform adequate oversight in re the exotic loan products created to open the mortgage market to those buyers least able to afford a mortgage.

In other words, there have always been people unable to afford a mortgage, but they weren't a problem to the housing market as a whole until the rules were changed so as to lend them money.

Shiller believes the federal government should...create a new financial watchdog that would review the quality of financial products in a fashion similar to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The government should also get involved, he suggests, in regulating the boilerplate language of mortgage contracts, so that consumers don't have to take on faith that all that mumbo jumbo isn't just a scam cooked up by mortgage lenders.

The Fed is already tasked with this, isn't it? At any point, they could have said that high-risk interest only or ARMs wouldn't fly -- they just didn't do it. Any pressure on reform should be directed there.

I agree with Leonard's criticism of Schiller's proposed solution of more derivatives. Home loans worked best when the lender assumed some risk in making the loan, and so worked with prospective borrowers to find a mutually beneficial arrangement. They've always had the option of foreclosure, but most of their money was made on successful loans. Inviting the investor class to partake was the problem in the first place, IMO.

The tax digest issue is a big one here in Atlanta. There's a movement afoot to force an acceleration in new assessments -- on the part of speculators buying distressed properties who don't believe they should pay taxes on pre-foreclosure assessments. It's a hell of a problem -- our system of property tax collection is in no way equipped to handle the unanticipated drop in revenue sure to result.