Radio Diatribe

Volkswagen’s regular shares are trading at over €850, down a bit from the intra-day high of €1005.

At €1005, market capitalization of Volkswagen comes out to over €296 billion (about $368 billion), toppling Exxon Mobil’s $343 billion valuation.

The sudden jump in the share price from €205 on Friday last week to €1005 today has largely to do with Porsche disclosing it has acquired options to bring its effective stake in Volkswagen up to 74.1%, decreasing available float to approximately 6%.

Hedge funds, which have shorted more than 12% of Volkswagen shares, faced potentially unlimited liabilities, and started buying up shares to cover their positions at pretty much any cost.

To put it more plainly, no one thinks Volkswagen’s worth that much money - it’s just that hedge funds got royally screwed by Porsche in complex derivative trading, and it’s now buy or die for them.

Update: Financial Times has posted an article specifically about this ridiculousness.

I was just listening to The Best Show With Tom Scharpling from September 16th on iTunes, and at the 1h59m58s mark, someone claiming to be “Michael” from Waterloo, a football player in his second year originally of Hamilton, calls in. (You can try narrowing it down to one person, if you like.)

So, there is exactly one person who is cool enough to know who Tom Scharpling is at UW, and that person is a football player from Hamilton?

What the fuck is this?

Ok, well, I guess Mad Men is better, but I think that’s about it for list of shows I definitely can say is better than Superjail!

Superjail! is the new cartoon series on Cartoon Network’s [adult swim] programming block about a secret underground jail which kidnaps the most dangerous inmates from real jails around the world for a super-advanced incarceration. And, David Wain is the warden of the titular mega-jail.

• Pilot episode w/ commentary.
• The series premiere episode (different from the pilot) — may not be accessible from outside the U.S.
• Wikipedia article on Superjail!

Waaaa?

This is a really sad day.

Jonathan Franzen may finally get his wish to destroy experimental fiction fulfilled.

One can only hope this is some sort of a horrible joke, which is definitely a possibility since David Foster Wallace has been known to be quite an eccentric.

WSJ., the new “lifestyle” magazine from The Wall Street Journal, has an article on safety video shown by various air carriers around the world.

The WSJ. article picked Delta’s new safety video as the best, noting that the narrating flight attendant has a striking resemblance to Angelina Jolie.

And, I agree. Assuming “striking resemblance to Angelina Jolie” is a code phrase for “striking resemblance to transsexual party promoter Amanda Lepore,” of course.

Delta’s new face

Amanda Lepore, the face of Heatherette

Delta’s new video in full

Al Gore’s current.tv has some things to say about the video also.

(AP/Stephan Savoia)

Blu-ray version of There Will Be Blood, which goes on sale today in North America, is sold out, and it’s only 3 a.m. on the east coast.

Is it the killer title Blu-ray camp has been looking for, or did Paramount screw up manufacturing and couldn’t deliver enough discs on the release date?

Paul F. Tompkins says so, so it must be.

Xavier: Renegade Angel, the new show from Vernon Chatman and John Lee (of the Wonder Showzen fame), centers around Xavier, half-man, half-bird superhero with a snake for left arm, who travels the world “[f]acing rednecks, inflicting righteousness and preaching religiously about the ’strong, silent types’ and moralism.”

The premiere’s at 6 p.m. ET on [adult swim], which, of course, is not available in Canada.

I guess I’ll be watching it… umm… some other way that may or may not be entirely legal.

Update: The first episode has now been posted in full.

I still do think it’s really neat, but I am not sure it’s the effort to implement now.

Hmm. So, I guess it’s not my greatest idea ever since it’s not great enough to motivate me to implement it?