Santa: you're fired.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/time-to-check-the-santa-index/

It's a rather odd way to check on the health of the economy. I can only assume that things like alcohol sales would be up (I haven't checked, and I haven't talked to an internet psychic). The story on internet psychics I heard about a few days ago and found it amusing, if in a sad way. It is strange what people turn into when the chips are out (not just down, but gone). There are all kinds of studies on the amounts of money people spend on lottery tickets for example. I'd have to wonder if a similar disposition is present by poor people spending on psychic hotlines et al, or if this is merely an indicator of general stress and anxiety throughout the greater economy. I'm guessing Santas being fired is however more distressing than the news of people browsing other fake trends proposed by people making mystical sounding guesses.

Also: is-france-due-for-riots/ This one requires more thought. While France's diligent refusals to acknowledge multicultural trends are on the one hand a difficult line that effectively disenfranchises its immigrant class, there's probably a good reason in the line run to do it.. If the implication is that French culture is more important than immigrant rational stability. The real crazy part is not that France conducts no demographic reporting (something we go wayyyyy over on), but that their establishment seem unaware of the caustic anger brewing within those demographics. I guess they do have a history of not paying attention to the underlings of their society, but Parisian riots were not that far off in their history and were made predominately by North African Muslim immigrants. It does not seem impossible to ask what that demographic is upset over (namely the lack of French acknowledgement).

In America we insist on hyphenated Americans to a ludicrous accounting of 'diversity', without regard to what actually consists of diversity or what measures it can be important in (at least we mostly killed quotas, an impossibility in a free market system). In France it would appear the trend is to insist on French people and then to ignore those people who aren't quite French enough and pretend they are perfectly happy being outsiders living in France. I suspect there is a middle position that would work better for both countries; both to suppress the need for civilian riots and to encourage the need for diverse opinions and toleration.