Would you move to Vermont for $10,000?

There’s no doubt that there’s an arms race in the competition between airlines for the front-of-the-plane crowd, and United just upped the ante. It’s bad enough that the wealthy are forced to share the same aircraft with the Tijuana bus station that is today’s economy class, but United thinks they shouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of sharing a terminal with the unwashed masses.

I just threw up in my mouth a little. As a financial planner, it gives me heart palpitations to think that the average car loan today is almost $32,000 and the average car payment is $523. Utter insanity.

The Whisky War is drawing to a close. If you’ve never heard of Hans Island you’re not alone, but it’s the site of one the longest running land disputes between two sovereign nations. Canada and Denmark have been claiming and reclaiming this half-mile rock for years now by removing the other country’s flag and leaving a bottle of their respective whisky behind.

Just how secret is New Orleans’s “secret” hangover cure? So secret that my wife (who was born and raised here) had never heard of it when I asked her last night. But I’m here to tell you that yakamein is the real deal. I was surprised to learn that it has found its way onto a few restaurant menus, though, as it’s traditionally served out of the back of a pickup truck (or a station wagon at the construction site across from my office, where I get mine). If you’re looking for a truly weird New Orleans thing, yakamein is certainly that.

I have to admit this one took me by surprise. I haven’t spent any time in Vermont, but the picture in my mind is one of idyllic farmhouses and rolling hills and a generally decent place to live. Yeah… not so much. Evidently people have been fleeing Vermont in such numbers that the state is now paying people to move there.

An overturned 18-wheeler carrying 30 million bees sounds like the premise of a 1970s schlock movie, but it actually happened last weekend in Texas.

The dark side of the Fermi Paradox goes something like this: whichever life form is first to pass through the Great Filter will likely extinguish all other competing life forms in the universe.  Russian theoretical physicist Alexander Berezin thinks there’s a better than zero chance that humans are that dominant life form. And here’s Neil deGrasse Tyson illustrating why he couldn’t be more wrong.

Any hope of real wages increasing across the board after 30+ years of stagnation are just a pipe dream, according to top US executives. Even with unemployment reaching 18-year lows, companies are refusing to increase pay in any meaningful way. Not only that, executives are looking to eliminate workers altogether in a massive automation push.

“How you gonna call yourself the Land of the Free when you lock more of your people in cages than any other nation on Earth?” - Dave Smith

If you only do one thing this weekend, watch this documentary. It’s absolutely mind blowing how much injustice exists in our “justice” system. Here’s the trailer in case you don’t have Netflix.