Startup Idea

Social networking for municipal politicians. The site would notify all of your friends when you actually became mayor.

Alternatively: political system in which leaders are selected based on who goes to a place the most.

Velvet Goldline

Via Atrios, it's hard to understand what could be motivating Anthony Weiner to speak out against Glenn Beck's promotion of Goldline, other than a genuine concern for the people being scammed.

I don't see any political upside, and I don't think the words of a Jewish Democrat from New York are going to carry much weight with people who are already stockpiling gold against the coming New World Order.

So good on him!

Also, relatedly, it actually is probably a good idea to invest in non-gold, right? I have no idea how that even works if you don't have any gold to sell in the first place. How does short-selling work, and can you do it with commodities? Is that what futures contracts are?

(This is purely a hypothetical question, by the way, since obviously I have TONS of gold, just loads of the stuff, they call me the Midas Dutch, &c.)

All Debate on Actual Programming Methodologies Completely Aside

The term "code smell" is really gross. Using it as a compound noun ("x is a code smell"), as seems to be the convention, is even worse. It is a language smell.