PET OWNERS, TAKE NOTE . . .

This site promises to have a pet-loving atheist rescue your pet if you ascend in the Rapture – for $110 (first pet, $15 each pet thereafter), a business model I can only envy.  Don’t miss the terms and conditions.  The service is real (“Rescuers must sign an affidavit to affirm their disbelief in God – and they must also clear a criminal background check”).  Twenty-six atheists have been recruited.  Here’s the back story.

Meanwhile, for those who follow such things, it should be noted that the Rapture Index currently stands at 167, not far off its all-time high.  It should be further noted that the Rapture dog tags advertised have nothing to do with tagging or rescuing your dogs; they are guidance for those humans – suddenly less skeptical – who find themselves left behind.  (“I never believed this stuff, Marge, but I was talking to Mary at the grocery store and suddenly she – and the guy spraying the fruit – disappeared.  All that was left were their clothes and this dog tag!”)

BASICLAND . . . SORROWLAND

Charlie Munger, in case you didn’t know, is Warren Buffett’s long-time partner in Berkshire Hathaway.  Crusty, acerbic, and not easily fooled, he writes this brief history of America from 1700 through 2012.  In short: if we don’t enact serious financial reform, kiss it all good-bye.

But before you get all bummed, bear in mind that with any luck we will enact serious financial reform – the House already has.  And for every reason to be gloomy about the future, there are reasons to be excited. To wit . . .

HUGE GOOD NEWS:

THE ENERGY SOLUTION

If you missed “60 Minutes” last night, you’ve got to watch this (or at least read it).  The Bloom Box fuel cell is already working at places like Google, eBay, FedEx, and Wal*Mart and the inventor thinks it may be powering your home, independent of the electric grid, within the decade.  Which would be phenomenal for our economic well-being, security, and the environment.

DEPO

I bought more Friday at $2.36.  The company has plenty of cash and, by at least one analyst’s estimate, is worth $3.60 a share even without its gabapentin-based drug being approved.  But that drug will be approved, my guru feels sure; so, he says, “it’s a chip shot to $3” (a 27% gain from $2.36) and could at some point climb back to $4.  There’s always some risk of disaster; but not a bad place to stash some money you can truly afford to lose.