Thursday Trends

Naturally the trend for topics of conversation today centered around the presidential debate aired last night on MSNBC. Although I find the Election of '08 an important interest at hand, there are also several other side notes that should be looked at.

Give me something else to talk about ....
One of the featured issues being talked about very recently in both LA Times and New York Times is the rebuttal of the DOW in the past few days, after hitting it's lowest point mark in history since the Great Depression. Martin Zimmerman of LA Times put out an article Stocks Rally as Oil Prices Drop Below $70 a Barrel, leaving a hopeful impression with readers on the country's economic crisis. However, he still maintained some awkward level of anxiety through the read. In his defense, Zimmerman did his job in keeping the facts true to the public where he did not mess around in letting the reader know we still have a lot of rebuilding to do in our economy.

New York Times' Michael M. Grynbaum similarly notes the excitement of the DOW closing in at 401.35 points in the last hour in This Time, Stocks Surge in Last Hour. Grynbaum's spin on the article tracks down more of the high points of the day in the market, but like Zimmerman he wraps up with a point about maintaining the focus on how "the market is not really looking at much beyond today", as said by Richard Sparks, an analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research.

Check iT...
Here's a variety of new downloads. The first one is brought to you by Filter's website. The artist is Dustin O'Halloran based out of L.A. Second on the list is the hot new web-release of Kanye West's Heartless brought to you by the lovely Kanye himself. Thanks buddy! Lastly, here's a sweet jam from Atlas Sound, one of my current favorites, with their song Airdales (thanks Stereogum for the download). Enjoy kids!

Dustin O'Halloran - Opus 23
Kanye West - Heartless
Atlas Sound - Airdales

UPDATE: Seems like the band Ra Ra Riot is doing very well for themselves, hitting up all sorts of places while touring on the road and promoting their latest album The Rhumb Line with Barsuk (who also has signed Mates of State, Jim Noir, What Makes Milwaukee Famous, and Rilo Kiley to their label). Their live performance of Can You Tell was recently aired on the Letterman Show. This clearly shows their success with the release of the album, and is really exposing the band to a broader span of people - the nation's public television viewers. Here's the clip of Ra Ra Riot's performance from Monday night.