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Want to get a sense of just how bad things are? Take a spin on Google Earth.
The latest issue of International Economy, edited by FP contributor David Smick, has a clever graphic showing the depth of the economic crisis, so I thought I’d share.
The above image, pulled today from Vesseltracker.com’s Google Earth file, shows container ships languishing off the Singapore coast. Welcome to the largest parking lot on Earth. International Economy explains: “The world’s busiest port for container traffic, Singapore saw its year-over-year volume drop by 19.6 percent in January 2009, followed by a 19.8 percent drop in February. As of mid-March 2009, 11.3 percent of the world’s shipping capacity, sat idle, a record.”
More from Ken Silverstein:
Commentary — July 25, 2012, 2:20 pm
Washington Babylon — September 29, 2010, 11:37 am


Ratio of the number of cicada eggs per square mile of southern New Jersey to the number of stars in the Milky Way:
Jeffrey Lockwood, University of Wyoming (Laramie)/American Museum of Natural History (N.Y.C.)

A Singaporean company unveiled Kissenger, a pair of plastic lips mounted on a large plastic egg, which transmits real-time interactive kisses to a distant lover. “I am not interested in the sexual uses for it,” said the device’s inventor. “We’ve taken several steps to minimize the creepiness.”

The practice of sexualized eyeball licking was causing conjunctivitis in Japanese sixth graders.