Something to Keep You Busy

I'm gonna try something new here after getting some positive feedback when I posted that phenomenal Mitch Albom link a couple weeks back. I figure I'm reading a ton of stuff every day, I might as well share some of the best of it for you. So here's something to keep you going at work this Monday morning.

1) The New York Times does a little in-depth character analysis of that dastardly money grubber, Bernie Madoff.
"All of which has led some forensic psychologists to see some similarities between him and serial killers like Ted Bundy. They say that whereas Mr. Bundy murdered people, Mr. Madoff murdered wallets, bank accounts and people’s sense of financial trust and security."

2) In the same vein, the NYT also has a nice profile on the equally fascinating and brash Rahm Emanuel, who probably has more say than anyone on the decision making of Barack Obama.
"Mr. Obama acknowledged as much at a 2005 roast for Mr. Emanuel, who is a former ballet dancer, during which Mr. Obama credited him with being “the first to adopt Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ for dance” (a number that included “a lot of kicks below the waist”). When Mr. Emanuel lost part of his middle finger while cutting meat at an Arby’s as a teenager, Mr. Obama joked, the accident “rendered him practically mute.”

3) The Michigan-Michigan State hockey rivalry is alive and kicking, especially after this shit went down in Michigan's two-game sweep this weekend.
"In the final minute, Michigan State forward Andrew Conboy grabbed Michigan defenseman Steve Kampfer from behind and knocked him to the ice. Michigan State forward Corey Tropp immediately slashed Kampfer as he lay on the ice. ... After the game, Comley called for security to help escort his team out of the building. He said a Michigan parent came into the MSU locker room following the game to confront the players."

4) Without George W. Bush to use for propaganda purposes, Al-Qaeda is in a bit of a quandary having to insult Barack Obama — a well-respected figure in the Muslim world.
"In his Nov. 16 video message, (Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader Ayman al-) Zawahiri denounced Obama as "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" such as Malcolm X. He then used the term "house Negro," implying that Obama is merely a servant carrying out the orders of powerful whites."

5) He may not be starting for the Wizards anymore (because he was literally the worst starter in the NBA statistically speaking), but you gotta feel for DeShawn "I can't feel my face because LeBron bitch slapped it so hard in the playoffs last year" Stevenson in this revealing profile about how he grew up with no father figure at all.
"DeShawn didn't know the police had apprehended Darryl that day for strangling his own mother -- DeShawn's grandmother. But DeShawn says he did sense, even as a sixth-grader, that a TV image might be the closest he would ever come to meeting his biological father."