And a Chihuahua Shall Lead Us...

Nick Gillespie | October 6, 2008

Wall Street (and the world) respond to the (unnecessary/overwrought/misguided/you name it) bailout with a shoulder shrug:

Wall Street looked to continue the volatility of last week when trading resumed Monday. Stock index futures declined by more than 1 percent late Sunday, pointing to a lower open. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 176, or 1.70 percent, to 10,188. Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 19.3, or 1.74 percent, to 1,089.00, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 20.25, or 1.37 percent, to 1,457.25.

More on that here.

Meanwhile, ordinary Americans, good, hard-working Americans with cloth coats and 2.3 cars in every pot, spent the weekend doing what they do best. Which is spending money on the things that really matter to them:

"Beverly Hills Chihuahua" was barking up the right tree with movie-goers, who put the Disney comedy at No. 1 for the weekend with a $29 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Featuring a talking Chihuahua with Drew Barrymore's voice, the family flick about a pampered pooch lost in Mexico led a surge of new movies that boosted Hollywood business, which generally has slumped the last two months.

The top-12 movies hauled in $95.4 million, up 42 percent from the same weekend a year ago, when "The Game Plan" was No. 1 with $16.6 million.

More here.

If you haven't read the reason classic "In Praise of Vulgarity: How commercial culture liberates Islam—and the West," you should do so now.