Liberal Media Elite

Just when you think I-35 should be repaired…

God. Damn. It. I guess we’re just going to get a taste of what the RNC is going to be bringing to town. So gross.

So, the Republicans had their li’l YouTube debate tonight, and it all went off without so much as a hitch: Jesus and flags were giving everyone hard-ons, the crowed booed a veteran because he is gay and someone suggested sending Hillary to Mars. Giuliani and Romney got snippy with one another and then it sort of devolved into what CNN’s calling a “street brawl,” which makes sense since that’s how fascists historically are the most comfortable settling political differences.

In short, it’s exactly what everyone was expecting: Corrupt, tired, selfish, boring men with more vitriol than guts and more desire to rule us like a king than a love of democracy barking at who could be the toughest, if by “toughest,” you mean which one has spent more time admiring fictional versions of torture and coming to the conclusion that Fallujah would have been won by now if only we could have somehow equipped all the soldiers with pliers and copies of “Marathon Man,” because, you know, Dustin Hoffman was awesome and tough in that and revenge is better than Christmas, because Christmas is really only about revenge when you think about it because, come on the SON OF GOD won’t just get flayed like that and not come back to KICK ASS!! Which he totally will do when Ariel Sharon’s zombie is marching through Damascus like de Gaulle and the first horseman of the apocalypse all rolled into one. Which is terribly funny in a not very funny way, when you realize that about half the country is fairly receptive to actually believing one of them.

And John King from the CNN Washington Bureau has written this insultingly out-of-context profile on Gov. Mike Huckabee, the dark horse GOP candidate from Arkansas. It’s all very nice and Christ-y, and he should do well among the blue-haired scolds of rural Iowa who get a refreshing break every four years from mortgaging their futures to agribusiness to decide the world’s fate. Read the sage words of John King:

Not since religious broadcaster Pat Robertson sought the Republican nomination in 1988 has someone so openly defined by faith had such a prominent role on the national political stage.

Oh my God. What the… hell? “Someone so openly defined by faith had such a prominent role on the national political stage”? Where the fuck have you been living, John King? On Mars with Hillary Clinton? ‘Cause if being all prayerful, and saying that the Lord Baby saved you from liquor or cock, and naming the Lord Baby as your favorite telenovela star, qualifies as being “openly defined by faith,” I think it’s a fair statement that the last eight goddamn (no pun) years of the national political stage have been dominated by people who have been just as “openly defined by faith” as Huckabee.

It’s just that he’s a preacher and is, apparently, so Southern his last name is Huckabee. (I mean, c’mon… What Northerner would have a name like that?)

I’m fairly certain I’ve posted this video—which illustrates US housing prices adjusted for inflation as a roller coaster—before. But in light of the recent events in the housing market, I thought it might time for a refresher. I’m also sort of hoping the creators post an updated version… Because that would be scary.

Check out this article in the Washington Post. If you haven’t noticed similar articles elsewhere you will soon.

The price of oil has been steadily trending up for years and has had a few noticeable spikes in the recent past. Yeah, it’s gonna come down at various points in any given year but if you look at, say, a ten year snapshot you see a steady and relentless trend upwards. There’s no reason to assume this will stop. There’s no reason to think that we’ll start discovering scads of oil that we don’t already know about. Yes, we will likely see the price climb high enough that some very expensive to get oil now becomes financially viable. But that ain’t the same as a new motherlode. And, with both China and India booming economically and with their respective oil demands going through the roof (they will both likely pass the US in oil consumption in the next 2-5 decades) you gotta figure the price trend up stays a price trend up.

While an ongoing upward trend in oil prices has a negative impact on the US economy, the article linked to above points to one of the wonders of economics…a bad thing ain’t strictly a bad thing. You have to dig a bit to cut through the hyperbole…the article talks about new green businesses or old businesses that recently started investing in green, coming up with “new business models” as companies, responding to the expense of oil, begin to invest in the development and deployment of cheaper, largely renewable, energy sources. This is not a new business model. One of the oldest business models on the planet is that when factor of production A (in this case, oil) gets really expensive, capital will shift to the search for factor of production B (in this case renewables) that can eventually replace factor of production A.

More than any political campaign, more than any lobbying for subsidies and grants, more than any amount of press trumpeting the tragedy of global warming, this phenomenon will lead to the growth of discovery of new energy technologies. There are some signs of the early stages of this coming down the pipe. Some brave and smart utility companies that for years spent what they were required to spend on renewable energy are now spending in excess of those legislative mandates. Not because they’re good guys. Because they see a potential return on investment that makes it worth it. There is growing investment in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) sector (CPG is, like, everything you buy in a grocery store or at the 7-11) exploring ways to reduce the carbon footprint created from seed-to-table. These include things like reducing the food miles (amount of miles a product logs as it goes from manufacturer to retailer), finding less energy intensive growing methods, reducing packaging, etc. Again, this isn’t ’cause they’re swell folks who cry at the degradation of mother earth or whatever the latest environmental huggy-feely approach to guilting business into “doing the right thing” is (good luck with that, by the way…interesting strategy to keep employing a tactic that has never worked…when you receive a mailer from an environmental group talking about it’s hardline advertising and press campaign. It’s because they have to keep profits up and the price of oil is now high enough that there is the potential of impressive returns for cutting oil use in the supply chain.

I’m not trying to paint a picture of a bold, new green friendly world. We’re a long, long way from that. This is all pretty nascent stuff. All I’m pointing out is that the steady increase in oil is leading bleeding edge businesses from all across the industrial spectrum to start funneling money into new energy sources and less energy intensive ways of doing business.

Which, you know, is what we’ve been wanting ‘em to do all along.

You know it’s bad when European news magazines give their readers detailed information on how to make the most of their Christmas shopping spree in New York:

UPDATE:
I have been scolded for not translating the above post for our readers…The article talks about how New York is a paradise for shoppers from Europe these days because the Euro is climbing steadily against the Dollar, making consumer goods much cheaper than in Europe. Right now you save about a third of the price for a product if you have Euros in your wallet. And being good service providers, the magazine also features a nice little overview of potential customs issues and individual duties and taxes.
As an example: Let’s say you buy an iPod touch (the big one with 16 Gig) in the US for $399, that’s €269. You add €36 in taxes and end up with €305 for a device that costs €399 in Europe. This means that in the end you save €94 or $139.

Now, don’t think that the high gas/kerosene prices will keep the merry shoppers away: many airlines, like for example the German Lufthansa, protected themselves by what is called “hedging“. This means they bought the option to exchange Dollars for Euros at a set price way back when $ and € were almost worth the same. According to Spiegel Online, Lufthansa just announced that they have a 50 coverage rate, which means that they can trade in every other earned Dollar at rate that is independent from today’s high exchange rate. Nifty.

This story in the PiPress made me angry. Really angry. And, yes, by criticizing it, I’m sure that it proves that I hate America and freedom, etc., and that liberals are traitors and, really, I think I’m fine with that, because I was born after Vietnam was fought and lost and, frankly, I can’t wait for the rest of that goddamn generation to die, die, die so we can stop talking about it, and being obsessed with it, and start talking about other things that Baby Boomers aren’t obsessed with:

The 60-year-old Forest Lake woman, concerned that Vietnam veterans have not gotten their due, is pushing for a state day to honor them. She also wants a program to educate students about the unpopular war and its psychological effects on soldiers.

Yes, that’s correct. Diane Finnemann is “concerned that Vietnam veterans have not gotten their due.” Apart from being among the most massively overcelebrated group of people on the planet, of course. I mean, come on to say that Vietnam hasn’t been remembered is… How is that even possible to say such a thing? Even entertaining that notion requires such a massive denial of the last 35 years of American history. And surely they are more remembered the Korean War vets. And the nice Marines who died in Lebanon in the ’80s. Hell, even Gulf War I gets less fuckin’ ink these days than Vietnam. Do they get special days in Washington County? I don’t think so. But they’re not Baby Boomers, so they’re not special. God, I hate the ’60s.

In the meantime, I just have this to say about Vietnam, the idea of another fucking holiday and, well, the entire Boomer generation: Jesus Christ, we remember, alright, Boomers? The ’60s were the most amazingly liberating and mistake-laden decade that ever there was, and we should just keep fixating on it. I GET IT. YOU’RE AWESOME. FUCKING SHUT UP ABOUT IT NOW.

Stop thinking your pain is so special, Boomers. Really. It’s only going to get worse as you age and get all sentimental and nostalgic, and it’s already at critical heights of navel-gazingly annoying, so just CUT IT OUT.

More fun with Strib screenshots for me, please. Here’s a contest they have running and Vita.mn’s link from the Strib masterpage:

Dane Cook tickets! Oh boy, oh boy!

So, at a year old, I think it’s fair to assume that Vita.mn is now — perhaps on purpose, even — the frat boy’s City Pages.

Yes. Yes, I think this is what’s happening.

I was raised—a German Catholic—to believe that fascists and totalitarians were, essentially, simultaneously cruel and incompetent. They’d torture Václav Havel, for example, and then let his satires appear on stage. So…

Between this and this, I’m beginning to think we’re in serious trouble.

This is what startribune.com—your online source for everything from Britney Spears custody battle updates to right-wing blogs and podcasts that ape Armistead Maupin—has summed up the media’s response to Giuliani, Thompson and Romney’s stances on torture:

It’s as if an error in the New Media Department has perfectly summarized the press’ attitude toward serious debate and the erosion of American rule of law. “We’ll get to it later. Oh, yes, we are going to ask some hard-hitting questions. But first we’re going to have a nice cup of coffee and talk to the sudoku editor. She has great tits.”

UPDATE: It’s now 12:21 p.m. and the Strib hasn’t fixed it yet. Maybe they are trying to tell us something.