Al Gore Ruined The Economy...On Purpose

Al Gore ruined the economy! It was his master plan all along! The Oscar-winning documentary was just a distraction!

When the economy slows down, two things happen. First, less carbon is emitted. Nobody likes to say this in polite company, but a global economic near-depression is probably the single best "program" one could imagine for curtailing carbon emissions. Vehicle miles traveled are down in the United States in spite of significantly cheaper gas prices; industrial production has slowed; China and India are not increasing their carbon usage as fast as anticipated. (link)

Al Gore is a genius.

I'd still vote him into office even now, after he's tipped his hand on his ultimate plan for the economy:



The first rule about cap-and-tax laws is you do not talk about cap-and-tax laws in an election year!



-t

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Jindal the NBC Page

For those of you, like me, who spent last night, not studiously listening to President Obama's speech and the GOP response by Govenor Jindal, but partying for Fat Tuesday and gorging on all those things you'll be giving up for Lent (Call of Duty) I'm here to inform you that you missed the Next Big Thing and you should be prepared to log on to Facebook immediately after reading this entry so you too can join a group and be on the cutting edge of this phenomenon:

Gov. Bobby Jindal is Kenneth the NBC page.

The Huffington Post has been kind enough to post comparative videos. You can really start to hear in in Jindal's story about his grandfather, just after the 1:20 mark.

Golly!

Who is this better for, and when can we expect Kenneth to host SNL by playing Jindal in the opening sketch?

-t

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President Elect

My ideal election day would look like this:

After waking early and lining up for the opening of my local polling place, voting, and getting a sticker I would

Return home, NOT go to work, plunk down in front of my multiple monitor setup:

(1) television hooked up to my xbox for playing Call of Duty 4 and discussing polling results and pundit predictions with others online (while "fragging n00bs")

(1) television set to automatically skip from MSNBC to CNN to CSPAN every five to seven minutes (with the top-of-the-hour check on Fox News)

(1) computer running multiple tabs including but not limited to fivethirtyeight.com, youtube, google reader, and some news aggregate site, let's say Yahoo.

Also, there would be snacks.

Then, near 6 o'clock, when the projections and predictions start rolling in for real, I would tune each monitor to a different network, run them all simultaneously and cheer/boo every result as it is announced.

And, snacks.

-t

This Weekend In Review -or- The World Is Falling Apart But It's Cool, Because I Think I've Got Some Duct Tape Around Here Somewhere

I was away this weekend at a wedding (Congrats, Dave & Penny!) and so missed most of the big news as it was happening. For any of you similarly in the dark, here's a recap, and we'll start with the lighter stuff:

• Brewers Bad At Baseball:
  The Brew Crew lost both halves of a double-header in Philadelphia, meanwhile, in their home park a displaced Cubs-Astros game was happening (Astros playing "at home" since hurricane Zebulon (what letter are we on now?) forced them out of Texas) and at the game Cubs ace Victorino Zambrano, and Milwaukee nemesis (coming off two weeks rest for a sore shoulder) threw a no hitter. Tough to lose away, and watch the rivals win at your home. Tougher still they haven't yet replaced the giant beer mug in center field.




• Palin Fodder:
  Tina Fey returned to SNL's season premiere to play Alaskan govenor and VP hopeful Sarah Palin. The sketch, by all accounts, was hilarious (called by one entertainment blogger "The funniest thing ever presented by Lorne Michaels productions"). My worry? Fey's interpretation of Palin will become so beloved by the populace folks will vote the Alaskan in so we can see more sketches. (Don't discount it! People like Will Ferrel's George W. Bush way more than Darrell Hammond's portrayal of Gore - SNL as political bellwether)



• Landmark Financial Institutions Fold!:
  From the WSJ:

  The American financial system was shaken to its core on Sunday. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, and Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to be sold to Bank of America Corp.link

  It started with the collapse of the mortgage industry, and there are fewer and fewer options left for the big firms. Shares tank, brokers bankrupt, good news, though, I sold short on Simpson News Syndicate and made a killing.



• Journalistic Integrity Fouled By Crazy-Ass Photog:
  Jill Greenberg, photographer to the stars (manipulator.com) shot a cover of Senator John McCain for Atlantic Monthly but, disregarding protocol (and possibly her contract with Atlantic) she kept the outtakes indecentized them. Really. The controversial photos, and some analysis here.





• Some Good News:
  The Large Hadron Collider is practically guaranteed not to create a planet-swallowing black hole and end life as we know it in this solar system.

According to IMDB.com trivia I'm too tall to be an astronaut

Have I been reading something that's totally awesome? YES.

Here's a bit that should capture your imagination:

A few weekends ago I randomly spend a morning checking out the website of the International Space Station, and I get caught up in the ship’s logs from Expedition One, which was up there from October 2000 until March 2001.

The logs were not originally intended for public view — many entries contain redacted passages, and for the most part they’re just dry, militarily-terse accounts of the various acronym-heavy technical tasks and endless troubleshootings that occupy all hours of the day. But I’m impressed to see that the crew (one American and two Russians) nevertheless often takes a moment to log the movies they watch together during their down time, occasionally offering a bit of commentary on each one.

As I read, I kind of forget about the grandeur of space exploration and instead try to imagine what the hell it must be like to watch Apocalypse Now and The Big Lebowski and 2001 (not to mention “Lethal Weapon Week”) while crowded around a circa-2000 government laptop in a cramped, smelly zero-gravity tin can in Low Earth Orbit. (Smacks more than a little of Mystery Science Theater 3000. We got Movie Sign?)

link to the entry, via kottke

Follow the link for the excerpted passages. Some great bits in there, like:

6 FEB 2001: We ate some dinner and watched the last part of "City of Angels". Shep did his best to explain to Yuri and Sergei what the phrase "chick flick" means.

-t

20

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Allegedly, the list of players named in the Mitchell Report on Steroid/HGH in MLB

I don't have any problem publishing this list. It was forwarded to me, through email, by a guy "who knows a guy, who knows a guy" in MLB. Or something.

Probably not a big deal, as I doubt I'm going to get significant traffic between the time I post this and the release of the actual report by Senator George Mitchell.

I forwarded it to Samantha and to my dad, because I figured they'd be interested.

Anyway, here's the list:

"Brady Anderson, Manny Alexander, Rick Ankiel, Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Aaron Boone, Rafaeil Bettancourt, Bret Boone, Milton Bradley, David Bell, Dante Bichette, Albert Belle, Paul Byrd, Wil Cordero, Ken Caminiti, Mike Cameron, Ramon Castro, Jose and Ozzie Canseco, Roger Clemens, Paxton Crawford, Wilson Delgado, Lenny Dykstra, Johnny Damon, Carl Everett, Kyle Farnsoworth, Ryan Franklin, Troy Glaus, Rich Garces, Jason Grimsley, Troy Glaus, Juan Gonzalez, Eric Gagne, Nomar Garciaparra, Jason Giambi, Jeremy Giambi,

Jose Guillen, Jay Gibbons, Juan Gonzalez, Clay Hensley, Jerry Hairston, Felix Heredia, Jr., Darren Holmes, Wally Joyner, Darryl Kile, Matt Lawton, Raul Mondesi, Mark McGwire, Guillermo Mota, Robert Machado, Damian Moss, Abraham Nunez, Trot Nixon, Jose Offerman, Andy Pettitte, Mark Prior, Neifi Perez, Rafael Palmiero, Albert Pujols, Brian Roberts, Juan Rincon, John Rocker

Pudge Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Scott Schoenweiis, David Segui, Alex Sanchez, Gary Sheffield, Miguel Tejada, Julian Tavarez,Fernando Tatis, Maurice Vaughn, IJason Varitek, Ismael Valdez, Matt Williams and Kerry Wood."

And for you confused readers, here is Samantha's response:

"I don't understand. what is it? some alphabetical list of baseball players?"


Turns out, an alphabetical list of players is exactly what my dad suggested:

"NO ASTERISKS NEEDED, EVERYONE WAS ON THE JUICE!"

-t

Governance

Good government never depends upon laws, but on the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.

-Law and Governance       
  The Spacing Guild Manual