For those that apparently missed the point of yesterday’s post, it was that Disney, one of the major enforcers of this nations insanely overbroad and paternalistic copyright laws — even going so far as to pour millions into extending the duration of copyright ever time Mickey Mouse threatens to make his way into the public domain — and one of the DMCA’s biggest fans, showcased in its own movie several blatant violations of US copyright law. Now, to be fair, the movie Wall-E has a post-apocalyptic flavor, and he exists in a world that has been taken over and subsequently ruined by a major corporation, but you get my drift. Disney manages to critique itself: the corporation whose initial primary goal was to alter American life immeasurably made a movie about what happens when major corporations alter American life immeasurably and cause its downfall. Then, civilization rebuilds post-the concept of copyright.
Its fantastic.
But even if that was a bit too “out there,” here’s one that is impossible to miss. While searching for an awesome bumper sticker I saw on a car two days ago, which said “re-elect Senator McCain,” I found this: “Live Free, Vote Barack.”
Its only not funny because people apparently believe it.
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NORTH CANTON, Ohio — A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug, adopted by Wal-Mart and Costco, seems made for the times. The jugs are cheaper to ship and better for the environment, the milk is fresher when it arrives in stores, and it costs less.
What’s not to like? Plenty, as it turns out.
The jugs have no real spout, and their unorthodox shape makes consumers feel like novices at the simple task of pouring a glass of milk…
But retailers are undeterred by the prospect of upended bowls of Cheerios. The new jugs have many advantages from their point of view, and Sam’s Club intends to roll them out broadly, making them more prevalent.
The redesign of the gallon milk jug, experts say, is an example of the changes likely to play out in the American economy over the next two decades. In an era of soaring global demand and higher costs for energy and materials, virtually every aspect of the economy needs to be re-examined, they say, and many products must be redesigned for greater efficiency.
The whole article is really fascinating, and this is one of those small things that can make a big difference in cutting our consumption of resources without having to make a big show of it. There’s even a graphic showing the difference that the new jug design makes. Personally, I think they could probably make a minor alteration to fix the spout issue, but overall, this is a really cool deal, and might even help bring down prices if adopted in other areas as well.
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Last night, I saw Wall-E, the new film from Disney Pixar and frankly, it was fabulous. Now, honestly, I would never take my own advice on a Disney film for two reasons: one, I don’t know nearly as much about film as a I let on and live by the adage that its only good if I like it, and two, I’m a Disney fanatic — like the visits the park a million times for the architecture and talks about it on Disney forums kind of fanatic — so my opinion regarding something produced by the Disney company is fairly worthless. But that said, and independently of any kind of outside qualifications, I have to say that Wall-E was one of the best movies I’ve seen in years.
Sure, it contains the compulsory Disney soapbox lecture on some touchy-feely idea (but this time it hits a little too close to home for you to do much more than think about its application to reality), and it re-hashes a pretty standard story, but the graphics are utterly spectacular — masterful really — the characters are fantastic and its one of those rare movies that has emotion. I can see why Pixar spent a reputed ten years on it; according to some involved, Wall-E was the first movie Pixar wanted to produce, but waited until the technology could live up to the vision.
It does.
But there was something that really made me antsy about the whole experience last night. Right before Wall-E, I witnessed one of the most frightening events in moviegoer history and it had nothing to do with casting Marky Mark in anything. It was the kind of thing that makes you think about your life and reflect on how close modern society is to driving culture right off the edge and into the spiraling abyss we know as the end of humanity itself.
Ladies and gentleman, I give you…well…you have to see it for yourself.
Run. Find your cave. Set up your Unabomber-style camp. Stock your canned foods and flashlight batteries. Shelter your children.
And don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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Not that they’re making the right one, mind you, since — let’s face it — its difficult for food to be patriotic, period, unless its one of those Good Housekeeping Jell-o sponge cakes that’s decorated like the American flag, but the sponsors of the Democratic National Convention are closer to an actual concept than they think they are.
No fried chicken. No fried catfish. No fried green tomatoes. No fried okra. No fried anything.
In promoting healthy eating habits, the Democratic guidelines say every meal should be nutritious and include “at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, purple/blue and white.”
“It’s the new patriotism,” says Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the driving force behind the greening of the Democratic convention.
It seems weird, I know, even to say it. How can staying away from foods that are bad for you be “patriotic?” Doesn’t every American have a God-given (or at least God-derived) right to stuff their obese faces with every manner of fast food under the sun, thus eschewing such European sounding vegetables as arugula, endive, spinach, tofu, kashi, and salad? Absolutely. You should live in all of the freedom necessary to eat yourself silly.
But here’s the thing. If all Americans improved their diet such that they lost, on average, two pounds per person, we would reduce our need for oil by billions of gallons.
A study published in The Engineering Economist found Americans were burning 3.8 million more litres of petrol each year than they did in 1960 because they are fatter and heavier. “If a person reduces the weight in their car, either by removing excess baggage, carrying around less weight in their trunk or, yes, even losing weight, they will indeed see a drop in their fuel consumption,” says the study author, Sheldon Jacobson, of the University of Illinois.
And yes, this sounds like a PETA ad, but if every American gave up meat for one whole day per week (or even two meals on two non-consecutive days), it would be the equivalent of taking 8 million cars off the road, because of the lessened need for industrialized farming techniques which, of course, consume oil.
Maybe this is just stemming from my current need to be at odds with the “party” over…everything…or at least from my bitterness over John McCain’s nomination…but honestly, if its “patriotic” to cut down on foreign oil by announcing new drilling projects that might do nothing more than temporarily drive down the cost of oil — a decrease that would be quickly remedied by the commodities markets — then why isn’t it “patriotic” to try to cut down Americans’ dependence on the stuff by getting them to eat healthier?
We have some weird notions of patriotism in this country. I don’t think anyone is arguing with that. The two parties throw the word around as though both are trying to own it, and both know that they come nowhere close to what most Americans understand to be patriotism — a deep love of country. That’s it. One does not need to support a war to be patriotic, and one does not need to go out of his or her way to oppose war to be patriotic. One does not need to be a knee-jerk protectionist to display one’s love for their nation, and neither does one need to be a “citizen of the world.” I don’t think you’d find many people in this country — other than a few of my relatives who were forced to come here back in the 50s — who have any desire to leave it. Complain all they want, they live in a nation more free than any…and as far as I know, no one’s selling tickets for return voyages to Europe, Africa, Asia or the hundreds of other locations our citizens hail from.
Patriotism — at the risk of sounding like a third grader — to me is pretty simple. You love this country and are willing to do what you have to to keep it safe and to make certain that it exists, in a reasonable facsimile of its present form adjusted for current conditions, into the distant future. For some people, its loving how America is or was, or an idealized representation of how America is or was, and for some people its loving America for what she could become better than she is today (or at least, an idealized version of America). I think these concepts are a bit bigger than any trendy political point. I definitely think they are a lot more serious, intellectual and detailed than any political party can ever claim to understand or communicate at this moment in history.
Perhaps our simplistic notions of terribly philosophical things is an indication that our public school system, which in some states doesn’t even require kids to take American history until the 8th grade, and then only covers the parts of American history that the teacher’s unions deem necessary to their education, has finally destroyed American education for good. Maybe, before we ever cast another vote for anything in this country, we, as a nation, need to get out dusty copies of The Federalist, John Locke’s Treatises, Plato’s Republic, and the host of other timeless classics that our forefathers actually bothered to read. Now, yes, they weren’t the top scholars of their time, either — hell, the Sons of Liberty were formed in a bar in Massachusetts — but at least they had an honest grasp on what it meant to be an American.
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I was about to write a post about how, no matter how interesting or practical conservative ideology becomes, the ideas are still going to be rejected by all of the Hollywood celebrities that even have a chance of playing on celebrity Jeopardy!, and meanwhile we’re stuck with Stephen Baldwin who can’t put a coherent sentence together, let alone worry about grammatical construction.
And then I found out that those emails Scarlett Johansson claimed to have been receiving from Barack Obama himself were really just those press release emails that are doctored with your name at the top so that they feel a little more “personal.”
There’s a reason I never succeeded in show business and it has nothing to do with my irrational fear of sequins.
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I don’t know how viable the idea of turning unused wood chips into ethanol actually is, nor how necessary it is to serve the niche market of “people who want to purchase ethanol made out of landscaping materials” but apparently, Michigan is now pursuing the idea full steam, and to the tune of $15 million. We are going to be the “nations leading wood chip ethanol producing state.”
Now, honestly, we could go into detail about how that $15 million could be given back to businesses as a tax credit to stimulate the dying economy, or that it could be used to replace the $22 million tax increased that Jenny just leveraged on single businesses, or even that that money could be used to pay down the huge deficit that Michigan seems to be collecting like raindrops in a watering can, but that would just be a repetition of what most Michigan denizens already know. We could also go into detail about the intense irony of making an “environmentally friendly fuel” out of the rotting corpses of thousands of felled, carbon-dioxide-reducing, oxygen-producing trees, but that, too would be pointless.
The fact of the matter is that nothing says “Hope” and “Change” like a multi-million dollar commitment to a brand-new, fly-by-night environmental idea that even the Governor isn’t sure is going to work.
Key quote:
There’s no telling for sure where all this is going, but if Michigan wants to remain a leader in the world’s transportation industry, it’s critical to have talent and investment in every key technology.”
Maybe next year, Michigan can get a monorail! Lyle Lanley thinks we are at least as smart as those Ohio residents, after all.
I heard those things are awfully loud
They ride as softly as a cloud
Is there a chance the track may bend??
Not on your life, my Hindu friend
What about us brain dead slobs?
You’ll be given cushy jobs
Where you sent here by the devil?
No good man I’m on the level
The ring broke off my pudding can
Take my pen knife my good man
I say its Spiringfeild’s only choice
Throw up your hands and raise your voice
MONORAIL!! MONORAIL!! MONORAIL!
But Mainstreet’s still all cracked and broken!
Sorry, mom, the mob has spoken!
MONORAIL! MONORAIL! MONORAIL!
Hope you like…other states, Michiganders. I hear they’re pretty nice, and there are a lot of great apartments available in downtown Chicago. Best to snap them up before they go to the next influx of illegal immigrants.
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Yeah, you had like, two weeks of awesome posting and then suddenly all this goes to hell again…its not permanent. I’m traveling around this week and working — or at least starting work — on some other projects. And I’m trying to catch up on some reading because, apparently, people expect you to read stuff when you comment on things of a particularly political nature. Not to worry, I shall return, and I shall return shortly.
In the meantime, how about that awesome SCOTUS? I mean, seriously. I heart Scalia. There’s no question about it. I’m even willing to kind of forgive Kennedy for being Kennedy. I’m not entirely ready to forgive whoever wrote this talking point for John McCain, though:
“For the first time in the history of our Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was and is an individual right as intended by our Founding Fathers,” McCain said in a statement.
He criticized Sen. Barack Obama for not signing a bipartisan amicus brief supporting the ruling later issued by the Supreme Court, and singled out the Chicago ban in describing what the ruling should change.
“Today’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans,” McCain said in the statement.
No, actually, it doesn’t. Or at least not right away.
Washington D.C. isn’t a state. The federal law is pretty much what controls there. States are different. Prior even to this wonderful, fantastic, awesome day, states were free to guarantee, under their own state Constitutions, greater rights and freedoms than those guaranteed by the US Constitution itself. While people scratched their heads in wonderment over whether the Second Amendment was an individual right or a right reserved to militias, states were passing amendments and additions to their own documents outlining their citizens right to personal armament.
Today’s ruling was issued in a challenge to a law that came directly under the US Constitution. Because the Constitution is now clear (or, frankly, it always has been, but liberals have a difficult time imagining personal liberties when they have nothing to do with ending unwanted pregnancies or marrying same sex partners) on that concept, DC’s handgun ban is pretty much moot. Chicago’s on the other hand, has a few steps to go. Theoretically, it will be overturned because the law, while it may come into compliance with the Illinois Constitution, now runs directly up against a fundamental Constitutional right. But its not going to be an easy road. The NRA is going to have to fight this one out in court, and knowing Illinois courts — or at least Illinois in general — they have a long, tough road ahead of them. Uphill. In snow. Both ways.
One thing I have always wondered about this argument and how it matches up with arguments in other arenas: why do liberals believe that if you made guns illegal, that guns will suddenly disappear, gang-bangers will start arming themselves with pillows and violence will evaporate into history as hugs become the order of the day, whereas if you made abortion illegal there would be no marked difference in the number of abortions performed? Clearly, making abortion illegal would not do this — it would merely reflect a moral understanding of society — so why would making guns illegal be different?
I suppose its just one of those things I will never understand, sort of like linen pants, quantum physics or what the hell Charo is actually saying.
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The views expressed herein are those of myself, the resident liberal, and not the blog or its management. Thank you.
Oh, boy.
Chris Cannon, a man who is about as conservative as they get, whose only indiscretion was to not be a hardliner on immigration reform, got blown out in his primary yesterday.
The guy who beat him is Jason Chaffetz, a former BYU kicker and ex-chief of staff to Utah’s governor. Chaffetz won 60-40, a humiliating primary loss for Cannon, who was a very pro-business Republican who represents the most right-wing congressional district in the nation. Bush’s 2004 numbers in the Utah 3rd were 77-20. Cannon, though, has struggled in the past two elections, as his stance on immigration, closer to Bush’s than his district’s, finally caught up to him when he faced a name opponent this time around.
Granted, this is a small portion of the electorate, but it does make one wonder if this might be a problem for John McCain come the fall. Will the base vote for Bob Barr or just sit it out? McCain has been one of the most liberal members of the party on the immigration issue, working with Ted Kennedy and others to craft a reasonable compromise on it, and Cannon’s defeat can’t be making him feel too good right now.
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The Chicago Tribune has recently turned into Tiger Beat magazine, and if it could, it would have a glossy pull-out centerfold, every single day, featuring a different photo of Barack Obama. Its not even really acceptable or reasonable anymore. Barack Obama’s likes and dislikes have already been published in a number of salivating newspapers, so the Trib had to go one better…this morning’s edition featured a guided, streetcorner-by-streetcorner tour of Obama’s Chicago.
The problem with this is…okay, well, there are a few problems. One, its a tour of what most people would consider to be totally irrelevant and inconsequential locations that served as stages for some of the most boring moments of Obama’s life, such as the place where he gets his hair done, a local McDonalds, and a street where he used to walk. Two, most of the locations — save for the ritzy ones that he frequented after graduating from law school, are on the South Side, and with all due respect to the various locations on the South Side of Chicago that are nice, upstanding locations, most locals wouldn’t recommend you venture down there without a clear knowledge that you are entering an area only slightly nicer than downtown Detroit. I hear MacArthur’s Restaurant is pretty good, though.
That said, I can totally see buses loading up right now, and tourists descending onto the peaceful South Side neighborhoods in full tourist gear — fanny packs, those weird visor hats that aren’t really hats, and gigantic digital cameras with detachable lenses — poking around in the bushes outside the former location of Trinity UCC trying to get a good shot for their Facebook profile photo. Come to think of it, someone should really be putting this tour together now. I get a cut of the profits.
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The views expressed herein are those of myself, the resident liberal, and not the blog or its management. Thank you.
Of all of the problems that exist within the media’s political coverage, one of the worst is the idea that no matter what, national security is and always will be a Republican-dominated issue. They even feel that this extends to whether a terror attack hits us this year.
What brought this us fun discussion again was a comment by John McCain’s senior adviser, Charlie Black, who said a terror attack before the election would benefit McCain and hurt Obama. While McCain has carefully distanced himself from the remark, the media has been all over it, asking, “Is that true?” The assumption seems to be, A: voters have usually trusted Republicans on national security, so B: an attack would help McCain.
What these articles discount, though, is the fact that we’ve had a Republican president for the past eight years, and the Republican party and the White House used our lack of attacks as the main reason to vote for them in 2004, and lines like, “We’re fighting them over there [in Iraq], so we don’t have to fight them here,” have been commonplace during the past five years. If that’s the case, why would an attack help the Republican candidate? Isn’t that against all logical thought?
Yes, voters have showed a pattern on national security, but people don’t trust Bush anymore. He polls as low as 23% approval rating, and McCain, for all his efforts to distance himself from Bush, has too many videos and pictures showing his support for Bush. They are inextricably tied together in the minds of many people.
Now, imagine that after all the rhetoric, all the congressional hearings, all the speeches, all the money spent in Iraq, all the lives lost, if we got hit with a major attack in this country by al-Qaida. Isn’t it more likely that most Americans would say, “The Republicans kept telling us Iraq was keeping us safe. They kept saying by fighting al-Qaida in Iraq, they were keeping them from getting us here. We’ve been strip-searched, X-rayed, walked through metal detectors, gone through terror alerts, and it still didn’t keep us safe. Why should we believe them anymore?”
Really, now, if we get attacked before the election, then it does a lot more to prove the Republicans wrong than it does to bolster them. Terrorism rates consistently in polling as the fourth or fifth-most important issue this election, well below the economy, the housing crisis, health care, all domestic issues. And even in the face of an attack, while our immediate priorities would shift in that polling, I doubt that gives John McCain a bounce, especially since we’d be hard-pressed to respond with the bulk of our military stuck inside Iraq, something that he has continued to support to this day.
If you have an argument for how an attack after eight years of Republican rule and policies on terrorism would help the Republican, I’d love to hear it. I probably won’t find it plausible, but I’d still love to hear the justification.
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I rarely shop at White House/Black Market. I just don’t. Its a mall store, and everything’s the same color (duh), and while I’m a huge fan of stuff that you can just throw in the wash and you know will get clean even if that creepy guy who lives downstairs and hasn’t bought clothes since the Brady Bunch was must-see tee vee leaves a red sock in the big washer, I have to draw the line. My significant other enjoys shopping there for me and he usually does pretty well, but everytime I’ve bought something there, it ends up being an unmitigated disaster.
How do I know this will continue to be the case on and on into perpetuity?
Last time I was in there, I bought this dress. And now, politics and fashion have collided in ways that make me want to go take a shower in acid and scrub my skin until the top layer comes off and I’m finally free of the gnawing idea that Michelle Obama and I — or at least her stylist — managed to pick the same thing off the rack. Its worse than showing up at a cocktail party wearing the same dress as my mother, which has never happened, but…you know.
Argh.
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God, it sucks to write this one. George Carlin, the legendary comedian who first came to major national attention through his “The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV” routine (which got him arrested in the early 1970s), has passed away from heart failure at the age of 71.
Carlin was snarky, biting, and incredibly blunt. He took no prisoners, going after any target he saw fit, whether it was overly moralizing fundamentalists or “soft” baby boomers who coddled their children. He made me laugh all the time, and he was so accurate with so many of his observations (find his routine on airplane rides). I always looked forward to the next HBO Carlin special, and I’m going to miss that. It is a big loss to the world of standup comedy, and to society, which, in my opinion, needs the sort of shakeup from time to time that he delivered to it.
Thanks, George.
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Lindsey Graham, R-SC, facing off against a Democrat who was a GOP committeeman six weeks ago. Nothing screams flip-flop like that. Oh, yeah, the guy in question, Bob Conley, won after a disputed recount by only 1,058 votes out of 144,000 cast, and the guy he beat is running as a third-party guy now. Graham, who has earned the wrath of a lot of liberals in the past ten years for everything from being a House prosecutor in Clinton’s impeachment trial to being part of the Gang of 14 (which got him some right-wing flak as well) to chairing McCain’s campaign, has to be jumping up and down at the early Christmas gift he just got.
On the Democratic side, John Kerry is facing….nobody. Well, that’s not quite true, but the NRSC’s candidate, Jim Ogonowski, an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, he failed to get enough signatures to get on the ballot. I do not know how one manages to flame out so badly, but this one is right up there in the all-time boneheaded category. Instead, Massachusetts Republicans get a guy named Jeff Beatty, who claims to be an ex-everything, and currently runs a private counterterror firm, which I’m sure will go over real well in Massachusetts. The last polling has Kerry up by 38 points.
John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, we’ll enjoy seeing you out on the road campaigning for your presidential buddies, since it is obvious you don’t need to be at home. Have a fun summer, gentlemen.
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Is it true what they say about E.M.?
"You are the reason conservatives should be ashamed." -- Glenn Reynolds
"Some may call you elitist, over-privileged, preening with a snotty sense of entitlement. I call you my hero."--Stewie Griffin
"[An] amusing staple of the Right blogosphere" -- Salon.com
"A foxy fascist is still a fascist."
"E.M.'s got that punk-Catholic-schoolgirl, intellectual-bawdy-dichotomy "thing" going for her...I'd find her irresistible even if I didn't agree with many of her views."--Kevin of Counseling Kevin
"Fun writing with a twist of the conservative disease. But enjoyable all the same. Besides, we’re suckers for a nice pair of legs."--Got Detroit?
"E.M. has a certain je ne sais quoi that evokes an admiration for her brilliance, wonder at her beauty and laughter for her way of breaking it to you." -- ZP of The Zero Point
"I believe if E.M. were a superheroine, her main power would be sarcasm." -- Mr. Bryce Poole
"Really, she had me at "Blame France" -- KG of Cagey Mind
"If Pope Benedict is conservative Catholicism's posterchild, E.M. is the pin-up centerfold."
"Considering all of the other right-wing nutters out there, The American Princess is only mildly ridiculous." -- A Moderate
"A well written, very conservative blog with an author who offers no apologies for her beliefs." -- Drew of Conservative Friends
Yes, absolutely, [its] cheap, trashy; Im well aware of that. But we live in the age of Paris Hilton, my dear, so what are you going to do? A show where you discuss Flaubert with people that call in? No, I dont think so.
"E.M., you are your own subculture. I would like to be part of that subculture, but I don't think its acceptable for me to wear that much pink."
"Hey E.M., I thought you said this was a porn site...?"
July 3, 2008 
Posted by E. M. Zanotti in Uncategorized 
8 Comments »
