Thursday, July 29, 2010

THE BRAKES (PROBABLY) WORK, TOO. Do you ever get the feeling that we're living in a Dali-esque carnival? Well, I do. Doesn't matter where you turn. Everything is insane. So I'm losing it. Sorry. I'm losing it. Don't mind me. Go on about what you were already doing. And if you decide to read this anyway, don't look for any beginning. I'm just going to start in the middle, where we all are btw. The middle of WTF land.

Big news on Tuesday. The Chevy Volt is (almost) here. "What's that?" you ask? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Volt is the Savior of GM. It's the thing, the one vehicle, that will overcome all the management incompetence/impotence, UAW waste/corruption, and downright shitty, overpriced cars that should have caused GM to go out of business a long time ago. And you can own one. Not yet, but (relatively) soon. Just think: lowly little you can be a part of history for the low, low sticker price of $41,000.00 (before free tax incentive that may not actually be free). "Golly, Eduardo," you whine, "That seems sorta high for a shitty GM POS. Why should I buy one?" It's a fair question, but I have the answer.

The Volt is not a shitty, overpriced car. It is a shitty, overpriced electric car, which makes all the difference in the world; and for the world. Because it's (partially) electric. Some snippets from a slightly skeptical WaPo article (boldface & bracket comments mine):

The long-anticipated Chevrolet Volt, General Motors' electric car, will cost $41,000, the company announced Tuesday, leaving consumers to decide whether its environmental appeal is worth a price far above that of similarly sized conventional autos [What? Who has questioned this?! I want names!]...

...The price announcements for the Volt and its electric rival, the Nissan Leaf, have been highly anticipated as a result. Nissan, the only other major manufacturer expected to bring such a vehicle to market this year, said the Leaf will cost $32,780...

..."The Volt is a game-changing product," said Tony Posawatz, GM's vehicle line director for the Volt, which is expected to hit showrooms in November 2011...

...The Volt can travel 40 miles on its battery charge and an additional 340 miles on a gasoline-powered generator. The all-electric Leaf has a range of 100 miles.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama pledged to put 1 million plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015 [By hook or by crook!].

But some analysts said they doubt that electric cars can reach a broad audience in the near term [Again, who are these people? I want names, I said!]...

...The president has expressed optimism that automakers will be able to lower the price tag of electric-vehicle technology [Because optimism is ultimately what lowers consumer costs]. Earlier this month, he suggested that major reductions in battery costs...are on the horizon [Which was based on the president's extensive knowledge of the battery production industry, as well as business and economics in general. Did you know he went to Harvard Law?].

"Because of advances in the manufacturing, [battery] costs are expected to come down by nearly 70 percent in the next few years," Obama said at the site of a planned battery factory in Michigan [Seriously, he just makes this shit up as he goes along, right?]...

...Consumers must also get accustomed to plugging the cars in at home. It takes hours to recharge the vehicles, and in the absence of a network of public recharging stations [HINT, HINT, HINT, Mr. President!], drivers that run out of juice may need a tow truck [Don't oversell it, guys, just show me where to sign!]...

...GM plans to produce 10,000 Volts next year, and 30,000 in 2012, company officials have said. Nissan has indicated that it will sell about 25,000 Leafs in the United States next year.

I'm trying to picture what the GM board meeting for the Volt rollout looked like: "Okay, guys. Let's add another 2 grand to the MSRP and drop the operational range down to a full 60 miles less than Nissan's Leaf. And don't worry about consumer push-back. Just have Tony P. put on that shit-eating, Pollack grin of his and tell the press how the car is a game-changer or something. And about Nissan saying they'll sell 25,000 of their cars in 2010: drop our production plan down to 10,000 for the year and stress that we're only building them. People will get excited when we act all aloof like we don't care if we sell any, then once you have them in the showroom, hit them with another $10k. GM is back, people!"

This is one of those things that, no matter what angle I approach it from, makes absolutely no sense to me. Who the hell is going to buy this car? Even if $41k is pocket change for you, why would you buy this car? Who has been watching the progress of this car's production and thought everything looked simply smashing? I was going to add a little bit more commentary, maybe throw in something about how this goes to show that the government sucks at running just about anything, but who didn't see this coming a mile away? Instead, I'm going to bounce my sorry ass off another padded wall altogether -- by directing your attention to this article:

Pop singer Rihanna is to make her film debut in Peter Berg's upcoming Battleship film, based on the Hasbro board game...

...Set for release in summer 2012 and due to begin shooting in Hawaii this August, little is known about Battleship other than its central theme of an international fleet assembling to take on a supernatural force from the high seas.

Ah, yes. Well do I remember the countless family nights spent playing Battleship. They always started with the same old argument about who got to play the international fleet and who got to play the supernatural force from the high seas. A little slice of Americana. So excited to see this classic struggle brought to life in film.


Nothing about this makes sense, either. Who the hell is going to pay money to see this movie? Even if you had nothing but free time and extra money on your hands, why would you see this movie? And who sat there, had this idea pitched to them, and concluded, "Yes. This is a winning idea. Push all other projects to the back of the queue and get Rihanna's agent on the phone." But no. No. Instead of thinking about it, I'm just going to embrace the spirit of madness. I bring you now a list of the next top Hollywood blockbusters. You may notice that my movie posters are not what you'd call "high quality". That's because I figured I should use the same amount of effort that was used by the makers of the Chevy Volt and the Battleship movie (starring Rihanna; tell your little friends!):


C4: A mysterious yellow & blue artifact with red & black discs is discovered by hot chicks in a sorority house. Once the hot chicks start moving the discs around, there is a monster or something that starts killing them one by one, but only when they are naked. David Caruso, in a groundbreaking role, is a no-nonsense cop sent to investigate the mounting deaths. He discovers he is last in the line of ancient defenders sworn to keep an evil spirit locked in the artifact that can only be released if someone moves the discs around and... Connects Four. *YEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!* [NOTE: Actually, I would see this one. Hollywood, please steal this idea first.]

Of course I know these ideas are more valuable than Goldline ("Gold has never been worth zero") but I won't ever make any money from them, because I'm not a gay, anti-semite child rapist. But that's OK. Anyone who brings these ideas to life won't be worried about making money either. And why should that matter in the first place? After all, the government always has more money if we need it.

Surely there are some ideas I missed. Let's discuss them. At the forum. Don't forget: it's free to join. If you haven't joined yet, you need to.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

TWO TOUGH TOWNS. I just talked with an old friend of mine from Philadelphia. He lives in Las Vegas now. I asked him if he misses the City of Brotherly Love. I should mention that we have a lot in common. Both our dads were WWII pilots, and both of them are now dead, along with our mothers. We're also both exiles, of which there are two kinds in America. There are those who leave their homeland never to return, and those who become part of the population of what I call corporate ronin, those who live where their companies insist they must. I was one of the latter, and Rob is defiantly one of the former. I, of course, have returned to the county of my birth and draw strength from that reestablishment of my damaged roots. Which is why I asked Rob if he ever misses Philadelphia.

"No," he said. "Not for a moment."

We talked. There are many reasons for his declaration. He once wrote a lovely and moving piece about Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia at Christmastime. How I knew he was a writer. I said, "You don't miss even that." He said, "It's all gone, every bit of it."

It's true. Wanamaker's is gone. So is the Philadelphia of Rob's youth. "I used to be able to get on a train, trolley, or streetcar and go anywhere in the city. Would I let my daughter do that today? No way."

He has no more family in Philadelphia. All gone. But I'm thinking cheesesteaks, Tastycakes, Phillies, South Street, and Fairmount Park. "No. Nothing."

And I'm also thinking phony pyramids, ersatz Eiffel Tower, all the glitz and kitschy madness of Las Vegas. How can this be home?

You see, contrary to Thomas Wolfe's silly nostrum, I did go home again. I left the corporate rat-race to return to south Jersey, where I was born and grew up. The smell of salt marsh, the taste of sweet corn, the winding roads all called me back and I am at home again, under skies without streetlights and with stars that make me think of God.

Whereas my friend Rob is apparently content to live in Hell. In a trumped up cityscape of fake landmarks from across the world and the ages. A city full of cheap copies of accomplishments no one could credit as anything but bad 3-D Xeroxes of history.

Except. Except. Rob has a couple of things to say about that. He doesn't even see the buildings of Las Vegas. They're no more real to him than the climbing spires of Philadelphia now that it's no longer forbidden to build higher than Billy Penn's hat on City Hall. To Rob, buildings are just ephemera. What matters are the people and the opportunity. He's Jewish. And he's found a community in Las Vegas that represents the age-old Jewish response to antipathy: we're here for each other, and it really doesn't matter where we are. But it's more than that for Rob. He also sees the desert underneath Las Vegas. He's discovered that he's not so different from me. His real home is the kind of land he came from. My soul lives in the wetlands; his lives in the dusty heat.

Which makes the cities themselves irrelevant. Props. Phantasmagoria. The real story is, as always, human. Depending on who you are, Philadelphia is a good dream or a bad dream. Las Vegas the same. Do you get it yet? Rob thinks Las Vegas is Ayn Rand's paradise. Capitalism incarnate. He just isn't sure she'd make it there.

"If you don't have a sense of humor and if you can't adapt to people who disagree with you, that would be your finish. In Vegas."

So says Rob, a capitalist somehow still surviving in Las Vegas.

STOP THE STONING. The Corner is pointing somewhat happily at a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Patrick Caddell and Doug Schoen. It's worth reading because they take Obama to task for being the petty divider he is. By all means read it and then wait for the public stoning they'll be subjected to by the administration. But narrow partisan that I am, I want to take issue with one lefty shibboleth they smuggled into their piece:


This is nonsense. In both cases actually, but more particularly in the case of George W. Bush. It's been forgotten over the years, but Nixon drew up an enemies list because he had enemies. He hated the press because the press hated him and ultimately they succeeded in bringing him down. As president, he was in fact a moderate, desperately anxious to please the voters with nary a nod to ideology. He imposed wage-and-price controls, for God's sake, in a speech that included the rueful comment, "I am now a Keynesian."

Nixon did other things that appalled conservatives. He recognized Red China and laughed it up with Mao, the greatest mass murderer of the twentieth century. He ended the Vietnam War, concluding what amounted to surrender in a war he did not start. (What's not to like about that, Democrats?) He also did a lot of noncontroversial things that were aimed far more at unifying than dividing the nation. He appeared on the most irreverent comedy show ever, Laugh-in, and he had his most personally popular moment ever when Sammy Davis, Jr., spontaneously hugged him at a concert in the White House. But it bought him nothing. The press had a grudge against him dating back to his days as a congressman on the House Un-American Activities Committee, and they succeeded in provoking the paranoia that led to his self-destruction. What's been lost in the history is that he won reelection by a staggeringly huge landslide. The American people had accepted him. It was the liberal establishment that didn't. Interestingly, given the mantra during the Clinton impeachment melodrama, no one at the time suggested that partisans were trying to "undo the election of a president by the American people." Not even Republicans.

I'm not carrying a brief for Richard Nixon. I didn't like him because he wasn't a conservative, because he pandered to the middle. But facts are facts and shouldn't be falsified for contemporary purposes. I talk about Nixon because the experience of George W. Bush is parallel in one highly significant respect. From Day One, the liberal establishment hated him and conspired to destroy him, politically and personally. But unlike Nixon, Bush never took the bait. His administration is remarkable, particularly in light of Obama's performance in the first third of his first term, for a long list of "Didn'ts." He didn't single out individual reporters, commentators, or networks for presidential rebukes. He didn't blame his predecessor for anything he inherited, including the Clinton administration's hands-off approach to al qaida. He didn't sneer at individual segments of the American public he thought were greedy, corrupt, or disrespectful to his awesomeness. He didn't haunt the popular media to play star or celebrity in a culture where that has become the currency of approval and acceptance. He didn't brand his critics as ideologues, bigots, or haters of any sort, though they clearly were. He didn't fire members of his administration because they got some bad press in the 24/7 news cycle. He diidn't use his bully pulpit to bash individual senators, congressmen, or the Supreme Court. He didn't abandon his campaign promise to be "a uniter rather than a divider"; he never spoke in any other terms than as president of the American people, all of them. His administration was divisive because his enemies had, if not the bigger megaphone, the one that was used to the maximum, unrelentingly, unscrupulously, and unbelievably viciously.

The truth is, Bush would have been more successful if he had done some of these things. But to call him "divisive" because so many people hated him so irrationally is typical liberal misdirection. Caddell and Schoen are still trying to save the Obama administration. However sneakily, this column is yet another "Blame Bush" variation. Obama hasn't yet fixed what George Bush wrought. Bullshit. Obama is divisive because he's a small-minded creep hunting down the tiniest of sleights in a media environment that loves the ground he walks on. Remember that.

Here's the real deal. Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, President Obama wouldn't be in nearly as much trouble, regardless of his policies, if he were half the man George W. Bush was. And is. Note that Bush hasn't yet broken the obsolete presidential code of not publicly criticizing his successor. Divisive? Stick it up your ass, Caddell and Schoen. I'm not sure that we've ever had a more gracious president than George W. Bush.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

THE FORUM. Well okay, it's not quite like that* yet, but it never will be unless you get over to the new InstaPunk forum. Fellow commenter Null pointed out that we've done a poor job advertising the new forum's existence. So here are road signs & the neon lights and stuff.  Right here. And here is the link to the forum, which is where you should go right now.

It's free to join. Yes, that means that when you register you have to deal with an annoying pop up once that wants your email address. But if you're not savvy enough to navigate through that then you're probably not reading this post, either, because it's likely that you've never heard of the internet. Apotheosis just gave it my email address instead of his, which is cool because I can never get enough Canadian Viagra, stock tips and $3 Rolexes.

Everyone's welcome, even people who majored in two useless things and don't know anything except how smart they are. Not that I can think of any examples of that off the top of my head. Just saying.

We're talking about lots of things. We're collaborating on putting together InstaPunk books. We're talking about Lost (even though everyone knows the proper subject is the superior superiority of Babylon 5). We're saying all sorts of awful, incendiary things we're not supposed to say about a certain religion of peace whose Prophet (PBUH) we're not allowed to call by name or draw pictures of because we might get beheaded or stabbed in the street. We're (sort of) telling InstaPunk what we want him to write about. We're ruminating about what's going to happen between November and 2012. And I'm trying to figure out if Eli was actually supposed to be blind, which I can't bring myself to believe, because that would be just plain silly, but nobody has given me any answers yet.

Which is where you come in. So why aren't you there yet? It'll be lots of fun until the Internet Neutrality Act or some other Obama hope'n'change reform shuts us down. Come join the discussion, start a new thread, or just be a silent lurker** and take notes for your upcoming grad school class on the Dangers of Unregulated Rightwing Internet Access. Hurry up and join. Here.

*I wanted to put a really cool picture like this up top (I don't even know what it is, but isn't it cool?). However, I know how the old man hates sci-fi, so I went a more hellishly traditional route instead.

**Just kidding. Don't be a lurker. Lurkers are pussies.

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