What’s up? Here in the Pittsburgh area it’s too nice out to blog.
Archives for April 2008
Open Thread
$7795 with 157 donations, which ain’t half bad.
I tried to find something to blog about today, but just got disgusted with the whole mess after 5 minutes at memorandum. If Jeralynn Merritt and the rest of the folks who make up the Axis of Hillary can’t figure out they sound like Red State and Hot Air, what the fuck could I possibly say that will pull them out of their stupor? And if they manage to damage Obama enough in their failed attempts to win this for Hillary that the GOP wins in the fall, well, I guess will have plenty of blogging material then, as I throw it in their faces for four years.
Regardless, after watching them the last few months, I have almost decided Rove was too good for ’em.
Piss off, the lot of them. I am as disgusted with politics as I have ever been. Bunch of children who can’t figure out their candidate lost fair and square, squandered millions and name recognition and a huge lead, and now they want a do-over or to destroy the opposition so their first-choice gets it handed to them. To hell with them all.
We’ll Be Fine As Long As Nobody Has To Eat
WaPo:
Prices for some crops — such as wheat — have already begun to descend off their highs. As farmers rush to plant more wheat now that profit prospects have climbed, analysts predict that prices may come down as much as 30 percent in the coming months. But that would still leave a year-over-year price hike of 45 percent. Few believe prices will go back to where they were in early 2006, suggesting that the world must cope with a new reality of more expensive food.
[…] A big reason for higher wheat prices, for instance, is the multiyear drought in Australia, something that scientists say may become persistent because of global warming. But wheat prices are also rising because U.S. farmers have been planting less of it, or moving wheat to less fertile ground. That is partly because they are planting more corn to capitalize on the biofuel frenzy.
Regarding food prices, it’s nice to know that we can win some value back by phasing out food-based biofuel. It might ameliorate the price shock quite a bit. But as I said earlier the fundamentals haven’t changed. The price of refined fuel products has barely started to register the effect of the $100+ barrel of crude, and arable land lost to climate warming won’t come back.
I predicted years ago that food security will eclipse every other concern about climate warming, at least until sea levels start to threaten the billions in coastal cities. A good argument could be made, then, that we’re better off if price spike now while the system still has some flex in it. The situation would be much worse if the spike only hit later when pressure only comes from inflexibles like climate, fuel and population. Instead of rising, plateauing and sinking a little from elasticity food costs would do the crazy dance that commodities do when inflexible demand meets a fixed supply. Sometimes pain has the useful effect of making people take a problem seriously.
We’ll Be Fine As Long As Nobody Has To EatPost + Comments (34)
Nutshell
Imagine that I had to describe the Bush administration in one paragraph…
The public-private face-off at West Point illustrates just what Bush envisioned when he proposed the “competitive sourcing” initiative in 2001 as part of his management agenda. It turned on a simple idea: Force federal employees to compete for their jobs against private contractors and costs will decrease, even if the work ultimately stays in-house.
[…] “The competitive sourcing initiative did little to improve management, produced a ton of worthless paper, demoralized thousands of workers and cost a bundle, all to prove that federal employees are pretty good after all,” said Paul C. Light, a professor of government at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
If privatization is the Republican god, George Bush is the radical fundamentalist who would sooner lead his followers to ruin than compromise with reality.
NFL Draft Open Thread
I hear someone not named Long will go third.
And while I am at it- GO PENS! Amazing game last night.
*** Update ***
I gotta say, I like the pace of the new draft, but am I the only one out there who thinks you should pick offensive linemen in the first round? Defense is such a team concept these days with the blitzes and coverage packages, and you pick d players later on. O linement and franchise players in the early rounds.
Bizzaro World
I see several blog posts about this Eleanor Clift piece, in which Clift claims there will be hell to pay should Clinton eventually win then Presidency. Let me be clear about this:
Hillary. Can. Not. Win.
She can’t. She can’t even win the nomination in most scenarios here on planet earth. And should a backroom deal happen awarding her the nomination while trailing in the popular vote, trailing in pledged delegates, and trailing in, well, everything, the party and Hillary will be mortally wounded. People can pretend all they want that the party will sew itself right back together should the nomination be handed to Clinton. It will not.
So all together now- Hillary can not win. You don’t have to worry about vengeance.
I guess it is a testament to the power of Hillary that people keep role-playing in this little fantasy, because I saw Tony Snow and Gloria Borger sitting around gushing about how Hillary is doing this and how Hillary is doing and all sorts of other pointless babbling, when finally Jack Cafferty, also pushed to the brink of madness, had to stop the charade:
BORGER: Well, and that’s the smart answer for him. It’s the answer he’s going to give throughout the campaign. But I do still think that Barack Obama’s kind of a cool candidate. I think of him as kind of F.M. radio, kind of that sort of soft music. And maybe he needs a little more A.M. in him, you know, a little more rat-a-tat- tat, this is what I stand for, this is what I’m going to do for you, these are my headlines on the hour. Because that’s what Hillary Clinton is doing. And that seems to be connecting.
CAFFERTY: Excuse me, if I could just offer — he’s winning.
Stop the nonsense. Please.
*** Update ***
More on the media nonsense here. Unless the mainstream media are all super-delegates, this is just silliness. Sure, they want the race to continue on- it is sexy and exciting and you don’t have to deal with issues like, well, the war and the economy, but it changes nothing.
*** Update ***
For the love of GOD, no more debates. The next debate I can stomach will have to be in the fall.
Open Thread
Some more games that might make me buy a Nintendo (a few via commenters in an earlier thread):
Wii Polo
Mario Curling
Wii Bearbaiting
Wii Pottery
Wii Breakdancing
Wii Interpretive Dance
Leisure Suit Wii
Me, I’m going to enjoy the great spring weather. Chat about whatever until I get back.