Black is the New Black

Bit of a slow news week, so this will probably be pretty short. Of course I thought that last week too. Look how that turned out.

The CEO of Citigroup sent out a mass e-mail to all his employees Tuesday morning that the corporation turned a profit during the first two months of this year. Once that news hit the airways, Wall Street got nostalgic for the good old days of 2007 and boosted the domestic markets about 5%, and shares of the company 40% - to $1.45 a share. That’s right; a share in the second largest bank in the nation can be yours for the price of large fries at McDonald’s. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted at upcoming regulations designed to prevent institutions like Citigroup and AIG from becoming “too big to fail.” Common sense has come to Washington, and its name is Ben.

Minnesota is the new Florida. Four months after Election Day, Minnesota still has only one U.S. Senator, and there is no end in sight. Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken remain separated by 225 of over 3 million votes in a recount process that makes glacial retreat look expeditious. Have some rhubarb pie and count the votes people! How difficult can this possibly be?

The wife of newly sworn-in Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was killed in an automobile accident late last week that also injured the Prime Minister. Accident. Right. Whatever gets you through the day, Mugabe.

Pakistani lawyers are on the march again, protesting the failure of the current president to reinstate the chief justice of the Supreme Court dismissed by the previous president. Tension and increasing bitterness between the ruling party and the main opposition continue to threaten the stability of a weak government already overwhelmed by the global economic downturn and lawlessness along its northern border. I think we’ve seen this movie before. Let’s hope this one doesn’t end with any assassinations.

Early last week, American arch-nemesis Hugo Chavez expropriated (nationalized) the Venezuelan operations of U.S. food conglomerate Cargill, and threatened to do the same to various other industries. Suffering from the crash in oil prices, the Chavez government is suffering through a domestic political crisis with rising commodity prices, ballooning unemployment, rising discontent. Of course, instead of accepting responsibility, Chavez is blaming everyone he can point a finger at, from the United States, to the European Union to the people under the stairs for creating instability in his socialist dystopia. He’s like the Terrell Owens of world leaders, dropping the ball and blaming the quarterback, the lights, the turf and the ball for not magically sticking to his fingers.

Speaking of T.O., seems like Jerry Jones finally came to his senses. After insinuating a week ago that Owens would remain a key element of the team, the Dallas Cowboys owner surgically removed this cancer from his franchise and dumped him on the free agent market, where he was promptly scooped up and grafted onto the right flank of the struggling Buffalo Bills. As if there wasn’t enough to loathe about Buffalo. Why teams keep signing this character, I don’t know. If they simply want to flush $6.5 million down the toilet, I’m sure I can find a way to accomplish it without destroying the chemistry of the franchise in the process.

Apparently last week Tuesday was “square root day.” If you already knew that, get a life.

Flipping through the channels the other day I noticed something interesting. Black people are everywhere! Not only are African-Americans finding themselves in leading roles in films and scripted television shows, they are now marketing everything from cellular phones to cooking spray, to auto insurance to German cars to erectile dysfunction tablets with bathtubs in the middle cornfields. It’s phenomenal! It’s like Madison Avenue suddenly discovered that there is a whole… I don’t know… race, of people out there who eat the same food, drive the same cars, watch the same television, wear the same clothes and have the same concerns as everybody else in America. Seriously, when black people are modeling for the Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch, a breakthrough has been made somewhere. Hmm. I wonder what brought that on?

Finally, Barbie turned 50-years-old yesterday. She still looks pretty good for her age. Since the original (based on a German prostitute doll) debuted in 1959, Mattel has sold more than a billion dolls worldwide, saddling little girls everywhere with the desire to support shameless commercialism (“Let’s go shopping!”), gender stereotypes, (“Math is hard!”), and unattainable physical dimensions. Happy birthday Barbie! Hope you didn’t purchase the Malibu beach house with a sub-prime loan.

Black Monday

Today’s word is “free-fall”. Can you say free-fall? I knew you could.

Did you happen to catch the latest episode of Sub-Prime Crisis today? It started out with the failure of the 150-year-old investment bank Lehman Brothers. After the first commercial it cut to the sale of investment giant Merrill Lynch by the woolly mammoth of banking, Bank of America, then wrapped up with discussion of a private rescue plan for AIG, the largest insurance company in the country - maybe the world. Viewers responded to the episode by water-boarding the stock market to the tune of 504 points. Guess they didn’t care for the writing.

It should now be perfectly clear that John McCain knows about as much about the economy as he knows about the internet, or any of his eight houses. After hearing the news of the Lehman failure and the Merrill Lynch sale this morning, McCain delivered a statement repeating a previously discredited talking point that “the fundamentals of the economy are sound.” Note to John McCain: the financial system IS the fundament of the economy! After Barack Obama kindly pointed out the error of McCain’s ways, McCain revised his statement for a later audience, saying, “the fundamentals of the economy are at risk,” then blamed outdated regulation for the current state of banking. Actually John, the fundamentals of the economy are crumbling around you, and the utter lack of regulation and oversight by those in power (read Republican party) has contributed to the scale of the disaster. Why should anyone believe that you will reform regulation when you were partially responsible for deregulation and lack of oversight in the first place?

Another nugget of Washington rubbish came to us this week courtesy of the Department of the Interior. An internal audit revealed that approximately one quarter of the employees of the Minerals Management Service improperly awarded government contracts and manipulated the accounting in return for illicit cash payments, gifts, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and sex from the oil industry employees and executives they were supposed to be watching. First, does this surprise anyone? What’s the point of having power if you can’t abuse it, right? Second, at this point, is there any serious difference between this government and an Arizona State fraternity. Lipstick maybe?

Hurricane Ike steamrolled the Texas Gulf coast this past weekend, flooding sections of Houston and almost completely destroying the sandbar of Galveston. The satellite photographs of this monstrosity were frightening as the storm covered almost the entire Gulf of Mexico. And even thought it made landfall as a Category 2 storm, the shear size and scale of Ike brought about widespread damage. As usual, there were several thousand people in Galveston who, in spite of warnings that Ike “could bring certain death” (huh?) refused/decided not to evacuate. Not because they couldn’t afford to, or didn’t have the means to, or had nowhere to go. They just didn’t want to. So now, while the city of Galveston is busy desperately trying to restore basic functionality to their town, they also have to rescue people who shouldn’t be there in the first place. Guess those are the small town values I’ve been hearing about.

Seeking to distract from economic troubles at home, Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez expelled the American ambassador from the country and invited Russian military aircraft to Venezuela do participate in combat exercises. This guy really knows how to push buttons, doesn’t he.

Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe has finally reached a power-sharing agreement with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Under the terms of the agreement brokered by neighboring African countries, Mugabe will retain control of the military and the title of President, while Tsvangirai will accept the title of Prime Minister and be responsible for... well, nobody really knows at this point. But even with nothing more than the adoption of titles, Zimbabwe is light-years ahead of where they were even a week ago. By the way, in the time it’s taken you to read this paragraph, Zimbabwean inflation has increased 10,000%.

My NFL thoughts for the week;

The Chargers were completely robbed of a victory in Denver Sunday evening. Not merely pick-pocketed or held up at gunpoint. They were screwed over Enron style.

LaDainian Tomlinson is crushing my fantasy football championship dreams. First Tom Brady, now LT. Is there no justice in this world?

The Seattle Seahawks are the worst good team I have ever seen.

The Kansas City Chiefs are the worst terrible team I have ever seen. The Rams are a close second. Both of them may be worse than the Dolphins were last year.

Yes, they played the Lions, but the Green Bay Packers put 48 points on the board Sunday afternoon. None of which were scored by anyone named Favre.

There should be some kind of rule against playing football in sixty mile-an-hour winds. Not that Cincinnati would have performed any better than they did, but I’m not sure it’s reasonable to ask a 90-pound kicker to kick a 40-yard field goal through uprights blowing 15-degrees from vertical.

If you had told me two weeks ago that the Carolina Panthers would be 2-0 without Steve Smith, I would have asked for some of whatever you were smoking. Maybe I did and don’t remember. Hmm.

It was reported late last week that Al Davis would axe head coach Lane Kiffin win or lose sometime on Monday. Well, the hapless Raiders defeated the exceedingly hapless Chiefs yesterday, and as of 11:08 Monday night, Kiffin is still employed. It is possible Al Davis just forgot what he said and at some point later in the week will fire someone else for not reminding him, but for now, the youngest coach in the league is fortunate (?) enough to still be the youngest coach in the league.

Spectacular display of grit from the Indianapolis Colts, recovering from a miserable three quarters to defeat the Vikings in Minnesota. Worse performance by the Vikings who had six opportunities to put the ball in the end zone and failed. Convert 50% of those opportunities and the Colts go home 0-2. What are they paying all those free-agents billions of dollars for?

Oh, and a note to the Auburn Tigers; 3-2 is not a football score. One more of those and you’re out of the conference.

My Week 2 Superbowl picks (with 4:35 remaining in the Eagles/Cowboys game);
Dallas Cowboys vs. Denver Broncos.

New Kids on the Block will kick off their reunion tour this Thursday night in Toronto. I don’t what's worse, that I mentioned that, or that it's actually true. What are they now, fifty?

Prosecutors appear to have learned from the “mistakes” of the original criminal trial and have seated an all-white jury for O.J. Simpson’s latest debacle. Take that any way you like.

Finally, a high-resolution satellite has been launched (to be used by Google Earth) which can reportedly capture an image of you retrieving your mail in your underwear. Seriously? And we still can’t find Osama?

Guess You Should Have Gone to Rehab...

Today’s word is irony. Say it with me. Irony.

Late last week, in a move that surprised absolutely no one, presidential hopeful Barack Obama announced that he will forego $80 million in public financing and continue to raise record-breaking amounts of money on his own. This drew the ire of the McCain campaign, which wasted no time in labeling Obama a “flip-flopper” on the issue of public financing of political campaigns. According to McCain, Obama promised to accept public financing and abide by the rules of such a campaign if his opponent did the same. Of course, as it always is in politics, the truth is actually a little more nuanced. Obama promised to aggressively pursue an agreement with the opposing candidate to utilize public funding, if the opponent did the same. McCain, the opponent, did not officially accept public financing of his campaign until after Obama declared he would not. But truthfully, the facts are neither here nor there. The essence of the argument is as follows. A long time ago, Obama implied he would accept public financing. At the time he made said nuanced statement, no one anticipated the ridiculous amounts of money that would be raised during this campaign season. The candidates thought this would be a campaign on par with campaigns of the past. Oops. At this point, John McCain can’t buy fundraising, while Obama is growing greenbacks in his back yard. Why would Obama want to be limited to $80 million when he has already raised three times that during the primaries alone? And of course McCain wants to limit his opponent to public financing. He would be fortunate to raise another $80 million without the help of the system.

I guess I’m not as disturbed by Obama’s reversal on public financing than some other people. The purpose of the public financing system is to ensure that the public is not excluded from political influence at the expense of larger, wealthier donors. The Obama campaign has amassed over 1.5 million donors contributing less than $200 each. Sounds like public financing to me. Besides, conservatives should have two reasons to be excited. One, they hate public financing anyway. Because the government shouldn't pay for anything that doesn't blow stuff up, invade people's privacy, or keep out Mexicans. And two, Obama just saved the taxpayers $84 million. What’s not to like?

Candidates need to be careful when throwing around charges of “flip-flopping.” First, “flip-flopping” is a ridiculous word. No one should use it. Second, no one is immune from this type of charge. There isn’t a single politician who has not changed his or her mind on some issue at some point in time. Circumstances change and opinions evolve over time and as evidence becomes available. Now, I’m sure there are legitimate circumstances under which a candidate can be labeled as changing one’s mind for political gain. But if Obama “flip-flopped” on campaign finance, did McCain “flip-flop” on offshore drilling, immigration reform or certain interrogation techniques? There seems to be a fine line between “flip-flopping” and refining one’s position.

Oh, by the way, I'm a little tired of people pretending they don't know anything about Barack Obama's policies, and using that to justify their "uncertainty" about voting for him. If you truly don't know anything, it's because you've intentionally turned him out every time he's tried to tell you. How many policy speeches does he need to give on financial market reform, alternative energy, tax reform, the Iraq war, foreign policy and the like before people will admit he has a plan? How many times does he need to explain that he wants to eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 a year, return the capital gains tax rate to between 25% and 28%, increase fuel economy standards, dramatically increase the amount spent on alternative energy, remove up to two brigades from Iraq per month, regulate Wall Street speculators, etc., before some people will admit that they really do know all that stuff and it has little to do with their "uncertainty" about voting for him? If you don't like what Senator Obama stands for, just say so. But don't pretend you don't know what he stands for.

A report issued today revealed that during the past seven years, the Justice Department routinely turned down highly qualified applicants with sparkling resumes from the nation’s finest institutions because they were deemed “liberal” or “Democratic”, and instead accepted less qualified applicants found to be more “conservative.” Is ANYONE remotely surprised by this? Anyone at all? The Bush Justice Department put politics ahead of justice. I’m stunned.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tvsangirai has withdrawn from what he terms a “...sham of an election process,” and taken refuge in the Dutch embassy amidst rampant violence and the murder of his party members by persons affiliated with President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party. As a result, Mugabe will be declared the winner of the upcoming “election” this Friday, ensuring the continuation of what may be the most self-destructive African regime of the last quarter century. As usual, the rest of the world, including Zimbabwe’s African neighbors, gave speeches condemning Mugabe’s campaign of violence, but took no action whatsoever to correct the situation. Many question Tvsangirai’s decision to revoke his candidacy so close to an election which could potentially end the 26-year disaster that has been Mugabe’s rule. But people need to understand something. Heroes are still human beings. Tsvangirai has family and friends and co-workers and many others whom are put at risk of life and limb by his candidacy, and he has to be conscious of that fact. It’s not like America where more often that not the worst thing that happens to you when you disagree with the establishment is that you change the channel. At least for now, Tsvangirai lives to fight another day.

Two presidential tracking polls released within the past few days show Barack Obama leading John McCain by 12 to 15 points. These pollsters need to put down the marijuana cigarettes and get themselves a cup of coffee to calm their nerves. Polls should reflect what is happening, not what could or might or should happen. Yes, given all the factors, this is an election Democrats should win in a landslide. But, almost in spite of themselves, the Republicans have managed to nominate the one candidate they had who could give the Democrats a run for their money. Despite seven years of (insert noun /adjective combination here), this country is still closely divided and this will be a close election. Attempting to lull people into false senses of security or panic with voodoo polling does a disservice to this process.

Don Imus once again finds himself waist deep in the big muddy. The apparently 700-year-old Imus has decided to follow his much-publicized episode with the Rutgers women’s basketball team last year with a new racially-charged senior moment involving Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones. In discussing Jones’ multiple arrests with his sportscaster, Imus seemed to imply that the reason Jones has found himself in so much trouble is because that is what young black men do. Imus said - the following day - that he was making a sarcastic point that blacks are often unfairly targeted by police. “What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason, and I mean there's no reason to arrest this kid six times," he said. "They shoot blacks for no reason." It might have helped his case had he made that point a little clearer at the time he made the original comment.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors met in Miami this past week and resolved to ban bottled water from all city buildings. Right. No resolution to reduce gun violence, no mass transit initiatives, no plans for community redevelopment. Just a ban on bottled water. Way to take a stand.

Saudi Arabia agreed to increase oil production by 300,000 barrels this week. Due to attacks on their oil pipelines, Nigeria decreased production by 300,000 barrels a day. The market yawned and gas prices rose three cents.

New York-based architect David Fisher has unveiled plans to construct an 80-story shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai. It will be the first building in the world which will be able to continuously alter its physical appearance. Each floor, powered by wind turbines, will reportedly be able to rotate independently, allowing someone to reshape the building according to the shapes he or she finds in their Spaghetti O’s. Units will sell for approximately $3,000 per square foot. No, that is not a misprint. This just goes to prove, you just can’t give rich people money.

Finally, the denials issued by her publicist would seem to confirm reports that British pop-tart Amy Winehouse may have developed emphysema at the tender age of 24. Sigh. According to her father, Winehouse’s chain smoking and use of crack cocaine may have contributed to her condition. Guess that’s why you shouldn’t smoke crack. Let’s not downplay what she’s accomplished here. Amy Winehouse has managed to achieve in a quarter century what takes many people 70 or 80 years to accomplish.

Pipe Dreams

It’s finally Friday. I’m sorry, do we really need to have so many days between Monday and Friday? Raise your hand if you want three day work weeks with an afternoon siesta?

Last week’s round-up was a little short, mostly because the world is incredibly boring. But I am anything but boring - sometimes. So I offer up this supplement for your amusement.

General David Patreaus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave their semi-annual report on the Iraq war to Congress. The verdict? Progress is being made. Surprise! They fooled you, didn’t they. You thought they were going to say that so much progress has been made, they were packing up and rolling home, didn’t you. Silly rabbit. As long as progress is being made, this administration will not withdraw from Iraq. And make no mistake about it, as long as this administration is in office, progress is being made, regardless of whether progress really is being made or not.

While we’re on the subject, I’m sick of progress. Seriously. I’m bordering on physically ill. If I hear one more person mention the word progress I will collapse into convulsions, foaming at the mouth. As a matter of fact, I’m so sick of progress, I’m placing a moratorium on progress. From this moment on, I will no longer use the word p______s until it ceases to become a synonym for “screw you, we do whatever the hell we want.” Or until I forget what I just wrote. Whichever comes first.

President - and sore loser - Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has ordered run-off elections to determine the winner of last month’s presidential elections. This despite the fact that the country’s election commission still refuses to release the results of the election to the public. Anybody else find that odd? Why would you hold a run-off election if you don’t know whether or not you won? And there is the rub. Mugabe lost his election, and he knows it. But he loves his 600,000% inflation rate so much he refuses to leave office and instead will insist on dragging out the process, beating his opposition to death and declaring victory by default. Consider this. How awful of a president to you have to be to lose an election you rigged to benefit yourself?

To the absolute surprise of NO ONE outside of the network, CBS cancelled it’s newest stomach-churning reality experience “Hidden Talents of the Stars” after two-thirds of an episode. For some reason it seems viewers weren’t all that interested in watching ensign Sulu sing Willie Nelson or Clint Black do his impression of David Letterman. Who knew? Anybody seen A Clockwork Orange? Remember the scene where they sit they strap Malcolm McDowell’s character to the chair, prop his eyes open with the metal pincers and force him to watch all the disturbing images in an attempt to cure his sociopathy? Why can’t we superglue all the network executives to a park bench in the Yellowknife in the middle of January, prop their eyes open with toothpicks and force them to watch every single minute of the mindless drivel they attempt to inflict on the public every day. Maybe then we won’t have to suffer through Lipstick Jungle and Big Brother 37.

Speaking of mindless drivel, there is another controversy brewing over political campaign finance reform. Republican Senator John McCain, co-author of the McCain-Feingold bill - seems to be having trouble raising money for his presidential campaign. The two remaining Democratic candidates have raised a total of over $500 million dollars to date, whereas McCain has managed to score little over $50 million - about 10% of their total. Republicans - who used to feel they had an advantage over Democrats in the fund-raising arena prior to the implementation of new campaign finance rules - have never quite forgiven McCain for drying up their funding and seem to be reluctant to contribute money. But, they also remember how effective the “Swift Boat” ads were at helping sink John Kerry’s bid for the presidency four years ago. So, several groups have filed lawsuits to overturn the limits on political contributions by individuals to both “non-profits” and to the candidates themselves. Now, while I am in favor of complete public funding of presidential elections, I’m not entirely opposed to this idea either. The Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that political contributions are protected by the First Amendment as money equals speech. And like my First Amendment right as much - maybe more - than the next guy. And let’s face it. Regardless of what we do, “special interest” money - however you choose to define that term - always gets into politics and gums up the works. So instead of trying to limit contributions, let’s completely eliminate the restrictions. Allow any individual to contribute whatever amount he or she desires to the candidate of his or her choice. On two conditions. First, the contributor must be a human being. No more corporate donations, no more union donations, no more donations from anything that is not a living breathing human being. And second, full disclosure. Every dollar contributed must be accounted for and publicly accessible. When someone makes a donation, his or her name goes up on a campaign finance section of the candidate’s website, along with the amount they have contributed. With this system, anyone could find out exactly who donated to whom and how much. No more hiding behind organizations like People For the American Way, or America Coming Together or Middle-aged Bisexuals for Tea and Crumpets on Tuesdays. The Constitution guarantees individuals the right to freedom of speech, not anonymity. If you feel strongly enough to say what you want, you shouldn’t have to hide behind some faceless entity to say it.

About 2,784 years ago a bunch of Greeks got together and said, “Hey, you know what would be really cool? We should all get together, get naked, and compete against each other in some sports!” And thus the Olympics were born. Now, 2,784 years - and a gazillion dollars later, I would humbly suggest we return to the original idea. If nothing else we could increase viewership. There is a second controversy brewing ahead of this summer’s Beijing games. It surrounds a new swimsuit developed by Speedo that reportedly increases a swimmer’s speed by about 2%. These aren’t figments of the marketing department’s imagination. Since February, 23 swimming world records have been broken, 22 of them by swimmers wearing the new suit. There are some people - mostly those sponsored, employed by or invested in Speedo - who view this breakthrough suit as the greatest thing to happen to the sport since the invention of the heated pool. These people are idiots. I don’t know if anyone remembers this, but the Olympic games are actually about fair competition between human beings. When said human beings ingest or inject synthetic (or in some cases natural) substances to enhance their performance, we call that that cheating. Yet when these same human beings encapsulate themselves in synthetic substances to enhance their performance, we call that progr..., um... advancement. I don’t see the difference. Both techniques provide certain competitors with a distinct advantage over the others. True, anyone can purchase the new swimsuit if they are willing to shell out $600. But, anyone could inject themselves with anabolic steroids as well. Both methods produce the same result. The new swimsuit amounts to little more than a technological steroid. Competition should be between the athletes, not their sponsors. I’m fully aware that there is too much money invested in the modern Olympic machine to emphasize the athletics over the commercialism. But wouldn’t it be nice to hold a competition for the purpose of showcasing the sport instead of the sponsorships? Let’s hear it for athletic men and women running, jumping, flipping and swimming in the nude!

Finally, a suburb of San Francisco has petitioned to rename its sewage treatment plant the George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant. If they were looking for a story that would write its own jokes, mission accomplished. Tee hee hee.

Welcome to the Candy Shop

Today is opening day of the Major League Baseball season. Don’t cry, Cub fans. There’s always next year.

Last week a poll was released indicating that 28% of Clinton supporters claim they will not support Obama if he gets the Democratic Party nomination, versus 19% of Obama supporters who claim they will not support Clinton if she wins the nomination. How did the Democratic Party go from claiming they have two candidates they were very happy with to having 47% of the Democratic primary electorate dissatisfied with their choices in a little less than ninety days? Anyone who thinks that a prolonged primary campaign does anything positive for the Democratic Party is smoking some pretty powerful stuff. Anybody seen President Clinton?

Continuing on the subject of polls, Gallup released a poll today showing Barack Obama with a 10-point lead over Hillary Clinton nationally, among Democratic voters, as of March 29 of this year. This is a complete reversal of Gallup’s early February polls which showed Clinton with an 11-point lead over Obama. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual. (Feel free to disagree if you are so inclined.) But considering the month Senator Obama has had, the beating he took for his association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and the strength of Clinton’s support among voters in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary, conventional wisdom would seem to dictate Obama should be scrambling up the tube slide trying to catch up to his opponent. But nothing about this campaign (except for the politics) is conventional, is it?

I wasted seven minutes of my life this evening watching CNN talking-head Lou Dobbs. The Sultan of Smug was discussing the “obvious, indisputable media bias” against Hillary Clinton. His reporter guest from the Washington Post was commenting on a study by some purportedly “unbiased” media research center saying that in the past 60 days, approximately 83% of the network news coverage and commentary on Senator Obama has been “positive”, versus about 53% positive coverage for Senator Clinton. Now I’m always a little suspicious of studies coming from “unbiased” sources. If someone has to tell you they are unbiased, they probably aren’t. Hearing this news the obligatory Clinton supporter proceeded to blame the media for not being hard enough on Obama, while the obligatory Obama supporter claimed the Clinton campaign - who has traditionally enjoyed what some might call favorable media coverage - more or less had a case of sour grapes. I realize it may be difficult to believe, but I think there was a lesson somewhere in this display of adolescence. First, I’m always wary of anyone who claims to be unbiased. If someone tells you they have no preference, they more than likely have a preference. (The same rule applies to people who claim that you can trust them.) But assuming the results of the study are accurate, it raises an interesting point of conversation. Critics of media bias point to anything short of a perfectly even distribution of positive and negative coverage between all the candidates is patently unfair and a threat to the democracy. But there is something else to consider. Not all ideas - or candidates - are created equal. Take the equal coverage argument to its absurd extreme conclusion. Would Joseph Stalin merit the same quantity of positive news coverage as Mahatma Gandhi? Obviously neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton is either Joseph Stalin or Mahatma Gandhi, but the underlying principle may still be applicable. Is it possible that some items or issues receive more favorable coverage because they simply merit more favorable coverage?

While we’re on the subject of issues, can I tell you how tired I am of hearing supporters of both Democratic candidates complain that the primary campaign is focusing too much on personality and not enough on “the issues.” It is somewhat of a dubious charge. There have been no less than twenty debates during the course of this campaign. If you don’t know where each senator stands on the issues you either haven’t been paying attention or you simply aren’t interested in finding out. But there is a a degree of truth to the statement. This Democratic primary race is a personality contest. And there is a very good reason for that. The actual policy differences between the candidates amount to little more than the difference between midnight and 12:03 am. Both want the same things for the country, each has a slightly different way of achieving those goals. And because the goals are so similar, the contest has turned to the areas in which the senators differ - style and personality. Which may offer an explanation for Obama’s 10-point national lead.

Late last week a chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan broke away from a Connecticut-sized ice-shelf in Antarctica and tumbled into the ocean. So much for those Emperor penguin water-front condos.

Some of you may have determined from statements made in previous posts that I am something of a car guy. So you can imagine my surprise when the Ford Motor Company sold luxury British automakers Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors of India. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something seems so very wrong with that sentence. Perhaps it’s the fact that two of the most durable symbols of automotive luxury are now owned by the manufacturer of the world’s cheapest car. But there’s a bit of irony here too, isn’t there? For 89 years India found itself under the thumb of the British Empire, exploited for its labor, spices and other commodities. Now two marquees of British capitalism are controlled by by the former colony. Like rain on your wedding day, right? The free ride, when you’ve already paid. The good advice that you just... well, you get the picture.

Zimbabwe is minting new $10 million paper notes. Why would someone need a $10 million bill you ask? Well, if $10 million nets you a grand total of two rolls of toilet paper, you can see how things like $100 bills could be considered completely and utterly useless. Keeping that in mind, President Robert Mugabe distributed cars to a group of about 45 doctors a few days prior to his country’s upcoming presidential elections in a shameless - if not at all admirable - attempt to buy votes for himself. No word or whether or not the rumors of the doctors burning the cars to cook whatever scraps of food they could find are true.

According to news reports, the hottest thing on YouTube right now is a Delta Airlines safety video. That’s right, a safety video. Why is it hot? I have no idea. I don’t understand YouTube, let alone anything on it. But I’m told the video’s popularity has something to do with its “star”, a thirty-something red-haired woman with cheekbones like oranges and lips the size of Florida. Of course, none of this explains the morbid fascination with this strange piece of film, but I guess everyone loves a freak show.

Finally tonight, rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has rescinded his support for Hillary Clinton and decided to support Barack Obama. Hmm. With friends like those....