Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Me: I’m not that old. His math is off.

(moments later)

Me: No it’s not.

Apparently Obama supporters have been coming to my house looking for me. According to my roommates, someone showed up at the house around 6:30 tonight because their records showed that I hadn’t voted yet. Very strange.

Also, a TV in the other room is on CNN (I think (I’m trying to avoid the breathless “news” reports)). Wolf Blitzer is announcing that a “major projection” is coming. His announcement contains all the seriousness and value as an announcement that the Hardly Boys are having a major clue.

Last night I was in the office until past midnight. It wasn’t as bad as it might sound because the problem I was working on was very exciting and could, if a solution is found, be extremely valuable. Even though that problem isn’t solved yet, I just realized that I have to make it home before 9 tonight.

Why?

9 PM - New Episode of Mythbusters
10 PM - New Episode of South Park, titled, “The China Probrem”

Also at 10 PM on Discovery there’s a new, hour-long episode of what might be a whole new series called “Explosions Gone Wrong”. I might have to catch the end of that.

This morning, on the radio on the way to work, a helpful tip for seasonal allergy sufferers was provided by some national association of Chiropractors.

The tip? Stay inside.

Gee thanks Chiros. I now take you guys seriously.

I have yet to review the 4th book I read, It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News, written by Fark.com founder and operator Drew Curtis. The title of the book actually does a pretty good job of summarizing things. Curtis has created specific categories of “news” that aren’t news that we are subjected too. Among the categories are things like “advertising masquerading as news” and “article contradicts title”. He runs through the descriptions, provides some examples, and then includes some of the more humorous commentary from fark commenters. It’s a decent but not earth-shattering book. I recommend it as a good bathroom book. The takeaway, is that of course the media has to publish a lot of crap: if they want to be around when the real news happens, they have to fill space and make ends meet in the mean time.

Speaking of filling space. The geniuses at ForbesAUTO (WTF?) via MSNBC bring us How you can ease the pain of car ownership - Ways you can ease driving costs besides downsizing and driving less. Halfway through the article they write,

[b]esides downsizing and driving less, there are other ways to curtail costs, some of which have little to do with prices at the pump.

I only add that quote here because the first half the article explained the cost of car ownership how to ease it by downsizing and driving less. When they finally do get around to their point, all they really suggest is spending less on maintenance, ya know, by doing things like not-fixing things that aren’t broken and finding a mechanic who doesn’t rip you off. That’s it. That’s their advice. And then they spend the last third of the article explaining other costs that drivers can’t really control.

Occasionally I listen to NPR’s Democracy Now on my way in to work. I usually can only catch small segments of the show since my drive is under 10 minutes. It seems like the guests have usually done some good research, and have some good insight, but them invariably wander off into a land of stupidity. This morning was no different.

This morning’s guest was talking about Bush’s revoking of the executive order against offshore drilling. To her credit, I think one thing she’s right about is the immediate impact on short-term prices that the opening up of new drilling sites would bring; that being zero. However, she brought up “evidence” to support her on that claim, saying something to the extent of “well the price of oil went up yesterday after the announcement,” and that “the rise is very significant.” This is pretty stupid for several reasons. First, the increase was on the order of 10 cents, I believe. The second reason is that it is a lone fucking data point. The third reason is the lifting of the executive order is only one in a series of many actions which must take place for drilling to be approved.

The other stupid thing she said things along the lines of “well increased drilling is only going to mean increased profits for multinationals” with a pretty implicit assumption that alternative energy will come from companies that are either not making profits or not multinationals or both. One thing many, many, many, many people need to get straight in their heads, is that whichever alternative we choose, we’re still going to be reliant on gigantic, profit-seeking, multinational corporations.

Addendum: NPR happened to be replaying part of the interview while I was driving home. It turns out the woman who was talking was Naomi (that spells “I moan” backwards) Klein. In what I caught this time, she was saying that Iraq’s oil industry should really be nationalized, in the Arabian model, because, you know, it’s worked so well for Iran and the people of Saudi Arabia. It is then perhaps no surprise that she has written a popular book, The Shock Doctrine, which Tyler Cowan described as “a true economics disaster.”