Oh, you crafty devil, you

John McCain tapped Alaska governor-minx Sarah Palin for his VP slot, and GWS's snark gland is raging out of control. A curious choice, but a decent political move, Palin offers America a chance to put a really attractive woman just one bullet from The Button.


Tell me you wouldn't hit that.

D'oh!

Sen. Joe Biden represents, as many of you know, the great state of Delaware, not Maryland, as GWS reported Saturday. DBMIVFK regrets the error.

He has to win now, right?

GWS's favorite senior Senator from Maryland was tapped for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. The term "experience" gets thrown around far too much, but Joe Biden's long tenure on the Foreign Relations Committee ought to balance out the intricate decision-making involved in parachuting over North Vietnam and deliver the White House for the Dems. Biden's performance in the Democratic debates had GWS swooning, and even geniuses like David Brooks think he's the man for the job.

Obama has to win now. He's got the white-haired foreign policy maven behind him, and Biden's old Dem credentials should carry Obama through the Rust Belt.

We hope.

So say we all.

I hate Maureen Dowd

This column is routinely the "most e-mailed" article on the Times website.

Are you fucking kidding me? She reads like a sarcastic 6th-grader. Her column is the least informative, least mature, and by far most insulting to readers' intelligence (and I'm including Bill Kristol).

Ugh.

McKain Komedy Klassics!

Quick, what did the coolee say to the mick?

John McCain might know the answer ("Fly lice, pree-zuh," for those keeping score at home).

So, what, we're supposed to be shocked that John McCain tells off color jokes and has for decades? Big deal. The man is seven years younger than GWS's grandfather, who still refers to black people as colored. He doesn't mean it as a slur---heck, he really likes the way that young colored fellow at Jefferson High runs the floor and shoots the 3. But he's (say it with me now) old.

And if the crack about Alzheimer's meaning you get to hide your own Easter eggs didn't make you chuckle, then you, sir, are dead on the inside.

The death of Kelly Bundy

Christina Applegate, pictured here as seminal nymphet Kelly Bundy and currently playing some role on some show GWS has never seen, is now cancer free after a double mastectomy.
















...is it too soon for a No Ma'am joke?

Autotext FAIL

It seems that Christian media outlet OneNewsNow has a problem with being Gay.

Olympic sprinter/100m choke-artist Tyson Gay, that is.

Did someone do a study finding that "homosexual" connotes a wholly different image than "gay"? If so, GWS would love to see it, because otherwise, this just doesn't make any sense to DBMIVFK.

Furthermore, these must be the most self-assuredly straight Christians in history---they're so straight, they don't even exhibit an abnormal hangup about the word gay! QED.

In an unrelated story, the National Air and Space Museum has replaced the plaque in front of the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Enola Homosexual was, in fact, named for the pilot's mother, Enola Homosexual, not for anyone practicing the sort of lifestyle so vigorously condemned by the Lord in Leviticus.

Damn the man! Save Pandora!

GWS's blog buddy and co-worker Torontonian/Bostonian passed along this article published Saturday on TechCrunch. Michael Arrington says Pandora is doomed, and that maybe, just maybe, we won't know what we've got 'til it's gone. Say it ain't so!

For those of you who insist that the interwebs is little more than a series of tubes, perhaps a remedial course is in order. Former musician/composer Tim Westergren founded the Music Genome Project in 2000, hiring dozens of professionally trained musicologists to begin the sequencing of the building blocks of music. Songs are broken down based on their components: dry snare, melodic acoustic guitar, screeching vocals, etc. The data produced by the MGP powers Pandora, a free web radio service that allows users to create and then tune their own stations; to build a station, just type in an artist's name or a song, and Pandora goes to work trying to understand what you like about this artist/song and how to show you new stuff. In short order, an individual user can create and tune dozens of his own personalized radio stations.

GWS is a big fan of Pandora, as is everyone GWS knows who uses Westergren's simple, easy, and fun service. But now, the skies darken as the storm clouds of entrenched media approach...

Internet radio has failed to overtake its terrestrial and satellite counterparts in no small part because of uncertainty around the business model, and this uncertainty is driven mostly by a certainty that internet radio providers will pay markedly higher per song royalties than the folks at ClearChannel and Sirius/XM. The inability of certain senior Senators from Alaska to understand the intertubez combined with the massive lobbying groups aligned with traditional media outlets (think RIAA) means that Pandora and sites like it are left out when it comes to paying fair rates to content owners.

Arrington reports that around 70% of Pandora's revenues ($25m in total) are going to royalty payments, and you don't need an MBA to understand that this does not a good business model make. As Pandora has increased in popularity, it has done excellent work scaling all aspects of its operation with the exception of the one critical piece over which it has no control. Arrington is willing to accept Pandora as a sacrificial lamb if it makes everyone realize that the pig-headed powers-that-be are killing a great service, but this assumes that once the best free radio site on the internet is shuttered that 1) people will be outraged, 2) that they'll protest, and 3) that somehow, someway, that protest will be more effective than this one.

GWS is less than optimistic that the sacrifice of Pandora will suddenly snap all interested parties to attention: "Ohmigod, what happened to Pandora? We did what to it? Oh, oh that's just unconscionable, what were we even thinking? We've gotta change this, and we've gotta change this now!" Arrington does have a point: only Pandora's collapse is likely to bring sufficient attention to the disparity between internet and satellite/terrestrial radio rates to spur substantive change. But if Arrington's right, musicians allowing Pandora to die will be the first case in which people actually did have to burn the village in order to save it.

Libertarians make me giggle

A friend of DBMIVFK sent this along recently. It's an open letter from someone named Will Manly who used to blog for something called The Stir is someplace called Kansas, and it made GWS's belly shake like a bowl full of jelly.

Libertarianism has long struck GWS as similar to psychadelic drugs in that they seem to possess the minds of adherents and induce a crazy googly-eyed look. This condition can become permanent.

Mister Manly (tee hee) writes that he originally liked Obama, but that he's soured since he...um...turned out to be a Democrat? A couple choice points of snarkery:

1. Bobby Jindal isn't close to the politican Barack Obama is, at least not yet.

2. Gun control laws "kill people and steal freedoms?" AND steal freedoms!?! That is something up with which GWS simply will not put. First of all, where do you get off stealing freedoms, and where are you hiding them once they're stolen? Secondly, who do you think you are, Mr. Brady Bill, killing people and all? As the NRA has often reminded us, that's the bailiwick of people, not laws.

3. If you so disdain effete San Franciscans, Mr. Manly, if you find them so close-minded and bigoted, why do you care what Barack Obama says to them?

See, Mr. Manly, the big reason Barack Obama doesn't "understand and respect [your] way of life," is because there just aren't that many of you. Most Americans now live in a major city, most American economic activity happens in major cities, and gun control is typically needed more in major cities than in small towns, so if Obama's more concerned with big cities than small towns, that's really in the utilitarian interest of the country. Mr. Manly can be forgiven this ignorance, GWS supposes---at least it would match his idiocy regarding tax rates. You really think that America's rich pay too much in taxes? Compared to whom?

GWS isn't quite sure what he expected from someone whose old rag left cyberspace with the immortal parting words "Long live Nic Cage." For the record, Nicholas Cage (his excellent work as Stanley Goodspeed in "The Rock" notwithstanding) is the worst American-born actor of his generation, his histrionics and odd cadences finding their natural counterpoint only in Canada's worst actor, Hayden "Nooooooooooooo!" Christenson.

Why am I not friends with these women?

GWS used to hate local yah-dood rag Barstool Sports. Its columns were sophomoric, its ads garish, and its copy unforgivably peppered with typos and grammatical errors. Somehow, Barstool's hard copies managed to beat Boston Now and the Metro's combined sloppy copy scores.

Barstool Sports's blog, however, is, as they say, a game changer. It's gotten GWS through many a long work day, and GWS's employer has essentially turned into a 'Stool shop. It's not what you'd consider a first-rate blog; most of their content consists of links originally found on Gawker, Don Chavez, etc.

But Barstool does one thing outstandingly well, and that's the Local Smokeshow of the Day. Every day (well, supposedly every day), lead blogger El Pres selects one of the many beautiful young women here in Boston to feature as that day's Local Smokeshow. Today's Smokeshow hails from Harvard and [slow clap] well done, sir [clap, clap] well-l-l-l-l-l done indeed.

Thanks to the wonders of the intertubez, GWS was able to quickly track down this goddess from Harvard and even to learn that she's friends with a girl GWS used to wait tables with. Barstool Sports has found a niche in the blogosphere, one that should inspire plenty of me-toos, but GWS has yet to see the copycats.

Kudos to you, El Pres, you magnificent, smutty genius, and keep the Smokeshows comin.

The sky in Bill Kristol's world is always red, white, and blue

Russian forces pushed past the borders of South Ossetia today and into Georgia proper as the Kremlin forewarned about the opening of a second front. Russian troops and tanks overran lightly defended Georgian positions in the town of Senaki, a full twenty-five miles from the South Ossetian border. Concurrently, the Kremlin issued an ultimatum to Georgian special forces digging in along the border with Abkhazia, another renegade province: disarm or face annihilation.

[Above, state-of-the-art medical facilities in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. Photo courtesy of the New York Times]

The case here seems pretty clear: Russia is out to bust some heads, looking to quell a small, restive, U.S.-allied neighbor and pick up some ethnic Russians and their territory in the process (not an insignificant factor, given Russia's negative population growth rate). This is a naked land grab, and the escalation of the conflict to include sustained bombing of Tblisi, the opening of an Abkhazian front, and the continued drive through South Ossetia make it difficult to argue that Russia is not engaging in pre-meditated aggression...which, for those of you keeping count at home, is a war crime.

The New York Times's Opinionator blog does a good job laying out Georgian-Russian Power Relations 101, but the real story here is how the West will respond. With the Olympics in full swing, world leaders' collective attention is not focused on the Caucasus (never fear: Dubya made sure to bring a sage old friend with him to Beijing, in case circumstances dictate a quick foreign policy decision...someone should give ol' Hank some No-Doz). While Georgia is in a race against time---as GWS pointed out last week, if Georgian defenders can't hold out until Michael Phelps leaves the pool for the last time, they're finished---Russia is somewhat beholden to the same timetable. For the next couple weeks, Russia will be able to turn most of Georgia into a free-fire zone.

The Russian air force bombed Tblisi's airport a few short hours before French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was slated to arrive, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what message Russia is trying to send. The Georgians' pleas for a cease-fire have been pocket-vetoed by the Russian President, the Russian Prime Minister, and the Russian Foreign Ministry. American diplomats say the bedraggled, outnumbered, outgunned Georgian forces have tried to surrender and withdraw, but the Russian forces have pursued them and refused to grant quarter. GWS predicts that from now until Beijing's closing ceremonies, Russia's generals will let slip the dogs of war, as they've already cried havoc.

President Saakashvili of Georgia has accused the Russians of ethinc cleansing, and while that claim's outlandish for now, the Russian Army's continued push into Georgian territory does nothing to quell GWS's concerns. It's worth pointing out that Abkhazia didn't have anything to do with this current conflict except having similar demographics to South Ossetia; here, the Russians don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to "punishing Georgian aggression," but the international community has turned a blind eye to this warmongering escalation of the conflict.

GWS's rage gland was inflamed earlier today when he read William Kristol's op-ed in today's Times. GWS agrees with Kristol in many ways, and early reports from retreating Georgian soldiers have contained a running theme: we can't believe you pricks are just going to abandon us like this. DBMIVFK further congratulates Kristol for getting this far through an op-ed without 1) suggesting that lower taxes might solve the problem, and 2) for getting about two-thirds of the way through his piece before vividly demonstrating how frightfully out of touch with reality the man is.

"Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation that we were sponsoring for NATO membership a few months ago." Surely! Thanks Bill. One quick question: how do you propose we, um, go about doing that?

Kristol somehow fails to connect the dots from Kabul and Baghdad to Tblisi, to wit: if we hadn't launched the absurd War on Terror Kristol's Weekly Standard championed, we'd probably have the force flexibility to credibly deter the Russians' advance. Surely we can't simply stand by? What else would you have us do, Mr. Kristol? Where, exactly, do you get off by advocating a foolish war and then complaining when we don't have any spare combat brigades to throw around? Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Edwards picks up torch, follows in Gingrich's cheat-on-your-cancer-stricken-wife footsteps

GWS knew it...he just frakkin' knew it...

FB was an Edwards supporter, and GWS liked his healthcare platform, but there was something that didn't sit right in GWS's belly. GWS once remarked to FB, "I know now the visceral sort of dislike that so many Republicans had for Bill Clinton." Well, chalk one up for the pop-science in Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink." Turns out a smooth-talking politican usually acts like a smooth-talking politician.

Cheer up, David Brooks!

It's not all bad! True, you've fallen victim to the " will/has already changed our culture! Everyone is a now!

With all due respect (I am unsure of exactly how much respect this is, but I'll wing it for now), good fucking LORD Mr. Brooks.

"...over the past few years, there has been a tectonic shift in the basis of good taste." Tectonic?

"...on or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.

On that date, media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status."

Now, I think this *might* be hyperbole, but it's at least some kind of bole. Since when is culture displaced by media because of a few thousand iphone owners and some blog commenters? Everyone knows that blog commenters are a level below lizards, IQ-wise. In fact, I'm not even sure what it would MEAN to say a medium has displaced culture. They aren't the same kind of thing! Let's review: a medium is the way in which content is relayed between the creator and consumers. What occupies a medium, if it's not content? And why do you think people care so much about new mediums if they don't care far more about the content they'll now be able to access?

Hang on, that was my money shot: If there were no TV shows, there would be no TV. If there was no written works, there would be no Kindle. If there were no amatuer porno, there would be no youporn.

"This transition has produced some new status rules. In the first place, prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser. Inventors, artists and writers come and go, but buzz is forever. Maximum status goes to the Gladwellian heroes who occupy the convergence points of the Internet infosystem — Web sites like Pitchfork for music, Gizmodo for gadgets, Bookforum for ideas, etc."

Mr Brooks, you need to get out of New York City. First of all, of the three sites you mention here, I have only heard of Pitchfork (and I hate it). Second, the "aggregator and appraiser" is in no way held in the same kind of esteem by anyone as the creators of content; this is a wacky idea that not only do you show now evidence for, but exposes you as one ignorant of what it means to be esteemed for something. I don't enjoy reading reviews in the same way I enjoy going to concerts; they occupy different spaces in my consumption matrix (you're fucking right I said consumption matrix). For example, can you imagine someone saying "Oh, yeah, I listened to their new album, but it wasn't as good as the review of their new album. That rocked!"

Come on. I know only of a small population of deeply ironic and brooding hipsters deep in New York City somewhere that actually judge one another on how quickly they're able to discover new things and then discard them. The rest of us have the dignity and self-respect to (gasp!) continue to like things we like!

I can take the most extreme parody of the tendencies of a tiny group of unrepresentative weirdos from New York and proclaim a "tectonic shift" in human culture too, but straw men are SO last week. Adbusters did that already.

Oh, Russia, you're incorrigible!

It's on! It is owwwn, shit is going down, shit is going down! Does this mean the Olympics mean something again? Does Ivan Drago become culturally relevant again? GWS sure hopes so.

So, ok, we get it---this is what happens when the guard changes in Russia: the new leader sits quietly for a minute, shakes some hands, kisses some babies, then bombs a Caucasian breakaway region back into the Stone Age. The Russian people then fall in behind their valiant leader because, as far as GWS can tell, that's just what Russians do: Putin came into office with dismal approval ratings, but after creating a bloody shirt around which people could rally, he led Russia into the disastrous Second Chechen War and was eventually loved by most Russians and referred to as "Daddy." Putin left office with nearly nine in ten Russians approving of his work

CNN quotes Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as saying "This is the worst nightmare one can encounter," which might qualify as the understatement of the year. Georgia has called for a total mobilization of its armed forces, about 70,000 pairs of boots all told; Russia, by contrast, fields an ground army of just under 400,000 men, including 35,000 paratroops. Moreover, Russia's air force will dominate the skies over Georgia throughout this conflict, and Russia's massive numerical superiority in armor and artillery will be difficult for the Georgians to resist. Haven't we seen this somewhere before?

From the most recent statements coming out of Moscow, Tblisi, and Tskhinvali, GWS predicts that this will be Chechnya 2.0, and that this time, the Russians will have learned from their mistakes in Grozny. Oh, sure, there'll be plenty of fuck-ups---this is, after all, the only army that gave its soldiers booze during World War II (100 mL of vodka per day per infantryman). The Russian army still depends on 190,000 unomotivated, unprofessional conscripts and is far from a model force. Still, they should crush Georgian resistance using the same tactics Russian armies have employed in aggressive wars for the last 50 years: loose rules of engagement, heavy reliance on artillery and mobile rocket platforms, and a crushing advantage in manpower and materiel.

GWS's take is that the Russians are launching a fairly naked war of aggression. Claims of protecting ethnic Russians ring hollow considering the way Russia has treated the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus. Besides, ethnic nationalism is sooooo 20th century. Russia timed this move to correspond with the opening of the Beijing Games, and given the South Ossetian government's response to the crisis ("Russian tanks? What Russian tanks? Oh those Russian tanks? Those are, um, milk trucks."), Russia is not acting unilaterally.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took it upon himself (isn't Dmitri Medvedev the Russian president??? Sorry, stupid question) to tell the world that "war has started" in Georgia. No shit! Thanks Vlad, you shifty little ex-KGB bastard. GWS sees a bit of The Wire's Avon Barksdale in Putin---Medvedev might be telling him they can get out of this street game and become legit, become bid'nissmen, quit screwing around with small-time, dangerous little corners of the world like South Ossetia. Vlad takes a drink and tries to hide the contempt in his voice, then makes his priorities clear: "I want my corners."

The big escalation here from the low-level saber-rattling that has defined the South Ossetian problem for the last few years was when Georgian planes bombed a Soviet (oops, sorry, Russian) armored column headed for Tskhnivail and Georgian ground forces fired on Russian attack planes. In what will become, GWS predicts, a running narrative, the South Ossetians claimed that the armored column was, in fact, a humanitarian column. GWS isn't buying it---can someone teach these people to lie plausibly, please? Otherwise, the drama goes right out of this whole thing...

The international response to this crisis is likely to be muted, in part because of the Olympics, in part because Russia's trying to annex a relatively geopolitically meaningless territory, and in part because Russia's ultimate gamble will pay off: while South Ossetia has the potential to turn into another Chechnya, Russia's unlikely to lose this war and even if it does, it will have solidified a de facto sphere of influence approaching its Cold War borders. The Georgians have to think more short-term: dig in, booby-trap everything, and pray you can hold out until after Michael Phelps wins his medals and the world (hopefully) starts paying attention.

Offshore drilling and its conceits

We here at DBMIVFK grow tired with the mainstream media's unwillingness to call unsound policy unsound. As much as GWS is an arugula-nomming, Facebook-Twittering, namby-pamby Web 2.0 moral relativist, he finds it irksome when a new source simply passes on a candidate's political posturing without doing any public service by fact-checking. This, of course, is where blogs tend to come in...hooray intertubez!

It's time for GWS's Not the Brightest Bulb, the first in a series (?) of posts on our presidential candidates' energy plans. First up, John McCain's "Lexington Project."



A couple snarky marketing pot-shots before we get to dat good shit, dat raaaaawwww policy sheeeit:

1. The Lexington Project sounds like a sinister shadow group in a Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown book. If GWS isn't mistaken, The Lexington Project is staffed by exiled KGB officers who didn't think the Illuminati's booze cruises were up to snuff. In a June 25th speech, McCain went to beat-people-over-the-head levels as he spelled out why his plan is called The Lexington Project:
"...named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before...this nation will acheive strategic independence by 2025." Ohhhhhhh, thaaaaaaat Lexington. I get it, I get jokes... So to the residents of Concord, MA and Philly, the message is loud and clear: you didn't have shit to do with the Declaration of Independence, and John McCain would know because he was there.

2. John McCain really cares a lot about this issue. It's the first issue listed on the dropdown menu for "Issues" on his campaign site. See? Told you he cared a lot about it.

3. "An all of the above energy solution"? Who's the genius who selected this slogan? All GWS can think of when he reads this is that The Lexington Project is to energy policy as Potpourri is to "Jeopardy!" categories.

With his snark gland fully engorged, GWS now gets down to details.

If we can trust the graphical layout of priorities on McCain's website, a clear hierarchy emerges. McCain's energy policy will focus on the following, in the following order: expanded domestic production, better fleet-wide fuel economy, "clean, alternative sources of energy," carbon cap-and-trade, improved energy efficiency, and finally, not to be outdone by the Obama campaign, cracking down on those dastardly oil speculators. One at a time, please, no need to push...

Expanded Domestic Production: Fuck Flipper, fuck him right in his blowhole! The Outer Continental Shelf has tons of oil and "77 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas." Hot damn! And this shit's already here? Well what are we waiting for!?

In a word, common sense. Right-wing blogs like CNS News and the Conservative Beacon try to pull off some rhetorical sleight of hand, but it's clumsy. Why would McCain be so specific about how much gas is in American territorial waters but never offer similar figures about oil? The Department of Interior's Mineral Management Service estimates there's between 66 and 115 billion barrels of oil, mostly located in the Gulf of Mexico's OCS. These numbers, the MMS stresses, are representative of "Undiscovered technically recoverable resources," which, in layman's terms, means "back of napkin." The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration isn't quite so optimistic: they predict around 60 billion barrels of oil from the lower 48's OCS (GWS was unable to find EIA numbers that included Alaska).

Total U.S. oil consumption is about 21 million barrels/day, a figure which is sure to grow in at least the short-to-medium term. The EIA predicts that if we go balls-to-the-wall with OCS drilling, we can improve domestic production to 5.6 million barrels/day by 2030. So, in the next 22 years, John McCain's plan---at best---will fail to expand domestic production by 10%. Compared to the "reference case" the EIA uses to test its hypotheses, drilling the OCS will add only 200,000 barrels/day to American production. To be glib, that's not even a drop in the bucket. Yet this is what McCain leads with.

Expanded domestic oil production---FAIL!!!

Improving American fuel economy standards: GWS is unclear on how doctrinaire McCain's economic views are. Here, he's certainly hewing to accepted conservative dogma about the market delivering results. Basically, McCain would encourage greater fuel economy not by mandating higher mileage standards (like every other developed country) but by offering a $5,000 tax credit for any consumer who buys a "zero-carbon emission car." This, McCain says, will spur private industry to re-tool and somehow come up with a carbon neutral car. Along with this, McCain's willing to offer a $300m prize to people who find a way to increase battery life, and then he pays lip-service to flex fuel, lowering tariffs (finally some good policy! GWS would love to see Brazillian sugarcane ethanol on our shores), and stricter CAFE standards.

Unfortunately, McCain's market-based scheme doesn't hold water. First of all, what the hell is a zero-carbon emission car? Considering the amount of steel and plastic in a car, GWS finds it difficult to believe that any car could ever be truly carbon neutral. Secondly, McCain's plan is dependent on the existence of a latent market for said zero-emissions cars; without massive consumer appetite for these cars, the plan doesn't work because Detroit won't have incentive to change its fleet. And a $5,000 tax credit, while lovely, doesn't seem likely to spur consumers to buy buy buy. Without this massive consumer demand, McCain's reasoning breaks down. Interestingly, he never feels the need to trot out any statistics about this link in his value chain.

Bringing American fuel economy standards up to par---FAIL!!!

Clean, Alternative Sources of Energy: Thomas Friedman should be upset, because the first paragraph in this section is clearly cobbled together from his last 1,000 op-eds: green technology + green industry = green economy! But oh, oh goodness...McCain stumbles right out of the gate on this one. He advances the cause of clean coal, but deftly stays away from the question of carbon sequestration, thus obviating his contention: we've known how to get multiple forms of fuel from coal since the first quarter of the 20th century, but it's among the dirtiest processes (in terms of carbon released) we've got. Moreover, McCain's later cap-and-trade system would seem to make the business case for coal liquefication unfeasible...and once again, he feels no need to address this seeming contradiction.

McCain also wants to build 45 nuclear power plants between now and 2030. GWS is undecided on the nuclear option and welcomes readers' comments. Where McCain plans to put these plants is, of course, not mentioned. Last and certainly least, McCain throws in a passing mention of wind, solar, hydro, and other tree-hugging forms of power.

New energy---FAIL!!!

Cap-and-trade: Cap-and-trade schemes are the darling of most economists who see a market-based way to regulate negative externalities. In truth, it may be the most politically palatable option, but GWS is brought back to his intro to econ course in college and once again finds himself wondering "But...who gets to decide what's an acceptable level of pollution?" McCain seems to think that getting back to 2005 carbon emission levels by the end of his first term is a good first step, and wants to get back to 1990's levels by 2020. GWS feels it's necessary to point out that McCain does not mention a steadily shrinking pool of total carbon credits or a steadily increasing system of penalties for non-compliance, which would seem to be necessary if the goal truly is reduction in overall carbon emissions.

Understanding how to structure incentives---FAIL!!!

Improved Energy Efficiency: GWS will spend as much time on this section as McCain appears to have done. His argument here boils down to two points:

1. Hectoring government employees to turn off the lights when they leave a room
2. Deregulate deregulate deregulate.

Also, SmartMeters. Is Matlock on yet?

Do you kids think electricity grows on trees?---FAIL!!!

Oil Speculators: Seeking to prevent a flanking maneuver from Obama, McCain promises that if oil speculators are indeed distorting American gas prices, he'll bring down the swift hammer of justice and righteousness on their Brooks Brothers-wearing asses. He then also pledges (wink) not to support a windfall profits tax on oil companies (wink wink) just in case any prospective Republican donors (wink wink, nudge nudge) might happen to work in either high finance or at an oil company (nudge nudge, eyebrow raise, elbow to the ribs, say no more) .

Speaking in code---ur doin it rong!

All in all, McCain's energy plan doesn't seem like much of a plan at all. If George Bush's diagnosis of America as an addict is true, McCain's plan seems to be just finding more, cheaper drugs. GWS knows very few alcoholics who quit drinking because they found a store just out to sea with slightly cheaper Jim Beam than they were used to.

Smog? What smog?

The U.S. Olympic cycling team arrived in Beijing, and they've already found a way to make a scene. China, clearly incensed that another nation would dare challenge its cycling abilities, made it clear that it was not happy about American cyclists showing up to Beijing airport wearing anti-pollution masks.

The cyclists got their masks from US Cycling by way of the USOC, and the USOC didn't seem to be mad at why they cyclists were wearing the masks so much as where they were wearing the masks.

Chinese spin-master Sun Weijia explains: “We have all along said that it is not necessary for the athletes to wear masks because the air quality in Beijing has improved,” Sun said. “We have to explain that looks can be deceiving, and that it looks like fog, but actually the air quality is good.”

Oh, come now, Mistah Sun (Missy Sun?)---you're the director for media operations, and you're trying to put one over on us by using "fog" instead of "smog?" Fog doesn't worry Olympic athletes dependent on getting oxygen to their bloodstream; smog does. Sun knows the thick gray haze enveloping Beijing doesn't look a thing like fog. So are we to believe the "Oh, sah-ree, my Engrish no good" defense here? No. GWS predicts we're gonna hear a whole lot more about the air quality in Beijing over the next couple weeks, if for no other reason than there's very little mass interest in kayaking & canoe.

Whiner of the week

Waah waah waah. I don't like CF lightbulbs or local meat. Waah waah.

I know you don't HAVE to be a pussy to write for the Times, but apparently it helps.

Think China's Super-Ninja is badass? Canada shows 'em what a SIX-lettered country starting with "C" can do

While it may be impressive that China is developing super-ninja technology, the Canadians have kicked it up a notch. Last week, a Canadian bus on a remote stretch of highway was at a rest stop when things got - how you say? - terrifying...

"Passengers said they had just reboarded the bus following a break when the suspect — for no apparent reason — stabbed the man sitting next to him dozens of times as passengers fled in horror. He then severed the man's head, displayed it and began hacking at the body.

but wait, there's more!

"In the tape of radio transmissions, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer refers to the attacker as "Badger" and says he is armed with a knife and scissors and is "defiling the body at the front of the bus as we speak."

On the tape, which lasts about 80 seconds, officers continue to detail the attacker's movements until one reports, "Badger's at the back of the bus, hacking off pieces and eating it."

Ninjas are scary, but cannibals are totally fucked up. This guy is clearly a new breed of terrorist.

Old strategy: Kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

New strategy: Take your time killing one person, but make it as scary as possible.

According to the AP, Mr. Tyson's - er, sorry, Mr. Li's employer

"... was shocked to learn that his 'model employee' had been accused of the grisly attack. Vincent Augert, an independent contractor who distributes newspapers in Edmonton, said that Li was one of his most reliable carriers."

...Augert continues...

"He was very punctual and always cleanly dressed," he told The Associated Press. "He was a very nice, polite guy. We would've had no reason to let him go before all this happened."

I can't wait to see the reference The Canadian Cannibal gets from Augert - "Oh, you know, he was really a great employee, very reliable. I just had to let him go after the, um, incident". Seriously, "before all this happened" refers to what, sir? The murder, the beheading, or the cannibalism? "All this" could really mean anything here.

As it turns out, Mr. Li spoke with a strong Chinese accent, so as of this moment, FB cannot say for sure WHICH gub'mint, Canadian or Chinese, he was working for.

Finally, just for (grisly, sadistic, inhumane) laughs, one last quote from the AP story referring to the leak of the Mountie's communications:

The RCMP described the tapes as "operational police communications and, as such, are not meant for public consumption."

I'll let loyal DBMIVK readers fill in their own "not meant for public consumption" jokes...

China develops new super-ninja

Common sense used to dictate that the massive Chinese People's Liberation Army was nothing with which to fuck (GWS abhors dangling prepositions). Now, all that might have changed.

Seriously? Two dudes killed 16 people and then injured another 16? GWS is no longer scared of China's million-man standing army, its 2,300 combat aircraft, or its plan for a rapid naval buildup. GWS is now terrified of these knife-wielding, truck-driving, grenade-tossing superwarriors. If China's past military strategies have any bearing on future plans, we can expect to see 400 million of these super soldiers lined up shoulder to shoulder and walking across the Taiwan Strait by about the time Conan goes off the air.

DARPA did not return GWS's call regarding a rumored counter-measure to the Chinese superninjas, but inside sources hint it may look like this.

Hilarious Japanese Video (installment numba one!)

Tragilarious, for real.

You want WHAT, economy-class scum?

According to the WSJ (read religiously on the can by your scribe), American Airlines has ceased its overly generous policy of not holding passengers hostage to their thirst. Now, when Billy the One-Eyed Orphan needs a drink to wash down his TB meds, he's gonna have to cough up $2! (Get it, "cough" up? Ha!).

The real outrage, and I use the term "outrage" broadly, is that coffee or tea costs only $1. I may be wrong, but isn't water like, one of the main ingredients in tea? So does this mean that adding a little baggy of dried up leaves or rodent testicles (or whatever AA makes their tea from) actually REDUCES their cost? Or, conversely, does this mean that 'Murican Airlines realizes that coffee and tea are both diuretics, and will probably end up making you more thirsty?

I can't wait till they start trying to charge for bathroom use (well, I really can't wait till someone shits on a stewardess).

Ve aah nihilists, Lebowski, ve care about nah-sing!

AdBusters published this five days ago, lamenting hipsters as the final death knell of Western Civilization with Fukuyama-esque end-of-history bombast.

GWS is fully aware that author Doug Haddow had a deadline and has to put food on his table like everyone else. The question, then, is who's editing this stuff? Did we really need a reference to Allied bombing campaigns in World War II to properly put the rise of swoopy bangs and skinny jeans in context? Tempest in a teacup, surely, but there are some larger underlying issues here.

For one, AdBusters has proven itself to be like a tiger---specifically in that whole eat-their-own-young thing that tigers do. AdBusters choosing to run this article is something like the National Review decrying neoconservatism as intellectually bankrupt. Dr. Frankenstein, it seems, has joined with the townsfolk in lamenting the sentience of his monster.

But if you can cut through Haddow's writing style (the final paragraph made GWS think that somewhere in America, a 12th-grade English comp. class is missing a personal expression piece), there is a little meat on this bone. The author massively overstates his case in his final line, but the underlying nihilism of the amorphously defined hipster is a cause for concern.

Haddow's at his best in this piece when he's writing about hipsters dancing, or rather, not dancing. "The dance floor at a hipster party looks like it should be surrounded by quotation marks," wins GWS's Snark of the Week award, but Haddow seems to be really getting at something here, though he stops himself short of really following his ideas. Mentioned nowhere in the piece is the utter lack of confidence of most hipsters. It's pervasive, a collective inadequacy that prevents hipsters from feeling comfortable trying something new in front of their peers. Instead, they're happy to fall back on cataloging the culture around them, absorbing and commenting and scoffing with impunity.

GWS thinks that, in general, most humans take themselves too seriously, but this is not the case with hipsters. GWS would love to see hipsters take a real chance, a real position: stop "appropriating" icons from other cultural movements (are you from Ramallah? Oh, Bushwick, you say! Sorry, your keffeiyeh had me confused...), stop being so convinced that ugly is beautiful, and for god's sake, try making a real joke without falling back on an ironic eye-roll. Poverty is not cool---just ask anyone who's really poor how many Hot Chip shows they've seen in the last year. So honestly: buy a decent beer every now and then, try to find something you actually care about, and pretend like you're trying to enjoy the few short years you get on this planet.