Bros at the Copiers, Atlas Shrugged, Billion Dollar Campaigns, Birther Bill Passes AZ, Inflation's Spin Doctors, and Fake-Ass Handwriting Junk Mail

BLOT: (15 Apr 2011 - 11:42:16 AM)

Bros at the Copiers, Atlas Shrugged, Billion Dollar Campaigns, Birther Bill Passes AZ, Inflation's Spin Doctors, and Fake-Ass Handwriting Junk Mail

I just watched two bros solve a copy machine. It was kind of beautiful. "I, like, put the dollar in here? And then, I print it...here?" Eventually, all the stops were solved and steps were calculated in order, a real life Babel Fish puzzle. The one actually making the copy exclaimed, "That's not bad, man!" You can just imagine David Attenborough's delight in describing the event: "Here we see two young males, playfully engaging their environment...hear their triumphant whoops and cries."

Well, outside of the bros-at-the-copier episode, had a small handful of links I wanted to get out before the DEATH STORMS get here, the first of which is germane to said Death Storms: NWS/SPC Watch, Warning, Advisory Display. Basically, it gives you a birds-eye view of the various weather warnings across the continental states. I'm one of those who worries a bit about storms, so I personally like being able to see the doom on my door-step. Ah, dooms.

Speaking of the American Financial Situation, before I get into the mix of economic tidbits, just wanted to share: Atlas Shrugged, part 1, is currently at 6% on Rotten Tomatoes. I'll guess that it'll hit about 20%, +/- 5%, once it has time to churn through spots that are more sympathetic to its cause. Right now, though, even the only positive review contains such "praises" as "Though a bit stiff in the joints and acted by an undistinguished cast amid TV-movie trappings..." and "the stilted dialogue and stern, unironic hectoring..." The gist of that review is, the movie sucks but hey, it has a message [that the government will delight in the collapse of the stock market and crush individuality, despite the neo-Heroic BIG BUSINESS CAPITALISTS that represent the best of humanity]. I'll leave it up to you if you want to critique or praise the message that when the economy collapses, millionaires and billionaires are better salvation than organized government; but frankly the trailer utterly fails to engage me. Starts out with a bit of rhetoric, swings wide, and then convinces us that steel mill owners and railroad tycoons are utterly moral (and attractive!) while the government fat cats meet over booze and cigars and plot to ruin them. If you just want to preach, the book will be a dozen times more effective than a low-budget ham-fisted movie.

Now that that is out of the way, here's this: Obama is about to begin raising money for campaign funds. Why so early? Because it takes awhile to build up one billion dollars. Apparently it takes 10 figures to convince all of us yokels that they really understand our hardships. The mid-term elections netted a couple billions total, including such as Meg Whitman who spent over 150 million to lose the California governor's election. Campaign funds have greatly outstripped salary and benefits of the job, which turns my paranoia right up. A billion dollars to make less than a president of a large University, indeed.

If those big bucks make you feel insignificant and broke, don't worry, we can rest easy, because outside of things like rent, gas, and food, apparently our day-to-day prices haven't went up all that much. Good thing no one needs to pay for those things, huh?

And, back to the campaign spending for a moment, for those of special few of you who either a) think a billion dollars is too much to put an illegal immigrant into the white house or b) justified to spend to keep one out, Arizona is sticking up for you. Arizona passes bill saying that presidential candidates have to prove birth status to the state before they can run on the presidential ballot there. Don't you love it when other people's states spend money passing bills that won't pass the first muster and are based on message-board conspiracy theories that people with tons of money would have exploited if they had been able? Has anyone told that Arizona that it only has 10 electoral votes and no one cares, yet? How do I know this? Because no one gives a rat's ass about Alabama's votes and they only have one more. Speaking of my fair state, we should totally pass a law that says that Communist-Nazi Jews are putting AIDS in our drinking water. You know, to make Arizona feel less crazy.

Finally, pole-vaulting from the abyss of whining about the news on a blog to whining about something else on a blog...have you gotten one of those fake-ass pieces of junk mail that looks handwritten but most likely isn't because who in the hell will handwrite a note telling you what deals AT&T might have for you? Meet the company who makes them. They have multiple hand-writing styles, use multiple styles of pens, and apparently are really good at tricking old people. Huzzah. That's win-win.

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: April 2011