Humor and the White House

Let's face it, humor is subjective and much of it occurs unintentionally. But the fact that it is subjective is what makes it great. Sometimes a person falling over a strategically placed double-humped camel is just funny. Until the person tripping breaks their femur, that is.

Then there's politics. The political landscape is one sorely lacking in humor. It's really a bunch of folks working about four months each year wearing suits pretending that they can change the world. These are the people that should understand the humor in what they do. Unfortunately, these people often times take themselves far too seriously. "Ooh, look at me, I won a popularity contest despite having a bad haircut and an ill-fitting suit." Get over it, you make mistakes and deserve to be laughed at just like the rest of us.

But, thankfully, politics is a source of unintentional humor. No, I haven't seen any politicians trip over a sleeping double-humped camel but anything's possible, right?

Whatever the case, unintentional political humor is just as subjective as the other forms of humor. That's where my latest scientific analysis comes in.

The level of leadership is rarely in proportion to the level of unintentional humor. Think about George H. W .Bush. Remember the time he vomited on a Japanese leader? That was funny. He wasn't the greatest of leaders but he didn't exactly leave us without any humorous moments to remember.

Then there's his son, George W. Bush. He's been compared to a modern day Woodrow Wilson and that isn't a kind comparison. However, he has left America with a wealth of comedic moments. He stumbled through unscripted speeches, mispronounced words and had a booze-loving daughter and a dog who bit a reporter. Those are things that Ronald Reagan could never had beat had he been in office for six terms.

Oh, hell, just look at this scatter graph and judge for yourself.
The unanswered question, though, is how much unintentional humor will a Barack Obama White House present to us? From early estimates stemming from his two year campaign for the presidency, the humor seems to be at nearly the lowest level possible on this graph while his leadership ability is at least on par with the likes of Reagan and Clinton. He's likable but polished and rarely does someone so polished produce unintentional humor. He can pronounce fancy, multi-syllable words and he can locate Portugal on a map. It's hard to imagine his wife driving her car across someone's lawn so that rules out even spouse-aided comedy. But if that's how it's going to be, at least we have plenty of YouTube footage from the past because videos live on forever.

If charts about presidential humor and leadership bore you to tears or enrage you, then head over to MinnPics which is nothing short of a repository of fabulous photos from across Minnesota and it's updated daily - sometimes more often!

Energy, ethanol and the depressing truth (opinion?)

I don't actually enjoy being a total killjoy but sometimes the truth is a bit depressing. That is true with something that happened late last week. And if you haven't figured out my vague references, I am talking about the ever escalating gas prices.

It's not just gas, though. The escalating fuel prices have a bit of a ripple effect. Fuel prices effect the price of everything we consume. All that shit from China (a.k.a. everything sold in your local Wal-Mart or Target) doesn't just magically appear here with the wave of a magic wand. The food sold in those stores and others has a similar but shorter journey. Most everything takes a portion of its journey down our nation's highways via a semi-truck. Those men (and some women) are feeling the crunch. Their paychecks directly reflect the skyrocketing fuel prices. A friend of mine described to me last weekend that the company he drives semi for as an over-the-road trucker slowed their speeds 10 miles per hour to save fuel. They realize that this will only raise prices as it will take longer to deliver products but they have their bottom line to watch out for as well.

Then there are the farmers. Believe it or not, the farm economy feels this too because despite the record high prices their grains are fetching on the markets, they are facing even higher input costs in the form of fuel, seed, chemicals and fertilizer. While my parents are selling their crops from 2007 for record high prices and have contracted a large portion of the speculative 2008 crop for those same prices, they are feeling the pinch with fertilizer costs (particularly the cost of nitrogen whcih makes corn grow) that have practically tripled since 2000 if they can even acquire the very nitrogen (anhydrous amonia) they paid for due to supposedly short supplies. Couple that with diesel fuel prices that have quadrupled since 2000 and seed prices which have nearly tripled int hat same time and they are no further ahead now than in 2000.

Of course plenty of people will want to say something about ethanol when the subject of farmers comes up. The truth is that while ethanol does divert corn from the food supply, the overall supply of corn in our country has increased due to increased yields and will continue to increase but eventually will be severely outpaced by the demands (for food and ethanol) if current trends continue.

That means that ethanol as we currently know it is far from the solution. The current high corn prices are seen as one obstacle.

The supply of corn in relation to our gasoline consumption is another hitch.

Amazingly, the best ethanol solution may be prairie grass (or switchgrass as Geroge Bush stated a few years back). Of course our future doesn't have to be bleak as oil prices begin to put a very noticeable crunch on the middle class. If money from, I don't know -- war spending, was diverted to financing research and development of viable fuel sources in the private or public sector and not by petroleum companies who only profit more with higher oil prices, our country could again become a superpower, this time by supplying a technological solution to fuel prices.

Of course, with the alternatives come more ideas to simply reduce our own energy consumption. Plasma and LCD televisions use far less energy than traditional CRT (tube) televisions and computer monitors. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (when recycled properly) pay for themselves and then some in reduced energy consumption. Recycling your glass and plastic makes sense. But I am sure there are plenty of other ideas. What are some ways you are conserving energy? Or do you not believe we need to do anything?

$1,200 will do little for Minnesotans

"It's too little too late," said William Schroyer, a tree trimmer for the city of Minneapolis. "The ideas that consumers can spend our way out of this is ridiculous." via

At least I'm not alone here. The simple fact that the president thinks that further indebting our country will dig the country out of this fear-induced recession is utter garbage. The fact that he is unwilling to work with his democrat counterparts to add other stimulus items to this borrowing from China is nothing short of stubborn pig-headedness.

Uncontrolled and blind spending is the very reason our country may be (is) facing a recession and, unlike previous recessions, this one is getting tons of media coverage because even with media being weaker as a whole than previous times, the blogger community has the power in sheer numbers alone to hype any situation.

I will not look a gift horse in the mouth because the thought that the man is going to fork over $1,200 to our household is fabulous but it isn't going to allow me to run out to Burnsville Center and snap up a thousand bucks in clothes. I, like so many others, have actual bills that are a struggle to pay each month. The biggest ones, like most others, are credit cards and medical costs. With our nation's medical care and medical insurance systems chronically broken, those are the items that need immediate attention. Among other things, the rollercoaster ride in Twin Cities housing prices and skyrocketing property taxes in Minnesota that do nothing to fund a failing transportation infrastructure.

A fist full of cash is nice but think ahead -- it just adds to our nation's $6 trillion-plus in debt and it's nothing more than a bandage on a severed limb.

Bridges can collapse in Minnesota too

You just can't escape a local tragedy like this.

It's not, thankfully, every day that a major freeway bridge such as the Interstate 35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, MN collapses. A freak event that happens but shouldn't. A two year inconvenience before it is rebuilt and seven lives lost as I write this.

UPDATE: (1 of 2)

It seems that, contrary to Governor Tim Pawlenty's statement that the bridge was inspected in '05 & '06 with no structural deficiencies, the St. Anthony bridge on I-35W spanning the Mississippi River only mustered a 50% rating during a 2005 assessment. The report noted that areas of the bridge, particularly the trusses, should be inspected at 6-month intervals.

I am aware that it's impossible to have all the facts available in a time of crisis such as this but the facts are trickling out now and will inevitably lead to finger pointing. Let it be and let the people with knowledge sort out the details. This isn't a time to point fingers and place blame.

UPDATE: (2 of 2)

President Bush just held what was billed as a special press conference about the tragedy in Minneapolis. Below is an excerpt containing the second and third paragraph of his speech a full 14+ hours after the collapse.

To that end, Secretary Peters is in Minneapolis, as well as Federal Highway
Administrator Capka. I spoke to Governor Pawlenty and Mayor Rybak this morning. I told them that the Secretary would be there. I told them we would help with rescue efforts, but I also told them how much we are in prayer for those who
suffered. And I thank my fellow citizens for holding up those who are suffering
right now in prayer.

We also talked about -- in the Cabinet meeting talked about the status of important pieces of legislation before the Congress. We spent a fair amount of time talking about the fact that how disappointed we are that Congress hasn't sent any spending bills to my desk. By the end of this week, members are going to be leaving for their month-long August recess. And by the time they will return, there will be less than a month before the end of the fiscal year on September the 30th, and yet they haven't passed one of the 12 spending bills that they're required to pass. If Congress doesn't pass the spending bills by the end of the fiscal year, Cabinet Secretaries report that their departments may be unable to move forward with urgent priorities for our country.

He couldn't even be bothered to make a special speech and table his petty grievances for one damn day. I, along with plenty of others, tried not to politicize this tragedy but president Bush has managed to do so my not having the common decency to be sincere and table his agenda for one single day. Would it be too much to ask to wait 24 hours before you wrongly try to pin the blame on the party opposite yours? To turn a speech offering condolences to victims and families of victims into a platform for your agenda is cruel and shows how insensitive he truly is.