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I should be doing various things with these fleeting moments of “discretionary time” here at the end of the day. Making another white russian, perhaps, e.g. But I’ve read a few things which I feel compelled to make note of, here. (Clearly my sense of self-importance is getting out of hand; please stage an intervention if I start holding fund-raisers.)

First, the latest from Ohio: this item in today’s Plain Dealer suggests that maybe the Ohio Democratic Party is short on cash and struggling to get enough signatures to place Republicans’ gerrymandered congressional district map on the ballot as a referendum. Frankly, this is what I was afraid of, i.e. that the costly victory over SB5 would exhaust Democrat reserves, rather than energize them. We’ll see. There are also hints that maybe a deal on congressional districts is within reach, but in the meantime I’d better find a petition and sign it, no matter how busy I am.

Second, a professor at dear auld ISU stirred up a minor controversy when he wrote to the Iowa State Daily (god, remember…?) responding critically to “a feel-good feature about College Republicans from across the state who hoped to spark some cheer in those spending the holidays thousands of miles away from home,” i.e. “the troops.” Frankly, Thomas Walker’s points are so obviously sound it’s practically appalling that they even need to be made. This isn’t the Civil War. “The troops” are practically showered with largesse (at least while in service, and aside from occasional minor details like body armor) just from the federal budget, and ongoing “hey let’s do something nice for the troops” efforts are so numerous that the idea of claiming this as some special, novel idea is ridiculous. Meanwhile, there are plenty of more-deserving causes here at home, including unemployed veterans, and we could really help all parties most by recalling the troops from ill-defined, utterly futile missions and redirecting some of those funds to projects which actually benefit people other than Halliburton execs. But god forbid you point this out, especially with “a partisan flair,” given that American society obviously places such great value on well-mannered mildness and decorum.

Finally, there’s another one of those interminable climate change conferences going on. At this point, I’m pretty convinced that if we’re not doomed, the avoidance of doom isn’t going to be the result of diplomacy and negotiated legislation. Still, there’s something interesting in the large number of nations finally getting together to call out the foot-dragging usual suspects, i.e. us, China, India, et al. In fact, maybe there’s a deal to be made here. If I can offer a suggestion, how about the U.S. agrees to back the EU and its pals on a serious, binding emissions reduction treaty if the EU agrees to get its financial shit together instead of dragging our economy over a cliff again? Honestly, that sounds like it would be awfully attractive from our perspective, so much so that I can almost imagine it even being ratified by the Senate.

Not really, of course.* But it might be a good idea because, I know we aren’t supposed to draw specific connections like this but, Scotland is being hit with 165mph winds. Uh. Maybe we really should stop tampering with the climate, here…

* Update: After all, why would Senate Republicans want to support any kind of deal in order to prevent another recession, now, less than a year before a Democratic president is up for re-election? Honestly, what was I thinking. I must have been tired last night.

This is a bit (fortunately just a bit) of what it’s like inside my brain on a typical day.

The Toyota Camry is, as I have noted before, a vehicle largely made by Americans in America from American parts and sold overwhelmingly to Americans, but it is still considered an “import” presumably because Toyota is a foreign-owned company. But Budweiser is now produced under the ownership of a foreign company, and last I checked it is still considered a “domestic” beer. Explain, please.

Occasionally someone will look at the calendar and say “it’s 2010, where is my flying car (or jetpack, or android sex-doll, or whatever)?” Alternately, one may look around and point to the internet, or the iPad, or photorealistic video games which one controls only with gestures, and say “the future is all around us and we don’t even notice.” I generally fall into the former camp, but driving home on the freeway on a rainy evening recently, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed an electronic billboard, bright-as-day amidst the gray and murk, magically replace one advertisement with another while I watched. And, good or bad, right at that moment it really felt like I was suddenly living in the future. Or at any rate a movie-version thereof.

(more…)

With the election in the bag, the wing-nut-o-sphere in disarray and the markets in the tank, I still find myself holding my breath. If GM closes, lame duck Bush pounds through a pile of deregulation and I have no bowl game to watch my world is a bit darker. I guess it comes down to Josh and Amy to produce a baby to play with and a never-ending pile of PC/360 titles as the weather turns fierce in Iowa. Here’s hoping the new year dawns with real hope.

Update 2:22 p m:

Toyota hurting too