Petty End To Dublin Dr. Pepper

Petty. Pathetic. Small. Lame. Weak. The adjectives, they do flow in reaction to Dr. Pepper's offensive lawsuit against the tiny- and only- bottler of the reknown Dublin Dr. Pepper recipe of the soda. From Culture Map Austin:

If there's a bottle of Dublin Dr Pepper in your fridge, don't drink it — you are now the proud (and probably sad) owner of a collector's item. The Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Co. that has produced the original recipe Dr Pepper soda since 1891 ceased production as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group announced that it had settled a pending trademark infringement lawsuit against the Dublin Dr Pepper plant by buying the Dublin operation and distribution rights.

So, in other words, this recipe and brand will be plowed under, simply destroyed to avoid whatever competition it presents to the main brand, no matter how miniscule.

Dublin Dr Pepper was sued by Dr Pepper Snapple Group for allegedly selling the Dublin Dr Pepper outside its six-county distribution area via its website and toll-free phone number. The suit asked that Dublin cease using the Dr Pepper name and trademark in addition to halting outside sales.

Allegedly? Well, I just bought 9 bottles today at the Do It Center hardware store in Fishers, Indiana. So it certainly got around. Unfortunately, 9 bottles cleaned them out. Even still, I could count the number of Indiana retailers I knew to stock it on one hand- and still have fingers left to attend to other tasks. That's hardly a competition to the main brand.

Besides that, whenever I bought and then ran out of the Dublin Dr. Pepper, I found I'd have a hankering for it, and would almost invariably end up buying the main brand. Yes, a less satisfying, cheaper variety, but isn't that the opposite of what Dr. Pepper feared? It wasn't competition, dummies! It was the enhancing of your brand!

Well, this lawsuit does the opposite. It tarnishes the very name Dr. Pepper. If they wanted me to think poorly of their company, they have succeeded greatly.

Yes, Dublin Dr. Pepper had an agreement to sell only within a 6-county area in Texas. Yes, they violated the contract. Yes, they should have faced some kind of sanction. But to kill the brand and the recipe? From the Dallas Business Journal:

Dr Pepper Snapple will now distribute Dr Pepper sweetened with cane sugar throughout Dublin’s former territory and other areas of Texas, including DFW. The packaging will no longer reference Dublin.

Cane sugar is a beautiful thing. It really makes a soda taste so much better than those sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. But I believe the Dublin recipe is different than regular Dr. Pepper, beyond sweetener. The flavorings are different. I taste a greater cherry flavor. I can't find any documentation to back it up, but it really tastes different, and better.

Oh well. I'll savor these last few, and lament the petty assholes that killed a cool brand.

Update: A quick check of Ebay's listings shows Dublin Dr. Pepper going for better than $70 a six pack, and over $10 a bottle. Mind you, these are 8 oz. bottles!

Hmmm... I just spent $1.80/bottle and got 9 of 'em...

What? Agreement?

Sometimes I get to feeling fairly isolated due to my political beliefs and my musical tastes being outside the mainstream. I'm even a hockey fan in the middle of basketball country. But, somewhat like my political views, being against the college football BCS championship game is gaining steam, and the predictably boring LSU-Alabama rematch has helped.

I must confess: I only have heard, read, and surmised that it was boring. I didn't watch. I did check the box score at one point, saw that Alabama had kicked 5 field goals, that LSU's punter was as active as their quarterback, and concluded that I made the right call. From ESPN's Tim Keown, who gets in a lovely Rick Santorum dig in the process of making his case:

The LSU Tigers crossed midfield once and got so worked up over the achievement they promptly went backward and recrossed, apparently worried they were trespassing and might get in trouble. Alabama kicker Jeremy Shelley got so much air time his mother was yelling at Nick Saban to go for it on fourth down, just once.

The complaint isn't necessarily the teams the BCS system chose for the title game. Instead, it's the system itself. All the calls for a playoff -- and there's really no argument anymore -- can be distilled to one sentence: More teams need a chance. When they narrow the world down to two teams, it's hard to complain when one team is undefeated and the other loses only to that team, and by just three points. But there's no way -- no possible way -- that (pick one) Oregon/Wisconsin/Oklahoma State/Stanford/Boise State would have been held to fewer than 100 yards of total offense by the Alabama defense. As good as Alabama's defense is, there's no way an Oregon-Alabama game would have been that unwatchable. And if an eight-team playoff gave us Alabama-LSU II, then fine.

This BCS National Championship Game was an ironclad argument against the current system, made all the more damning by the tremendous performances by the underlings in the Rose and Fiesta bowls. Not that anybody really needed any more evidence.

Les Miles, you mean to tell us you had a month to prepare a game plan for the national championship and you couldn't do any better than a bunch of slow-developing option plays and a couple of 2-yard pass plays? Did Jefferson tear his rotator cuff in pregame warm-ups? That game plan was so conservative I expected the cameras to pan the LSU coaches' booth to show us Rick Santorum in a sweater vest and a headset, trying to figure out which play was more likely to lose 2 yards -- Stroll Option or Hopeless Hitch?

I dunno. I thought the sweater vest was perfect- for standing around as an extra on the set of Happy Days.

You pretty much knew the game was over when Shelley kicked his fifth field goal with 22 seconds left in the third. There was simply no way LSU was going to have enough time to kick six of 'em and take the lead. But hey -- look at the bright side. At least Wing (who punted nine times for LSU) and Shelley don't have to go to the NFL scouting combine now; they had their own on Monday night.

Something good has to come out of this, so it's important that all those people who are fighting for the NCAA to institute a playoff format don't forget this night. They can't. They need to make sure nobody in power forgets how broken the system really is, and how much more fulfilling a legitimate playoff could be.

My cynicism is large, and I really doubt anything will change. Evidence seems to be the least motivating factor, with emotion the greatest. Maybe, hopefully, the ratings for the game were low. As ever, following the money tells the greatest tales. From Sports Illustrated:

TV ratings dipped for this year's BCS title game, Alabama's 21-0 win in a rematch against Southeastern Conference rival LSU. The Crimson Tide went up 15-0 late in the third quarter on five field goals while the Tigers' offense struggled to even cross midfield.

A year ago, Auburn drove for a winning field goal on the final play to beat Oregon 22-19.

Monday's game on ESPN earned a 14.0 rating, down 8 percent from last year. It's the third-lowest rating of the 14 BCS title games, beating only a 13.9 for Miami-Nebraska in 2002 and a 13.7 for Southern California-Oklahoma in 2005.

Awesome! Great! Hopefully the NCAA receives the message... and adapts a playoff.

Boring Bowl II

Oh boy, oh boy, the BCS Championship game is tonight. Color me utterly disinterested.

I think some friends take me to be a big college football fan. This is probably because my being an Ohio State fan, and the Buckeyes being in several BCS Championship games, I was very interested in that game. Alas, if I'm not interested in the teams playing, I don't watch.

I won't be watching LSU - Alabama tonight. Yes, they had a low-scoring 6-3 slogfest earlier this year that portends a repeat tonight, but that's not the real deterrent. That I don't give a fat rat's fart about either team tells much of the story. The rest of it is the BCS itself.

First and foremost, I would like a playoff. I'm a very casual college basketball fan, but I love the playoff format, and find myself getting into it as it progresses. I get to know the players and the coaches as I watch them stack victory atop victory. Teams I didn't know or care about are at last interesting to me, regardless of who they are or where they are from. Now look at tonight's game. I haven't seen LSU or Alabama in a single game- nay, a single play- this season. I could come into it cold, but I'll find something better to do, like reading one of the many books I got for Christmas. I know I'm not going to get a football playoff. The NCAA in its' infinite wisdom thinks this is better. Pah.

Prior to the BCS, I had much greater interest in the Bowl Games because while it looked like one team was the front runner for the championship, that team could lose, and because of the voting nature of college football rankings, a #3 or #4 team could emerge by winning big in a bowl game, while that #1 and #2 lost their games. By pitting #1 & #2, the NCAA figures they put together the ultimate game. They did! Problem is, it renders every other game devoid of meaning. There is no hope whatsoever that #1 AND #2 will lose. Even if LSU and Alabama repeat their 6-3 yawner, #3 Oklahoma State has no chance, none at all, of winning the championship.

I didn't watch a single bowl game this year. I didn't watch #3 Oklahoma State vs. #4 Stanford for the uselessness of it in light of the impossibility that either could become champ. I didn't even watch Ohio State's bowl game (I can't even think of who they played!), being that the tarnished team has turned me off a bit, and really, they didn't seem worthy of a bowl. I think they got one only because OSU has the largest almuni association in the USA, which means ratings for the game. In pre-BCS years, I would have watched at least 5 bowl games. New Years Day was college football central for me. Now add the NHL's Winter Classics to the mix, and I didn't even miss the bowl games this year. I didn't even think of them as they were happening.

I'll continue to hope against hope that the NCAA eventually adopts a playoff for college football. If they had, I suspect I would be very excited to watch tonight's game. Instead, it's the Iggy Pop biography.

Will The Real Republican Party Please Stand Up?

Most readers know me as a political partisan, a 'capital L' Libertarian. While I love the Libertarian Party, I love liberty more, and really couldn't care less which party gets the job of moving policy in a liberty direction done.

I've found it interesting over the years, that liberals and conservatives alike tend to try to push me to the Republican party. Why liberals concede that the Democratic Party is not the home for one who loves liberty is beyond me. But, another topic for another day.

Today is the day of the Iowa caucuses for the Republican Party. Today is the day we find out if, in Iowa, the Republican Party will embrace liberty in the form of Ron Paul, or if it will embrace one of the various authoritarian strains of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Mitt Romney.

Many leaders in the Indiana Republican Party, at various levels, have tried to get me into their tent. My belief is that they really just want to plow me under, to disappear me within their organization- as they have done over the years with several former Libertarians. Can't name a one elected to anything as a Liberty Caucus Republican in Indiana.

The rationale, I'm endlessly told, is that more can be done by working within the Republican Party. Bigger stage, better chance of electability, etc. But I've never seen proof that liberty has been embraced by Indiana Republicans. Lip service? Oh, yes. Acts? No sir or ma'am.

There is truth to the rationale, though. Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian in 1988, and barely made a noise on the national level. Running in 2008, he won over a dedicated national following, and here in 2012, he is on the cusp of actually winning Iowa today. If he does win, this causes me to take serious notice- for the implications for his campaign, and for the place of liberty in the Republican Party, as well as the place of the Libertarian Party.

As I said, I don't really care which party carries the pro-liberty candidates. I will back them. If Ron Paul is winning caucuses and the primary elections, I have to be with him as far as he runs. The longer he is viable, the longer the message of liberty is in the media and on people's minds, and if he wins the GOP nomination, he could become president of the United States. I can't ignore that.

So, my first glance will be towards the vote totals. My second will be to the reaction of the Republican leadership in Iowa and nationally. They already hinted that they would ignore Iowa's results if Ron Paul wins.

Now, my Republican friends. If I'm supposed to seriously consider a move to the Republican Party, you just have to show me better faith than that. Ron Paul has been treated like garbage by GOP leadership for roughly the last 5 years. Is this any way to lure people to your party?

So, I'm watching to see what the real Republican Party looks like. Go, Ron Paul!

Reunion Notes

I had the great pleasure of seeing Death Of Samantha play one last time, at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, over the holidays. I really never expected to have the chance, as they broke up in the early 90's, so it was a great unexpected treat.

D.O.S. did not disappoint. It might have been one of the better shows I had seen them do on multiple counts: 2-hour+ set, songs spanned their entire catalog, campy skit with drummer Steve-O emerging from a coffin to start the show, big appreciative crowd, band appreciative of the moment and very into the event, adequately rehearsed prior to show yielding well executed songs. Back in the day, some of these elements would be present, but never all.

Like any 'last show' (I don't know if they'll do this again), there were things that were missing for me. Hard to complain of course, but there were a couple songs they didn't play that would have been on my personal dream set list. There were a few friends that didn't turn up that I associated with the band. Not everyone who ever played in the band got to participate. But, on its' face, the night was a great success, and a hell of a lot of fun. So, here are some video clips I shot, for your enjoyment:





If it seems like the guitar is too loud in the mix, understand that I went out of my way to position myself opposite Doug Gillard's amp, and right against the stage so that I would not directly pick up the blare from the P.A. speakers. I wanted Doug's guitar up front, but also, I knew that the P.A. sound would be so loud that it would badly distort within my camcorder. Overall, I was pretty happy with the sound.

I loaded all 21 songs to my YouTube channel, so if you want to see them all- or music by other Cleveland bands like My Dad Is Dead, Children's Crusade, or Oral Authority- follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikekole?feature=mhee

Another Cleveland Nostalgia Trip

I've been looking forward to this holiday visit to Cleveland, of course to visit with family and friends there, but also to see another Punk Rock Old Farts Reunion, as Death of Samantha plays the Beachland Ballroom on Friday night. Beachland's bio.

DoS were one of my favorites in the mid-80s. They played around town frequently and always had something interesting to add beyond the songs. DoS reveled in kitchy Americana, and the antics on stage immediately before the rocking were usually hilarious. Drummer Steve-O (waaaaay before the Jackass 'star') wore a coat made of yarn and ineptly bounced on, and fell from, a pogo stick. He did ridiculous send-ups of Joe Cocker and Roy Orbison with lip synchs. He once even emerged from a coffin on stage to say, "Hi folks!" in his cheesy way.

I've been enjoying this run of nostalgia. In the past year and a half, I've seen the following Cle Punk bands, all getting together to do one last hurrah: Children's Crusade, My Dad Is Dead, Numbskull, Oral Authority, Pink Holes, The Plague, and Starvation Army. I never thought I'd see many of these again. I hope I never see the Pink Holes again, as they lost whatever magic they had over time, alas.

I really never expected to see Death of Samantha play. I had the honor of putting together a 'reunion' of theirs that I thought would be the last, back in 1998. My best friend Steve Wainstead was leaving Cleveland for New York City, and I threw a going away party for him. Since I had a club for the event, Pat's In The Flats, I asked if he would like to see any bands play. "Death of Samantha!" was his immediate response... followed by, "Well, if you can get them to do it". It wasn't easy. The band had moved on to become Cobra Verde, but having left Steve-O behind. And, if memory serves, Doug Gillard and Dave Swanson were then also out of Cobra Verde. In any case, there were some old feelings to be dealt with, but gratefully, they were willing to do five songs, really only because it was for Steve. He went all the way back with those guys, having served as driver and roadie for them on tours, and taking the photographs for their album covers. Even then, I really didn't expect to pull it off, because singer John Petkovic has always had a looking forward, never back approach. It didn't surprise me when he struggled to remember words to his own songs, like "Yellow Fever" back in '98, because that stuff was so yesterday.

So, I'm thrilled that all differences are put aside, original bass player Dave James will play, and the band has actually been looking forward to doing this show. I've had a ticket for months. I don't care if it is 'just nostalgia'. The chance to hear these great, fun songs one more time because they want to do it is a great opportunity for me.

So, here are some DoS clips my good friend and old Blows Against The Empire radio co-host Matt Dudas posted this week. Seems he shot them in 1990 at the Babylon A-Go-Go, recently rediscovered the tape, and had it converted to digital so that he could post in advance of the reunion he couldn't attend. I'll keep the chain intact, and will shoot the show so that he and Steve Wainstead, who also can't attend, can see. Well, and you also, dear reader.






And, if you want a whole lot more, check out my podcasts, #12 & #13, which feature a sound board recording of DoS from the Phantasy Night Club in Lakewood OH, and a very chaotic appearance on my radio show, with a live set using improvised instruments in the WCSB record library- both form 1989. Here is the linkage.

Nativism On Parade In Quebec

I'll never forget the sight of Confederate battle flags flying in rural Quebec, back in 1998. I was floored... until it dawned on me why Quebecois might do so: separatism. They weren't flown for racism, but solidarity with the idea of breaking away. Folks in rural Quebec were very serious about wanting to leave Canada to form their own nation.

Well, if not racism, bigotry still. Get a load of this! The Montreal Canadiens committed a foul offense in the eyes of some in Quebec, and not just armchair powerplay quarterbacks. From ESPN:

The Quebec government isn't pleased about the hiring of a Montreal Canadiens coach who can't speak French.

The province's culture minister says she expects the Habs to correct the situation.

Christine St-Pierre isn't quite calling for the firing of new coach Randy Cunneyworth, who was just hired over the weekend.

But she says the Habs have given the impression his hiring is temporary, and she takes them at their word. The former NHL forward's title is interim coach.

The hiring has created a frenzy of media reaction, including calls for a boycott of products associated with the Canadiens.

Culture minister? This is the sort of Soviet bloc officialdom that I used to make radio satire for. Here's an idea, Christine St-Pierre: How about let the team hire a coach because they think it will lead to winning hockey!

Whoops! The Canadiens have a history of sacrificing things like success, and shit, in exchange for nativist political correctness.

The Habs have not had an only English-speaking coach since the 1970-71 season, when Al MacNeil coached them. They won a Stanley Cup that year but MacNeil had a poor relationship with some players and was demoted to the minors after the season.

Can you believe that nonsense? Hey coach! Yeah, you won the Stanley Cup and all, but off to the AHL with you! Well, MacNeil won the AHL championship next year with Nova Scotia.

As for Cunneyworth, I liked him as a player. He played tough hockey, which was par for his era. But even then, he stood out as a lunch pail kinda player that I favored- like Mike Ricci or Owen Nolan. Coaches are often craft teams like their own on-ice persona. This is why I was a big fan of the Daryl Sutter-coached San Jose Sharks. Sutter had players like Ricci, Nolan, Stephane Matteau, Ronnie Stern, Dave Lowry- real grinders that had heart to spare. If talent didn't get it done, willpower could. If Cunneyworth brings that essence to the Canadiens, Montreal's hockey fans should love him for it. I'd start to like the Canadiens, at least. Right now, I couldn't name more than 6 or 7 of their players, the Canadiens being one of the softest teams in a soft NHL.

The Tale Of Two Playwright/Presidents

Odd coincidence that Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il die on the same day. The North Korean dictator's passing is getting all the screaming headlines, which is a shame being that Havel was the punk rock freedom loving dissident who led a bloodless revolution, and Kim Jong Il was the repressive dictator. The loss of the repressive dictator is better news (if death should be so seen), but Havel is the one worth celebrating. From Reason in 2003:

This act of literary punk rock was followed, logically enough, by a defense of rock music that sparked the Charter 77 movement. Or, as Havel told a startled Lou Reed when he met the Velvet Underground's former frontman in 1990, "Did you know that I am president because of you?"

Defending The Plastic People

In 1968 a rare copy of the Velvet Underground's first record somehow found its way to Prague. It became a sensation in music circles and beyond, eventually inspiring the Czech name for their bloodless 1989 overthrow of Communist rule, "the Velvet Revolution." The Plastic People, then a newly formed troupe that borrowed heavily from Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, quickly added a half-dozen songs from The Velvet Underground & Nico to their repertoire. The group was banned not long after the Prague Spring concluded but continued to play at weddings and secret shows.

Then, in 1976, four members were arrested on charges of "disturbing the peace." The Czech dissident movement, newly roused by Havel's open letter, made the trial an international cause. Havel, who intuitively grasped the symbolism of the case, was in the courtroom every day to witness and document the judicial farce. Just as George Orwell saw picking up a gun to shoot fascists in the Spanish Civil War as "the only conceivable thing to do," Havel understood this assault on freedom as one outrage too far. It was a turning point in his life. "Everyone understood," he wrote later, "that an attack on the Czech musical underground was an attack on a most elementary and important thing, something that in fact bound everyone together: it was an attack on the very notion of living within the truth, on the real aims of life."

His essay on the trial has the rushed and liberated tone of someone who has just crossed a personal point of no return, or has just heard the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks for the first time. It ends with a classic description of Havel bumping into a film director who didn't understand the sudden enthusiasm for defending some derelict rock musicians.

Inspired by Lou Reed? That's a-ok with me. And sure, Kim Jong Il inspired the South Park guys to do a hilarious send-up of him, still, Havel's the one worth celebrating. CNN report.

The Plastic People of the Universe is Frank Zappa inspired. I remember the shock of listening to this record again around 2004 and thinking how the voice of the 'President' sounded so much like George W. Bush. It made it all the better, if possible:

I Was Wrong About Bob Barr

When Barr sought the 2008 nomination of the Libertarian Party, I backed him. Not aggressively, and not with my vote at the Convention, as I did not attend, the non-attendance being an indicator of how lukewarm my support was. I just searched this blog and found that I hadn't even written of him here until 4 months after his nomination. But, I backed him all the same.

As I recall my thinking at the time, I was of a mind to forgive his anti-liberty transgressions as a Republican congressman, as he recanted his former positions. We all change, not usually so late in life, but if he had his Come To Jesus moment and found libertarianism to be his genuine calling, what good would I do in dismissing it? What would that tell others I was trying to win over to my side? I want former Republicans and Democrats to come to the Libertarian Party, so I let his past not stand in the way, and judged him on his message and his plan to spread the message.

Well, I was duped. 'Patriot Paul' Wheeler emailed me today with a link to a story showing Bob Barr endorsed Newt Gingrich. Here's an excerpt from a different article on the same topic:

Bob Barr was the Presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in 2008, having recently switched from the GOP. It was recently rumored that he was considering a Republican run for Congress in Georgia, but this still came as quite a shock. Bob Barr is one member of a large slate of public officials and former officeholders who endorsed Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign today.

Among the state and local officials announcing they are endorsing Newt Gingrich today are:

Georgia Congressmen Austin Scott, Lynn Westmoreland, Tom Price, Jack Kingston and Phil Gingrey. Former Georgia Congressmen Mac Collins and Bob Barr.

My reaction was very similar to the first comment following the article. A lot of people at the Convention were very upset that he was even being considered, due to some of the legislation he advanced while a Republican member of Congress. I try not to get caught up in the 'fake libertarian/real libertarian' thing too much. I wasn't a pure libertarian when I was first
became interested in politics. I was a Democrat. But I came to be a libertarian, and I try to just work with others who show an interest in the moment. And really, during his campaign, I found Barr to be an excellent advocate for liberty. I was fairly sold on his conversion.

Now this.

It's impossible for me to square Barr on this, though. Ok, people change. He made a big to-do about having seen the light on the things Libertarians questioned him on from his past. Ok, good. But then a Gingrich endorsement? Gingrich has unfortunately showed himself very plainly not to have libertarian grounding. His foreign policy and takes on civil liberty are the antithesis of libertarian thinking, and freedom loving.

Sure, just as with any liberal or any conservative, libertarians will find occasional common ground on issues, but with Gingrich I'm convinced now that the common ground is accidental. That Barr can't discern this tells me that his seeking our nomination was insincere, because, yeah people change... but that's a flip-flop. A big one. I wouldn't have cared if he endorsed one of two other Republicans- Ron Paul or Gary Johnson- because they certainly are libertarian, and will advance policies I can largely be proud of. But Gingrich? I would sooner vote for Obama.

The 1% And Government Money

Interesting article, although with one large hole in it, from Reason, channeling Investors Business Daily:

John Merline of Investors Business Daily has published a fascinating analysis of $10 billion the government annually gives to the dreaded 1 percent:

Using IRS data, IBD found that the top 1% of income earners claimed approximately $7 billion in Social Security benefits in 2009. That year, the program paid super-rich seniors — those with adjusted gross incomes exceeding $10 million — an average of $33,000 each.

Medicare, meanwhile, paid roughly $2.6 billion in health care subsidies for the richest 1% of enrollees, based on calculations using Medicare enrollment, overall Medicare spending and premium data. (Medicare does not track spending by enrollee income.) And if you consider that 5% of Medicare enrollees have more than $1 million in savings, the amount taxpayers spend to subsidize retiree health benefits skyrockets.

The hole is that government funnels gobs of money to corporations in subsidies and bailouts, and these moneys in turn often go to the salaries and worse, bonuses, of top executives. That's a pretty large hole for Reason to miss. However, it is illuminating how our tax system and our entitlement programs, which most people seem to hold as sacrosanct and absolute do things they don't expect them to do.

Solemn Oaths

I've enjoyed watching some of my conservative friends squirm in cognitive dissonance over Newt Gingrich. These villagers were wielding clubs and pitchforks when Bill Clinton was getting hooted in the Oval Office, and making the connection between marriage vows and the ability to tell the truth.

So, I love that on the question of character, Ron Paul took the same argument forward, and applied it to the Constitution and the oath of office to uphold the Constitution during a recent Republican debate.



And I really love that what he said got solid applause. This gives me hope.

Mad Memory Lane

I was a huge Mad Magazine fan as a 9- & 10-yr-old. I thought it was genius. My mother hated it, which made me love it all the more.

CNN has an article on Al Jaffee, long long time cartoonist and writer for Mad. He did the Fold-Ins, 'Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions', and inventions.

And then there are his sketches of "Mad inventions," including an airbag suit and an improved beverage can. Some of them, like a smokeless ashtray or a multiroll toilet paper dispenser, have come to pass -- much to Jaffee's amusement.

My favorite Jaffee Mad Invention that came to pass was the toothpaste flip cap. I distinctly recall his cartoon of the groggy person brushing in the morning dropping the common screw cap, which fell behind the radiator, or some other hard to reach place. I am that morning klutz. When the flip cap toothpaste rolled out, I bought. And smiled.

At 91 years of age, Jaffee is still turning them out. He has a delightful current jab at Newt Gingrich. I especially like the poke at Gingrich's Freddie Mac hypocrisy.

Do They Owe Me A Hobby?

Of course they don't. I'm speaking of $1 bills in particular. One of my geek hobbies is Where's George? No doubt you have received a bill with some Where's George markings on it, directing you to that website so that the movements of that bill can be tracked, for kicks and giggles.

In some of the budget cutting talks this year, the discussion turned to eliminating the $1 bill and replacing it with a $1 coin. This makes a lot of sense. Coins are vastly more durable than paper money. Did you know the average $1 bill only lives about 18 months? Over the long run, the cost savings are enormous- $5.6 billion over 30 years. This makes it worth doing.

But, but, but.. my hobby! Well, screw that. Nobody owes me a hobby. Where's George will as easily become "Where's Tom?" as $2 bills become the new smallest paper denomination, or, "Where's Abe?", as the public doesn't generally like $2s.

I'm fond of pennies, but there's really no good reason to continue minting them. I like riding trains, but that doesn't mean I support subsidies to Amtrak. Etc. I don't expect the entire country to spend foolishly just so that I may continue to enjoy a hobby as I know it today. My whims just aren't that important.

So, if the $1 should fade into history, I'll be glad of it overall. I'll smile at the cost savings to my country, and adjust my bill stamping habits accordingly.

Lunch At McDonald's

I'm going purely out of respect. Big respect! From Reason Hit & Run:

San Francisco's ban on giving away a free toy with a child's meal containing a certain number of calories, salt, and other particulars is set to kick in tomorrow. McDonald's, the clear target of the ban, had a year to figure out a way to change its business practices. Seems like they used the time wisely, reports the SF Examiner.

The San Francisco ban on providing free toys to entice children to eat unhealthy foods goes into effect Thursday, but McDonald’s plans to comply with the law by charging 10 cents a toy for their Happy Meals and donating the money to the nonprofit Ronald McDonald House.

No worries about my austerity plan. I'm getting a Southwest Salad and unsweetened iced tea, which comes in under 500 calories. But to outmaneuver the nanny asshole bureaucrats and leave them absolutely tearing their hair out? Oh, I'll spend a fiver!

Which Is The Parody?

I put it to you, dear reader: Can you discern which video is the joke video? Is it the "Indy Super Bowl Shuffle"?

Or, is it the "Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video"?


Answer: The joke is the Cleveland one. Really! No fooling!

Update: Well, the people who made the Super Bowl Shuffle video have swiftly pulled the video. In the morning proud of it, by lunchtime embarrassed, and by dinner, gone. You can see the vacant remnants of the top video posted above, a sad, empty void that was roughly equal to the original. Per Advance Indiana:

WRTV is reporting that the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association has pulled a parody video it produced of the Super Bowl Shuffle song featuring downtown hotel workers plugging Indianapolis' major hotels. The take off of the song made famous by the 1985 Chicago Bears' team that confidentally predicted the team's Super Bowl win that year was resoundingly mocked throughout the Indianapolis blogging community.

The Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association billed the video as a marketing tactic aimed at Chicago meeting planners and business executives to build buzz ahead of the 2012 Super Bowl.

But what officials described as a cheesy video featuring tourism staffers and workers from seven downtown hotels in their own choreographed version of the 1985 Chicago Bears' "Super Bowl Shuffle" quickly garnered hundreds of critical comments and even a petition and a Facebook page asking city officials to pull it down.

As the feedback reached a critical mass online, ICVA removed the video from YouTube just before 8 p.m. Wednesday.

"Thanks for your passion about the city. We acknowledge making a mistake by going public with this and we accept fault. The video has been removed," wrote Jeff Robinson, the organization's creative director.

The YouTube video had nearly 8,000 views before the video was removed, but the dislikes outweighed the likes 3-1, and of the nearly 200 comments, almost all slammed the video as embarrassing and poorly done.

Yes, I contributed a 'thumbs down'. Happily. Pulling it kind of smacks of thin skin, though. Oh well. In the words of another Indiana accidental kitsch treasure, "Boom goes the dynamite."

Republicans, Defenders of Human Rights?

One of the things I had hoped for upon the inauguration of President Obama was the end to the policy of indefinite detention for prisoners of war. Trials should happen quickly, as opposed to the policy we had under Bush to simply incarcerate terror suspects without trials.

So, Obama strengthened the policy.

So, if the Republicans introduced the policy, and the Democrats confirmed it, what hope?

Yes, I could dream for the election of Libertarians. But in the meantime, Senator Rand Paul (R-TN) comes to the rescue.

Senator Rand Paul has submitted an Amendment to Senate Bill 1867 (known as the National Defense Authorization Act) which would strike the section of the bill that allows the US government to indefinitely detain individuals without trial or due process. The Amendment is #1062 and would eliminate Section 1031 which states:

"Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force...includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons...Detention under the law of war without trial"

The Democrats and their supporters made plenty of noise about human rights when Bush was in office. They did so correctly. Shame on them for not acting on their noisy rhetoric once in office. A bunch of empty suits. Well, this is consistent of them in so many things- deficit spending, war in Iraq, presidential power, etc., etc.

Rah-rah Rand Paul!

Austerity Update

I managed to go one week without drinking very many calories, and no sodas at all. I drank a fair amount of unsweetened tea with lemon, which is good for 10-15 calories per serving. Pretty negligible really, especially compared to 140 calories per 12 oz.

This only led me to one pound of weight loss, even by staying under my calorie allotment, and by playing hockey twice in the week. No matter, I feel better than I did just one week ago. I was getting to where I just felt physically sluggish overall. Physically, that feeling is gone.

Mentally, there are other things I need to address. Mainly, I just don't enjoy the work I'm doing anymore. In fact, I don't really enjoy playing hockey that much these days. That's pretty stupid, since it is recreation, and fun is half the point of it. Yes, the exercise is valuable, but I have many options for getting exercise, such as going to the gym, lifting weights in the garage, biking when the weather allows, etc.

I have many thoughts about the work situation. Mainly, right now, I'm happy to have work at all. I went the first half of the year getting about 10 hours/week in on good weeks. So, I'm not in a hurry to jettison the thing I have. But there is no reason not to really think about what I want to do when I grow up, because before you know it, I'll be 50.

Kole Austerity Program

This is my boring mid-life crisis. No hot cars or wild young blondes for me. Nope- just a plan to lose weight, get fit, and figure out a way to have some fun on the cheap.

Hey, if Italy and Greece can pretend to curtail their irresponsible management of their nations, I can reign in my bad habits for real, me being smaller than a nation. At least so long as I don't look at my waistline.

I'm at 195 lbs, and want to get back to 180. I figure that will be good for at least 2, maybe 3 inches off my waist. I can get there by the first week of January if I limit myself to about 1,650 calories per day. I'm using an online program to monitor progress. If I have to look at the numbers, I'll do a better job of keeping on track than if I wing it.

So, the first thing to go is drinking my calories. I had done a good job of managing this for several years, having been beaten up by Lyme Disease, which got me away from drinking alcohol, and then kidney stones, which got me away from my old friend Coca-Cola. Having not had a major flare-up of Lyme symptoms in better than three years, and not a major stone (some very small ones) in more than five years, I slid off the bandwagon and started first drinking Diet Coke, then regular Coke.

Understand that when I was in my early 20s, and my metabolism was still very high, I used to drink 4 liters of Coke every day. That was good for about 1,600 calories every day. Crap calories, but oh, I loved Coca-Cola so. This time around, nothing nearly so extreme, just three cans a day. Still- an extra 450 or so calories every day at 43 is good for gaining a pound a week without a tradeoff.

So, goodbye Coke. It's been three days without one. The first two days, I thought about it endlessly. It's a silly thing to think about endlessly, really. But I think it's starting to pass.

The other item that needs to be reduced is eating out. Work can be tough in this regard, because I frequently work on the road. It's one thing if you work on the road at one location for 4 or 5 days. You can get a room with a mini-kitchen, go grocery shopping, and make decent food. If you're in a different location day to day, it's way easier to eat out. I can eat a 2,000 calorie meal every meal on the road, easily. That doesn't square too well with the 1,650 calorie-per-day plan.

Eating out and drinking calories is expensive. Knocking off 3 Cokes/day is about a case week, or $7 week. If I make meals at home, I can do it for $2/serving easily, whereas eating out I'm going to average $15/serving. Add the rest of the family to those numbers?

It just comes down to a prior lack of discipline. Laziness. The benefits of changing ways on these two items is obvious. It just means more prep time, and careful selection when eating out. No buffets.

If Italy and Greece can pretend to suck it up and impose discipline, certainly I can do it for real. Nothing to lose but extra weight.

Finally On The Right Street

I was in Chicago one week ago, taking a fun day trip with my 3-year-old son Ethan, doing 'ooh ahh' touristy stuff.

It was a concise little route to begin the day, arriving at Chicago Union Station via Amtrak. We walked across the south branch of the Chicago River on Jackson Street to the Willis Tower. After looking out over the city in those glass balconies, we had Chicago style pizza at Giordano's, which is just a block east on Jackson, across Franklin. After lunch, we walked towards the Lake along Jackson Street as I looked for a cab to hail. Before I could find one looking for a fare, we arrived at the intersection of LaSalle & Jackson. One the northeast corner, I saw the Occupy Wall Street protesters- outside the Bank of America building.
The thing that immediately struck me was that nobody was protesting on the northwest corner of LaSalle & Jackson. This is the location of the Federal Reserve of Chicago.What struck me next was that there were protesters carrying anti-war signs. They were protesting Bank of America, for funding wars.

Looking at the protester-free Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Protesters at the Bank of America, to the right, and this well-intentioned man, on the wrong side of the street.

I didn't want to have a political day. I was there with my 3-year-old, who is fascinated with trains, tall buildings, pizza, and fish. I wanted to get him to the Shedd Aquarium, post haste, and not get involved in protracted political discussions. That would have bored the crap out of him.

But damn! At least OWS is on one of the right streets now. They're just on the wrong side of the street. Is it possible, really, that people who one might suspect are politically aware, could be so ignorant to not know that it is the Federal Reserve, with its printing of money out of thin air, that funds these wars? That, if we were on a gold standard, and not able to deem ourselves able to spend massive gobs of money on war machinery, we simply couldn't do it?

The Fed! That is where you should be protesting! If I accept that the protesters are politically aware, my only possible conclusion is willful ignorance- that blind adherence to anti-corporate rhetoric comes long before striking at one of the roots of the problem. I'm not fan of corporatism, but corporatism is enabled by fiat currency and politicians who don't mind to direct the printers to whip up more cash, and who want to thump their chests as the World's Cop.

So yeah- protest at the White House and at Capital Hill, too. OWS is still largely at the wrong street. Protest at the Fed. This is all the more pertinent on this Veterans Day.

Incoming! Boondoggle!

Portland Oregon's light rail is routinely held up as the prime example of a delightfully working urban passenger rail system. I always find it worthwhile to look at the financial reports put out by the operators, just to see how wonderfully they work.

In the case of Portland, the operating budget shakes out like this for 2011 (Their fiscal year ends June 30):

24% of its operating budget came from passenger fares
8% from other transportation revenues
68% came from a variety of subsidies

Info from TriMet's website and balance sheet.

That's just to say that it doesn't work. They show you that with plain facts on their own site. It has nothing to do with the perspective that it's wrong besides. The transfer of wealth from those who don't ride to those who do is unjust.

Indy's newly re-elected Republican Mayor Greg Ballard wants to repeat this mistake.