I’ve been irritated about Obama’s latest slipped-out Harvardism, that small-town folks turn to guns and religions because the state of this country has left them bitter, not because it’s not true (it’s 100% true), but because this is the sort of honesty I’d like to see from Barack after the election (the last one was his lament to Iowa farmers about the price of organic arugula at the local Whole Foods).

This is a country of religious evangelicals. The religious prefer not to see things the way they are, but rather how they’d like them to be. They’ll bitch for hours about how life is unfair, China and illegal immigrants giving them a raw deal, that corporate fat-cats are reducing their quality of life…but then they want to say that “the power of Christ” gives them happiness that transcends all the misery around them (it doesn’t, but that’s beside the point).

The whole reason Obama has been such a powerful figure in this election is that he presents a strong message of hope. Why the hell is he going off-message at this point of the campaign?

Stick to your message. Repeat it until people get bored – and when they get bored, get into some of the specifics of your platform. Don’t drift onto philosophical musings like John Kerry, who was quickly caricatured out winning an election by the GOP.

So this brings me to another point – that McCain is benefiting from the infighting between Clinton and Obama. He looks confident and secure, while Obama and Clinton are seen sniping at each other whenever the news covers them.

I say: Big. Fucking. Deal. It’s temporary. When the Democrats do settle on a nominee, that nominee will trounce McCain. Even if that nominee is Hillary (although that seems very, very unlikely at this point).

McCain is Bob Dole all over again. When the GOP is weak, they choose an older war hero, playing to their most solid base of cranky old white men. But the GOP is weak, it has a terrible record and everyone knows it, and McCain is not an inspirational figure whatsoever.

Yes, he showed bravery during Vietnam. And he has stood up for his beliefs on campaign finance reform since. But he has also been involved in more than one scandal during his senatorial tenure (the Keating Five and the Vicky Iselman lobbyist ones come to mind), and the fact that he had an affair, and dumped his wife in favor of a much younger woman is not going to play well with the millions of women who have had the same thing done to them.

Besides, he doesn’t project strength. He looks and sounds feeble. He confuses important things, like the Shia and Sunni in Iraq, and gets confused by other things like the economy (and then senilely forgets he admitted as much…twice). He looks like a congenial grandpa, but that’s about it. He does not inspire the cool confidence of Obama, and I know who I’d put my money on in an arm wrestle between him and Hillary.

So while it’s a rough time right now with Obama & Hillary attacking each other, and McCain seemingly enjoying a rise in popularity, it’s not going to last. We Democrats like to wring our hands and bemoan missed opportunities, but we have a short memory like the rest of this country. The nomination will happen, people will forget about the internal divisiveness and rancor within a couple of weeks, and the media will focus on the Democrat vs Republican battle through November. And there will be plenty of time to do that.

I logged into my blog after two months of complete neglect to see over 400 comments awaiting moderation. I thought it was the usual spam crap until I started wading through the list. Not sure how this post made it on someone’s radar, but it seems to have spread virally, and I spent a good two hours reading through the over-300 comments added to it. It was thoroughly amusing.

My thoughts:

1. There were a handful of people who didn’t hesitate to tell me that I was completely ignorant and was completely in the dark about Europeans. They were vastly outnumbered by those who agreed with me completely.
2. I was amused by those who confirmed exactly those national stereotypes I had written about (the indignant Greek, the xenophobic Brit, the stupid Swede…ok, I’m joking about the last one)
3. I really appreciated the insights about the Portuguese, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, ex-Yugoslavs, and others that I didn’t know enough about. (Truth be told, I’m part Croatian, and know a LOT about the ex-Yugoslavs, cak i govorim hrvatski, but at the end of the post I didn’t have the energy to go into it. Fortunately, “Serbo” was, for the most part, right – except for my family, who defy every possible Croatian stereotype, thankfully. He was only partially right about Serbs, but, being a Serb, of course he was.)
4. Sorry – I always get “Nordic” and “Scandinavian” mixed up. So Finland is Nordic, but not Scandinavian. I’ll probably fuck it up again in the future. Fortunately, I don’t mix up Slovakia and Slovenia, though. That’s good because most Europeans do. (Add to that the eastern region of Croatia called “Slavonia” and you have a recipe for Europeans eating their words about American geographical ignorance.)
5. I am aware that Spaniards are not Latin American. But when you hear a person speaking Spanish, even in Europe, it’s not all that unusual to find out that they’re, in fact, Latin American (the rich variety that moves to Mother Europe). They outnumber Spaniards about 9 to 1 worldwide. But if you dare ask a Spaniard if they’re from Colombia or Argentina, be prepared to wipe some venom from your eyes.
6. The nationality that consistently told me I was wrong: POLES. Oh, the irony. I lived in Poland for 2 years (the other 2 years in Europe were spent in the Netherlands). I lived with two Polish families, in different parts of the countries. I speak Polish fluently. Alez Polacy….nawet MIESZKALEM w Polsce, to wiedze chyba wiecej o Wama niz to, co Wy wiecie o samym sobie. W odroznieniu od reszty nacji europejskich (oprocz Finow),  jestescie ciszymi introwertykami (nie ma w tym nic zlego!). A nigdy w ogole nie slyszalem ani jednego zartu o Niemcach…..ANI JEDNEGO! Takich zartow “Polak, Rusek i Niemiec” nigdy nie slyszalem.
7. Times sure have changed. When I was living in Europe (the beginning of this decade) there was not nearly as much resentment against Poland. But then again that was before Poland joined the EU and Poles streamed out of the country to the west.

Because I’m multilingual, nonreligious, and not fat, I guess I didn’t fit any European stereotypes of Americans, which are much worse than the fanciful (positive) stereotypes Americans generally have about Europeans. I heard “But you’re not a typical American” all the time – which, I think, the usual American would embrace like a badge of honor, but which I felt vaguely insulted by (maybe I’m not typically American, then!). But, regardless, Europeans opened up to me and told me what was generally thought of other nationalities within their Union.

But, of course, these are mostly stereotypes, and very temporal in nature. And the intensity of feeling, of course, increases as you approach the border. Poles and Spaniards have nothing but good things to say each other, because they’re nowhere near each other. But talk to a Pole in Cieszyn and a Czech in Tesin (hint: it’s the same city, split in half), and you’ll suffer 3rd degree burns as each fulminates about the other.

There was a request about how Americans feel about each other. It’s not as nuanced, because our country is much younger, and Americans are far more mobile, but there are stereotypes and feelings. Many of them might not be any surprise to Europeans and others familiar with US geography; others might seem inconsequential.

Give me a day or two and I’ll publish something.

(A boyfriend of a friend of mine was Ghanaian, and worked in Ivory Coast, and told me all about Africans, back in 2002. I wish I could remember all he told me – that was a great listen)

Update: Looks like Metafilter picked it up. Thank you, goodnewsfortheinsane!

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I am very pessimistic about global warming. Here’s why.

Pretty much every activity increases the level of CO2 on the planet. Of course, we know about those evil SUV drivers. But so do Prius drivers. So do public transportation riders. So do bicycle riders (How does their food get planted, harvested and transported to their table?).

But yes, some people use less energy than others, having switched to a “lower carbon footprint.” Countries like Britain have switched to natural gas from coal, emitting less CO2 per unit energy. What effect does this have?

If conservation efforts or technologies aimed at reducing energy usage continue, total energy usage will climb.

This is due to the Jevons Paradox, which is simply the law of supply and demand applied to energy. William Jevons discovered this to work when the coal-fired steam engine, which made coal use far more efficient, resulted in coal usage going up.

Why? Conservation reduces the demand for energy. That results in a lower per unit cost for energy. Energy is now more attractive to use, and more people will use it.

Or, projected onto the world of geopolitics, if the developed world reduces its use of fossil fuels (or, cheats like the UK has done, and simply switches to a less carbon-intensive fuel), that makes fossil fuels more accessible to the developing world. The developing world’s usage of fossil fuels goes up. This is not a conscious decision. It simply follows the laws of supply and demand. And countries that are using more fossil fuels are outpacing those that are using less.

So conservation efforts and political agreements that don’t include absolutely everyone will not work…that is, if your goal is to actually reduce CO2 output. The cynic in me truly believes that Kyoto was an attempt by the rich world to absolve itself of blame when global warming starts causing serious problems and the recriminations begin.

The EU can throw up its hands and say, “We did what we could, and you apparently agreed that was good enough by signing the Kyoto Accord in 1997!” (Notice I didn’t include Canada, New Zealand or other rich signatories, who have increased their CO2 levels above 1990 levels even more than the US has. And the biggest reducers are the former Communist countries that “enjoyed” rapid deindustrialization following the collapse of the Soviet empire)

And it’s not just a matter of getting “baddies” that everyone likes to bitch about, the US and China, to reduce their levels. There are approximately another 100 countries under people’s collective radar that are not obligated to do anything under Kyoto, that will continue to create more and more CO2 as their economies grow. And the more CO2 that’s reduced in the rich world by conservation, the more CO2 that will be created in the developing world as prices for fossil fuels are lowered.

So what is the solution, then? In my mind, there are only three:

1. Create and propagate clean technologies that are actually cheaper to use, on a per unit basis, than fossil fuels.
2. Somehow sequester the CO2 in the atmosphere.
3. Find other ways to cool the planet, including raising the albedo of the planet, reducing jet condensation trails (contrails), etc.

#1 will take many decades to achieve. And keep in mind that the more clean technologies attempt to take away market share from fossil fuels, the lower the price of fossil fuels will drop…leading to more fossil fuel usage. So unit energy costs of renewable energy is a moving target unless you can agree at an international level (i.e. in EVERY country) to subsidize alternative energy and/or tax fossil fuels.

#2 seems attractive if it can be done so economically. I know there are attempts to seed the ocean with minerals (principally iron) that will cause a bloom of (CO2-absorbing) phytoplankton that will drop to the ocean floor and effectively sequester CO2 for thousands of years.

#3 is worth investigating, as well. If there are ways to reflect light/heat from the planet that would offset the rise in heating created by higher CO2 levels, there might be promise.

I’m not suggesting we don’t encourage conservation, or invest in alternative energy today. Both have benefits that go far beyond CO2 reduction. Conservation improves economic efficiency (which is probably why China is enforcing a high mpg standard, which Al Gore mentions in Inconvenient Truth) and there are other pollutants, like sulfur and nitrogen oxides, ozone and particulates that we would probably want to reduce in the air.

But until people (and that includes self-righteous activists like Laurie David) grapple with the reality that adherence to Kyoto does almost nothing to counter global warming, nothing will really improve on the global warming front.

Why is it, in the minds of so many gay men, that the only closet cases they see are attractive?

In other words, why are Matt Damon and Tom Cruise so clearly gay, but never Rainn Wilson or Steve Buscemi?

Why is that those that have the least to worry about unwelcome same-sex come-ons tend to obsess about them so much?

Put differently:

Why do the ugliest people complain about gay people hitting on them?

I’m in love with people who can’t take anything seriously right now, I guess. Yesterday I paid a short homage to the “Lovable Queen of Mean” Lisa Lampanelli.

Today’s honoree: Stephen Colbert.

(Maybe I’ll do Amy Sedaris tomorrow and make it a 3-part series)

I’ve been downloading a bunch of YouTube clips, converting them on-the-fly into iPod-ready files using this wonderful piece of software, and watching them during my commute (it’s easy to ignore the stench of bad perfume and the deafening screech of the trains).

Today’s gems were Stephen Colbert (interviewed by Tim Russert on Meet the Press, and by that old windbag, Bill O’Reilly, who kept on making an issue of Colbert’s French last name) and Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! (highly, highly recommended).

Colbert was doing the news circuit, promoting his book, “I Am America, and So Can You!”. (The grammatically illogicality strikes you about a second or two after reading the title, and Colbert’s brand of understated humor also takes a moment or two to appreciate.)

Anyway, Colbert is running for president, and hoping to at least get one delegate in his native state, South Carolina. His book sets forth his position on all the motherhood-and-apple-pie platform issues such as these:

ON IRAQ

Once again, God won the War. He just doesn’t occupy very well.

ON OLD PEOPLE

Sorry, but retirement offends me. You don’t just stop fighting in the middle of a war because your legs hurt. So why do you get to stop working in the middle of your life just because your prostate hurts?

ON FATHERS

America used to live by the motto “Father Knows Best.” Now we’re lucky if “Father Knows He Has Children.”…There’s more to being a father than taking kids to Chuck E. Cheese and supplying the occasional Y chromosome. A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased.

ON MOTHERS

Scientists have proven, one assumes, that every flaw in a child can be traced back to a mistake made by the mother. As adults we’re all imperfect, so that means all mothers are incompetent. But some mothers are worse than others. Take women who work… if you work outside the home, you might as well bring coconut arsenic squares to the school bake sale.

Suffice it to say, the book is on my Amazon wish list, so anyone wanting to do some early Christmas shopping (and early Christmas gift giving! Why wait for December?) might want to know that the book can be bought, gift-wrapped and delivered for under $20.

Yeah, she’s an insult comic and bigotry forms the foundation of her humor. But there’s something charming about her Sopranos-like speech and her old-school prejudices. Reminds me of living in Jersey. (Plus, she clearly loves the people she pokes fun of)

She’s been on the Comedy Central celebrity roast circuit, roasting Pamela Anderson, Flava Flav and William Shatner. Really funny stuff.

Enjoy (from her Comedy Central show, Take It Like a Man)! NSFW!

And this is my favorite – about LL’s least favorite sexual practice:

Avoid serious soul-searching and take this simple (bordering on idiotic) test (but it is kind of fun), courtesy of Paul Zindel’s “The Pigman”, which I read in the 8th grade:

There is a river with a bridge over it and a wife and her husband live in a house on one side. The wife has a lover who lives on the other side of the river, and the only way to get from one side of the river to the other is to walk across the bridge or to ask the boatman to take you. One day the husband tells his wife that he has to be gone all night to handle some business in a faraway town. The wife pleads with him to take her with him because she knows if he doesn’t she will be unfaithful to him. The husband absolutely refuses to take her because she will only be in the way of his important business. So the husband goes alone. When he is gone, the wife goes over the bridge and stays with her lover. The night passes, and the sun is almost up when the wife leaves because she must get back to her own house before her husband gets home. She starts to cross the bridge, but she sees an assassin waiting for her on the other side, and she knows if she tries to cross, he will murder her. In terror, she runs up the side of the river and asks the boatman to take her across, but he wants fifty cents. She has no money, so he refuses to take her. The wife runs back to the lover’s house, and explains to him what her predicament is. She asks him for fifty cents to pay the boatman. The lover refuses, telling her it’s her own fault for getting into the situation. As dawn comes up, the wife is nearly out of her mind and decided to dash across the bridge. When she comes face to face with the assassin. He takes out a large knife and stabs her until she dies. Write down the names of the characters in the order in which you think they were most responsible for the wife’s death. Just list wife, husband, lover, assassin, and boatman in the order you think they are most guilty.

INTERPRETATION:

Each of the characters is a symbol for something and you have betrayed what is most important to you in life.

Wife= fun

Husband= love

Lover= sex

Assassin= money

Boatman= magic

Turkey, a developing country with a small parcel of land on the European peninsula, and with hundreds of years of engagement (read: war and occupation) with what we generally accept as Europe, has been trying to join the European Union for years.

And yet a very fundamental characteristic of what it means to be European is completely lost on the country: free speech.

Whatever you might think about Europeans, they both value and practice free speech, at least as much as we Americans do. They freely criticize, question, and verbally attack – mostly the US and their neighbors, but occasionally themselves too. (I’m joking; they criticize themselves almost as often as they criticize the US)

The point being that no one goes to jail for putting their governments on the defensive and forcing it to answer hard questions.

Even “New Europe” (which is often, ironically, older than “Old Europe”), despite enduring decades of represssion of free speech, is pretty open nowadays. I lived in Eastern Europe and people freely criticized their governments and had a lively, ongoing debate on policy.

Turkey, on the other hand, despite wanting to be considered European, and all the other adjectives associated with it (wealthy, sophisticated, developed, cultured, etc.), really fails on the basic premise of free speech.

Article 301 of the Turkish penal code makes it a crime to “insult Turkishness” – a really broadly-defined offense that is actually prosecuted very often against those who publicly mention the Armenian Genocide, an event that the rest of the world acknowledges (some in a more forthcoming fashion than others) but that Turkey fiercely denies.

Because of realpolitik the US will probably back down from recognizing the Armenian Genocide, but the real pity is that Turkey keeps article 301 in their books and thus stifles its own intellectual and cultural development.