Are you smarter than a politician?

See if you can’t fix the following sentence:

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

See who said it, along with commentary from Dick Cavett, here.

Columns of the Day: Big Changes for the Big 3

For your consideration: three columns about what to do with the Big Three.
Michael Barone sees problems with bailouts and bankruptcy:

And yet the implications of a bailout are frightening. The Detroit Three were unprofitable well before the current financial crisis hit, and GM is reportedly hemorrhaging $1 billion a month. The huge cost of lavish employee and retiree health care benefits, negotiated with the United Auto Workers (UAW), makes it impossible for the companies to sell for a profit anything but the big cars and SUVs that, after gas prices hit $4 a gallon last spring, almost no one wants to buy.

Robert Samuelson argues that a bailout must come with strings attached, including writing down debt, lowering labor costs, and mandated higher gas prices:

To encourage consumers to buy fuel-efficient vehicles, Congress should mandate higher gas prices. Gasoline taxes could be raised gradually (say, a penny a month for four years, possibly offset by other tax cuts).

It’s a sentiment echoed by a pair of contributors to the NY Times, who suggest:

a price floor of $3.50 per gallon on gasoline. If the price drops below that, as it recently has, the federal government would impose a variable tax to bring the price up to $3.50. If the price goes above $3.50, then the tax disappears. The money raised by the variable tax would be used, at least in the short term, to provide loan guarantees to the auto companies. (To ease the burden of higher gasoline prices on low-income taxpayers, some of the revenue would be provided to them as tax credits or vouchers.)

This just in!

Forest Hills is getting out early tomorrow due to today’s snow.

Obama meets Dickens

Thanks, Economist! Just when I needed an example of the relevance of Charles Dickens in the 21st Century. . . 

Column of the Day: Charles Blow

If you’re going to learn how to synthesize textual and graphic sources, you need to read Charles Blow’s columns and blog. Last week, he examined how minority groups have voted for Republicans since the Reagan Administration. 

Dumbing down the election

Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winner and senior fellow at the Nation Institute, argues that our political differences aren’t so much red and blue, conservative and liberal, or Republican and Democrat. Instead, they’re the difference between the educated and the illiterate. Those with the capacity to analyze and argue versus those influenced by propaganda:

There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.

And our candidates debate at a 7th to 9th grade vocabulary level, compared to the 11th and 12th grade levels of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Buy a book for your kids, for your siblings, for your friends. Buy one through the Amazon link here, and I’ll buy more books for kids at LHS.

Cheap, green speakers for your MP3 player

Take four used plastic cups, clean ‘em out, and grab two toothpics, your MP3 player, and your earbuds. Follow the directions here. But don’t expect Bose-quality sound; just enjoy keeping the planet green.

Joe the Blogger?

Didn’t his 15 minutes run out a couple of weeks ago? Joe the “Plumber” is now “blogging” while offering a “Freedom Membership” to his site for $14.95 a year. Joe’s gonna have a hard time staying in that lower tax bracket if his site takes off – not that he’s big on paying taxes. . . 

Coming (not) Soon (enough): Slumdog Millionaire

I can’t wait for this one. Danny Boyle’s (Trainspotting, Millions, 28 Days Later) new film looks brilliant. Opens in GR December 26. You know where to find me.

The Super 30 ALBUM Covers

Remember when we called them albums? This was one of my favorites: Peter Gabriel’s third LP, which I picked up for $3.99 – new – at Believe in Music on Plainfield Avenue. More great covers here.