Author: Aaron Weber

I’ve really been loving this comic strip:

marriedtothesea.com

In the “why do we bother” column, Fox News’ Neal Cavuto brings crazy-ass people on TV. I can’t tell if he’s actually agreeing with them, or just giving them enough rope to hang themselves.

First, a segment that begs for a caption like “it’s not over til the fat lady sings” — Neal finds a group called National Action Against Obesity to claim that Jordin Sparks is fat and that fatties shouldn’t win singing contests. Maybe they’re part of the pro-ana movement or something, or perhaps it’s a desperate attempt to create news or controversy out of an otherwise boring American Idol finale. Either way it’s stupid.

Second, via Crooks and Liars, an argument so mismatched and stupid that it ought to be in the Onion’s “point/counterpoint” section. The “point” is a woman who says that the newest birth control pill that skips menstruation altogether is just as safe, just as useful, and just as good as the existing birth control pills. The “counterpoint” comes from woman who believes that all birth control is bad, and that NARAL and Planned Parenthood are conspiring with Big Pharma to enslave women in some kind of sex prison. Cavuto then suggests that birth control makes underage girls have sex. My theory: Fox is trying to drum up birth control controversy as an excuse to talk about teen sex, and we all know that teen sex is a huge seller.

Hey Neal! How about doing a special investigative report about how drunken idiots are annoying? Maybe you could bring in an expert about alien abduction and thought screen helmets— you know people are only drinking too much because they’re driven mad by alien mind control attempts and Morgellons disease.

For your Thursday edification, Crooks and Liars points to yet another story about how we could spend the half-trillion dollars we’ve been pouring into the Iraqi desert, and a song about yellowcake Uranium:

My dad used to say that you could tell a movie would be bad if you could explain the plot in fewer than five words. For example: “DeVito and Schwarzenegger are Twins” makes for a bad movie. I’m beginning to think that the opposite holds true for TV shows, though. For example, some of the best shows are very simple setups which rely on excellent acting and writing. Think about it: Sex and the City is “four single women are friends in New York.” “Friends” is just that– some friends interact in funny ways. A complicated premise is often an excuse to avoid the hard work of writing a good script.

Looking at the fall TV schedules, I’m guessing we’ll have a combination of absurd concepts that fail to hide poor execution, and simple concepts which are imitations of successful concepts and which fail because of poor execution. Typical pessimism from me, though. There’s a chance that one or two of these will be good.

The first batch of shows is basically Sex and the City variations. The Women’s Murder Club, in which four women share friendships and crime clues, is basically Sex and the City but with murder. Plus, it’s an adaptation of a James Patterson series, so that’s two strikes against it already. Lipstick Jungle features three powerful New York City women are who are friends, making it Sex and the City with fewer women. Because it’s on broadcast TV, there will also be less sex. I can’t wait. A few shows try to do Sex and the City with men: Carpoolers might as well be titled Sex and Dudes in the Suburbs, and Big Shots is the same thing with CEOs and country clubs. A special shout-out to Cavemen which places the gimmick cavemen from the Geico ads into big city life: Neanderthals and the City.

Then, you’ve got your silly, complicated ideas that are ripoffs of other silly, complicated ideas: a man goes back in time and has to decide whether to save his ex-girlfriend and risk changing his future (Journeyman— but it’s basically Quantum Leap); a NYPD cop is cursed with immortality (New Amsterdam, but it’s basically Highlander); a private detective feels conflicted about also being a blood-sucking vampire (Moonlight, but it’s basically Angel, which is basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Finally there are two shows which at least are not obviously plagiarizing other shows. That’s about the only thing I can say in their favor, though: there’s a good reason nobody else used these ideas before. Pushing Daisies features a baker who can bring dead people back to life by touching them once and return them to death by touching them again– he uses this ability mostly to solve murders but things get awkward when he saves his childhood sweetheart’s life but can never touch her again. Reaper is about a slacker who discovers on his 21st birthday that his parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born and that he’s going to have to do Satan’s bidding, which turns out not to be so bad because his job is to find escaped evil souls and capture them using a vacuum cleaner.

I spent all weekend offline and playing God of War, which was lovely, but didn’t give me much to blog about.

In place of actual content, go look at this chart about obesity, which is linked from Ezra Klein.

Also, you should read Crooks and Liars, which so far today has told me about a Republican state senator arrested for raping pages, the GOP campaign against “voter fraud,” which turned out to be a drive to repress the minority vote, and a bunch of crap that Alberto Gonzales is in danger of getting away with.

Via Brad Delong: No One Makes you Shop at Wal*Mart. From a very good review: “Slee’s book is the best of the anti-market books: it is well written, serious, and knowledgeable about economics. In fact, I regard Slee’s book as an excellent primer on asymmetric information, free riding, externalities, herding, coordination problems and identity – Economics 301 for all those budding young Ezra Klein’s of the world who think that Economics 101 isn’t quite right.”

I am certain that markets are a great way to solve some problems, but not all problems– but I can’t really articulate why, because I am not an economist. For example, Wal*Mart and sprawl worry me, but I can’t be sure that I don’t just find them tacky. This book sounds like it might provide the kind of serious theoretical framework that can demonstrate exactly why those things are true.

“I hope that Chairman Bernanke is right when he says that a slumping housing market will not affect the broader economy, but I would not bet the house on it.” — Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.)

For loan refinancing– especially cash-out refinances, where you trade the equity in your home for cash in your pocket– lenders typically lend a certain percentage of the cash value of your home. If that’s not as much as you hoped, you can always get an appraiser to claim it’s worth more. Mortgage brokers may even have over-generous appraisers on tap– they want to loan you more money, after all, and once they’ve cleared the loan they don’t have to worry about you repaying it.

And it’s not that bad a lie, really, not in a surging market: after all, if the house isn’t worth a half-million now, it will be next year, right? As long as the market keeps going up, and as long as the client makes the payments, the lie goes undiscovered. If the rate resets and the payments go up, the client can refinance again, or sell the house in that surging market. If the rate resets and the payments go up and the market tanks… well then, we’re all in trouble.

Later: watch as I try to sort out the difference between “an investment” and “an expense.”

OK, the promised Harry Potter thought: Emma Watson could get out of being typecast as Hermione Granger by starring in a sex tape with Miley Cyrus. Seriously. It would be at least as effective as Dan “Harry Potter” Radcliffe appearing bollock-naked in “Equus.”