Snark Noir

Everything about 'The Lego Movie' is awesome

2014-02-11T17:31:00.000-05:00

'The Lego Movie'

"The Lego Movie" is a really good film. I would have recommended it on the strength of the creative animation alone. It's about a lot of things and at times it can really be funny. But believe it or not, it really is mythic in it's scope and ambitions. There is a scene in the film when Emmet, the hero, falls through the abyss. What happens next reminded me of the Hindu story of the holy man who falls out of the mouth of God. What you really need to know is that "The Lego Movie" is about a Father and Son, it is about a rebellious angel who redeems a creator who has forgotten how to play.There is a joy that infects this movie from start to finish. The movie plays on the conventions of the creativity inherent in the toy but goes much further. Unlike other movies based on toys, this one is fun, endearing and, in the end, unexpectedly thoughtful. Ironically, "The Lego Movie" is likely to be the closest we're going to get to a good Justice League movie for a while in the same way "The Incredibles" is the closest we've gotten to a good Fantastic Four film.

There are a couple of themes running through this film, many of which have drawn commentary: the evolution of the nominal protagonist, Emmet, from a nobody to a hero. It really is sad when he has to watch an interview of those he believed to be his friends. In their eyes, he really is a go-along, yes-man nobody. From the first scenes, Emmet is shown as someone who follows the rules and, as a consequence, is a person who doesn't stand out and has no original ideas.

Emmet eventually meets with the Master Builders. The Master Builders are all extremely creative and have an abundance of original thoughts but they can't work together towards a common goal. So when the far more organized forces of the nominal villain, Big Business, show up, they're easy pickings.

This is the Campbellian 'Hero's Journey' at play, the hero who becomes the master of two worlds, it this case he synthesizes the two ideas, creativity and rules, to save the world.

But then something really interesting happens in "The Lego Movie": it goes meta in an awesome way.

Emmet falls through the abyss and lands in the "real world" where the true conflict is revealed. It reminded me of the Hindu story of the holy man who falls out of the mouth of God. He lands in the ocean of Eternity where he is exposed to the truth: his world is the dream of a sleeping God. It happens to the holy man twice in the course of his long life and there are hints in 'The Lego Movie' that this has happened to Emmet before as well.

Emmet, in this world, faces the truth: that two true master builders are in conflict. The conflict that drives the story is the one between a wildly imaginative child and his uptight father. This is where the story takes on mythical, biblical import. It is a story about a rebellious angel who redeems a creator who has forgotten how to play. This also reminded me of the series finale of "St. Elsewhere" where we get the sense that the entire series was, in fact, the product of the imagination of an autistic child.

It's hard to know if this is what the writers intended. Even if they didn't, this is the true brilliance of the movie. Even the villain, Big Business, is redeemed in the end.

There are plenty of laugh out loud moments and fan service shout-outs. And the environments and fully realized and memorable. It is unlike anything else in animation right now.

In the end, "The Lego Movie" is a movie that will move you, no matter what your age. And while you may not be singing the movie's signature tune much past the time you leave the theater, you will come away with the sense that you've just sat through an awesome movie and gotten your money's worth.

Marco, Rubio! Marco, Rubio!

2013-02-12T22:31:00.001-05:00

10:44 May God bless the greatest nation in the history of earth. I'll get back to you when I figure out what nation that is.

10:40 Throw back a bottle of water.

10:39 I would never support a plan that would harm my mother. Which is why I support a plan that will harm yours.

10:37 We must follow through on the broken promises of the past. Never mind the fact that it was my party that broke them.

10:34 Pity us GOP members because the president was mean to us.

10:32 Umm ... more goverment would have prevented the worst of the economic crash.

10:30 I have the honor of offering a speech no one will care about.

Hail to the Chief baby

2013-02-12T21:16:00.001-05:00

10:16 That's all folks. Thank you very much. Be sure to tip the wait staff. I'm here all week.

10:15 Twelve bullet wounds! That's just the way he's made? What the hell was he made of?

10:12 We weren't sent here to be perfect. That has to be the most honest assessment I've ever heard regarding Congress.

10:10 They deserve a vote. To bad the vote will be no.

10:08 Our most precious resource: Our campaign donors.

10:04 And these are the messages I will take with me to the Middle East ... and place within the Wailing Wall.

10:02 VP Biden busy reading "50 Shades of Gray."

9:58 Our challenges do not end with al Qaeda. It ends in drone strikes and the interwebs.

9:56 I didn't know Afghanistan had a government.

9:54 I didn't know al Qaeda had a corps?

9:52 The GOP is not responding to all the non-Ayn Randian stuff.

9:48 Bipartisan ... let's git-r-done take two shots.

9:45 Four years ago we launched Race to the Top ... then raced straight to the bottom.

9:42 High quality preschool investment is based on studies. Congresscritters can't read!

9:40 We need to fix it ... throw back a shot.

9:37 Barack Obama, Science Guy. That's going over like a lead balloon with House Republicans.

9:35 Bipartisan ... throw back a shot of vodka.

9:30 Our country should ask three questions: What is your name? Why do you seek the grail? What is the weight carrying capacity of a swallow?

9:28 The greatest nation will infact run on one crisis after another because that is how our modern Congress functions.

9:26 Now is our best chance for bipartisan ... and now it's gone.

9:18 No, we expect Congress to fail. And it won't even be an epic fail.

9:17 The state of our union id strong. Hmm, where have I hard those words before.

9:15 Our brave men and women are coming home.

9:10 Obama does the Congressinal rope walk.

Romney retires the side

2012-11-07T00:57:00.002-05:00

1:01 a.m: "Thank you and God bless America."

1:01 a.m: "Job creators ... I believe in America. I believe in the people of America. ... We have given our all."

1 a.m: "Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work." Right ...

12:59 p.m: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

12:58 p.m: The Ann / Ryan choice joke again.

12:57 p.m: Romney speaks to his supporters and offers his concession.

Live blogging the election

2012-11-06T19:43:00.001-05:00

12:25 p.m: Still waiting for a Romney concession speech. Taking his time reminds me of that moment in the debates when Romney patronizingly said to the president "You'll get your turn." This is a study in dickishness.

12:12 p.m: Waiting for a concession by Gov. Mitt Romney. One is not coming right away. He probably didn't write a concession speech. They had FOUR recount teams ready to deploy!

12:10 p.m: "Well, the party's over" for the GOP in Ohio.

12:04 p.m: If Obama is going to get anything through the Congress, he's going to have to continue the "ground game" he played to get re-elected.

11:57 p.m: Exit polls suggest that the "47 percent" speech spoke to the core reservations that voters had about Romney.

11:54 p.m: Paul Ryan is going to have to decide whether to be part of the solution or remain part of the problem.

11:50 p.m: The game is functionally over. Florida and Virginia remain in play but are trending towards Obama by narrow margins.

11:44 p.m: They're playing the Bee Gees. I hate the Bee Gees.

11:34 p.m: Mitch McConnell will get to eat his share of crow.

11:29 p.m: NPR is now calling the election for Obama.

11:19 p.m: At 274 Electoral College delegates, MSNBC is calling it for Pres. Barack Obama.

11:17 p.m: NPR is calling Iowa for Obama.

11:11 p.m: Going into the endgame now. Obama is now ahead as projected. He should win with 283 votes even without Florida.

11:04 p.m: "I am seeing a room full of people." As opposed to a room full of cats.

11:02 p.m: Angus King! Take a shot!

11 p.m: Warren: "Let me be clear. I didn't build that! You did!"

10:59 p.m: "Warren! Warren! Warren! Warren!"

10:57 p.m: Supporter shouts: "We love you!" Elizabeth Warren shouts back: "I love you! ... This is your night! This is your victory!"

10:55 p.m: If the projected wins in the west coast come through and leads in Iowa, Ohio and Colorado hold true, Obama wins even without Florida.

10:48 p.m: McCormick Center is filling up. A bit of nostalgia setting in. Florida is still close.

10:45 p.m: Somber sentiment in Romney HQ.

10:40 p.m: Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad is a GOP talking points tool.

10:33 p.m: The changing face of the American electorate. Demographics vs. Economic Fundamentals.

10:30 p.m: Opa!

10:23 p.m: NPR reporter jams out "Amarillo By Morning."

10:20 p.m: Now this I can dance to! It's a vibrant jazz blues ditty!

10:18 p.m: Joe the Plumber is Joe the Loser. He will not be going to Congress. Too bad, so sad.

10:12 p.m: IO9 is running all of their election-centric stories on their homepage including this gem: 9 Reasons to Elect a Supervillian President.

10:10 p.m: Professor Warren is going to Washington! God help Wall Street!

10:09 p.m: Is Oren Hatch secretly the Highlander? Let's play the NPR Angus King drinking game! Slam back a shot.

10:08 p.m: NPR: Hoosiers have a history of splitting tickets. They got that part right.

10:07 p.m: Florida, Virginia, Ohio remain battle grounds that still can't be called.

10:05 p.m: King interview remains a sore spot for NPR. Guys, get over it!

10 p.m: Joe Donnelly is the new Democratic Senator from the Hoosier State.

9:54 p.m: The real winner in this election: Data miners and analysts.

9:53 p.m: Obama takes New Hampshire to collect all of the Northeast states.

9:45 p.m: Claire McCaskill of Missouri is likely to soundly spank her science-challenged opponent. Note for future reference for GOP candidates: DON'T COMMENT ON RAPE!

9:42 p.m: Bill Nelson was raised to believe that public service was one of the highest callings one can answer. My God he's soooo naïve.

9:33 p.m: With 77 percent of the precincts reporting, Florida split by little more than 500 votes. Here we go again.

9:23 p.m: New Hampshire is big enough to have more than one college? I thought Dartmouth was the ONLY college in N.H.

9:23 p.m: Ate half a cup of ice cream. My tummy is full.

9:16 p.m: Where is Dave Barry when we need him most?

9:15 p.m: GOP's Pete Session is already spinning the next Congress.

9:13 p.m: NPR: In January, it may be the same cast of characters, the same balance, why will Washington function any differently?

9:03 p.m: Elizabeth Warren is slightly ahead in the race for the senate seat in Massachusetts.

8:57 p.m: In the Hoosier State, Monroe, Tippecanoe, Marion counties and the three counties that make up Region Rat territory all trending toward Obama, yet the state still being called for Romney.

8:55 p.m: Joe Donnelly holding a slight lead in Indiana Senate race.

8:52 p.m: Florida's Bill Nelson gets a third Senate term. Robert Segal still smarting over the inability to nail down Angus King on the subject of with whom King will caucus.

8:52 p.m: NPR's break music makes me feel like I'm trapped in an elevator listening to Dick Robinson's "American Standards by the Sea."

8:45 p.m: The newspaper websites are all over the place with the numbers. USA Today is 64 / 51 Obama; NYTimes 40 / 36 Romney; New Yorker 88 / 68 Romney; and WashPost 16 / 8 Obama.

8:40 p.m: May as well just color Florida purple tonight. The numbers keep being split between Obama and Romney.

8:36 p.m: NPR calling Lois Frankel mayor of Palm Beach. She was mayor of WEST Palm Beach!

8:34 p.m: NPR has called 18 states. The battleground states are too close to call, including Florida.

8:30 p.m: An argument has broken out regarding what the exit polls mean. Popular vote will be a close split. White males favor Romney. Class warfare may carry the day.

8:18 p.m: Memo to NPR's Robert Segal: Badgering independent Senator-elect Angus King will not get you to get him to say he will caucus with the Democrats.

8:15 p.m: USA Today's numbers: Obama 64 electoral votes and Romney 40. NYTimes: Obama 51, Romney 40.

8:08 p.m: Prez is hanging in his Hyde Park crib tonight.

8:08 p.m: Ohio voters will be relieved that the robocalls will stop.

8:03 p.m: The Associated Press calls Indiana, South Carolina for Romney.

8 p.m.: From NPR news, NPR's special coverage has begun! Now this party can officially begin. Time to break out the ice cream.

7:58 p.m.: John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Joe Wilson keep their seats. Two more years of Congressional headaches ahead.

7:54 p.m.: USAToday has a great set up for election results: http://www.usatoday.com/election-2012/results/full-screen/

7:49 p.m.: NPR's special coverage doesn't begin until 8 p.m. Damn!

7:44 p.m.: Why is NYTimes calling West Virginia for Romney with 0 percent of the precincts reporting?

7:41 p.m.: Why are the WashPost and the NYTimes calling Vermont for Obama and Kentucky for Romney when only a fraction of the results are in?

7:38 p.m.: Here we go!

This evening is election night. This evening though, there is no cable. No television. Only Internet and NPR coverage. Kick back, relax and enjoy.

Why I voted for Obama

2012-11-06T01:30:00.000-05:00

The absolute turning point for me was Gov. Mitt Romney’s 47 percent address. There was something very demeaning and patronizing about it that grated on my nerves.

I was a productive member of the workforce until July of 2012. I was a veteran of the First Gulf War and now I was unemployed. Had it not been for the social services that my taxes help to support my new address would have been a cardboard box under the I-95 underpass.

As I came to understand Gov. Romney’s point of view, what I realized is that he doesn’t serve citizens, he serves shareholders. It must be said that I had an encounter with a good, thoughtful and hard working woman from Massachusetts who supported Romney. She noted that the state’s citizens loved him and that he was willing to reach across the aisle to get things done.

That may even have been true at one point in history. Like the John McCain who ran against George W. Bush in 2000, the Romney she knew, the Romney who created a system that became the basis for Obamacare, might have been a president worth electing.

But the problems for me were insurmountable. First was his history of vulture capitalism at Bain Capital. Did all of those people have to lose their jobs? What did Romney and his compatriots see in those people he cut: numbers or human lives? Did Bain under Romney truly create value for America, or did it just create more money for shareholders? It seems to be the case that it was the latter rather than the former. And his comment about being a member of the unemployed did not endear him to me as a reluctant member of the 7.8 percent. Second, all of his earnings are capital gains, and most of the 7.8 percent not only cannot relate to that and do not benefit from it in any way. A good chunk of his earning are not on the tax rolls earning dividends for America in the form of investments in education, defense and infrastructure. Third, that he demeaned 47 percent of the population betrays a lack of graciousness and a lack of gratitude. He is the ultimate entitlement baby because his entire campaign has been because he seems to think he is entitled to the presidency.

The American people are citizens, not shareholders. America is a country, not a corporation. If you mean to lead the country, then you must embrace the fact that the president’s constituency is not the 1 percent, or even the 53 percent: it is the 100 percent. Gratitude is a mark of nobility and the absence of gratitude is distressing. No one is entitled to the presidency, least of all Gov. Mitt Romney.

I weighted him, I measured him and I found Gov. Romney sorely wanting.

On the passing of George McGovern

2012-10-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

If memory serves, I met this man when he made a stop at Indiana University Northwest. I was nearing the end of my college career and it was an evening event. He was there during the turmoil of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

McGovern was probably a little to the left of me at that time in my life. I considered myself a left-leaning moderate: to the left on social issues, to the center on economic issues, and a deficit hawk. I remember him being an articulate, honorable and decent man who was spending his evening addressing us. Most of us in attendance had little idea who he was. He was a footnote – the unfortunate reason for Watergate.

What I do remember from that evening were a pair of vivid moments of local partisans trying to score political points at McGovern’s expense. The first was some Gingrich Republican who tried to get McGovern to effectively denounce Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky matter, boldly declaring it worse than Watergate. Umm, Clinton only hazarded his presidency. Nixon hazarded the republic. The second was a political science professor who tried to get McGovern to admit, in the most roundabout way possible, that liberalism died because of him. He took McGovern’s answer as a “Yes.”

Like my experience in listening to Ralph Nader’s lecture at Indiana University in Bloomington years later, I got the sense of a man who was better than the politics of his day. I remember a man with intellect to spare. I remember an honorable man who believed in what he stood for. And that was plenty good enough for me.

Breezy books engage in career and workplace mythbusting

2012-10-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

The challenge of any work is that it engages the reader. There is nothing so annoying as a book that takes itself too seriously. In the cases of two recent efforts, the authors have important things to say, but they are not afraid of speaking in an engaging style. “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport and “Rework” by 37Signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson take aim at the myths and misconceptions that surround careers and the workplace.

The two really do go together because at their core is the message that the most important thing is knowing what you do, and doing it well. Newport focuses on individuals while the founders of 37Signals focus on the workplace. Newport puts the craftsmanship involved in mastering rare and valuable skills that leads to career capital front and center. Career capital, and how you use it, can lead to the autonomy and sense of mission that make a career worth living. “Rework” puts the spotlight on doing what you do well. It distills the essence to keeping small enough that you create something that works that everybody wants and will continue to want.

For Newport, the biggest myth is the one he explodes right at the beginning: Follow your passion. Newport argues that this bit of advice is actively dangerous. Indeed, one imagines that this bit of advice comes from a misunderstanding of Joseph Campbell’s advice to “follow your bliss.” Again and again, Newport stresses the primacy of mastery. Know what you do well, do it well and continue improving. Your competence provides the source of your passion.

For the founders of 37Signals, there is no one single myth they explode. Instead, they turn their attention to a wide range of smaller myths that they blow up one at a time like a line of firecrackers. Whether it is the idea that bigger is better (it’s not) or that CEOs of Fortune 500 companies require Ivy League degrees (they don’t and most don’t have them), “Rework” overturns all the misconceptions a would-be company-creator might have and shows how those ideas are bunk.

The founders of 37Signals are in the trenches and use their experiences to highlight the lessons learned. Newport is an academic who was interested in how people really come into the kind of jobs people dream about. He relies on case studies in the form of interviews and academic research. Both books reinforce the idea of intimacy: know what you do, do it well and, in doing so, you become valuable.

Both of these efforts are well worth the read. Both are highly readable and will force a change in perspective. Both look at the same problem from different perspectives and both deserve a place on the desk.

How NASA seeks to travel the galaxy in 80 days

2012-09-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

It’s fall and that means it’s time for the latest thing in NASA thinking: Warp drive. For the general informed reader, you know that warp drive is mostly magic. It is a Star Trek technology that allows Federation ships to cross the galaxy relatively quickly and allows the show to tell a story that would be different from one that hewed to science fact.

However for the more well-read reader, two words make up NASA’s more recent thinking on the subject: Alcubierre drive.

This idea took off yet again during a recent NASA outing. The problems have been that the Alcubierre drive requires Jupiter size mass and exotic particles. Or maybe not. According to one scientist, all that may be required is a tweaking of the geometry and an oscillation of the space warp to reduce the mass requirement to less than two tons.

Scientists are preparing to make a small scale model to test the idea using lasers. With luck, successful trials could scale up to a feasible working prototype. The issue that remains unresolved is the “exotic particles” problem.

Even if the problem proves insurmountable, it is still quite likely something interesting or even useful could come out of the research. Given the perils of global warming, we could very well find ourselves needing to colonize a new home. We ought to just hope the Alcubierre drive doesn't deliver us to a world with blue aliens.

Senate Republicans tell veterans ‘fight for a job on your own’

2012-09-20T10:00:00.000-04:00

Jobless veterans suffer some more as Senate Republicans offer a blatantly political election-year snub to President Obama. While five GOP senators sided with the Democrats on the bill, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who was a captain in the 1970s in the U.S. Army reserves, was key to blocking the vote. Sen. Tom ‘Dr. No’ Coburn, of Oklahoma, stayed true to his nickname, preferring to talk about the abstract idea of bringing down the debt rather than address the plight of jobless in the here and now.

The unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans currently stands at 10.9 percent, compared to the 8.1 percent for the rest of the country. By one estimate, that translates into more than 720,000 unemployed veterans nationwide, 220,000 which are veterans who have served since Sept. 11, 2001. For a party that controlled the White House when America launched these two wars, putting politics above putting our former service members back to work ranks as fairly dishonorable. Worse still, because Congress is likely to recess for the remainder of the election season, expect the bill to effectively die on the Senate floor.

The nearly $1 billion tab for the Veterans Jobs Corps Act would have been paid for during the course of five years through the collection of delinquent taxes. It would have paid for job training and would have provided positions on federal public lands for veterans.

Middle East violence requires a middle road approach

2012-09-17T10:00:00.000-04:00

A story in the Washington Post does a fine job of explaining what the recent spate of Middle East violence against the West is really all about. It is a historical struggle within Islam to come to terms with its wounded pride in the face of modernity. It is about the struggle between the younger generation that sees what the West has to offer and wants it on their terms vs. the older generation that wants none of it.

In the face of all of this is the question that America in general and the American President in particular always faces: what should we do? The real question often is: what can we reasonably expect to accomplish even if we do nothing?

The pendulum often seems to swing to one of two poles: direct intervention or indirect intervention. The former usually involves some kind of military action. The latter vague promises of moral support and a willingness to stand behind ‘the people.’ Neither of these seems to do much good on their own. Modern American diplomacy suffers from a lopsided approach to the world. The Defense Department budget dwarfs the State Department budget. We speak much too softly (and often badly when we do) and carry a huge stick.

The truth is that America can’t solve the core problem within the Muslim world. Only the Arab Muslim community can do that. When one looks at United Arab Emirates in general, and Dubai in particular, one can see the imperfect outlines of a solution in the making. As a Persian Gulf state that has had to reimagine itself as a post-oil nation, it has turned itself into something rather different. It has a long way to go but it is finding its own accommodation with the modern world.

But the other truth is that America is stuck in the Middle East and it is stuck there for the long haul. It is the single most influential nation in the region and has made a significant investment there. Post-War Europe may be the closest example to what lies ahead in the Arab Muslim world. Under an American security umbrella, Western Europe rebuilt but chose a unique path to prosperity and its member nations retained their own flavors. America will need to be patient while the Muslim world figures itself out.

Until then, we would be best off taking a middle road that sets meaningful boundaries while providing wide latitude and much of the details to be determined locally. Whatever solution appears, the population of the Muslim world must sincerely believe they created it and adopted it from the bottom up, rather than having it imposed from the top down.

Ryan accepts Romney's offer of a bucket of warm piss

2012-08-11T12:23:00.003-04:00

In Norfolk, Va., with the decommissioned battleship USS Wisconsin as his backdrop, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney introduced America to the new president of the United States, Paul Ryan. It would seem that Ryan has some foreign policy positions, ones that may be less embarrassing than those of Romney (a foreign policy lightweight) who has both just finished an awful trip abroad but also succeeded in honking of the Japanese. Blunt force seems to be Ryan’s instrument of choice which is readily apparent in his budget. Ryan's budget also makes him a deeply polarizing figure: adorable to the base, repugnant to the left.

Romney's hope is likely that this will change the election season debate and take the heat off of his unreleased tax returns. It is also probably Romney's hope that he can shore up his campaign by picking a Midwesterner. With rare exception, the vice-presidency has never really amounted to much more than a chance at an election campaign photo op. Unless you were Ford, LBJ or Cheney, the post has rarely risen above John Nance Garner's famous observation that the vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm piss."

STOCK Act’s one little loophole

2012-07-22T15:00:00.000-04:00

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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While a measure that was designed to stop insider trading among Congresscritters drew bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Obama, it passed with a tiny, glaring flaw: it doesn’t apply to the congressional family members. The problem stems from a misinterpretation between the House and Senate.

The Senate interpretation is more stringent than the House. It is related to an issue called ‘political intelligence,’ the ultimate oxymoron. Firms gather information about regulations and pending legislation and use it to make investment decisions. Political intelligence agents are like lobbyists except they do not have to register.

With a 17 percent approval rating that is still lower than that of Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandalone might think that Congress would show at least some self-awareness and opt for some transparency for once. You would be mostly wrong. The only one who has shown a willingness to fight to close the loophole is U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.), and he's in a very tight with Elizabeth Warren.

In the days of President Ford, there were pins that read WIN: Whip Inflation Now. Those buttons were often turned upside down to read NIM: No Immediate Miracles. While one could hope the Congress will act to fix the loophole in this bit of legislation, don't expect a miracle.

Leader of the Foreign Policy Lightweight Brigade

2012-07-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, the former governor from Bain is set to visit Poland at the end of the month at the invitation of Lech Walesa. This may be in part because all the current vice presidential candidates are foreign policy lightweights. It will be part of a six-day overseas trip that will include stops in England and Israel.

The six-day “listen and learn” tour includes a July 27 visit to the Olympic opening ceremony and a fundraising event among Americans living in overseas. A pair of deceased British investors may also be tied to the candidate through their contributions to his first private equity fund. His July 28 visit to Israel will include the obligatory declaration to stand strong with our allies.

But he isn't taking the opportunity to visit Moscow, Beijing or Brussels. And since he declared Russia is America's primary geopolitical adversary, not making the trip to Russia may be a bad idea.

Given the advantage that President Obama has in the foreign policy arena and that Romney is seeking his advice from former vice president Dick Cheney, one has to wonder how this six day tour will result in a learning curve that produces real understanding.

Shooting sparks another round of debate about gun control

2012-07-22T10:00:00.000-04:00

Here we go again. Whether it is a suspect who shoots a congresswoman or a suspect who fires his gun into a crowded theater, the perennial question about guns in our society is rejoined and it will likely come to the same sorry end.

With a presidential election in full swing and a congress held by the Republican party, don’t expect anything approximating a civil discussion on meaningful gun control.

The shooter was armed to the teeth with an AR-15 assault rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Glock .40-caliber handgunwith an additional Glock .40-caliber pistol in his vehicle. He was fully loaded with 6,000 rounds of ammunition. Sadly, one can anticipate the response among the leadership of the NRA: give everyone a gun and pass stand your ground laws. And we all know how well that has worked out.

The problem isn’t necessarily with the Second Amendment itself. The problem is how we have come to let a single side to dominate the discussion on how to interpret and enforce the amendment. And that one side seems incapable of conceding that things have gotten out of hand.

The question isn’t how many more have to die before we get meaningful gun control legislation. The question is when are we as a nation going to take back the discussion from a powerful and vocal lobby that has successfully captured the issue and set the terms of the debate to the zero setting.

Is this thing on? Really, is this thing on?

2012-07-21T16:46:00.001-04:00

Wow! Has it really been a year since the last post? I guess it has. A lot has happened since then and some of it could be charitably characterized as problematic. It can now be said that there will be more time to tend to the blog than there has been in the last few months. And now that the hair-tugging contest between Viacom and DirectTV is over and done we can rebuild our lives together. I look forward to taking the opportunity to getting back to this blog and reconnecting with my audience.

Also, I would like to invite you to follow the adventures of an up and coming critic in Kharkov, Ukraine named Oksana. Yes, she's for real, she's very intelligent and she'll make a great event planner one day. You'll have to use Google Translate to read her blog but it is worth it.

This is now a time of personal rebuilding and growth. After almost two decades as a practicing professional journalist, I am now forced to start over. It is an opportunity to build a new life while fumbling through the evolving rules of the new economic model. There is a lot of assembly required and no instruction manual.

While the new rules will likely find expression in the content of the blog, some basics will likely remain constant: the arts, science, politics and foreign relations will remain at the forefront for the simple matter that they matter to me and, if you're reading this blog, they matter to you as well. Everything else that bubbles up will probably be related to these core topics, will be simply things that struck me as being interesting, may mark an evolution in the things I find interesting, or items that are sufficiently important to highlight and snark upon.

Thus begins a new day and a rebirth. Though, as with every birth, there will likely be a lot of screaming and hollering at the beginning until I find my legs again.

Thank you for your time and welcome back.

Greek lightning won’t stay in the bottle

2011-06-16T10:00:00.004-04:00

If the economic observers are right, the birthplace of Western civilization is a ticking financial timebomb that will mean the end of the Euro as we know it. This week Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece to "CCC", the lowest credit level possible, on fears of a default. And China’s not very happy about the situation. Two scenarios are likely. The first involves yet another bailout package that would keep Greece afloat. That has stalled. The second is a two-part default with part one by the end of 2013 and part two by the end of the following year. According to currency strategist David Mann, the market has placed the likelihood of a Greek default at 75 percent.

As usual, it’s governments versus bankers. For any second bailout to get the approval of Europe’s largest economy, Germany, public sector support is a must. The European bank is saying it will see any private sector participation in the plan as coercion and call it a selective default. So how the bailout will happen without obliterating the country’s credit score is anyone’s guess. But contagion looks like it’s in the offing.

Moody’s is examining three top level French banks for their exposure to the probable Greek default.

The Greeks themselves are not taking the austerity measures required for a second bailout lying down. A phalanx worthy of their ancient forebears turned out in force armed with ‘petrol bombs’ turned out near the parliament building to vent their anger at lawmakers. This has led the Prime Minister of Greece to start doing the cabinet shuffle in order to maintain a semiworking government.

The reality is that government defaults are pretty common occurrences. It’s the sovereign equivalent of bankruptcy. The current crisis was also a result of creative practices involving cross-currency swaps by … wait for it … Goldman Sachs, which helped the Greek government paper over its debt so it could appear to be in line with its debt level obligations under its EU membership. Much of Greece’s current woes legitimately may be of its own making, but if default worked for Venezuela nine times during a 175 year period, the world is probably protesting too much over a possible Greek debt conflagration.

U.S. military evolving into the green war machine

2011-06-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

It’s nice to know someone has finally realized that the America’s dependence on foreign oil might be a national security problem. The Pentagon is turning its eye to greater energy efficiency on the battlefield. The military spent $15 billion last year on energy. The Pentagon is expected to spend $1.8 billion in 2010 on renewable energy technology and that spending is expected to rise to $26.8 billion by 2030. In 2009, the Department of Defense rang up an energy bill of $13.3 billion. By comparison, the U.S. military uses as much energy as the African nation of Nigeria.

Of course the energy strategy was mandated by law in 2009. U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) also introduced a bill that would create a Joint Contingency Base Resource Security Project that would facilitate the efforts of the military services to pool their research efforts. With the Army developing hybrid vehicles and the DOD pushing renewable energy technologies, it’s quite possible it will have beneficial effects in the civilian market.

In the first six months of 2011, Americans spent more than $50 billion on fuel. With the economy still reeling from the shock of $4 a gallon of gasoline, the military’s campaign to develop renewable energy technologies may succeed in stemming the transfer of wealth to countries that don’t like the U.S. very much and reduce our carbon footprint. Only the Koch Brothers could argue with that.

A jobless prescription that fails to address the illness

2011-06-13T10:00:00.002-04:00

Paul Krugman and Todd G. Buchholz. One of these men is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. The other is not. And the one is not has the temerity to not only cavalierly blow off the Nobel Prize-winner’s explanation of the economy’s present woes but suggests replacing unemployment benefits with vouchers … umm a ‘signing bonus.’

Buchholz’s disconnect comes as no surprise. According to the ID tag line, he was a White House economic adviser to George H.W. Bush and a former managing director of the Tiger hedge fund. It’s not just that elected officials in Congress have put the needs of a few bond-holders over the needs of the many, it’s also the fact that job seekers are experiencing a systemic bias against the unemployed. The problem isn’t that the unemployed want to live on government benefits. The problem is that employers won’t hire them. A point made quite baldly recently by Sony Ericsson when it told job-seekers in a job listing "No unemployed candidates will be considered at all." An ad for Beacon Hill Staffing Group in Boston told prospective paralegals that “to be considered, candidates must be currently employed."

Some lawmakers, such as New York State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, have grasped the enormity of the problem and are considering legislative remedies to the problem. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is also taking a look into the issue to see how extensive the problem is and who, exactly, is being hurt (most likely minorities).

But with the Republican Congress playing chicken with the debt ceiling (and risking default) and engaging in “right wing social engineering” the prospects for any meaningful fix to the economy that benefits Main Street remains dim.

Clearly it doesn't take Nobel Prize-winning economist to see that the economy in general, and American workers in particular, are both in trouble. But the causes of the trouble are beyond Buchholz’s grasp. It’s easy to offer a solution for unemployment when you have a job. In the current environment, having a job is the only way to get a job. One can only hope that if Buchholz’s remedy is adopted, he’ll get a first-hand taste of unemployment and have to swallow is prescription whole.

GOP engineering a bureau's stillbirth

2011-06-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

The Daily Show - Exclusive - Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 1
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is set to begin its work on July 21. Despite Democratic support for Elizabeth Warren, Team Obama is considering naming a former banker, Raj Date, to head the bureau. But Congressional Republicans won’t have it. They are preparing to offer amendments designed to trap/spay/neuter the watchdog bureau before it can perform its mission: to protect consumers.

And while it may be a core tenant of conservatism that big government translates into lax morality, the irony seems lost on them that Wall Street bankers (whose morality was questionable at best) who played dice with the economy and got bailed out by the big government they decry will get a reprieve. Security and Exchange Commission rules that were supposed to go into effect June 16 as a result of the economic crisis will not go into effect. The bank lobby continues to fight against the bureau despite the fact that it might even help Wall Street long term interests. Of course this begs two questions: why is the GOP really fighting the bureau’s creation and whose interests are Congressional Republicans really serving?

Gate's farewell to NATO’s arms

2011-06-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

It was U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ farewell tour and his blunt-speaking stop in Brussels garnered a collective “meh” from America’s erstwhile allies. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has seen more action against enemies outside of Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall than it did during the entire Cold War. The irony being that it is probably less battle ready now against the enemies it presently faces (Taliban, Libya and Hezbollah) than it was when it trained against an enemy it never faced in battle (Russia and the Warsaw Pact). It also faces financial pressure with only five of the 28 member nations pulling their mandated weight. Some of the members are underperforming (Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands) while others (Germany and Poland) aren’t performing at all. In the meanwhile NATO member nations are experiencing ammunition shortages and are overly dependent on American capabilities.

The question that begs is whether NATO still has a purpose. When the U.S. drawdown is completed in Afghanistan, will NATO continue to hold together in the face of deficit reduction efforts in the U.S.? Without a unifying mission, will the military alliance give way to the tea and crumpets outing that is the mythical and oft proposed EU Defense Initiative?

Madama President

2011-06-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show - Christine Lagarde
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Madam Hillary Clinton is reportedly setting her sights on a new post, that of President of the World Bank. After several years of being America's top diplomat (a post that once was for the heir despairing to the U.S. Presidency) she's setting her sights on running the world body. Of course, this all comes with the standard denials. It seems quite likely that at this crucial moment in time, the two top finance chairs may give way to women, with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde actively campaigning for the lead role at the International Monetary Fund, the one vacated by Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who is currently cooling his heels in a $50,000 a month townhouse in Tribeca, Manhattan while waiting to go to trial).

In a season of alpha males behaving badly, maybe turning over the world's purse-strings to the ladies is for the best. Now if we just get America's alpha male U.S. President Barack Obama to get behind Elizabeth Warren get that small matter of her running of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau settled.

Is this thing on?

2011-06-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

After several months of neglect, Snarknoir is slowly coming back to life. Expect that the blog will rediscover it's footing. With the spreading gap between rich and poor, the continuing disintegration of the economy, alpha males behaving badly, Election 2012 and the approach of Green Lantern, The Avengers, and The Hunger Games there will be plenty of snark to go around.

Pakistan's crises, the world's problem

2010-08-23T17:00:00.006-04:00

Okay, so first Wikileaks confirmed for us that the Pakistanis are not our friends, having taken our money in one hand, and backing the Afghan insurgency with the other. Now we learn that the Pakistanis have been busy sinking peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government for their own petty national interests. And the Pakistani government is not the most trustworthy ally to begin with. But their pointless rivalry with India, especially in regards to Kashmir threatens to ensure that the region will remain unstable and all because the Pakistan govenrment feels the need to feel good about itself, especially at a time when it can ill-afford the ill will of the rest of the world. However, it's would-be Arab Muslim allies won't come to it's aid in this difficult time. In the wake of the recent floods, the European nations continue to send aid out of the goodness of their hearts and because it is the right thing to do. But with a 'friend' like Pakistan, how long can it expect to continue to count on aid from its Western allies when its effort to thwart peace in Afghanistan continues to get NATO troops killed?

Stay for 'The Other Guys' end credits

2010-08-10T19:24:00.003-04:00

If the movie "The Other Guys" turns out to be in any way memorable, it will be for these end titles. If these graphics don't get your stomach turning you either have scandal fatigue or you're not paying attention (or you're a clueless Wall Street investment banker, if so, you're not reading this blog anyway).

Total props to the gentle folk at Bleeding Cool. Thanks for sharing.