Wednesday September 26, 2007

- I don’t get the people who said Ahmadinejad shouldn’t have been allowed to speak. It’s like everyone completely forgot the entire Cold War, except for the whole winning part. Engage your enemies! Sure, we’re giving that guy more legitimacy on the world stage than he deserves, but we can’t pick other countries’ elected officials. (Well, we can, if you’re willing to watch thousands of soldiers die.) You embarrass them — and not by scolding them, like the jackass president of Columbia University did. You let them say crazy shit like “we do not have homosexuals in our country.” Yeah, he actually said that. We should have taken that guy all over the damn place. And, head’s up, economic sanctions don’t work. What are we expecting these people to say? “Because you won’t buy my exports any more, I’m going to stop being a repressive theocracy and give my people complete civil rights!”? Right. What you do is drop all those copies of Britney Spears’ trashy new album that no one here will buy on Tehran. Flood the zone with American “culture.” Sure, it’s not the optimal solution, but would you rather have them be shallow idiots or nuclear-armed xenophobic religious extremists?

- John Grisham’s latest novel, hawked tonight on The Colbert Report, has nothing to do with legal drama. Playing for Pizza focuses on a former Cleveland Browns quarterback, banished to play football for the Parma Panthers of NFL-Italy after choking in the fourth quarter of the AFC title game (versus Denver, no less). Speaking for Cleveland sports fans … are you some kind of sadist, Mr. Grisham? Not cool. You’re dredging up our collective traumas for profit? You’d better hope the Indians win it all this year if you know what’s good for you.

- As bad as that is, you could be in Michigan right now. The United Auto Workers, apparently intent on destroying the American auto industry even sooner than previously expected, are now in Day Three of their strike against General Motors. Essentially, the union is demanding that GM promise to not outsource any jobs — essentially preventing them from ever making money, since union contracts over the years have tied them down with absurd health and pension expenses (that GM was stupid enough to sign onto back when they thought they would forever be the unchallenged lords of the universe). There are five GM retirees for every two actual workers; $1600 of each car goes into paying for all the absurd benefits that the UAW stuck the automakers with. (Industrial unions in the US are the last vestige of the delusional socioeconomic model that the French adore: Demand absurd concessions from business and government, then shut the country down when they state the obvious fact that you’re fucking insane.) Of course, at the same time, GM executives are making tens of millions of dollars by basically siphoning blood off of a dying industry, so they’re not exactly angels among men either. They all have one thing in common: They expect the “system” to bestow great riches upon them for producing an inferior product. So honestly, I’m hoping the strike will never end and all three US automakers go out of business. We’d all be much better off (not immediately, granted … damn you, Keynes!). And yes, the state government there is about to shut down because of a budget crisis. Having lived through that here last year … it’s a fun time. Nothing like millionaire politicians fiddling as Rome burns. Here’s an idea: Government budgets of $0. It sure would cut down on the negotiations.