Thanks, Al

     In February 2004, Greenspan "suggested [homeowners] take out adjustable-rate mortgages," notes James Grant in a Forbes Column. "Many did--and are discovering that their disposable income, after mortgage payments, is adjusting to the down side." [!!]

    Grant makes a convincing bull case for gold: helicopter Ben, who famously apologized to Milton Friedman for causing the depression, will not tighten the money supply in the face of falling house prices.

You do not want to go down in history as the scholar of the Great Depression who inadvertently steered the highly leveraged U.S. economy into Great Depression Part II. You will be slow to tighten monetary policy when home prices are deflating, let the cpi be what it may.

neology 101

On the MTV movie awards, Jim Carrey says he coined the word "statusphere" last night demonstrating his god-like powers. One problem: as the briefest googling indicates, Tom Wolfe has already invented the term.

Gore proves his case

Amazingly, the awkward, wonky automaton who, in a former life, was routinely ridiculed for the absurdity of claiming to have invented the internet, has now been reborn as the darling of the media. By now—having seen the press’ universal outpouring of adulation for An Inconvenient Truth—one may wonder by what strange powers Gore has transformed himself.

The answer, quite simply, is the iBook. Throughout the film Gore has his trusty Apple-brand computer, proving him to be both sensible and stylish. In fact, Gore’s transformation neatly parallels the current Apple TV commercials. In the past, when Gore was using Windows, he was the geeky spaz in the suit; now, he’s the cool unshaven young dude.

As a whole, the documentary makes an incredibly powerful case that the “former future president of the United States” (his words) constructed his entire slide presentation using his Apple iBook. Skeptics will be hard-pressed to challenge the mountain of factual evidence Gore brings to bear on this point. For instance, he is clearly shown using his iBook on a train, at the airport, in a plane, in the back seat of a limousine, even on the window-frame of his hotel room. Gore wields the touchpad of his ubiquitous machine with savvy aplomb—scrolling, selecting, and dragging pictures with ease. Most amazingly, the documentary provides indisputable proof that Gore simply plugs and plays that very same iMac into the projection system in the auditorium where he presents the slide show. Pre-production to popcorn.

Even when he’s not using his iBook, Gore establishes credibility by carrying it with him into important places. In one scene where he investigates the resume of a Bush administration official, he deftly handles his Treo handheld while steering his Apple to the website of the New York Times. Of course, the best thing about owning an iBook isn’t hardware or software, but an entire lifestyle and way of being. An Inconvenient Truth drives this larger point home solidly. The movie’s finest moment is when Gore crashes a nuclear submarine through the polar ice cap to test its thickness. In other highlights, our hero flies to the icy cliffs of Antarctica; makes friends with Carl Sagan; and rides a hydraulic lift while shooting a laser. Top that George Bush!

Al Gore Turns Up the Heat in An Inconvenient Truth; Boils Frog

by Melissa

Like a fine wine, he’s complicated, sophisticated.  You need to take more than just one sip to figure him out.  Joyriding on a nuclear submarine = downright fun.  Evolution of the modern day steam shovel = just plain wrong.  Who needs a steam shovel when you have a gaucho and a burrow?   

And while some might say Al Gore’s taunting of American auto makers, “See, even the Chinese are doing better than you,” is racist, I say it’s no more disparaging than telling your kid he better shape up before Paul the retard passes him in class. 

As the Al vignettes show, he’s also strong and optimistic.  There was no shortage of political silver linings to his family’s personal tragedies. 

Al Gore is a modest man.  Having your whole world flooded is, some would say, indeed most would, much more than a inconvenience.  It’s at least irksome, if not down right annoying.  Inconvenience is having to bear witness to a presidential inauguration when you secretly believe you are president, having to go through airport security like a commoner, totaling the family car at the tender age of 14, having to sit through a slide show about fun-facts from the fifties, or being the boss of Daewoo and having to forfeit 22 billion dollars. 

He’s also an educator and master story teller.  Basically, what one learns is that Greenland poses a serious threat to the security of the United States.  When Bush made a decision to invade Iraq and build a Mexican fence, how could he have known that this whole time, the greatest national security threat that we may ever know has been staring in the face: a possible Greenland meltdown, and with it, the lives of over 100 million people.  The great responsibility, the heavy burden Al must have felt in crafting this important message, indeed warning.  I can picture him sitting in from of his iMac struggling, “How am I going to get this point across?”  And then, inspiration, “I know,   I’m gonna boil a frog…first fast, then slow.  That’ll show them.”  Bravo, Al.  A single tear rolled down my cheek when I realized the Coca-Cola polar bear had nowhere to go.  So sad, so cold.  Goodbye sweet angel. 

This movie is his strategy to boil the republican’s frog.  Pathos, gravitas.  Patient pathos, Al Gore has eons of pathos, and the charts to prove it. 

So in sum, charts, iMac binky, polar bears, nuclear submarine rides, Gore family tragedy vignettes, tobacco farm summers, all good.  Monster shovels, having to go through airport security, World Trade Center Memorial being slowly flooded by the deadly waters of nefarious Greenland (we’re on to you), very bad. 

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