As a service to my DP readers, I am publishing (every Friday) a recap of news items which missed Slate’s radar scope. This week's items come from today’s (10/30) Wall Street Journal print edition. Special holiday bonus game today: try to find at least one Halloween pun in each news item.
10 – Checks and Balances, begone – Some of you probably cheered when Obama’s pay czar Kenneth Feinberg (yes, “Michael09” – he’s a jew) – announced banking pay cuts of 50-90%. But senators from New York, California, or other states that have large banking operations may have boo’ed. Turns out those pay cuts may be unconstitutionall. Mr Feinberg is not a cabinet level operative, and is thus outside the review, confirmation, or other normal control by the house and senate (Page A25). Some of you will still be laughing and saying “Effing so what?”. Here’s what: the next time there’s a republican in the white house, he might try the same trick, and appoint a non-cabinet level “public skool czar” who cancels school teacher contracts, or a “competitive advantage” czar who carves out a sub-minimum wage tranche of job classifications to cut unemployment. See the mischief unconstitutional precedents can set?
9 – No Child Left Behind fails to clear the bar – Admit it: you always knew standardized testing would spook poorly performing schools. Here’s the inevitable response – states whose kids performance has dead-ended are re-setting their “pass” standards about 20% lower than “good” states. Blue states (Mass, NY, California) generally held the line on high standards, while bible belt and red states were more likely to lower theirs. (Page A 3). My own state (Maryland) although blue-ish, lowered its standards to below NAEP recommendations. Next door, DC refuses to supply any information on what its testing standards are. At least I can feel good on a comparative basis, but it makes moving next door to Pennsylvania look more and more attractive. Lower taxes, too. I may at some point have to rename myself “Pittsburgh PieRat” . . .
8 – Green jobs already fleeing to China????? – If I told you I wanted to buy 36,000 ACRES of wind turbines, you’d probably high 5. If I told you the turbines would ALL be made in China, you might want to sit for a spell. Why China? In addition to the zombie like “lower cost” answer, Chinese banks are actually strong enough to finance the Billions of dollars in loans the American windfarmers need to complete their projects (Page A7) I guess we now have the worst of both worlds – our banks are too big to fail, but too weak and tied down with federal hearings to compete for this sort of lending. Will my next Hyundai be financed by a Seoul brother?
7 – I did not have sex with refuse to report on that woman – Since Slate has a policy against reporting on Secretary of State Clinton, I’ll provide the treats this week. Hillary is in Pakistan, and getting dissed by the new regime there. It seems they feel the conditions Hillary has attached to our $7.5 BILLION aid package might interfere with their nuclear weapons program. Plus, they made her wear a bright blue burkha – head to toe (full color picture available on Page A11) so that their sensibilities would not be offended by a normally dressed american woman. As longtime Fray readers will recall, I theorized last year that Hillary was more qualified and intelligent than Obama. My opinion appears to be validated here – I’m all for interfering with Pakistan’s policy of thermonuclear profliferation, too.
6 – Fake Bouquet expected to sell for $4 million – I swear, I’m not making ANY of this stuff up. Some guy named “Jeff Koons” has hired Christie’s auction house to sell his fake vase of roses and daisies for $4 Million (page W1). This looks like something you could order fromFTD, albeit high end, for around $100-$150. Let’s see – at $150 a week for fresh flowers, the Koon’s “art” will pay for itself in only 513 years – long after I’m in my grave. And that’s not counting the fact that fake flowers are “green” and don’t add to our C02 woes when we discard them each week. And in case you’re wondering, yes Mr. Koons is a LIVING artist, and apparently single. I’d love to marry a guy with that kind of chutzpah.
5 – Will this reverse his decline in the polls though? – Showtime and HBO are BOTH showing documentaries next week (an election week) on how great the 2008 democratic convention was, and how awful the republican convention was. And don’t assume these are hack jobs – Showtime hired famous director Barry Levinson (“Diner”, “Tin Men”) to do theirs. (Page W2) To be honest, since I haven’t seen them yet, I’m only theorizing that these documentaries will put a halo around Obama’s head and claim Mr. McCain is the spawn of the devil. But does anyone want to bet against it?
4 – Life Imitates Art – You many remember NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal from films such as “Steel” where he portrays an armor plated crime fighter. (You may NOT remember him for Cleveland’s season opener against the Celtics this week, though). Now Shaq’s publicist has announced Mr. Kazaam is completing 30 hours of training to join the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) sheriff’s force. (page w5) What is the thought process here? Shaq doesn’t feel fulfilled by his NBA duties, and would like to dodge gunfire to add some excitement to his life? (“Duck, Shaq – you’re too big a target. Oh damn . . . officer down”). Do they make police costumes on Shaq’a size even? (“Size 66 extra extra extra tall”). Do they lower the seats or raise the roof so he doesn’t hit his head on the ceiling of the police cruiser? I can keep doing this all day, you know.
3 – Science deniers alert – Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has drafted a bill to stop the National Science Foundation from the grave problem of spending its money on “political science” stuff. What a killjoy – who’s to say that giving money to an organization like Acorn is worse than actually finding a cure for cancer, or batteries that don’t destroy the planet when they die? (Page W11). How does a “political science” lab experiment work, anyway? Would it be like “robot chicken” where they take senators and turn them into Borg-like autonomons? Oops – somebody already did that, it appears.
2 – A gamble that paid off – If I asked you to name America’s most hard luck city, Detroit would probably bury Chicago for first place votes – the loss of GM, the haunting spectre of entire neighborhoods deserted. Unemployment of 29%. What do all these jobless people do with their free time? Gamble, apparently. Casino taxes supplied almost $200 million to the Detroit city budget in the past year. (Page B1) While Detroit doesn’t have the cachet and allure of Vegas, Tahoe, or Reno, neither did Atlantic City at the start. Motor city may be missing an opportunity to rebrand itself as the gaming (and prostitution) capital of the midwest. Face it, those assembly line jobs are dead and gone. And who wouldn’t rather stroll around in a bunny costume, serving drinks to visiting Chinese windfarm oligarchs, than operate a TIG welding unit for pickup truck subframe assemblies?
1 – This is why your cellphone bill is so high – Patty Kluge (unsure of her ethnicity, Michael09 – check it out and report back please) is selling her home for $100 Million. Not that she needs the money – she’s a Billionaire many times over, inheriting a fortune from husband John, who made his bones in the cellphone industry. Why does she think her digs are worth 10 to the power of 7? The Manse has 13 powder rooms!!!. And they say adding an extra bath when you remodel doesn’t pay off. (page W8). Just a theory here – but I betcha Mr. Kluge paid himself more than all the bankers in America – and no czar was ever appointed to bring HIS compensation back to earth. But most people willingly pay a lot more for text messages (“H8 GM”) than their checking account each month, don’t they?
