MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

ITEM: New Jersey has banned electric car-maker Tesla from selling its cars in the state.

That now makes five (5) states that have explicitly banned Tesla from selling cars. The other four are Arizona, Texas, Virginia and Maryland. Other states have restricted Tesla’s sales in other creative ways, and others yet are trying to either ban or restrict Tesla sales.

Here’s a scorecard map from Forbes:



I recommend reading the article that goes with it.

The problem, technically, is Tesla’s direct-sales model. Many states require manufacturers to sell cars via a dealer. Tesla, as you may know, sells direct to buyers online. The showrooms that it opens are for display/test-drive purposes only.

This isn’t new, per se – Tesla has had to deal with regulatory obstacles for awhile now. But it’s probably no coincidence that auto dealerships nationwide have complained loudly about Tesla’s business practices and many have lobbied state governments hard to keep Tesla out of their respective markets, or at least limit its activities.

Even Tesla’s service policy is a slap in the face of tradition. Tesla charges a flat yearly rate for service, as opposed to dealerships who charge you per visit. According to Wired, car dealerships rely on service maintenance to stay profitable. And they don’t want Tesla succeeding to the point that they’re forced to adopt the same policy to compete.

As widespread as opposition to Tesla is, it would be a mistake to pin this on a specific political party. It’s more of a “money talks” issue, and Big Money has always been bipartisan.

But it’s remarkably hypocritical for Republicans like Chris Christie and Rick Perry to openly back protectionist measures like this – the GOP being the champion of Small Govt and Free Markets and all.

For what it’s worth, Newt Gingrich agrees with me. And it’s not often you’re going to see me type that.

As for Tesla’s viability as a company … who knows? That's kind of the point here. Tesla could easily fail as a company. Consumers could decide that dealerships are more localized and reliable, and Tesla could either go through dealerships or fold. And its cars might suck. So might its customer service.

But hey, why let the market decide, Jim? Car dealers and their politician friends have a far better idea of what’s good for consumers than you do. Obviously.

Not in my state,

This is dF

ITEM: Time magazine reports that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has been setting up phishing web sites that trick Democrats into donating to the NRCC.

Take this site for example, AnnKirkpatrick.com:



The URL is real, and it looks like a site for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who is running for Congress. But read the small type, and you’ll see it’s actually an anti-Kirkpatrick site asking people to donate to the NRCC.

Time says it’s found 16 such sites so far.

Here’s another one.



The NRCC is pretty unapologetic, says it hasn’t broken any laws because the site does state where the money goes if you look closely enough, and anyway it’s the Democrats’ fault for being dumb enough not to buy the URLs first:


Technically they have a point – it’s not technically fraud as long as you take the time to read the small print. And according to this story from Florida, if you do get duped, the NRCC will refund yr money (though it’s also like pulling teeth, reportedly).

On the other hand, the web site design is clearly intended to masquerade as a legitimate site at first glance. That and the fact that their defense is “technically it’s legal” indicates to me a clear intention to mislead – and see how many gullible Democrat supporters they can “legally” fleece. It might not be illegal, but it is devious, underhanded and a dick thing to do.

I don’t think it will make a big difference in the outcome of a given election, mind. But it does serve as a reminder that politics is a dirty game. The object is not to play fair – the object is to win. 

So the takeaway for me here is: caveat emptor and all that.

Consider yrself forewarned.

Always read the fine print,

This is dF

This seems inevitable [via Engadget]: A guy was ejected from an AMC movie theatre and questioned by the police for wearing Google Glass.


They eventually let him go after plugging the Glass into a computer, checking it for pirate material and finding none.

Obviously, there’s a story here about Google Glass and wearable computers and how such devices contribute to the digital world that already gathers data on all of us. And there’s also a story here about what this means for a movie industry that’s already freaking out about cameraphones.

But what really got my attention more was this statement from AMC about the incident:


Homeland Security?

Also, since when is the MPAA “on site”? I’m guessing the MPAA has stationed agents in every movie theatre in America to scout for pirates?

The MPAA has since claimed that it's official stance on Google Glass is “it’s not a threat”. Which doesn’t explain why the guy was yanked out of the theatre and interrogated for three and a half hours in the first place. (You can read the man’s side of the story here – evidently the whole thing could have been cleared up in five minutes but the feds kept getting him to try and confess to being part of a piracy ring and giving up his superiors.)

But then it’s hard to take anything the MPAA says seriously, given its track record of spectacularly inflated statistics “proving” that the interwub is destroying Hollywood and America – and keeps doing no matter how many times its studies are debunked.

Anyway, you know we’ve reached a weird, weird place when the MPAA (and the RIAA, for that matter) has convinced the DHS and the FBI that they need to drop what they’re doing every time they suspect someone is stealing their movie or record. Surely the feds are tired of it by now – especially in cases where the “evidence” also turns out to be largely fabricated to the point where the case falls apart under scrutiny and turn out to be a big fat waste of time and money. (See: the case of the music blogger who posted leaked Guns’n’Roses tracks, and the case of hiphop blog Dajaz1.com suspected of copyright infringement – in both cases, the FBI took action based solely on the word of the RIAA, which then stalled and stalled and utterly failed to produce the evidence of piracy they said they had.)

But apparently not.

FUN FACT: Hollywood’s box office take in 2013 was an estimated $10.9 billion – up slightly from $10.8 billion the previous year.

You wouldn’t hit a guy with Google Glass would ya,

This is dF

I do not recognize the authority of Black Friday.

However, I do recognize the authority of any film with both Boris Karloff AND Bela Lugosi in it.



To say nothing of a Karloff/Lugosi film whose selling point (apart from both of them being in it) is Lugosi supposedly being hypnotized to give a more convincing performance of terror.



Which is strangely metaphorical of the current Black Friday, in a way.

BONUS TRACK: There are many Black Fridays, you know. It says a lot that most people only know about the shopping one.

You got me hypnotized,

This is dF

This is a little old, so you may have already seen/heard it. But it’s new to me, and it’s worth trotting out under the circumstances. 



It says a lot when you have to point to Hitler, Caesar and the Spanish Inquisition to make yrself look like a good deal in comparison.

Though I’m not sure the rest of the world feels that’s a good excuse.

As you can imagine, round these parts the govt shutdown and squabbling over the debt ceiling isn’t being well received. Of course you expect China to be unamused – they always are – and hey, who cares what a bunch of Damn Commies think?

But I do think the shutdown has demonstrated to everyone who didn’t already know that America has somehow become the weakest link in a increasingly fragile global economy – and that link is under the management of two highly polarized parties, one of which is influenced by a batshit wing that seems convinced nothing bad will happen if we miss a payment.

Sure, we’re not Greece. But Greece isn’t the linchpin of an increasingly fragile global economy. And believe me when I tell you that every other country in the world is watching the shutdown argument and thinking, “THOSE are the dingbats we’re depending on – and investing billions of dollars in – to lead the Free World to global prosperity?”

Granted, we’ve been here before. And I do think that Congress will pull a deal out of its collective ass at the last minute. As usual. And it’s always possible that a year from now we’ll look back on all this and laugh. “Ha ha, that was a close one, Jim.”

But it’s getting harder not to think of the last lines in the above song:


Which is of course how we ended up here in the first place.

Disorder in the house,

This is dF

Meanwhile, deep in the catacombs of the Tea Party Citadel, the Koch Brothers give the order:



Ha ha.

I don't have a lot to say about the US govt shutdown currently in progress, but I do have one or two things:

1. Ted Cruz is a self-absorbed dingbat.

2. Dark City jokes aside, I don’t particularly blame the Tea Party for the shutdown, if only because govt shutdowns have been a growing American tradition since 1976. The WaPo has a nice brief history of them here.

That’s not to say the Tea Party’s fanatical opposition to Obamacare isn’t a factor this time around. I’m just saying, we’ve been here before, and well probably be here again. 

3. As for the impact, well, we’ll see. The real concern is whether Ted Cruz et al are willing to drag this out past the debt ceiling deadline. And they just might – many of them seem convinced nothing bad will happen if America defaults (it’s just another liberal lie – like climate change and evolution). Or maybe they figure if anything bad does happen, Americans will blame Democrats for jacking the debt so high in the first place. Or maybe they’re banking on Obama blinking first – which is something Obama isn’t likely to do because if he lets them get away with this once, they’ll do it again and again.

Anyway, stand by for Fun Time.

We’re closed,

This is dF

The minimum wage is back in the American headlines again, thanks to (1) fast food workers staging a protest asking for their minimum wage to be doubled, and (2) Fox News creatures saying incredibly stupid things about it. 

I’ll let John Oliver cover the latter, since I can’t possibly improve on it.






As for raising the minimum wage, as usual, the argument basically comes down to a disconnect between idealism and reality.

The conservative ideology tends to assume that America is this place where everyone has a fair shot at becoming the 1% as long as they work hard enough and long enough, and that a key way to ensure that they DO work hard enough and long enough is to give them incentives – such as, say, poor working conditions and not paying them enough to survive on.

The reality is that many minimum wage workers are not teenagers earning beer money but grown-ups with families to support, and more and more employers keep their workers part-time to avoid having to give them same benefits as full-time workers, and most new jobs being created right now are part-time. Combine that with the fact that minimum wage doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to, and it’s hard to justify keeping the current minimum wage where it is.

The other problem is that the “incentive” argument is basically an excuse to dismiss the people stuck in dead-end low pay jobs as losers or lazy people. In other words, “If yr poor, it’s yr own fault. Fuck you, lazybones.” The disconnect there is the assumption that everyone who gets work at McDonald’s and works hard enough will eventually get to take over the store (just like Neil Cavuto, kids!). The truth is that most minimum-wage workers will never achieve that, no matter how hard they work. Not everyone can win. That is how capitalism works. 

And the losers don't fade away like extras in a movie. They're still in yr society, and you still have to deal with them, one way or the other. And studies have shown it’s better to have more people who can afford the basic cost of living – even at minimum wage – than people who can't.

Also, this notion that doubling the minimum wage would make McDonald’s too cushy a job is the kind of thing you’d expect to hear from people who either have never had to survive on minimum wage, or did so back when minimum wage went a lot further than it does today, or suck at math.

According to my random math, someone making $15/hour and working 30 hours a week would be pulling in $1,800 a month, or $21,000 a year. That’s before whatever city, state and federal taxes he/she would have to deduct. And that’s assuming they do get 30 hours on the clock. On the bright side, that puts you above the poverty line, provided yr supporting a family of three or less. On the other hand, you’d have to be delusional or a Fox News commentator to call that “cushy”.

As for the other main argument – it hurts businesses, causes more unemployment and raises prices – well, that’s probably true to an extent. Look at all the CEOs freaking out over Obamacare which will raise pizza prices a whole 13 cents per pie! Similarly, doubling the minimum wage would boost the cost of a Big Mac 68 cents. Isn’t it worth denying people healthcare and a living wage and cutting their hours just so the rest of us can save a few dimes when we go out for pizza and burgers?

So yeah, it’s hard to be sympathetic to that line. That said, I am aware that while a huge chain like McDonald’s – which makes $5 billion in sheer profit alone – can afford to give hourly workers a decent raise, it won’t necessarily be as easy for small businesses with much thinner margins. So I do think that should be taken into account.

Which is why I suspect one outcome of the “double our wage” protest will be to make Obama’s proposed $9.00./hr raise look reasonable by comparison. It certainly looks more reasonable than most conservative arguments against it at this stage.

On the other hand, according to at least one study, if the object is to help poor people get by, it would be more cost-effective overall to give them a higher Earned Income Tax Credit than a higher minimum wage.

And for what it’s worth, the vast majority of America is in favor of raising it to $10.10. Which, incidentally, would work out to a little over $14,500 a year on a 30 hour work week.

Luxury!

Paycheck by paycheck,

This is dF

And now, here’s a very big infographic explaining the impact of media consolidation on the radio and television business.

For a start, it’s why Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson” is in rotation on at least one radio station in every city in America.

( Big graphic and wordy essay commence ... )

Meanwhile, here’s one more stat to chew on: while six companies may control 90% of broadcast media, the biggest media company in America (in terms of media revenue) isn’t even on that list. 

Who would that be, you ask?

Why Google, of course.

I want it all,

This is dF

ITEM: The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property submits a report to the US Congress summarizing the state of online piracy (essentially, it is horrible and costing the US economy "hundreds of billions of dollars per year") and recommending a solution: secretly use spyware and ransomware to catch infringers. 

Quote:


The best part is the bit that goes: “While not currently permitted under US law…”

That means they admit their suggestion is currently illegal, but it would be awesome if Congress could look into making it legal (pending “further work and research”, of course).

And as we’ve seen, Congress always seems up for cooking up a badly written Internet governance/copyright bill that will do more harm than good.

That said, they’ve generally failed at actually passing them. So the report’s recommendations may not go anywhere. 

Still it’s worth knowing that the RIAA and MPAA – who have been advocating a spyware option for several years now – still have managed to keep that option on the table.

Watch yr ass,

This is dF

The odds of me going to see The Great Gatsby are not very high, mainly because – quite honestly – I’m not a big fan of the book. I read it in high school, then I re-read it in college to see what I missed the first time, and generally I found it okay but too soap-opera-ish. 

But I did get the point of the book (at least the second time round) – namely, that it was a critique of the American Dream, the hypocrisy of high society, and what people will do to attain access to it and fit in.

So naturally, there is a trend of throwing Great Gatsby parties that basically miss the whole point of the book and celebrate the money-drenched decadence of Gatsby’s weekend soirees, according to The Atlantic:


And then of course you have the tie-in clothing promotions from Prada and Brooks Brothers and other designer brands. We went to Macau over the weekend, and inside the galleria of the Venetian I saw a few designer boutiques promoting the film and the fact that their clothing appears in it.

Even the hosiery gets a plug.



“You too can look like Jay Gatsby or a close personal friend of his.”

Granted, a lot of that is the usual film cash-in stuff. Also, regardless of how many wealthy people have (1) actually read the book and (2) got the point of it, they’re going to throw or attend lavish parties regardless of the theme, so why not based on TGG? In fact, in a way they kind of make Fitzgerald’s point for him. Throwing trendy parties that miss the point of the literature they're emulating is a very Gatsby thing to do. It’s like throwing a lavish Les Miserables theme party where everyone dresses like poor people – only not quite as tasteless.

(See also: hobo parties that make looking homeless and poor kinda jaunty fun. Like pirates!)

Still, the Atlantic piece does point out one other thing: part of the problem is that even high schools tend to teach TGG as a metaphor for striving for success, by way of the symbolism of the green light:


Res ipsa loquitur.

All this useless beauty,

This is dF