We were expecting TMQ to start up again soonish, and actually noticed that the first TMQ of the season went up last Tuesday. Unfortunately, some personal issues kept us from getting back into the swing of things until now. Future TMQ Watches will be posted on the same Tuesday as the TMQ, barring unusual and unforeseen circumstances.
And with that, let’s fill the chainsaw’s gas tank with two-stroke mix, pull the starter cord, and get going. Winter will be here sooner than we think.
Both Pop Warner and USA Football have adopted new rules that reduce contact in practice. Easterbrook sees this as a good thing:
“Brian Wilson, founder of the Beach Boys, a band that celebrated endless summer, turned 70.” In other news, people get old.
“The Oscar organization still insists on calling itself the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sciences!” Yes, Greggles, “Sciences”. Here’s a list of the scientific and technical awards that were given out this year. Perhaps Mr. Easterbrook would care to have a frank and open exchange of views with Douglas Trumbull as to the science of Mr. Trumbull’s work.
TMQ’s first cheesecake photo of the year, and we say “Meh.” We will have some better (in our opinion) cheesecake coming up later.
TMQ on Ohio State leasing out parking spaces:
We think that’s a really interesting number. We’re sure there are flaws in the calculation, but the margin of this post is too small to contain our work.
Easterbrook’s latest “creep” item seems to be based on the idea that anniversaries of coronations (such as Queen Elizabeth’s 60th) are analogous to wedding anniversaries; thus, calling Elizabeth’s 60th “the Diamond Jubilee” is wrong, since “Diamond” refers to the 75th anniversary. Of course, wedding anniversaries and coronations are not the same thing, and of course the precedent for this was set by Queen Victoria, but TMQ is not one to let facts spoil a “creep” rant.
“If the agency that enforces spending rules uses fake invoices to cheat on spending, is anything in the federal government honest?” And is there hope for TMQ? Is it possible that Gregg Easterbrook will catch on and start advocating for less government intervention?
More “Fringe” bashing. “TMQ thinks computer-generated special effects are ruining the movies, because when extended portions of films are obviously fake, the Hollywood magic is gone.” But TMQ liked “John Carter”; we won’t say “surprisingly” because the vast majority of people we know who did see it said it was, at the very least, not a bad movie. Many were much more positive than “not a bad movie”.
“Aging, grumpy guys like Limbaugh assume out-of-control carnality on the modern college campus, feel mad that they missed the party, and so accuse college girls of easy virtue.” As an aging, grumpy guy, I have to say that I noticed little to no “out-of-control carnality” on my college campus before I graduated this spring. Which is part of the reason I’m grumpy…
Easterbrook makes the SAT essay section.
“Just as Texas Christian University now is only TCU” Huh? The website still has “Texas Christian University” in the title bar, the school’s history page makes no mention of a name change from “Texas Christian University” to TCU, the footer at the bottom of the web pages says “Texas Christian University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, masters, doctoral degrees”, and the commission’s list of accredited schools as of June 2012 lists the school as “Texas Christian University”.
Don’t cry for me, print edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. It surprises us a little that TMQ did not call out the $70 a year price tag for web access as being a burden on poor families, nor did he mention how much a yearly library subscription costs.
We really don’t have anything to add here. We just wanted to repeat that list.
Curiously, TMQ doesn’t mention what documents Dr. Gleick stole. Here’s some background from the NYT.
We could make a snarky comment about TMQ’s “More Proof of the Decline of Civilization”. Truth be told, though, we have been convinced that Western Civilization is doomed since we were in high middle elementary school, so the impulse to snark isn’t really there. We will say that “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” strikes us as being a much better argument than any of the ones TMQ cites.
“Slate determined the pop-culture manifestation to have received the most serious-sounding academic study is not ‘Star Trek,’ not ‘Ozzie and Harriet,’ but ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.” We are curious as to how Slate determined that, but not curious enough to click through to Slate: we are convinced that Slate has taken up the “let’s publish outrageous and stupid stuff designed to get us pageviews” mantle made famous by Salon and the entire Gawker family of sites, among others. For further examples of this, we refer you to an article published in Slate last week, calling for Facebook to be nationalized. Really. We are not making this up: here’s a Forbes article that links to the original.
“A week after publishing a 256-page kiss-and-tell about her sex life, Rielle Hunter objected to ‘media scrutiny.'” That’s okay, Rielle, you don’t have to worry about that any longer.
“In Pakistan, there was corruption at a puppet theater.” With all due respect, TMQ, we’re talking about Pakistan. It is a Fifth World country. Corruption is more prevalent than oxygen.
“Penn State — How Much Worse Can It Get?” At this point, we’d say: probably not much worse. The only way we can see it getting worse is if the accusations that Second Mile was pimping young boys to large donors turn out to be true, and we are very dubious that they will. TMQ: “From the standpoint of the shame Penn State has wrapped itself in as an institution, rock bottom has not yet been reached.” We commend this entire item to your attention, as there are too many good points in it for us to quote. Just one more: “The Paternos do not appear to know the meaning of the word ‘shameless.’ Children were raped, and the Paternos seem a thousand times more concerned that people have stopped bowing low to them!”
“…rather than stand by disciplined use of words, The Associated Press now endorses sloppiness.”
TMQ objects to Tim Cook’s 2011 compensation, in the guise of kicking Mike Daisey around: “Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple, received $378 million in compensation for 2011. This is appalling avarice: Cook could have paid himself half as much and still been the highest-paid CEO in the United States!” Yes, but why should he have? “Recently The Wall Street Journal reported that Hon Hai Precision Industry, manufacturer of the iPad, pays workers about $345 per month. So if Cook had merely taken half as much, the money saved could have been used to double the wages of 46,000 Chinese workers. So which is more important, a better life for 46,000 people or greed for Apple’s CEO?” If Cook had taken half as much, would Hon Hai (which is not owned by Apple) actually have doubled their worker’s wages?
“Apple products are cool and offer value. But when the social equation is taken into account, Apple becomes disturbing. How did this happen to what was once a progressive firm?”
- What specifically is disturbing, and why? That Tim Cook was paid a wage agreed to by Apple’s board? That he received what both sides felt was fair compensation for his work?
- Why is Apple so often the target of these complaints, when, as we have seen, workers in Chinese plants making products for other companies (including Dell and HP) experience many of the same problems Chinese employees working for Apple suppliers allege?
- What does “a progressive firm” mean in this context, and since when has Apple been seen as one?
“…why is there Olympic badminton?” Good question.
“A jury heard a two-week trial over the ‘killing off’ of a character on a television show.” As he does so often, TMQ deliberately shades facts to make some sort of unclear point. The trial he speaks of was a wrongful-termination suit between the actress Nicollette Sheridan and the producers of “Desperate Housewives”. Does TMQ believe that actresses and producers are somehow less entitled to the protection of the civil court system than widget makers?
Executive directors, Muppets, and “sophisticated investors”.
“There was a fistfight at a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert.” Old news, TMQ.
“To twist on a Ronald Reagan phrase, government spending is not the problem: Government spending without discipline is the problem.” And the day that the government proves that it can spend with discipline is the day we stop voting the straight Libertarian ticket.
“The CIA ran help-wanted ads.” And the NSA was actively recruiting at DEFCON 20. Your point, TMQ?
Next week: “TMQ reveals his favorite Batman movie.” And we’re already having second thoughts about restarting this feature.