Yeti Menace

Prop 2 is a November ballot measure that seeks to prohibit the most abusive factory farming practices in California and ensure modest animal welfare standards for farm animals by allowing them simply to turn around and stretch their limbs.

“Thousands of Californians who care about preventing animal cruelty and promoting food safety have thrown their support behind Prop 2,” said Jennifer Fearing, YES! on Prop 2 campaign manager. “The opponents of this modest reform are just a handful of miserly corporate interests that put their profits ahead of consumers and animals. But real people understand that all animals deserve humane treatment, including animals raised for food.”

As of September 30, the YES! on Prop 2 campaign has raised approximately $6.6 million. The donations include funds from The Humane Society of the United States and nine other animal protection organizations, as well as nearly 17,000 gifts from individual donors, with an average gift of $134. Of the individuals who have donated, 63 percent are Californians.

On the other side, the No campaign has reported 172 donations from factory farming corporations, totaling $6.9 million for an average gift of $40,285. Only 36 of these donations, or 21 percent, came from California companies. The contributions come from some of the most disreputable factory farms throughout the nation that have a sordid history of abusing animals, damaging the environment, and misleading and gouging consumers.

Prop 2 is supported by The Humane Society of the United States, the California Veterinary Medical Association, the Center for Food Safety, the ASPCA, the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the United Farm Workers, Farm Sanctuary, the Cesar Chavez Foundation, California Council of Churches IMPACT, Republican and Democratic elected officials, hundreds of California veterinarians, family farmers, religious leaders, and many others.

For those of you who don’t know Paul Krugman, you should. Krugman is an economics professor at Princeton and a popular pundit who has appeared on virtually every major news program around. He has been on my must read list for many years now and I look forward to his insightful columns in the New York Times like an eight year old boy on Christmas morning. Krugman has been a fierce critic of the disastrous economic policies of the Bush administration, and some of his recent columns rip them a new one.

This morning Krugman was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics ”for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.” Congratulations, Paul, you are officially fucking brilliant.

My favorite moment in last night’s second presidential debate between Obama and McCain was at the end when McCain bumbled into the middle of the stage directly in front of Brokaw, obscuring his teleprompter and forcing Brokaw to ask him to move.

Arianna Huffington commented on this so eloquently in her morning post:

Brokaw might as well have been speaking on behalf of the future: Senator McCain can you please get out of the way so we can get on with it?

I could not agree more.

I think Obama did just what he needed to do in the debate: he held his own against McCain and proved he has a sophisticated knowledge of the issues of foreign policy. Granted, this is McCain’s strong suit, but Obama scored some zingers on him: “John, you refused to meet with the leader of Spain!” and “John, you act as if the war started in 2007!”

McCain is not to be underestimated in a debate. He has had a multi-decade career in public service and has gotten excessive face time on the Sunday pundit shows, largely due to the credit of the late Tim Russert. The interesting thing here is that this is not the John McCain of the past 25 years, this is FrankenMcCain with body and brain parts grafted on after being grown in some toxic neo-con vat.

The striking difference here was the demeanor of each of these candidates on stage: Obama appeared calm, collected and IMHO Presidential. He was gracious and level-headed while McCain was mean and smarmy, smirking paternalistically at an upstart youngster. Obama made a point of saying where he and McCain agreed on the issues even to the point of being complimentary; McCain never said one nice thing about Obama instead opting to claim repeatedly that Obama “doesn’t understand” X or Y issue, and repeatedly lying about Obama’s record.

There was a decisive display of character on show in Oxford last night, one that should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind the manner in which they will lead in the White House: Obama as even-tempered analyst and John McCain as erratic prevaricator.

McCain did as expected in the debate: he relied on his experience. But Obama shined, held his own and appeared far more down to Earth and in touch with the people and the issues that are needed to take us forward in the next 50 years, not back to the last 50.

Thanks to Zafar for pure inspiration for this post. Read his astute pre-debate analysis here.

Yesterday’s interview of Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin by Katie Couric is Palin’s definitive moment in the campaign. When viewed objectively, it can be seen as nothing less than the incoherent ideological ramblings and regurgitations of talking points spat from the lipsticked lips of a mediocre pol who has been cramming for a final exam, but forgot to attend class all semester. This is indeed the stuff of nightmares.

From the moment of her announcement I have been saying insistently that Palin is ignoblely unqualified to be VP, and by necessity, President of the United States. But her popularity soared, bouyed by her grim, mean, cynical and homely speech at the RNC. She’s a woman! She’s a governor! She’s a MILF! She’s a religious consevative from a red state! She’s a hockey-mom! She’s a pitbull! These are metonymical definitions that have no or little bearing on her fitness to serve. They are in any analysis irrational and irresponsible reasons to consider her capable of leading the country. Now we have proof: Palin fails so miserbly in the Couric interview it is painful to watch.

But the most important issue here is not the cult of personality surrounding Palin, it’s the fact that Sarah Palin is the one chosen by John McCain to be VP, and thus by design, second in command and first in line to be President. This was the first and most important decision of McCain’s campaign once nominated, and clearly he failed. In a cynical and erratic move devoid of oversight or depth, McCain foisted a running mate on his supporters that is unequivocally unqualified. This wrongheaded and dangerous decision flat out disqualifies McCain to be President. There is no rational explaination for electing him and risking the county’s leadership to someone so incapable.

As I write this, the debate has started. Tonight the country will know more about who to to elect. Let’s hope what happens in November ends the absurdity of what has become a political nightmare.

The McCain of today sayz: “I was against it before I was for it!” OK, so I’m paraphrasing… but hey, with this tricky guy, I can barely keep track… who knows what he’ll say next? Maybe…

“Evil must be defeated!” — John McCain 8/16/08

“Enough is enough! We’re going to put an end to greed!” — John McCain 9/17/08

via Chris Kelly @ HuffPost on how McCain is going to fundamentally change human nature.

There’s a giant sucking sound in Glendale and it’s sound of the Americana extracting what was left of all the air out of the the commercial retail market. This morning I was casually riding my bike to the dentist and I was struck by the ubiquity of the “For Lease” signs on empty commercial properties lying like frat-room beer empties all over downtown Glendale. The most glaring example of this is the vacant shell of the Barnes & Noble just a few blocks away. B&N moved it’s Glendale operation out of it’s anchor tenancy on Wilson & Glendale Ave over to Americana. In Glendale, this seems to be the trend.

To be fair to Rick Caruso and his $400M controversial behemoth Americana at Brand (I know, the name is horrific), the air has been leaking out of the Glendale commercial real-estate market for years, recently hastened by the “economic downturn” (i.e. recession). Just across the street at the Glendale Marketplace (yes, the place with the frogs… don’t ask) Linens & Things shuttered years ago only to be lured back this year to re-open… and then close again. Likewise downstairs from L&T, the superstore combo of Tower Records and CompUSA (f.k.a. GoodGuys) is totally empty… ouch! Looks like this Americana neighbor is the victim of 3 totally different business plans gone sour.

All I can say is if you are planning on starting a business in downtown Glendale, you better bring your own oxygen.

Last week the worlds biggest oil company Exxon-Mobil announced its largest profitable quarter ever, yet again. Hey, I have no problem with profits, but not at the expense of the taxpayer. Let’s face it, big oil is getting tax breaks, tax credits and government subsidies and we are picking ip the tab while they screw us for record profits. Does anyone really beleive the price of gas is going to drop? Why would any corporation stop making such profits when they don’t have to, and still get backed up by the government the way they do.

Now, all of you remember those “economic stimulus” checks we got this year as a tax rebate. This morning Marketplace reported on a study that shows that money predominantly went to spending on staples - gas, food and energy. What a surprise.

So, big oil wins again. The govenment gave us our tax dollars back so we could give them to the oil companies.

Congress has to have the political backbone to end the corporate welfare offered to the oil industrial complex. Can Obama lead us there?

It’s absurd to think that it’s the iPhone that is enabling and motivating my blogging…but it is. I know it sounds cliché to say that the iPhone is a life changing device, but let me be clear - IT IS. Many of my posts will be made from my iPhone, many directly from public transport.

Ah metablogs. I think this calls for a pic.

Out of my brain emerges Yeti Menace, my take on the world. Here is my blog, my contribution to cyber media whoredom. What is Yeti Menace, say you? Read the tag line…. memes * media * machines * mayhem. Yeti Menace is a blog of critical inquiry about ideas, the media, politics, technology, and the general chaos that I cause on a daily basis.

Beware the Yeti.

Beware the Menace.