Super Bowl Sunday: Links

by: Eric B.

Sun Feb 05, 2012 at 11:49:52 AM EST

There's loose talk in sports circles that the people responsible for the NFL entertainment product wish to extend the season by two weeks. That's two more weeks of meaningless storyline hype, nonsensical analysis, football-related advertising so stupid it makes the brain hurt, and overconflation of what should be a fucking game with a symbol of the state of things. It also means two more weeks in which players could suffer career-ending injuries. But, if it means pumping more money into the NFL entertainment product, it's not like we don't have more worthy places to devote those resources (roads, health care, modern electric infrastructure, the arts, etc...).

Onward!

*--The Detroit News launches a broadside against the minimum wage under the guise of concern trolling Willard Mitt "Mittens" Romney. As usual, it's filled with cherry picking facts (unemployment rates among young and minority workers vs. overall employment trends tagged factlessly not to overall changes in the labor force but to select policies the paper wishes to denigrate) and bland assertions not only unsupported by facts but that fly in the face of basic economic theory and 20 years of experience (reducing business costs, not finding ways to increase demand for goods and services, creates jobs).

*--Brian Dickerson bemoans that anyone who didn't see the Komen controversy coming is perhaps naive. It is a very sad thing that a simple thing like fighting to reduce breast cancer mortality rates has become politicized, but let's at least agree who is chiefly responsible for this. Who would I tag for that? A prime example comes by way of reader response to a column I wrote saying much this same thing. One of our local pro-Life people thought the proper thing to do was inform me that a few breast cancer deaths, by way of taking away "free" cancer screenings from poor women, is a small price to pay in the larger war fought on behalf of the unborn. We could have both, but one side of the political spectrum isn't interested in that. What say we not pretend that all sides are equally guilty of that?

*--Local governments and schools (and, no doubt, other educational institutions) have hands out, looking for more cash. How does budget director John Nixon answer? "... We still have to make tough decisions because, if you had four or five times the amount or revenue we had, you still couldn't meet all the requests that are out there, and all the need." If four or five times the amount of revenue coming in couldn't address all the needs, why in hell did they cuts revenue by $1.8 billion last year?

*--Do you know how Peter Hoekstra's gambit to buy Super Bowl ad time works? If the political media pretends, as it did in 2010, that political advertising are legitimate campaign topics, creating a buzz that returns much more on investment. They aren't just hoping to buy Tee Vee time. They're hoping to also buy pixels in the political columns. Note to state's political media ... you got played for fools in 2010. If it happens again, you have only yourselves to blame.

*--Speaking of cuts to funding, a project at MSU that everyone agrees could be transformative and important may not get federal funds. Why? Because of the deficit caused to large extent by financing economically worthless tax cuts during two wars, and by pretending since that the deficit was caused by money spent weatherizing homes for the poor. This is the face of austerity spending. I hope you like it, because it's your date to the prom.

*--America's shoutiest mayor completes his transformation from one-time gubernatorial candidate into cosmic joke. Last week at this time, his office was sending on press releases hailing one of those lists in which Lansing was named one of the greatest places since sliced bread. By the weekend, someone issued a different list, to which Hizzoner responded, "Who takes such lists seriously?"

*--The USDA releases its latest list of Michigan's garden hardiness zones. We're getting warmer, and the story is filled with anecdotal evidence from long-time gardeners about how once-frail plant species are now better able to handle an increasingly toothless Michigan winter (come on, folks, I remember when winter lasted from mid-November until late March). The USDA says, however, that you shouldn't believe your lying eyes and think that winters are becoming increasingly moderate. Me? I just harvested the last of my Brussels sprouts last week.

*--This is nothing new, and not even associated entirely with Michigan, but it is the outgrowth of years of advocacy from places like the Detroit News. Tea Party activists believe that environmental projects and policies are all U.N. plots. Why would they believe something so asinine and crackpot in nature? Because of the likes of Detroit News doodler Henry Payne, who've said as much.