Batman sequal raises $100 million more than Barack Obama - will the media notice?

Batman sequel breaks box office records:

The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s gritty Batman sequel, raked in $155 million between Friday and Sunday, outselling the previous top weekend grosser, 2007’s Spider-Man 3, by more than $4 million and driving the movie business to a record $253 million weekend.

By comparison, Obama only raised $54 million in June  (revised downward here).

But both still BOMB compared to the million 3G iPhones Apple sold within the first three days of their release last month (estimated $200-$300 million)

I’ll have to ask the New York Times first, but is it OK to ask how we can afford to drop a half a billion bucks on ephemeral bullshit if our economy is in such dire shape?

All your innovation belongs to us

In a nutshell, this is the common theme of the 2008 election–one side insists that only the government can foster innovation and generate energy independence while the other acknowledges that private innovation has an important role, and should be justly rewarded.

McCain’s $300 million prize for car battery innovation earns nothing but scorn from the Democratics.

“The battery prize is another gimmick,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-San Francisco, said. “It doesn’t wash. We already know what we have to do right now: support renewable resources and support clean-car tax credits,” which McCain has voted against, she said

Barack Obama has also ridiculed McCain’s plan as a gimmick.

Sen. Barack Obama today ridiculed a proposal by his presidential rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain, to offer a $300 million taxpayer-funded cash prize to boost advanced battery research.

“When John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to put a man on the moon, he didn’t put a bounty out for some rocket scientist to win — he put the full resources of the United States government behind the project and called on the ingenuity and innovation of the American people,” the Illinois senator said in a speech in Las Vegas. “That’s the kind of effort we need to achieve energy independence in this country, and nothing less will do.”

Surprising, when you consider that Obama’s own proposals include similar cash “gimmicks“. Is Obama jealous because McCain beat him to the headline?

In 2004, the $10 million Ansari X-Prize competition gimmick was won by a private American company and sent an ordinary American into space. Twice.

In defending his recent pivot on receiving federal campaign funds for the 2008 election, Obama described the nature of his fundraising as a “parallel public financing system“, ostensibly because the involvement of so many small donors lends “public” characteristics to his campaign finances. Conversely, Obama suggests that as President he would dismiss a similarly-conceived “parallel public energy independence system” developed by anyone less than an activist federal government. How telling.

Reality check

I would imagine that voters this November will fall into two columns: those basing their assumptions on narrative, and those doing the same with factual information.

Hey! You know what would really be good right now to help ease gas prices? A windfall profits tax!

Senate Democratics attempt to ease supply concerns by, um, imposing an additional tax.

Finally: Democrat calls for nationalization of oil industry

Heat of the moment caught on tape:  Maxine Waters at her ignorant best.

Time to end our dependence on foreign fruit

Cincinnati-based Chiquita weighs the consequences of having to turn itself in to the DOJ for making illegal payments to terrorist organizations.

Wait, lemme check. . .

Yep. Living in Cuba must still suck.

Don’t these people understand they’re leaving some great healthcare behind?

Economy slowing?

It don’t think we’re quite here yet.

“Bush Unemployment at 5.0%- Bad… Clinton Unemployment at 5.4%- Good”

A tale of two unemployment reports from GatewayPundit. Witness the drive-by media’s tendency to hyperbolize an otherwise innocuous statistic in 2007 and their relative ambivalence in 1996.

Also:

“The economy is getting hit by some body blows. The big question is whether the economy can withstand it or will it take a fall,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

Doesn’t this sound familiar? The use of the term “body blows” is remarkable for the fact that it has most certainly been said at least a million times since right after the economy last righted itself in 2001. Here’s a sampling of manufactured hysteria employing this worn-out boxing metaphor:

2002 - Body blows from corporate scandals - “Corporate scandal could be the sucker punch that sends the economy reeling. ” . . . “The business bombshells that have rocked Wall Street could slow the nation’s recovery and shove the country back into recession, some experts fear.There’s only so much people will be willing to lose before they stop spending — and reverse the economic gains of recent months, experts said. ”

“Is this sequence of events big enough . . . to put us in another recession? My direct answer is yes, unfortunately,” said David Scott, an economist at the University of…
”

2005 - Big Hurricanes mean body blows to the economy - “Katrina and Rita are reaching for your wallet.

Prices at the pump, the cost of natural gas and electricity prices are all soaring. And they’re likely to head even higher thanks to the one-two punch of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita — an economic body blow that will have millions earmarking a much bigger chunk of the family budget for energy this winter.”

2005 - Increased outsourcing means body blows -”Has the rush to outsource high-tech jobs, and maybe more crucially, high-tech expertise, inflicted a body blow on Silicon Valley, and by extension, the U.S. economy?”

2005 - Higher fuel costs are more body blows - “Nevertheless, the unexpected surge in prices at the pump has certainly dealt a body blow to households–just in time for the critical back-to-school sales shopping season. Those sales are expected to drop as much as 8 percent this year. “

2005 - Housing worries conspire with higher energy costs to deliver body blows - “If the consumer gets weighed down by the combination of higher energy prices, the bursting of a housing bubble, and higher interest rates, you can forget about optimistic forecasts” for the economy and earnings next year, said Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Stephen Roach.

2007 - Subprime credit crunch and housing worries announce they will deliver body blows to US economy - “The battered real estate and home building markets took another body blow Thursday as a government reading showed a bigger than expected drop in new home sales, and the nation’s top builders posted large losses due to the weak market and took charges for the declining value of their holdings.” . . . “Part of the problem for pricing is rising mortgage rates and problems in the subprime mortgage market, both of which are raising the cost of borrowing for potential buyers and limiting how much they can afford to borrow.”

More recession porn

How about this–when we string a couple of negative growth quarters together, let’s talk about a recession.

Objectively portraying holiday sales

It’s not unusual for the NYT to take both sides of the story on the same page, I guess.

Plus, finding a way to scupper the GOP without dragging the economy down in the process.

A little early but,

. . . Howard Fineman says there’s real danger of Hillary losing all of the early electoral contests. My sense is that—he’s right. At some point, that which is already obvious to every reasonable person suddenly becomes newsworthy to those influential few who frame the important media topics of the day. Would the next Clinton presidency be a force for change (as claimed)? No–another Clinton presidency would be nothing of the sort! And how in the heck was Hillary as president ever characterized as inevitable? The sands have apparently begun to shift in the elite media.

Here are some other narratives waiting for the big pivot:

• The economy, despite empirical evidence to the contrary, is continuously attempting to find ways to self destruct. This was also a common theme during the 2004 election.
• There is a consensus about why our planet is undergoing climate change.
• The war in Iraq began with Bush’s illegal circumvention of the United Nations in 2003, and is a ill-conceived folly disconnected from the GWOT. I mean, ask Joy Behar.
• 47 million Americans don’t have health insurance. How embarrasing for such a wealthy country!

Politicians promise honest leadership and quick action on these tough issues. The media has the power to enable them, and actually create opinion. Is it too much to ask that they provide for a honest, public debate?