Adios to the Ohs

By most standards of assessment, the last decade was more disappointing than the fact that Bill Paxton, essential comic relief to any James Cameron film, did not make an appearance in Avatar. Obviously, war is never a good thing, even if necessary, and a shit economy doesn't help matters either. However, a depressed society usually produces some very interesting culture (think of all the punk bands that started when Jimmy Carter was in office). But unfortunately, even the music in this wretched decade was downright terrible as Wek has already pointed out.

I thought this Seattle Times editorial summarized it all up pretty well. And I recall a quote from Fight Club (a 1999 movie) that was sort of a precursor to this decade:

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables — slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Well, we got our war and sort-of depression alright, but I'm not sure how it's all going to end up in the end. Maybe we'll turn out alright, and even if we don't, it's more enjoyable to live in the decline of an empire than the rise of one. Just like Caligula.

Hipster Goes Mildly Repentant on DC Snowball Incident

Pic from SD Headliner

Most people grow out of snowball fights somewhere after the age they find out Santa Claus isn't real, but before the age where they realize that women have a thing called boobs. But that didn't stop dozens of DC cool kids from arranging a snowball fight online, and subsequently pelting a police officer with snowballs. A gun was drawn, inevitable pants-wetting happened, and it became a big brouhaha on the internet.

Now, the guy detained speaks out, surprisingly, in a Washington Post column about his respect for the law:

That means respecting the power of the police to break up a snowball fight at a busy intersection (and detain those, like myself, who they have reason to believe are subverting that authority).

But, unsurprisingly, he makes it clear that he and his group of peers are better than everyone else:

I suspect that many of the snowballers were, like me, young, well educated and politically active. Demographics suggest that a strong majority of them support new laws on climate change and health care.

Yeah well, I suspect that many of the snowballers think they're doing God's work in DC, have never worked an honest day in their lives, voted for Obama, and don't see any problem with humiliating a regular guy just doing his job such as the detective.

Through the Ruins of Detroit

Pajamas Media takes a trip through the city of Detroit with complete footage of abandoned buildings doubling as heroin galleries (not hard to find in Motown). He doesn't examine the riots and turbulent race relations causing problems for the city over the last 40 years, but I think he hits on the other points rather well (greedy unions, monstrous entitlement programs, etc.)

Honky-Land

There's an interesting article at New Geography that has angered progressives which challenges the assumptions on America's liberal bastions (Portland, Denver, Seattle, etc.). The author cites facts and figures which concludes that all the cities hipsters love to champion have more crackers than a Jack Johnson concert:

This may explain why most of the smaller cities of the Midwest and South have not proven amenable to replicating the policies of Portland. Most Midwest advocates of, for example, rail transit, have tried to simply transplant the Portland solution to their city without thinking about the local context in terms of system goals and design, and how to sell it. Civic leaders in city after city duly make their pilgrimage to Denver or Portland to check out shiny new transit systems, but the resulting videos of smiling yuppies and happy hipsters are not likely to impress anyone over at the local NAACP or in the barrios.

I would humbly suggest removing barriers and red tape to small businesses for urban revitalization, which seems to have been doing a good job in facilitating newly-arrived Americans to overcome poverty ever since Jamestown was founded in 1607. But, I don't have a Masters in Urban Planning, and I'm sure all those Green Jobs and more bike lanes that progressives love to champion will help the Latino immigrant community achieve middle-class prosperity.

Now That's a Crowd

More Funnies Over at TAH

Jonn from This Ain't Hell was at the rally and has some good photos, along with some shots of LaRouchers do whatever the hell it is Lyndon LaRouche people do. El Marco has some great ones too. But, overall, the theme of the massive DC tea party seems to be less "Teh Crazy" and more about a grassroots uprising against the past 8 months where Obummer has put America on a pretty dangerous path towards collapse. Matt Welch has a good report and puts the crowd in 6 figures (it doesn't look like the inauguration did, so I'm a tad skeptical of Malkin's 2M number), but what do I know, I wasn't even in-country?

Despite lame characterizations by the Obots that this was some redneck hate fest, Matt Welch offers some better insight:

Nineteen out of 20 signs were hand-made. My favorite was "Stop spending our tacos. I love tacos." The most popular were variations on "Don't tread on me," "You lie," complaints about Obama's "socialism," warnings about the 2010 elections, references to the deficit or big spending, critiques of Obamacare, and (especially) cracks about various czars (including not a few that equated czars with Soviet Communism). Godwin's Corollary was satisfied on multiple occasions, including "Hitler gave great speeches, too," "the Nazis did national health care first," and someone comparing Obama's 2009 with Hitler's 1939 (alas, we didn't get to ask him whether America was about to invade Poland). Michael Moynihan did have a nice chat about George Marshall with the fellow holding a sign saying "McCarthy was right." There was an "Obama bin lyin," "Feds = treason," "Birth certificate," and "Glen Beck for president." Greatly outnumbering such things were references to the constitution, taking our country back, and so forth.

Pretty good and straight up observations, so read the whole report. Or you can head over to the far-left Americablog where Joe Sudbay comments with disdain "this wasn't the healthiest looking group of people who were descending on the Capitol" while he was on his "15 mile run". He's definitely holding up the progressives are smug douchebags stereotype, although pushing a politically-correct lifestyle on to everyone else has been a goal of liberalism for as long as I can remember. I wish some of these luminaries would self-examine their own policies that have been dominating America's politics for the last 8 months and ask themselves why so many Americans would spend their weekend marching on Washington.

Proud to Be

Can't go wrong with an American flag on this day. The Sniper goes with the more politically incorrect "Fuck You Haj", but he's just saying what we were all thinking on 9/12/01.

Well At Least It's Not the LA Riots

Obama has backpedaled on his initial comments of the Cambridge police officer who arrested the Harvard professor. No problem, everyone has a gaffe, even messiahs. In my opinion, the case seems to be more about society's elite thinking the law doesn't apply to them and they don't have to explain themselves to lowly-paid guys with their names on their uniform. Kind of like the people who whine about having to take their shows off at the airport, but I digress. The Cambridge mayor didn't even stick up for one of her police officers, which shows that it must be swell to be a cop in that city. Police are tasked with probably the most essential task in ensuring a civil society, and I wish more people would drop this adolescent bullshit of always blaming them without giving a little benefit of the doubt. The media is attempting to re-ignite the racial profiling debate, but I don't think it's as big a deal as their making it, and it'll drop off the news cycle once some other governor gets found indiscretely boning. As long as there's no LA riots ripping society apart at the seams, I think we will carry on as a nation, however imperfect.

The Evil Roundabout Empire

So some poindexter who writes books about the exciting world of traffic engineering uses a bunch of facts and figures to discuss why we should surrender our sovereignty and allow the roundabout to be a mainstay on our roads. Despite the fact that trying to walk across one of these monstrosities is a death sentence, he's obviously never seen a little movie called National Lampoon's European Vacation.



This and another annoyances that make you want to shoot yourself in the face will be coming soon to a backed up traffic circle near you.

So It Has Come To This in England: The Green Gestapo

Pic Borrowed From Zipline

They're not billing this new greenie enforcement agency across the pond as the "Green Gestapo", but it sure does sound like it. Decked out in green jackets, the ability to barge in on private property, shaking down factories for their power readings, do they think these companies are akin to the Fratelli Brothers hideout or something? From The Times:

Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation at the Environment Agency, said the squad would help to bring emissions under control. “Climate change and CO2 are the world’s biggest issues right now. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is one of the ways in which Britain is responding.”

The formation of the green police overcomes a psychological hurdle in the battle against climate change. Ministers have long recognised the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions, but fear a repetition of the fuel tax protests in 2000 when lorry drivers blockaded refineries.

This is just more evidence that environmentalism seeks to appease its own eco-guilt/juvenile emotions instead of actually improving society at large. Yes indeed, there is a need to improve emissions standards and air quality through engineering innovations and established science. But, for too long the environmental movement has been dominated by green-chic busybodies and politicians who make ridiculous promises of energy independence through solar panels and windmills to win elections. Nevermind the fact that countries have developed from subsistence farming and a generally lousy quality of life by exploiting fossil fuels. Countries rapidly modernizing like China and India need serious engineering solutions, not calls for more bike lanes and Al Gore bumper stickers.

Note: Wired had an interesting article last year about how environmentalism was too important to be left to the environmentalists and their bizarre cult of Gaia-worship.

Smokin' Prez Signs Anti-Smokin' Bill

Do as I say, not as I do! Obama has signed the Family Smoking Prevention Act into law which allows the FDA to regulate smoking thereby putting America further on the path to utter uncoolness. This is great news for large tobacco companies, because no competing companies will be able to invent new refreshingly, smooth products for the 21st-century. Reason explains:

Today President Obama plans to sign the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products. In Friday's New York Times, business columnist Joe Nocera blows kisses at former FDA chief David Kessler, anti-smoking activist Matthew Myers, and former Philip Morris executive Steven Parrish for their roles in producing the law. Calling it "a demonstrably good thing," Nocera tells this trio of "unlikely partners" to "take a bow, fellas."

Although Nocera acknowledges "critics" who say FDA regulation will serve mainly to protect Philip Morris' market share, he assures readers they are a "small minority." Yet he does not bother to address their arguments, and his case for the law supported by Kessler, Myers, and Parrish is based almost entirely on the unexamined assumption that more regulation is always better.

Also, Gallup polling shows that a record-high number of Americans (17%) can't mind their own goddamn business and want smoking to be made "illegal", even though the percentage of smokers is at an all-time low since Jamestown was founded in 1607. They must be getting their anti-smoking paranoia from the Thugocracy in Iran which has been getting a lot of press lately.

Cry Me a River: Brooklyn Hipsters Moving Back in with Parents

Compliments of Look at This Fucking Hipster

Thanks to PJs for pointing out this article which I missed last week. Apparently, hard times in America have forced parents to stop subsidizing their precious little art school dropouts loafing about in NYC. From NY Times:

Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city’s most radical gentrifications in recent years have stopped buying their children new luxury condos, subsidizing rents and providing cash to spend at Bedford Avenue’s boutiques and coffee houses.

For 18 months after graduating from Colby College, Jack Drury, 24, lived the way many Williamsburg residents do: He followed his passions, working in satellite radio and playing guitar. He earned money as a bicycle messenger and, on occasion, turned to his parents for money.

It's about as difficult to have sympathy for these skinny-jeaned layabouts as the "Funemployed" and the bankers' girlfriends who can't get anymore bottle service...especially since people younger than them are dying for our country.

Maybe they should consider not living in the nation's most expensive city or take my father's advice of "Get a Job, You Bum". But knowing these people (and don't deny they all voted for Obama) they're just waiting for their share of the stimulus pie.

Grouchy Old Professor Badmouths College Kids

For those of you college-educamated, what comes to your mind when you think of your alma mater? Sure there were some fun times, but I recall tests that were impossible to finish unless you were the robot from Short Circuit, staying up until 2am doing homework with fellow under-sexed workaholics, and shedding that teenage hubris of "Maybe, I'm not as smart as I thought". But, Abraham H. Miller, an Emeritus Professor from somewhere, argues that the whole college experience is phonier than an Iranian election, and, unlike me, he comes armed with more than just personal anecdotes. From PJs:

At the end of four years, many students simply learned how to manipulate the system. Almost anytime I taught a course that required a prerequisite, most of the students did not possess the prior knowledge. The Internet provided a vast array of opportunities for cheating that further compromised learning. And while there is software that checks for plagiarism, students know how to defeat this. Besides, professors want to catch plagiarists as much as sanctuary cities want to arrest illegal aliens. A student can avail himself of a due process system that will consume a professor’s time and end with a slap on the wrist.

After all, plagiarism is as common on campus as promiscuity, drugs, and binge drinking. The ukase from the higher administration during finals week usually reminded us what it really was all about: as the campus community embarks on finals week, we encourage the entire faculty to remember our strong and vital commitment to retention.

You didn’t need a Ph.D. to interpret that memo.

There's a certain get off my lawn tone here, but maybe he is onto something by suggesting that more folks go to technical school or community college part-time while they learn a real job. Really, how many more fucking lawyers and MBAs do we need?

Massive Cultural Empire...Not So Much

That is a picture from the Washington Post of Mark Apram, Baghdad's "most popular tattoo artist", who is proud to say "Anything American, I love it" (h/t Tom Bowler). Well, the Iron Maiden "Killers" shirt is British, but you get the idea. With this bold proclamation that didn't even involve throwing a show, you know he's not winning any friends in the American liberal community. The WaPo has an extensive article of how even though American forces are pulling out of cities, the cultural influence will have a lasting effect:

But the whispers may linger just as long -- the far quieter way in which two cultures that often found it difficult to share the same space intersected to reshape Iraq's language, culture and sensibility. From tattoos of Metallica to bellybutton piercings, from posters for a rap concert in Baghdad to stories parents tell their naughty children in Fallujah of the Americans coming to get them, the occupation has already left its mark.

The big benefit of cultural globalization is that the people have the freedom to choose how they live their life from a variety of trends rather than ones dictated by the state and religion. Reason had a huge article celebrating this phenomenon late last year. They've got metalheads in Iran, you can't go in a club in Southeast Asia right now without hearing "Poker Face", and even communist Laos has it's own Gangsta Rap outfit. Usually when you hear overeducated people talking about how America is "culturally imperialistic", it's because their culture of Segways, organic food, and self-righteous attitudes isn't the one being exported. Besides America is just a cultural stew of the rest of the world after all, who are we to judge what people can't pick and choose.

And the Award for Freest State in the Union Goes To...

...New Hampshuh!

Their license plate slogan is no joke, because New Hampshire got ranked the #1 state for freedom by a recent George Mason University study. From Newsmax:

The study, which calls itself the “first-ever comprehensive ranking of the American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres,” made a host of findings:

-The freest states in the country are New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place. All three states feature low taxes and government spending -- and middling levels of regulation and paternalism.

-New York is the least overall free by a considerable margin, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland.

Full text of the study, which was based on economic, social, educational, and personal freedoms. I was rather surprised that Nevada didn't rank higher, because a similar Reason study last year put Las Vegas as the #1 freest city. The George Mason study also points out that bluer states might be more concerned with Abu Zubaydah's civil liberties, but fall short with their own citizens by over-regulating everything from homeschooling to seat belt laws to taxes on cigarettes. I can attest that it's harder to find a place to buy beer in Maryland (ranking a Stalinesque #47 for freedom) than at a Mormon singles ward.

The small state of New Hampshire has produced everything from true fiscal conservative Senator Judd Gregg to punk rock madman GG Allin. So who else would you expect to be #1?

Straight Outta Lancaster, NH You Scum Fucks

The Great Tea Party Freak Out

At first the whole Tea Party phenomenon sounded a little dull. I mean, how do you compete in the laughs department with unhinged hippies protesting in trees like a bunch of Ewoks in Phish shirts? But the Media Matters Alinskyites have dispatched their army of flying monkeys to discredit the protests as mobs of Timothy Mcveighs. Huffington Post is gearing up their "investigative journalism" division to find the lone nut comparing Obama to Satan. And the ever on-point Andrew Sullivan had this to say:

These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.

With this much hand-wringing, something interesting is bound to happen. At the very least, I'll get to observe some skinny-jeaned hipsters mounting a counter-protest. Gay Patriot has a simple message as to the point of this whole thing:

In constrast to the Obama campaign, the “tea party” phenomenon is based on an idea, that of small government and personal freedom. As such, it could have greater staying power.

A more detailed explanation of the purpose can be found here. Schedules for your state are up here. Will post pics of wherever one I end up going...which is a function of who lets me crash on their couch that night.

The Twilight Phenomenon: Do We Need to Sedate Our High School Girls?

Not being a tweenaged girl, I admit to not having an extensive knowledge base about the highly acclaimed Twilight series. It apparently involves a very realistic tale about some handsome, neck-biting vampire who gets the hots for some dullard of a band geek. And most importantly in our purity-ring obsessed society, they don't bone! Needless to say, the book and movie has inspired endless YouTube tributes with horrendous indie-rock in the background, as well as some fan art that was most likely doodled during 3rd period Civics class.

But, it's not all fun and games as some of the kids "too cool" for Twilight have discovered. Ms. K sent me this io9 post involving flare guns:

Not with a gun but with a signaling rocket, today or yesterday actually (time zones) me and 3 friends (1 female 2 males) were talking about how much Twilight sucks ass and were bashing it. We were down by the fishing docks on the north strip of the island watching the fishermen unload their catch when apparently a twi-hard overheard us behind some shipping basins (for stowing fish). She apparently just got off her fathers boat, and had a whole bunch of equipment. Including a red Orion single shot/use hand-held rocket flare (you know those tubes that you are suppose to hit the bottom and the rocket flies out? anyways she overheard us talking and pulled out this flare, from her basket of stuff. The last thing I herd was the cap flying off the front. With a loud psshhh sound my friend yelped and dropped to the ground. The flre bounced off him and flew to the ground. We kicked the flare away, just then the parachute popped out and a bright red light nerly blinded all of us. Four fishermen ran over to help, one saw everything and restrained the twi-hard (who was kicking and screaming). My friends left arm was sizzling where the rocket moter had burned him (thankfully not the para-flare or it would have been much worse). One of the fishermen shoved all of us in his pickup truck and drove us to the local hospital where my friend is still unable to completely use his left arm. The girl is being held on $50,000 bail for attempted murder with a deadly weapon. We plan to go to court in a week with all of us as witnesses.

This type of nastiness is what happens when young people refuse to be accepting in the cold fate of reality and continue to be deluded by such idealizations of romance. Stephanie Meyer's next book should confront what usually happens to teens in such a lusty relationship. The woman ends up pushing around a baby carriage to her shift at the Dairy Queen while the man spends the money for the baby clothes' on a new spoiler for his 91 Accord. Why not further stamp out the so-called innocent teen years?

Wacko Vets Storm Poli Sci 101 Classes at Penn State!

AllahPundit got tipped off about a strange video as part of the "Worrisome Student Behaviors: Minimizing Risk" web resources available to faculty at Penn State. The montage includes some meth'd out chick who screams at her professors, tips on how to find out who the crazed gunmen sitting in the back of the room is, and this crazy vet (video above) who warns his professor to give him a better grade "or else". It's totally hilarious, and about as fact-based as the 50s educational video on homosexuals touching young boys in the bathing suit area.

The real question is whether or not Penn State will still use this video as part of their faculty training after The Obama was welcomed with cheers by the military recently in Iraq.

Who You Calling Materialistic, White Man?

Time magazine has an interesting article that examines the current recession from a cultural perspective and proclaims the end of the age of excess. I guess I'll have to put my dream of having an H3 in the Orange County suburbs on hold. But the article makes huge generalizations about society and neglects some of the modern-day Cassandras that saw this one coming:

We saw what was happening for years, for decades, but we ignored it or shrugged it off, preferring to imagine that we weren't really headed over the falls. The U.S. auto industry has been in deep trouble for more than a quarter-century. The median household income has been steadily declining this century ... but, but, but our houses and our 401(k)s were ballooning in value, right? Even smart, proudly rational people engaged in magical thinking, acting as if the new power of the Internet and its New Economy would miraculously make everything copacetic again. We all clapped our hands and believed in fairies.

That's not completely accurate. What about the punk rock scene of the 80s and 90s, which was basically a rejection of the spend-cash-to-be-happy mantra? And nary a mention of counter-cultural forces questioning society like the movie Slacker and the Seattle music scene in the early 90s? I'm also a bit confused by the author's slamming of the "new power of the Internet". Certainly, those folks may have been partially responsible for the smaller recession at the beginning of the decade, but it has nothing to do with our current malaise. If the free market wasn't allowed to function in technological development, we'd still be reading Picard Vs. Kirk Usenet posts on alt.nerd.poindexter.trek instead of the awesome time-waster that the internet is today.

So the author is really setting up the reader for an argument in support of centralized power and planning plus a hint of "Obama is Awesome!" which comes on page 3:

But it's also a perfectly apt and gratifying turn of events: candidate Obama positioned himself as a smart, steady character who happened to be black, and the economic emergency that helped ensure his election has pushed the fact of his race and its heavy symbolic freight into the shadows of public consciousness. Once the crises have passed, however, I think we'll rediscover the ramifications, small and large, of the enlightened national turn we made last Nov. 4 and start enjoying the dawn of a new era of racial reconciliation.

If there's any entity that's been living beyond its means the past 30 years, it's not your obnoxious yuppie neighbor who went into mourning with the closing of the Sharper Image store, but rather the federal government which has racked up a debt not seen since WWII. That has to do with politicians making ridiculous promises of entitlements and tax credits to get easy votes. Obama has completely ignored our economic reckoning and continues to print more funny money and go on wild spending sprees, so I disagree (FWIW) with the Time article that the Age of Excess is over. But, nevertheless, a very interesting article characterizing the Sub-Prime generation.

Maybe North Dakota Is Just Better Than the Rest of Us

All I know about the town of Fargo is what I saw in the Cohen Brothers movie of the same name, which actually mostly took place in Minnesota. But the response to Red River flooding has been truly impressive. Citizens actually working with the National Guard to put up dikes, instead of twiddling their thumbs waiting for FEMA to show up. This "can-do" attitude is refreshing for America at a time when Wall Street is cozying up with DC to extort more taxpayer dollars for their failed enterprises and states that spent themselves into oblivion are begging Washington (see California).

To explain this mentality, the NY Times had an article a few months back about why the recession wasn't hurting North Dakota:

North Dakota’s cheery circumstance — which economic analysts are quick to warn is showing clear signs that it, too, may be in jeopardy — can be explained by an odd collection of factors: a recent surge in oil production that catapulted the state to fifth-largest producer in the nation; a mostly strong year for farmers (agriculture is the state’s biggest business); and a conservative, steady, never-fancy culture that has nurtured fewer sudden booms of wealth like those seen elsewhere (“Our banks don’t do those goofy loans,” Mr. Theel said) and also fewer tumultuous slumps.

MTV Sheds Light On the Bag of Dicks Known as IRR Mobilization

Real World: Brooklyn - MTV Shows

Ryan From The Real World Learns He Just Got Activated (h/t Floppin' Aces)

Since I'm a twentysomething curmudgeon, I pretty much stopped watching MTV some 15+ years ago when they stopped airing Headbanger's Ball, Beavis & Butthead, and The State, but I certainly wished I saw last night's episode of the Real World. One of the cast members is an Iraq vet and the show depicts him getting the dreaded "package in the mail" from the Army indicating he's been called back to Active Duty. While it sucks for Ryan, this is beneficial to widespread dissemination of veteran culture, which is probably why IAVA was pushing it so hard. Seeing how modern day veterans are a such a small sliver of the current populous (unlike past wars), it is important to spread the word through available communication mediums about some of the shit the military has to put up with.

I've known a bunch of guys who've gotten the dreaded IRR call-up, but Uncle Sam can do it (read your contract). It's interesting to see how the rest of the cast responded to the news:

MTV Shows

The cast's response that Ryan "doesn't want to do this" and "he's just doing it for the government" shows a standard civilian misperception of the military. Most military members don't much enjoy going 15 days on a Combat Outpost with no showers and sweat-stained IBAs, but they do it out of a sense of patriotism and sacrifice. This may seem counter-intuitive to the your typical self-important Real World participant, but it may help explain Ryan's response that "I'm actually kind of excited in a weird way". Thanks to Ryan for his service and for MTV in airing this sequence.

As for Iraq, did you know that it's the 6-year anniversary of the invasion? At least, Stephen Colbert still does, because he headed to the sandbox to entertain the troops. I always liked his show a lot better than Jon Stewart's, because he sticks with the comedy and spares the audience from self-righteous indignation...unlike Stewart.