More evidence that we're doomed

Today my drive home took a bit over an hour. I kept checking to a local news/talk radio station to see which stories they'd be discussing. So many interesting topics to choose from, what would it be?

Would they talk about the major upheaval in Iran, where the masses are possibly a step away from undoing Carter's folly, and kicking out the suicidal/genocidal mullahs? Where violent oppression has come to the fore, and new media has allowed the story to get out despite government censorship? Would they talk about how the mullahs grossly erred in rigging the 'election' (with 125% voter turnout, and 40 million votes counted in an hour by hand!) for Ahmadinejad, when all of the candidates were their puppets anyway, and the 'reformer' Mousavi is every bit as genocidally anti-Semitic as Ahmadinejad and only a hair's breadth away from him on most other issues? How the mullahs overplayed their hand in a pointless show of power for only marginal gain? How the Supreme Leader has issued edicts that are being blatantly disobeyed for the first time in decades? Or perhaps discussing what, if any, role the US should play in this uprising that could drastically alter the face of the Middle East?

Or maybe a little something about North Korea. You know, the ones that recently test-fired an ICBM over Japan, and our response was to cry to the UN, who warned Kim Jong Il to stop, or else. Or else what? Or else we will be very angry with you, and we will write you a nasty letter saying just how angry we are! Predictably, several weeks later they did an atomic test, detonating a nuke roughly the size of the ones that Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oh, and then they threatened to obliterate Seoul. Then they threatened to nuke Hawaii on July 4th, which they apparently have the capability to do now. And then Kim Jong Il appointed a son as his successor, as if he's ready to go out in a blaze of glory. Then they quite possibly loaded a ship full of nuclear material and missile parts and are planning to send it to destination unknown, a move that actually got the US to publicly respond, and may lead to a serious escalation any moment. Perhaps they would talk about something along those lines.

Or maybe they'd go economic, seeing as how we're still in a world-wide recession (which, as much as people try to blame it on us, actually hit Europe several months earlier and much harder, but I digress). Maybe something on the recklessly high deficits Bush and the Republicans (and Democrats the last two years) ran up, leading to their ouster, and how the Democrats led by Obama have about quadrupled that already. Or the insane amount of nationalization that has taken place already, so much so that Hugo Chavez is joking to Fidel Castro that Obama is making them look conservative by comparison. (Let that one sink in for a minute. Ready? OK.) And now in the midst of this, despite claiming that we're already out of money, he wants to spend another hundred billion or so to provide health insurance (NOTE: not health care. There is a huge difference between health insurance and health care. Much of the debate on this issue is clouded by people confusing/blending the two, which is almost certainly intentional.) for less than half of the uninsured (even when you remove illegals from the 'uninsured' totals), at a cost more than double what it would be to just buy a health insurance plan for them from a current provider. And a massive debate is raging over which proposed reforms to enact, most of which will almost certainly lead to the eventual nationalization of over 1/6th of the economy. Or perhaps they'd talk about the media's role in this, since one of the four largest 'independent' networks is planning to devote Wednesday to a day-long infomercial promoting the President's health insurance reform agenda, complete with refusal to acknowledge any dissenting viewpoints. (Note the contrast with Iran, where people are risking their lives to get the word out about what their state-run media isn't telling.) Surely there's something interesting there to talk about?

Or maybe they'd go for more local news. Like how the mayor of Chicago had for years refused to commit to a financial guarantee for the Olympics, then last week changed his mind and offered the completely non-corrupt IOC a blank check signed by the taxpayer. Or how yet another Alderman was arrested on corruption charges. Or how our new governor is furiously campaigning to raise taxes, because when you've got a budget deficit, the only thing you can do is raise revenue. (Oh wait, there is another option, but... nah, that would never work.) Or perhaps something more about our lovely Senator Burris, who somehow will not be charged with perjury for lying under oath and changing his story, let's see, I think he's on story number eight now. Or Senator Durbin, who was in a meeting last year before the horrible, awful bailouts were enacted, where they were being discussed. Immediately after leaving the meeting wherein specific troubled firms were discussed as being on the verge of failure despite public news to the contrary, the honorable senator sold all his stock in these firms, saving himself six-figure losses based on insider information. You may think that sounds like insider trading, but you'd only be right if you were a textbook trying to provide a clear example of insider trading, or maybe a dictionary trying to define it. But not if you were, say, a Senator, or perhaps the justice department of the same party's administration who would be tasked with investigating such a thing.

So with all this potential news to choose from - Iran, North Korea, the economy, the nationalization of ABC, the health insurance debate, local issues and corruption on a scale that makes New Orleans jealous, plus many other local and interesting stories - it could be really hard to choose what to talk about. There's just so much rich stuff there, what to choose, what to choose. So what did they talk about the entire hour?

Apparently some guy named Perez Hilton, who is famous for something or other, got into a fight with someone from the Black Eyed Peas, who were last heard from every twelve seconds during the 2004 NBA playoffs.

We're doomed.