For those of you who don’t know her, this thing pictured below, although small and harmless looking, is Michelle Malkin, one of FoxNews premium newsman.

Backstory

Rightly or wrongly, some news outlets have been leveling some of the blame for the Tucson shooter’s actions at the hyper-intolerant views Fox News and their brethren tend to promulgate. Conveniently, this has created a nice opportunity for the Foxies (including Malkin) to put a new spin on the old sayings “mainstream” or “liberal” media, as they’re now calling it the “Blamestream” media. LOL rolling on the floor. So keep that in mind for this next part, Fox News has a viewer base that actually likes the neat little packaging of dumbed-down language like “Blamestream.” *

*These are the same people who criticized the outlandishness of ebonics 15 years ago, too.* But contradiction and irony and sanctimony are ideas these people do not acknowledge.

Anyhow, the other day Michelle Malking publishes an OpEd titled: Idiocracy: Conservatives who say “job-killing” are spreading hate. Apparently, Malkin likes to use the phrase Idiocracy as a sort of shroud for her pieces, using it after a colon and before the full headline.

As I said before, hypocritical awareness and sense of irony are not the strong suit of your average, frothy-mouthed Fox newsperson, so I am not surprised by Malkin’s clueless invocation of the word Idiocracy. My research leads me to believe the first use of the word Idiocracy was in the title of Mike Judge’s film, Idiocracy, put out in 2006. Even if Malkin was aware of the word’s provenance her use of it is still dubious. Idiocracy was a film that was meant to be an on-the-nose idictment of the very kind of congrats-for-being-stupid culture outlets like Fox News are spawning. In the movie we see what life might be like if indoctrinating noise and propoganda, underwritten by mega corporations, one day ruled our lives. It’s a depiction of a world in which words like “Blamestream media” would be accepted and repeated by mindless minions.

Don’t listen to these people.

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This year, my predictions more or less fall in line with AccuWeather’s, which, from what I’ve read, are the same as the Farmer Almanac’s. Anyhow,  here’s what they’re saying:

I’m not quite sure what to make of Wintry Battle Zone. It could mean not a lot of snow and just a lot of cold; kind of a raw deal. I love the winter because of snow, take it away and it kind of sucks. I guess that’s why people who don’t enjoy snowsports usually don’t like winter.

Here are my official predictions for the North East:

-A really cold Thanksgiving

-The whitest Christmas in a long time

-Frigid January and February with moderate snow amounts

This morning Carly Baldwin, a writer for the traditionally decent Metro US-New York edition subway paper, found herself in the crosshairs of my rebarbative, media watch dog invective.

Here’s what got it all started (checkout the highlighted text box), followed by my email:

My email:

Dear Ms. Baldwin,

Michael Cesari

No, I’m not talking about bad for the environment because they heavily promote the overconsumption of vanity products. I’m saying Gilt Groupe is bad for the environment because they ship so much stuff in so many packages.

Imagine if the 20 things you ordered from them in the last year had shipped in 10 boxes instead of 20? Big deal, right? It is when you envision the other million or so people who use the site ordering in the same consolidated way. Cutting down on millions of shipments would mean cutting out thousands of UPS truck trips. But, like the fat cat executives at brownie town, Gilt Groupe does not want you bundle orders into fewer shipments. Gilt Groupe is getting rich off shipping.

At nearly $10 in shipping on each order, Gilt Groupe, with their volume discounts from UPS, must be making $8 an order just from shipping.  I would not be surprised if the markup on shippiung accounts for something like 10 or 15% of their profit.

So what’s the solution? What would I do if I ran Gilt Groupe? It’s not rocket science, succesful online discounters are already doing it.

A few years ago a handful of environmentally forward thinking sportinggoods companies: Brociety, Tramdock, and Whiskey Militia (they’re like the Gilt Groupe of snowsports) came up with a brilliant idea. They began giving customers the option to “hold” a shipment until they ordered more stuff. It’s easy and unless you’re a greedy little snow hobbit who can’t wait 5 or 6 days for your new ski goggles to ship along with the boots you ordered a few days later, it makes sense.

Gilt Groupe should adopt a similar shipping reduction program. Then again, the founders look like consumerist monsters so I wouldn’t hold my breath. But if you read this far mabye you’ll feel a little bit Gilty next time you order from them.

Sign this electronic petition to stop the impending obscene fare hikes! Don’t let them punish us, the paying riders, for their incompetence and avarice.

TGR’s new one,  Light the Wick, looks promising. Check out the trailer below. If it doesn’t give you ski fever, you’re not a skier.

Weather.com posted a link to what their site looked like in 1996: http://www.weather.com/newscenter/slideshow/preview.html