TV AD: The family budget. In today’s economy nobody is more committed to helping family budgets go further than Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart saves the average family about $3,100 a year, no matter where they shop.

What?! OK, how can Wal-Mart save you money if you don’t shop there? Well, they say, other stores cut their prices to compete.

CHRIS HOLLINGS: The overall level of consumer prices are lower essentially anywhere you shop.

Chris Hollings is at IHS Global Insight.

HOLLINGS: So you do not actually have to shop at Wal-Mart to get these savings.

Hollings led the research Wal-Mart uses in its ad. He says by tracking Wal-Mart’s expansion, his team was able to isolate an economic Wal-Mart effect. Today he says prices for retail goods are 3.6 percent lower across the board because of the chain. But to save more than $3,000 a year a, quote, “average family” would have to spend more than $83,000 shopping.

CHARLES FISHMAN: This headline number is technically accurate but misleading.

Charles Fishman is author of the book, “The Wal-Mart Effect.” He points out that the median household income is less than $51,000.

FISHMAN: A family earning $51,000 a year saves about $640 a year compared to what they would otherwise have had to spend.

— full story at Marketplace

[via Jack]

[via John Hodgman]

Not only has the Times-Picayune run an alarming article on the rapid pace of climate change, but they’ve also posted it to NOLA.com — which means it’s been opened up to comments. And as much as I love New Orleans, I have to admit that we have some really, really stupid people living in south Louisiana. What’s worse: they’ve learned to type. After the second page of numbskullery, I had to close the tab. (There are five pages of comments in all. So far.)

Of course, I know that climate change denial takes place across the globe. On the network news, on Fox “news”, on talk radio, on websites, people refute volumes of university studies with Dan Brown-esque flimsy evidence that global warming is some kind of conspiracy. Of course, none of these knuckle-dragging, armchair meteorologists can explain why the world’s best scientific minds would collude on such a scheme — what they’d have to gain, what they’re trying to prove. These are the same people who’d like to see creationism and it’s slightly buffer cousin, intelligent design, taught in classrooms. Their agenda is solely political and solely laughable.

Look, I understand that science can be used as a weapon (cf. the American Psychiatric Association’s former categorization of homosexuality as a mental disorder), and I don’t claim that science is apolitical, but how can anyone — left, right, center, or libertarian — argue that pollution is a great thing? I mean, we all understand those “Your mother doesn’t work here” signs in breakrooms, right? Isn’t this the same thing on a slightly larger scale?

Damn, I think we need to bring that stereotypical-but effective crying American Indian back.*

* Is it just me, or does the narrarator in that spot sound a lot like Ken Nordine?

[via Jon et al]

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5606758&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=1&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1

Yesterday, someone referred to me as “gruff and menacing”. I ask you: on what planet is this gruff and/or menacing? Sleepy, maybe definitely. But c’mon.

[via fixator]

[via CTRL+W33D, obvs]

Obviously, I’m a liberal. Sure, I understand the Republican and Libertarian impulse to let people stand on their own, to allow everyone to be the captain of his or her own ship: it’s a nice sentiment, one that acknowledges free will and encourages independence.

Only problem is, most of the Republicans and Libertarians I know are white folks who were born with a leg up. They may not be terrifically well educated, and they may not live in the fanciest neighborhoods, but they’re very happy with what they have, and they’ll go to great lengths to protect it.

Many of the Democrats I know are also white folks who are happy with what they have. The difference is, they’re typically willing to share. No, things don’t always play out that way in practice — the political machines of both major parties have their own, convoluted agendas. However, underlying the Democratic ethos is the notion of helping others. And that, to me, is everything.

I’m not saying that people should be able to sit back and relax and let the government pay for bonbons and hookah parlors. But not everyone is cut out to care for him or herself. Some need a gentle push, some need help coordinating a game plan, and some need daily assistance. The Calvinist work ethic is fine — it’s been drilled into me all my life — but I know for a fact that some people can’t handle that much responsibility.

On the other hand…I don’t like the fact that my voting patterns are predetermined by political affiliation. It would be nice to be able to vote for a Republican, if the situation arose. Unfortunately, the GOP social agenda makes that impossible — and I’m not just talking about their opposition to equal rights for LGBT citizens, even though that’s the part that affects me most directly. Until the party moves beyond that Religious Right crap — which has only been adopted into the platform to appeal to the god-fearing base — they can count me out.

Given the current crop of leaders, progress doesn’t seem possible. But there may be hope down the line. Here’s a bit from John McCain’s daughter, Meghan, speaking about former Miss California and current anti-gay activist, Carrie Prejean. Prejean’s eight recently unearthed sex tapes are causing quite a stir in the media, but not among Republicans who want to make her their pretty posterchild:

The problem I have with my fellow Republicans is why gay marriage is the trump card in any situation. It seems that as long as you are against gay marriage, any scandal in your life can be overlooked or overcome. When you are in favor of it, however—and I have been very vocal about my support—that position defines you. [Towleroad]

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Why can’t the Republicans read the tea leaves and tout McCain as the face of the GOP’s future instead of the far-less-interesting, far-less-thoughtful, backwards-looking Prejean? Oh, wait: I think I just answered my own question.