It’s truly remarkable. Who would’ve believed that even big oil companies would come around on climate change before Team Bush?

“We have to deal with greenhouse gases,” John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., said in a recent speech at the National Press Club. “From Shell’s point of view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, ‘Let’s debate the science’?”

Even by the standards we’ve now come to expect … incredible.

Do you ever feel alone and alienated this time of year?

Happy holidays…

In a rare out of character interview Sacha Baron Cohen describes his surprise that some folks don’t seem to get the point of Borat:

“I was surprised, because I always had faith in the audience that they would realize that this was a fictitious country and the mere purpose of it was to allow people to bring out their own prejudices. And the reason we chose Kazakhstan was because it was a country that no one had heard anything about, so we could essentially play on stereotypes they might have about this ex-Soviet backwater. The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist – who believe that there’s a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages and they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old…

“I think part of the movie shows the absurdity of holding any form of racial prejudice, whether it’s hatred of African-Americans or of Jews … Borat essentially works as a tool … By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice, whether it’s anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism…“

This all makes perfect sense and it’s clearly a laudable goal. But are you surprised that Cohen was surprised?

Isn’t a given that there is absolutely no way that most viewers understand what Borat is getting at? In a world where half the people still think Saddam was behind 9-11, you think we have a lot of folks capable of understanding that Borat is not making fun of Kazakhstan but rather those people who believe such a place exists?

Almost every article (including the one referenced above) on the man behind Borat goes to great lengths to describe his own pretty serious level of Judaism and his efforts to keep a kosher diet. Again, will people who don’t know the name Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish get the subtleties beneath the surface of his over the top humor?

I suppose one has to make the joke and hope people will understand its gist. Perhaps it would’ve been better, in retrospect, to give Borat’s fictional homeland a fictional name as well?

Ultimately, one doesn’t want to limit humor to the lowest common denominator of those people who will get the joke – otherwise, there would be a lot less Borat and a lot more Two and a Half Men and no one wants that. I’m pretty sure Sacha Baron Cohen is a comedic genius. I just hope the widespread swath of viewers can rise to his level. I guess if they can’t, the jokes on them, eh?

The Golden Arches Gate Bridge

Due to a longstanding deficit, the folks who run the Golden Gate Bridge are considering ways to get corporate backers involved. I can take our stadiums being renamed – in San Francisco, we’ve gone from Pac Bell Park, to SBC Park to AT&T Park in a matter of a few seasons. But do we really want to brand our national treasures? What are we thinking here, the Golden Gateway Bridge? The Lincoln Continental Memorial? The Empire AllState Building?

But It Ain’t TV

AOL has a new man at the top. Randy Falco comes over from NBC Universal. According to TWAOL Chairman Richard Parsons, “A key to Time Warner’s digital future, AOL is showing early success in transitioning to an advertising-focused business model, and Randy is a first-rate choice to ensure AOL realizes its promise.”

It’s funny that big companies always think they need an old school media person to run web companies as they move toward being more ad-supported. This is the web, folks. I’d rather have a web guy at the top to make sure the product offering wins. Put the media guy in charge of sales.

The Daily Melt

Fewer Polar Bear Cubs are surviving in Alaska. Anyone want to guess why?

and…

Pelosi’s first (and odd) power move among the Dems fails as
Murtha loses his bid to be her number 2 … Whitney’s mansion is being foreclosed (she dumped Bobby like we wanted, what say we all chip in and cover this?) ... Emmitt Smith takes home the top prize on Dancing with the Stars (his enthusiasm was infectious) ... The illogical and foolish anti online gambling law (I haven’t hit a bet in three weeks and I am still wildly against it) ... Promoting democracy in Cuba by way of cashmere sweaters, computer games and chocolates ... Clickstar plans to make movies available online at about the same time they’re released in theaters ... Are your ready to vote in national elections using your TiVo remote? If things go that way, I am picking Steve Carell as the next President of the United States … Are burritos sandwiches? Let’s let the courts decide ... And the internal Fox Memo that will not shock you one bit ...

I am now officially against oversized SUVs. It’s not the climate change thing, although that should be reason enough. And it’s not the dependence on foreign oil thing, although that should qualify as a reason. It’s mostly because I was side-swiped by a giant SUV last night. Notice I didn’t say my car was side-swiped. I was.

I was getting out of my car (luckily, in terms of the tone of this story, I was driving a hybrid) and handing the key to a friendly valet parker when a massive, white SUV ran into my person. Fortunately, it just hit my arm and side (collapsing its side mirror). And I am pretty big dude. For most of you, this would be the equivalent of getting run into by Segway.

Anyway, I stayed on my feet, and inspired by the Cheerleader on Heroes I showed no signs of weakness in response to shocked looks and queries coming for the valet team.

Anyway, long story short, I am now strongly in favor of compact cars. What can I say? All politics are local.

The World’s Worst Traffick Jam

According to a spokesperson, the Vatican views today’s human trafficking and forced enslavement as being worse than during the African slavery of past centuries. It makes one wonder about the whole good v evil line we’ve been fed over the past few years. How is this not on the national radar?

Working on Commissions

From Michael Kinsley: “It’s a nutty, and not very attractive, idea to turn an urgent issue of war and peace over to a commission. Commissions have usually been trotted out for long-run social problems: immigration, debt, health care. Going to war is something that ought to be decided by the people we elect. Congress in recent decades has virtually abandoned its duty under the Constitution to make the decisions about when American soldiers are sent to kill and die.”

The Nasty Web

According to a recent study, about 1 percent of all web content is adult in nature and about
six percent of all queries at the major search engines draw dirty results.

I wonder what would happen if you took into account all searches across Bittorrent sites and P2P networks. I’d be surprised if you ended up with 6 percent of non-dirty searches.

O.J. “If I Did It”

In what could be the most offensive reality show in history, the Juice will be describing how he would have carried out the double murder if he had been the one to do it. Wait. Wouldn’t that have to be classified as a re-run?

Dems Unifying?

Are the Dems on the road towards party unification heading into ‘08? Not so far. There is already infighting about the second spot in the House following Pelosi’s odd decision to back a horse in the race. Meanwhile, the GOP has put Trent Lott back into a power position. It’s just more proof that while times and politics can change, bad hair never dies.

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Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me now features a daily news quiz online.

The Daily Melt

Bears Can’t Sleep in Russia and you can take a more comfortable swim in the North Sea.

and…

Slate asks: We mated with Neanderthals. Can we breed with other animals, too? (God I miss college) ... Nuns Who Blog ... Clooney Still Hot ... From Mile High Club to Doing Time Club? ... San Francisco outlaws Styrofoam and Decriminalizes Pot (This is the greatest place on earth for just about everyone other than those who love smoking Styrofoam) ... Why do men die quicker than women when they have the same diseases? ... Hitchens on Borat (The cage match everyone secretly longs for…)...

Next Fall, you may see a few new and unexpected shows on the schedule. Don’t be surprised to see sitcoms and dramas with titles such as:

Dancing with the Starbucks

Nip/Tucks

Are you ready for branded television? Well, with more and more folks fast-forwarding over commercials, marketers are looking for new ways to get their brands in your face. One strategy that is picking up steam is the
creation of branded content. Think of a feature length film starring the King from Burger King commercials (seriously), BudTV, and an Office Max created show for ABC.

Will shows conceptualized by advertising firms and molded with brand awareness in mind work? It seems a bit unlikely. But the big brands need to make a move to cope with the fast forward button that will soon be core to every television remote control. Who knows, maybe they will figure out a way to go back and rebrand classic shows. Stay tuned for Chico and Chalupa.

Payback Really is a Beeatch

The Dem leaders’ key challenge over the next several months will be making sure that the party has a unified set of goals and focuses on governance and not payback. Hubris, arrogance and abuses of power lose elections. To recall that lesson, you only have go back in history about, oh, 72 hours.

Truth Be Told

Does it matter that Bush told a lie when he insisted Rumsfeld would hold his position for the long haul (at the very time he was making a final decision on his replacement)? Maybe the more interesting question is how a political team that has been so effective made the terrible error of not canning Rummy two weeks before the election. At the very least, they would probably still have the Senate.

And the reaction to Rummy’s departure from a soldier in Iraq: ““Who’s Rumsfeld?”.

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Giving Kegstanding a Bad Name

Two fraternity members who appear in Borat’s movie have just sued the studio because of their own drunken and offensive behavior that was on display while cameras were rolling. Frat dudes suing over being drunk and offensive … Sounds like there’s a possibility for a class action suit here, no?

Flying Laptops

While anyone can support the spirit of Denise Richard’s decision to hurl laptops carried by members of the paparazzi off of a hotel deck, one would hope she would first look down below to make sure no one happened to be walking by.

and…

Forget politics, the biggest win of the week was
Rutgers’ amazing upset ... Poppa T and the Episcopal rap crew ... With Dems controlling the Senate, expect
Bolton to be gone ... The U.K. is tracking
30 terror plots and 1,600 suspects ... Rangel one day, one gaffe ... Did you know there are ice fields in Africa? There won’t be for long ... YouTube’s first Rodney King moment ... And Slate’s Explainer asks, Mommy, What’s an Evangelical? ...

My five month old son doesn’t yet concentrate all that long on anything (other than a bottle of white liquid) and fortunately (given my own intense and longstanding addiction) he really only glances at the television screen. The one exception to this rule is the NFL. Whenever I am watching an NFL game in the same room as my kid (translation, whenever there is an NFL game on), his eyes lock on the screen for what can seem like and eternal five minutes or so. Some friends have suggested that he is attracted to the combination of lights, movement and colors. That sounds plausible enough until one takes into account the fact that he only watches pro football. He has no interest in college football or any other colorful, movement-heavy games.

It’s probably not a terrible trend. Since the kid is half Samoan, I see his viewing time as early training. I will admit he is likely a bit confused by the change in my demeanor over the course of the season. My betting performance has been so poor that even New England Republican candidates feel sorry for me. My son’s expression has slowly changed from one that exalts, “Look at all the pretty colors,” to one that asks, “Why is Daddy screaming, crying and tapping relatives for a few bucks to score formula?” My hope is that this experience will teach him an important life lesson (Son, don’t suck at betting).

In the age of marketing fear to parents, our Sunday ritual probably makes both my son and I contrarians. If my wife and I really want to have a successful and intelligent kid, there is a line of marketers ready to shovel us the right foods, the right safety equipment, the right diapers, the right books and of course, the right entertainment. No one can entirely escape the pressure to buy products positioned as the right thing for kids. But how much of it is really a load of nonsense?

Probably a lot. Does it really matter if my kid listens to Springsteen instead of classical music? (Isn’t avoiding Josh Groban enough?) Can he somehow still advance in life if he skips the Baby Einstein and instead watches So You Think You Can Dance (at least until he’s old enough to appreciate The Sopranos and my Taxi DVDs)? As a kid, I dug King Friday as much as the next guy, but I neither credit nor blame him for what (other than this damn crown fetish) has happened since.

When you listen to the experts or read the fine print, no one is seriously suggesting that the right songs on the iPod or shows in the TiVo are going to make your kid any smarter. Even Baby Einstein’s own website explains, “Baby Einstein products are not designed to make babies smarter.” Uh, then why did you name the product Baby Einstein and not Dopey Baby Likey Music Too?

I’m talking tough now. We’ll see how I feel when the kid pulls this content from the internet archive and sues the hell out of me after receiving a B+ in grad school.

Goodbye Rummy, Hello Oedipus

Speaking of father-son relationships, America’s most notable one has seen a pretty dramatic shift over the past few weeks. Now that Rummy is gone, Cheney is marginalized, and Baker and Gates are back, it’s pretty clear that the old Bush is having a whole lot of influence on the young one.

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Rummy’s departure was more than a bit surreal, especially when he insinuated that the real issue with his tenure was that people just don’t quite comprehend our current wars. That may be true, but almost everyone who does comprehend it was pushing hard from Rummy’s exit.

Slate has a list of Rumsfeld’s biggest blunders and his poetry.

Web 2.0, A Glimmer of Understanding

Finally someone in the mainstream press starts to get at what’s really different about this web as compared to the last one. It’s a lot cheaper to build stuff.

What’s Done is Done (and Free)

March on Washington, Aug. 28, 1963, The Eiffel Tower Reaches Full Height, April 29, 1889. These stories and more are available for download during the NY Times free Times Select week.

and…

Allen Concedes, the Dems take the Senate too ... 60 Minutes reporter Ed Bradley has died at the age of 65 … Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa is the first Dem to announce his presidential run ... The increasingly detailed and disturbing story of Pat Tillman’s last hours ... Who are the most influential Americans? ... How a Nazi speech got a football team jacked ... Can you delete your bad rep on the web? ... Is that a banana in your hand or are you just happy to coach me? The weird world of cheating tennis coaches ... Did you remember to set a world record today? ... And Wal-Mart is bucking the Happy Holidays trend and ordering employees to say Merry Christmas to entering customers (Sounds right. I’ve never seen another Jew in Wal-Mart in my life)...

Back at you manana