Good news and bad news

Good news first. After our recent decade-long bender of snapping up gargantuan gas-hog SUVs, Americans seem to have woken up to the fact that they've been hoodwinked by an auto industry that doesn't give a damn about anything beyond next quarter's balance sheet. Bigger doesn't look so much better anymore when gas is $4 a gallon and the polar ice caps are melting before our eyes. It's sad that it took the combination of the highest gas prices in history and overwhelming evidence of climate change to shock American consumers into changing their behavior, but whatever it takes.

As for the Smart Car, we saw a ton of them on a trip to Europe in 2003. And while I don't expect you'll be seeing many of them on the interstate, for urban environments they're an excellent option -- great gas mileage, highly maneuverable and able to squeeze into a parking space half the size of a Ford Expedition.

The bad news is, my baseball team is threatening to set a record for futility, in more ways than one. Having failed utterly to remake their roster over the winter, saddled with aging, mediocre overpaid free agents, and beset by injuries, the Giants have decided the solution to their problems lies in erasing every vestige of the man who almost single-handedly kept the franchise afloat for the last fifteen years. You know my feelings about Barry Bonds are about as mixed as mixed can be, but for Giants' ownership to suddenly disavow the man who kept the fans coming year after year to buy overpriced food and sit in overpriced seats to watch an underperforming team -- well, it's pretty much the definition of hypocrisy. Add that to what's looking like a sure-thing 100-loss season (110, anybody?), and you've got a recipe for a loooooong year at the ballpark. Or rather, not there.

Capitol characters

Speaking of mean people, I found this item pretty hilarious until I got to the part where the target of the roast is actually sponsoring the event. Either the Assemblywoman figures "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," or she honestly doesn't get it. Hopefully the former...

Mean People Suck

Back to the funny real soon, I promise. In the meantime:

I’ve never been one for bumper stickers. It’s hard to fit anything meaningful in that small a space, and I’ve always liked the clean look on my vehicles anyhow. That said, I’ve been struck recently with the profundity of one of the more common bumper stickers around.

I have been fortunate in my life not to spend a lot of time around mean people – that is, people who get some kind of primal satisfaction from attacking others, whether physically or verbally. But I did have a recent experience with one that reminded me of the essential truth of this particular bumper sticker: mean people literally suck the energy and life right out of you. There is something about the absolute conviction with which they launch their negativity into the world that all too often convinces their target that it is somehow deserved.

The plain fact is that just about everyone – though I might make an exception for Dick Cheney – deserves some measure of respect. It’s just basic human courtesy; you operate from an assumption that the other person is worthy of respect until they prove otherwise.

Mean people don’t do that. They operate from the assumption that everyone is as insecure and self-interested and negatively charged as they are. And that’s why they suck.

Warning: irony-meter overload imminent...

Not one, but two senior officials in the California Republican Party exposed as illegal immigrants? You can't make this stuff up.