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McCain and Clinton both think the best way to help consumers with sharply rising gas costs is a break on the federal gas tax. There are a few profound problems with that terrible, terrible idea:

1. There’s no way to ensure the oil companies won’t just lower gas a few cents and pocket the rest of the difference as profits.
2. Decreased cost will increase demand, which will causes base costs to increase. So the costs would likely stay the exact same
3. The virtually no way to pass related legislation before the summer. Government is built to function slower than that.
4. The federal gas tax pays for road work, like bridge repair. Given our highway infastructure is in serious trouble, reducing that budget fund is a terrible idea. In fact, the budget has already been approved so the money would have to be raised somewhere. Most likely source: the public. Least likely source (and Clinton’s suggestion): the oil companies based on their enormous new profits, which I’m sure they could rely on clever accounting to hide.

Simply brilliant. Mix Guy Ritchie (Mr. Madonna and noted film director) with the world’s greatest sport and you get one of the finest long-form ads to air in some time.

There’s a much high res of the advert at Nike’s football page. Do yourself a favor and watch that version.

Writing the Bible has given me a newfound appreciation for handwriting. What a fantastic project to undertake with a child.

A little cuddly destruction does the soul well. Explode away!

From the NY Times:

Three detectives were found not guilty Friday on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens, in November 2006. The verdict prompted calls for calm from the mayor, angry promises of protests by those speaking for the Bell family and expressions of relief by the detectives. …

Justice Cooperman delivered the verdict in State Supreme Court at 9 a.m. Describing the evidence, he said it was reasonable for the detectives to fear that someone in the crowd that night carried a gun. He added that many of the prosecution’s witnesses, including Mr. Bell’s friends and the two wounded victims, were simply not believable. “At times, the testimony of those witnesses just didn’t make sense,” the judge said.

Detective Isnora told grand jurors last year that he clipped his badge to his collar and drew his gun, shouting, “Police! Don’t move!” as he approached Mr. Bell’s Nissan Altima.

Other witnesses, mostly friends of Mr. Bell, said they never heard shouts of “Police!” Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield testified that they had no idea that Detective Isnora was a police officer when he walked up with his gun drawn.

The verdict was rendered based on a belief that one set of witnesses was more believable than the other. But in a plea of “not guilty”, where a chief piece of evidence is the corpse riddled with bullets, how could either side be considered entirely reliable. Self-interests and grief surely colored both sets of testimonies.

It would be hard to fault the judge for any specific verdict in this weighty case, but for his verdict to rest in the assertion that he found one argument more believable is the weakest possible judication. Justice Cooperman abdicated his role, and pinned responsibility for the verdict on the witnesses for the prosecution’s perceived lack of character. “Innocent until proven guilty” should always be the governing principle on the bench, but no judgement should be based on the mistaken equation of innocent and honest.

From the NY Times:

The two biggest U.S. warehouse retail chains are limiting how much rice customers can buy because of what Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., called on Wednesday ”recent supply and demand trends.”…

Sam’s Club said it will limit customers to four bags at a time of imported jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice.

”At the present time, BJ’s Wholesale Club is not limiting the amount of rice purchases made by our members, but, due to the current market situation, that could change at any time,” spokeswoman Sharyn Frankel said in a statement.

We’re rationing food? In the US?

Related: The End of Cheap Food

From USA Today:

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.

Bush’s rating has worsened amid “collapsing optimism about the economy,” says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies presidential approval. Record gas prices and a wave of home foreclosures have fueled voter angst.

Bush also holds the record for the other extreme: the highest approval rating of any president in Gallup’s history. In September 2001, in the days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush’s approval spiked to 90%. In another record, the percentage of Americans who say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake reached a new high, 63%, in the latest poll.

I’d love to know what 28% percent of Americans approve of.

From the NY Times’ remarkable article detailing the Pentagon’s use of supposedly neutral military television analysts to push a pre-planned government agenda, often involving misinformation:

Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon’s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

I’ve often wondered why more actors don’t extend their talents to global problems. High marks to Jennifer Connelly and director Terry George for putting together charity:water to produce this PSA about the cost of worldwide water shortage. I realize most people will scoff at the idea of New York running out of water, but on NPR Friday I heard a discussion about the amount of water available to central florida. Of course, for many cities water shortage is already a reality, but for now most people see this as a problem unique to the developing world.

24-hour news is a generally terrible thing. Because there is just not enough mass-appeal news happening 24 hours a day, channels harp upon the minutiae of the few stories that are nearly universal. The constant babble of the various pundits actually reduces the value of the news to an ever-dwindling amount.
However, 24-hour sports news is a different manner. Most games are created equal, so every there’s new news, and even from hour to hour there are updated highlights to show. While constant regular news coverage reduces the quality of overall coverage, rolling sports reporting actually encourages better coverage. In practice the rolling broadcast offers a wider range of highlights and a broader spectrum of featured sports. Of course they are usually trying to fit their coverage into a 30-minute cycling show, where Sportscenter spends an hour on the most of the same materials. But despite that constriction, the fact remains that in a world where more is usually less at Espnews more may just be more.
They have inconsiderately locked the commercial they did which is amazing on their site, so I can only link to it. But do yourself a favor and check out the motion work Trollback has done for Espnews here.
ESPNEWS just moved into high definition broadcast, and Trollback+Company helped them mark the occasion with some beautiful brand adjustment. Their motion pieces are a beautiful composite of (what I’d guess is) processing, video and motion work.