Things that annoyed me today

From J. Christoph Amberger:

If there’s something I can’t stand about election years, it’s campaign spots: Soft focus, warm hues, announcers pouring schmaltz and sentimentality on their mendacious claims. Should Hallmark ever start making commercials for adult diapers and geriatric female hygiene products, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

The current crop of schlock disgorged by Maryland schlockmeisters is particularly unpalatable: Baltimore’s mayor and wannabe-governor is either watering his working-class roots (he married well) by trotting out Mom, or roping in his third-grade son to endorse himself in laudations so sickly saccharine and dishonest you feel yesterday’s lunch stirring deep inside your viscera.

Another mug running for the U.S. Senate is campaigning on the claim that oil industry contributions are to blame for high oil prices and “America’s dependence on foreign oil.” Not only is he forgetting to mention that his own party’s environmental legislation record is to blame for both the relative lack in U.S. oil production and for the fact that no new refineries have been built in this country since the days of Jimmy Carter. Luckily, his voters would be too stupid to realize that oil is a global and fungible commodity, so oil prices are a function of supply, demand and -- increasingly -- speculation.

(He wouldn’t want to mention that. He runs an investment company, and I bet my last nickel he has done quite well in both oil stocks and futures over the past few years...)

And here’s more nonsense that annoyed heck out of me today:

-- “Cirrus Logic upgraded by Matrix Research from Sell to Hold.” How do you hold if you just sold?

-- “U.S. Retailers July Sales Beat Analysts’ Estimates on Weather: U.S. retailers reported July sales gains that exceeded analysts’ expectations as unusually warm weather sent shoppers into air-conditioned stores.”

When was the last time you left your air-conditioned home or office, fired up the scorching family SUV, spent 36 cents a mile to drive up to Wal-Mart... to cool off in their soothing ambience while fanning yourself with your credit card?

Or, conversely: What household who cannot afford a used AC unit in their bedroom window could account for a 2.4% increase in same-store spending. Unless it were to purchase a new window unit?

-- Even worse: “Oil Prices Drop As Storm Fears Recede: Oil Prices Drop As Fears Recede That Tropical Storm Could Damage Gulf Facilities.”

Let’s face facts: Nobody “feared” the storm. Prices rose on increased energy demand and speculation.

On days like this, I wonder if there isn’t something to the French way of doing business: closing up shop for a month and ignoring the mindless chatter of the talking heads until school starts again.