{"id":49090,"date":"2014-11-12T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=49090"},"modified":"2014-11-20T11:11:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T17:11:05","slug":"fear-of-a-dumb-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=49090","title":{"rendered":"Fear Of A Dumb Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking through the woods in Como Park, looking for a place to practice the bagpipes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE jumps out from behind a tree.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hey, Merg!\u00a0 Your sides has been owned again!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0\u00a0Er, Avery?\u00a0 What are you doing in the middle of the woods?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: Stakeout for climate criminals.\u00a0 So anyway, we were talking about how your side has been owned again.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0\u00a0“We” weren’t.\u00a0 You were.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hahaha.\u00a0 And it comes from Canada.\u00a0 Here.\u00a0 Read it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"20141112-102136-37296823.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: So yet again, a Canadian proves he knows what’s best for us better than the American electorate does.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Well, no.\u00a0 He’s shown he’s absorbed Deb Wasserman-Drescher’s chanting points like a Macalester College poli-sci grad.\u00a0 Pretty much every point Richard Brunt of Victoria British Columbia says is wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 No way!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Way.\u00a0 Corporate profits are high because companies are sitting on cash<\/a>, rather than investing.\u00a0 The “under 6%” unemployment number is a sham; the percentage of people in the workforce who are working is essentially unchanged since the lowest point in the depression<\/a>.\u00a0 The GDP growth rate Mr. Brunt is bragging about\u00a0is the slowest of any recovery in the post-war era<\/a>. This is especially noteworthy because, normally, steep sharp recessions have steep, sharp recoveries (see 1982). This one was a steep recession with a painfully-slow recovery. How painful? The current GDP growth is equal to the WORST quarter of growth in the recovery from the 1982 recession.<\/p>\n

Gasoline prices are “falling” to about $1 more than they were when Obama took office<\/a>. Worse than that when you adjust for inflation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hah, Merg!\u00a0 There is no inflation!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Does\u00a0you or Mr. Brunt\u00a0ever buy bread, beef, chicken, eggs or health insurance?\u00a0 …? CPI shows low inflation, but that’s largely a function of the price of debt – which is being kept artificially low:<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah – and oil imports are declining partly due to the slow economy, and partly due to drilling in the Dakotas, which is basically happening over Obama’s, let’s just say, passive-aggressive objection.<\/p>\n

As to the “respected around the world” bit? That’s just delusional.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 That’s just like a typical Repblicon.\u00a0 A message based on fear!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Fear?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Fear of black people!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 How did fear or black people enter the conversation?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 You’re afraid, aren’t you?\u00a0 Boo!\u00a0 There’s a black guy sneaking up on you!<\/p>\n

(BERG turns, inflates the bag on his pipes, and starts playing random noises to drown LIBRELLE out as he walks back to his car<\/em>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking through the woods in Como Park, looking for a place to practice the bagpipes. Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE jumps out from behind a tree.\u00a0 LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hey, Merg!\u00a0 Your sides has been owned again! BERG:\u00a0\u00a0Er, Avery?\u00a0 What are you doing in the middle of the woods? LIBRELLE: Stakeout for climate criminals.\u00a0 So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,308,64],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-49090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats","category-entitled-america","category-president-obama","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49090"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49100,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49090\/revisions\/49100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}