Megyn Kelly - Essentially a New Meme

After calling pepper spray a "food product, essentially", Fox newscaster Megyn Kelly has immediately become the subject of a hot internet meme, the "Essentially" meme. This comes at the same time as news of a study that found that Fox News watchers know less about current events than people who don't watch the news at all. Duh, I could have told you that. When preparing this blog post, I checked out M.K.'s Wikipedia page and found out that she's a lawyer. She practiced law for nine years. Part of that time was with the firm of Jones, Day. Among consumer lawyers, the defense lawyers of Jones Day are known for proving the adage that when you hire a big ticket law firm, you don't necessarily get what you pay for. If only MSNBC had hosts as good looking as Fox, then the political balance would look a lot different in this country.

Occupy Black Friday
Target Petition Ignites Pushback


This year Target announced plans to open its stores for Black Friday at 12:00 AM. In response, a (soon to be "ex"?) Target worker named Anthony Hardwick posted a petition at change.org protesting the early opening because it robs the workers of their ability to spend Thanksgiving evening with their families. Other retailers have jumped on the early opening bandwagon. (In fact, I'm not sure that Target was ever unique in this strategy. It's just new for them.) I signed the petition in solidarity for the workers; but in hindsight, I have my doubts that working midnight is worse than working 5:00 AM. First of all, if you work midnight, you never have to go to sleep Thanksgiving evening. If you are drowsy on Friday morning, that's the company's problem. Secondly, Target pays holiday pay for working Thanksgiving (as do most retailers. Do they pay holiday pay on Friday? I suspect most don't.

Target has already begun its corporate campaign against Mr. Hardwick's petition, and it has taken the form of a personal slam on Mr. Hardwick. Hey, if you don't like the message, I guess you should attack the messenger. Target released a press release not mentioning Mr. Hardwick by name, but clearly referring to him stating that he was not scheduled to work Thanksgiving or Black Friday because he works full-time for another retailer and he needed Black Friday off. At first blush, this makes Mr. Hardwick look bad, but actually, his point remains as valid as ever regarding the vast majority of Target workers.

Whether midnight is better or worse than 5:00 AM is not really the big issue. The big issue is that the worker's family life has never been a high priority among American retailers, and it seems to be getting worse. Very few retailers are unionized. (Coincidence?) It should come as a surprise to nobody that the "occupy" movement has started a grass-roots "occupy black friday" movement. I have my doubts whether the protesters will have enough critical mass to slow down the compulsive shoppers driven by selective discounts into a feeding frenzy, but we'll see. Personally, I've been boycotting Black Friday for years. I could say it was because of social responsibility; but really,it's because I don't like to get up early and from experience I know that those extra-special deals are rarely available once you get to the stores. My suggestion: sleep in. Cyber Monday? Now that rocks.

A very short marginally related video. This will bring back memories.

Das Tub?

There hasn't been a great submarine movie since Das Boot in 1981. That's why, when I heard of Das Tub, I had high hopes that it would be as good as Das Boot. Is it? Well, you be the judge.

Das Tub from Media Design School on Vimeo.

The Next Great Escape in Los Angeles

Ford used the Los Angeles Auto Show for the official unveiling of the next generation Ford Escape. This is the vehicle most of the world knows as the Kuga. It's less boxy than the current Escape. Being boxy never hurt the Escape's sales. It's been in the top two or 3 in its category for its entire run. The current 2.5 liter 4-cylinder will be the base engine. There will be 1.6 liter and 2.0 liter ecoboost (turbocharged) engines available as well. The hybrid appears to be dead for now.

Photo via Jalopnik.com

If you think I have a marginally relevant video for you, then I guess you know me too well. Actually, I have two. You see, when I first thought of the Ford Escape I thought of Rupert Holmes' The Pina Colada Song. That song always creeped me out though, so I didn't want to link to a video of his version of the song. What other versions are there on Youtube? Well, I found these two, and they both creeped me out even more. I figure since nobody will be likely to play through the whole song of either of these, it's like only having one. You know what I mean?

Honey Badger takes Two Human Lives

This video is almost a year old now, and I've been meaning to post it for a long time but I didn't get around to it. In the past 10 months or so a whole meme has grown up around it. I have to say that it deserves all of its 24 million views. That's roughly two human lifetimes worth of Honey Badger. Honey Badger Don't Care. (language alert)

Jimmy Fallon Does Morrison

Check out this clip where Jimmy Fallon and the Roots do a spot-on impression of the Doors doing the theme to "Reading Rainbow".

The New Incentive Wars have Begun

I actually watched some brain rot television tonight, and the level of auto advertising was up to pre-carpocalypse standards. There were lots of Chevy, Kia and Volkswagen 0-0-0 deals. Nissan got its licks in as well. It looks like the car manufacturers have some ambitious year-end numbers that they want to meet, and they are discounting to move the metal. If you are contemplating getting a different car, you might find getting a new car is about as cheap as a used one on a monthly basis. Edmund's Deals of the Month page was last updated for October 20, 2011, so they should refresh it soon. That's always a good place to start when looking at competitive incentives. Also, take a look at autonews.com.

Whatever you do, be careful on your test drive.

New Buzzword of the Decade: THORIUM

As in: "I'm so thorium, I can hardly pithium."

If you remember the old Batman television show from the 60's, whenever they climbed into the Batmobile (coolest car ever), Robin would call out "atomic batteries to power,turbines to speed" before they set out. As it so happens, maybe Batman was just 50 years or so ahead of its time. How's that? Atomic powered cars might actually be practical. The key is, you can't use uranium or plutonium, rather, the best bet is the (mildly radioactive) common, rare-earth metal, thorium. Thorium is fairly common in the United States, but right now there isn't enough demand for there to be much active mining. Thorium has enough atomic energy stored within so that 8 grams of thorium could power a typical car for its life time. Back in the bad old days of the carpocolypse, in January 2009, Cadillac came out with a concept car (right) to be fueled by a thorium/laser powerplant. (see pic from ubergizmo.com)

For a detailed layperson's article on thorium reactor technology, check out this article at Wired.com.

A marginally relevant video perhaps? Of course

An Xtranormal Explanation of the Mortgage Crisis

This is from late 2010, but I think it explains the basic ideas pretty well.

Auto Finance Companies Making a Comeback
- Originating More Loans than Banks or Credit Unions

From Collections and Credit Risk comes a news item that auto finance companies have drastically increased their share of the auto loan market in the past two years, up 47% overall. Finance companies are originating 38.5% of auto loans versus 17.6% for banks and credit unions.

That finance companies have increased market share should come as no surprise. In 2008 Chrysler Financial and GMAC were severely limited during the bailout. Chrysler Financial ended up biting the dust and the auto arm of GMAC was replaced by Ally Financial. There was shrinkage and consolidation among other players. Most notably, Santander acquired Drive Financial.

How is this important to consumers and consumer lawyer? The finance companies generally buy installment sales contracts originated by the dealers. Traditionally, the dealers would try to write these contracts at as high an interest rate as possible, and the dealers would be rewarded with a yield spread premium kickback from the lender based upon the interest rate. I have heard anecdotally that the dynamic has changed, and the dealers actually have to pay the finance companies to take the deal now. I don't know if that is true, but it does seem like there are more "yo yo" sales going on where the dealer calls the customer back under the premise that the financing has fallen through.

I suggest that it is more important than ever for consumers to avoid financing through the dealer and to arrange your own financing separately through the bank or credit union of your choice. Lenders will bid to get your business at sites like bankrate.com and lendingtree.com. I have found that in most cases, going with an internet consolidator like these sites or by going through your local credit union, you can usually get the best deal and the most straightforward deal at that. If you are not comfortable negotiating a deal at the dealer, many credit unions offer a "car buying service" that will result in a cleaner, better deal than going in to the dealer with no experience.