DRASTIC TIMES CALL FOR COMPLETELY IDIOTIC SOLUTIONS

In anticipation of the upcoming Annual American Festival of Natural Resource Consumption (aka "summer"), the Bush Administration has come up with an awesome new idea for keeping gas prices low. CNBC and CNN report that they have proposed the suspension of federal Clean Air Act regulations in California, New York, and Connecticut.

These regulations are responsible for those "contains 10% ethanol" stickers you see at the pump. Ethanol is a clean-burning corn-derived product that is mixed with the ossified dinosaur liquid that we hold so dear in order to make it burn more cleanly.

It makes sense, right? I mean the Los Angeles area is already known for its stunningly clean and fresh air. As is New York. And while it may knock the price down a few cents, it will also increase the amount of actual gasoline being used.

But this administration is strong in its leadership. Make no mistake: there is NO environmental regulation that they will not repeal in order to lower the price of filling a Ford Expedition in Orange County from $80 to $76.

What's with this math?

Wow. We finally had a month of strong employment growth. Among other leadering factors for this jump are the 72,000 idled grocery workers in california who are no longer striking, and are working again, and are thus now being counted as new jobs, and that it is spring again, so construction (the other leading industry in hiring) begins anew.

Wait - we don't mean to be this cynical - the market may actually be improving, and all we had to do was drive the country three trillion dollars into debt to get it. My two cents, before everyone else jumps in and starts slapping each other on the back:

($500billion yearly deficit) / (4 for quarterly) / (revised 171,000 jobs created per month * 3 months) = we are taking $243,664 in debt per job created.

Now granted, I'm sure those grocery workers and all the other jobs our economy created this past quarter are paying above the $250,000/yr mark, but let's pretend they aren't.

I'm not an economist by any means, (I've always run to math equations instead of theory) so I'll need someone to explain to me why this is an efficient system. I'll probably believe you, because like most americans I'll believe anything if there are enough fancy words used - and before we start revising history the sole stated reason for taking this deficit (100 or so billion for Iraq aside) was to save the economy. And no, I'm not a centralizing fan or a socialist - I just think there has to be a way to create a bunch of crappy service-industry jobs that is more cost-effective than this trickle-down - and I want to stop the debate from being "Wow - look how trickle-down saved the country" and turn it into "so, was this worth it? Was there possibly another way?"

STAGPLOYMENT MANIA!

So those of you familiar with economics in the most elementary sense know that unemployment and inflation are inversely related. If you don't know that, take my word for it. Dumbass.

Anyway, at theoretical zero employment, inflation would be infinite. The reverse is also true. This isn't any sort of radical interpretation of free market mechanics. It's basic Econ 101 stuff. In certain situations, namely when wage and/or price controls are instituted, unemployment and inflation can both rise simultaneously. Economists call this "stagnant inflation" or "stagflation".

Well, since I envision my place in history being grand, I have decided that the current state of political and economic affairs merits a new and similar term. As you are aware if you pay any attention to reality at all, the number of new jobs created in 2004 (the year in which the 3 million jobs lost since 2000 were supposed to start coming back) has been mediocre and mostly the product of statistical manipulation.

However, yesterday's PMI report and first-time unemployment claims numbers showed something shocking: the number of unemployment claims are falling. So the administration has managed to create a magical, heretofore unseen situation by which the number of jobs is decreasing simultaneous to the number of unemployment claims decreasing.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the miracle of Stagployment.

This of course means that there are an increasing number of people who are simply "exiting" the economy. They're not a part of it in any relevant or empirical way. After all, when you have no job and your ability to stay on the unemployment rolls has been exhausted, you're not really a statistic anymore, you are merely a person whose life has gone down the shitter.

Stagployment fever: catch it!

The Complete Sean Hannity Experience

It takes no more than a brief look around this site to realize the intense love all of its authors feel for the enigmatic and often misunderstood media personality, Sean Hannity.

However, in light of the new launch of Air America and the potential clear-channel cable network and talk radio show (rumored to be hosted by Al Gore and Jesse Jackson) Sean Hannity might be at risk of having his strangle hold on america's talk radio listeners slowly loosen.

It is a good thing that it is time once again for the "Hannitization of America" tour. If you live in Chicago and don't get enough of Mr. hannity from 7-10pm weekdays on News talk 890 WLS am or on the Fox News showHannity and Colmes 8pm weeknights.

The Hannitization of Chicago is scheduled to occur on May the 7 at the Plaza Hilton. Tickets are available right now at:

*update: After checking for myself, it looks like the tickets are not actually on sale now. I got some dodgy information from Roe Conn on WLS yesterday. To the best of my knowledge the Hannitization of America tour is still going to be in Chicago on May 7th. I will keep you posted as to when I actually find the tickets on sale.

Perhaps you think that you can live a fully self actualized life without being Hannitized, but I think not!

get your carpetbag on

With the tragedy in Fallujah, where four private contractors from Black Water Security were killed and dragged through the streets, fresh in our minds it may be a good idea to re-evaulate the idea of a large, privately controlled force taking over for our military. There are no official records, but conservative estimates place contractors in Iraq between 10,000 and 20,000, making private companies the largest contributor of manpower in the entire Coalition of the Willing (England has around 11,000 troops there, and all other countries together are about 15,000 troops.)

I'm not saying if those four victims had proper military training, and co-ordinated their efforts through the local military base, they would be alive today (several other military targets were hit in the same round of violence). But it's certainly would have increased their odds. More importantly, companies are there because they are being paid to do so - democracy building is not in their mission statements - and now that their employees may be targeted will they stay? will we have to pay more?

We know that the majority of our fan base consists of investment bankers, titans of industry, and rising entrepreneurs - these are the links for you! In response to these attack we must double our efforts in using private industry and regular citizens to nation build. In order to make sure we can "stay the course" ginandtacos.com has compiled a list of where to go if you'd like to secure yourself a fat juicy iraq re-building contract:

Coalition Provisional Authority Business Center.
Department of Commerce - Your Link to Information on Rebuilding Iraq
Iraq Program Management Office

Here are three Monster.com-esque postings of job opportunities:
Jobs in Iraq
USAID - specific government jobs, and
Requests for proposals/applications - good old fashioned private sector proposals. There's a particularly nice one for plans on rebuilding Iraq's media sector.

I'm off to think of how to corner the market on cheap gin and taco stands in the sunni triangle (I imagine they respect a quality made Tom Collins there).

teaching kids to say no to sex.

It's "Back To School" time again following spring break, and here's the first pop quiz. No, it's not for the kids. It's for parents, and they have to answer only one question: Do you know what your children are learning in sex-education classes?

Now that I'm finally getting involved with teaching the youth of america I can tell you that the answer is no. But if the program is billed as "abstinence-based," you probably don't feel particularly concerned. The important thing, as far as you're concerned, is that your kids are being taught to say "no" to sex.

But are they? The fact is, nearly all of the government-funded abstinence-based or "abstinence-plus" programs delivered in schools nationwide contain little, if any, reference to abstinence. They may mention it briefly, but it's often presented as something that (wink, wink) kids in the "real world" will ignore.

Far worse, though, is what abstinence-plus programs do contain: explicit demonstrations of contraceptive use — especially condoms — and direct encouragement to experiment sexually.

This despite the fact that parents consistently say they don't want their children to be exposed to such messages. A recent Zogby poll found that three out of every four parents disapproved or strongly disapproved of abstinence-plus curricula. About the same number say they want their children to receive an authentic abstinence education.

The dangers of early sexual activity are well documented. It leads to higher levels of child and maternal poverty, elevates the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, and often leaves teenage girls depressed, even suicidal. It contributes to marriage failure in adulthood.

It's bad enough that these sex-ed programs hide under an abstinence-plus label while completely undermining what most parents want for their children. But when they encourage indiscriminate condom use and sexual experimentation, they're sending kids a troubling message — that we expect them to be sexually active and approve of it, provided it's "safe." And it's all billed to you, the taxpayer. Is that what we want?

I encourage all of our readers to check out True Love Waits, a site that shows an emphasis on drawing a community together to raise the banner of sexual purity and to present students with a united message from churches, businesses, doctors, schools, and the government.

new Ginandtacos.com Essentials

We realize there is a lot of content on this page. Some old fans have been wondering "What's new?" Others are saying "There's too much for one view! Where's the best stuff?" Well, it's all the best stuff sweety, but if you only have a few moments here's the cream of the new crop:

Gin Reviews - funny, smart, could save your life someday. Featuring new reviews. Each comes with an image of the person most likely to be found drinking that gin.

Neocon Bingo - Tired of the neocons? Try this. Refresh the bingo card and you'll get new images; if you have small resolution and the card doesn't fit adjust the bingo size and you'll get scrollbars.

Drinking in Champaign - I know more than a few of you have lived in/attended school in Champaign-Urbana. Erik Martin's bar guide is for you.

Monthly Contest - I expect you all to place a vote in the comments. I want voter turnout to be higher than the national election rates!

Music - we are finally reviewing albums. Soon, we will have enough albums reviewed to start getting free stuff from record companies.

We'll let you slide on just checking out these pages for the first viewing - but you'd better be back for everything else. Also updates.

Air America Radio

The new answer to conversative radio, Air America Radio, launches today at noon. Chicago listeners can pick it up at 950AM. It starts with Al Franken's midday show "The O' Franken Factor". New York Times:
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Though people at the network can't quite believe he means it, Franken has decided to call his show ''The O'Franken Factor'' -- ''just to drive O'Reilly nuts; I'm hoping he sues me again.''
--

Al is also supposed to put things in his "zero-spin zone." People who aren't near it's 5 initial markets or are and don't have a readio should be able to stream the broadcast online. (addition: i've been having problems with streaming from their webpage, so here's a list of links to pages that steam their content. Chuck D has a morning show, and Janeane Garofalo has an evening show. I'm really optimistic and worried about how this will go.

How did you manage to eat tacos or drink gin for two years without us?

This is Erik here welcoming you back to the internet's one true source for gin and taco related content. Life has been quite hectic around the ginandtacos.com corporate office located in sunny Grenada for the last two years. We refused to place anything onto this, the worlds finest site on the internet, that was not truly the paramount example of gin and taco related content. We would not settle for second best. In the world of gin and taco related websites we patently refuse to take the second seat. We owe that to you, our loyal audience- all four of you. Now, knowing us, as many of you do, you probably just assumed that we were procrastinating or were too concerned with eating tacos and drinking gin to inform the world about the latest happenings in gin and taco consumption. I am offended that the thought would even cross your mind. I would like to refer to this time not as procrastination, but rather the gaining of experience and a more profound “world view.

While you might have witnessed us drinking large quantities of alcoholic beverages or eating epic quantities of tacos in the last two years, we do not like to think of that as us shirking our responsibilities, but rather the persuit of knowledge and enlightenment. At the bottom of every shot, or within the remains of every taco wrapper there is wisdom waiting to be saved from the garbage. It is this very wisdom that ginandtacos.com strives to bring you each and every day.

A Brief History of Ginandtacos.com

Mike here with good news: Ginandtacos.com is back and online. Hopefully for good. This site was born out of my dad's basement at that start of a college winter break in december 1999. Ed, Erik and myself had already wasted a good part of the previous acedemic semester building and maintaining seperate student webpages (Erik's is still out there somewhere), so the idea that we would put together our minds to make one great page was an obvious one.

We initially tried to get "www.gin.com", but it was taken by some german folks. We really wanted to take "www.gin.edu", but you needed some hefty credentials to register an education site (gin.edu is still available as far as I know - if any colleges would be willing to purchase it for us please email immediately). I don't know if Ed and I were eating tacos while thinking "what else could we use for a site name to go with gin?" (we almost certainly were), but the name came to us like a bolt of lightning.

It was an initial success. Ed provided the writing, I provided cheap flash applets, Erik Martin provided the Erik Martin. Sadly though, the demands of work and adult life weighed heavy over ginandtacos.com. Faced with old content we put the site on hold with a "check back soon" sign. That was in April of 2002.

Since then everything and nothing has changed. This past December, the domain name lease expired, celebrating the 4th year birthday of ginandtacos.com and leaving the page lost for two weeks. It was then we realized a line in the sand had to be drawn - we had to bring the gin and the tacos back to the people, where they belonged. So here it is. An updated heroes and "little bitch" gallery should be up soon, more movie reviews, and all kinds of stuff in the next couple weeks. Keep checking in!

For all our old fans out there...

For all of you who were there back in the glory days of ginandtacos.com (*sigh* about four years ago /*sigh*) here's our old intro. If this doesn't make you feel like you are 20 and taking a sledgehammer to your GPA while chugging gin straight from the bottle all over again, nothing will:

The Old Ginandtacos.com entry page