Point-Counterpoint 1: Toasted Skin Syndrome and Spending

Point-Counterpoint is a regular feature of the Bad Apples Blog, pitting conservative pundit Jack Hammer against uncredentialed liberal Fox P. Wisconsin. Because Mr. Wisconsin is a pacifist and terrified of conflict, we let him go first.

FOX P. WISCONSIN:

A 12 year-old-boy who played computer games a few hours a day for several months with his laptop on his legs developed permanent sponge-patterned discoloration on his left thigh. Though he knew it got hot, he didn’t adjust the laptop.

This is why scientists everywhere recommend that if something feels like it is hot and burning your skin, you should get away from it.

He is one of 10 patients documented in a recent study who reported the condition, which has previously been seen on people’s legs who work in front of hot stoves or old people with electric blankets. The heat comes from the laptop’s processors. In addition, placing a laptop on your lap may block the exhaust fan.

–Consumerist.com

Great. Just great. Now laptops are roasting children’s legs. Is this what the invisible hand of the marketplace was meant to accomplish?

Of course, any program to study and solve the problem of Toasted Skin Syndrome (the new TSS!) is destined to be derided by conservatives as part of the wasteful spending they’re trying to curb. Not that conservatives themselves can figure out what wasteful spending it is that they’re trying to curb:

So let me get this straight, Mr. Republicans: there isn’t any specific thing we need to cut spending on, except for everything?

JACK HAMMER:

Listen here, you wussie communist greaseball, talking about specific spending cuts is not how you cut spending. You just cut it. Everywhere and all the time. If you were running out of money, would you keep buying your lattes and organic granola bars for breakfast anymore? No, you would CUT SPENDING.

As for the invisible hand of the marketplace, you’re lucky I don’t slap you in the face with it, you pompous hippy jagoff. Maybe computers wouldn’t burn people if the computer manufacturers didn’t have to waste their money paying taxes to our socialist president, or if they didn’t have to waste time finding ways to circumvent his tyrannical standards for environmental safety in manufacturing. Do you think the waste created by smelting rechargeable laptop batteries is going to negotiate secret deals to be buried dangerously close to nearby water supplies itself?

Jack Hammer is the president of Americanism Without Borders, a conservative think-tank. He is also a member of the board of directors for Americans for Things Americans Can Believe In. Fox P. Wisconsin shops at Whole Foods and wears sandals.

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Fall Out of the Gap

Buried in the details of the deal to close California’s $19-billion budget deficit is a roughly $30-million tax break crafted to benefit a company owned by members of one of the state’s richest and most politically influential families, according to a legislative analysis obtained by The Times.

The provision, which will allow the Humboldt Redwood Co. to deduct $20 million in old losses from future taxes, is also expected to cover penalties and interest for the firm co-owned by three sons of Donald G. Fisher, founder of the Gap and Banana Republic, said company Chairman Sandy Dean.

-the LA Times

Nothing breaks my bleeding heart more than when our rich corporate overlords get money that should instead be diverted toward researching tree diseases in Redwood National Forest, or improving the general quality of Birkenstock sandals. This is another instance of corporate greed run totally amok. We cannot continually allow big business to profiteer at the expense of organic school lunch programs.

Robin Hood, that most American of good guys, would be ashamed.

Worse still is the disgrace that the three sons of Donald G. Fisher, founder of the Gap and Banana Republic, are bringing to the Humboldt name. Humboldt County is and should remain synonymous with really great marijuana and, to a lesser extent, Earth Day, and not some pillaging, despotic company that happens to sell awesome jeans. I wore Gap jeans the first time I ever burned an American flag to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I’ll tell you right now, those days are long gone. My next pair of jeans will be made of 100 percent recycled plastic bags.

Speaking of the Gap, have you seen their ugly new logo? Much like their insanely cool clothes, it looks like it was put together by undernourished Malaysian children. Maybe the Humboldt Redwood Co. can spend some of their tax break money to bring some jobs back to America and hire a Madison Avenue design firm instead – assuming they don’t spend the entire $30 million on bigger McMansions and new Hummers.