It all began because: I reread Al Franken's book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations over the past couple of days.

What happened next!:

Somehow, this gave me the idea that it might be a good decision to attempt to listen to Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Here's a link. I didn't want to give one, but you'd have found it anyway. I recommend you don't go to the site. If you're happy (and you like it) keep away. It will only depress you.

I turned on the radio, ready to give it a try.

I lasted exactly three minutes before I had to turn him off.

I wonder if I should be surprised that it took that long for him to misrepresent some fact(s). Which he did. He was discussing the stock market and the fact that, apparently, June has been the "best quarter since 1998" (which according to him was "the end of the 90's bull market") and that this fact spelled "trouble for Democrats."

Well, "the stock market" (by which he means, apparently, Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index) had the best percentage increase in a quarter since 1998. That's true.

But the phrasing is still dishonest. He never specified that it was the S&P 500. He just said "the stock market." I mean there's a lot of measurements of how well the stock market is doing. Let's take another widely quoted one--The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

The DJIA closed at its record high on January 14th, 2000. So even if it's factual to say that 1998 was the end of the 90's bull market (which we'll get to in a moment), it certainly wasn't the end of the Clinton era bull market. By the DJIA, "the stock market" reached its peak six days before Clinton left office.

Now let me step back for a minute. All that last started with an "even if it's factual." Well, it isn't. Again, according to the DJIA 1999 was better than 1998 in almost every important statistical category. So rather than just being misleading, that statement was actually just... what's the word for it... oh yeah, false. It took me two minutes on Google to figure that out. Plus, though there hasn't been a "better quarter" (larger percentage gain) since 1998 on the S&P, the S&P hit its record high in December of 1999! Once again, in the waning days of the Clinton administration. The percentage increases weren't high because the entire index was already so freaking high.

"The stock market" is still high right now. In fact, it's high enough that Rush shouldn't have to misrepresent the facts to make it seem higher. The fact that the stock market got up to the levels it did in 2000 is astonishing and unprecedented. My high school economics teacher was jumping around the room, literally, saying "Kids, we're living in Disneyland!" (figuratively)

It was a fluke at the end of a long period of unbelievable and unprecedented economic growth. And it was all caused by lowering the taxes for the rich and letting them trickle dow... wait, no, that's what didn't happen. I forgot for a moment.

I don't know, maybe three minutes of Rush a day will teach me a lot, if I spend time researching what was false in the first few sentences he speaks.

Moving on.

In the course of the past week or so, read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal which is absolutely terrifying. I don't even know who looks at this site, and I still think that all of you should read it. It's a fantastic book. I can't recommend it highly enough.