The Hudsucker Index (HI!)

The Australian today carries this report about The Fairfax Index. The Fairfax is a liberal media outlet in Australia. Writer Janet Albrechtsen describes The Fairfax Index as:

The more hysterical the hyperbole on a particular topic on the Fairfax opinion pages and the greater the number of progressive pen pals spilling their outrage on the Fairfax letters pages, the more likely it is that the target of their anguish is good public policy.

That's OK for Australia, but what about us? I humbly suggest The Hudsucker Index (HI!) be used here in the USA to measure the worth of public officials and the policies that they administer. The Hudsucker Index (HI!) is named after the film The Hudsucker Proxy which featured two of America's more renowned liberal mouthpieces, Paul Newman and Tim Robbins. Newman has been relatively quiet of late (he's either given up or is just too rich to give a damn) but Robbins' mouthpiece has been active enough for both of them.

The Hudsucker Index (HI!) will be much more broadly based than the Fairfax Index in that its source information - or database, if you prefer - will be drawn from the pages of all of the blogs that you see listed over there on the right - no, your other right - under the heading "My Blogospheroid". Also included are a number of blogs which I have as yet not found the time to get listed over there on the right - no, your other right - under "My Blogospheroid". Included as well are a whole host of fair minded and middle-of-the-road political, public policy and scientific experts who write or speak in other venues, such as James Lileks, Mark Steyn, Christoper Hitchens, Charles Krauthammer, Wesley Pruden, George Will, Robert Novak, John Podhoretz, Ann Coulter (occasionally, when she's lucid), Tony Blankley, Rush Limbaugh, Jane Fonda, Cindy Sheehan, George Galloway, Fidel Castro, Jacques Chirac, Hugo Chavez, Paul Martin, Ted Rall and Che Guevara (from various gravesites) and many, many others whose names do not appear over there on your right - no, your other right - under "My Blogospheroid".

The Hudsucker Index (HI!) database will include MSM representation from the NYT, WaPo, al Jazeera, the LAT, The Guardian (UK), Pravda, The Islamic Republic Wire (English version), Xinhua, CBS, BBC, CNN, Korean News of the DPRK, Le Monde, Mother Jones, Minneapolis Star Tribune, AP, al Reuters, The Village Voice and others either too numerous to mention or who don't offer English versions of their issues. Obviously, the MSM division of the database will include all those outlets that you see over there on your right - no, your other right - under "All The News That's Fit To Read".

The Hudsucker Index (HI!) will be a useful tool because it will measure the comparable worth of various public officials, public policy and current events as well as help us to identify useless public officials, harmful policy and meaningless current events - the mountain-out-of-a-molehill, blown-out-of-all-proportion, pushing-a-rope, cart-before-the-horse and banshee-shrill squealing current events, specifically. The Hudsucker Index (HI!) will furthermere rate each public official, policy and current event on a scale of Outstanding to Really Moronic.

The Hudsucker Index (HI!)
Outstanding
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Bad
Gobsmackingly Vile
Merely Stupid
Laughable
Criminal
Really Moronic

The Hudsucker Index (HI!) uses open sourced logarithms to provide us with real time ratings, really. Those open sourced logarithms are: 1+1=2, E=MCxC, 0U812, and 7thCAVALRY. Our exact method of interpolating, increasing exponentially and applying binary Kaballah codes will remain, of course, proprietary. We will style-ize for maximaum impactfulness as well as utilize user friendly bar chart asterisk graphs to visually enhance the visual results.

The staff here at Mark in Mexico will not be able to invest the time or resources to do a lot of historical datamining to apply The Hudsucker Index (HI!) to, well, history. I am looking around for my staff - they must all be out to lunch or frantically racing to cover the latest news flashes. Anyway, we have chosen instead to devote our time and resources to what's happening right now. We were able, however, to invest some time during the development of The Hudsucker Index (HI!) Beta version, as well as the Alpha, Gamma, India and Tango versions (the BAGIT development strategy) to rate some historical public policy issues and public officials as well as what-was-then-a-current-event. Here are those eagerly anticipated, and, I might add, predictable results.

Pol Pot - Criminal - *.
Karl Rove - Outstanding - ***********.
Howard Dean - Really Moronic - .
Kyoto Accord - Merely Stupid - ***.
Harriet Miers - Poor - ******.
Samuel Alito - Excellent - *********.
George W. Bush - Outstanding - **********.
George H. W. Bush - Good - ********.
William Jefferson Clinton - Who? - ?.
Iraq War I - Excellent - *********.
Iraq War II - Outstanding - **********.
Andrew Sullivan's opinions - Gobsmackingly Vile - ****.
Abu Graib Controversy - Laughable - **.
Iraq Constitution - Good - ********.
EU Constitution - Merely Stupid - ***.
Nuance - Laughable - **.

Now, let's turn out attention to current events, current public policy debate and public faces in the news as reported to us by Lucianne.

Harry Reid's closed door session of Congress to discuss Iraq war "misinformation and disinformation"... - Really Moronic - .

MoveOn.org's Stop Alito Petitions - Laughable - **.

Joe Wilson - "I'm No Commie Sympathizer" - Criminal - *.

Ford Motor Company Sales - Bad - *****.

Big Oil Profits - Excellent - *********.

Constitutional Amendment placed on ballot by Michigan Court of Appeals - Outstanding - **********.

Another play for Rachel Corrie, a musical this time - Gobsmackingly Vile - ****.

Two more terrorists killed in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes - Outstanding - **********.

The Return of the Caliphate - Laughable - **.

Chuck Schumer's opinion on anything - Laughable - .

Gun Control proponents - Merely Stupid - ***.

American Exeptionalism - Outstanding - **********.

Florida Bill Would Mandate Students To Learn Spanish - Merely Stupid - ***.

We will continue to monitor the various media outlets to provide you with all the latest The Hudsucker Index (HI!) ratings so that you might be able to better judge current events, current public policy debates and current public officials in the news, currently.

Note: I'll edit this for grammar and spelling at some future date and time.

TAGS: The Hudsucker Index