Last year I saw Rage Against the Machine at the Coachella and Rock the Bells music festivals. While it was really exciting to finally see Rage (never saw them as a kid), in retrospect the whole experience was such a farce.

Everybody knows that Rage's lyrics are unequivocally leftist. The band is often asked how they square their leftist orientation with the fact that their music is distributed by Sony Records. The response was generally something along the lines of, "We need to work within a capitalist system in order to spread the message and overthrow it."

That sounds credible on its face, but I have a hard time buying it after seeing them this past year. Take a look at all the expenses I incurred in order to see them live:

• Cross-country airplane ticket, much of which went straight to oil companies for the fuel
• Concert tickets
• Countless bottles of Gatorade to survive the heat
• Several meals
• Fuel for get to the concertSunscreen, sunglasses, etc.
• Rage concert shirt
• Etc...

Now, take my expenses and multiply them by 120,000 for the total number of people at both shows. That's quite a boon to American Airlines, petrol companies, record companies, restaurants, Hanes, and other companies.

It seems really clear, on balance, that Rage is doing much more to sustain capitalism than weaken it. On the one hand, they infused tens of millions of dollars into the economy. On the other, they said some subversive lyrics to people that already knew the songs.

I'm not saying I agree with things that Rage sings about, but if they are going to present themselves as a revolutionary leftist band, their whole routine shouldn't be laden with hypocrisy.

It also makes me wonder about what Zac de la Rocha does with the millions of dollars he's earned with Rage. Whatever the answer, I bet he's got a really soft bed in a big house -- a far cry from being the "Ghost of Tom Joad."

But whatever, it's still great music for the gym.

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Yesterday morning I woke up to an email from Barack Obama announcing that he was opting out of public financing for the general election. The implications are huge for Democrats, and include stretching McCain's resources thin by making him campaign in all 50 states, making some red states go blue, and increasing chances on down-ballot races across the country.

The McCain response to Obama forgoing public funding was predictably negative. While McCain's soundbites on the matter are inane, there is a legitimate question out there as to whether all this money in the election is a good thing. I think it is.

Imagine a scenario where the Democratic and Republican candidates are both out of the public financing constraints and raising hundreds of millions of dollars. It would give both parties the resources to be competitive nationwide. Both sides could organize in all states and involve the electorate in reaches of the country traditionally forgotten in a system where resources are low and only swing states matter. It would engage people politically who previously had little or no motivation because their state had no organization or money spent there. Advertising nationally and in niche markets (e.g. Comedy Central, Lifetime, ESPN) also has the potential to engage so many more people than are currently.

Besides engaging more people, having more money go to the candidates would diminish the funds and effect of the so-called 527 groups that smear candidates (a la Swift Vote Veterans for "Truth"). Getting that trash out of politics can only be good.

Counterintuitively, having more money in the system might be more democratic because more people would be invested in the outcome, and the 527 propaganda machines would be much less influential.

One might point out that the only reason why Obama will go to all 50 states is because he will have a pile of money that McCain doesn't, so Obama can splurge on competing everywhere. When both candidates have equally huge war chests, the logic might go, the campaigns would revert to maximizing resources in only the swing states and the non-competitive states would get ignored again. To this, I would way that there's a saturation point in campaigning somewhere like Ohio. Once you inundate the airwaves, mail, and ground, there is little effect of spending extra. Furthermore, the ability to advertise nationally and in niche markets still reaches more people regardless of this supposed reversion effect.

There is still the concern people have about too much money in politics, but I really don't think it's a big deal. Individuals being able to contribute $2,300 (the max in this election cycle) hardly corrupts the system. Besides, if the Obama model is typical, the contributions are averaging something like $75. So many more people can afford to donate $35 than can afford a full $2,300 or close it. You can imagine an equivalent system on the Republican side with a ton of small contributions coming from millions of Southern Baptists, for example.

So let the money flow, and get some people from Alabama, California, Idaho, and elsewhere invested and involved. And make these 527 groups irrelevant.

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I listened to a great give-and-take on the upside and changes that go along with having really high oil prices -- a world where oil costs $200 a barrel. Such a spike, if permanent, could have far-reaching changes for societal organization. Some of the more interesting long-term changes that we might expect, according to the experts:

• Civil unrest, especially in oil-producing nations.
• Increased protectionism and a drawback from globalization.
• Market winners in cleaner energy industries.
• An increase in public transit use and demand, which will expand systems. An interesting effect of expanded systems is that it leads to economic growth in the expanded areas, so cities will grow faster than they are.
• Exurbs will decline in population and value because their designs around automobile use will no longer be feasible for many.
• Walkable urban areas could see a huge increase.
• Telecommuting will expand in a big way, which will allow people to choose where they live based more on personal preferences than work factors.
• Greater percentages of people living in urban places, with numbers possibly as high as 70% in the coming decades.

I had a couple reactions here. The first is to the decline of a place like Palm Desert, where I grew up. It's really a kind of strange to think that all of the growth over the past couple of decades there could be erased just as fast if oil prices stay high and a reasonable fuel alternative for automobiles doesn't pop up.

A second is the cultural and political changes that come with having 70 percent of the country living in urban areas. Hello, progress.

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So it's not actually new, as it came out last year. But if you're a Cake fan, B-Sides and Essential Rarities is really amazing. Visit that link to download all the mp3s free.

The album has several covers in it. I'm generally not a fan of covers, but all of Cake's are amazing -- yes, all. Think "I Will Survive" and "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps."

In B-Sides, Cake really flaunts its range by covering "Strangers in the Night," "Mah Nà Mah Nà" of Muppet lore, Black Sabbath's "War Pigs," Kenny Rogers's "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" and Barry White's "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up."

UPDATE: As Kristen points out, you can't download the whole album free anymore. The album is still worth getting, one way or another.

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