Mike Huckabee's 9/11 DVD Kit comes with Binoculars.

Presumably, so you can pretend to watch the towers fall, then look back on a the proudest decade in Amuurrrica's history.



Slate Story here. Via scoop.

An Ultimatum to Obama, or Something

I know it's wrong to gawk at the mentally ill, but this woman/incarnated Pleiadean spins such an exciting, convoluted, explanation-filled yarn with such finger-pointing authority that I can't help but take her incredible threats seriously. If Obama doesn't shape up and surrender, or something, then dirty bombs and Draconians and EMPs and muscular positioning or something.

A disturbing detail: Yes, that's Thomas Kinkade's famous painting Stairway to Paradise in the background. Think about it. Or don't.

via io9

One for the doctors

It's long, but I think it's really worth watching.

A Sampling of Anti-Gay Marriage Ads

The Huffington Post has put together a nice little sampling of anti-gay marriage ads. Over and over you hear "it's not hate" and "it's not bigotry". The ads are full of encapsulated little concrete reasons for why you should oppose gay marriage. There are references to statistics and studies, none of which is dwelled on much. The ads invariably return to the idea of "doing what's right". The language and imagery really give me the impression that the ads are preaching to the converted.

Two things going on here. First, the ads are intended to offer concrete (often economic) justifications why gay marriage should be stopped. Second, the ads appeal to the motivations of the motivated, the reasons why the viewers rage so strongly against gays getting all married. This part seems to be heavily encrypted, but the motivations seem to range somewhere between "it's wrong" to "it's disgusting".

What strikes me most here is the stark disconnect between the justifications and the motivations. Usually both aren't so clearly displayed, but I think it's this same disconnect that makes select Teabaggers so inarticulate. See also the state's rights arguments made in defense of slavery in America.

The ads, I believe, are intended to provide alternate ammunition to people whose primary reasons are at best personal and irrelevant (and at worst; very, very mean). It seems to me that if you make your point using canned statistics, while keeping your real convictions to yourself, then maybe you're not entirely on the correct side of the argument.

I don't mean to use only examples opposed to my own alignment (Neutral Good). I'm sure there are cases of the Secular Left doing this as well. I just can't think of any, possibly because it's rarer, but more likely because this sort of thing is harder to see when you're doing it yourself.

link via @shortpacked


UPDATE: Guilty! I saw this picture:


from this article and immediately started trying to think up reasons why the war in Iraq is a bad idea, just so that little girl wouldn't have to say goodbye to her dad. I'm no better than those racist and homophobic bigots, rhetorically speaking. I hang my head in shame.

Health insurance companies are the ones really suffering here.

Over $100,000 a day just isn't enough for some Americans.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

"Tea Party"

Some left wing radical suggested I watch this. I had fun watching this. Sort of in the same way I have fun watching Borat, or Jackass.

It's that painful kind of experience. You wince and grit your teeth, but you get a feeling of exhilaration afters.



Also, left wing radical suggested doing a shot for every non white person in the video. Guess how drunk I am!



-and Just for Heeero, here's the CIC with a lightsaber.

CIVIL DEFENSE WARNING

Interesting e-mail I got from UH today:

As you know, one recent concern is a threatened missile from North Korea, potentially headed toward Hawaii, sometime within the next week.

We are being advised that State Civil Defense will be the main agency alerting citizens of any conditions warranting action. Radio is the primary source for those advisories, along with the siren warning system tested every month.

There would be, it’s estimated, about 22 minutes from launch to arrival in the Islands if the missile were to get that far.

The basic advice is this. If you hear the sirens, take cover immediately (away from windows if you are indoors) or if you are in a vehicle, pull to the side of the road, lean forward in your car, but keep the radio on to hear the “all clear” or other instructions.

The US military has taken extra precautions to protect Hawaii. State Civil Defense will deploy the health department and other resources if necessary. Officials are confident any threat would be overcome. But precaution is always advised.

I immediately went to a website that made me immune to Korean missile attacks. I've forgotten the address. But then I remembered a week ago or so seeing this post from Gizmodo. Note, that they're a gadget blog, and didn't get it quite right.

Where North Korean missiles could hit:

Then they remembered the Earth was round, and updated the map:

It is possible that Hawaii's Civil Defense people get their news from the same blogs that I do but aren't as thorough, and we've got less to worry about (California is more a more likely target). It's also possible that they read the news from more reputable sources, and there's something going down that I'm missing.

It would suck either way, therefore I am currently digging a cave/bomb shelter in our shared backyard mountain. You can reserve a space if you come help and pitch in for chips and water and toilet paper and stuff. If you come after the fact expecting a spot because we're "friends", understand that I can't promise anything.

Any regrets, Mr. Cheney?

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney defends his administration's torture record on Face the Nation.

BSG meets the U.N.

Meanwhile, at the U.N. 

Ronald D. Moore, Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell and David Eick gathered to discuss the direct correlation between Battlestar Galactica and the present day work at the United Nations. Whoopi "Guinan" Goldberg moderated the entire panel...

At one point the discussion lit a fire under the Admiral, and the talk of human rights turned personal for Edward James Olmos. The "Old Man" launched into a passionate speech about casting off the idea of race as a cultural determinant, and said we were one race, the human race. His voice echoed throughout the chamber growing louder until - I kid you not - he was yelling, "So Say We All," and the crowd answered right back.

Via io9

Inauguration Day (in UK)

I did draw him from the tv

Inauguration Day

Defiling Lego

The Illinois governor is hurting Lego's image.

Steven Chu to be energy secretary. Just kidding: Bush to be president for 4 more years!

It's completely unreal. We're witnessing changes so monumentally different than the status quo and so exponentially closer to the direction we should be going that it's like we're living in some kind of Aaron Sorkin film. Either that, or it's all fake...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.

The Nobel Laureate is Steven Chu, who received the Nobel Prize in 1997 for atomic physics, is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (which, under Chu, has been working to develop alternative energy sources), and is a professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Biology. This feels unprecedented. We're going to have people up there who like science. 

WoW and the office of the President

President-elect Barack Obama appointed Kevin Werbach and Susan Crawford as his FCC transition co-chairs. Aside from being a professor of legal studies and business ethics, he also happens to be one of the Horde:

What does this tell us about him, as a person, as a gamer, as a government official? I will attempt to translate all the dorkese.
1. - CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Every player in WoW belongs to one of two warring factions, Alliance or Horde. Werbach is Horde. Children often choose to be Alliance because they perceive them as "the good guys", but students of history (both ours and Azeroth's) recognize that Alliance culture is based on medieval European culture and Horde culture is based on the indigenous cultures that were supplanted by the West.

Werbach is a Tauren (a minotaur), which basically makes him a Native Kalimdorian. The Tauren revere nature, living in wigwams near giant totem poles. As a Shaman (see below), he could also have chosen a troll (blue-skinned Jamaican-like monster) or an orc (green-skinned Klingon-like monster), so there must be something about the cow-man that appeals to his liberal guilt.

From the Boingboing.

Attention Paultard:

At Rebuild the Party, users can submit (and vote for) ideas for revitalizing the Republican Party. The top ideas aren't all insane--but the real reason I'm posting this link is so you can check out the new suggestions, which fill me with joy. See them all here and bathe in the spectrum of intriguing to conflicted to evil to deeply retarded.

Mother Jones Beat me to it

I was all set to post this observation, realizing that I've been getting a serious Senator Palpatine vibe from Senator Lieberman that goes beyond their physical similarities, but, like the McCain-Tigh thing, someone beat me to it. Glad to see, though, that behind-the-scenes machinations and betrayals aren't quite so super-effective without Jedi mind tricks and force lightning and stuff.

I CAN HAS COUNTRY BAK?

Mutants for McCain!

No, no; get away from me. Her.

Everyone's all up in arms about McCain calling Obama "that one" but the moment that really stuck out in my mind was this sweet move that McCain pulls about 15 seconds in to the clip, refusing to shake hands with Obama, instead directing him to shake hands with his cylon wife. I mean, never mind the snub directed at Obama. How do you parse this if you're Cindy McCain?

UPDATE: Everyone is talking about this, too.

How did I miss this?

Excerpt from a piece by Michael Goldfarb with reference to Orson Swindle on McCain;

"It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain's books). But as Swindle said, this is a "desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing."

Clearly this guy has never tanked Shattered Halls, or Tempest Keep, and had Shaman gear drop. Ignoramus.