Geek Out

Bond, James Bond that is, rocks. It's a universal fact. His gadgets help out quite a bit in molding his coolness factor and some aren't nearly so far fetched as they once seemed.

Mutually Assured Destruction

This isn't even subtle....not that hammer headed Clintonian is ever subtle, but it sounds like she is encouraging Floridians to make sure she gets her way or that they should vote for McCain to spite the Democratic Party. Not that they should voice their own opinions mind you, not that they should weigh their options and make an informed decision, but that they should spite the Party because of *her* bitterness she wishes to project onto them.

"If we care about winning those states in November, we need to count your votes now. If Democrats send a message that we don't fully value your vote, we know Sen. McCain and the Republicans will be more than happy to have them."

Schadenfreude ain't so bad

O'Reilly is a bountiful field of material for jokes, but everyone now and then somebody does it better that most. Good on you Barely Political.

Alt Energy in Glasgow

I totally geek out about creative ways to obtain energy. Glasgow has a proposal from ZM Architecture that is plenty cool to geek out about.

Masterfully Done

To the point; the cycle of torment continues...

Awesome Artwork

Flickr stream

Ethanol = Bad

And Ethanol is wrapped up in the farm bill traipsing through Congress. Ronald Bailey has the dish here.

I really don't get it. Why would anyone push for alternative fuel sources by analyzing half (or less) of the data? It's pretty apparent at this point that ethanol is going to negatively affect the economy the environment, the food supplies.... so what gives?

I *Heart* Games

Let the "game" begin?

Seeing the Forest *and* the Trees

"Doesn't elite mean 'good?' Is that not something we're looking for in a president anymore? ... I know elite is a bad word in politics. You want to go bowling and throw back a few beers. But the job you're applying for---if you get it and it goes well---they might carve your head into a mountain. If you don't actually think you're better than us, then what the fuck are you doing? ... [N]ot only do I want an elite president, I want someone who is embarrassingly superior to me."
---Jon Stewart

Zimbabwe Elections Rehash

It's hard to keep abreast of all the details so it's always nice when an overview is compiled.

Athiesm Today

Intriguing.

We’re developing a strange hybrid in America, a cross between the neo-Nietzschean virtuoso of the self and Nietzsche’s own despised practitioner of ‘European Buddhism’, the religion of pity.

Physically Possible?

My dog carpet bombs the backyard on a weekly basis. Maybe he thinks he is helping out by fertilizing the grass, it's hard to say. What baffles me however is that the output seems to be far greater than the input. Is he having other dogs over when we are away? Poop party at my house!

If the materials weren't so disagreeable, the scientist in me would be genuinely interested in quantifying the input/output ratio. I am telling you, something ain't right. Who knows though, if I could put it to good use I would have a cash cow on my hands. I put x dollars in the front, and x+1 comes out the back. I wonder who needs bucket fulls of this stuff....

Zim

Uh oh. Things *were* looking up...

A view from the inside .

Short Stories Might Just Save the Universe

Pretty well done. A short story to mock the maniacal malevolent one herself.

Calling All Geeks

This should pretty much bring out whatever amount of Geek is in you. If you can hear that people may in fact teleport at sometime in the future and at the very least utter "cool", then there is no hope for you; truly a zero geek quotient.

So Much for a Fresh Face

Ouch!. And ouch again.

Simplify!

Cheers to that! Let's keep our economic transactions straight forward, easy to understand, and meaningful.

More here, and a good blog entry roundup here.

Hannity is a Hypocrite, Really? ... Say it ain't so.

Not that it's a big surprise or anything. Compliments of Sullivan.

I would extend the questions raised to a more general context. Jeremiah Wright certainly said some hateful things, but hasn't he garnered a ridiculous and disproportionate amount of coverage? One of my previous pastor's was accused of molesting children....go ahead and see if you can find a story about it anywhere at anytime.

In other news, I hear otherwise reasonable people say stupid things every single day. I don't call them out because it simply isn't worth my time. I am not kidding, every single day...people who get paid lots of money who know very little about what they are talking about it. Should I be judged by their comments?

Hillary's Foibles

I don't have time to do the leg work...I am sure glad someone else does. Thanks to RenaRF at Daily Kos.

McCain

Generally speaking I wouldn't be unhappy with a McCain presidency. For the most part my vote is not going to an individual candidates personal feelings on particular issues but on their personal character and who I think he/she will surround them. There are a lot of people who have to make important decisions; the president is simply the most visible.

A president's character is of utmost importance. We can't have our president hitting the bottle like ole' Rummy Nixon can we? It's a tough job that places incredible strain upon the mental and physical being of the person doing it...and they have to be able to stay standing.

McCain is a strong personality mentally, though his physical endurance is obviously a big question mark. More concerning to me however is some of his foreign policy. I worry that the people he would surround himself with would be all too familiar. There are a lot of faces I never want to see in D.C. ever again.

Here is a good roundup of McCain's potential liability as Commander in Chief.

And All That Cash

The crux of it all. The executives get golden parachutes, the debtors get a get-out-of-jail-free card...and who shoulders the burden again?

Break Time

Twisted Brother

Global Warming

An intriguing discussion.

There are so many questions and so few answers. Discussions have to continue till we can get our collective heads wrapped around "it".

Personally, I see no moral imperative to keep the planet or the human species in one state or another per se, nor do I see the future as our true manifest destiny ("All your time are belong to us"); but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't try to maintain balance in the environment particularly if we are effing things up for others who haven't had a chance to eff it up themselves yet. I jest, but it seems helpful to remain detached to avoid the shrillness that so often accompanies such discussions.

Blaugh

I don't even care if some creative editing is involved; there is still some leftover throw up in my mouth. It doesn't taste good. It's really bad when you are throwing up and laughing at the same time. The opposing forces are about as bad as any milk through the nose incident I can remember.

*** Update ***
It's Obama's fault that Clinton uttered such BS.

Can anyone spare some...

...change?

Lefties and Leprechauns

I like it. I don't mind reducing ridiculous arguments to quips, especially if they off-put someone you might think needs to see the ridiculousness of their position. Somewhere down deep you realize you can't convince them, that they are currently beyond the cusp of reality; you might as well have fun with a few jokes in the meantime.

I'm just absolutely tired of this bullshit coming from people like Klein who insist that "leftists" are "rooting" for American failure. Let's get this straight: there are no "leftists" in modern-day America. Or, rather, there about ten of them, and you can find absolutely every single one of them at the next antiwar or anti-anything protest in Washington; they all fit in one section of the park behind the White House, where you can find pretty much all of them passing out small stacks of socialist fliers, mainly to each other. These socialists are committed, dedicated, utterly serious political activists, which makes them absolutely atypical Americans, which is why there are so few of them.

The rest of the people that the Kleins of the world are calling "leftists" are mostly cautious consumers who watch a lot of Netflix movies, have maybe read Love in the Time of Cholera once or twice, and whose most aggressive step in the direction of socialism is a vote in favor of increased school spending. They might drive a foreign car, or willingly see a movie with subtitles. If that makes them "leftists," what word are we going to use for real leftists? It's totally fucking stupid, and Klein is old enough and close to bright enough to see the absurdity of red-baiting the basically timid conservatism of the American TV-watching, net-surfing leisure class. If you gave the people Joe Klein calls "leftists" a choice -- told them they could have an instant Scandanavian-style state-directed economy, but only if The Sopranos was pulled off the air -- how many of them do you think would vote for even that kind of socialism? The A&E network has nothing to worry about, let's put it that way. Then there's this whole business of liberals who are accused of "rooting" for failure in Iraq. I'm sorry, but the next pundit who whips that one out should have his balls stuffed down his throat. You cocksuckers beat the drum to send these kids to war, and then you turn around and accuse us of rooting for them to die? Fuck you for even thinking that. We're Americans just like you. You don't have the right to get us into this mess and then turn around and call us traitors. Your credibility is long gone on this issue. Shut up about us.

Nothing to See Here

Father knows best of course.

Let's get to some of the juicy parts...

Q Two-thirds of Americans say it was not worth fighting.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: They ought to go spend time, like you and I have, Martha. You know what's been happening in Iraq. You've been there as much as anybody. There has, in fact, been fundamental change and transformation, and improvement for the better. I think even you would admit that.

Q Let me go back to the Americans. Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So?

Q So -- you don't care what the American people think?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there. And this President has been very courageous, very consistent, very determined to continue down the course we were on and to achieve our objective. And that's victory in Iraq, that's the establishment of a democracy where there's never been a democracy, it's the establishment of a regime that respects the rights and liberties of their people, as an ally for the United States in the war against terror, and as a positive force for change in the Middle East. That's a huge accomplishment.

Hasn't the course we were on already been implicitly acknowledged by this administration as having been poorly laid out. Why the surge? Because we were on the right course?

Q Are you certain of victory?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You can't, say -- get up some morning and say, gee, the polls are critical of what we're doing, and quit. It doesn't work that way.

Q Are you certain of victory?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am.

Q And what makes you so certain?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am confident because I've worked over the years with both the Iraqi people that are involved, as well as the Americans that are involved; because I know the effort and the sacrifice that have been made by the men and women of the United States military; because I know and have watched people commit their lives in Iraq to this enterprise who have lost family members or been seriously threatened themselves by virtue of the fact they've been willing to sign on with Americans and be part of the enterprise.

God....Bless. In other words: "Believe in me, you need no other reason. Enough effort and enough sacrifice by people other than myself = Victory". Sisyphus is just a sissy who isn't trying hard enough.

... there is more but I simply don't have the effort. I puke a little in my mouth everytime I hear this man talk.

FUD

Why oh why must such shrill ridiculousness garner so much attention? How can Savage even be provided a platform for such conspiracy theory caterwauling?

Language, Visualized

80 million tiny images...

Definitely cool.