Archive for January, 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Why Democrats Always Lose & Why American Voters Need A Brand
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 21, 2010 by admin in Politics
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Or, If You’re So Smart How Come You’re Losing? Also, help us pick a mascot for the American Voter. Our first pick is a monkey, but would love your input.
I realized recently that it’s a lot easier to think and talk about politics if you don’t take the topic seriously. I came to this conclusion while having dinner with my liberal friends the other evening. They were mostly talking about what they’ve donated to help Haiti, and how shocking it was that Scott Brown had won in Massachusetts. I accidentally started an argument by asking if they had put their donations on credit cards, asked how much personal debt they carried, what they thought about the federal deficit, if they had thought about Haiti much prior to the earthquake, and what they had done about military spending lately. It really was an accident, but the ensuing brouhaha made clear a point a conservative friend of mine had made recently, which is that people in power love it when the liberal intellectuals get engaged in political discourse, because then they get so busy debating the finer points of the issues at hand that they end up not doing anything about them. And that’s why I reckon we’ll have no new health care plan, a couple new wars, a quadrillion dollar deficit, and a Republican president in 2012. Seriously. Sure, America elected its first black president and the first democratic congressional majority in a while last year, but it took two wars, thousands of deaths, a nationalized banking and auto industry, a massive loss of privacy rights, and a thoroughly gutted economy to do it. And what are liberals talking about a year and a half later? Haiti, a health care bill, and a single republican senator in New England. Don’t get me wrong, this works on conservative voters too. Tell a bunch of hillbillies in a bar that Cat Stevens hates Jesus, that Asians and Mexicans are taking all the jobs, and that allowing gay marriage will turn their kids into atheist homos, and the next thing you know you have George W. Bush in the White House. The Lutzian/Rovian strategy of pandering to voter ignorance is now standard operating procedure for campaigning; ironically the Obama campaign is one of their best proofs of concept. So given this profound dopiness on the part of the American populace, it occurred to me that if the GOP has its elephant, and the Dems have their donkey, the American Voter needs a mascot too. I figured a monkey was a good choice. What about you? Any suggestions? Read the rest of this entry »
Steve Jobs Wears iPatch To Pitch Pre-Hacked arghPod?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 20, 2010 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010Everyone seems pretty sure that Steve Jobs will announce the new Apple Tablet on Monday. But the fact is that they’ve predicted this before, and been dead wrong. It could easily be a real iOpener, like an iBrator, an iPatch, or an iPotty.
What is Apple’s new arghPod? An anti-piracy device? Did they finally decide to save iPhone users the trouble, and jailbreak the phones for them? Is it simply a symbolic expression of the frustration we’re all feeling as we await the release of some kind of Apple tablet device? Argh. Everyone seems pretty sure that a tablet called iSlate is what Steve Jobs will announce on Monday Wednesday, and as we pointed out recently, that would be the perfect name, because it iS late, is late indeed. But maybe it’s something else. The image released to the press isn’t very informative; it suggests that maybe Apple is getting into the Splatball gun market. Or maybe they’re just announcing the new iTunes cloud music venture. I don’t know why I fret so much about the release of the thing; I probably won’t buy one for a year after the release date anyway. Whatever Steve Jobs announces on Monday, the fact is that no-one who knows for sure is telling yet what it is, so the speculation can continue. Which is why we dredged up our favorites from old Worth1000 contests for imaginary Apple products, as well as a couple of other parodies, including our own. See our selections below. Read the rest of this entry »
The Body Electric: Chi Loves Me… Chi Loves Me Not…
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 19, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010Musings on the Pauli Effect, humans as batteries, tantrism and chi, and people who seem to get an unnatural charge out of life.
 Maybe you’ve just seen the movie “Powder” a few too many times. |
Are you or someone you know the sort of person who can’t wear watches, seems to regularly “blow out” light bulbs or other electronic devices, or routinely has street lights go off or on when you pass by? Maybe you’re a victim of the Pauli Effect. Or maybe you’ve just seen the movie Powder
MLK Day – You Can Kill The Man But Not The Message
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 18, 2010 by admin in Holidays
Monday, January 18th, 2010Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my few heroes, but somehow I’d feel better about his life if I knew who ended it.
MLK day is a holiday that triggers a lot of mixed feeings for me. Martin Luther King, Jr. is probably one of the few people I consider a hero, and I find it especially inspiring that on this MLK Day, an American man of color who has won the Nobel Peace Prize and has risen to a position of leadership with a message of hope and change can suggest that we honor another man who did exactly the same thing. I hope that’s where the similarities end, and that’s the main reason this day of rememberance gives me such mixed feelings. Probably no American figure of the last century brought the message that truth and love can conquer almost anything with more power and diginity than Martin Luther King, Jr., and sadly, it has seemed to be a trend in recent American history that peace-minded leaders meet their demise at the hands of assassins. I’m not a conspiracy nut by any stretch, but one has to be ignorant to believe that the deaths of JFK, RFK, MLK, or even possibly Paul Wellstone were not the result of their being forces for peace in a world run by militant, angry, frightened white men. If I were Paul Wellstone’s family, I probably wouldn’t want Dick Cheney at the funeral either. In the case of MLK, even his family didn’t believe that James Earle Ray was the killer, and in spite of lengthy assurances from the Justice Department that they got the right man, there were never conclusive results that his gun was the one used in the assassination. To me this would be a much more meaningful day if we could at least know for sure who was truly behind the death of such a great man. In spite of all this, King is proof that you can kill a great man, but not kill his message. On that note, a few of my favorite MLK quotes are below. Read the rest of this entry »
Inception The Movie: Your Mind Is The Scene Of The Crime
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 17, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, January 17th, 2010The trailers for Christopher Nolan’s new movie Inception are out, as is an online game. Plot details are still thin, but with the director of Memento and Dark Night at the helm, who’s worried?
I almost never get wet-my-pants excited about upcoming film releases, especially anticipated blockbusters, but I’m making an exception in the case of Inception, the new film directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight). Aside from the trailers (see below), the only details about Inception so far consist of the tagline “Your mind is the scene of the crime“, the pitch “In a world where entering dreams is possible, a single idea from the human mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset“, and some random thoughts about the film from Chris Nolan in this LA Times piece. Anything else right now is pure conjecture (which they’ve done a lot of over at Screen Rant ), except for the alleged scoop on the plot at (WARNING: Spoilers, assuming they’re right) InContention.com. Personally, I don’t care about all this speculation, anybody who can make a film like Memento and then later actually make me LOVE a Batman movie has my unqualified trust. Inception is slated for a July 2010 release, and the early virals are in motion; the Inception movie site has a link to a game at Your Mind Is The Scene Of The Crime. We have a mini-preview of the game with screen grabs for your amusement below, but only played as far as the first level, so who knows where the game leads? Try it and let us know. For now, we’ll wait and watch for more marketing teasers. Trailer and game details below. Read the rest of this entry »