excuse me for a moment...

Lately, I've been plagued by the feeling that I've somehow offended almost everyone I know, but no one will tell me how, or even if it is so. I tell you this not in an effort to solicit sympathy or reassurance, but because the thought's been rattling around in my head and I'm attempting to purge it my exposing it to daylight. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!

quote for the day

"There’s no measure I can think of by which the U.S. economy has done better since 1980 than it did over an equivalent time span before 1980."

Paul Krugman

Actually, there is one, the growth of the wealth of the top 1%. But who's counting?

quote for the day

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. It goes to follow that we don't need gun regulation, we need people regulation -- we need people to be smarter. But people have proven to be violently opposed to this idea.

Jeffrey Rowland at Overcompensating

a loony issue

So, Dodge has this car called a Viper, and it is a sexy, sexy bitch. Unfortunately, just as the Dodge Ram has gender issues, the Viper seems to have it's own secret desire to be in the entertainment industry...

It wants to be Daffy Duck!


Shoot me now! Shoot me now!


props to Boing Boing.

living right

This is the sustainable neighborhood where Kim Stanley Robinson lives. They should all be like this. Check it out.

Via Shareable, by way of Gerry Canavan.

dude, seriously

Yeah, it's early, but what kind of internet pundit would I be if I didnt put in my two cents here and try and predict what happened before anybody really knows? After all, if I guess right wont that be a fine feather in my cap? If I guess wrong, well who care?

So here's my guess: NO, it wasnt an attack by Muslims With The Middle Name Of Hussien Who Are In League With Obama. More likely, it was some poor, stressed out bastard who was sick and tired of having jokes about muslims aimed at him while doing his best for his country.
Or not.
Seriously, wait for the news to come out and shut up in the meantime. People talk about all the various things that are "destroying" America. Well, I'd put 24 Hour News in the Top 10, myself. So chill out, okay. You got your breaking news, now wait until tomorrow to find out just what the hell really happened, okay?
It's not going to kill you to wait.

congratulations

Good job Maine, you've saved marriage! Because, as everyone knows, the best way to preserve anything is to make sure that "certain" people have no access to it. You know, marriage is like a diamond, it's only precious when it's hard to get.

oh.my.god.

Seriously, this is absolutely wonderful. I keep coming back and watching it, and it hasnt got old yet.

Props to Dr. Zaius. If the damned video wont show up, go watch it there.

oh dear

Warren Buffet's investing in rail. This cant be good for the rest of us, because rail's value grows as the cost of fuel goes up. Diesel tractor-trailers are faster, but thirstier. With low fuel prices, we choose speed over efficiency, but raise prices high enough, and the choice goes the other way. If you dont think that Warren Buffet doesnt have a finger on the pulse of things such as oil prices, then that may explain why you arent one of the richest people in the world. Remember, to a certain extent, all the big players are inside traders, because they have access to information that the rest of us wont have until we get it in the grocery line.

Okay, first here's number two on The Telegraph's list of Top Ten Internet Laws:

Poe’s Law

Not to be confused with the law of poetry enshrined by Edgar Allan Poe, the internet Poe’s Law states: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.”

It was originally formulated by Nathan Poe in 2005 during a debate on christianforums.com about evolution, and referred to creationism rather than all fundamentalism, but has since been expanded.

Poe’s Law also has an inverse meaning, stating that non-fundamentalists will often mistake sincere expressions of fundamentalist beliefs for parody.

Examples abound – one particularly difficult-to-judge site claims that “Heliocentrism [the belief that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than the other way around] is an Atheist Doctrine”.

One that must, surely, be a parody is sexinchrist.com (WARNING: link contains adult material), a site that offers Christians advice on the rights and wrongs of such activities as threesomes and pubic shaving, among much more.

However, it is hard to be entirely certain, given the existence of christiannymphos.org (WARNING: link contains adult material), an apparently entirely serious site

To Christians I think the Law can now safely add a pretty sizable chunk of the Republican Party, as American Conservatives sink further and further into self-parody.
Example #318? How about the fabulous new internet game "2011: Obama's Coup Fails". I mean, maybe it's tongue in cheek, maybe it's not. But whether it was created by liberal wags suckering the wingnuts, or by wingnuts fantasizing about sucker-punching the liberals, does it even matter if there are conservatives gleefully playing it out there?.

Chaos ensues throughout the nation! The Second American Revolution is in full swing by February of 2011, with lists posted by patriots, county by county, naming dozens of government employees and the bounties that can be fetched by their capture. After 7 weeks of fighting in every state, and with the refusal of most United States military branches to obey orders to fire upon American citizens, Obama’s forces are slowly whittled away. The remnants of the Obama loyalists retreat to Virginia. After tens of thousands of their troops are killed, The International Service Union Empire (I.S.U.E.) has just 40,000 left, but still controls three full counties in the name of former President Barack Hussein Obama… Or so they think. The Congress of Rejected and Neglected Youth (C.O.R.N.Y.) controls three counties near Washington D.C., with reports of having at least 60,000 loyalists for Obama.

C.O.R.N.Y.? Really? Is that a "joke" at the "expense" of ACORN, or is it a flare from parodyists saying "hey folks, this is a joke"? Beats me. And, in deference to the distinct possibility that this is real, I'll choose not to play the game. It's not like I've got the time, anyway.

props to Pryme.