I...cant help myself

You know I'm a sucker for goofy Star Trek stuff, right? Well...



Klenginem is a German rapper who performs in the Klingon language, mostly modified Eminem songs. Here is his performance of “SuvwI’pu’ qan tu’lu’be”, which is known in English as “Without Me.”

via Neatorama

quickie

Further proof that Democratic administrations are better for the economy than Republican ones are.

via here from here.

yeah

It's gone until the page goes into archive mode. You're welcome.

quote for the day

mostly I was completely aghast at the idea that a father would desert his child after a decade just because the child turned out to be “not really his,” “someone else’s kid.” Speaking off the cuff, it seems to me the best solution here would probably just be to change the law to allow children to have more than two legal parents—but regardless of the legal question there’s a clear ethical imperative to remain a parent the child you have raised and claim to love, whatever the mother might have done or said in the past. In some sense this actually seems to me to be beyond ethics, or rather before; it seems to me you’d want to stay the child’s father, that you’d be desperate to, in whatever way you could.

Refering to this article.

Hmmm. Well on the one hand, I've got to share Gerry's shock at a man who would abandon his daughter, blood or no. On the other hand, in the particular circumstance, when the actual DNA father of the child is married to the actual DNA mother of that child, hitting up non-biological dad for money seems pretty wrong, somehow. And it's not like NBD dad isnt having anything to do with said daughter anymore.
My wife used to get child-support from her ex, and while that check was nice, if it had never come, that would have been okay with me. When you marry a woman (or man) with (a) child(ren), you dont just marry that person, you marry that family. It's a package deal, and you've accepted responsibility for all of them. If you dont like, dont marry. It's that simple, and that fair.

That said, I cant imagine what goes on in the head of anyone who abandons their children, regardless of DNA.

today's wtf moment

Sometimes, I like to enter a random word into Google Images and see what comes up. Sometimes it can be really dull (bread, for instance), and sometimes it gives you something more unexpected, like this image to the right (and dozens like it).

The word? "Golly"


I mean, wtf?!

just thinkin'

Okay, here's an interesting bit of numberplay that I came up with, based on this statistic:

Imagine if 60% of the people in the U.S. lost everything, every dime they had, all of it. That's something on the order of 180 million Americans, all flat broke. Guess how much money we would have to tax the wealthiest 3 million folks in this country to replace every last dime of all those destitute souls?
13%.
That's right. Without touching the money of the top 2 to 39% most wealthy people in the U.S., we could replace the wealth of the bottom three fifths of the nation, by taking away less money from the very top than one would normally add to the check at a restaurant* (if you'd like to think of the majority of the nation as a tip for the meal that was the United States).

Now tell me again how unfair the tax system is to all those rich folk.


Addendum:

You realize, that the numbers say that the wealthiest 1% of the country has almost 8X the amount of money as over half the nation combined. I dont care how you twist it, there is no justification that can support that kind of imbalance. That is not a reward for being smarter or luckier or more willing to take risks, that's just ridiculous, and I dont think anyone can become that wealthy without behavior that is questionable, if only on an ethical level.

* Yes, I know it doesnt really work that way.

quote for the day

There is room in a liberal's world for conservatives, but no room in a conservative's world for liberals.

some guy named Gordon Smuder commenting at The Rude Pundit's Facebook page.

Absofuckinlutely A!

Okay, admittedly, there are a lot of liberals who would be fine excluding conservatives. I happen to think that we need both sides in order to get things done, but not go out of control doing it. You'll frequently find that attitude on the Left, but not too often on the Right, especially these days when the inmates are running the GOP's asylum.

film at 11 (:32)

Where is Lewis Hine when you need him?

Props to Kel.

Addendum:

I have to wonder, as America's business suffer in the global downturn and from competition from Asia and perhaps South America, is there anything which our Managerial Class will not do in order to maintain (or increase) profits? I mean for a country that has the issues with prostitution that we do, we seem awfully willing to whore ourselves.

lexography

Did you know that there is an actual term for the act of blowing on someone's belly*? Neither did I. Zerbert! Thanks (indirectly) to Wondermark for the new word.

Ahhhm-num-num-num-pththththth!


* or whatever

What did you DO, Ray?

RUBBER DUCKY!!!!

a thought on capitalism

People who say that communism failed because workers there lacked the profit motive to succeed are wrong. After a year of recession, it should be obvious that it is not the carrot that drives productivity, but the stick. In this case, the stick is unemployment. Watch productivity numbers, and you will see that productivity goes up whenever unemployment does. This is not only because there are often fewer employees to do the same amount of work, but because the remaining employees are worried about keeping their own jobs. Communists never had to worry about losing their jobs, but we do.

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.

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