Archive for May, 2010
Hope and Change
I wonder what’s different about British politics that allows them to back down from a nationwide identity card scheme, yet we’re still larding on ever more useless bits of intrusive security theater. Presumably, the next time there’s a terrorist attack in Britain, the media will play woulda-coulda-shoulda to show how an identity card could have [...]
May 30, 2010
· 
mistermix · 
39 Comments
Posted in: Security Theatre
Early Morning Open Thread: Geek Showmanship
Hat tip to commentor Scav for tonight’s fireworks: From the link: “ArcAttack employs a unique DJ set up of their own creation to generate an ‘electrifying’ audio visual performance. The HVDJ pumps music through a PA system while two specially designed DRSSTC’s (Dual-Resonant Solid State Tesla Coils) act as separate synchronized instruments. These high tech [...]
May 30, 2010
· Anne Laurie · 27 Comments
Posted in: Music, Open Thread, Science and Technology
The facts were in the ball park
This story is a little old, and it’s possible that it’s already been discussed here, but it made made me laugh out loud: Vaughn Ward, the Republican congressional candidate from Idaho, has the dubious character trifecta of the Palin brand: bone-headed, defiant and willfully ignorant. When told that Puerto Rico was not a country, he [...]
May 29, 2010
· Angry DougJ · 77 Comments
Posted in: Hoot-Smalley
Open Thread
Going into a food coma, myself. Picked up some beautiful poblanos and chorizo sausage yesterday, and dad cooked up some stuffed poblanos, chorizo corn tamales, and a black bean dish. Dessert was rhubarb with a wholewheat crust.
May 29, 2010
· John Cole · 168 Comments
Posted in: Open Thread
New Crack for Old-Skool Gamers
I was not aware that the genre already needed saving, but Annalee Newitz at io9 explains how “Neal Stephenson and Friends Fight for the Future of EBooks with The Mongoliad“: While the publishing industry fights to survive, a group of scifi writers and software developers have struck out on their own. Led by Neal Stephenson, [...]
May 29, 2010
· Anne Laurie · 48 Comments
Posted in: Daydream Believers, Media, Popular Culture, Science and Technology
Goddammt, I’d Piss On a Spark Plug If I Thought It’d Do Any Good!
Soooo… Now what? After indicating on Thursday that the top-kill effort was working, then pausing the operation, then resuming it and indicating that it is going as planned on Friday, BP now says that the amount of oil spewing from the well hasn’t changed, and there is not guarantee that the procedure is actually working. [...]
May 29, 2010
· John Cole · 68 Comments
Posted in: Assholes, Domestic Affairs
His Fantasy Is His Reality
TNC does a great job eviscerating more nonsense from someone I think is a good pick for the worst person in the world on any given day, Lanny Davis: Lanny Davis has distinguished himself, over the past two years, by reaching across the partisan divide. Davis’s commitment to common ground is absolute and unquestioned—even when [...]
May 29, 2010
· John Cole · 63 Comments
Posted in: Democratic Stupidity, Domestic Affairs, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign
Wasilla Wingnut Update
For those of you interested in another update on the snowbilly and her husband, Joe McGinnis is talking. This stood out: After that happened, McGinniss—who is hoping to finish his local research for the book by Labor Day—became the target of fury from Palin fans. After radio host Mark Levin gave out the author’s e-mail [...]
May 29, 2010
· John Cole · 64 Comments
Posted in: Assholes, Starbursts
Simple dialectics
Who knows if he was really acting or not, but Dennis Hopper’s performance in Apocalypse Now is one of my very favorite performances in film. I hear so many things these days that remind me of this nonsense about how you can’t land on a fraction.
May 29, 2010
· Angry DougJ · 14 Comments
Posted in: Open Thread, Other
RIP, Dennis Hopper
Dead at 74. He did it his way.
May 29, 2010
· John Cole · 76 Comments
Posted in: Other
Hysteria vs Reality
While the DC press corps and Peggy Noonan are crying like teenage girls about Daddy’s inability to make everything all better, let’s not forget that the policy Obama announced at his latest conference was sane, reasonable and right. Here’s oil industry analyst Dan Pickering: On Thursday, President Obama called a halt to all deepwater drilling [...]
May 29, 2010
· mistermix · 117 Comments
Posted in: Our Failed Media Experiment, Outrage
Early Morning Open Thread: Blockbuster Season
Haven’t seen anything about this summer’s upcoming movies that would tempt me to spend $25 and an evening. Not even much, beyond a couple of documentaries, that I’d bother adding to my Netflix queue. Lindy West’s review of “Burkas and Birkins” made me laugh, though: ... SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a [...]
May 29, 2010
· Anne Laurie · 62 Comments
Posted in: Movies, Music, Open Thread
You make a grown man cry
I know I talk about David Broder too much, but this reads like parody: It took almost a full hour of Barack Obama’s news conference for the professor-president to come down from his lecture platform and show the human reaction to the gulf oil leak accident that people had been looking for.[....]Politicians know this. A [...]
May 29, 2010
· Angry DougJ · 86 Comments
Posted in: Daydream Believers, DC Press Corpse
Now he talks about a scandal in the WH…
Darrell Issa is an odd choice to talk about a ‘scandal’ in the White House. I’m sure this Sestak meme is just bullshit. I’m certain of that in large measure because Issa is the one leading the charge. He is a simple partisan hack who always puts party before Country. This latest episode is just [...]
May 28, 2010
· Dennis G. · 90 Comments
Posted in: An Unexamined Scandal, Assholes, Good News For Conservatives
Murder he wrote
Is there any contemporary field with lower standards than journalism? Matt Yglesias finds an unspeakably unacceptable error about Sweden in an article in Foreign Policy by a man who won the Orwell Prize for political writing in 2009: There were 230 homicides in Sweden in 2009, compared with 143 in Washington, D.C., which has a [...]
May 28, 2010
· Angry DougJ · 87 Comments
Posted in: We Are All Mayans Now
