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January 20th, 2009
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 Superman had come to town to see who he could rock.
He blew away every crew he faced until he reached the block.
His speakers were three stories high with woofers made of steel.
And when brought our set outside, he said "I boom for real."
 He said, "I'm faster than a speedin' bullet when I'm on the set.
I don't need no fans to cool my ass, I just use my super breath.
I could fly three times around the world without missin' a beat.
I socialize with X-ray eyes, and ladies think it's sweet."
And then he turned his power on and the ground began to move.
And all the buildings for miles around were swayin' to the groove.
And just when he had fooled the crowd and swore he won the fight.
We rocked his butt with a 12 inch cut called "Disco Kryptonite."
Well, Superman looked up at me, he said, "You rock so naturally"
I said, "Now that you've learned to deal, let me tell you why I'm so for real
I'm Prez O.B. from outer space, I came to rock the human race.
I do it right 'cause I can't do it wrong,
That's why the whole world is singin' this song..." (Apologies to Newcleus) |
October 30th, 2008
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Copy this sentence into your LiveJournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow. |
October 29th, 2008
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If you want a truly original Halloween costume, do the following: - Dress up in Sarah Palin clothes.
- Put on Joker makeup.
- Talk in a high-pitched, gravelly-voiced Alaskan-nee-Midwestern accent.
- When people ask you who you're supposed to be, answer "I'm 2008's two most over-done Halloween costumes."
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October 8th, 2008
October 1st, 2008
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 From ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) liz_marcs: In an upcoming interview with Katie Couric to be aired this week, Sarah Palin is unable to name any Supreme Court Case other than Roe v. Wade.
The Rules: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historic, to your lj. (Any decision, as long as it's not Roe v. Wade.) FListers, please take the meme to your ElJay to spread the fun.This is probably one of the most famous Supreme Court cases, if only because you can see its effects every evening on TNT or USA: In Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court mandated that no one who watches prime-time police procedurals would be unaware of their rights (to remain silent, to have an attorney present... etc.) when accused of a crime. Edit: Having just watched the interview, I noticed that Couric asks if there are any Supreme Court decisions that Palin can name that she disagrees with other than Roe v. Wade. The one off the top of my head is probably one that she and I differ considerably on: Bush v. Gore, but one that most people would agree upon is Plessy v. Ferguson. |
March 17th, 2008
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You should probably skip reading this post. I don't usually discuss politics, especially when nowadays most verbalized political opinions amount to "you're [sic] candidate sux [sic]" and "if I wasn't [sic] typing away at this keyboard, Id [sic] cum [sic] over their [sic] and punch you in the face, cuz [sic] your [sic] stupid." This 20-minute presentation from Lawrence Lessig ( transcript here), however, has illuminated some of my chief objections to the way candidates in general have run political campaigns in modern times. ( It also led me to the following video: )I don't really have any misconceptions that a single blog-post with links to a quasi-famous law professor is really going to change anybody's mind about who they're should or should not vote for, but I thought the link was effective enough in its presentation to pass it on. |
August 9th, 2007
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 xopherg: my favorite part is that when you mention the "republican blowjob scandal" people have to ask, " which one?" |
May 23rd, 2007
May 21st, 2007
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Yesterday, Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, and the writer behind Toy Story and Astonishing X-Men, posted a long treatise on how the various societies and cultures throughout the world treat women. The subject is disturbing to say the least, and it may make you cry or recoil in horror simply from reading its description. But it's one of those things that everyone, no matter their sense of propriety, should think about. Because it took me a few tries yesterday to pull up the post, and because I've seen various people comment that they haven't seen or couldn't load the post, I'm going to reproduce the entire thing here ( Go straight to the post, however, for some discussion about it). ( Let's Watch A Girl... ) |
March 23rd, 2007
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 Cory Doctorow, writer, technologist and blogger-proprietor of Boingboing.net was recently interviewed by US News and World Report about the projected downturn in American productivity. His suggestions about what we should do to turn the economy around in the long term resonate pretty well with me, given that I, myself, am something of a technology buff. A while ago a link came up on Digg.com about a biotech company in Singapore that was able to create human embryonic stem cells without introducing living non-human tissue. In the discussion that followed, two comments stood out to me: "are we losing to Singapore?" and "How is medical advancement about winning or losing?" I've posted about the general American distrust of science previously, where I included the following quote, which I think sums up why medical advancement is about winning and losing: Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. If our nation can't manufacture, at high quality and low price, products people want to buy, then industries will continue to drift away and transfer a little more prosperity to other parts of the world.
--Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World Our ignorant politics and corporate salad-tossing are eroding our competitive edge against the rapidly-modernizing third world. With the advent of the internet, countries like China and India, countries that value science as a discipline are overtaking American industries. With idiotic laws and copyright policies, the government is (at times, literally) handcuffing software companies with novel products, such as Napster. The kowtowing we do to the RIAA and MPAA will prevent companies like Last.fm and Pandora from seeing their innovative software to a profit. And the president's close-minded veto of government-funded stem cell research will only make for profits for cures created in other parts of the world. We are shackled to our old ways--we are far too scared, too dumb to change our cars, our business models, our minds. The technology that American ingenuity has created will only bring us so far--if we're unwilling to continue to learn, to stay on the bleeding edge, then we will, as the commenter on Digg stated, "[lose] to Singapore" and all the other developing countries of the world. |
February 27th, 2007
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A few notable stories from Angry Asian Man A marketing firm, SnapDragon, has released Ten Things Every Brand Should Know About Asian-American Youth. Of particular note: The 15 minutes of seemingly benign American Idol fame for William Hung had a surprisingly negative effect on Asian-American students. There's a feeling that Hung perpetuated the worst stereotypes about Asian people and gave non-Asians permission to indulge in two years of racial stereotyping and mocking. To which I say, NO DUH. I didn't watch the Oscars, but the announcer indicated that Best Adapted Screenplay winner The Departed was based on a Japanese movie. Bzzt! Infernal Affairs (with Andy Lau from House of Flying Daggers) is a Chinese movie. Yes, I know we all look alike, you uninformed, ignorant round-eye. The New York Daily News reports on a Chinese students' participation in the recent NYU College Republicans' 'Find The Illegal Immigrant' stunt. The piece recounts some of the troubling history of Chinese immmigration in America: ( As early as 1850... ) Beau Sia, an Asian poet, posted an open letter to all the rosie o'donnells in response to her defense and half-hearted apology of her own 'ching-chong' remarks on The View. O'Donnell, after viewing the piece, has apparently taken his message to heart and sincerely apologized, all the racist, sexist, and ignorant shitcocks on YouTube, notwithstanding. |
November 9th, 2006
November 1st, 2006
2006.1101.0939::The government wants you to quit it with the fornication |
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September 26th, 2006
July 20th, 2006
December 31st, 2005
July 5th, 2005
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I spent the day at Centennial Olympic Park yesterday, playing Uno, rummy, and poker with AK, awaiting the night-time fireworks display, and getting a sunburn on my knees. Despite the early overbearing sun and the persistent light rain that would come later, a good time was had. We watched two bands--the first one of those generic cover bands that play crowd-pleasing sing-alongs like "Brown Eyed Girl" and "We Are Family." They did play "I Will Survive" but bucked trend and skipped "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and (thankfully) "YMCA." The second band was called The Classic Rock All-Stars, and was comprised of members of various bands from the 70s, the only one I recognized being Iron Butterfly. I told AK that I would be pissed if they didn't play "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and while she didn't think they would, we would hear that overwrought synth organ intro a few songs later. They even made some effort to play the full 17-minutes, albeit with some extraneous flourishes that you always get in a live concert. The fireworks started afterwards, and it occured to me that it's rather funny that most fireworks displays in these here United States choose to end their program with music from a gay Russian man. The announcer came on after, however, and said "we'd like to leave you with this one thought..." and music from a megalomaniacal anti-semite who was ceaselessly in debt began. I guess the organizers don't have a keen sense of irony. Kill the wabbit, indeed. |
June 10th, 2005
April 29th, 2005
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Last night, Fox pre-empted their airing of The O.C. for coverage of the President's renewed push for his Social Security reform plan. Now, truly, Fox has missed the boat on hitting their target demographics here, because it's my estimation that most O.C. viewers are probably completely unconcerned about what happens with the Social Security system. Fox should have pre-empted The Simple Life if they wanted to reach the viewership that's interested in vapid fools who are utterly incompetent at executing their assigned jobs. |
March 22nd, 2005
2005.0322.1302::Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and the Visual Display of Quantitative Information |
 Mediamatters.org has a very interesting look at one graph from the results of a CNN.com/USAToday Poll on Terri Schiavo. |
January 19th, 2005
2005.0119.1214::Why Cobb County's Anti-evolution sticker is a downhill battle for the fundies |
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January 18th, 2005
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By themselves, breasts and penises are neither lewd nor offensive. What is offensive is the idiotic way you keep flying off the handle anytime there's even the slightest suggestion that people have bodies and use them for pleasure. The next time something you consider remotely offensive comes on TV, turn the damn thing off. P.S. Please stop watching American Idol. |
December 20th, 2004
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Via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) chuchofcritical, almost 200 members of Wisconsin's clergy, including "pastors from Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and other churches," have signed a letter in protest of the city of Grantsburg's adoption of a policy eroding the teaching of evolutionary theory in schools: Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible — the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark — convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey information but to transform hearts.
"We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rest. To reject this truth or to treat it as 'one theory among others' is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God's loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth. In response, the superintendent in Grantsburg wrote, "The amount of letters and the number of signatures does not matter. … The school board feels that they must do what is right for Grantsburg students and the Grantsburg community." Translation: "The school board feels that they must do what they think is right for Grantsburg students and the Grantsburg community, all others be damned to the fires of Hell" |
November 17th, 2004
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Please get over your puritanical selves. I didn't see you bat an eyelash over Bob Dole and his matter-of-fact admission of erectile dysfunction whilst strolling along a sandy beach, so why must you be so up in arms about the implication of nudity and sex? Come on, this is a damned football game, where the most people in a post-high-school mentality probably assume the word "cheerleader" follows the words "and the quarterback is nailing the," with the possible inclusion of some hyperbolic adjective and/or pluralization. Just this past January, one of the biggest advertisers for the biggest game of the year used the words "erections lasting longer than four hours." I guess accompanying those words with a picture of Mike Ditka tossing a football through a tire is just way too subtle for your "I must see bare skin to think of sex" mind. Honestly, quit calling the FCC about every silly suggestive thing you see on television. All you're really doing is giving Michael Powell the swelled-head impression that he's to be the ultimate arbiter of taste and propriety in the U.S. The last thing we need in this or any other culture is a single person or entity dictating what is good and not good, be it a pretentious art critic or a reactionary body of lawmakers who think it's a good idea to legally force consumers to watch commercials. |
November 7th, 2004
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 Stacey, a friend from high school who graduated with a postgrad degree in sports psychology, once told me that, according to a study performed at either the University of Florida or Duke (can't quite remember), the highs that some people experience when partaking of sports fandom can surpass the exuberance they feel when having sex. Now imagine that same feeling, turned inside out. During my college tenure, I attended just two Gator games where the team lost. Both at those games, and after I stopped attending because of distance or duty, whenever I experienced a Gator loss I would sink into a pit of disheartened dejection which would sometimes last up to a week. I had to stop watching Gator games, because aside from an inane superstition that my watching the team play was in some way jinxing their efforts, I would get far too emotionally vested in the bad outcomes to really function well following a loss. After getting smoted by the Weaufx Gawds last Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning, I was in a veritable funk--I was awash in the same feelings of powerlessness and "maybe I dreamed this whole thing" that I had after shitty games, but this time, an overwhelming dread and apprehension accompanied it. This morning, however, I saw this post in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) metaquotes. And it warmed, in the words of Denis Leary, "the cockles of [my heart]...maybe below the cockles, maybe in the sub-cockle area." While the author of the original post may live in Canada, hearing about something like that lets me forget for a moment about all the bitter cynicism that I've built up especially in light of how the election turned out. |
November 2nd, 2004
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I've got a bad feeling about all of this. Back a couple of years ago, I spent a lot of time hanging out on Usenet with the denizens of rec.sport.football.college discussing the various goings-on in National College Football. Now college football fans, like most sports fans, are a cowardly and superstitious lot. One of the longstanding theorems of college football is that the so-called " Weauxf Gawds" listen to the boasts (or "woofs," or as my LSU alum friend Cap'n Ken might spell it, "weauxfs") of a particular team's fans, and the most over-hyped, over-praised team, the team with the most arrogantly presumptuous fans and players, wins a nice little smiting from the Weauxf Gods care of the other team. You can see this in action by observing the punishment they meted out to Sebastian Janikowski after he scored a field goal to put the FSU Seminoles up 29-25 with under three minutes to go, and then mocked the Gator Faithful with their own Gator Chomp. The Gators' Doug Johnson would hit Jacquez Green on a 63-yard pass with under two minutes left, setting up the game-winning touchdown. Smoted. So back when the Florida Gators were an actual MNC contender, hanging out on RSFC was part of something I termed "re-wallowing in our winningness"--essentially, enjoying what everyone has to say about your most recent drubbing of the next team. But, again, my own superstitions dictate that most "pre-wallowing"--seeing what everyone says about the team beforehand, their chances of winning, their star players--tends to favor the other side. Where am I going with all of this? I don't know if I'd call it pre-wallowing, but I've done a lot of reading prior to this election. It's practically unavoidable. I have a yen for one particular side to win, and I can't help reading all of the press about it. It doesn't really help that the press keeps weauxfing for the team I want to win, either. Please don't smite the nation, Weauxf Gawds! |
October 15th, 2004
March 25th, 2004
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 From the Coffee Achiever: Georgia House bans female genital piercings: Amendment sponsor Rep. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, was slack-jawed when told after the vote that some adults seek the piercings.
"What? I've never seen such a thing," Heath said. "I, uh, I wouldn't approve of anyone doing it. I don't think that's an appropriate thing to be doing." This is why we're living in a world of shit--because we have idiotic legislators who tack crap amendments to good bills. I think pretty much everyone will agree that forced female genital mutilation is a bad thing. Why though, in conjunction with this, does there need to be some law (sponsored primarily by a man, no less) which states that a woman who wants her clitoral hood pierced cannot legally do so in this state? There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Mr. Heath, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. So shut the fuck up, and quit legislating something you know jack about, you stupid asspony. |
September 18th, 2003
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From bill_maher's blog: Here’s a real morale builder: it turns out that American soldiers wounded in Iraq are being billed for their hospital meals. Talk about adding insult to injury. Perhaps the next time President Bush holds one of those $5,000 a plate fundraisers, he could slide a little of that cash over to the Pentagon so legless soldiers don’t have to pay for their own pudding cups. In other news, I wrote a drabble for the sunday100, which I've been too lazy to mention until now. |
June 25th, 2003
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Music rules. Despite the usual hole in my entries where "current music" generally should be, I really enjoy reading lyrics, hearing melodies, analyzing harmonies. I have a deep, deep love for music. I'm not really all that picky about it either. I listen to a really wide variety of stuff. I once made a mix tape with songs from Screeching Weasel, Bonnie Tyler, and an instrumental piece from the soundtrack to Il Postino. I've combined Ani DiFranco and Air Supply and Guns 'N' Roses. batnandu once berated me for having "Hit Me Baby, One More Time" on my computer (granted, I enjoyed that song probably more for the video...). So it really chaps my ass when I hear about the RIAA's idiot tactics for dealing with digital music. I'm tired of automatically being assumed to be a criminal. Sure, I've downloaded numerous songs. I've got a few VNV Nation MP3s on my computer now. But you know what? Those MP3s made me go out and buy FuturePerfect. For a while now, I've been half-heartedly boycotting new music, not getting albums that I only kinda like. I have noticed that even with the RIAA's price-fixing lawsuit settled, CD prices haven't fallen significantly. In fact, Tower and other music stores I've seen are still selling albums at a ridiculous $15.99 at times. Still, I've picked up a few things in the past months, but with the aforementioned news, I've decided to cut it out. No more new music. The RIAA and their heavy-handed tactics suck major donkey dung and can go fuck themselves. They've lost a customer. That is all. Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/nolegs/aggravated.gif) aggravated |
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