TBogg: Sigh.
It is almost like the terrorists unleashed an unstoppable stupidity toxin into American airspace on 9/11. Yes, I know people like this have always existed. but in the good old days they at least had the decency to stay indoors gorging on Slim Jims and 84oz buckets of Mr. Pibb while watching Raymond reruns.
Comment promptly, and I won’t tell anyone the band I just heard you win tickets to see on the radio.
In response to a Facebook campaign, on August 27, Iowa State carillonneur (look it up) and associate professor of music Tin-Shi Tam played Bad Romance on the carillon. Enjoy. (Via MeFi.)
Skynet’s gonna be really pissed about this, Mohney.
TalkingPointsMemo agrees with my previous assessment of The Looming Tower.
On the other hand, perhaps you already know as much as you need to know about mooslims.
Fred Clark over at Slacktivist lays the righteous smackdown on the Liar Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and it’s a beautiful thing.
Perkins appeared on Meet the Press opposite David Boies in the wake of the Prop 8 decision a week or so ago. Boies made absolute mincemeat of Perkins’ claims on camera:
“It’s easy to sit around and debate and throw around opinions — appeal to people’s fear and prejudice, cite studies that either don’t exist or don’t say what you say they do. In a court of law you’ve got to come in and you’ve got to support those opinions. You’ve got to stand up under oath and cross-examination. And what we saw at trial is that it’s very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens the right to vote, to make all sorts of statements in campaign literature or in debates where they can’t be cross-examined.
“But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that’s what happened here. There simply wasn’t any evidence. There weren’t any of those studies. There weren’t any empirical studies. That’s just made up. That’s junk science.
“… A witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court, you can’t do that. And that’s what we proved. We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.”
And that’s where Fred starts going to town:
In response, the Liar Tony Perkins, unable to support his assertions because they were not true, simply reasserted them. To any reasonable observer, this was not credible and the Liar Tony Perkins was exposed, yet again, as the Liar Tony Perkins.
But reasonable observers are not the Liar Tony Perkins’ target audience. “You can fool some of the people all of the time …” Abraham Lincoln said, and the Liar Tony Perkins never stuck around to hear the rest. He had found his calling.
Go read the whole thing.
The middle school in Nettleton, Mississippi, has rules limiting class offices by race.
Grades 6, 7, and 8 all have four offices (president, vice president, secretary-treasurer, and reporter). Black students may run for 6th grade reporter, 7th grade secretary-treasurer, and 8th grade reporter and vice president. The other offices are reserved for white students.
(As you might expect, Nettleton is in the ass-end of nowhere even by Mississippi standards, somewhere south of Tupelo. Which is also, come to think of it, the same area of the state that gave us the Constance McMillen/Itawamba prom fiasco. What the hell is wrong with you people in northeastern Mississippi?)
This just smokes: Talking Heads, “Born Under Punches,” live performance, from nineteen eighty. That’s Adrian Belew, apparently, on guitar, and “oh my God I can’t breathe Tina Weymouth looks so much like an angel. A gorgeous, muscular, platinum blonde angel” on bass. (Via Merlin, who is also the source of the Tina quote.)
This astounding sort of complex multilayered music is still arresting and unusual today, but compare it to, say, the top records of 1980 to get an idea of how weird it was thirty years ago. Make time for this today, especially if your name is “Frank” or “Mike” or “Rick.”
Will Forte is leaving SNL after 8 seasons.
These owls are hungover. YA RLY.
(Via MamaNia)
13 Beers in 13 Miles beggars belief, although he does claim to finish.
Of course, his time suggests a 23 minute mile, or about as fast as my grandmother.
The delightful 1999 film The Iron Giant was actually an adaptation of The Iron Man, an illustrated novel published by the poet Ted Hughes in 1968, and previously reworked as a rock opera by Pete Townshend in 1989.
Hughes, of course, is perhaps more famous for being Sylvia Plath’s widower; it’s said that The Iron Man was partially written for his children in the wake of her 1963 suicide.
San Francisco has a brand new attraction: The House of Air, an indoor trampoline park. Check it out.
LSU standout (insanely, track-star fast) wide-receiver and sixth-round pick Trindon Holliday is out for the season with a broken thumb.
It should not escape notice that Holliday is out for the season before the season has actually started.
Go Houston Sports Team! Go! Choke! Fail!
Age of the Dragons is, I shit you not, a medieval, landlocked dragon-hunting adaptation of “Moby Dick” starring Danny Glover.
The fan-sourced compilation of very short Vimeo clips can be viewed here. Don’t skip the “top 50 scenes.”
IO9 gives us alternate universe sci-fi film posters, and they are BRILLIANT.
Don’t you need a flamethrower trombone?
F**K YOU. NSFW, but really toe-tappingly fantastic.
Twenty years ago, Teresa signed up for Wil Wheaton’s fan club — except she never got her packet. Somehow, it got lost. Understandably, she was upset.
She got her packet last week, along with a letter from Wil addressed to “8 year old Teresa.” Win.
Lady Gaga Kidnaps Commissioner Gordon:
GOTHAM CITY — Supervillain Lady Gaga brazenly abducted Commissioner James Gordon from a charity fundraiser Tuesday, leaving police baffled and the citizens of Gotham fearing for their safety. Known for her outlandish costumes and geometric polygon hair, the criminal madwoman made a daring escape from Arkham Asylum last week and has been taunting authorities by interrupting television broadcasts ever since. “If you ever want to see Commissioner Gordon again, you’ll do exactly as I say,” Lady Gaga said from her secret lair, adjusting her angular yellow Tyvek and spandex dress as henchmen danced menacingly around the bound commissioner. While the kidnapping occurred at stately Wayne Manor, home of playboy jet-setter Bruce Wayne, the eccentric billionaire was not available for comment.
Comics Alliance gives us covers from Great Comics That Never Happened. Here’s an example:
So Rice sold the parts of KTRU that make it a “radio station” (transmitter, tower) to UH so that, ostensibly, UH can have two public radio outlets: One for full-time classical music, and one for full-time NPR news programming — all for the low, low price of $9.5 million.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I didn’t go to either school, and I’ve never been a real fan of KTRU beyond just sort of appreciating it existed — there’s just so much amateur, narrow-cast radio I have time for in my life. Plus, my own radio time has pretty much been “in the car only” for twenty years; at home, there are just way better options than radio.
All that said, the shitsplosion around this development seems to miss some points, and I am of course just egotistical enough to think I have something to add by enumerating them.
Draft 1: This is one of those times I’m sure I’m going to edit this later.
AChron is a “real-time strategy” game that includes time travel within the game itself.
I’m so friggin’ proud I can hardly stand it:
Here:
The RIAA and National Association of Broadcasters are trying to create a legal mandate for cell phones to have FM radios in them.
This is the modern communications equivalent of buggy-whip makers trying to get congress to force Henry Ford to bundle whips with the Model T. Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.
David Lynch and Joss Whedon to Collaborate on Sex and the City Remake:
David Lynch and Joss Whedon announced in an interview with SkyMall today that they are embarking on a long-awaited, must-see collaboration–a remake of Sex and the City! The pilot episode will be shown on HBO on September 10, 2011.
The remake, entitled “Sex and the Countryside” will be a faithful plotline-by-plotline, problem-by-problem, episode-by-episode remake of Sex and the City, but will be set in the 1620s English countryside, and every character will be played by a sheep, except God, who will be played by Steve Buscemi.
Since fashion played such a large role in the original series, SkyMall saw it fit to ask whether the sheep will wear clothes. Whedon laughed, and Lynch rolled his eyes and commented “Every role except that of God will be played ovinely. Fashion had a role; fashion too will be played ovinely.”
“Ovinely means, played by a sheep,” offered Whedon, helpfully.
The Tea Party has apparently come out opposed to Net Neutrality, on the grounds that it’s somehow an affront to freedom.
Can you see the corporate hands up those asses?
James Fallows has a post over at the Atlantic noting how often a “mileage award” seat was available from each of several airlines.
The clear winner? Southwest, at 99.3%. Continental didn’t do TOO badly at 71.4% (they’re also the highest ranked major/traditional US carrier); United is right behind them at 68.6%. American notches 57.9%, and at the bottom, we find Delta with 12.9% and USAir with 10.7%.
Mohney gives us Coffee Break Machine, the 1967 IBM corporate training film that is the first appearance of the being you and I know as “Cookie Monster“.
Nerds everywhere will also recognize the machine’s patter as a riff on the Turbo Encabulator, a classic of the technobabble genre. It’s existed for years, but the best video version I can find is from the 80s, but there are several others.
Radley “The Agitator” Balko points out just how little fact-checking happens on cable TV, and how brazen and shameless one can be in exploiting this fact. Wendy Murphy has made a career of being absurdly, obnoxiously wrong in ways that cannot be accidental — and yet she continues to get invited onto shows where she can spew her bullshit. And she doesn’t care. And she’s not alone.
This seems just about right to me:
I’ve never met [JJ Abrams]. I am not a member of his fan club or anti-fan club. I disliked Cloverfield a very great deal. I disliked Star Trek intensely. I thought it was terrible. And I think part of my problem is that I feel like the relationship between JJ Abrams’ projects and geek culture is one of relatively unloving repackaging – sort of cynical. I taste contempt in the air. Now I’m not a child – I know that all big scifi projects are suffused with the contempt of big money for its own target audience. But there’s something about [JJ’s projects] that makes me particularly uncomfortable. As compared to somebody like Joss Whedon, who – even when there are misfires – I feel likes me and loves me and is on some cultural level my brother and comrade. And I don’t feel that way about JJ Abrams.
I’m glad you asked. This long-form history of the game franchise that made EA is well worth your time.
Some gems from late in the article:
When Madden left the Raiders, he took a job at the University of California, offering a course called “Football For Fans.” Three decades later, he’s still teaching. In a way, so is his game. Current Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris told game producers that playing “Madden” has influenced the way he runs his team. Before scoring a game-winning touchdown last season, Denver Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley killed clock by running parallel to the goal line, an unconventional move familiar only to anyone who has ever picked up a control pad. Years ago, Madden wanted his namesake to resemble a television broadcast; by the late 1990s, network producers were flipping the script, deploying skycams and electronic first-down markers, peddling their own brand of hyperreal entertainment. Life imitating art.
[…]
Talk turns back to real football. The Super Bowl. Indianapolis versus New Orleans. In the first half, Saints coach Sean Payton went for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal, eschewing a “gimme” field goal. He opened the second half with an onside kick. Madden watched the whole thing from his California studio, incredulous and oddly transfixed. Even now, two months later, the old coach knows exactly what he was seeing.
“I was thinking, ‘S—,'” Madden marveled, “‘this guy is playing a video game!'”
Some of you are probably already aware of Conservapedia, the Schlafly-backed counterpoint to the supposed “liberal bias” of Wikipedia.
Obviously, such an undertaking — especially by folks who think the King James Bible needs to be retranslated to purge liberal bias — is bound to be chock full of hilarity, but nothing I’ve seen there so far prepared me for their new crusade: Insisting that General and Special Relativity are Liberal Conspiracies.
I Am Not Making This Up.
I’ve been away for 2 weeks, and took a definite break on comment management during that time. I’ve just approved a big batch of comments, but I won’t be leaping back and rejoining any of those threads. I’m sure my antagonists will find something new to argue with me about in the near term. ;)
Assaulted by penny-ante Miami rentacops. Fortunately, this photographer had the good sense to have OTHER photographers on site.
We walked through the parking lot of the Douglas Road Metrorail Station and purchased tickets. Dobbs and I then walked inside through the turnstile with me holding up my Canon TX1. The rest of the news crew remained outside.
Within seconds, I was accosted by the female security guard as well as the male security guard wearing a black beret and a single latex glove who knocked the camera from my hand.
I demanded my camera but he refused to give it back.
Then I remembered I had my iPhone, so I started shooting video with that, which prompted the female security to get in my face.
She even lifted her fist up a couple of times as if she was going to strike me.
The male guard then came after me and I also tried walking away from him while videotaping.
But when he struck me, I struck back instinctively.
He then pulled out a metal baton and came after me with it.
I stepped outside the station and he sat down to tend to his lip.
Miami-Dade detectives who arrived on the scene were considering charging me with battery until they saw the footage shot by the news crew.
After two hours of talking to cops, my camera was returned to me, minus a battery that somehow got lost.
If you wear a badge of any kind and abuse your authority, real or imaginary (as is the case with these doofuses), some criminal multiplier must apply.
Deep Purple meets Hef, ca. 1968, on something called “Playboy After Dark.”
Radioactive Boars Rampaging Through Germany.
Boars are a fucking menace even without radioactivity. I once put three .30-30 rounds into a sow and still saw her run off. They root around, destroy trees and crops, and are actually one of the only dangerous mammals still left in southern forests. Adding radioactivity — and, no doubt, the superpowers that this creates — can only mean certain doom for all mankind.
The FBI is apparently trying to keep Wikipedia from using its seal in the article for same, and are blatantly misconstruing the relevant laws in their saber-rattling letter to the Foundation.
Fortunately, it turns out that the Foundation has actual, learned attorneys onstaff, who told the Feds to get stuffed.
Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau’s lawyers had misquoted the law. “While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version” that the F.B.I. had provided.
Translation: “What you wish the law was has no bearing here.”
Michael Godwin, the general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, wrote, “we are prepared to argue our view in court.” He signed off, “with all appropriate respect.”
Translation: “DIAF”.
It gets even cooler when you realize who wrote the Wikimedia Foundation’s response.