Author: marc (Page 50 of 60)

I have a ten-year old in my household. As such, I recently got Cars 2 on Netflix. I have found that that particular movie does not play on an ordinary Blu-Ray player. Assuming the issue was a firmware upgrade, I consulted Google. A few hours later, I opened up Talking Points Memo. This is what I saw:

The funny thing is that I absolutely knew what Google’s business model was years ago. Most of the crap I Google, however, is not particularly identifiable. It took this one rather specific item to slap me into the realization that Google must have a creepily detailed history of me. And you. I noticed that the most recent hotel I’ve used was now displayed on anything travel related. As well, the sorts of things I access in regular usage are pretty ordinary. But certain things I look up a lot may mark me as a touch weird. If I had to divide my Google searches into just two categories, there is only one logical separating line: 1) science, 2) bizarre. Strangely, the second category almost entirely encompasses my interest in politics. Over the last decade, politics seems to have become a nationwide study in abnormal psychology. Now anyone with access to my Google searches will see that I have an unhealthy interest in the American Civil War and the White Supremacy/Christian Identity movement. It’s a good thing I’m not white, or some people might have gotten the wrong impression…

How is it that in movies, the combination of these characteristics:

• obnoxious
• vapid
• inconsiderate
• unreliable
• irresponsible

can merge together as “quirky” and be considered attractive?

In a recent New York Times editorial, Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) illustrates the past which necessitated anti-corruption laws:

In 1899 [mining tycoon William A Clark] decided he wanted to become a United States senator. The State Legislature appointed United States senators in those days, so Clark simply gave each corruptible state legislator $10,000 in cash, the equivalent of $250,000 today.

Clark “won” the “election,” but when the Senate learned about the bribes, it kicked him out. “I never bought a man who wasn’t for sale,” Clark complained as he headed back to Montana.

What I found particularly interesting, though, was how similar it was to an old gem I wrote some time ago:

1. Pay will be dependent on votes. Salary of Congressmen will be scaled down with each non-vote. That includes a vote of “present.”
2. Any campaign money received prior to 3 months before the election will be considered a violation of election law, subject to prosecution.
3. Any money received in excess of the maximum individual contribution of $10 will be considered a bribe, subject to prosecution.
4. Any money received from any entity that is not a citizen of the district a candidate wishes to represent will be considered a bribe, subject to prosecution.
5. While in office, the congress member shall generally be allowed private meetings only with constituents. The constituents’ names will be logged. The name of every non-consitituent seen by the congress member shall be logged and the meeting shall be recorded.

(Unfortunately, I have not yet reformatted my older posts to fit the WordPress format)

It seems that the Confederate wing of the Republican Party can have their States’ Rights and eat them, too.

There have been a couple of high profile plane crashes in the last couple of weeks. First, a small Sukhoi Superjet 100 with 50 passengers crashed into a hillside in Indonesia, killing all aboard:

Then two different crashes in Africa occurred in the last day or so. Of particular interest was this one in Nigeria:

Curious about the topic, I looked into recent airplane accidents at . What I found was interesting, but not unexpected. At first glance, I could see I could easily divide up the crashes into the following categories:

1. Helicopter/Military
2. Private aircraft up to small corporate jets
3. Commercial aircraft

What I found interesting here was that in the last group, only one occurred in a first world country. Whenever I hear people argue that government regulation is strangling business, this is the kind of thing that comes to mind. Our aircraft stay in the air, our buildings don’t routinely collapse, and we are rarely poisoned by our food. I’m not willing to change that to save a few dollars on the price of those things.

My son is of the age that he wants to see the “summer blockbusters,” no matter how potentially terrible they are. This was an amusing film, though I still don’t care for the overuse of CGI action in place of storytelling. There were a few other minor things that bothered me, though. Chief among them was a single line from one of the superheroes. Aside: in my cursory search, I only found it in one place. Since this source happened the sad Weekly World News ripoff the “World Net Daily,” I can’t assume it is accurate. In response to a mention of the Norse gods as gods, Captain America responds that there is only one god, and he probably doesn’t dress like that. There are a couple of reasons this pisses me off:

First, I hate this sort of “Being American = Believing in God” bullshit with which we are barraged constantly. In reality, any American soldier, seaman, airman, or marine who feels greater fealty to his imaginary friend(s) than to the U.S. Constitution is only secondarily loyal to his country by definition.

Second, is is actually possible for one to continue to believe in biblical silliness when the existence of superior beings of extraterrestrial origin (that had once been regarded as gods on this very planet) is KNOWN from FIRST HAND experience? That is really a question. If were a serious true believer and you met someone who was thousands of years old with godlike powers and apparent immortality, What would you ask him? Wouldn’t the very first question you asked him relate to whether or not he knew your magic friend?

1. Plate from armor of clearly extraterrestrial beast
2. Extraterrestrial being no less than several hundred years old that was once worshiped as a god in Europe.
3. Still believes that despite items 1 and 2, legends of a minor desert civilization (stolen from greater civilizations) in the Middle East are true.

Third, if you are a Christian, wouldn’t planet-wide destruction be substantially similar to the ‘shroom-and-moonshine nightmare of the entire book of Revelation? As a Real Christian™, shouldn’t you be getting ready to hop aboard the Rapture crazy train?