I blogged your mom

When To Support The Two Party System

2012-01-31T14:11:00.000-06:00

Every major election year there's the same big debate amongst progressives and radicals -- is it better to vote for the Democrats as the lesser of two evils, or are both of the two big parties so corrupt and out-of-touch you can hardly ever justify voting for them?

As is most likely obvious from everything I've ever posted here, I lean much more toward the second of those two options. But really, I don't care that much, because I'm actually more aligned with the school of thought that says elections are basically pointless and good or bad policies will result from social movements pressuring politicians into doing their work, regardless of party affiliation. I'm not quite of the hardcore school of thought that sees elections as actually harmful (because they give the illusion of free choice and an open political process, pushing people to limit their political action to meaningless elections at the expense of more important social activism), but I sympathize with the viewpoint.

But regardless of where you come down on this issue, I think it's especially revealing to look at who the big money donors support. Because Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and all of their friends don't give a shit about abortion or gay rights or the environment. They care about one thing -- increasing their profit margins by any means necessary. And as such, they will give money to whomever they feel will best do that, pretty much regardless of that candidate's view on any other issue. Thus, the funding streams of these big money donors can tell us a great deal about who the candidate is working for the hardest.

For example, here's a list (from the incomparable opensecrets.org) showing you Mitt Romney's top donors and the top donors of two major presidential candidates from two previous election cycles. The highlighted organizations on the previous candidates represent groups who are currently major Romney donors.

In case you can't guess who they are, the 2008 candidate is Obama and the 2004 candidate is Bush Jr.

Sure, there's context and nuance and all that and it's more complicated than this, but it's a good example of how it doesn't really matter who it is; as long as they're a nominee of one of the two major parties, they will be reliant on the same donors for the bulk of their funding. And I don't mean to sound too cynical about the state of American politics, but I'm guessing these major corporations giving millions of dollars to political candidates expect some sort of return on their investment...

Oh, and So Close To MLK Day

2012-01-17T21:50:00.000-06:00

Because he can tell the difference between Ice's T and Cube, Bill O' Reilly (remember that guy? Before Glenn Beck, he was the one you always got upset about) proclaims himself to "be a brother, man."

Ice T disagrees with O'Reilly's assessment of himself.

Why I Hate The News

2012-01-16T17:17:00.000-06:00

The problem with mainstream news sources in America is not just that they're shitty, but that they're aggressively shitty. American newspapers and news television shows don't just ignore important stories or let important claims go unchecked, they intentionally ignore important stories to not anger their sources or harm their advertising, and rarely if ever question a politician or unnamed "official sources." Hell, just last week the public editor at the New York Times, the most prestigious and respected newspaper in our entire nation, wondered aloud if reporters should occasionally check if all of the random assertions important people are making are, you know, actually true or not.

Two good recent examples show this problem quite clearly. As Dan Savage pointed out his column last week, why is it that both Rick Santorum and his daughter are both allowed to continually claim they're not homophobic because they have gay friends? And that these mysterious unnamed gay friends support Santorum despite his repeatedly comparing them to pedophiles and dog rapists? As Savage points out, isn't an obvious follow-up question who exactly these gay friends are? Wouldn't that make for an interesting story about how these people don't exist, or if they do, how they pull off such torturous logic?

Or take another good/horrible example from the Joe Paterno case. In his first interview since the child sex scandal broke, Paterno claims he didn't know anything, but even if he did, he wouldn't have been able to understand it because he'd never heard of male rape. As Drew Magary points out in the piece linked to there, this is about as obvious and blatant a lie as someone can make. And yet the "journalist" interviewing him didn't think it was worth a follow up question of "are you fucking shitting me?!? You're trying to pretend you don't even know what rape is?!?" Hell, she clearly didn't think it was even worth a polite follow-up pointing out that the biological sex of the people involved doesn't really change what rape is, and surely a grown human being knows what rape is.

But even beyond the basic os journalism 101, these are a prime example of how the powerful are protected. Paterno never has to pay for his crimes because he can claim ignorance of something any adult human being clearly knows. Similarly, Santorum can hide his hate behind fictional gay friends he invented to make himself look like less of a biggot. And they know that the subservient "journalists" sent to interview them will never challenge these claims, no matter how obviously false they are to anyone with even the most basic ability to understand logic...

Life Imitates Art

2012-01-06T09:36:00.000-06:00

With a name like that, in Baltimore, it simply had to happen sooner or later.

Talk about pressure in living up to your name...

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T14:05:00.000-06:00

Introducing possibly the greatest Christmas sweater ever:

And, of course, what holiday season is truly complete without a list, by orifice, of things people have had to have removed from them this year. Enjoy!

Sorry, Busy End To The Semester

2011-12-21T14:47:00.000-06:00

So it dawned on me today that I've not updated this in a couple of week's, which more-or-less defeats the purpose of having a blog. My excuse is that I'm really busy because of the end of the semester and job applications and all of those fun things.

So instead of something witty and clever, I'll give you some happy Christmas news: R. Kelly has apparently written 32 new chapters of his magnum opus "opera" Trapped in the Closet. For the uninitiated, Trapped is a Dada-esque tale of cheating, violence, redemption, and midgets farting, all told in a completely non-linear and oft-impossible to follow story. Basically, it's like listening to any R Kelly album, only slightly more insane.

But before you get too excited, apparently Kells is having some money issues and doesn't have the scratch to film it yet. So instead, take your time to review and digest all the brilliance of the original 22 chapters with this handy flow chart to explain the action:

What Do Hipster Children Eat?

2011-12-08T20:50:00.000-06:00

As a poor child who grew up eating lunchables, I'm jealous of how the other half eats...

How Solid Is Your NFL Faith?

2011-12-07T13:33:00.000-06:00

Now that Brett Favre is truly and honestly retired for what appears to be for good (there's roughly a billion NFL teams that need a QB right now and he's still not playing), there's no one left for the gushing sports media to slobber over. Sure, there's Tom Brady and his all-American good looks, an there's Aaron Rodgers and his dominance, but none of them inspire the same all-around worship as the ol' gunslinger.

But maybe there's hope on the rise, as Tim Tebow has come along and is already starting to get the ridiculously over-the-top, unearned adulation. To explain the process to people who don't know how to properly genuflect to the appointed leaders of sport, here's a NFL Chick Trak to inspire you.

You Make It Really Hard To NOT Point Out Your Blatant Racism

2011-11-28T19:28:00.002-06:00

After Alabama passed HB56, their own version of Arizona's SB1070 (the "show me your papers" bill), it was roundly criticized as racist by those opposing it (as was Arizona's). Yet defenders of the bill(s) were quick to point out there was nothing racist about the bill(s); after all, the bill(s) don't make it illegal to be hispanic, they say, they only increase the attention paid to people who are in this country without legal documentation. Now, if it happens to target Hispanics more than any other group, they claim, well then maybe those darn Hispanics should keep their noses clean and stay out of trouble.

This is a classic racist ploy -- as long as you dress your racism up in neutral language, you always have plausible deniability. After all, there's no way to prove either HB56 or SB1070 were designed to harass and intimidate Hispanics. But in practice, it seems Hispanics continue to bear the brunt of these measures -- remember, about half of all undocumented immigrants in American hail from Europe, and yet somehow very few Europeans are being arrested or harassed under these statutes.

But sometimes events happen that just really pull the curtain back on all of these shenanigans. Events like when a German executive of Mercedes-Benz in the states for a meeting at one of the company's manufacturing plants near Tuscaloosa is arrested. The officer at the scene did what was required of him and brought in the executive to be detained while his immigration status was investigated.

So here's a perfect example for the it's-not-racist crowd: a white person, nay, a rich white person, was subjected to detention and search under this apparently not racist law. What a chance to trumpet the law as color-blind and status-blind! You see critics? It's not a tool to harass and intimidate (largely poor) people of color, it's applied to everyone!

And yet, their reaction could not have been farther than that. Rather than see this as one of the many examples they love of their law in action, a group of Republican representatives has already called for rewriting portions of HB56. Presumably to include the direction that even though this is not a racist law, it's not supposed to apply to white people...

Dear Police Brutality: Zing

2011-11-21T09:53:00.000-06:00

This photo has caused quite a bit of shock lately to people who don't regularly follow issues in American policing (to those of us who do, it's neither surprising nor shocking). It's a member of the UC Davis campus police casually point-blank pepper-spraying a group of non-violent and non-confrontational demonstrators who had not left when told to disperse. I say it's not a surprise to people who follow such things because many police have gone on record already saying this is standard procedure.

Amid calls that the officer, his superiors, and even the university president should be fired or step down over the incident, the internet has sprung to action to get a more immediate, if somewhat less satisfying, retribution on the officer responsible. His phone number and address are now widely-available public knowledge, and he's become an internet meme -- the casually pepper spray everything cop.

And while this is what it is -- fairly juvenile mocking of someone who arguably deserves it -- it shows one of the internet's greatest collective powers these days. While retribution of any meaningful kind will probably never come to this guy or those issuing the orders (police have such incredibly strong unions that firing them is nearly impossible), at least we can take comfort in the fact that this guy is now a world-wide punchline and poster boy for police abuse. And that's something...

Christmas is Coming

2011-11-16T16:45:00.000-06:00

And I have found the only present I ever want. If you buy me this Whiskey dispensing machine, you officially win the abstract concept of "friendship" for now and all time:

The Happiest Person Ever Photographed

Jeffy Calls Meatballs "Meatbulbs"

2011-11-14T14:07:00.000-06:00

Bill Keane, the creator of Family Circus, died this past week. Not to speak ill of the dead, but from a young age, I've always thought of him as one of the greatest con men to have ever existed. After all, he took one of the most bland and unoriginal creations ever and spun it into a life long job and million-dollar empire. Somehow he was able to keep getting paid in exchange for cranking out trite and repetitive comics of children pronouncing words wrong and their creepy grandfather spying on them from a heaven in which everyone inexplicably wears potato sacks and rope belts.

The small solace we can take in this travesty of a man making millions for being actively stupid while we work actual jobs for much lower pay is that it is both easy and fun to mock this shitty comic mercilessly. One of the best examples is the Nietzsche Family Circus, pictured above. But even better is this classic list of reviews of one of the Family Circus books. Coming from the era before Amazon tightly controlled the reviews and comments on its website, these little gems represent some of the earliest (and best) snarky destruction the web has become so good for.

At least Keane's survivors can take solace in the fact that these comics both seem to write themselves and people somehow keep reading them, so they will be wealthy for generations to come...

Ha, ha! Suckers!

2011-11-11T15:07:00.000-06:00

As regular readers know, I'm a Ph.D. candidate in the tail end of my degree program. This means I'm supposed to start looking for a job. But applying for and interviewing for academic jobs is not like most jobs. It's like another job in and of itself in terms of the sheer volume of documents and proposals and whatnot they expect out of you.

Since it's such a big process, I decided to try it this year, just so I could learn how it was done when I went back and did it for real the next year. Well, somewhere along the way I must have learned it well enough, because I actually have a job interview. This was completely unexpected.

And while it's mostly terrifying, because I rarely if ever feel prepared for big life events, it's also pretty damn good news. So this is what Dog and I sounded like pretty much all morning after I got the e-mail inviting me out for an interview:

The Simpsons Predict Reality Again

2011-11-09T16:47:00.000-06:00

As I've noted before, the Simpsons is quite adept at predicting the future. The ol' "life imitates art," if you will. Well, it turns out they've done it again.

As any Simpsons fan will know, there's a three-eyed fish (or multiple three-eyed fish, it's unclear) swimming the waters near the Springfield nuclear power plant. In one episode, Bart caught this fish, which Mr. Burns, in an hilariously apt take on standard pr practices, named Blinky and claimed he had an evolutionary advantage with his third eye.

Well, whether an actor portraying Charles Darwin will come forward an suggest this fish is somehow superior to others, but fishermen in Córdoba, Argentina have caught a three-eyed fish near a nuclear power plant.

This really leaves us no other option than to spend the rest of the day contemplating what other Simpsons episodes will soon come to pass...

Sigh...Long Break Again

2011-11-08T10:23:00.000-06:00

Oh wonderful and intelligent blog readers, how I have failed you. This fall has been particularly busy as I attempt to start writing my dissertation, and as such, incredibly important things like blogging have fallen by the wayside. But I make this commitment to you dear readers -- there will now be pretty regular content on this here interwebs site.

As regular readers recall, last month was Healthy October. Having now mastered completely every form of healthy living, I turn to my scholastic endeavors with Studious November. Gone are late nights watching t.v. or playing video games. Gone too are weeknights spent with friends or doing anything remotely enjoyable. For if I am to finish this dissertation any time in the near future, I need to get back to working an absurd amount every day.

But on the plus side, all of this sitting frustrated at a computer will give me both the time and material to pump out regular blog posts again. So please, cancel your suicide plans and ignore your family, job, and all other appointments. This blog once again exists and demands your attention.

In the meantime, here is a picture of a literal Wall Street fat cat:

Them Wall Street Protests

2011-10-18T19:41:00.000-05:00

Been super busy lately, so blogging has gone back down to the bottom of my priorities list. And I really feel like I should have posted something by now about the occupy movement, but such is life sometimes.

Though trust me, that will happen eventually, for now I don't have the time to say anything too insightful about it that hasn't already been said (though I will soon! I promise!), so instead I'm going to take the cheap cop-out and link to someone else writing about it instead.

Several versions of this kind of argument have been making the rounds of the facetubes and twitbooks and whatever else the kids are using these days, but I think this one stands out for being well-written and from a reputable source. That being said, I direct your attention to Four Charts That Explain What The Protestors Are Angry About.

Obviously you can go read the article yourself, but the gist of it is that while minimum wage and real incomes (inflation adjusted) for the bottom 40% have declined and barely risen, respectively, corporate profits have skyrocketed, and executive compensation and incomes for the top earners have experienced similar sharp growths.

While the income disparity angle is interesting enough, I think the corporate profits chart explains the problem even more succinctly. The wave of outsourcing and off-shoring in the 80s was justified by businesses as an attempt to stay afloat and keep pace in a hectic global market. And if that actually were the case, then asking for some concessions from workers would be a reasonable option. But since they were all actually seeing record profits...well, I don't mean to sound too cynical, but this may indicate that not only were these businesses maybe not being super truthful, they also were literally lining their pockets with money stolen from the pockets of workers.

And this is why people are angry.

Ryan Gosling Would Like To Discuss Feminist Theory With You

2011-10-10T16:37:00.001-05:00

In today's hilarious tumblr round up, here's Feminist Ryan Gosling:

This Proves Pretty Much Everything I've Been Saying...

2011-10-06T09:29:00.000-05:00

Headline from today's newspaper: With immunity ruled out, U.S. troops unlikely to stay in Iraq past 2011.

This is so blatantly ludicrous, I don't even know where to start. It's one of those crazy moments where the powers that be accidentally tell the truth, and for people like me, those moments are always simultaneously exhilarating (they're telling the truth! and I was right!) but yet completely depressing (shit! I was right about all the horrible things they're doing!).

For those who don't wan to read the article, the gist is that the Iraqi government, because of the many, many straight-up homicides, rapes, and other incredibly illegal and immoral actions of US soldiers and contractors, will no longer grant a blanket immunity to all US military personnel and instead will now prosecute them for illegal acts (crazy, I know). And now because the US military does not get to do whatever it wants whenever it wants wherever it wants, it's taking its ball and going home like the spoiled child it is.

This is also pretty concrete proof that the many problems and legal violations of the invasion were systemic, and not the fault of those classic "few bad apples." Because if only a "few bad apples" were breaking the law, you wouldn't really need blanket immunity from all prosecutions. Hell, if it truly were just a "few bad apples," wouldn't you want legal prosecution of them, to show how upstanding and law-abiding the rest of you are?

But maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe no laws were ever broken by any military personnel or contractors. But if I'm wrong about this, I'd sure like to hear an explanation of why the refusal to extend immunity is the reason why they're finally packing up and going home, because I'm just not smart enough to figure out any other way those two things are connected...

To Whip It or Not To Whip It

2011-10-05T17:50:00.000-05:00

As any long time reader of this blog will know, I am sucker for every possible type of graph, flow chart, venn diagram, or other such smart-ass way of graphically depicting things from pop culture.

So, for instance, if you're worried about whether Mothersbaugh and company would advise you to whip it or not, well, worry no more:

Announcing Healthy October

2011-10-03T12:15:00.000-05:00

Part 5 in the Bottoming Out and Moving Onwards Series. Find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.

Pictured: Me?

It turns out that being depressed isn't particularly good for your health. I'm sure there's all sorts of scientific studies or some such thing that say this, but I'm sure it's more than obvious to anyone who's gone through a shitty point in their life, which would be pretty much everyone, I assume.

Anyway, as part of bottoming out in life this summer, I more-or-less abandoned every even semi-healthy activity there is. So little things like exercise and eating food that contains nutrients were replaced by drinking heavily, eating shitty fast food, sitting on my ass all day, and then some more heavy drinking. As such, I've gotten a little soft around the edges. And by "soft around the edges" I mean fat and lazy.

And while getting into shape and living healthily really aren't that hard, it is often hard to start doing them, mostly because living unhealthily and being fat are super duper easy.

After a few false starts, I've decided to arbitrarily pick the beginning of October as the time I would get serious about this, and take it super seriously for a month -- the month of healthy October. The idea being that if I take getting back into somewhat healthy habits really seriously for a month it will pretty much maintain itself after that.

So for the rest of this month, it's going to be making all my food at home, and mostly fruits and vegetables and all those sorts of things at that; knocking out the unhealthy snack foods completely; maintaining a regular exercise routine; and cutting back on the drinking. I figure, do all that for a month with strict discipline, and that's got to be good enough to get back into fighting shape.

The end of healthy October will be marked by Halloween, during which I will drink heavily and eat a lot of shitty food.

I Gots To Get Paid, Son

2011-09-28T18:06:00.000-05:00

Man, has it really been nearly a month since I last blogged?

According to the records on this website, yes. Sorry about that.

But I have a damn good excuse, and this time it's not nearly as mopey -- I've been busy putting together job applications. And not just any job applications, but applications to get a real big boy professor job.

And not too surprisingly, before a university hires you to be a professor, they expect a lot of information from you. A lot.

Like upwards of 20 or so pages of essays, commentaries, past work, etc. And then, of course, writing samples and all sorts of other fun stuff on top of that.

So I've been doing little else but working on those things for the past few weeks. But I'm starting to see a scant amount of light at the end of the tunnel, telling me I must be getting close to finished with them. OF course, these are the kinds of things that are never actually finished, so I guess I mean I'm getting close to a place where I fine with other people reading them and judging me based on their contents.

With out getting into the inside baseball of academia, the kicker of this is that I'm fully expecting not to get any job offers from this group of applications. Hell, I'd be pretty surprised if I even got an interview out of it.

So really this is all just getting me some valuable life experience. Or something like that. And if there's one thing I've learned in my short time on this earth, it's that life experience usually involves something being a frustrating pain in the ass...

It Seems To Be a More-Or-Less Weekly Event

2011-09-09T14:33:00.000-05:00

It sure does seem to be a regular event these days that some sort of righteously anti-gay politician or preacher is found buying meth and having gay sex in a public restroom, or hiring a gay prostitute to go on vacation with them, or employing some form of wide stance that only coincidentally appears exactly the same as gay code for anonymous sex in an airport bathroom.

But at this point, who can even keep track of these guys anymore? Hell, it's stopped even being that much of a surprise when one of these guys is accidentally out. It seems more like the burden of proof is now on homophobic politicians to prove they're not actually secretly gay.

Well, if you're having as much trouble keeping track of all of the hypocrites as I am, there's a handy new resource: gayhomophobe.com. It's a simple compendium of all known hypocritically anti-gay politicians who were either outed or admitted to their sexuality. It also features a nice running tally of the number of days since a prominent homophobe was embroiled in a gay sex scandal. You know, so you can accurately decide who won the Ted Haggard office pool.

No, They Certainly Don't

2011-09-07T16:22:00.000-05:00

Here's the most entertaining tumblr I've found in a long time (occasionally NSFW): Boobs Don't Work That Way.

It's a nice little compendium of pretty much the biggest problem with comic books/anime. The representation of women in comic books is a lot like the problems I have with corporate sports as they exist today.

Because I enjoy both greatly. And like modern corporate sports, there's actually a lot more to comics than skeptics and the disinterested give them credit for. It's been years since Alan Moore and his ilk took comic books to the realm of respectable art, but many people still dismiss them as pulp or useless. So, much like I find myself when discussing sports with the educated elite that populate our nation's higher-learning institutions, I'm often stuck defending comic books to people who think they're at best a waste of time, at worst, some sort of blight on humanity.

But again like it is with major sports, there's some things about comics I just can't defend, the absurdly and aggressively sexist portrayal of pretty much all women in them (when they're even there) being foremost among them. And like most of the shitty things about modern sports, this incredible sexism is completely unnecessary and obnoxiously pointless, not to mention, giving them a bad name and an easy excuse for dismissal by those already inclined to ignore them.

I suppose that's a lesson of life though; there's really nothing you can support that doesn't have some obnoxious shit you have to apologize for...

Family Man or Incompetent Man-Child?

2011-09-05T22:49:00.000-05:00

Part 4 in the Bottoming Out and Moving Onwards Series. Find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

Traveling abroad is great for providing examples of socialization, because being in another culture lays bare how truly so many of our rather fundamental beliefs are essentially arbitrary. This is not to say that many of them aren't quite good ideas or ways of doing things, just that there are plenty of other great ideas and ways to accomplish things, and why you chose one over another is mostly dependent on the society you grew up in.

Take living with you parents, for example.

In the recent years, there's been a bunch of panicky articles about this in the American media; 20/30 somethings who had moved out of the house were moving back in because of the tough economy. The articles especially focused on college graduates who had to move back in with their parents after college because they couldn't find any work. I'm sure there was even some cutesy nickname attached to it, like re-nesters, or something like that. I don't care nearly enough to search for it.

Anyway, the point is that these people moving back in with their parents were not only seen as quite an abnormal development, they were seen as some sort of commentary on our society. Some posited them as a sign of how bad our recession is. Others claimed that kids today just refuse to grow up, what with their cartoons and their music and their invasions they just can't stop fighting and whatnot. But all of them saw this as an inherently negative or backward step for both these young adults and, more-or-less, the country.

Because we have a powerful cultural narrative in American about what it means to be an adult. And for the vast majority of people here, this means leaving the home at 18, probably getting a degree of some kind, buying a house, getting married, having kids, etc. But all of these latter steps are predicated on the idea that you've left your parents house.

Where I was overseas, the situation was the exact opposite. Many people only left their house when they got married, if they even left the house at all. And because of various cultural, religious, and economic restraints, younger sons and daughters may have to wait a long time to get married. Most people I met were prety surprised to learn I was no longer living with my parents at the tender young age of 28, what with the fact I was neither married nor had any children. Who cooked for me? How did I manage a household? Etc.

So really, this is just two versions of ways to do things, specifically where to live. Neither of them is inherently good or bad (they both have their upsides and downsides), but we tend to think the one we do is normal and that doing it another way is odd at the very least, horribly wrong at the worst.

It's also a good example of how understanding how a social process works in no way prevents you from being a part of it, whether you want to or not. So I know, for instance, that living with your parents or not is essentially an arbitrary cultural script, so it's not really anything to worry about it. But I live in this particular cultural context that says it's odd. So anytime it comes up that I lived with my parents for most of the summer, I'm quick to explain how it was a really unique circumstance, it wasn't for a long term, etc.

And that, of course, is if the subject is even brought up in the first place. Because even though I've never felt judged by anyone about this and they always understand (especially when I offer my now well-rehearsed explanation), I can still feel how out of step with the normal cultural script this is and feel pressured to explain why I've deviated.

Though of course now I'm living on my own again like a grown up, so I can just pretend it never happened...

Marvel At My Semi-Competent Adulthood

2011-09-01T09:57:00.000-05:00

Part 3 in the Bottoming Out and Moving Onwards Series. Find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Blogging has been quite spare lately because the day has finally arrived -- by the end of this very day, I should be fully moved out of my mommy and daddy's house. So this past week has been a blur of packing and all the other mishegas that goes with moving.

While were I live likely has little to do with how successfully I put my life back together, there's definitely some psychological benefit to no longer doing something pretty widely regarding a marking you as a failure in life.

So by the next time you read this humble li'l blog, I'll be out living on my own, like a big boy...

What Football Team Do You Support?

2011-08-25T13:12:00.000-05:00

I've apparently been on quite the flowchart kick lately, so here's yet another one. If you're lost on which NFL team you'd like to support in the upcoming season, here you go:

Back To School Time

2011-08-24T12:47:00.000-05:00

Just in time for heading back to campus, might I present the 10 douchiest colleges in America.

I'm...proud?...to say there's 3 Big 10 schools on the list, making us by far the most well represented college conference.

Though this list has surprisingly little overlap with the top 10 party schools lists, which you assume would also draw in a significant amount of douche bags. Not to say I'm questioning the methodology or results of such a precise scientific endeavor, but it does seem a little suspect...

In 1992, I Could Have Reproduced This Poster From Memory

2011-08-16T21:22:00.001-05:00

I grew up when professional wrestling was in its death throes, but wasn't the horrid wasteland it is today. Sure, the great regional leagues had all been picked clean by Vince McMahon and the like, but at least there were still fun and colorful characters, like fighting garbage men and angry barbers. Of course, there were some horrible racial stereotypes, but I assume that's still going on in wrestling and has really always been a mainstay of the sport.

But the reason I complain about wrestling today is not just the insidiously sexist/homophobic corporate clusterfuck nature of it, but the fact that all of the fun and mostly wholesome names and characters have been lost in favor of characters who are just aggressively dumb and sexist.

But via the always entertaining deadspin, here's a definitive taxonomy of professional wrestling names (click to enlarge):

They May Be Crazy, But Their Method May Still Be Sound

2011-08-15T23:07:00.000-05:00

So of all things, I recently read an interesting interview with the Public Information Officer for the Madison Police Department. Apparently when it's a slow day or a really interesting case comes down the pipe, Joel DeSpain writes a ripping good police incident report for it, such as this one of a possible rapture situation.

This made me instantly think of two quite divergent thoughts. The first is of a Patton Oswalt bit from his slightly over-rated Werewolves and Lollipops. He says there are certain towns like Madison or Austin that are so incredibly weird and encapsulated in their own little world that you either need to get out quite young, or never leave. Because if you try to leave as an adult, the rest of the normal world will be completely bewildering to you ("You mean I can't pay for this sandwich with a song?" "No. You literally cannot do that.").

And so it makes sense this DeSpain guy works for the Madison PD. Only in Madison do you have a couple of cops get called out to some annoying little cutesy stunt and instead of getting pissed off and angrily cleaning it up while grumbling about the God damned kids these days, they pass it along to this guy, who spins a fantastical tale of whimsy about it. I feel like this man would be beaten up in many other departments.

But the other thought was that things like this are not such a bad idea. Because really, a lot of what causes the perceived/ real (there's some significant arguments about which of those it really is) hostility, or at least distance, between the general public and the police comes down to the perception of police as dicks. And while some certinaly are, I'd argue the vast majority are not.

But I would argue the vast majority of police are pretty humorless, at least when attending to official police business. And the complete lack of humor and self-awareness, while probably aimed at being professional, certainly doesn't do anything to combat the appearance of just being jerks. Which again, I argue most police are not.

So maybe finding ways to inject some levity into the police world, as well as allow the public some glimpse into the often absurd/surreal world of policing, might break down that real (or possibly only perceived) divide.

But the fanciful NPR-oriented-humorist-style police reports? Yeah, that will probably only work in Madison...

I Am Officially Living A Country Music Song

2011-08-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

Part 2 in the Bottoming Out and Moving Onwards Series. Find Part 1 here.

By any metric, this has not been a particularly good summer for me. Which makes it even more of a bummer, because Minnesota summer is something to look forward to. Nay, something to dream about. A shitty winter? No sweat, it's already pretty shitty. A shitty spring? No problem, for you have summer to look forward as you dig out of it. A shitty fall? Not that great, since I love fall and all, but at least the slowly decaying life around you thematically highlights your self-pity. But a shitty summer? That's just straight up shitty.

But being the eternal optimist I am, I've been joking that at least there's a couple of country music songs to get out of my misery. And this past weekend, that became so much more true. On my way up to the Pine Country Demolition Derby, my poor li'l purple car finally died. Well, it didn't die, but the clutch blew out, and would cost far more to replace than that piece of shit is worth, so the unfortunate decision was made to junk it.

In addition to all the memories of my 16 year-old baby, I now am without a car, which fully completes the country song. To recap my summer: my fiance left me, I'm flat broke, and my car died. So help me God, if something happens to my dog, I'm officially done with life.

R.I.P. Li'l Purple Car

Your Pic For Friday

2011-08-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

I don't know if the following image is photo-shopped or not, but supposedly this is a pic from the Simpsons store at Universal Studios:

I choose to believe it's real, because this is the kind of world I want to live in...

Bottoming Out and Moving Onwards (And Possibly Upwards)

2011-07-29T10:54:00.000-05:00

So it's been well over a month since I last blogged, and it's about time to get back into the game. Why the extremely long layoff, you ask? Or, more accurately, you will eventually ask someday when you stop by to check if I've ever updated this.

The short version of the story: as regular readers know, I was overseas all spring. About a week and a half after getting back, my fiancee left me. In addition to taking the shattered remains of my heart, she took most of the household goods. And also my place to live, as it's hard to find apartments for one that will also accept a dog. While I've found a place to live with a friend, the house is currently being remodeled, so for the next month-ish, I'll be living with my parents.

Now, I fully understand that life can get much worse than this, blah, blah, blah. But as a personal low, being left by my fiancee and being forced to move back in with my parents pretty much qualifies as my biggest personal failure to date.

So after taking a month or so off of life to "process my emotions" (read: drink a lot and ignore the problem), I've decided it's time to come back to the land of the living and start to put my life back together.

So while this humble li'l blog will continue to feature all of the potty-mouthed ramblings and mildly humorous links you've come to expect, updates on my bottoming out and attempt to reconstruct my life are going to become a new regular feature.

And so far, I have to say that other than little things like dignity or self-sufficiency that other folks may worry about, living with your parents as an adult is really not that bad. Lots of free food, physical copies of the newspaper (ha! old people!), and someone else paying the utilities. Could be worse.

Anyway, stay tuned for more...

They're Even Afraid of Athletic Competition

2011-05-26T07:34:00.000-05:00

Without going too much into it, pretty much everyone who is even remotely close to unbiased about the situation agrees the American drug war is completely screwed up. Heck, even a lot of people who are strongly biased to support the drug war admit it's screwed up. Whether you believe in the legalization of drugs or not, it's pretty hard to deny our current system of mass incarceration and ever-increasing penalties is having absolutely no effect on the levels of drug use in our nation and is having all sorts of deleterious effects (with little things like us having the most people in prison in the world, measured by raw numbers of percentages, and having more people in prison on drug charges than the entire EU has in prison for any reason).

Yet what's frustrating for people who would like to reform this broken system (let alone people who would advocate for legalization) is that when presented with the fairly indisputable evidence of how the war on drugs is not working, the official government responses is to pretty much put their fingers in their ears and yell "la la la! I can't hear you!" until you go away.

And in what has to be the most humorous analogy for this I've ever stumbled across, in the Congressional Softball League in D.C., the ONDCP's Czardinals refuse to play the drug-policy reform Capitol Hemp One Hitters (I swear to God I'm not making up either of those names).

While the Czardinals claim a scheduling problem is preventing the match up, the One Hitters took to a press release to note this has happened 6 years running now and wondered why the ONDCP was so afraid to face them, either in debate or on the softball diamond.

McBain: The Movie

2011-05-25T11:08:00.000-05:00

Sorry blogging has been so light lately. I'm on the very tail end of my great overseas adventure, so I've been really busy cramming work in, seeing friends for the last time, and all the other things one does at the end of a long trip overseas.

But to tide you over until I return with my patented brand of angrily ranting into the empty void of the internet, someone has stitched together all of the McBain clips from the Simpsons over the years and it pretty seamlessly becomes a pretty good action flick.

The writes claim this is entirely a coincidence, but knowing those folks, I wouldn't be too surprised if this was a little intentional...

How Good Is It If It Has Nothing To Say?

2011-05-17T08:11:00.001-05:00

I hated Eminem long before doing so was cool, though I had a friend who long tried to persuade me I was wrong to dismiss him so flippantly. He tried to convince me that Em had really great rhyming skills, and his flow was impressive, and all the other things that various music critics and fans have cited for liking him. But being a self-righteous college activist, I would tell him I simply couldn't sign off on any music that brazenly misogynistic and homophobic, and was frankly surprised he could. His defense was that you don't have to agree with everything someone says to like their music (which I agree with), but I would retort that if you really disagree with much of what someone says, then why are you listening to their music?

And while I'd like to think I've gotten a little less self-righteous over the years and have come to accept more music I might have once found questionable, I think the basic point still holds. At a certain point, someone's objectionable lyrics just override whatever else their music might have to offer. It reminds me of a review I read a couple years back of a Snoop album in which the reviewer wrote something to the effect of "Sure, Snoop has one of the best and most recognizable flows in all of rap, but he doesn't really have anything worthwhile to say with it."

And this sort of debate happens all the time in music, but it coming to the fore now as the indie world has fallen in love with flavor-of-the-moment rapper Tyler, The Creator, whose debut features music so violently misogynistic and homophobic it's become notable in a genre that's pretty much known for such things.

Sara of Tegan and Sara recently took to the interwebs to object to the uncritical praise Tyler's gotten from otherwise intelligent folks, writing in part:

As journalists and colleagues defend, excuse and congratulate 'Tyler, the Creator,' I find it impossible not to comment. In any other industry would I be expected to tolerate, overlook, and find deeper meaning in this kid's sickening rhetoric? Why should I care about this music or its 'brilliance' when the message is so repulsive and irresponsible?... The more I think about it, the more I think people don't actually want to go up against this particular bully because he's popular. Who sticks up for women and gay people now? It seems entirely uncool to do so in the indie rock world, and I'll argue that point with ANYONE.

It's a somewhat tired point, but still relevant. Even more telling about the state of gender relations in our time, though, is probably Tyler's response:

"If Tegan And Sara Need Some Hard Dick, Hit Me Up!"

For a guy who's supposed to be a lyrical genius, you'd think he might be able to come up with a bit more intelligent come back...

Update: Emma Carmichael has a much more intelligent take on this.

The Legal Power of Dylan Lyrics

2011-05-14T03:36:00.000-05:00

In grading piles of student papers every semester, certain trends start to appear pretty quickly. The obvious plagiarists, the smart kids, the ones who obviously didn't write their own papers, etc. Amongst these many types, there's always the arty/alternative kid who includes lines from their favorite band because, you know, man, music like, is deep.

And I have to admit, I was one of those guys. My senior thesis features multiple Rage Against the Machine quotes as chapter headings, because I'm edgy like that.

But it turns out, it's not just solipsistic undergrads who do this. Apparently, it's pretty common for judges to do it as well, which is either heartening or depressing, depending on your view of the world.

And befitting the over-representation of baby boomers currently on the bench, a recent study finds that Dylan is by far the most quoted lyricist of them all, cited over twice as often as the runner up Beatles. I like to pictures these judges at home, Pink Floyd posters on the wall, scratchy hi-fi spinning in the background, sitting at a wobbly desk, pounding out these deep opinions, envisioning how much this shit is going to blow the minds of those squares down at the courthouse...

Noted legal scholar

Links Instead of Insight

2011-05-09T10:30:00.000-05:00

Hey folks, running short on time again, so here's some fun links to while away your precious time:

First, if you're interested in developing an exacting matrix that will help you understand the maximum amount of drunk you can get for the least amount of calories consumed (and who isn't interested in that?), then I present Get Drunk Not Fat.com.

Second, and far more awesome, the internet has now arrived at the most useful universal measurement: the Danzig. Right now it only converts metric to Danzig, but metric was always just the stepping stone to a better universal measurement anyway...

Rules For The Internet

2011-05-04T08:17:00.001-05:00

This video should be federally-mandadted viewing for anyone who uses the internet, or at least anyone who ever comments on internet message boards:

Oh yeah, and it turns out some terrorist guy was killed by the U.S. While normally this sort of thing is what I use this blog to rant about, I'm too blown away by how even otherwise-rational human beings are celebrating this like we all get free puppies and ice cream.

So I'm most likely never going to do a longer post about this, but I will say it doesn't really mean anything. It's not going to magically bring people back to life, it's not going to end the two and half wars we have going on, it's not going to restore our civil liberties, etc.

But hey, it will give the president an approval ratings boost for a few months. So I guess that's something, right?

Your Beastie Boys Link-O-Rama (Featuring Two Links!)

2011-05-03T08:21:00.000-05:00

By now, I'm assuming you've seen Fight For Your Right Revisited, the short film starring everyone ever, ostensibly taking place shortly after the video for Fight For Your Right ends.

If you have not seen it yet, go watch it now. It will make you laugh and bop your head, like the first time you listen to a skit-heavy West Coast album. Seriously, go watch it. I'll wait.

Ok, welcome back. Funny, right? Well, if you didn't understand the song, it's likely because the Beastie Boys are notoriously dense and obscure with their references. Luckily enough, the fine folks over at the AVClub have put together a compendium of 167 Beastie Boy references explained.

Now you, too, can be the obnoxious person who insists on explaining what a song is referencing, despite it being clear no one cares. And everyone likes that guy, right? Right? Guys?

God Bless The Internet

2011-05-02T08:18:00.000-05:00

Every time I come across a really stupid website that is hilariously entertaining but simultaneously the kind of thing I can't believe anyone wasted their time putting together, I can't help but feel that's the exact reason the internet exists. I can only feel sorry for previous generations that had no way to access the wide world of people wasting their time on pointless shit solely to bring mild amusement to complete strangers. That must have been a horrible world to live in.

A perfect example of this is the tumblr Dads Are The Original Hipsters.

If I were feeling more intelligent today, I'd write something about the ironic appropriation of past styles/cultures. Instead, I'll just point out how incredibly true this simple yet profound statement is. And I'm living proof, with about every cool piece of clothing I own having been pilfered from my old man's closet...

How Do You End A Beer Fast?

2011-04-29T07:10:00.000-05:00

With a bacon smoothie, apparently.

Several weeks back I blogged about J. Wilson, an Iowa man who gave up food for Lent, subsisting only on beer.

At first it was only 4 beers a day during the week and then 5 a day on the weekends, but it had to be upped to 5 a day every day to keep up his energy. Not only is that somewhat funny, it's also probably the only time you'll hear someone say they need some more beer to keep up their energy.

In any event, thankfully someone was there to cover him breaking the fast, which he did with a bacon smoothie (smoothies apparently being the best way to ease back into solid food).

Which I think makes the ordeal even more awesome. You subsist only on beer for 6 and a half weeks, and bacon truly is the only thing you could use to make that better...

Here's A Blog For You To Follow

2011-04-28T12:56:00.000-05:00

For those of you in and/or around the Mpls/St. Paul area who like food, you should check out the Heavy Table, a mostly non-pretentious foodie blog. Well, I'm not sure if it counts as "foodie" because they mostly review places at which you could afford to eat, but nonetheless they seem to know their stuff.

They also have some fun on-going features like "What's In Your Fridge?" which they kicked off appropriately by checking in on what's in Prince's fridge.

Not only is Prince's fridge just about as wacky as you might expect it to be, His Purpleness did not allow any cameras in his house, so the post is accompanied by a pencil sketch of the fridge. Which just seems more appropriate anyway.

Back In Action

2011-04-26T09:18:00.000-05:00

Been sick and busy the last week, thus the lack of blogging. But I'm back healthy (if no less busy), so the blogging should get back to some semblance of regularity. That being said, I don't actually have much time today, so here's a hastily written post!

If you're like me and aging out of the time when you're with "it" and what has become "it" is now weird and scary to you, fret no longer. Simply consult this handy illustrated list of scenesters to fill yourself in on what the kids are up to these days.

And if you want to look cool to them, might I suggest picking up a nicely rendered Iggy Pop action figure for your ironic art collection?

This Would Have Been a More Appropriate Blog Yesterday

2011-04-19T09:23:00.000-05:00

It's probably pretty old news to anyone who reads this blog, but there's a pretty staggering number of major U.S. corporations that pay no federal taxes. Or some, like GE, not only don't pay taxes, they get government subsidies on top of that, putting them in the "negative 600% tax bracket" as Jon Stewart put it.

But to highlight the most egregious abuses, my friend and yours Bernie Sanders put together a list of the Top 10 Corporate Tax Cheats.

To borrow from a current Facebook meme, I don't recall NPR, teacher's unions, and people on social security creating this recession, and yet...

Post-Racial America

2011-04-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

Now that we have a bi-racial President, that nasty "racism" business is completely behind us, right? I mean, clearly there can't be any more problems now that we've had a small number of successful people of color in important public and business positions, right?

But man, remember how horrible things used to be? Like when people believed crazy things about how people of different races were better than others and that mixing the two would result in all sorts of horrible problems?

I mean, I remember a time when as many as 46% of Republicans in Mississippi thought all interracial marriages should be illegal. Those were dark times, the times of...um...now. Because that is indeed currently what 46% of Mississippi Republicans believe.

But don't worry; we certainly don't need pointless things like Affirmative Action, because we're past all of that racism stuff...

How Much Are You Paying For War?

2011-04-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

Probably more than you think. Go to the Afghan War Calculator and you can see approximately how much of your earnings this year went to pay for the war in Afghanistan.

And then, of course, don't forget to factor in the money you're paying to bomb Libya and the on-going ~~war~~ technical assistance provided to Iraq.

But if you think this is a lot, remember, upwards of a tens of cents of your yearly earnings are going to egregious wastes like National Public Radio and k-12 education, so maybe if we completely eliminate those things we can start cutting into this war debt...

News Roundup!

2011-04-07T11:42:00.000-05:00

Been too busy to blog lately, so here's things I would normally have something much more witty to say about:

--Jesse "The Body" is considering another foray into politics - if Rand Paul decides to run as an independent (but not if he does so as a Republican), Jesse will be glad to be his running mate.

--In a move that should surprise no one, the Yankees were caught cheating. In a move that should surprise you even less, MLB will take no action on the matter. It's almost as if a team with large amounts of money and great name recognition can get away with whatever they want...

--Have you just been burning with a desire to see a head-to-head infographic comparison of Bob Dylan and Kanye West albums? If so, your oddly specific wish has been granted.

Regular blogging full of wit and sparkling commentary to resume next week...

There Goes Your Afternoon

2011-04-04T08:48:00.000-05:00

If you came of age during a certain time, say for instance, the exact period of time I came of age, you probably remember the shitty little hand held electronic games that were nearly ubiquitous. As a kid who was generally denied video games by his parents (and now look at me; parents of today, let this be a lesson to you), these were a God send. Sure, they were crummy, repetitive, and usually very difficult to discern how gameplay was even supposed to take place, but dammit, they were a video game I could have.

Well, in the internet's ever increasing attempts to destroy the last vestiges of my productivity, a Polish firm Hipopotam has digitized and put most of them online. They've not only managed to keep the frustratingly clunky game play, but even the plastic thunk of the controllers.

This may or may not be what I end up doing with the rest of my day...

Please Feel Old Now

2011-03-31T09:17:00.000-05:00

This picture comes from a photo collection taken at various shopping malls in 1990.

Look at them, and then marvel at the fact that 1990 is now over 20 years ago...

What You Should Be Reading

2011-03-25T07:13:00.000-05:00

I've written here before about my unabashed love for Deadspin, the snarky sports blog that's for more informative and interesting than pretty much all other sports news sites combined.

Now they have a new running feature from the eggheads at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. As the name implies, they're a group of Harvard students and researchers applying quantitative analysis to sports (e.g. Sabrmetrics and the like).

In their recurring contribution to Deadpsin, they're applying their fancy school mathematics to the sports exploits of fictional characters. For example, today they looked at the usage rate of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air in the one time he played organized basketball on the show. In previous entries they've looked at such burning questions as how often Trey Parker should theoretically lose a game of Baseketball, and the box score from the cartoon/live-action/product placement reels of Space Jam.

Also, they produce sweet charts like this:

The Fresh Prince only missed one shot, and it was half court

Well, If They Wanted Dignity They Shouldn't Be Poor

2011-03-21T11:33:00.001-05:00

In the latest in a long line of ridiculous public policy measures designed to strip punish the poor for being poor and to strip them of the last few shreds of dignity they have remaining, Minnesota Republicans are trying to push a bill that would make it so public assistance could not be converted to cash form (ever) and could only be sued at special terminals at select stores.

What's the justification? Well, this is public money! If we're going to give these people money, then we should be able to dictate every detail about where, when, why, and how they can use it. Down to every last penny.

Of course, if we give hundreds of millions of dollars of public money to banks and investment firms (as, you know, a thank you for fucking up the entire world economy), it's nothing less than fascism to even argue we should have any say over how they spend it. Only a God-less socialist would suggest that the least we could do is not allow them to award themselves multi-million dollar bonuses for completely fucking up at their jobs.

After all, I'm sure they'll do something useful with the money, not blow it all on food and rent like those lazy poor people...

Baseball!

2011-03-17T06:55:00.000-05:00

With the start of the season a mere 15 days away, I'm starting to become acutely I'll be missing the first two months of my favorite sport. Fortunately the baseball season lasts approximately three years, but still.

So in the meantime, I've been reading a shit load of baseball-centric blogs to fill the void in my life, and wanted to pass along some of the highlights of these exploits.

First, there's the all-steroids team featuring a player at each position who most clearly benefited from some time on the juice. Notable for Twins fans in the inclusion of David Ortiz, who in his 6 years with the Twins manages 58 home runs total, and then went to Boston and got a locker next to a known steroid user and suddenly couldn't stop hitting home runs. Also not too coincidentally, he suddenly lost the ability to hit homers after said roids hookup was traded to LA...

Also of great interest is the first ever NCAA-bracket to determine the greatest set of facial Hair in Twins history. While I assume it's inevitable the Pav-stache will take the day, check out all of the first round brackets (conveniently broken down into Griffith era, Pohlad era, 21st century, and worst of all time), and be sure to get over there in time to vote for the second round.

How To Catch The Most Elusive of Prey

2011-03-16T06:53:00.000-05:00

The hipster is one of the hardest to define social categories, as so many people are desperately trying to be one, but no one ever likes to be called one. In fact, calling someone a hipster is often either the first sign you yourself are a hipster or that you will soon be accused of being one.

That being said, apparently last week someone began setting up hipster traps all over New York City, consisting of some of those dumb ass sunglasses they all wear, a PBR, a bike chain, and some of those hippie cigarettes that are apparently less evil than other brands of cigarettes.

In any event, hopefully we can get some of them in captivity and dissect them for the purposes of science...

What Have You Given Up For Lent?

2011-03-15T07:37:00.000-05:00

Before you answer, if you were going to say some variant of "I gave up Catholicism for lent! Ha ha ha!" let me stop you right there. The first time it was said it was neither funny nor original, and the millionth time it's said, it is even less so. This is one of the greatest drawbacks of social media; I saw some variant of that joke at least a dozen times in the past few days, all from different people, all of whom thought they were just so damned funny.

Ok, but that's not the point of this post. The point is that some guy in Des Moines has given up food for lent. Instead, he will get all of his of his nutrition via beer, a la the monks of old.

And before you think he's just some dumbass frat boy who wants to drink a lot of beer, he's apparently put a great deal of research into this and consulted with a nutritionist to make sure he won't, you know, die or anything. Also, he's only having 4 beers per day, so even despite their relatively high alcohol content, he won't ever be drunk from it.

Still, even with those boring safety qualifications, this is way better than giving up chocolate or something...

Gettin Out While The Gettin's Good

2011-03-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

Of all the times I could have picked to go abroad, I seem to have hit on the jackpot. While I'm enjoying relative warmth and some actual sunny days now and then, the folks back home are under a record snow that is already in the top 10 of all time, and threatening to go to number one if they get the typical snowy March.

And I can't say I miss it too much. Not only had I gotten my fill of snow before heading out, but the piles of snow in my backyard were already enough to dwarf the fence and then the garage.

But that's nothing compared to some of the snow piles around the metro area. For instance, they're currently taking bets on when this 60 snow pile in St. Paul will finally melt.

I'm not due back until June, but at this rate, it doesn't seem too unlikely there'll be snow left for me when I return...

Banksy's Oscar Pout

2011-03-11T04:51:00.000-06:00

Although Banksy already awarded himself an Oscar (complete with stormtroopers to protect it!), the Academy did not officially give him one.

His response?

The little girl is the 15 month old daughter of a producer of The King's Speech who apparently dropped and broke his Oscar. What comment Banksy is trying to make is up to us to figure out -- is he pouting about the loss? Making a mockery of institutional awards? Who knows/particularly cares?

My current favorite hypothesis is that Banksy, who has managed to somehow maintain the anonymity necessary to be a tagger despite international fame and being the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, is actually that little girl and this is how she has chosen to reveal her identity to the world...

Athletes Are Great Students! (Well, Actually Some Are, But Not The Ones We Want You To Think Of)

2011-03-10T06:36:00.000-06:00

If you follow college athletics at all, sooner or later you'll hear the justification from the NCAA or a particular school that "student" athletes get better grades and graduate at a higher rate than the average student population. This, they'll inevitably go on to say, not only disproves the stereotype of the dumb jock, but also shows how good college athletics are for the "student" athlete.

And this is actually true, if you combine all athletes. The problem is, the ones getting those good grades and graduating are overwhelmingly in those sports you will never once see on television and are usually women. But of course, such defense of college athletics citing these statistics are rarely made during a women's lacrosse meet.

No, these arguments are usually made during events like nationally-televised football games. The problem is that this sample of athletes is in no way representative of the greater population. Major football programs tend to graduate somewhere between 50-75% of their players. And the numbers aren't so low because people are going pro; even the most elite football programs have at most 10% of any given class go on to play a single professional play. The rest typically drop out because they're injured or performing poorly and their scholarship is rescinded.

Yet even beyond on these factors, athlete grades are boosted by dozens of perks, both legal and not-so-legal. For example, most athletes are provided with free tutoring, supposedly because they have demands other students do not. Cynically, one could say this is because they need to keep their grades up to make the university look good. And even looking past the seemingly annual event wherein it's revealed the "tutors" were actually doing the work for their charges at one school or another, there's all sorts of other semi-legal, mostly-shady tactics to keep athlete grades up.

For instance, it's recently been revealed that Stanford, universally lauded for making its athletes maintain the same standards as the rest of it students, was distributing a list of easy classes to its athletes that they could take to boost their GPAs. Standford has defended the practice by saying it's not about how easy the classes are, but instead about classes that might better fit into their unique schedules, which isn't much of a defense, since the school publishes its list of available courses by time offered already. Now would it explain why only a few classes from the given time periods were listed as "courses of interest" rather than all classes from that period, since you know, it's only about the schedule, not about how easy the classes are.

But then again, I guess this is all just based on the outmoded notion that universities are places that exist to educate people, so I suppose none of this is really a problem...

I Don't Know What It Is, But I Know It's Associated With Moo-Slims!

2011-03-09T05:57:00.000-06:00

So a recent trend around the nation, and especially in the South -- America's racist uncle that you have to invite to Thanksgiving dinner but you hope doesn't say anything -- is the introduction of bills in various state government to ban the implementation or consideration of Sharia law (the former of course being something we're very much in danger of, and the later being something that's used mainly to settle divorce cases).

Of course, what these bills are completely missing is that Sharia law is not a written set of rules, but rather a way of interpreting religious tradition, so it's pretty difficult to ban it. It would be like banning math because you don't like to pay your taxes. But we all know this isn't about fear of an interpretation of certain Islamic traditions, but instead about making sure the scary brown people know we don't like them.

In that spirit, one of the more entertaining developments in this little cycle is that the legislator who introduced one of these bills in Alabama doesn't even know what Sharia law is. Not only was most of his bill directly cribbed from the Wikipedia article on Sharia law, when reporters asked him about it, he couldn't even speak about the most basic aspects of Islam, such as the difference between Sunni and Shi'i.

I'd say trying to ban something when you don't even know what it is just because you're vaguely aware it's associated with a group of people you don't like is probably the height of racism, but at the rate this country is going, somebody will do something even more insane in about a week or two...

More About Wisconsin

2011-03-08T12:24:00.000-06:00

In the latest development I've been able to find, it turns out folks are no longer being allowed to camp out inside the capitol, but many are merely moving their sleeping outside (which is pretty bad ass this time of year).

There seems to be little movement toward any type of resolution from either side, with union's still not wanting to give up the one thing out of the laundry list of concessions they've already agreed to that defines them as an organization, and Walker and Co. not wanting to give up being assholes.

In other developments, Michael Moore eventually got around to showing up and gave a great speech about the lie going around that Wisconsin/America is broke and the only way to fix it is by slashing social programs and destroying unions.

In eve more exciting development, thousands of farmers from around the state are planning on driving their tractors to the capitol to join in the demonstrations. They are also putting a call to taxpayer/friend of the farmer Willie Nelson to come join them, so this has the potential to get supremely awesome...

I'm Bored and Have Nothing Better To Do With My Time

2011-03-06T14:55:00.000-06:00

Have you ever wondered what Holy Diver would sound like as an acoustic ballad? Than you are in luck:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16425496/Holy%20Diver.m4a

For those of you not in the know, here's a reference point:

Why I Kinda Sorta Like College Basketball

2011-03-04T04:04:00.000-06:00

I'm not much of a basketball fan. Probably because I was short and slow growing up, which is a combination that is perfectly suited to suck at basketball. Short and fast? Plenty of roles for you to fill. Tall and slow? No problem. But short and slow, no dice. So I was terrible at it and probably developed some sort of resentment for it.

And professional basketball these days is so boring. I'll avoid getting into the tired tropes everyone lists as why they don't like pro ball, but my complaints center on how no one appears to be trying outside of the marquee games and it's all just isolation one-on-one plays every time down the court.

But because of my beloved plucky mid-major Panthers, I started following college basketball toward the end of my college career. And while I think the game in general is better at the college level than the pro level (they do things like run plays), I think the real reason I like it is the fans.

Because unlike pretty much every professional sport, in college basketball actual fans can get good seats near the court for somewhat affordable prices. So unlike pro games where the first 30 rows are all business executives who may have a passing interest in the game or, in some places, celebrities just there to be seen, in a college game the crazy dedicated fans are right up on the action.

And as such, they're a lot more creative and entertaining. For example, the great pics below from when the BUY Jimmers visited SDSU. As you're probably aware, BYU is a Mormon college, so the SDSU student section all dressed up like Mormon missionaries (complete with bike helmets!) and had some great signs poking various levels of inappropriate fun at BYU.

You will never see signs like this at a Lakers game..

How iTunes Made Me Hate Elvis Costello

2011-03-03T02:57:00.000-06:00

Seriously, fuck this guy

I suppose it's not very original, or even necessary, at this point to say that the ability to (legally?) download pretty much any music one could want has dramatically changed the way most of us consume music. Whereas once you might hear about a band or artist you want to check out and then remember that person/band the next time you're at the record store and decide whether it's worth wasting your hard earned money on said band's/person's album, these days you can download an album before you're even done reading a review.

Once I was compelled to do this with Mr. Costello. He's one of those guys that most people whose taste in music I trust seem to like, and I was reading some sort of music blog that highly recommend several albums by him. So I downloaded them and plopped them into iTunes along with most other music I own in the theory that as they came up randomly, I would listen to them and grow to fill in this lacuna in my musical knowledge.

Now I don't have as much music on my laptop as I do on my desktop, but still, according to iTunes' count, I have 5.8 days worth of music (or 139.2 hours). And according to iTunes I have 6.1 ours of Mr. Costello's music on there, which would be roughly 4.3% of all of the music I have on there, for those keeping track at home.

Yet despite what Apple claims to the contrary, there's no way the iTunes algorithm doesn't favor Elvis Costello on my laptop for some weird reason. Because I have equally large amounts of Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, Dr. Hook, and Drive By Truckers (and a few others) on there, and yet I can go entire days without them coming up on my random shuffle. Yet it sticks out as unusual when I'm able to sit there for even 20 or 30 minutes without an Elvis Costello song coming up.

And as such, not only have I not come to appreciate his music, I've come to despise him. Now, pretty much any time one of his songs comes up, I almost instinctively skip it, even if it's one I like, just because he comes up so often in what is supposedly a random shuffle.

I realize this is completely irrational of me, but it's not my fault. My iTunes apparently has a crush on Elvis Costello and is determined to make me listen to him at any cost. And there's few things I react to more negatively than someone (or thing) trying to force their musical tastes on me.

So I've gone from completely indifferent to angrily annoyed with Elvis Costello, ironically because of my quest to appreciate him. And it's all the fault of iTunes' poorly programmed shuffle algorithm.

Easily More Impressive Than Their Final Four Run

2011-03-02T10:52:00.003-06:00

I've posted college band videos before, such as this awesome video of the Hawaii marching band forming a giant football player kicking a field goal, but this one easily beats all others.

It's video of the George Mason pep band playing a mash up of Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name" and "Bulls on Parade." And apparently their director has made the arrangement available for anyone who wants it, so if you're conducting a pep band somewhere, get in touch with this dude...

Why The Tea Party Exists (To An Extent)

2011-03-01T06:39:00.000-06:00

So I know it's a complex phenomenon, and there's lots of reasons the tea party exists right now and its members share the crazy ideas they do (like I'm sure it's just coincidence all these crazies happen to come out when we get our first Black president).

But one of the major reasons so many people think Government spending is crazy or stupid is because they don't understand it. It's really not their fault, as 40+ years of anti-tax activism by far-right nutjobs has people pretty convinced about 97% of federal spending is free welfare for drug abusing teen moms (when in reality, free welfare for drug abusing teen moms is a relatively small percentage of federal spending).

And of course it isn't just that. But what most people don't realize is the many ways they benefit from government spending. For example, a recent study by Suzanne Mettler of Cornell University found that the vast majority of people will report that they don't get any government benefits, despite the fact that most people do.

For instance, she found that 60% of those claiming the home mortgage interest deduction claimed they don't use any government social programs, despite that being a government social program. 53% of people with federal student loans, 52% of those claiming the child or dependent tax credit, 44% of social security recipients, 43% of unemployment recipients, the list goes on and on -- so many of these people said they receive no government social spending despite the fact they're all getting (fairly large sums of) government social spending.

This helps explain a lot about Americans. For instance, why people can look at the public unions trying to hold onto their collective bargaining power in Wisconsin and think they're trying to get fat off of government money. Or why people can fool themselves into thinking they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps without anyone's help.

Because they simply refuse to believe (or fail to recognize) how much help they've gotten and continue to get

Shocker: Fox News Encourages Employees to Lie

2011-02-28T06:38:00.000-06:00

In what should come as a surprise to no one, it turns out Fox News regularly encourages/cajoles/forces their employees to lie about important matters, even to federal judges.

Although this is a bit like pointing out that things get wet when it rains, it's always good to catalogue such behavior for future reference...

More on Wisconsin

2011-02-27T05:24:00.000-06:00

There's been a great deal of awesome photos coming out of the ongoing occupation of the Wisconsin state capitol building, but I think this is one of my favorites:

It's a short list of rules for anyone staying there that were spontaneously devised by the occupiers. In addition to these rules, there are strict guidelines posted throughout the building about where and what food to share, where and when to clean (the demonstrators have taken over care of the building while they occupy it), and other such postings to ensure a smooth and well-functioning occupation.

I think what I like most about this sort of thing is that it effectively demonstrates how these people are not random crazies or troublemakers, but are actually extremely well-organized and courteous. It's a powerful example of the power of people to organize and regulate themselves, even without fear of retribution or anyone forcing them to do so.

As of the latest news I've been able to find, things are still at a stand still, but demonstrators are staying strong. Things may be heating up soon, though, as Anonymous, the internet hacker collective best known for their recent defense of Wikileaks, has announced they're taking on Governor Walker and Koch Industries.

I for one cannot wait to see what they come up with...

On Wisconsin!

2011-02-26T06:36:00.003-06:00

A great deal has been going down in the Badger state in the past few days. And while you should obviously be looking elsewhere for more up-to-the-minute reports, if you haven't been paying much attention to it, here's the important highlights to get you up to speed.

One of the biggest developments has been than Governor Walker was prank called by a Buffalo-area reporter pretending to be one of Walker's billionaire backers, David Koch. In the phone call, Walker gladly talks about all the things he's attempting to do to destroy collective bargaining rights, such as calling out thugs to beat up the men, women, and children peacefully camping out at the state capitol.

As many have noted, lots of the things Walker proposes or agrees to do in that phone call are highly illegal. In fact, a former Attorney General of Wisconsin has found at least 3 laws broken in the course of that phone call, with many more possible violations.

And the longer this goes on, the less friends it turns out Governor Walker has. Even the police and firefighter's unions (two of the only three unions to back Walker) have rescinded their support of the governor. In fact, when Walker ordered the police to clear the demonstrators out of the capitol, they not only refused, but publicly announced they're planning on joining the ongoing protests and sleeping in the capitol themselves!

And of course, the big point not to be forgotten in any of this is that it's not about balancing the budget like Walker claims, as the unions have agreed to all of the concession asked for save only their right to collectively bargain. In case you're confused by Walker's lies, here's a Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter to break it down for you.

Finally, if you're curious what Rage Against the Machine guitarist, sole member of The Nightwatchmen, and all-around union rabble-rouser Tom Morello has to say about the subject, check out his great piece in Rolling Stone on his time at the capitol.

If you'd like to help out in some way, check out any of the sympathy demos going on in every state in the union. Or you could always pack up and travel to Madison for awhile. Or on an even simpler plane, send 'em a pizza.

This Makes Me Giggle

2011-02-25T14:07:00.001-06:00

How Racism Hurts You, Even If You Don't Think It Does

2011-02-24T06:56:00.000-06:00

The War on Terror, for instance.

I know it sounds like a rather oblique example, but actually racism can help explain many of the problems plaguing this seemingly never-ending war.

For instance, why did so many Americans support the war on Iraq to begin with, when it was pretty clear from the get-go that there was no credible evidence Iraq posed any threat to us and there was all sorts evidence to suggest Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks? Obviously there were a lot of complex factors, but it certainly didn't hurt that Iraq, for many (most?) Americans, is a strange place filled with funny looking people, who even if they didn't have anything to do with 9/11 were probably still evil anyway.

But racism really helps explain why these wars drag on and on with no noticeable progress. Even bigger than listing the myriad ways American forces have blatantly ignored local cultures and customs, completely undermining the whole purpose of a "hearts and minds" style war, the inability (or unwillingness) to even understand the basic differences between peoples is clearly causing huge problems.

For instance, while U.S. officials continue to trumpet claims of capturing or killing important Taliban officials, it turns out many of these people aren't Taliban at all. In many cases, they don't even look like the people they're claiming (or claimed by others) to be. But hey, if all of these people look the same, who can tell?

And this, of course, is to not even mention the fact that many terrorists captured were for all intents and purposes simply invented by the government themselves. And again, while there's clearly many complicated factors behind these sorts of things, it's hard to argue that the reason these practices are accepted (or at least fail to produce any meaningful level of outrage) have nothing to do with the fact that they're really only affecting brown and black people who speak a different language and worship a different deity.

So even if you're a well-off white person who's never even seen something racist (at least, that you recognized), incredibly large sums of your tax dollars (not to mention thousands of lives) are being wasted, thanks in large part to racism.

[cue The More You Know jingle]

Maybe The Things You've Learned Are Slightly Biased

2011-02-23T07:21:00.000-06:00

Been meaning to post this for awhile now, but here's a great article by Zsuzsanna Clark about how growing up under communist rule in Hungary was not oppressive and horrid, but actually far happier than are times now under capitalist rule.

It's a fairly balanced viewpoint of how life under communist rule wasn't all peaches and cream, but the introduction of rather ruthless free-market capitalism has not only failed to improve the nation, but has actually introduced a host of serious social problems.

It reminds me a lot of a really wonderful German movie by the great Wolfgang Becker called Good Bye, Lenin! which I can't recommend highly enough. Similar to the article linked above, it's a rather even-handed exploration of how life under communist rule in East Germany had it's ups and downs, but the introduction of capitalism didn't really solve anything, it just substituted a new set of problems for the old.

Both of these are great rejoinders to the images I remember from my early youth and from history books throughout school that life behind the iron curtain was dull and tragic and everyone there was horribly oppressed and miserable at all times. Obviously anyone with some critical thinking skills could figure out that might not be entirely true, but I always find it really fascinating to hear the voices of people who actually lived through all of that, rather than hearing the same tired tropes from people who have a vested interest in making communism look bad. Because it turns out, not only was everyone in the Soviet Union not completely and always miserable, but some of them even enjoyed their lives and approved of the way things were operating...

Why Wisconsin Matters

2011-02-22T07:08:00.000-06:00

In the Catholic Church, there are two types of sin -- mortal and venal. Venal sins are the little ones; things that are wrong, but not that major. Think lying to someone or not tipping your waitress. Mortal sins, as you might imagine, are the big ones, the ones that "destroy charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law."

As you're probably aware, right now in Wisconsin one of the biggest labor battles of my lifetime is going on, as Governor Walker has proposed gutting state employee benefits and barring them the right to collectively bargain for anything but the most narrow of pay issues (and even then, pay would be capped by certain factors tied to market functions) to solve a crisis he himself created, either because he's phenomenally stupid and does not grasp the most basic concepts of addition and subtraction, or because he
intentionally did this specifically to crush the power of organized labor.

So this is a good time to remind ourselves and Governor Walker that union busting is not just a sin, but a mortal one, violating the first, fifth, and seventh commandments.

So say what you will about the salary and benefits of public employees (though when adjusted for the fact that public employees tend to have much a higher degree of education and experience than their private-sector counterparts, they're actually underpaid), but the ability to collectively bargain for a decent and dignified life is a right sanctioned not only by the State, but by God.

And since we apparently get to defund Planned Parenthood simply because God might disagree with a small portion of what they do, I think we get to keep our collective bargaining rights...

Single. Best. Bobblehead. Ever.

2011-02-21T08:24:00.002-06:00

You can forget ever trying to produce a new bobblehead that's witty and awesome and right in every way, because it already exists. Even better, the Twikies have confirmed it is both real and will be part of a promotion this year.

There is a 100% chance I will be in line for that promotion. And I am not at all being hyperbolic.

Confession Made Easy

2011-02-18T06:13:00.000-06:00

If you like to participate in the Holy Sacrament of reconciliation, but find remembering all of the horrible things you've done and need repentance for simply too taxing, it turns out there's an app for that.

For only $1.99 you can get the Confession app, which handily helps you keep a running checklist of the depraved things you've done and need to bed God forgiveness for. And in case you're afraid of running the risk of heresy (which you would then need to remember to put in your app), worry no more, as it is actually approved by the one true Church.

I don't mean to sound like some weird out-of-touch elderly man, but wow, what a technological wonder world we live in...

A Little Bit Late...

2011-02-17T06:15:00.000-06:00

Maybe you forgot Valentine's Day this year and are scrambling to make up for it, or maybe you did something wonderful but are now out of ideas for next year, or maybe you have no sweetie but like to compile advice for a possible future scenario in which you do have someone to call yours. Or maybe you just like reading funny things.

If any of these scenarios apply to you, might I recommend reading Ghostface Killah's handy valentine's tips?

Through a series of tweets, Mr. Killah drops some mad knowledge on how to have the perfect valentine's day. Amongst many other such gems are immortal words of advice like:

"Nahmean she liked to get pampered too. She like to hear that "I Love You" shit a thousand times a day. You understand what I'm sayin."

"Cook for her if you could, if you know how to cook. If not take her to get something to eat."

"The whole shit is just shocking them. Shock the bitch b."

"Not to call her a bitch like that but you know what I mean, just shocking them. She gotta be like "Yo this nigga just fucked my head up!""

You're welcome...

"It’s A Pretty Stellar Piece of Stagecraft, One Guy Out There, Logic His Greatest Foe"

2011-02-15T07:49:00.000-06:00

As anyone who's ever followed this blog or spoken directly to me for more than a few minutes knows, I'm a huge fan of the AV Club, the pop-culture obsessed review site that's a sister publication of my beloved The Onion.

One really fun running article series they have going on right now is a feature wherein their television critics watch and review shows that normally don't fall under the rubric of critically-reviewed shows. For instance, a couple weeks ago they looked at the Super Bowl as a television show, with little concern about the game itself.

But this week's article is a real winner. Staff writer Todd VanDerWerff watched an entire week of Glenn Beck to understand what makes him such a popular commentator, which I think entitles you to some sort of award, or at least free mental health counseling.

While his conclusions are not really anything I haven't heard before (Beck is a mix of shrewd entertainer and completely batshit insane), it's really interesting to hear him discussed not from a political point of view, but from an artistic point of view.

I don't want to do a disservice to VanDerWerff's argument and simplify it too much (seriously, go read it, it's only 3,000 words), but essentially, what he finds is that Beck is less political talk show than a combination of mystery serial and soap opera, giving him huge credit for building a Lost-like mythology that would take a viewer years to fully grasp.

I can't say that I'll be tuning into Beck's show any time soon now, but this is easily the best description of just what exactly he's up to that I've ever stumbled across...

Happy Monday!

2011-02-14T07:11:00.001-06:00

Presenting the Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator! It will easily amuse you for the next 10 minutes.

Here's my favorite that it produced for me:

Update: Nope, this one's better:

What's a Waste of Your Tax Dollars?

2011-02-11T09:50:00.001-06:00

If there's one thing you can always count on from a Republican (or really any conservative and/or libertarian), it's that they'll complain about the gubmit wastin' their money.

Food stamps so children don't starve to death?
Waste of money.

Public schools so we can have an educated populace, the basis of all advances in recorded history?
Waste of money.

Medicare so that poor people can at least die in a hospital with some semblance of treatment rather than on the street?
Waste of money.

A bloated military budget that is more than the rest of the world spends on their respective militaries combined?
Quite necessary.

It's funny how that works, but nothing ever spent on giant mechanical dick-waving is ever a waste of money.

For example, the Navy spent $450,000 of your tax dollars to fly some jets over a closed dome at the Super Bowl.

Think about that -- you know of a school in your area that could use some current textbooks? What about the street outside your house riddled with potholes? How about any use of that money that actually does something?

Nope.

But I've yet to hear all those crazy tea partiers carrying guns outside of Pentagon, telling them to stop wasting their money or they'll kill them all to "take are cuntry back."

How Come So Many Guys Hit .300?

2011-02-10T07:16:00.000-06:00

I've started to become a big fan of Deadspin lately. For those of you not in the know, it's a snarky sports blog, but unlike, say, the sports bogs on espn or other official type sites, it has a lot more interesting things to say than updates on contract negotiations and comments that are generally more clever than the "Aron Rogers is a fag n u r stupid asshole" type variety found on most sports blogs. It's worth a bookmark if you like sports but generally hate everything about sports media (as I assume you do if you like sports).

Anyway, they recently posted a great article on why so many baseball players end the season with a precise .300 batting average. The article really is worth your time to read, but the short version is that it happens much for the same reason we think a $4.99 happy meal is a way better deal than a $5.00 one.

Essentially, the human mind very quickly categorizes things like price and percentages. Retailers have long exploited this, like in the aforementioned happy meal price -- even though you know $4.99 is only a penny less than $5.00, when you glace at it, your mind place the former in a the $4-5 category and the latter in the $5-6 category, thus making it feel like the former is cheaper.

The same thing happens with batting averages -- .300 seems to be a lot higher than .299, even though we know that means one at bat out of a thousand had a different outcome. But it clearly holds sway, on everything from Hall of Fame voting to several percentages higher salary.

As such, batters who are hitting .299 going in to their last at bat will do anything to get a hit. So much so that since the advent of free agency in baseball (when the difference between .299 and .300 in a contract year could mean beaucoup bucks), not a single person batting .299 going into their last at bat of the season has ever walked. None. Out of thousands of hitters who have been in that situation, none of them has ever taken a walk (a positive outcome to an at bat) because it would not nudge that .299 average up. It actually turns out these .299-ers have a .420 batting average in that situation they're so attuned to the importance of getting a hit.

Baseball. Math. Craziness. And somewhere right now, Malcom Gladwell is suddenly getting a smile on his face...

Do You Have Oscar Fever?

2011-02-09T07:10:00.001-06:00

Banksy does, and it appears he's awarded himself an Oscar before the Academy even gets their chance. Is this the underground version of an Oscar campaign for Exit Through The Gift Shop, or someone who's made their name thumbing their nose and things simply thumbing their nose at yet another self-aggrandizing cultural event?

Who cares. At least he was able to enlist the help of so many storm troopers to protect the hardware...

Slow Mobing Blog For Awhile...

2011-02-08T05:27:00.003-06:00

Those in the know of your humble li'l blogger's personal life know that I'm having a fun little international adventure in a not-technically-anymore war zone for the next several months.

As a result, internet connections are sometimes hard to come by. While I should be settled in with regular internet access within the next couple of weeks, little is guaranteed in a place like this, so I don't dare to presume a perfectly functioning, always-available internet will be mine until I return to God's America™ this summer.

When I'm able to catch the internet and have the free time/desire to avoid work, I'll try to bang out some posts and schedule them for publishing so the content keeps coming somewhat regularly. But since I've only been able to have about an hour or two of access lately, I've been using it to get important and somewhat important things done, blogging not quite qualifying as somewhat important.

So all of this is to say that the same smart-ass eclectic content you've grown to know and tolerate will still be coming, just not quite as regularly.

Unless, of course, you'd like to wire me $1,000 or so that I may upgrade my facilities. I actually recommend that option, but I won't tell you what to do...

Vide Clip Monday!

2011-01-31T08:50:00.001-06:00

You think it, Tracy Morgan says it live on TNT:

Ever wonder why the Simpsons keeps grinding out episodes, despite the fact that it seems like most of the writers on the show have no interest in writing Simpsons episodes? Here's an old clip from 1992 explaining it all:

UPDATE! Tracy Morgan WILL NOT back down:

Happy Friday!

2011-01-28T09:03:00.000-06:00

For your amusement, it's Tea Party Jesus!

As an added bonus, you can click on the pictures at the site and they'll tell you who actually said it (besides, of course, Jesus).

This Is Funny

2011-01-26T10:13:00.000-06:00

Bob Odenkirk, of Mr. Show fame (but you already knew that, right?), came up with this new warning label for 4Loko. I presume the FDA will be requiring it shortly.

How Do You Justify Repression?

2011-01-25T11:53:00.001-06:00

There are two ways to justify the repression of citizens practicing their constitutionally-guaranteed rights in a democracy. Demonstrating they pose a legitimate risk to public safety is usually accepted as the most legitimate reason. A close second, though, is just making shit up.

Bob Fletcher, the incredibly over-zealous former Ramsey county sheriff whose tactics at the 2008 RNC caused even other law enforcement officials to wince, justified his heavy-handed tactics by pointing to the number of terrorist groups and terrorism briefings his special, oversight-free anti-terrorism unit dealt with.

Problem is, according to a spokesperson for new Ramsey county sheriff Matt Bostrom, the supposed 33 terrorist groups Fletcher and crew had ratted out were "a very big lie."

Not only is there no documentation that any of these groups even exist, there's no documentation anywhere that the anti-terrorism group, which was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money, ever did anything.

Of course, Fletcher has fired back, claiming he never lied and that everything happened as he said it did. Though even if we take a giant leap of faith and trust him at his word here, there's still a fairly big problem. If these terrorist groups were so dangerous that they justified mass arrests of hundreds of completely innocent people, shouldn't he have, you know, at least left a note for the next guy? Or did he so effectively fight them that all terrorist groups have ceased to exist, thus making it completely unnecessary to leave any information for the next sheriff about this now non-existent problem?

More Cool Things That Happen After I've Left...

2011-01-24T14:01:00.003-06:00

As I've complained extensively (and recently), the State of Iowa, at some point in time, decided to wait on doing anything cool until I was long gone. All in an effort to ensure I grew up with a really boring childhood, I suppose.

So add this to the growing pile of evidence -- Flava Flav, ex-Public Enemy hype-man/current walking punchline, is opening his own fried chicken restaurant in friendly li'l Clinton, Iowa. To top it off, he claims he plans to be there regularly, even working the fryer himself on occasion.

Why he chose Iowa, and why he then chose Clinton of all places in Iowa, is unknown, but the chance of me taking a road trip to Clinton to experience the magic of Flava Flav chicken is highly likely...

Want To Be Great?

2011-01-21T10:28:00.002-06:00

First of all, if you are not watching Parks and Rec, you are committing a pop-culture crime of the greatest proportions.

Second, if you want to be great, simply follow this chart:

Why Do Cool Things Only Happen When I Leave? Part 92 in a Never-Ending Series

2011-01-20T09:20:00.001-06:00

Added to the list of cool things happening in Iowa that made sure to wait until I was gone to happen is the 33 1/3 art show going on in the sleepy little berg where I went to school.

It's a show where artists from the area have re-interpreted record covers as they would have designed them, had they had the chance. Some are merely cute riffs on the existing art, and some are quite arguably better than the originals.

Of course, I won't see any of these, as I no longer live in Iowa...

I Don't Exactly Know How To Explain This...

2011-01-19T10:00:00.003-06:00

...other than to say this is the exact reason the internet exists. When I woke up this morning, I had no idea this even existed, and yet now, I'm so happy someone took the time out of their life to put it together.

Have you ever wondered what it sounds like when LBJ custom orders several pairs of pants? Well, not to give to much away, it involves the fucking President of the United States describing how they should fit near his "bunghole" and how the crotch of his pants "down where your nuts hang" is too tight, so he needs some more Presidential nut room.

Seriously, watch this shit. It is well worth the 2 minutes and 47 seconds of your life:

Put This On: LBJ Buys Pants from Put This On on Vimeo.

This Has Nothing to Do With Anti-Semitism

2011-01-18T14:45:00.001-06:00

The problem with attempting to have a discussion of Israeli policies and programs is that it's utterly impossible -- even the most tepid criticisms of Israeli actions are often quickly met with cries of anti-Semitism (which is just a ridiculous of branding people anti-American for daring to disagree with a war, but I guess they're both effective at ending the conversation).

The best rebuttal I've ever heard to this line of arguing came from a young Palestinian student I met a college discussion panel on the Israeli wall. He pointed out that the reason the international community rightly encouraged and facilitated the development of the Israeli state in the first place was because of the horrible suffering inflicted on the Jewish people by the Nazi state. But by turning around and unleashing their own campaign of horrendous violence and apartheid-style restrictions on the Palestinian people, they were undercutting the very reason for the existence of Israel.

And here's another pristine example of how the Israeli state (but not necessarily the Jewish people, who exist quite separately from the state of Israel) has incredibly lost it's way: given the recent fall of the Tunisian dictatorship and incipient growth of democracy in several other Arab nations, you might think Israeli officials would salute this development as the growth of freedom and self-determination (you know, like Israel is to be for Jews).

But you'd be wrong. In fact, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom had this to say on the prospect of democracy in the Arab world:

“I fear that we now stand before a new and very critical phase in the Arab world. If the current Tunisian regime collapses, it will not affect Israel’s present national security in a significant way,” he said. “But we can, however, assume that these developments would set a precedent that could be repeated in other countries, possibly affecting directly the stability of our system.”

Shalom added that if regimes neighbouring the Israeli state were replaced by democratic systems, Israeli national security might significantly be threatened. The new systems would defend or adopt agendas that are inherently opposed to Israeli national security, he said.

...

Shalom emphasised that a democratic Arab world would end this present allegiance, because a democratic system would be governed by a public generally opposed to Israel.

So to summarize, the state of Israel does not want Arab people to have democracy because it might make life more difficult for them. So much for that whole being-against-fascism thing they used to have, I guess...

Hey, It's That Day We Celebrate That Guy

2011-01-17T13:47:00.002-06:00

It turns out that, in addition to having some sort of dream that makes selling cars easier and everyone from Glenn Beck to Sarah Palin think they would have been best buds with the guy, MLK actually had some opinions on things. And they weren't as rosy as the "hey, let's all pretend everything's fine and hold hands!" type message that seems to be associated with him these days...

Drugs are for losers! And hypnosis is for losers with big weird eyebrows!

2011-01-13T12:28:00.002-06:00

Just in time for you to fill out your office Golden Globes pool (that's a thing, right? People do that kind of stuff, don't they?), comes the Futurama Golden Globes preview review.

Being both brief and witty, they're pretty much the only movie reviews you'll read this year that truly capture the essence of the film in question...

On That Whole Horrible Tragedy Thing

2011-01-10T11:42:00.004-06:00

So by now you've probably read or seen at least a dozen news stories about the attempted assassination that left a US Representative gravely wounded and killed 6 others, so I'm probably not going to offer much novelty to the thousands of opinions you've already heard, but then again, when do I ever do that?

As it so often does with politically-motivated violence in this nation, it turns out the gunman was probably a right-wing nut job. As I've pointed out often here before, while the right in this country has a long (and recent) history of employing violence, the left appears to significantly more surveilled, even though there really hasn't been any leftist-motivated violence in this nation since the Weather Underground disbanded.

Though I'd like to stress, as many others have pointed out, clearly Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck are not immediately or directly responsible for this happening, just like video games and Marilyn Manson didn't lead to Columbine, or the lindy hop didn't lead directly to WWI.

But I think the big difference between "video games led to Columbine" and "Glenn Beck led to the Arizona shootings" (again, neither of which is really true) is the difference between making violence look fun or acceptbale in an abstract way (like rewarding you for running over hookers in Grand Theft Auto) and repeatedly saying (albeit supposedly as joke) that certain people should be killed.

Because even though this guy was probably mentally ill in some way, it has been happening with increasing regularity that people, whether mentally ill or not, who listen to a great deal of Glenn Beck and that ilk, have gone out and killed people. This is the second such incident in the past 3 months (recently in Oakland a Beck fan got into a shootout in which he killed three officers while on the way to murder ACLU members and earlier in Pennsylvania), and if I weren't too busy to spend the morning on google, I know I could find several more recent examples of a nut job going unhinged and killing people in part because of their paranoid world vision greatly fed by Beck and Co.

So again, you can't really blame someone when something they've said encourages someone who is probably mentally unhinged to go kill someone. But when it happens repeatedly, there becomes a certain point when that person becomes culpable. If not in the legal sense (though you could definitely make an argument for that), at least in the moral sense.

And I also am well aware that political violence and extremely heated and violent political rhetoric are nothing new (hell, they're what this nation was built on), there's still something about people who listen to all of your shows and buy all of your books and then go out and attempt to assassinate public officials or non-profit officials or anyone starting to occur somewhat regularly that should at least make you take pause and potentially re-evaluate what you're saying. Not because of your politics or because of your world view or what have you, but because clearly a small (but highly impacting) part of you audience is clearly receiving the message that they should go out and kill certain people.

And if that is not the message you want them to be receiving (I'm probably granting them way too much here), then you should probably think about it a little bit...

Welcome to the Hall, Bert

2011-01-06T10:22:00.000-06:00

Good job, Dutch. It's about damn time.

The Problems of Hero Worship

2011-01-05T10:35:00.000-06:00

Surprisingly, there was a really good piece in the Washington Post yesterday about why Americans (wrongly) so revere the military (short version: because so very few of us have ever experienced it, we see it as a magical force for good, not just another bureaucracy with its good and bad sides).

It's a pretty succinct explanation of the problem so many Americans have with lionizing people/institutions. Another great example is the current right-wing worship of the Founding Fathers™. Not only is it blasphemy to ever say anything bad about the Founding Fathers™, but it's insane to ever imply any of them may have ever not been perfect.

Of course, what's lost in this is the fact that the Founding Fathers™ didn't even like each other, and constantly bickered, spread lies about each other, and shot each other in duels. I'm not exactly sure how one is to reverently worship a bunch of people who mostly hated each other, but I suppose thought is not really to enter into one's reverence of the Founding Fathers™.

However, an even bigger irony of all this hero worship is that the Founding Fathers™ themselves didn't want this and even specifically warned against it. For example, here's John Adams on the subject (quoted from an excellent article about how incredibly ignorant Michelle Bachmann is):

"The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye [sic] from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislatures and War." Vice President Adams, as a critic of the man under whom he served, was acutely aware that celebrating mythic reputations only diverted citizens’ attention from the duty to judge candidates based on their qualifications. And, Adams added, "the question should not be who has done or suffered the most, or who has been the most essential and indispensable cause of the Revolution, but how is he best qualified to govern us?"

But then again, what do I know? I haven't even said my prayers to the Founding Fathers™ yet today

Do You Have Any Grease?

2011-01-03T11:21:00.002-06:00

Then grease me up, woman!

Yes, immortalizing what may be perhaps my most favorite Simpson exchange ever, I present to you the Ragin' Willie plush doll, which comes complete with its own bucket of grease (which I suppose negates the necessity of asking Lunch Lady Doris for help).

I know the holiday season has passed, but if anyone out there is still scrambling to think of a last-minute gift idea for me, you're welcome.

Who Gets Put To Death?

2010-12-28T15:42:00.002-06:00

The death penalty was declared unconstitutional in the landmark 1972 Furman v. Georgia case largely because of how arbitrary it was. You could commit a murder in one place and get a maximum of life in prison, while in other places the exact same crime would have you be put to death (of course, it was later declared constitutional again after nothing had changed, but we decided we missed killing people).

Looking back at the past five years, it seems that death sentences are just as arbitrary as ever. In fact, over that span, a mere 10% of counties in the entire nation have been responsible for 100% of death sentences meted out.

Seeing it graphically only highlights the disparity:

Regardless of how you feel about capital punishment, you've got to be hard pressed to find a way this type of clearly unequal justice does not fall under the label of arbitrary...

I Am About To Waste Hours Of Your Time

2010-12-27T11:12:00.002-06:00

The coolest new thing to dick around on the internet to waste you time? Google ngrams.

It searches through all books on Google books, going back into the 1800s. Somewhere I read that this data set accounts for 5% of all books ever published, but I can't find where I read that, so set your belief levels accordingly.

Anyway, the ngram program allows you to search for how often different terms were used throughout whatever period you choose. So, in theory, you could use it to look at changing social norms over time, or the historical varieties of the English language.

Or you could use it to compare stupid things and giggle at the results. Either one is a totally legit use. Here's some awesome charts to improve your life:

Which do we write about more often, food or sex?

Do we write more about dudes or chicks?

What about communism versus socialism?

And, of course, when have we written more about punches, kicks, and ninja chops?

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T16:03:00.002-06:00

Is Brett Favre Acutally Jesus, Or Does He Just Act Like Him?

2010-12-21T22:30:00.003-06:00

You may have noticed that Brett Favre pulled off another drama-filled start last night, even though he didn't finish it. While some could argue this was a dick move, as rookie Joe Webb had been slated to make his first ever professional start only to have it ripped away from him at the last minute by an attention-seeking fame whore, few actually argued this. In fact, to most commentators it was nothing short of miraculous.

And unfortunately they would not shut the fuck up about it. Courtesy of our good friends at Deadspin, here's a collection of quotes people actually said about Brett Favre starting a meaningless football game. I emphasize that it's A) only a football game and 2) one that doesn't even matter for Favre or his team, because you might think he cured cancer.

Anyway, these are all things people who are paid to speak came up with:

The Vikings had the early momentum, when Favre made a miraculous recovery from a shoulder injury and suited up.
Did he really have one of those miracle moments where he woke up and was feeling a lot better than he had been the day before?
Somewhat miraculous, considering he was 100% out as of Saturday.
Favre made some sort of miraculous recovery in the last 24 hours, another one of his miraculous recoveries.
Cold, snow, wind, Favre making a miraculous recovery.
A miracle, is what it was, only slightly less miraculous than what happened to Lazarus.

I particularly like that it was apparently only slightly less miraculous than when Jesus fucking raised a guy from the dead.

Some sort of local youngster must have been listening to all this hyperbolic bullshit and naturally came up with this:

We got it wrong -- Brett Favre isn't like Jesus, he is Jesus!

Your Friday Marching Band Video

2010-12-17T15:48:00.001-06:00

Because, why not?

Watch below as the University of Hawaii marching band forms a giant, Voltron-like stick figure that then kicks and equally large ball. It demands the minute and 17 seconds of your life it will take...