prog: (Default)
Keith Olbermann's been on fire lately, such as with this video about the Bill of Right s . (Link from [livejournal.com profile] jwz)

This is great, but often I feel that things like this are futile, that blues who watch it just say "har har you tell em", while reds will just shriek "TRAITOROUS SCUM! GOEBBELS!" until the bad man stops talking, at which point they will jack off furiously into the LGF message boards or wherever those people go.

Is there a land in between with people who can be swayed by these messages? Or are the only things that can move mythical middle america high gas prices and hot man-on-boy sex scandals? Granted, I think both of these are relevant in that they're among the most drop-dead obvious indicators that the government is being run not just by warmongering hypocrites but incompetent warmongering hypocrites.

I feel right in saying that Bzuh, where are all these insurgents coming from and Bwuh, what do you mean you can log instant messages come from the same root worldview.

Anyway, things like the Olbermann stuff serves more purposes than convincing the undecided. But every time I see another ingenious argument my first thoughts are along the lines of "now they'll know how it really is," and then my second thoughts are "yeah, right".
prog: (Default)
I think that "References in Fiction" sections are a blight on Wikipedia. I guess I can't reasonably write a manifesto calling for their systematic deletion, since they actually are useful in intent. But, once a topic's list of above-the-fold media references has been exhausted, the section proceeds to overflow with utterly unencyclopedic pointers to obscure anime, video games, and webcomics. Fancruft. And I am very hesistant to delete it because I don't want to catch fancrud.

Come to think of it I have never seen a line in an article's history log that read "Deleted unencyclopedic fancruft" or something similar. And for some reason this makes me want to start doing so.



Subscribed to [livejournal.com profile] nintendo_ds coz I wanna have a better handle on what-all's going on with my favorite video game system, and am reminded why I don't belong to more LJ communities. Too many posts have been sincere but foolish, mostly young people asking questions that are answerable with one word, that being either "eBay" or "Google". I don't actually say that, though, coz it would sound awfully snooty, so I just leave them be.

I normally love answering questions (and seeing questions answered well by others) but some questions are so broad and flat that you just know that the person hasn't even bothered with other of these two First Sources. The posters' evident youth makes it even less forgivable in my eyes, coz it's not like they have decades of life without Google to adapt away from.

Maybe they don't teach Google in school yet, the teachers being mostly old enough to have themselves been students pre-Web? This is my hypothesis.
prog: (ambrose)
I will sublimate my reptile urge to snap at someone in someone else's comments into this essay about "moronic cynicism" which I ran into a while ago and find reason to think upon it often. I don't like the term itself, but I like the observation and deconstruction.
Moronic cynicism is a form of naivete. It's naivete turned inside out, naivete with a sneer. Imagine a child smoking a cigarette.

Hm. Actually I'm reading it again and it's not actually a very good essay; more like a student newspaper opinion piece. But I can still see the feeling that fueled it, and it's one that's managed to stick with me.
prog: (Default)
I like this stack of ads seen on BoingBoing, which (top to bottom) go from transcendental to earthy to one of the most jawdroppingly cynical appeals I've ever seen.
prog: (coffee)
Me am sad that people are being cynical about future moon & Mars missions because Bush is vocally backing them, and therefore something stinks.

Of course by "people" I mean Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, and I dunno how effective a barometer he is, but one could make the argument.

Another reason not to like Bush, though for bizarro reasons.

Speaking of Bizarro, to people who bring out the "Why are we spending money on outer space when it could better go to solving problems here on earth?" I say:
  1. Your notion of national finances as a zero-sum game is inaccurate, and
  2. You are acting exactly like the villain from that one episode of Super-Friends and you know I could never support you if you keep up that sort of thing.

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