politics

Thursday various

  • Maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but is “it’s on like Donkey Kong” actually such a popular phrase? I’m going to try to popularize the phrase “This is gonna hurt like Q*bert!”
  • I didn’t love what I saw of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and it seemed a little like a well-intentioned but disjointed mess. But I’m perfectly willing to accept Jon Stewart’s argument (expressed in this long and compelling interview with Rachel Maddow) that those intentions were entirely apolitical on their part. That they were just trying to put on a comedy show, and whatever “message” the rally had, it was not the same message that so many of his viewers, so many of the left-leaning progressives who attended the rally and are bemoaning its outcome, clearly wanted it to be. I’m perfectly willing to let Stewart pass for falling short of what I hoped the rally would be — a call to arms, groundbreaking satire, something, anything other than a singalong with Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. I’m willing to let Stewart pass on this, the same way I’m not willing to let Obama pass for falling short on his own call to arms, because when you get right down to it, I buy Stewart’s contention that he’s just a comedian. A comedian with a political bent and sometimes important insight, but one following in pretty well-established treads and with pretty well-established boundaries. It can seem like a cop-out, and I think Stewart acknowledges that, but I think he also does a good job of explaining why it’s not, why his job isn’t drumming up progressive activism (on the left or right) but instead making people laugh.

    I think you can argue that the rally wasn’t entirely successful on that front either, but I think it’s important to weigh expectations against intentions.

  • On a less serious note, Harry Potter as space opera [via]
  • Uwe Boll: he just might make you root for the Nazis.
  • And finally, building the perfect zombie safe house.

Tuesday various

  • “This will end us.” Oh, Cooks Source, you say that like it’s a bad thing. (That you say it with many, many typos is just sort of amusing.)

    Seriously, though, had there not been scores of examples of Cooks Source being a copyright-theft-for-profit publication, and had each “apology” from Monica Griggs not smacked of arrogance and shifting of blame, I might be sympathetic. I might chalk it up to an honest mistake, crossed wires in communication, overly tired people saying things they later regret. But Cooks Source‘s actions and attitudes speak for themselves.

  • Far be it from me to badmouth a fledgling genre magazine, but…Sci-Fi Short Story Magazine launches with impressive art and no pay.

    In theory, I wish them really well. But seriously? $11.99 for 34 pages (that’s about 35 cents a page!), plus a site heavy with ads, and you can’t pass along any of the money to the writers and artists? I give next to nothing at Kaleidotrope — I recognize that what I’m able to offer is only a token payment — but I think it’s still important to offer it. And Kaleidotrope, it should be noted, does not turn a profit. If you’re charging twelve bucks and hosting lots of ads, and you’re still not making any money, maybe it’s time to rethink your business model. And if you are making money, I feel you have an obligation to share some of that money with the people who provide you with content.

  • Physician, heal thyself! A newly elected Maryland Republican, who campaigned strongly for repealing Obamacare, wonders why he can’t have his government-paid health care right away. [via]
  • Which lends itself immediately to this question for the Democrats: when it’s increasingly clear that your opposition is a walking Onion headline, why do you keep insisting on caving into them? It’s hard to argue with the position that “every time Republicans are on the opposite side of an issue from the public, it’s the Democrats who cave and talk about ‘compromise.'” [via]
  • And finally, the big news today is that the Beatles are finally on iTunes. As Rob says, “Hopefully now The Beatles will finally get the publicity and sales they deserve.”

Thursday various

  • Oh, that Tucker Carlson…what a kidder! [via]
  • Still, he’s gonna have to step up his comedy game if he’s going to match “off with their mics and their heads” Bill O’Reilly! [via]
  • I think John Seavey may be right about this recent election — namely, that “the Republicans’ only winning strategy was to shut up and let the Democrats lose.”

    Those Republicans lost, big time. Joe Miller, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle–every one of them said in detail what they’d do if elected, and every one of them heard the resounding voice of the American people saying, “No thank you.” Even in reliable red states or red districts, outspoken conservatives like Rand Paul and Michelle Bachmann had to spend millions of dollars to hang on to what should have been safe seats. The fact of the matter is, in order to get re-elected, the Republicans had to pretend not to be Republicans. That’s the narrative that you’re not hearing about right now. But you might hear a lot about it in a couple of years. Because two years is a long time to ask the Republicans to pretend not to be Republicans.

    The sad thing is, shutting up and letting the Democrats lose is pretty frequently a winning strategy.

  • Thudfactor points out the difference between security and authentication.
  • And finally, Abstract Pixel Art. Below, the cast of Futurama [via]:

Tuesday various

  • Peter Sagal on the difference between an opinion and a bias:

    A bias doesn’t mean that you think that what a certain candidate says is idiotic; a bias means that not matter what he says, you’ll attack him. Or, if it’s a bias in favor of him, no matter what he says, you’ll forgive him, or simply choose not to draw attention to what doesn’t make him look good. You know your opinion after you read the day’s paper; you know your bias before you open it.

  • Maybe it’s just me, but I bathe every day. [via]
  • In case you were wondering: what happened to the Doctor Who companions?
  • Original estimates of the untapped oil reserves in Alaska only off by…oh…about ninety percent [via]
  • Amal El-Mohtar on a steampunk without steam:

    I submit that the insistence on Victoriana in steampunk is akin to insisting on castles and European dragons in fantasy: limiting, and rather missing the point. It confuses cause and consequence, since it is fantasy that shapes the dragon, not the dragon that shapes the fantasy. I want the cogs and copper to be acknowledged as products, not producers, of steampunk, and to unpack all the possibilities within it.

    I think I like the idea of calling this subgenre “retrofuturism,” with steampunk just one sub-subgenre of that. While, of course, differentiating the whole thing from alternate history, since that posits a specific branching point, a moment in history — the Nazis win, the South doesn’t lose, etc. — rather than an historical era. It’s only the ubiquity of steampunk that, to my mind, is the problem — insofar as this is a problem; it’s the fact that it chokes out other retrofuturistic viewpoints, necessitates a very specific and limiting aesthetic, keeps retrofutrism tethered (much like steampunk’s zeppelins) to specific countries, eras, worldviews.

    If steampunk were just one type of story, rather than the all-consuming and defining aspect of retrofuturism, I think we’d be seeing less backlash against it.

Monday various