Alright! Enough! I’m Officialy Creeped Out.
Meet the Little Girl Giant.
I’m looking for more info on this monstrosity that was displayed in the streets of London on May 7th. For now i’ll just say that it may be time to run from the hills.
My favorite comment on this: “FAKE!! its not really a giant, but rather a really big puppet, You can see the wires and people moving the “giant” if you look closely. Dont Be fooled!!, I repeat THIS IS NOT A REAL GIANT!!”
“You’re a Fascist. Get them to print you a t-shirt with ‘Fascist’ on it.”
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees”…
Lindsay Graham has some views I don’t agree with, but I was incredibly relieved to see this video, for all the good it’s going to do in the long run… the Bush Administration doesn’t care what any legal expert they don’t hand pick says about torture…
Pretty much sums up “Achievements” in my mind
A screenshot from the soon to be released Devil May Cry 4 (360/PS3) off the PS3 when you unlock an achievement (with a little bit of editorializing from Joystiq (it’s that little bit in the lower right))…
People seem to go nuts over these achievements, and I just don’t get it… Isn’t getting all the items, or completing the game on the harder difficulty the achievement? Do you need the game to confirm that, in fact, you did get 20,000 points in a level? A system built into a game itself is fine, rewards of new weapons or new play modes after beating a game once gives it replay value and makes someone who spent 50 or 60 bucks feel like it was a good investment… Achievements are just bragging rights, and bragging rights for video games has always seemed, simply put, stupid… People who own X360s (and this isn’t all, so don’t take it as that) will rent games notorious for easy achievement points (::cough:: Avatar ::cough::) just to raise their gamer score… It makes gaming into a meta-game for socially competitive types, and I don’t want a meta-game… That’s not why I play video games. But maybe I’m the weird one here. The fact that Sony and video game makers seem to be bowing to this on the PS3 is pissing me off, but alas…
In honor of that special something.something moving to Canadia…
Can We?
I have been supporting Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich since the race began, but in the back of my mind I always knew that he would never gain the widespread support of the American people. As expected, Kucinich has dropped out of the race, and the most promising progressive candidate at this point seems to be Barack Obama.
But how progressive is he? Obama (so he says now) would not repeal the Patriot Act if elected to office. He has, on numerous occasions, made statements about bombing Iran. He has also expressed admiration for one of the least progressive presidents in America’s history. His campaign has spent more time attacking Hillary Clinton than it has proposing solutions to the festering stinking garbage heap of problems that this country faces in the next four years.
But there’s also another side to all of these statements. Like it or not, this is how successful candidates play the game of politics, and it’s promising to see a Democratic candidate actually acknowledge that. If Obama gets the nomination, he will not become another inept milquetoast like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry were come November. The man is unafraid to get some dirt under his fingernails, and those other idiots were terrified to play that kind of political game, and that’s a big reason why they lost.
Obama is incredibly popular right now, and he clearly possesses the knack for bipartisanship that Bill Clinton had. But while Clinton did some very positive things during his presidency–such as leaving office with a surplus–he also pared welfare down to near nonexistence and spent hundreds of billions of dollars on military expenditures. Will Obama take the same track? Is it possible for him to be successful and avoid that path?
I like the guy, and I think he would be a wonderful change for the United States. But he is not a savior, not a folk hero, not an activist, and not your best friend. He is a politician, and like all politicians, he is motivated by personal gain and self interest. That may lead him to fuck up the country less than his predecessor in the hopes that his historical legacy will be more lauded, but it doesn’t change the fact that Obama is in this thing (like every other candidate) for Obama.
Will.I.Am, Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, and numerous other celebrities have made the music video below in support of Obama through DipDive. It’s kind of uplifting, but also just a little schmaltzy. It’s also directed by Jesse Dylan, who happens to be Bobby’s eldest son:
A little background information regarding this phrase “Yes I Am”. The United Farm Workers and Caesar Chavez developed this as a rallying cry in the sixties and seventies as they campaigned for labor reform (though they used the Spanish “Si se puede”). Obama’s commodification has ignited some hostility, since this is a very sensitive subject to the UFW (if you visit the link above, you can read about their legal battle with Aero Mexico over the phrase).
Is Obama using this rhetoric because he genuinely cares about the immigration situation? Is he concerned about the rollbacks on labor rights that have taken place over the last eight years? Or is this just another political maneuver aimed at garnering the former John Edwards supporters?
I’ve given up hope for a candidate like Kucinich, and I think it’s important to support Obama because he clearly would be a better choice than McCain, even if they both are political hacks. In the 2000 election, Nader often pointed out that there was absolutely no difference between Bush and Gore, but clearly there is, even if Gore wasn’t an ideal candidate at the time. I don’t like some of the things that Obama says, but at the same time we are stuck together in an imperfect political system with unappealing alternatives. I wish my support for him could be more idealistic and I wish I could believe in his candidacy the way that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar does.
But you know what? FDR made some questionable decisions as well, and Congress imposed the two term presidential limit to avoid having a politician become as powerful as he became. Even so, if John McCain had been elected to the presidency in 1932 (and I haven’t checked, but he actually may have been an eligible candidate at the time) this country would still be in The Great Depression, and we’d all be conscripted and crawling through tunnels in North Vietnam. I don’t gush over Obama, but I think he’s the best chance we’ve got.
Olbermann’s Take (From Yesterday) On FISA/Tele-Co Immunity…
I can’t believe this man is still on TV…
…and it’s wonderful…
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In other news…
My favorite “Worst Person in the World” in a long time…
Link –_–_–
I Get it Now
Tom Cruise puts the ethos of Scientology into layman’s terms. If you haven’t seen this video, drop what you’re doing, watch it, and then donate $5,000 to L. Ron right now!!!
