Xark!

Which one is smarterer?

A message to Tar Heels & Hoosiers

Now, if they'd only do this to calculus...

Via The Rev. Big Dumb Chimp...

If Ann Coulter had live-blogged the Gettysburg Address

The establishment-conservative reaction to Obama's race speech -- though not unanimous in its clueless derision -- has been fairly relentless in its idiocy. The best response I've seen so far? A marvelous bit of satire that asks the question: "What would have Ann Coulter written had she been live-blogging the Gettysburg Address?"

Okay, here we go.  More "eloquence," no doubt. 

Four score and seven years ago

"Fourscore and seven"?  Puh-leeze!   Couldn't you make it just a little more pompous?  Only a moonbat could regard this guy as an orator.

our fathers brought forth on this continent,

Ummm ... didn't we have mothers, too? Well, maybe Lincoln didn't; he looks like he came out of a test tube marked "Failure." But somehow I doubt that the suffragette harpies who swoon over Father Abraham are going to be pleased by the omission.

Anyway, shouldn't someone as smart as Lincoln is supposed to be know that it's mothers who "bring forth"? That thing that fathers do is called "begetting." (I'd always wondered whether Mrs. Lincoln's brats were any kin to Old Ape.)

a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Ahhh...now he slips it to us! "Fourscore and seven," indeed! He's bringing us back to the Marxist rant of 1776, completely ignoring the Constitution of 1787 in rhetoric as he has in practice. I'll believe we're all equal when I'm as tall as Lincoln, or as ugly. And the slaves he's so fond of may be his equals, but I'm damned if they're mine...

And so on. Read the whole thing.

We're hip rebels!

From The Onion:

NEW YORK—According to new market research, a multimillion dollar broadcast, radio, print, billboard, and online viral campaign launched Monday by the Axiom Marketing Agency tested "off the charts" among its target market of hip, urban 18- to 34-year-olds who base their actions and opinions entirely on the suggestions of ad campaigns. "This is exactly the type of customer we're looking to reach," said the campaign's chief strategist Ben Jacobs, 28. "It's showing tremendous impact on the cool, media-savvy rebels who distrust authority, prize alternative culture, think outside of the mainstream, and are willing to base their actions entirely on advertising images presented to them on TV. How dope is that?" The campaign, which advertises a new, youth-oriented version of Raisinets called Raisin d'Etre, is expected to make an impressive showing at the upcoming Counterculture Ad Fair sponsored by Procter and Gamble and held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

I'm obviously too old to be in that 18-to-34-year-old demographic, but I make up for that by being really immature. Where can I go to buy some Raisin d'Etre? (Of course, back in our day, "Raisin d'Etre" was supposedly "The Breakfast Cereal For Those Days When You Just Don't Feel Like Getting Out Of Bed." But we didn't have Teh Interwebs, so nobody knew.)

Diebold accidentally releases election results

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Via Dave Weinberger.

The Sky is Falling! (And it is very white)

Anyone who watched the final Packers game this year on Fox knows it's a wee bit chilly here in Green Bay.  The day of that game it was -4 here, while about 14 degrees in Moscow and over 20 degrees in Greenland and Alaska, thanks to a snarky info box put up during the game.  So I get it that people are complaining of the cold.  It really has been bitterly, bitterly cold this year, with lows regularly in negatives and many days where the high never got into double digits.  And all of that is before wind chill.

But what people are really freaking out about here is the snow.  "Oh no, it's snowing!" My co-workers exclaim every time a flake falls past the window.  One company that I called informed me that the person I was trying to reach wasn't expected in the office "due to the weather."  It had snowed 4 inches.  4 inches?!?  Sure, you need to be a little careful driving, but its hardly impassable.  My snowblower took care of the driveway in its usual 10-15 minutes or so.

I saw the same sort of reactions in England.  Three inches of snow was practically a natural disaster to the English.  Cars were stranded on the motorway (I don't know how a car can get physically stranded in three inches, but apparently they did).  No one even wanted to go outdoors.  My friends thought I was a madman when I suggested actually playing in the stuff.  One professor didn't show up for work and clearly expected all the students to understand his dilemma.  But England doesn't get much snow.  They aren't used to it and, thus, don't really know how to deal with it.

Folks, this is Wisconsin.  Snow happens.  It's not a surprise.  It's not rare.  It's a natural effect caused by being really far north.  It's not hard to figure out.  This whole snow thing happens every year.  I am stunned by the people whose world comes to a screeching halt here every time it snows.  What part of "Wisconsin" did you not understand when you moved here?

FBI searches home of Sen. Stevens

From the Associated Press:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Federal agents with cameras searched the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens amid questions about an oil company official's involvement in a 2000 renovation project that doubled the home's size, law enforcement officials said.

Uh-oh. Looks like his career is about to go down a series of tubes.

Family Circle Cup: I'm out, too

I'm really sorry about this, but I must today announce my withdrawal from the Family Circle Cup tennis tournament for medical reasons. Namely, I have discovered that I'm a guy, and therefore not qualified to participate.

Listen, if anybody out there really wants to win a professional women's tennis tournament, this might be the one to enter. 

Ask your doctor about...

Havidol. Say it out loud, then ask your doctor if Havidol is right for you.

iRack

This was noticed by Sloop, who sent me the link. Great sketch.

Death knell for idiot marketing

I subscribe to WIRED, which means that I find out about cool new geek stuff at the exact moment when it becomes old and uncool (because nothing can be truly leet if a print publication has noticed it). On the other hand, WIRED acts as a bridge between the pioneers (Dewey) and the relatively early adapters (me, Janet, etc).

Anyway, I point out this video thanks to this item in the March issue's package on Snack Culture:

Sony's two-hour press conference on May 8, 2006, was a slo-mo car crash. Intended to rally geeks around the PlayStation 3, the event instead left them cranky about the feckless sales pitch, weak games, and high price tag. Over the next few days, bloggers tried to capture Sony's cluelessness, but none were so eloquent as YouTube user Macaw45, who posted a video titled "Sony E3 2006 Press Conference in 1 Minute." Editing footage from the event, Macaw45's clip distilled the meltdown with DJ-like dexterity, looping key moments for maximum effect. The defining shot in Macaw45's montage showed a game developer explaining how to defeat giant enemy crabs: "Attack its weak point for massive damage!" A meme was born: The phrase became the "All your base are belong to us" of 2006, and it was used as shorthand for Sony's lameness. The inevitable T-shirts, dance remixes, and homages followed. Marketing execs beware: Geeks with iFilm can pare you down to your essence - you'd better hope you like what they find.
- Daniel Dumas

I don't think this is a small thing culturally. How much of what we deal with in life is crappy because of slickly marketed shoddiness? And I'm not just saying this as a consumer. Shoddiness is a disease of the soul -- punished in individuals, but often rewarded by institutions and corporations. This is why we've come to hate flacks, mouthpieces and pitchmen. This is why advertising -- as we know it -- is in a state of flux.

Oscars 2007!!

Oscar Picks and Hopes 2007 with Spibby and JMSloop

 Greetings from the Balcony! We thought we would add some clarity to the usual muddle of Oscar deliberations. Yes, you could seek out the advice of professional magazines, staffed by trained journalists with contacts in the movie industry and a vested interest in providing both accurate and concise analysis, but let’s not kid ourselves; this is the Internet. We know why we’re here. We may not be accurate or concise (one of us can’t order a cup of coffee in less than two paragraphs, and the other can’t even pick an Oscar winner without drafting a “principles” manifesto complete with footnotes), but we hope you’ll read on, anyway.

And the nominees are....

 

How the Internets work

OK, now I'm only going to explain this once: You start with Tim Berners Lee and the W3C and you wind up with PornoTube, LaLa, ytmnd and that "Numa Numa" guy. And it's all done with computers, coffee, business plans and Douglas Coupland novels. Don't understand it? Well why do you think they call it "code," dumbass? (Click image to see full-size... built with Gliffy).

(Saturday A.M. UPDATE: While the popularity of this diagram has faded in the English-speaking world since yesterday's Reddit/Digg/Netvibes frenzy, this morning it's popular in the Spanish-speaking world. Here's how it's described at Meneame: "Un interesante mapa de como funciona internet." And look, if that winds up being Portugese, don't give me a hard time, por favor.)

A guardian of family values

Coming Soon...

Dan's Saturday links, etc. (2.18)

TIKI! TIKI-TIKI! TIKI-TIKI-TIKI-TIKI! Finally! There's another episode of Tiki Bar TV! Hooray!

Episode No. 13 is the first of 2006, an unexplained hiatus that made some people (uh, by "some people" I mean "me') wonder if this strangely entertaining vlog was, in fact, dead. Silly some-people.

This episode's malady? The inability to answer direct questions. Dr. Tiki's prescribed cocktail? A Skull and Bones.  Hmmm....

Wow. When a homemade drunkfest like Tiki Bar TV starts doing political satire, something is going on...

A NEW BOOKMARK: Check this out -- a site that "footnotes" topical TV shows like our favorites The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but also network stuff like Boston Legal that I could never imagine myself watching.

Great idea.

"THE LAUGHING CAMPAIGN:" Last night the whole family gathered around the TV to watch re-runs of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and we laughed as hard as we have in days.

There's all sorts of stuff to be depressed about these days, and I've been relatively depressed the past couple of weeks. I'm fortunate to have a psychic/zen-Buddhist friend to help pull me out of my funks, and the lesson I took from my recent down-bout and recovery is that yes, things are awful, but you don't change that by fighting it. We have to accept what is without becoming enmeshed in it.

The Metro/Retro, blue/red, liberal/conservative divide is a tar baby. As my friend put it, fighting what we oppose only makes us part of the problem. To really change things, we have to focus on the outcomes we desire.

In other words, fighting the neo-con power cult with the same anger and scorn they apply to the rest of us won't ever build the kind of country we want to live in. As Emperor Palpatine so aptly put it:

Good, I can feel your anger. I am unarmed. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete!

And as we laughed at last night's satire, that thought took on a deeper meaning.

We aren't going to throw these people out of office. We're going to laugh them out of office.

We're going to laugh loud and long and we're going to invite others to laugh with us. We're going to share video clips and cartoons and jokes. We're going to pass blog links amongst each other.

When tools like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter spew their manipulative bile, we're not going to wade into their toxic sludge and slug it out until we become equally ugly mutants. We're going to laugh our collective asses off. We're going to have so much fun laughing at the transparent agendas behind their lies and smears and distortions that nobody in their right mind is going to want to defend them at the next barbecue.

Pretty soon they'll be laughing along with us -- because every American secretly wants to be in on the joke.

I believe this to be true: The pen may or may not be mightier than the sword, but nothing is more powerful than a joke that tells the truth.

Pony up, Cowboy...

Submitted by Xark-friend Kerri Glover.

Dan's Wednesday links, etc.

Dan here, reporting back after my first excursion into the land of Snake Oil Suitmen (by this I mean that I just gave my first PowerPoint presentations in front of groups yesterday). I did wear a black jacket, black slacks, pointy shoes and a white collared shirt, but you'll be happy to know that I eschewed the tie. I wear a lanyard with an I.D. on it, and  I figure that if you want me to wear that at the office, it should take the place of a tie. Deal with it.

My presentation: Trends on the web and what we intend to do about them. My favorite question from yesterday's sessions: "Where did you learn to use PowerPoint?"

Anyway, I've been so deep into work-think lately that it has rendered me dull, for which I apologize. As a peace offering, here's something obscure yet really cool (via Slashdot): Researchers at the University of Rochester have created a model of phase change in liquids (U of Rochester photo, researchers Eldred Chimowitz and Yonathan Shapir).

Dull, you say? Not hardly.

Phase change is one of the most underappreciated processes in the physical world. It's what happens when water turns to ice or vapor, and vice-versa. In other words, phase change is what happens when a changing variable stops making a thing more that way (hotter, colder, faster, slower, etc.) and causes it to assume a radically different state.

That sudden change of state -- the "light switch effect" -- is an issue in research into everything from fuel cell technology to global climate change. But because the complexity of the change is so enormous, computers have been unable to model what goes on within a system (or, in this case, a liquid) during the transition. In other words, the thing that is the most value to researchers has been the one part of the event that has remained invisible. Until now.

What does this mean for ordinary schlubs like us? That everything just speeded up, again. Duh.

PAT ROBERTSON, CRAZY PERSON: Perhaps the most amazing trait in American culture is our tendency to reward certifiable looniness with celebrity and status, so long as it's backed by inherited money, good looks or claims to Biblical authority.

Which brings us back to our old friend Pat Robertson, last seen here warning Dover, Pa., that God was going to make residents pay for turning out its loony, dishonest, "Intelligent Design" school board. Now Israel is punishing him for calling Ariel Sharon's stroke an act of divine retribution. Pat, who didn't like that Sharon was willing to deal land with the Palestinians, declared last week that "You read the Bible: This is my land, and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he's going to carve it up and give it away, God says no, this is mine."

His punishment: The Israeli government pulled out of a $50 million deal with Robertson that would have allowed the Virginia Beach televangelist to build a  Christian theme park near the Mount of Beatitudes, the site where Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount, fed the multitudes, etc. Robertson and his partners had planned to call the facility The Galilee World Heritage Park.

Israeli officials went on to say they still like the idea of a Christian theme park as a tourist draw: "The contract is still open," said Tourism Ministry spokesman Ido Hurtuv, "but not to Mr. Robertson."

Better watch out, Mr. Hurtuv, or Pat's gonna slap a fatwah on yer ass!

Anyway, regarding the Galilee World Heritage Park: What Would Jesus Build?

MORE NEWSPAPER LAYOFFS AHEAD -- AND GANNETT TO BUY OUT KNIGHT-RIDDER? Maybe so, points out smart guy Tim Porter. That's pretty awful, but not nearly as alarming as speculation that FOX News owner Rupert Murdoch is scheming to buy up The Wall Street Journal (read this in the past week, but can't find the link... file it under scary thoughts, not solid info).

Meanwhile, Slashdot noted this bit about how Murdoch's minion's were thwarted in their attempts to block out every mention of their rivals by users of MySpace, which Murdoch purchased this past summer. In a refreshing bit of news, the MySpace users revolted -- and won (for now).

IRONY ALERT -- BIRD FLU STRIKES TURKEY: This isn't time to panic (let's face it, it's never time to panic), but it's time to start paying attention again. The number of human cases of H5N1 in Turkey are surprising and worth monitoring, and that's about all I'm willing to say right now beyond this: I've moved Effect Measure back up to a daily read again. The Reveres have had some interesting things to say in the past week.

Moral: Stop singing to the deaf

Damn. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones comes out and says what the rest of us have been saying for months, and suddenly everybody thinks he's Mr. Smart Guy.

To wit: Intelligent Design isn't science. End of discussion. Thanks for playing.

See, you can do that when you're a judge (particularly when you're a Republican judge). Such principled analysis appears to be is far beyond the ability of the modern media, though. I mean, the President likes Intelligent Design, right? And a lot of readers/viewers like it, right? And if we don't suck up to them, "People of Faith" will call us liberal, right? Well duh! Break out the patronizing "think-pieces" and go ask the choir director what she thinks about natural selection!

But this whole thing was never about science, never about faith, and certainly never about "people of faith" (cringe). It's about a few pushy people in this country who have somehow rationalized callous dishones