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July 29, 2007

Crass Warfare

So, Safeway plowed its profits into a brand new gym for it's employees. Well, kind of. See: the gym is at the corporate headquarters of a continent-spanning company. Meanwhile, store-level employees don't get health care unless they sign up through the union. Does Safeway care about the health and wellness of it's employees? Yes-- for the ones the CEO looks around and sees everyday...

It was in this 17,000 square foot monument to class warfare that CA governor Schwarzenegger chose to attack single payer health care...

Posted by Andrew at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2007

Never gonna get ahead saying "yes" to the man...

Posted by Andrew at 02:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 27, 2007

Oh what a difference...

Way back in 1994, a TV show called "Babylon 5" took to the airwaves. The show was notable for (Among other things) being one of the first shows to use solely CGI, rather than physical, models. Right about when the show went off the air, Relic created a game called "Homeworld", naturally fans created a modification of the game to use B5 ships and stations...

The amazing thing about this movie is that the graphics are at least as good as they were on the TV show-- a game had an engine as powerful as the professional quality had been only a few short years before. Granted, the camerawork of the game isn't nearly as good as in the movie, but that's the difference between direction on the fly (as it were), and direction over the course of weeks...

Posted by Andrew at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2007

Let's be facebook friends!

Posted by Andrew at 03:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 25, 2007

Lego goodness!

There's more...

Posted by Andrew at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2007

No sexism here, no sirree!

Right minded says that he believes the world is ready for a female president, so long as that woman is a conservative. Fair enough-- right minded is a conservative blog. However, he seems unaware of the contradiction inherent in stating:

Should Hillary Clinton lose, you can bet the farm that many on the left will accuse Republican voters of sexism, much the same way we were labeled racists last November for not electing Harold Ford, Jr. to the U.S. Senate. It wasn't Junior's race that sent him packing, however. It was his liberalism. Likewise, it won't be Hillary Clinton's gender that provides her undoing, but her politics.

Which might be a fair statement had he not just said:

But back in the 1970's, she managed to attach herself to an intelligent, affable young man with political ambitions, and rode his coattails all the way to the White House.

See, in the liberal, non-sexist world, women don't attach themselves to men, but rather men and women find commonalities of personality and fall in love, thereby allowing for mutual support. At the end of the day, the belief that Hillary and Bill don't love one another is a belief based upon the old sexist notions of relationships and power. It might be what keeps her out of the White House...

Posted by Andrew at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2007

Class warfare is when they do it to us, remember...

Perhaps what we have here is the opposite of the “theft of enjoyment”. It is the fear, rather, that one’s claim to have access to superior power and pleasure won’t be acknowledged at all.

The point of a club like Late Night Shots is, in large part, to keep other people out of it. That’s obvious. But those other people have to (be imagined to) want in.

The greatest terror is not that they will try to overthrow you—or even that they might somehow break through the barriers of exclusivity. It’s that the outsider might laugh at the exclusivity.

Crooked that's the tail end of a rather good piece on a social network for the young and privileged. It's a good piece about the second generation of American aristocracy...

Posted by Andrew at 03:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 22, 2007

Damn Right

Posted by Andrew at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2007

If Yale had any sense of decency...

They would Retroactively Revoke John Yoo's JD. If Berkley wishes to maintain its status as a top tier law-school, they will fire John Yoo:

The Framers charged the President with protecting the nation, he tells us, "even if that meant fighting with the legislature to enforce the desires of the people." True to their British heritage, Yoo also asserts, the Framers modeled the President's war powers on those of King George III. They therefore refused to grant Congress even a concurrent power to commence war. At its core, the Constitution embodies the Framers' intention to prohibit Congress from "encroaching" on the executive's power to initiate as well as conduct war.

(via)
Anyone who fails so badly to understand the uncontroversial history of the US Constitution is simply unfit to practice or teach law...

Posted by Andrew at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2007

Something Michale Moore never told you

Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.

The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.

Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.

(via those pinkoes at Consumer Affairs)

Makes you wish we lived in a kinder, more just nation, doesn't it?

Posted by Andrew at 08:38 PM | Comments (0)

Speaking of Impeachable offenses

So to recap:
Charges were not brought against Dick Cheney because one of his top aids steadfastly lied-under oath- to protect the VP. We know the aid lied- under oath- because a jury convicted him of lying under oath. Lest we think lie was no big deal, I remind my readers that it concerned matters of national security; the Executive Branch outed one of our undercover spies to discredit the spouse of said spy...

This crime is a big deal. Had the White House not done this, there is a chance (small, I admit), that the American people would have been properly informed of the true state of affairs in Iraq, and therefore over 3,000 of our brothers and sisters wouldn't be dead...

President Bush commuted the sentence of Vice President Cheney's co-conspirator. The stated reason for that commutation is that said co-conspirator is a good friend of the Washington Press Corpse*, who worked long and hard for the Vice President...

That rolling sound you hear is John Adams in his grave...

*intentional

Posted by Andrew at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2007

More revolutionary goodness

We on the left are often told that we ought not say certain things, or talk about certain issues, for fear of offending certain powers.

George "W" Bush has committed impeachable crimes, and has failed to discharge his duties in a manner consistent with his constitutional duties. Universal health care is consistent with the finest American traditions...

I feel better now...

Posted by Andrew at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

July 04, 2007

231 years ago

Today we celebrate, not the fact of independence, but rather the act of declaring independence. In 1776- and throughout time- revolution has been both illegal and ill-advised. The only possible thing that can trump the law is morality; on the 4th of July 1776, America claimed morality:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

In 1775, no one believed this. In 2007, everyone says it, but I doubt that few really feel it in their gut. Today is a day for celebrating that ideal, and vowing to make it a reality.

Posted by Andrew at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

July 03, 2007

An experiment

In the English language, we are taught to use the masculine as the default indefinite gender, and only specify female when the person is known to be female. Feminists have argued that this "otherizes" women, and leads to abuse. Anti-Feminists have said that this is nonsense, and that anything else is an abuse of language, and feminists should just get over themselves...

I have decided that for the next month, whenever I don't know the gender of a person-- or if the gender doesn't matter-- I will assume the feminine. I don't know what will be the outcome, but I'm curious to find out. Anyone else want to join in?

Posted by Andrew at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

July 02, 2007

Why I've not been around much lately:

Final Fantasy III for the DS is perhaps the most perfect RPG ever made...

Posted by Andrew at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2007

"You'd think we'd lead with that story"

A hundred years from now, Historians who wish to chart the decline of America will be able to point to this momentary triumph of substance of vapidity, and use it to understand the destruction of American sources of information. We can't trust the media-- not because it's biased, but because it's trivial...

Bravo Ms Brzezinski! With luck you'll be rewarded...

Posted by Andrew at 09:29 AM | Comments (1)