So, i don’t know about you guys, but I’ve seen ~600% more perfume/cologne commercials in the past 2 weeks. (Did you know Britney Spears has her own perfume? And how many f’ing perfumes does Dior make?)
It’s ridiculously annoying.
Read MoreDecember, 2008 Monthly archive
Aw fuck.
Read MoreIt’s Monday. We love it, we hate it, sometimes we argue and sometimes we make out (don’t tell Tuesday). What better way to break in the week than to have a little fun with some flash games?
Each Monday, one flash game will be put up on the PULPit for play. The poster will briefly describe the game and post a link (possibly embed it directly into the post) to play. It’s then out job to decide whether or not it passes muster using a simple yet effective review system. If you wish to partake in the PULPit, please use the following format to review the game. Other random comments are more than welcomed, but if you’re making an official review keep that as it’s own comment for the sake of organization.
PULPit Review Template:
Commentary:
Describe your thoughts and feelings on the game. It can be as basic as “Worse than crack, I loved it!” or as in-depth as describing the pros and cons of the gameplay mechanics & artistic style. The level of juiciness is up to you.Difficulty:
5 – Insanely Hard
4 – Very Challenging
3 – Slightly Challenging
2 – Easy
1 – Boring, Grandma Beat ItRating:
5 – Exquisite game. Amazing in every sense of the word
4 – Fantastic game. It’s missing something (better art, too short/long)
3 – Average game. Your run of the mill flash game, fun but leaves you wanting more
2 – Poor game. Bad quality on several aspects of the game, maybe one redeeming quality
1 – Abysmal game. I could have been looking at pictures of cats with funny captions instead of playing this.
So that’s it! I hope this stays strong, I think we can have a lot of fun with something like this. One last thing: I feel like we should figure out who the next person to post a game should be beforehand, unless you feel first come first serve when Monday rolls around works for everyone.
The game I chose to put up on the PULPit is called Bubble Tanks 2. I’ve never played Bubble Tanks 1, but from the description on the website, the guy who made it took a lot of ideas from the comments on the first game and made this one a lot better. The game is fairly basic. It’s a shooter located in a body of water where you control a tank made of bubbles. The object of the game is to roam around from one giant bubble (or room) to the next and shoot down enemies comprised of bubbles. When you take out an enemy, they leave several bubbles on the level for you to absorb into your own tank. As you absorb these bubbles, you work your way towards upgrades for your weapons and abilities. The enemies get progressively more difficult the further away you get from the starting bubble. Enjoy!
Read MoreADN:
WASILLA – A Friday night fire at Gov. Sarah Palin’s church caused an estimated $1 million in damage, and investigators say it could be the work of an arsonist.
Firefighters were called to Wasilla Bible Church about 9:40 p.m. and found flames and smoke coming out windows at the back of the three-story structure, said James Steele, chief of the Central Mat-Su Fire Department.
Five women, and possibly a couple of children, were inside the church working on crafts, but everyone got out safely after a fire alarm alerted them to trouble, Steele said.
Palin’s church is fairly ridiculous. People who set fire to buildings are really ridiculous. People who set fire to buildings with people in them are despicable.
Hope they catch the asshole(s).
[h/t MamaLin]
Read MoreThomas M. Tamm was entrusted with some of the government’s most important secrets. He had a Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, a level above Top Secret. Government agents had probed Tamm’s background, his friends and associates, and determined him trustworthy.
It’s easy to see why: he comes from a family of high-ranking FBI officials. During his childhood, he played under the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, and as an adult, he enjoyed a long and successful career as a prosecutor. Now gray-haired, 56 and fighting a paunch, Tamm prides himself on his personal rectitude. He has what his 23-year-old son, Terry, calls a “passion for justice.” For that reason, there was one secret he says he felt duty-bound to reveal.
In the spring of 2004, Tamm had just finished a yearlong stint at a Justice Department unit handling wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies—a unit so sensitive that employees are required to put their hands through a biometric scanner to check their fingerprints upon entering. While there, Tamm stumbled upon the existence of a highly classified National Security Agency program that seemed to be eavesdropping on U.S. citizens. The unit had special rules that appeared to be hiding the NSA activities from a panel of federal judges who are required to approve such surveillance. When Tamm started asking questions, his supervisors told him to drop the subject. He says one volunteered that “the program” (as it was commonly called within the office) was “probably illegal.”
Tamm agonized over what to do. He tried to raise the issue with a former colleague working for the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the friend, wary of discussing what sounded like government secrets, shut down their conversation. For weeks, Tamm couldn’t sleep. The idea of lawlessness at the Justice Department angered him. Finally, one day during his lunch hour, Tamm ducked into a subway station near the U.S. District Courthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue. He headed for a pair of adjoining pay phones partially concealed by large, illuminated Metro maps. Tamm had been eyeing the phone booths on his way to work in the morning. Now, as he slipped through the parade of midday subway riders, his heart was pounding, his body trembling. Tamm felt like a spy. After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he picked up a phone and called The New York Times.
He’s now facing felony charges for disclosing confidential information. I hope the incoming administration chooses to let this investigation peter out, and leave Thomas Tamm alone. If I had any authority to do so, I’d give Mr. Tamm a medal.
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It’s beyond frustrating watching the MSM try to make this a story about Barack Obama. I realize that, if you look at this from 10,000 feet, it might look like Obama might be involved. I mean it is his governor, and his Senate seat, but as soon as you get to about 1,000 feet, you realize that Obama was nowhere near involved.
At one point, he proposed a three-way deal, that a cushy union job would be given to him at a higher rate of pay, where he could make money. In exchange, he thought that the union might get benefits from the president-elect. And therefore the president-elect might get the candidate of his choice.
I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct. This part of the scheme lost steam when the person that the governor thought was the president- elect’s choice of senator took herself out of the running. But after the deal never happened, this is the governor’s reaction, quote, “They’re not willing to give me anything but appreciation. Bleep them,” close quote. And again, the bleep is a redaction.
Sounds pretty open-and-shut to me. I mean, it might be one thing if Patrick Fitzgerald wasn’t one of the most respected US Attorneys in the nation, and made a name for himself prosecuting the Plame leak. You might be able to make something out of it if he was Joe Schmoe. But he’s not. The guy’s a straight shooter, and everyone knows it.
There’s nothing here. In fact, Obama and Blagojevich didn’t even like each other. Why? Because Obama championed ethics reform legislation that curbed exactly the type of behavior that Blago utilized. The NYT went as far as saying that Obama may have played an indirect role in the arrest of Blago:
In a sequence of events that neatly captures the contradictions of Barack Obama’s rise through Illinois politics, a phone call he made three months ago to urge passage of a state ethics bill indirectly contributed to the downfall of a fellow Democrat he twice supported, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.
Mr. Obama placed the call to his political mentor, Emil Jones Jr., president of the Illinois Senate. Mr. Jones was a critic of the legislation, which sought to curb the influence of money in politics, as was Mr. Blagojevich, who had vetoed it. But after the call from Mr. Obama, the Senate overrode the veto, prompting the governor to press state contractors for campaign contributions before the law’s restrictions could take effect on Jan. 1, prosecutors say.
So, basically, there’s nothing here except a corrupt-beyond-belief governor. That’s it. And anyone trying to push anything else either hasn’t done their homework, or is being intellectually dishonest. In case you were wondering, that would be the MSM and the GOP, respectively.
Read MoreThis visual test supposedly tells you if your right or left brain is more dominant.
Dancer Spins Counterclockwise: Left Brain
Dancer Spins Clockwise: Right Brain
That’s what they say at least, but I’m a bit skeptical. If you try hard, you can get it to change direction. I found that if I keep the image in my periphery and start reading or focusing on something else it changes directions. Changing it back was difficult though, and I had to turn away from my computer and sing to myself with my eyes closed. It’s tough, but not as tough as Tontie…
UnOfficial Survey Time! I see her spinning clockwise.
Wikipedia entry: Lateralization of Brain Function
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after living in NYC for three months, I’ve come to a point where I can afford to pay rent for the month based on this week alone.
Read MoreIdeologues fret:
Same goes for the Iraq War, which many “pragmatic” lawmakers–Hillary Clinton, Arlen Specter–voted for and which ideologues across the political spectrum, from Ron Paul to Bernie Sanders, opposed. Of course, by any reckoning, the war didn’t work. That is, it failed to be a practical, nonideological improvement to the nation’s security. This, despite the fact that so many willed themselves to believe that the benefits would clearly outweigh the costs. Principle is often pragmatism’s guardian. Particularly at times of crisis, when a polity succumbs to collective madness or delusion, it is only the obstinate ideologues who refuse to go along. Expediency may be a virtue in virtuous times, but it’s a vice in vicious ones.
As Hayes, reminds us, we should be skeptical of those who make a fetish of pragmatism. The scariest thing, to me, about Barack Obama’s cabinet is that many of the people who are saluting him, the ones celebrating his “pragmatism” and alleged rejection of the nutty left, are the same people who were dead wrong about the greatest foreign policy question of our era. That’s just a feeling, but it’s the reason why I get so vexed over reporters parroting the talking points of any administration. Our job is to think, to question–not to babble on about the latest cute handle Obama has awarded to his cabinet.
The key point that everyone seems to be missing from this debate is that these so-called pragmatists didn’t make bad decisions because they were pragmatist, it was because the had bad judgment. I hate ideologues, not because they are frequently wrong, but because they have already decided they are right, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. They tend to have high-minded conversations about Hobbes’ social contract and Atlas Shrugged. This is all fine, and definitely has its place in the political debate, but when it comes to formulating a detailed health care policy, I’m going to skip over Leviathan, and go straight to the empirical studies on health care systems.
The point is, ideologues start off with a set of principles. Then they try to fit all of their policy proposals into the neat little boxes that they’ve made for themselves, regardless of whether or not it’s the best way to go forward. That’s why ideologues are bad policy-makers. And I would argue that’s also why the Republican Party is terrible at governing, because the GOP is dominated by ideologues.
As for the torture-is-pragmatic argument, first of all, it isn’t pragmatic, because it doesn’t work and has enormous negative side effects. Secondly, are these people seriously trying to argue that if you are a pragmatist, you have no moral fiber? Just because I like things that work, as opposed to things that fit in my ideological predispositions, I am morally bankrupt? Ludicrous.
A friend of mine used to work at Micron, and they had a saying there, “Trust in God. All others bring data.” Obviously, I take issue with the first part, but I think the sentiment is spot on. And, furthermore, I think Barack Obama thinks the sentiment is spot on as well.
Thank God for that.
Read MoreSo one of the things that continues to surprise me is the number of guys that use the paper toilet seat cover things at work. I always looked at those things and laughed, so this is fascinating to me that so many people would use them.
On a whole other level though, is the signal this sends to the community. I mean, I might understand using one at a truck stop on I-10, but at my workplace? What are you trying to say, stall-neighbor, my ass is dirty?
Lastly, it’s time for a role call vote on paper toilet seat things, do you use them? If so, please defend yourself.
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