From our plant in DC, Ms. Wonkette, the low-down on Jenna Bush: “She went to University of Texas, whatever. You don’t have to be in Skull and Bones to drink Jew baby blood…” Full photodocumentary evidence.
And, of course, my mentioning that Jenna Bush is hot is not mere personal opinion and conjecture. Because Chris Matthews says it, it’s a bonifide journalistic factoid:
- They are cutie-pies…like the Archie and Veronica comic…the blonde one…”
- More on the twins: “…now that we see they’re frisky somewhat…”
Well, at least America knows what Chris “Frisky” Matthews does in the shower. Inquiring minds wanted to know.
In other Innauguration news, Our Leader pleased adoring crowds by riding the Ferris Wheel of Freeocracy. Blessed be.
I’ve just about finished reading Hardt and Negri’s Multitude, the follow up to their philosophical blockbuster Empire. The gist of the two volumes is two old marxists trying to make sense of where the world is heading in an era of post-communist globalization.
What’s impressing me as I finish up the second volume is this: “the common.” When I lived in New England I learned what “the commons” is. It’s a park in the in the middle of town that used to be free for anyone (or their cattle) to use but is now a public park. In Boston, it’s where you go for big protests or to meet gubernatorial candidates. In Salem, it’s where thousands of drunk people rabble around in costumes every Halloween (highly recommended, by the way).
Buried in the old concept of “the commons” is the notion that some things ought to belong to everyone. The bad thing about commons is that once somebody tries to take unfair advantage of the privilege, everyone else jumps in to make sure they get their fair share. Before too long, the commons is an overtrampled mess nobody wants anyway.
Hardt and Negri see a new commons, which they call “the common” (no “s”) to distinguish one idea from the other. They’ve noticed that in the 21st century economy, the cutting edge of labor is “immaterial.” Think service, tech, marketing, and infotainment. These areas are where the growth is, but in contrast to the industrial era, no widgets are produced that you can run off an assembly line. It’s all about the creation and manipulation of ideas and emotions. Hence, immaterial labor.
The danger is that the powers-that-be will end up controlling all of the products of immaterial labor through careful manipulation of copyright and patent law. Click to continue reading “Are you open source yet?”
Looks like the new Battlestar Galactica series is well on its way to avoiding the usual technobabble that runs nonfans away from scifi.
The first episode’s plotline showed the battlestar crew and political leaders dealing with some five straight days of unending attack. Inexplicably, these attacks happened every 33 minutes, at which point the fleet would retreat from certain destruction yet again. Exhaustion sets in, and the number of survivors of the Cylon genocide drops below 50,000.
Writer Ron Moore has this to say about the 33 minute gap between attacks:
A deeper truth is, I was never interested in coming up with an explanation for Why? Never. I mean, I suppose I could’ve come up with a sufficiently important-sounding bit of technobabble that would’ve made sense (you see, the Cylon double-talk sensors tracking the Olympic Carrier’s nonsense drive signature needed 15 minutes to relay the made-up data wave through the pretend continuum, then the Cylon navigational hyper silly system needed another 10 minutes to recalculate the flux capacitor, etc.) but what would that have really added to the drama?
Thank you, Ron. If scifi is ever going to be “respectable,” it needs shows with writing worthy of an HBO series and none of the unironic camp that’s so common to scifi. Kudos to this series’ creators for getting it off on good footing.
(Plus, both Boomer and Starbuck are hot. That didn’t hurt either.)
On the way to the parking deck after work today, the conversation turned (somehow) to how menfolk behave in the restroom. I was surprised to learn that in this area the ways of menfolk were neither well known nor well understood among my colleagues. So at the risk of redundancy, here are the rules of the restroom as they have been passed down to me. Click to continue reading “The restroom etiquette of menfolk”
Leaves a Mark points out a recent interest in theodicy, linking to a Slate piece and a NYT editorial.
In the NY Times piece, conservative columnist William Safire (of whom I am not a fan) writes a damn good sermon. He points out that if you read the real deal in the Bible, forlorn Job is anything but patient with his suffering. Job takes Yahweh to task for injustice, demanding a court trial. And Yahweh even shows up to answer (sort of) Job’s charges. Safire concludes from this that it’s perfectly acceptable to yell at god for cosmic injustices—after all, it’s right there in the Book. Click to continue reading “Boycotting god: How to raise a well-behaved deity”
Yet another good reason 
