There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Weekend Linkee-poo is driving around like a crash test dummy, all over the map

For your entertainment and edification, Cthulhu is obviously lemony fresh. Mmmm, lemon tasting madness. Well, when life gives you lemons… (Pointed to by Dan)

Karl Schroeder responds to a critic of his short story, but by doing so brings into focus the trend of declinism and SF. Of course his response to the critic is that he's not in that crowd of people who believe our best times are behind us, but I'm not sure that's really relevant to the critique and Karl's defense is based on the "yeah, but…" clause of "you have to read it in the context of all my other stuff." Which really doesn't matter because the critique was of the stories in the context of the anthologies. Anyway, Karl helps outline a trend in SF.

A radioactive cylinder that Halliburton just sorta lost in Texas is "'not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form,' said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. 'But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet.'" Uh, let's see here… "The (International Atomic Energy Agency's) explanation of a Category 3 source… reads: 'This source, if not safely managed or securely protected, could cause permanent injury to a person who handled it or who was otherwise in contact with it for some hours. It could possibly… be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded radioactive material for a period of days to weeks.'" Fabutronic. Say, this container wouldn't just happen to be the exact size and shape that kids would want to play with it, would it? (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

Just in case you thought it was over. "A Wisconsin judge on Friday struck down nearly all of the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers." Queue the standard, canned responses. (Grokked from vidensadastra)

Sigh. Birtherism again? Although this one includes the "had to be born of two American citizens" canard, which you would think for people who shout "The Constitution!" so often would, you know, read the actual document once. Kansas Secretary of State Krish Kobash, you're a tool for not spiking this right off. It's not credible. Frankly I'm beginning to change my opinion from laughing at elected officials who believe such idiocy and non-factual bullshit to tossing them from office for incompetence. And then claiming you're the "intellectual architect" of anything just becomes and even funnier joke. (Grokked from Vince)

Apparently, not only has GW Bush been excised from living Republican memory, so has his war of choice. Here you see the bubble being made. Those things that exist the contradict "conservative world views" are relegated outside the bubble. Even something as easy as knowing Catholic Charities receives a lot of their budget form the government. Which, as a practicing Catholic, Bill O'Reilly really aught to have known. But accepting that would mean allowing into the bubble a fact that had the potential to burst open the carefully constructed walls that isolate him form the world and allows him to maintain the fiction that growing up without air conditioning means he struggled and suffered. And what happens when the bubble gets burst by being immersed in the "reality based culture" (ie. the real world)? It becomes impossible to remain in the bubble and stay "conservative." Yeah, my experience wasn't as dramatic as that story, but I've had experiences like that. Also continuing this election year's meme of Republicans who realize they're really Democrats. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

And speaking of the reality based community, Obama by the numbers. It's not all rosy for the President, but it does show just how out of touch and willing to overblow the situation the current Republican nominee is. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Tweet of my heart: @danieljhogan: That moment of panic when you hit Command+W instead of Command+S.

Double dip: @jay_lake: Am now reading the documentation for my chair. Yes, this is what the twenty-first century has come to.

No comments: