In case you're wondering, I thought both of them sucked last night. The President for not sounding like he prepared and that he didn't really want to offend anybody. And the Mittster for being a dick for interrupting, calling his boys liars, and not only not playing with reality (bubble think), not getting his own bubble-think straight (in the same paragraph response he said that small business was responsible for employing 50% of us, and at the end saying they employed 25% of us), but also for thinking we're idiots (thinking that saying, "I said my I wouldn't offer tax cuts that increase the deficit, so even though I said 20% cuts and every independent researcher has come back with how that's impossible, you just gotta know that I would never propose tax cuts that would raise the deficit"). Also, both get F's for failing to follow the rules of the debate and basic debate skills in such a way as to have been thrown of high school debating teams for their actions.
That photo list of wheelchair costumes that everybody is talking about.
Kameron Hurley on writing correctly and writing rightly. Or, the difference between the grammatical rules and how people actually use grammar. It's also about the differences between our written language and our spoke language and how they interact.
Proof that the current culture of support between SF/F writers at all stages of their careers isn't new. That's Bob Heinlein mailing Theodore Sturgeon 26 story bones when the later wrote to the former about how his story well had gone dry. That and Heinlein included a $100 check with the ideas. Just something to keep in mind for the dry times and for when some one tells you they've got a great idea they want you to pay them for. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
You know, dead people ruin everything. Okay, well, in England as they were excavating for a sports complex, they knew there was an old graveyard on the site. However, they've found 500 skeletons dating to before the Black Death, many of which were piled into crypts as an older graveyard was displaced to widen a roadway. They're also finding intact graves on the site as well. So construction halts while the archeologist comb through the site to learn what they can, and handle the remains carefully, and prepare them for reburial. (Grokked from ChiaLynn)
WalMart workers walk out on strike from multiple stores. Oh look, is that a rabbit hole? And why haven't you heard more about the work stoppages and walk outs? I mean, WalMart is like one of the largest employers in the country, they're everywhere. Given the hoopla around a WalMart store coming into a market, you'd think something like the birth pangs of a new large unionization would draw media like a magnet drowse iron filings. It's not like those media people don't have contacts with WalMart, what with all that advertising going on. (Grokked from Tobias Buckell)
Eric muses on the good we could be doing, but we're having other conversations at the moment. And while we were distracted by setting up the home shopping network, we missed that the holes in the safety net grew larger, and we never did end up fixing the problems we all knew were problems back in the 70s. Part of it is the swinging pendulum of the American Attention Span, part of it is that for the people who do vote the lives of these kids and adults are so far removed, and we were distracted by our own struggles. And only when we have direct contact with these institutions (education and justice) at the level of the disenfranchised, we can't imagine their lives or that it has any relevance to our actions and our own lives. Our Calvanist traits that thread through American Culture like e. coli through an intestine tell us those people deserve what they've gotten, and we've deserved what we've received and that's enough for a majority of citizens in privilege to sleep comfortably knowing that the spheres continue to orbit in the positions God put them in. (Puts his soap box away for another day)
In that vein, the bone wearying exhaustion of the American Teach. "We feel uncomfortable being honest about who they are and what they do (and neglect to do)… So we usually don’t speak out about it. We leave out the damning details because they are unkind." (Grokked from the Slactivist)
When people who proclaim the Bible is their guide and that everyone should read it and live by it then go on to do things like, I don't know, say they support "Biblical Families," they deserve to be skewered for not really knowing the Bible. There's something about living by a sword and then something else, but I never did pay attention in catechism. I guess Chick-fil-a President Dan Cathy didn't pay any attention either. I believe that's what the kids call, "being pwned."
More proof that our world is weirder than we think, some scientist think our intestinal flora may alter our mood, emotions, and personalities. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Zingers. Weren't Zingers a creamy pastry? So, Mitt has been eating Dolly Madison cakes all this time? (Written before the debate last night)
So, you know how I said that when Mitt talked about the 47%, that it wasn't the first time I had heard rich conservatives make those kinds of argument. Here is PA Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, who sponsored the PA Voter ID law, basically echoing that sentiment and using Mitt's comment as clarification and proof of his point. Isn't that special. It's a war, in case you didn't notice. The other side has been fighting, the side I'm on is only slowly realizing that what we thought it was about wasn't what it was about all along. While the GOP drives themselves right down the rabbit hole, they're taking all the people they can with them. Then there are those of the party who seemed turn the knobs up to 10 on being right-wing, are always able to find a way to get those dials up to 11. That's the problem with going over a cliff, there's always more cliff to go over, until you splat. "Because it isn't enough." Because it's never enough. And just to make sure their side doesn't get pulled out of their reality distortion field, they're now saying out loud that their members shouldn't listen to "the Media." (Grokked from the Slactivist)
And, it's not like we shame people who need assistance. I mean, for a country that is supposedly the wealthiest and greatest in the world, we wouldn't get all dicky about $10 of groceries. Sigh. The real problem is that even the person who was shamed also believes some people on food stamps are "lazy", and that while a lot of people will read that story and go, "Okay, yeah, they're in a tough spot," and then immediately think, "but that's just one out of the millions." That's the problem. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
The Onion with highlights of the DNC. Hahahaha.
"I told him that the calorie labels were, in fact, a government health mandate in Obamacare." Most conservatives were actually for it before they were against it. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
Tweet of my heart: @Pres_Bartlet: The only specifics Mitt Romney provided about any of his plans last night was that he intends to defund Sesame Street. #noplan
Aligator Quotient: I can feel them in the water, but if I stay still maybe they won't notice me.
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