Humans Are So Cool

We can do this;

Medvedev Cites GOP for START Withdrawal Talk

Nice headline, eh?  Think I'm being hyperbolic?  Think again (h/t Political Animal);

Medvedev implied that the U.S. Congress was one of the primary obstacles in the negotiations, because some GOP senators are opposed to giving Russia any written assurances that could be seen as "limits" on U.S. missile defense and other GOP senators have called for the system to be directed at Russia.

"Rather than showing themselves willing to hear and understand our concerns over the European missile defense system at this stage, [U.S. officials] simply repeat that these plans are not directed against Russia and that there is no point for us to be concerned. That is the position of the executive authorities, but legislators in some countries openly state the whole system is against Russia," Medvedev said.

Congressional Republicans now suck so badly at governing that foreign nations are citing them as reasons to possibly withdraw from the new proposed START treaty.

First the debt, and now this. How much more can the "Tea Party" wave of GOP assholes fuck things up before we can all, as a nation, agree that they need to be kept at arm's reach from any real legislating?

UPDATE: I had to ask.

Screenshot O' the Day

I love Stargate Atlantis.  Damned good scifi;

Republicans Simply Have No Idea

Great catch by the former Carpetbagger, noting todays' balance budget amendment conflicts with the earlier Ryan plan vote;

After going through the roll calls, there are 231 GOP House members who voted for the right-wing budget and voted for the constitutional amendment that would have been the right-wing budget impermissible.

In other words, these guys don't know what they're talking about, or, apparently, voting for.

Fairweather GOP

Hey Herman--ask Sarah Palin how it feels to be the favorite of the fickle GOP primary crowd.

Future Dance

Just a thought; if I'd seen something like this when I was a kid, and was told it was from the future, I would have thought it just as weird/ridiculous a concept as the "light rope" dancing they did on Buck Rogers, the TV show from the 80's;

UPDATE: Whoops, wrong dipshit scifi "futuristic" dance scene (gotta love Netflix streaming);

I WANNA BE A SPACEMAN

Now hiring.

Scifi Screenshot of the Day

I might have to start making this a regular feature--today's screenshot is from Stargate Atlantis again, and yes, to all the geeks out there, that is the Daedalus fighting a Wraith hive ship ;

I'm Against Formless Protests

I've thought and thought about how exactly to approach the Occupy Wall Street movement, from a philosophical/blog post perspective.  The recent emptying of Zuccotti Park, along with the string of news items about the movement in general really catalyzed me on one, firm point.

I'm against formless protests.

When OWS first started, the cottage industry became sharpening the points of a bunch of disparate interests in the mob, much as they had hyperventilated over what the now-vaporous Tea Party movement meant for all the brave, armed, flag-wearin' folk that marched around a couple of summers ago.  Then, of course, the media degenerated to picking out the freaks, as we are all wont to do when confronted with a mass of humanity.  It was all about the venereal disease, trash and infection, resistance to armed force, and occasional accidents/overdoses/deliberate suicides and on and on, until the mass of humanity camped out there were all just unwitting knots of data to be mined by a gluttonous pack of sycophantic news organizations, eager to please slavering TV audiences with new outrages.

So here's my point; how could this story have better furthered the causes which drove these folks to camp outside in the winter?

How about have a coherent, group point before going out there?

Think about it; the story became whatever the media wanted it to be, instead of what most of them wanted to say.  Sure we saw some truths out there, but really, is anyone confused about why folks marched from Selma to Montgomery, even if it had happened in today's 24-hour news culture?  No.  Their point was clear before they exposed themselves to the heat.

Had OWS formed and tried to use political power, or marched with a purpose, then perhaps the hole in their media flank would not have been so easy for the rampaging phalanx of the media to penetrate.  Instead of a policy prescription, it was just a generalized, "Hey, I'm Pissed!" and it left the world to watch the freak show, instead of truly contemplate a force to be reckoned with regarding the forming of society.

In the end, each generation waits, as the chairs occupied by the previous one (in this case, retiring baby boomers) are emptied, and the big game of musical chairs begins to see who'll be rich, who's the handsomest, who'll get the cute girls and who will run the show, forming real policy that will affect real people and make America a better place.  In the case of OWS, to use the previous metaphor, instead of trying to grab a chair, the general malaise of the movement was like a bunch of kids lying on the floor, too perplexed at their condition, or perhaps too coddled by a fattened corporate culture to truly protest with a bone-deep conviction.  Instead they mucked up the works, made other, more focused and committed lefty liberal-progressives like yours truly look like a condomless, unemployed, dirty freak trying to get laid with a fatty at the drum circle.

Here's the question, for those who read the above and are sputtering in outrage; has this movement advanced the conversation at all?  Are we talking more about income inequality, in a way that will lead to institutional change, or are we gawking at the guy with the tinfoil hat and laughing?

I say good riddance, if the law enforcement steps underway and the coming cold season drives the mobs from camping on public parks.  I'm all for protests, but if there is no conviction, it is as plainly obvious as when those convictions count more than life itself.


UPDATE: Or, as the Butcher said in Gangs of New York;

I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.

UPDATED AGAIN: Looks like people are starting to agree with me.

YET MORE UPDATES: Yup, I was right, the kick back against the protesters has consumed the "newshole;"

Last week, the U.S. economy was the No. 1 story at 22% of the newshole, with the majority of that coverage focused on the confrontations between protesters, law enforcement, and the city governments that preside over the public spaces that have become encampments. All totaled, the Occupy Wall Street story accounted for 13% of the overall newshole during the week of November 14-20... That coverage marked a major spike from the week before when media attention to the protests had dropped to just 1% of the newshole.

UPDATES, UPDATES, UPDATES;

So really, does anyone think leaving 30 tons of trash behind helped anyone think better about the goals of the movement?

SCOTUS to Rule on Affordable Care Act

Big news (via Daily Beast) the Supreme Court will be meeting to;

The Court will hold two hours of argument on the constitutionality of the requirement that virtually every American obtain health insurance by 2014, 90 minutes on whether some or all of the overall law must fail if the mandate is struck down, one hour on whether the Anti-Injunction Act bars some or all of the challenges to the insurance mandate, and one hour on the constitutionality of the expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.

The hearing will be in March, expect this to set the tone for the spring election hysteria. I, for one, will be glued to CSPAN, where of course you won't see one second of the process because the SCOTUS is so damned secretive.

Damn!

I guess I'll turn off the TV entirely, since it will be wall-to-wall with American Crossroads regurgitating donor cash into attack spots or whatever anyhow.

Scifi Shortfilm-itis

I blame io9. Check this short film out; chilling, creepy as hell, and highly possible;

Phenomenal Short Film

Though one critique; it's the unbelieveable far future and we're still using 9mm handguns like Eddie Murphy used in Beverly Hills Cop?

ROSA from Jesús Orellana on Vimeo.

I'm a Nerd

Evidence; screenshot from Stargate Atlantis, which I have been obsessively streaming when not attending to a 16 month old psychopath;

You're welcome.

Class Warfare, Schmlass Schmarfare

A great article at Rolling Stone, just to remind those of you who might have forgotten how we ended up in this financial mess;

It's the kind of thinking that only money can buy. "It's a vicious circle," says Stiglitz. "The rich are using their money to secure tax provisions to let them get richer still. Rather than investing in new technology or R&D, the rich get a better return by investing in Washington."

Oh, and for future reference, I tend to provide my own emphasis in links, for those keeping track.

I also liked this, since it seems the country has mysteriously forgotten how many problems originated with the Reaganites;

It was the birth of what is now known as "Starve the Beast" – a conscious strategy by conservatives to force cuts in federal spending by bankrupting the country. As conceived by the right-wing intellectual Irving Kristol in 1980, the plan called for Republicans to create a "fiscal problem" by slashing taxes – and then foist the pain of reimposing fiscal discipline onto future Democratic administrations who, in Kristol's words, would be forced to "tidy up afterward."

Liberalism versus Conservatism

I like this bit;

"People on the right classify themselves as libertarians, neoconservatives, social conservatives, traditional conservatives, and the like, and spill oceans of ink defining, debating, and further subdividing these schools of thought. There is no parallel taxonomy on the left. Maybe, in part, it is because a central tenet of liberalism is that ideology should be eschewed in favor of the supposedly enlightened, pragmatic approach of making ad hoc judgments about issues."

Here here.

"Pulling a Perry"

Copyrighted by my wife just now. Substitute for any kind of brain defect.

FUCK

That guy.

Romney/Gingrich? Gingrich/Romney?

Either way, shudder.

Destroyer of Worlds- a new scifi/horror short story

Through death and fire, Rebecca Wilder has been reborn. Kali marches on the skulls of the dead, a Destroyer of Worlds born anew in human flesh.

Read it now!

Dreamland, a science fiction short story

Humanity sleeps. Humanity dreams, and builds. Wren Faulkner is dying in a world vastly different than the one from the past, and yet hauntingly familiar; a Dreamland, where the sleepers build and build, and yet never awaken...

Read it now!