Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I Would Have Held Out For a New Ipad

The real question is why anyone would want these particular souls...

A computer game retailer revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of online shoppers, thanks to a clause in the terms and conditions agreed to by online shoppers.


The retailer, British firm GameStation, added the "immortal soul clause" to the contract signed before making any online purchases earlier this month. It states that customers grant the company the right to claim their soul.


"By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions."


GameStation's form also points out that "we reserve the right to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act. If you a) do not believe you have an immortal soul, b) have already given it to another party, or c) do not wish to grant Us such a license, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause and proceed with your transaction."
It is a terrific April Fools gag, but the gamers should have held out for something more. You know, like a donut.

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Don't Even Think About It

Okay, now they've gone too far.  The crazed terrorist bastards are going after Parker and Stone.

Yes, I have to agree that this will get little concern compared to the horribly violent Tea Partiers, whose rhetoric has led to, oh, zero violence.  But let's put my sarcasm aside on that point.  There's a lot of crap we let these cavepissing, Osamabuttlicking, goat-molesting, cameldung eaters get away with over the past many years.  But if they attempt to do anything to the creators of South Park?  I'd support nuking everything in sight.

Yes, I'm exaggerating a tad.  But in solidarity with Parker and Stone, here's the latest thing they made that the crazed whackos found offensive.

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Fat Teens Give Me A Good Excuse To Run A Ghostbusters Clip

Somehow, I don't find this shocking...
School lunches have been called many things, but a group of retired military officers is giving them a new label: national security threat.


That's not a reference to the mystery meat served up in the cafeteria line either. The retired officers are saying that school lunches have helped make the nation's young people so fat that fewer of them can meet the military's physical fitness standards, and recruitment is in jeopardy.


A new report being released Tuesday says more than 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military. Now, the officers are advocating for passage of a wide-ranging nutrition bill that aims to make the nation's school lunches healthier.


...This isn't the first time the military has gotten involved in the debate over school lunches. During World War II, military leaders had the opposite problem, reporting that many recruits were rejected because of stunted growth and inadequate nutrition. After the war, military leaders pushed Congress to establish the national school lunch program so children would grow up healthier.


The program was established in 1946, "as a measure of national security," according to the original bill language.
I like Instapundit's line about it...
So the one meal where teenagers are fed directly by the government is a major source of obesity, but we keep being told that the solution to widespread obesity is . . . more government?
Well, yes, because more government means more power for those in government. It's kinda telling that the unintended consequence of a government program designed to stop inadequate nutrition is now viewed as helping create an obesity epidemic -- perhaps it's worth looking at this before deciding that government can "solve" other problems with big government programs.  At the end of the day, though, is it really shocking that the government purchases fattening foods when they're cheap and readily accessible in bulk as sources for kids' lunches?  If you are surprised, I'm impressed that you were able to manage to log onto the Interweb to read this.  Meanwhile, I only managed to get fat after leaving public school, so maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule.  Or maybe it was the beer.

The real reason for this problem?  I'm guessing it's too many big Twinkies.

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Album Cover Nostalgia

A new recurring series inspired by the Lord of Truth. We all remember certain album covers fondly -- here's one more.

Some bands are memorable because of their look. Others are memorable because of their look, but that's just the beginning of the reasons to remember them.  The latter describes ZZ Top perfectly.  They're the true definition of American originals -- and the music was damn good, too.  You know, unlike the Scorpions.

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Maybe He'll Try The Chewbacca Defense Next

Tim Geithner's defense won't fly with the Tax Court.  Well, it probably would if you were Tim Geithner, but we can't all be that lucky.

When you think about it, it's rather amazing that this is just a punchline and not a serious issue.  It says a lot about governance in our country that the man in charge of the Treasury and IRS couldn't figure out how to comply with our tax laws, yet we keep looking to pass more of them.

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A Little April Football Update

Get your popcorn ready, Redskins fans!  Donovan McNabb wants the Skins to sign T.O.  I'm going to go out on a limb and predict the Skins still finish under .500.

Meanwhile, over at IgglesBlog, BountyBowl presents the best Soviet... err, Eagles propoganda piece I've seen in some time...
While some enemies of the People may suggest that the recent purges of veteran revolutionaries like Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Sheldon Brown, Darren Howard, Will Witherspoon, Jon Runyan, Tra Thomas and Brian Dawkins indicate that the Central Party is willing to trade success in our coming campaign for a more frugally compensated set of revolutionary comrades, we might remind you that the Central Party always has the People's best interests in mind! Have we not purged veteran revolutionaries with great success in the past? Have we not delivered semi-bountiful harvests and periodically reliable factories? Trust us, comrades, the fields of the NFL entry draft will be rich with opportunity this year! And if not this year, then they will be even richer next year (should we choose to stockpile resources for a coming harvest).
That's just an excerpt; read the whole thing. But still... E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!

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No Animals Were Harmed In The Writing Of This Post

Remember this the next time someone complains about the Citizens United ruling -- the Supreme Court has decided that the First Amendment protects the ability to make films showing graphic violence against animals -- and has done so by a greater majority than the one than struck down McCain-Feingold's advertising restrictions.  I actually don't object to either ruling, although I'm more inclined to protect core political speech than puppy snuff films. 

And before you ask, all of the liberals on the Court sided with the majority, with the only dissent coming from Sam Alito.  Personally, I'd rather be defending Alito's position than theirs -- they seem happy to let people spend money making movies where animals are gravely maimed, but God forbid someone spend money trying to influence a political election!

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Monday, April 19, 2010

Some Things Looked Better in 1980

You know, they look more uncomfortable hugging in this picture than they did when they wore dresses on the show.  It almost looks like Scolari's begging Hanks, "C'mon, cast me in your next picture!  Please!"

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What Annoying Song Is Stuck In My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

As a person who spent his childhood growing up around Philadelphia, I have the typical love-hate relationship with New York City.  Great town, great place to visit, cool people... but annoying holier-than-thou-superiority complex that is part deserved and part just arrogant assholery.  And this song is the embodiment of that feeling for me -- it is a great song, and will probably be played somewhere in NYC every night from now until someone finally conclusively proves the Yankees' affiliation with Satan.  But it is annoying as all hell, and the fact that ESPN is using it in NFL Draft promos puts it back in my head.  It'll probably be worse this summer once LeBron signs with the Knicks and this becomes the theme of NBA coverage as well... assuming anyone still watches the NBA.  But like I said -- great song.  Now, please stop playing it.



You're welcome. And the Yankees still suck.

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The Sun Ain't Shining For Charlie

It appears that Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who has been trailing badly in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate against Marco Rubio, is ready to jump ship and run as an Independant candidate for Senate.  Crist did spend the winter and spring insisting that he would never take such a step, but as he's fallen further behind Rubio, he's probably been trying to find some lifeline for a political future for himself, and may think this is the only option.  And it's not as if he coul;d have admitted that he would consider an Independant run -- that would have killed him in the primary even sooner.

The problem for Crist is that I'm not sure he could do anything at this point to win.  He's be losing all of his senior staffers, but that might help, since his campaign's been a colossal failure.  The question is who replaces them -- Democrats have their own candidate already, and I don't think Crist's personal loyalists could put together an Independant bid of their own that can run a get-out-the-vote operation that could actually win.  The most potent independant voting bloc this cycle will probably be anti-spending Tea Party sympathizers, and Rubio's popularity among the Tea Party set (and Crist's willingness to be supportive of Obama's stuimulus) leave Crist without any base among that bloc.  Practically speaking, Crist could run as a spolier, but he can't really win.  Maybe he believes he can, but I think we're more likely to see a 25 degree day in July in Miami than a Crist win.

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Obama, Iran, and the Underpants Gnomes

Wow, this is a great way to start Monday morning...
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.


Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.


Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.


One senior official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the memo, described the document as “a wake-up call.” But White House officials dispute that view, insisting that for 15 months they had been conducting detailed planning for many possible outcomes regarding Iran’s nuclear program.


In an interview on Friday, General Jones declined to speak about the memorandum. But he said: “On Iran, we are doing what we said we were going to do. The fact that we don’t announce publicly our entire strategy for the world to see doesn’t mean we don’t have a strategy that anticipates the full range of contingencies — we do.”


But in his memo, Mr. Gates wrote of a variety of concerns, including the absence of an effective strategy should Iran choose the course that many government and outside analysts consider likely: Iran could assemble all the major parts it needs for a nuclear weapon — fuel, designs and detonators — but stop just short of assembling a fully operational weapon.


In that case, Iran could remain a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty while becoming what strategists call a “virtual” nuclear weapons state.


According to several officials, the memorandum also calls for new thinking about how the United States might contain Iran’s power if it decided to produce a weapon, and how to deal with the possibility that fuel or weapons could be obtained by one of the terrorist groups Iran has supported, which officials said they considered to be a less-likely possibility.
First of all, I'm always wondering why the New York Times finds it worthwhile to print classified information, but I suppose I should be grateful that this time they're not publicizing a way of gathering intelligence on terrorists. Hell, I'm not even sure this qualifies as news; the fact that our government is thoroughly unprepared to deal with the threat of a nuclear Iran -- while saying we won't tolerate a nuclear Iran -- seems to be par for the course, no matter which party is in power. Allahpundit says it well...
Of course they didn’t prepare alternatives. How could they possibly fathom that diplomacy might fail? The core plank of “smart power,” such as it is, has always been the Obama charm offensive. Simply by being the anti-Bush and offering an open hand to Iran, he would convince Tehran to unclench its fist and open a dialogue. Bush was the problem (he always is!) and once the problem was removed, solutions would inevitably follow. So why bother developing a Plan B? The result: Iran’s now enriching uranium to 20 percent purity and rolling out advanced centrifuges, which means nuclear “breakout” capacity, i.e. the ability to build a bomb quickly even if they haven’t yet done so, won’t be long in coming. I can’t believe The One would ever order a strike on Iran — see this Aussie op-ed citing security sources who claim the U.S. has all but given up on stopping them from building a bomb — so Israel’s going to do what it has to do sooner rather than later. In fact, in my darker Machiavellian moments, I wonder if one of the reasons The One has picked a fight with Netanyahu lately is because he knows they’re planning to act and wants to put maximum distance between America and Israel before they do. Iran will blame Washington for ordering the attack anyway, but plausible deniability may limit the extent of the reprisals.


No need to put all the blame on Obama here, though. Bush knew what it would mean to hand this issue off to a Democratic president and he went ahead and did it anyway. Invading Iraq necessarily left him with fewer military options against other threats; now the bill is coming due. As for Europe, Russia, and China, here’s the Times’s almost poignant description of the White House’s naivete: “Administration officials had hoped that the revelation by Mr. Obama in September that Iran was building a new uranium enrichment plant inside a mountain near Qum would galvanize other nations against Iran, but the reaction was muted.” The fact that western powers had been waltzing with Iran over its nuke program for fully seven years at that point might have given them a clue that no action would be taken, but that’s “smart power” for you.
The Bush Administration also took a diplomatic approach, although it's worth noting that the constraints weren't just logistics related to Iraq -- remember the leak of the NIE in 2005 that said Iran was at least ten years away from a nuke?  I don't think that leaked NIE ended up being right, but it did end up leaving us with diplomacy as the sole route by which we could tackle the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions, although practically we had little choice in the matter.  And the diplomacy we've pursued has led to little in the way of results, unless you think Iranian progress toward a nuke is a good thing.  Of course, the foreign policy establishment seems to be hell-bent on building a road where we can keep saying we won't tolerate a nuclear Iran, right up until we actually actually, you know, tolerate a nuclear Iran.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure there is a good approach here -- one just may not be available.  But the government's approach to dealing with the issue reminds me of the business model used by the Underpants Gnomes on South Park...



Actually, if the Obama Administration hired Robert Reich to run foreign policy... sorry, that's a cheap shot. Anyway, I keep thinking that Phase One is "Diplomacy". And Phase Three is "No Nuclear Iran." But it's Phase Two that looks way too much like the Phase Two from the Gnomes business plan.

Then again, my guess is that I could have used this same videoclip to describe the healthcare plan.  At least we know where Obama is drawing his ideas from -- it's not Saul Alinsky, it's Parker and Stone.

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