Blessed

I'm not going to post the original articles talking about Priebus saying he's blessed (fuck it, here it is: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-cabinet-meeting).  Instead I'll post this article which has my senator mocking him.  There are few things I'm more proud of than that Al Franken represents Minnesota.  Smart man.  Funny man.  Well centered.  Full of common sense and cutting humor and insight.

“I think the people there feel very, very blessed. … If they feel blessed to be in his cabinet or to be around him, to be his chief of staff for at least another week or so, they should feel very blessed. And I feel very blessed to be here. … Blessings to you.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/12/al-franken-stop-laughing-trumps-cabinet-blessed-serve.html

Pro-life movies

34 and counting. I'm that close to 2500 posts. Scary, particularly as I'm not posting as regularly as I used to. Last night, Pooteewheet and I watched "The Forgotten" just before bedtime. I didn't know much about it, other than my brother warning me it wasn't very good. It was awful. And it waited until the very last moment to beat you over the head with the fact that it had a message that was very, very important. I'm going to spoil the shit out of it for you. When aliens try to steal your memories, they should realize that the first memory you have of you and your child is not when they're a baby, but when they're growing inside of you. In the interest of who the hell cares if your movie is prolife or not, these are categorized by students for life (.org):

Films with a Pro-Life Message:

• Amazing Grace (2007)
• Bella (2007)
• Children of Men (2006)
• Apocalypto (2006)
• The Island (2005)
• Hotel Rwanda (2004)
• The Forgotten (2004)
• Gattaca (1997)

Films with a Pro-Abortion Message:

• Vera Drake (2004)
• Cider House Rules (1999)
• A Handmaid’s Tale (1990)

I'm not so sure A Handmaid's Tale is a pro-abortion movie, although this individual (Anne Barbeau Gardiner) disagrees. She points to a part of the book where someone historically refers to abortion as birth control, proof that we're being clubbed over the head with an anti-abortion rhetoric by Atwood. But if you have an abortion to prevent a birth...isn't it birth control? I fail to understand how you could refer to it as anything else. Yes, yes...murder, etc. But still...it was used to control a birth. Even if it was a murder in your mind, it's still birth control. Saying it's one of the other is semantics. The Handmaid's Tale isn't about abortion, it's about someone else controlling your body so completely that you can't help but draw parallels to how people do and want to control your body in the current culture.

Glitter Bomb

I saw the video of the glitter bomb of the anti-gay marriage group at the Minnesota State Fair and wanted to make sure my family saw it. I wish it had been more impressive, but it's still amusing to see people dumping glitter off the tram on a booth. Particularly as Ming posted a link to an article stating that 70% of fair goers disapproved of amending the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Tim Pawlenty

I really hope this is easy to see.  I've been reading a lot lately.  And by a lot, I mean by mid-year I'm almost at the exact same number of pages I read total last year.  Admittedly, last year was horrible.  I blame managerialnessosity.  The state of/in which one is a manager.  And a vaguely first-year manager.  I've quit telling people "it takes two (2) years to get good at your job" because it freaks out executive management.  But it's the truth.  Year one is a total %!*/*&*%$%-fest.  Particularly if the training style is "just dive in and see how you do."  About year .75 you realize, f-it, I'm doing, not asking.  Year 1.25 you think, these people aren't necessarily smarter than me, just more experienced.  And year 1.75 you begin to believe, I'm better at this than at least one other person, unless I'm deluded, because it's possible I'm the worst manager and I only think I'm at least second-worst.  But then I could always go on sheer numbers which state, I've gone from two to twenty reports, and from a few project in one project space to four projects in four project spaces with numerous real projects within each.  Of course then I just sit in my cube, cry on my team pancakes, and wonder why no one will give me 15 contiguous minutes to code up a TFS to Open Source scanning tool using Powershell and a few business rules.

Anyway.  Reading.  Been doing a lot.  And looking for a few dystopias.  But the other day I was content to just look for whatever sort of "science fiction" the Dakota County library system had to offer.  Particularly as they now show their recent acquisitions in reverse chronological order.  I was paging through the results, and on page four (4), lo and behold, "Courage to Stand: An American Story" by Tim Pawlenty.  If it weren't ironic enough that it shows up under science fiction, it's below "Sweet Farts: Rippin' It Old School" and only just above "Night of the Living Trekkies."  Keep that in mind if you vote for him in a primary.

Links and Things - Bicycling, Netflix, Christine O'Donnell

I hadn't noticed, but John pointed out that you no longer need the disk for Netflix!

Secrets of the City/MNSpeak links to the Minnesota Daily article about Minnesota bike laws. I didn't know about the lights law. I thought as long as you had a reflector on back and a light on the front you were fine. And the news about Phyllis Kahn pushing for yield rules with stop signs for bicyclists was news to me.

And Christine O'Donnell's ignorance of the first amendment (among others), despite being a candidate for a party that claims to be more in touch with the Constitution, while probably overplayed, is still worth repeating. She should have an iPhone or an Android (developed by the mother of one of Eryn's classmates) so she could grab a Constitution application to read between questions. Or is that not allowed?

A Few Favorites

Most of my favorites things to read/watch today came from Pharyngula:

• Christine O'Donnell on evolution
• Richard Tillman on his brother's relationship with God
• The bad science of evolution in science fiction, including the Star Trek Voyager episode, "Threshold", that was apparently incredibly bad that I never saw.
• In combination with the Badger Trail coming out of Madison, the Grand Illinois Trail may be my bicycling target of choice for next year.
• Erotic Monster Manual entries via Boing Boing.
• 2010 Hugo Award Winners

Burning the Koran

I started to write this post about burning the Koran. The issue being, I don't care, because it's a book.

This was from my Progress Report newsletter in response to the Quaran burning, “But this act of hate -- just like the burning of a cross, or painting of a swastika…”

Me: Burning a cross isn’t an act of hatred against a religious group. It’s an act of racism. You could argue the KKK doesn’t like Catholics or Jews either. But they’re not burning the cross as a symbol of hatred against those religions. If you go with the primary focus of the cross burning agenda, black/minority Americans, you have to consider that one of the reasons the symbol is particularly harmful is because people have been lynched and otherwise murdered with the damn thing burning in front of their houses.

A swastika has millions of deaths associated with it. It’s a symbol of hate because the Reich murdered Jews, gypsies and homosexuals by the trainload. Perhaps you could assert that a cross is an act of hatred. Or the existence of the Jewish state flag. But on the flip side, you could argue the same about the crescent moon or the flag of a dozen nations who desire the end of Israel.

Did I miss the part where we murdered lots of Muslims while burning a book? Even if you think US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq is unfounded, the burning of the Koran isn’t a symbol that is levied in conjunction with those events. The U.S. flag is. Burning the Quaran is far more equivalent to burning the U.S. flag than it is to a swastika or cross burning. Doing a quick search on Google – that indeed seems to be the parallel that Muslims are drawing today (9/9/10).

http://www.google.com/search?q=muslim+u.s.+flag+burning&rlz=1I7GGLD_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7

As someone who supports the right of anyone to burn the flag because it’s just a flag, it doesn’t offend me when anyone avails themselves of that right, though I might indeed be nervous if a group of Muslims were burning flags in my front yard. But only because these things don’t generally end in a reasoned, nonviolent protest. If they did, then I’d encourage them to burn away if it was cathartic. Which is why the Koran burning doesn’t offend me much. Comparing it to cross burning and scribbling a swastika on someone’s front door is just hyperbole from the left that serves as much to inflate the whole issue as anything from the right. You might as well be claiming that no one should have an abortion because it offends certain Christians.

Beyond Me: But of course, PZ Myers says it better than me, which I discovered after I'd been typing for a while, and unlike me, he's tried to throw away a holy wafer, only to receive death threats. It's a cookie! Or a cracker, if you think cookies are frivolous. If you're going to get upset about something that happened under a U.S. aegis, with regards to Muslims, maybe you should pick something that has meaning, like the raping 0f prisoners. If you're offended with any act that has any word of God on it, it's going to be an f-ing long haul, because if you parse out the Koran, some word of God is being destroyed pretty much every single minute.

If it's your book, I respect your right to burn it, even if I don't respect you. The opposite of Fahrenheit 451 is not justice and tolerance, it's Fahrenheit 451. Being liberal doesn't mean embracing intolerance with tolerance. It means fighting for freedom of expression regardless of political correctness.

BP Coffee Spill

Funny video The Progress Report pointed me at:

10 Lessons for Teabaggers

This reminds me I want to write about dogging and hogging, but I'll save that. Conner had a link over to Crooks and Liars, and I enjoyed it enough to want to share it. Minnesota has a starring role in #5. Republican States Have the Worst Health Care.

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/10-lessons-for-tea-baggers

Liberal Agenda at Work!

Go ahead...figure out who this quote is alleging is a victim of the liberal media. I bet you can't.

"The incessant character assassination and distortion the liberal media has engaged with its increasingly desperate arsenal is highly discriminatory against a new set of fast becoming oppressed voices."

Did you guess Miss California, Carrie Prejean? I hope if we liberals control the media, we find better things to do with it than worry about some harmless photos. Oh! We're supposed to be leveraging the photos because of her stance against gay marriage. Sure. That makes sense. Except the outrage over an odd nipple, or an even number of tasteful nipples, isn't really our thing. And states are endorsing gay marriage (go NY) despite Carrie Prejean's stance, and I don't think she's really going to have any sort of impact on that legislation and social change.

Maybe I should have saved this for your Facebook page, Klund. I notice you're all about the serious issues over there.

She Says' Choice Gets Cooler in Retrospect

When we were in D.C. over the summer, She Says and her husband (to be, at the time) took us to Ben's Chili Bowl for dinner to have some cheese fries. So "What does the president-elect order on his first Saturday afternoon since moving into town? A chili dog and cheese fries. (Huff Post)" That story obviously loses a little bit of it's luster as Obama wasn't there at the same time we were, but I'm not sure I've ever eaten anywhere else where a president ate, so it's sort of exciting. However, I do have this vague memory of eating with the Boy Scouts at what I swear was an automat frequented by congresspeople near the Capitol in D.C. back in 1981 (is that a dream? or was there some sort of automat-like cafeteria in the area back then? Perhaps not a real automat, but where they put your food in automat-like receptacles?) which would presumably have hosted a president or two if it was real.

Obama Recession

My sister questioned why I didn't have an election day post up. The truth is, I always figured he'd win. I always figured we'd have a black president in my life time. I always figured we'll have a woman president in my life time. I have less faith that we'll have a hispanic president, but still, it's a possibility. So Obama becoming president wasn't the watershed event for me that perhaps it should have been because I just always expected to see it. My Facebook account does list my political persuasion as liberal (although it's missing the fiscal qualifier that should immediately precede that word) - is there any chance I was voting for someone else?

But apparently everyone was expecting him to be president, and that's why the economy is in the toilet. That's right...every damn Republican in the U.S. felt it was a foregone conclusion, and that's why they bought up speculative housing loans, decreased their retail spending by 2.5%, and stopped paying their mortgages. Are there any of you out there that truly believe the crap that comes out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth?

Here's the quote from the Baltimore Sun article:
"The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen," Limbaugh told his radio audience of 15 million to 20 million on Thursday. "Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression."

Really? I saw a news article the other day (and I apologize for the lack of citation) that something like 70% of U.S. citizens have a positive attitude about the Obama presidency that isn't here for two months yet. 19-20% approve of Bush's approach. If the stock market were solely a vehicle of public perception around political individuals, you would have to draw the conclusion that the 20% who support Bush (or the 30% who disapprove of Obama) outnumber the 80% who disapprove of Bush or the 70% who support Obama. Maybe this has something to do with economic distribution and the top fifth owning 80% of the wealth. I guess in that case, it makes a certain amount of perverse sense. But if so, why are they punishing themselves (and my 401k) by screwing over the stock market and financial institutions for trillions of dollars, rather than just handing it over to validate their socialist-paranoia tendencies? I think that would have been exceptionally more efficient in the long run.

Postpourri - politics, headlines, peanuts

Something that sounds wrong, even when you're just thinking it to yourself, "I know, I'd like a mouthful of peanuts."

Stupidest and/or scariest headline in my Eagan Sun Current this week "Lead levels in county exceed EPA standards: Eagan site likely responsible; area affected likely smaller than county." My bold and italics. Likely smaller than county? As in, whew, at least it's not the whole county, we're so very fortunate? WTF.

The 2008 Wassup Video


Ron Howard's Call to Action:

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Gone Rogue

Interesting. From Politico, via Yahoo:

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.

I immediately had to go look up rogue and see if it could anyway be considered a synonym of maverick. Not surprisingly (I have a good effective vocabulary) it's not, but I don't think it would be outside the realm of good language to state that a maverick is likely to "go rouge".

It's interesting to see that phrase being bandied about, considering it was Monegan's "rogue mentality" (AndrewHalcro.com) that was her reason for firing him. Does logic then dictate that McCain should fire Palin for the same reason?

And I wonder why she feels "going rogue" will in some way aid her, when the result is a change in behavior such as, "Palin had also sought to give meatier policy speeches, in particular on energy policy and on policy for children with disabilities." (Politico)? Why? Because as Klund showed with this video on Facebook, when she's aiming for meatier speeches, she's still clueless.


And for everyone who's told me about how she at least did a nice job with the pipeline negotiations, even that's up for questioning now (AP).

McCain Rallies

I'm stealing wholesale from Majikthise again. I recommend reading her blog - it may be one of my favorites lately. She has a nice series of videos from McCain/Palin campaign rallies.

St. Clairesville, OH


Johnstown, PA


A nice video with McCain/Palin supporters

My Favorite Political Post Today

From Majikthise in the entirety, via folo - just worth repeating:

John Cole spotted this on a comment thread at Townhall:

At an Ohio campaign stop last week Obama gave a speech with a background of American flags which is quite common. However, if you look closely some of the flags are not American flags. The blue field has been changed to show an Obama seal. Yes, there are also stars but have no pattern and they do not add up to 50.

With Obama making his own seal and now this it looks like maybe he is putting some credence to the recent article by Stanley Kurtz in the National Review. Is he planning on creating an African county within the US.

I think the presence of these flags should be viewed with alarm. And I don’t want to hear any looney left comments that they are only decoration. They ARE a modification of the American Flag.

And on down a few comments, this:

the flag you’re asking about is the state flag of ohio.

When Did You Hear About Obama

My sister is bemoaning the fact that the campaign is getting a little frightening in the final weeks and we, as Minnesotans, get to enjoy a ring side show while McCain tries to rein in his supporters during a Lakeville rally. I'm not so sure I agree with her blanket statement about Americans - most of the liberals I know aren't screaming about Palin or McCain, they just consider them with that sort of "are they serious?" expression that Republicans seem to associate with elitism instead of incredulity, that look you save for someone who's been making your job harder for the last decade and you constantly wonder why they still have their job.

My sister should have posted video however. You've probably seen most of these, but in case you haven't, here's post-rally in Ohio (via Majikthise), and during the rally in Minnesota. If you scroll to the bottom of this post, you can be assured that my family knew about Obama over four years ago, although we can only prove it as far back as about 3.95 years ago.



Ohio Rally, Part I


Ohio Rally, Part II


McCain and the frightened supporters:
(tpmtv)

Interview with the McCain supporter with transcript:
(TheUptake)

New Campaign Slogan

Eryn and I saw a bumper sticker on the way home from school that read, "Somewhere in Texas a village is missing it's idiot." I said, "Hey, Mom has that sticker. Who do you think is the idiot?"

Eryn replied, "Blah blah blah blah McCain?"

No. But funny.

Postpourri - politics, software, etc

Did you know that in the town of V.F.D., "Rule #4,561 clearly states that citizens are not allowed to use their mouths for recreation"? They mean biting!

Politics:

• Sarah Palin expose via Majikthise
• Sarah Palin compared to a Black and Decker drill by J-Money
• Bush as Sarah Palin, and three (3) Falling Sarah Palin screen savers by PlanetDan
• My Gal (very funny) by George Saunders at the New Yorker (via Mean Mr. Mustard)

Software and Software Managers:

• The Government and Web 2.0 at ReadWriteWeb
• 5 Ways to Use Social Media at ReadWriteWeb
• Lawriter Introduces the First Social Network for Law Students (via Reuters - noted by John at work)
• Attorney 2.0 - Generation Y in Your Law Firm via LawyerKM
  
• How I Learned to Love Middle Managers at Inc.com by Joel Spolsky
• Stack Overflow, the Beta (via Erik the Swede)
• Stack Overflow - What is the single most effective thing you did to improve your programming skills?
• What is Stack Overflow, by Joel Spolsky

Other:

• T-shirt search engine (PleaseDress.Me) via Fimoculous
• Kick-starting a Low-Productivity Day at LifeHacker (via Taylor)

Primary

The other person voting in the primary while Pooteewheet and I were there tonight - it was pretty sparse at 7:00 p.m. - noted that the division of voter registration into A-L and M-Z might be violating neutrality rules.

The primary volunteer immediately responded, "No, no...the sign has a space."

I think A-L might find that humorous.