Quintessential [chat]

It's quintessential.

Pat Robertson, a white board, and something about the Soul

i cant get this video to embed, so click the damned link.

Pat Robertson uses a white board, and something something he stole from Buckman to explain why we should not listen to police psychics.

Huckabee is just as bad as the Rest

update in the comments

Until this afternoon, i was willing to give Mike Huckabee a little bit of credit. Based on his television appearances on Daily Show/Colbert as well as other news sources, i felt that, at the very least Huckabee was not just another Christian wing-nut. He seemed willing to talk openly about issues, such as gay marriage, health care, education and social-ad programs in a reasonable adult way. He also appeared to have a sense of humor (inasmuch as he is the VILSACK of the republicans.)

Even when Huckabee fans invaded the EoiaS last month, i was still sure that he was less scary than Brownback and Tancredo. Well now i can say that Huckabee is a fucking douche. LINK

"Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce," the former Arkansas governor said. "It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973."

first off: immigrants (both legal and illegal) have been entering the United States at a constant pace since the last major legal overhaul in the 1950s. It has nothing to do with the lack of americans to do jobs. Also, this assertion is classist. An Immigrate in the current political discourse is code for illegal immigrants from Mexico; most of whom end up working as unskilled labors. By crossing the streams of immigration and abortion Huckabee is arguing that only poor people get abortions. Which is demonstrably untrue.

second. the holocaust. really? are you fucking for real? you are more than welcome to talk about how you disagree with abortion, about how you feel that it is the wrong choice, etc. but a holocaust. fuck you and your dog. talk to people like they are adults, and not like you are trying to score points with James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh. oh. fuck you.

Dumbledore is gay

Source

J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall. After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy."

"Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction."

The thing I like best about this is that somewhere there is an anti-gay conservative who read these books to their child and now they have to question their bigotry towards gays.

*Spoilers in comments.*

Poop.

[21:10] thesupermikey: there are poop jokes.
[21:10] thesupermikey: poop eating jokes
[21:11] jayhaxor: in the trailer
[21:11] jayhaxor: The Trailer
[21:11] thesupermikey: yes
[21:11] jayhaxor: That's the good part they show you to attend
[21:11] thesupermikey: they eat poop
[21:11] thesupermikey: in the trailer
[21:12] thesupermikey: poop eating.
[21:12] thesupermikey: poop
[21:12] thesupermikey: eating.
[21:12] jayhaxor: It's the enticing part they show you
[21:12] thesupermikey: he puts poop in his mouth
[21:12] jayhaxor: But pretends it is a nut.

Through the eyes of a child.

Watch this:


30 seconds in:
"We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Note the chuckle. Note the smile. Now, couple of things.

History:
I think the domino effect which has occured since Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated is fascinating. His death triggers World War I the ending of which triggers World War II. At the end of World War II the United Nations, in response to the Holocaust, creates the state of Israel. Now the creation of the state of Israel will inevitably spark World War 3, ending the world.

Rant:
I don't know what was going through the mind of President Bush when he chuckled as he invoked the notion of World War 3. I don't know what made him giggle and smile like a child on Christmas morning. I've no idea how he can smile as he threatens to start a global armed conflict using nuclear weapons. But it is terrifying. And not in some melodramatic rhetoric sense, but rather in a "This idiot has the launch codes and he's giddy at the through of nuking something." sense.

Because that is the mentality of a certain group of people: the crazy third who see this man as a leader, a visionary. It's the external sign of the internal glee maintained by the war-mongering Right, perpetually entrenched in a Cold War mentality whose cocks ever-harden at the thought of their own WW2, their own great war.

In the video clip, you will note that after the quote President Bush becomes reserved. During the quote he bends over, smirks, laughs, and gesticulates with his hand. Then at 49 seconds he straightens, the smirk disappears, and he reverts back to his practiced "I will continue to work with..." line.

But we saw his true intentions, his underlying passion, the idea that awakens his child-like delight.

He wants to knock over that last domino. Domino 1 fell causing Domino 2 to fall. But Domino 2 required a little help to knock over Domino 3. And George W. Bush is more than happy to get on his knees and poke Domino 3, the final one, just to see what happens.

3rd Party Apps on iPhone.

Source

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers. It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target. Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs. We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones. Steve P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch.

iGot the Touch.

I obtain an iPod Touch on Monday, October 15th. I have never owned or operated an iPod before so this is my first interaction with iPods and iTunes. Here is my summary of the experience thus far.

Packaging:: The contents of the package are nowhere explained or labeled. There are two pieces of plastic included in the package the purpose of which are not self-evident. After trying to put them together and googling “Ipod Touch”+”packaging” I finally consulted a friend who explained that the clear piece was the stand and the white piece was an adapter for some product I do not own. This is not an ideal first impression.

Design: Like the PSP, the Touch arrives in pristine condition, carefully wrapped in protective plastic sheeting. Once this is removed one is engaged in a constant battle against smudges. I don’t know who thought that hand-held devices need to be sleek and shiny, but they need to be fired because they aren’t designing products for use in the real world.

Another oddity is the placement of the headphone jack on the bottom of the device. Unless a user is reclined, or is utilizing some sort of hat-based mounting system, the Touch will always be below one’s ears. So why place the headphone jack on the bottom? This placement requires that either a user operate the Touch upside-down or that the cord travel from the headphones past the Touch to the bottom of the device, rather than there being a straight line of cord from the top of the device to the headphones. (Aside: The headphones that come with the iPod Touch are terrible.)

iTunes: Once the device is smudged and charging via the usb cable the next step is to install iTunes. As I loathe Macintosh software I dreaded this step but was happily surprised by the experience. All of the automated features can be turned off so one can safely neuter iTunes to not overrun one’s system. Once iTunes is installed one can manually add MP3 folders to the Library and so maintain the barrier between iTunes and the rest of the machine.

Now that the touch is smudged and charged, iTunes is installed, and MP3 folders have been added to the library I can actually use the device.

Using the Device:

The biggest complaint I have about the iTouch is that Music, Video, Images, and Calendar entries cannot be modified or removed via the device itself, but can only be added/removed/modified via iTunes. So if in preparing for a weekend away I want to put a few pictures of Furries and a video of Jenna Jameson on my iTouch for use that night in the hotel room those pictures and videos will be on my iTouch until I am able to connect it to iTunes and remove them. I am not in favor of this. I want to be able to delete files from the device by means of the device itself. I would also like for the device to have removable storage, but that is a rant for another day.

Contacts: The contacts feature of the iTouch does not make me happy. When one syncs the device, contacts from the iTouch sync with either Windows Address Book or Yahoo! Address Book. As a rule I do not use programs to manage my contact info but rather use Excel documents or .csv documents, because friends don’t let friend’s information get data mined. I would like to have the option of exporting contact information to a .csv document or some similar document rather than tossing addresses and phone numbers into the Windows Address Book where any moderately advanced data miner can retrieve them.

Browser: The main reason I wanted an iPod Touch is for the browser and in this regard the device met all of my expectations. While I don’t like the idea of primarily focusing on web-apps (sometimes I don’t have access to WiFi) for user-created programs there are some delightful web-apps out there. One that I found today (textoniphone.com) is 2,000+ books online that one can read in the browser. What is awesome about this particular app is that one can “save” the book in 50 page chunks to new browser windows which can be accessed when one does not have WiFi access. Right now I have 50 pages of the Communist Manifesto stored in a browser page and I can switch back and forth between google, penny-arcade forums, and the pages. If I disable the WiFi the pages are still there, even if I clear browser history and cookies.

That’s what I know thus far. I still have more to explore. I don’t know how to make multiple photo albums, I haven’t purchased anything from iTunes, I haven’t installed any videos, and my calendar is blank because “no supported calendar application can be found”. But this post is long enough and gives people something to read at work tomorrow and also some information about the iPod Touch that they maybe didn’t find anywhere else.

Vanna is Smart?

I do not know what to make of this video.....i am....lost for words

Behold the Glory

As presented to me by one Daniel, Man of Skill and Prowess:

A Club Worthy of My August Personage

Turkey is dumb.

Turkey's top general warned that ties with the U.S., already strained by attacks from rebels hiding in Iraq, will be irreversibly damaged if Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide.

So, apparently, in Turkish Kindergarden classes the adage is, "Sticks and stones may break my bones and words will always hurt me."

I fail to see what the problem is. Sure, no country likes to have another country proclaim that 90 years ago it committed genocide, that's no one's idea of a party. But considering it was 90 years ago, and it is a toothless resolution that doesn't actually do anything I don't understand why Turkey is being so pissy about this. Because here is what will happen. Congress passes a resolution saying that 90 years ago the Armenian Genocide was a Genocide. Then that resolution gets filed in a cabinet somewhere.

What kind of person is irritated by this?

Much as I read about this situation I can't find anything that will actually happen as a result of the resolution. Turkey won't be tasked with making blankets for every Armenian of woman born, Turkey won't have to construct settlements for the ancestors of these Armenians. Nothing will actually happen.

So why do they care what our Congress, who are not historians, say?