I Dream Awake

From now on, anyone who tries to tell me why they support the UN will get this from me as my first response:

Watch the whole thing, and then go read more of the details here.

Republicans want to go home to the United States of the 1950s while Democrats want to work there.

Sums up nicely why I’m not either one. Can’t say I’m libertarian either… at least not a 1970’s style big-L libertarian. Guess I’m up for grabs. First political identity to successfully communicate a 21st century set of core policies that advance personal freedom, free enterprise, modest programs for boosting opportunity for all, and a vigorous expansion of our national security wins.

Neal Boortz makes a few good points about why so many people think conservatives are stupid:

Tell me .. how do you counter the “conservatives are ignorant” argument, and how do you manage to recruit more people to the cause of lower taxes, less government and more individual responsibility when you have people running around loose calling themselves conservatives, getting elected to office as conservatives, and running websites as conservatives all the while telling us that the earth does not spin on its axis and does not revolve around the Sun .. and that everything in the known universe revolves around the Earth?

If true conservatives really want to expand their philosophy and mount a sustained movement that just might save individualism, freedom and economic liberty — they had better jettison these zealot nut-cases …. and FAST.

QFT.

Neal Stephenson reviews the movie I wish had been made. Where he saw it, I don’t know. What I saw was not even worthy of the words cheap imitation. This was a meta-fantasy. The fantasy world totally blind to what was put on screen and letting it’s own hopes and fictions deceive into believing it was good, simply because it could not be imagined any other way.

Just saw 300 tonight. Was very, very, very disappointed. Livid is more like it.

I fully expected a cartoonish lack of realism. That’s ok. I love cartoons. I fully expected it to stray from history and to be light on philosophy and emotions. That’s fine. That’s what reading is for. But come on! They couldn’t even approach it with as much an eye for quality as you can find in your average anime? How about a bit of integrity? Maybe some appreciation of classical values? They couldn’t have even given us something a bit more like Gladiator? Or Titus? Or hey, how about Spiderman?? (the preview for 3 looked great… but I should know better after all these miserable years to trust a trailer). I could have even lived with it if it was an intentional comedy. Army of Darkness… Greeks vs. Persians… Same difference, right?

Yeah, I’m a fool. I thought it was going to be like a not quite as good but still very enjoyable mix between.. say… Serenity and Sin City. 1/5 history in a high octane feast for the eyes. Instead it was just utter garbage. I felt insulted. I still do. I think I will for a long time. (Still loathe George Lucas for Star Wars Ep. 3 and Thermopylae matters soooooooo much more.)

Only thing worse than a movie adaption of Gates of Fire not being made after this, is for it to be butchered just as it so obviously will be.

Wow. This is laugh out loud so hard I might fall out the window funny.

Thank you Powerline!

That was motherfucking amazing.

Iowahawk bumper sticker, originally uploaded by KSheinin.

I rather like Gwyneth Paltrow. Alternative energy isn’t half bad either. But the underlying point of this is priceless.

Wait, I take that back… What’s the price of a barrel of oil these days?

Oh, oh, oh! Even better:

Late last night I confirmed that emails sent to my account were failing to arrive. No bounce-backs, just sheer luck on my part that an email was sent to me and cc’d to someone else. I never got my copy. Don’t know how many other emails haven’t arrived.

Today I wake up to the wonderful news that the problem has gotten worse. Now I can’t even sign into my account. It’s been all day now. Same problem is happening to at least thousands of other Gmail users. No clear answer from Google on what’s causing it and only general assurances that it will be fixed eventually.

Not happy…