Do NOT Deny Science!

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Palin Fans Are Clueless

I'm not making this up, just going by their vague, uninformed responses to softball questions asked outside a Palin book-signing event last weekend.

Hilarious, until you realize that these people are basing their votes on hollow buzzwords, not common sense or fundamental familiarity with the issues* comprising Palin's platform. It's embarrassing that so many of them can't finish a sentence. It's even more embarrassing that America's unhealthy fascination with celebrity obscures the view of common sense (this is an issue of epidemic proportions that we can't address in just one post).

* To be perfectly fair, much of the so-called "Obama Nation" is the same way. You can tell they are second-guessing themselves now that he hasn't proven to be the messiah in the first 25% of his first term.

Source: Dangerous Minds, via BoingBoing.

Stop Making Money Off My Vote Already

There's a lot of chatter this morning about the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Now, we're used to corruption in this state's politics. Rod can't help but have dollar signs in his eyes - that's how Illinois politics works. (Either you're corrupt and unethical like Rod and Ryan, or you're a completely moronic bigot like James Meeks or Monique Davis.) But Rod's arrest this morning reveals that there's yet another asshole desperate to make a quick buck off the way America voted last month.

What bothers me is the fact that no one seems offended by any of the innumerable other attempts to make money off Barack Obama's president-elect status. Every chump out there is already serving not only to cheapen Obama's presidency before he takes office, but to prolong America's reputation as a nation of blithering idiots. (If we made sense and acted responsibly, I suppose we couldn't call ourselves Americans, could we?) Too many of our fellow Americans are wasting their precious dollars on useless novelty items that commemorate a presidency that has yet to happen. Obama plates, Obama t-shirts and buttons, Obama lipgloss, wine, mousepad, pocket-knife keychains, teddy bears, action figures and bobble heads -- all this and HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING YET! This is worse than gloating, people. It's stupid and pathetic.

The people behind this crass commercialization, and the idiots buying their wares, make me (still) embarrassed to be American and (particularly) sick to be a resident of Illinois. They should all be locked up with Blago. And then I should really think about moving elsewhere.

The Only Shocker We'll Get From Dubya:

Talk about senioritis. Dubya, classy world leader that he's always been, raises the shocker in a photo taking during his White House welcome to 2008's NCAA champs.

Polling Place Ponderings

While waiting in line to vote, I turned my attention to the things I can't wait to be end with the election season. Three things in particular have been grinding my nerves over the past few weeks...

Claiming "this is the most historic election" ever...
You're only proving that you don't understand what "historic" means when you make claims like this. Stop being such a magpie; everyone knows you're just chirping what heard that on the news (which is more interested keeping you in the audience than keeping you properly informed). Something is either "having importance in or influence on history" or not; there is no graduated scale in the making of history, only in the way it is interpreted afterward. Every Presidential Election is equally historic. Every Election Day makes history. Even if we thought it was uneventful, it would still be historic because it's influencing history, one way or another. If you want to consider the voter turn-out a historic thing, that's fine -- but every voter turn-out before this was historic, too. Historic lows, historic highs... they're all recorded as public record and therefore part of the fabric of history. But, what's so ground-breaking about a US Presidential Election that boils down to one candidate from each of the two controlling parties, both of a Judeo-Christian faith? The choice isn't much different than it's ever been. It's good that you're voting, but keep things in perspective.

Implying that your vote counts more than mine because you're going to Grant Park tonight.
My vote counts just as much as yours; it always has and always will. But I don't create more waste with stickers, pamphlets or buttons; I don't lie that my middle name is Hussein or "donate my status" on Facebook (Why do some of you think assuming a fake name convinces me to vote for Obama, anyway? It doesn't make you the voice of reason you think you are. In fact, giving a false name may violate Facebook's terms of use); I don't consider my choice of candidate a status symbol -- it is our civic duty to vote, plain and simple. It's good that you voted, but you're not any more unique for it. If you secured tickets to gain entry to a public park for a speech tonight, good for you. I will have a better view from the comfort of my living room, and I won't be making the downtown area impassable for the people who traverse it every day. You are free to stand outside and clap for a jumbo-tron if you want. Just don't count your chickens before they hatch -- a lot of us thought Gore won eight years ago, but that's not how it played out.

Thinking it's a good idea to create election-themed advertising campaigns.
I work in advertising, and have been sick to my stomach with the inane "election" themes that have been pitched since before this time last year. Thankfully, not many made it to the public - but a lot of them did. Realize this is part of the reason people hate advertising: when you take something serious and belittle it to sell automobiles or donuts, you make us all look like idiots. You make people feel fatigued by the time election day comes, and dillute the power of real voting as though it were as inconsequential as picking the right soft drink in the supermarket, or as trivial as selecting the winner of a game show. I am happy it will be another four years before bad advertisers belittle our civic duties again, even though I know I have peers who will revisit those inane themes again and again and again.

Three Words To Retire

I imagine this will be a recurring post theme for me (though I'm sure there are other folks out there making similar efforts). Let's start with three words that need to be retired from the English language: diva, luxury and maverick.

Diva
A diva is an operatic prima donna. A diva is not the latest tramp to butcher R&B, soul or hip-hop conventions. Much of the blame for this forced retirement falls on VH1. Don't ever refer to a musician as a diva when she has just one or two releases to her name. In fact, don't refer to anyone as a diva -- odds are she's probably just an ordinary bitch.

Luxury
Luxury is a word, like diva, that carries very little of its original meaning in the ways it is most commonly used now. Chocolate is not a luxury; you can get it at any corner store or vending machine. Two small bedrooms and one bath do not add up to a luxury condominium, especially when there's no parking space included (let alone a chauffeur). To never again encounter any such abuse of the word "luxury" would, ironically, be very luxurious for me.

Maverick
I don't need to remind anyone of who's butchering this one, but it's clear the culprits are not the best-read people in the news today. A maverick is a lone, independent dissenter -- NOT the candidate nominated by the incumbent party, nor his Alaskan twit sidekick (who is, coincidentally, more likely to shoot a true maverick from a helicopter than ever embody the term herself).

Got a word on the verge of retirement? Let's send it away early! Leave your suggestions in the comments and we'll go from there.

GUNS!

This past weekend, thousands of Chicagoans brought guns to church.

6,705 guns, to be exact, as part of the city's gun buy-back program. ("Buy-back?" Doesn't this imply that the city sold the guns to them in the first place?) Everyone turning in a gun got a $100 pre-paid MasterCard, while supplies lasted. Some folks think that's not going to make a long-term difference, since no actual gun-wielding idiots were taken off the streets. Speaking of idiots, the NRA is suing the city and two suburbs to make room for more guns on the streets.

As if on cue amidst all this gun-crazy gun-loving comes a rarity from seminal copyright infringers Negativland: the New American Radio version of "Guns!". It's not the same version that appeared on the SST Records original 1991 release, which was Negativland's attempt to earn the label some revenue after the big U2 lawsuit. Download the MP3 at Kill Ugly Radio. Burn it and the U2 tracks to CD so you're prepared for any Copyright Infringement Buy Back programs that might turn up.

See also:
Negativland: U2
Negativland: Guns!
Negativland: Fair Use - The Letter U and The Numeral 2

We Can All Believe In Monique Davis' Resignation

Representative Monique D. Davis (IL) is not fit to hold public office. Just listen. In fact, I think you should email her and tell her what a bigot she is, demand her resignation, and maybe even tell her that she's probably already guaranteed a spot in whatever hell she believes in. To spit so much venom, to be such a short fuse... she's a liability to Illinois.

For added kicks, check the comments on this little site (coincidentally) run by a guy who used to sport Skinny Puppy T-shirts in the same World Religions and Journalism courses I took at NIU.

UPDATE:
It took a while to bounce back, but it's dead. That email address for our favorite hater-faith-having politician is undeliverable. No good. You'll have to contact this winner of world's worst person the old-fashioned way.

Japan's Ambassador of Anime

This is huge news, people. Doraemon (aka Ding Dong) has been appointed Japan's cartoon ambassador, tasked with promoting anime to the world.

Once sworn in, Doraemon was heard to comment: "It's an honor to do such an important job. I'll work as hard as I can."

I, for one, welcome our new cat-like robot ambassador from the 26th century.

We call that "sampling", Hillary.

Well, sampling may not be the preferred term in political circles, but that's basically what it is.

If Deval Patrick doesn't have a problem with it, why should anyone else? It's not plagiarism if it's used with permission, whatever it is. Beside that, Hillary hasn't exactly written all her own material. Is she implying that she utters nary a phrase that's been uttered by anyone else in the history of mankind?

Folks might not boo her if she were a little more "with the times". And maybe not such a divisive bellyacher, when her political career seems predicated on her husband more than her own merit. (Total pot-shot added to justify use of this image.)

[Image sampled from The Carpet Bagger Report]

Pretending To Ask Is Not Asking

Reading Kottke this morning got me to this article by ABC columnist John Allen Paulos. As an irreligious citizen myself, I think it's great to see some attention given (finally) to the most under-represented minority group in this country: atheists.

ABC deserves congratulations for courting the godless reader, but there's one giant, glaring thing wrong with this article. The questions posed to candidates are fictional. The article only imagines asking these questions instead of actually asking them. If only there were a news outlet with correspondents covering the presidential race, correspondents who could ask these questions of the candidates... a news outlet like ABC perhaps?

(Their) god only knows why they haven't thought to stop pretending and start asking. Well, their god and their Mickey.

In The Event of [ ____ ] Disaster

Having worked in advertising the past eight years, I've encountered a few worst-case-scenario assignments. The most memorable were in anticipation of Mad Cow disease and bird flu. Thankfully, none of those scenarios came to pass. But having gone through the exercise of "what if, and then what?" gives me an appreciation of this William Safire-penned speech. Written for Nixon, In The Event Of Moon Disaster prepared for some unforeseen catastrophe that would have prevented Apollo 11 astronauts from returning to Earth from the moon.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

This first sentence is a blatant reminder that politicians rarely speak with such eloquence any more. Where there was an implied sense of reverence and respect for the American public in Nixon's day (yes, I am aware of the irony in that statement), now is self-congratulatory smugness and complacency, if not mild retardation. Something to keep in mind with the election year approaching. Then again, if the wrong candidate wins again, there's always the burgeoning space tourism industry - and a potential to escape not only to Canada, but perhaps our nearest celestial neighbor.

[via Kottke.org]