State of the Union: Bored

I didn't really expect anything different, but the State of the Union address is really, really boring. Bush isn't saying anything. So far I've got:

• Terrorism: Bad
• Democracy: Good
• Unrelatedly, Hamas should stop blowing stuff up
• Support our troops
• Strong ecomony: Good
• Government waste: Bad
• Doing something about social security and medicare costs, which constitute over 60% of the budget, might be a good idea.
• We should talk about that. We'll even include the Democrats. At least, you know, in the talking part. Probably not in the doing stuff part though.
• Secure the border
• Expensive healthcare: Bad
• We use oil. God put all the oil underneath mean people. This seems bad.
• Corn is good.
• I had this dream where we had magical cars that ran, not on oil, but on dreams. Wouldn't that be cool?
• Math and Science: Good
• Funding basic science seems like a good idea. Maybe we shouldn't have cut all that research spending. To be fair, we had to make a token effort to make it look like we were paying for the tax cuts.
• Being nice: Good.
• Yay Sandra Day O'Connor.
• Life: Good.
• Ethics: Good.
• Staying in school: Good.
• Rebuilding Gulf Coast: Good.
• HIV: Bad.
• Americans: Good.

The only really controversial things he's said are:

• Immigrants: necessary
• The tax cuts that we made temporary so that it wouldn't explode budget estimates should (surprise!) be made permanent
• We will cut the deficit in half by 2009. Somehow. We didn't tell you before, but we have a magic powder that will do this that we got from a pixie.
• We're helping the poor and sick. No, really, I swear. Just don't ask me for evidence of it.
• Your doctor's bill and prescriptions are expensive because your doctor gets sued a lot.
• Teenagers are having fewer abortions because we told them not to have sex.
• People spend a lot of time worrying about courts that don't tell gay people God hates them.
• 'Member how I put two new members on the Supreme Court? That was cool.
• I like my wife. You should let her do stuff.
• Church groups who have never dealt with AIDS education seem the best people to deal with the problem, don't you think? They seem to have a firm grasp on reality, I've found.
• I'm like MLK.

Curious to see if the rebuttal will say anything more substantial. If I had to guess, I'd go with "no."

Sony ain't got shit

Let me go on record right now as saying that any Xbox Live competitor Sony comes up with will be utter crap, at least in comparison. Ignoring the fact that Microsoft has been working on Live for many years now, the mere fact that Microsoft is a software company and Sony isn't means they are facing a near insuperable barrier to entry out of the gate.

For fuck's sake. Literally.

Can we please just fire-bomb Kansas and start over with a less retarded population?

Jesus: "I will survive!"

Wrong on so many levels.

(yes, I've been at Google Video again...)

Grad school admission dates

(A rare personal information about me post...)

For those that have asked, I actually bothered to go look on various schools' admissions pages and found that notifications generally go out late February/early March.

Also, I realized I really need to go update my work web page. Sigh. I really hate personal web pages, to be honest. They usually contain all kinds of personal information that no one really cares about. I hope the various admissions committees are too busy to bother looking at applicant web pages.

Well, Conservatives certainly are organized...I'll give them that

Why is it that Democrats (or liberals, since they're not really the same...probably part of the problem from the get-go) are fundamentally unable to organize such well-oiled and powerful networks? I am not merely lamenting here...I genuinely would like to know. Is it that the liberal base is too diverse a group, and trying to get them to cooperate on a wide, far-reaching agenda is like herding cats? Is it that every dinky little interest group is too myopically focused on their particular issue that they are politically unable to see the forest through the trees? Maybe it's simply that Conservatives had a 20-year head start on them...I don't know.

I would love to be able to blame a Conservative conspiracy, and certainly there is a fundamental funding disparity, but I don't think that's the critical factor. There is a fundamental disorganization on the part of groups on the Left that seems to be their own doing (and, of course, undoing). Each individual group (ACLU, PFAW, Planned Parenthood, Move On, etc. etc. etc.) seems reasonably organized on their own, but they are totally incapable of cooperating. There had to have been points on which the Federalists and the Religious Right disagreed, but they seem to have done a damn good job of getting shit done nonetheless. What gives?

Maybe it's that liberals are still not in the mindset of a minority and remain focused on how most of America is stupid (which, admittedly, it is) and how they are losing to tactics rather than policy. Maybe it's that they have to become as cynical as the Right have and stop worrying about ethics, morality, or any other such pesky issues of conscience and do whatever it takes to wrest control of the country back, even if that means outright lying (strategically) to the electorate. Seems to have done wonders for the neocons. Their only problem was that once they finally got what they wanted, it turned out to have been a fundamentally terrible idea, and in fact such a disaster in practice that even they haven't really been able to cover it up.

Only the beginning

This is what will happen if any schmuck can edit a Wikipedia entry.

In contrast...

This hurts me. Very, very deeply. I just died a little inside.

I'm...I'm going to need a minute here

I...I just...whew...umm...yeah, can you come back to me?

(I think that's the closest I'll ever be able to get to watching porn at work...god bless you Carmen Electra)

Holy hell

Now _that's_ fucking public transportation!

There are no words to describe this

Axel F...insanity test...annoying frog...I got nuthin'.

Update: There's a BBC story, and there's an album. I shit you not.

Debate is pointless

Not surprising, but here's the evidence: people ignore evidence.

I've always regarded debate as ultimately pointless except insofar as it's good practice at debating.

Google censoring results

How's that whole "Don't be evil" motto working out for you guys?

From a technical and business perspective, Google has been doing some amazing shit. But from a corporate culture perspective, it's a goddamn scary cult sometimes. One of these years Google is going to slam into middle age at approximately a bazillion miles an hour, and they won't have any fucking idea how to cope with it.

"Shit...we're a big, stagnant, amoral corporation. We've become Microsoft. Fuck."

What?!

"We Black" is going away?!

Oh, so profoundly delicious

This doesn't even need a snide comment. It speaks for itself.

Some quality Amazon reviews

Amazon is becoming a good source of entertainment...

Search engines as leeches

I would retitle this article, "Why Google's stock price is so high."

Therapy in a pill

Major traumatic event in your life? Here! Take this pill!

"You've got..."

"...herpes!"

It's a good idea, but man...can you imagine getting an e-card from them? There are so many delicious possibilities for doing that tastelessly.

"Ever wondered what it would be like for it to burn when you pee?"
"Hypothetically, how would you feel about oozing sores on your genitals?"
"Clap on!..."
"After a night of freaky sex, I hope you're well rested/But just as a thought, you might want to get tested..."
"We want to give you oral...antibiotics!"
"Herpes: the gift that keeps on giving..."
"You've got three letters. The first is H, and the last one is V. Is the middle one P or I? Find out!..."
"Ever heard that song 'Tainted Love'?..."

Etc...

Web 3.0

I was amused by this quippy rant against Web 2.0 culture. If you don't know what Web 2.0 is, count yourself lucky, and try not to learn until the hype passes.