VR World Cup Soccer
World Cup 2006 Combo
World Cup 2006 Penalty Shoot Out
6/15/06
If we invade Iran, the terrorists will have won!
A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. |Associated Press|
6/13/06
Untitled post #32
Well, it's about time for me to cut out of work early and go watch Brazil kick the crap out of Croatia. I leave you with the wisdom of Dave Eggers:
Oh, wait, here's a thought of my own (spurred by the opening paragraphs of Eggers' article). The popularity of youth soccer in the U.S. is one of the reasons that the U.S. isn't very good at soccer. This is because American youth soccer is just barely a sport. It's kids running around with no particular idea of why they're doing it. It's tag with a ball but without purpose. It isn't, in short, the sort of activity that one improves at or cares much about improving at.
It's inevitable, given the way the U.S. teams are improving every year, that eventually we will make it to the semifinals of the World Cup, and it's likely, one would think, that the United States will win it all in the near future. This is a country of limitless wealth and 300 million people, after all, and when we dedicate the proper resources to a project, we get the job done (see Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq).|link|
Oh, wait, here's a thought of my own (spurred by the opening paragraphs of Eggers' article). The popularity of youth soccer in the U.S. is one of the reasons that the U.S. isn't very good at soccer. This is because American youth soccer is just barely a sport. It's kids running around with no particular idea of why they're doing it. It's tag with a ball but without purpose. It isn't, in short, the sort of activity that one improves at or cares much about improving at.
What the fitz?
The left-wing of the blogosphere (of which I usually consider myself to be part) is positively despondent that Rove appears to be in the clear regarding Plamegate. I don't get it. So far, there has been very little to suggest that Fitzgerald is anything other than a professional doing his job competently. If he isn't planning on indicting Rove, doesn't that suggest that maybe Rove isn't guilty?
I confess I'm less and less confident in my regular left-wing outlets for information. It's frustrating, but at this point I can count the left-leaning blogs that are rigorous about their information on one (and a half) hands. I'm sure there are many that I don't know about or don't read, but I do read all the famous ones.
I confess I'm less and less confident in my regular left-wing outlets for information. It's frustrating, but at this point I can count the left-leaning blogs that are rigorous about their information on one (and a half) hands. I'm sure there are many that I don't know about or don't read, but I do read all the famous ones.
6/12/06
Pandering to the masses, Oklahoma bans violent video games...and nudity
Gamesutra reports that the Oklahoma governor has signed House Bill 3004, which according to Gamesutra will require that violent video games will have to be kept in a closed room much the way adult movies are currently treated.
Poking around on the Oklahoma legislature website, I found the bill which claims:
Ah, how I miss the Bible belt. This is another worthless law that will never get enforced because its too vague to enforce.
Of course, the Dem's want to get in on this anti-video game action too as illustrated by Hilary Rodham Clinton's recent media guide.
Without a bright line rule, it's going to be very difficult for video game makers to meet these standards. Oklahoma's rejection of the ESRB rating system without providing any concrete guidance will make this law a nightmare to enforce. Some prosecutors might try for publicity purposes, but they'll waste a lot of taxpayers' money trying to define social standards and show that these vague standards were violated.
It's just a soundbite of a law without any real thought behind it.
Video games are very powerful and can have negative and positive effects on children (and adults), as I've written elsewhere. Legislators are right to be interested in that, but these sorts of laws are worthless.
Poking around on the Oklahoma legislature website, I found the bill which claims:
"Harmful to minors" means:...that quality of any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse... or any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of inappropriate violence...|Link|
Ah, how I miss the Bible belt. This is another worthless law that will never get enforced because its too vague to enforce.
Of course, the Dem's want to get in on this anti-video game action too as illustrated by Hilary Rodham Clinton's recent media guide.
Without a bright line rule, it's going to be very difficult for video game makers to meet these standards. Oklahoma's rejection of the ESRB rating system without providing any concrete guidance will make this law a nightmare to enforce. Some prosecutors might try for publicity purposes, but they'll waste a lot of taxpayers' money trying to define social standards and show that these vague standards were violated.
It's just a soundbite of a law without any real thought behind it.
Video games are very powerful and can have negative and positive effects on children (and adults), as I've written elsewhere. Legislators are right to be interested in that, but these sorts of laws are worthless.
6/9/06
World Cup: Funny names edition
Costa Rica just lost to Germany 4-2. Perhaps it's because the Costa Rican goalie's name is a homonym for "porous!"
6/8/06
In news of the totally awesome
Wired news has a story up about how one can get a sixth sense (a sense of magnetism) by inserting a small magnet under the skin of one's ring finger. Just by feeling it moving around against the very sensitive nerves of the fingertips, one can actually sense things like whether or not a wire currently conducting electricity or when a hard drive is spinning. The future is now!
In other totally awesome news, go here and check out this picture. It's a bridge over a river... for another river. It's hard to imagine until you see it. (I found that at Dubious Quality).
In other totally awesome news, go here and check out this picture. It's a bridge over a river... for another river. It's hard to imagine until you see it. (I found that at Dubious Quality).
6/7/06
Grand Theft Auto for the God-Fearin'
Mark Morford's take on the newest Christian video game is worth a read. Who among us hasn't hasn't secretly yearned for a grand crusade where morality is black-and-white and we're the good guys smiting the evil-doers?
Now every militant Christian can act out their fantasies in a video game based on the Left Behind series.
Now every militant Christian can act out their fantasies in a video game based on the Left Behind series.
Are you a true believer? Do you just know deep down in your black Wal-Mart socks that every word of the Bible is the absolute literal truth and nothing dare be doubted and anyone who thinks [otherwise] should be strung up by their small intestine and beaten with sticks sharpened by Mel Gibson's teeth?
Do you feel, furthermore, that human cretins like, say, gays and Jews and Wiccans and all those hippie weirdos with their iPods and low-cut jeans and easy laughter are a plague upon this fine and holy land?
Do you think ...that you should probably go out into the street right now and behead a few lambs and perhaps mow down some Taoists with a Gatling gun just to deflect its horrible notions of the sacredness of the feminine divine? You do?
Praise Jesus! Your video game has arrived....."Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game, based on the freakishly best-selling series of apocalyptic trash-lit books. It's an ultraviolent, hilariously inept, wondrously accurate portrayal of what every true right-wing Christian fundamentalist really fantasizes about after they've had one too many pink wine spritzers and have logged a few hours in the gay chat rooms and have sufficiently indoctrinated their happily numb kids with tales of vile homos and scary "progressive" liberals who want to buy them candy and tattoo their sacrums and feed them organic hot dogs.|SF Chronicle|
6/6/06
Huh.
So I could post about something important, or about Morgellon's Disease, but instead here's some insight into my character. I'm a baseball fan. For the last eight years or so I've followed the Astros pretty closely. Just now I read this paragraph over at King Kaufman's Sports Daily:
And then I went directly to baseball-reference.com to see if it was true that the Astros had been in the World Series. It was! And then I remembered A.J. Pierzynski despite the best efforts of my considerable psychic defense mechanisms.
In other baseball fandom news, I decided last week to take a run at becoming a Tigers fan, on the grounds that I now live pretty close to Comerica Park and even closer to a Comerica ATM. The fact that the Tigers had the best record in baseball had, of course, nothing to do with my decision. Anyway, I tuned my radio to the games and the team promptly lost three out of four to the Yankees and two out of three to the Red Sox. A.J. and the ChiSox are coming to town today and that could be the last straw.
Go Pistons! Oh wait...
On this same morning last year, the Astros were 19-32, in last place in the Central Division, 10 and a half games from the nearest playoff spot. And it looked legit, too. They looked like a bad team going nowhere, and that's just where they went, if you consider the World Series "nowhere."
And then I went directly to baseball-reference.com to see if it was true that the Astros had been in the World Series. It was! And then I remembered A.J. Pierzynski despite the best efforts of my considerable psychic defense mechanisms.
In other baseball fandom news, I decided last week to take a run at becoming a Tigers fan, on the grounds that I now live pretty close to Comerica Park and even closer to a Comerica ATM. The fact that the Tigers had the best record in baseball had, of course, nothing to do with my decision. Anyway, I tuned my radio to the games and the team promptly lost three out of four to the Yankees and two out of three to the Red Sox. A.J. and the ChiSox are coming to town today and that could be the last straw.
Go Pistons! Oh wait...
6/5/06
Oh, Canada!
Don't know about the rest of you folks, but I'm calmly waiting for somebody to make the connection between (a) buiding a physical barrier across the U.S. border with Mexico; and, (b) seventeen Canadian Islamic extremists arrested with three metric shitloads of high explosives.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The universe grows smaller every day
(via TDQ)
Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600˚F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250˚F.) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth. |Is It Raining Aliens?|
etiolate
[French 'étioler', from Norman French 'étieuler', to grow into haulm, from 'éteule', stalk, from Old French 'esteule', from Latin 'stipula', stalk]
trans. v.
1. In botany, to cause a plant to develop without chlorophyl by preventing exposure to sunlight.
2. To cause to appear pale and sickly.
3. To make weak by stunting the growth or development of.
trans. v.
1. In botany, to cause a plant to develop without chlorophyl by preventing exposure to sunlight.
2. To cause to appear pale and sickly.
3. To make weak by stunting the growth or development of.
6/2/06
Yup.
Via Yglesias:
Speaking just for myself, I'm not going to vote for another Democrat who refuses to tack left. Ever.
One reason for the persistence of these Democratic phobias has been the party’s abysmal inability, a year and a half after the fact, to reckon with the real reason for Kerry’s loss in the 2004 campaign: once again, fear. Kerry’s campaign was driven by a fear of his shadow (his antiwar activism after Vietnam), of seeming too strident by attacking, even when he himself was being attacked (first by Karl Rove’s “senator flip-flop” campaign, then by the Swift Boat veterans). How else can one explain the inexplicable—the spectacle of a Silver Star winner made to look wimpy by two men who avoided combat? Simple: He was terrified of speaking out. His campaign even toned down the convention speech of that most mild-mannered of presidents, Jimmy Carter. |Mark Hirsch|
Speaking just for myself, I'm not going to vote for another Democrat who refuses to tack left. Ever.
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