Robot Monkeys

Competitive eating game for the Wii.

I need to get a Wii, of course it’s two years after the release, and you still can’t buy them.

Still need World Championship Foosball for the Wii, or at least Naomi Yotsumoto’s Table Tennis.

Freedom disables the network, because I have no self-control.

I’ve wanted something like this for awhile. I’m glad someone made it.

Now I just have to actually start it…

Fear and Loathing at DNC is full of interesting photos, and I recommend it as a photoblog, but I was struck by the photo of the march plan, complete with where “arrestables” were supposed to be.

Nothing is more convincing than attending a Rage Against the Machine concert and then going out with a plan to get arrested as part of a march. That always works. “Wow. I thought these people were annoying, but now that a see Zack de la Rocha look-a-like sitting in the middle of the street getting arrested, I’ve become convinced and want to subscribe to their newsletter.”

These are the cliched tactics of the 60s. They don’t work. “Raising consciousness” is worthless. Achieving change is the only thing that matters, and these guys are more about attending a social gathering.

Straight Talk on the minimum wage:

The more astute among you may have noticed, that wasn’t the question the question ask. I guess we should give McCain some credit. At least he didn’t say, “9/11 changed everything.”

Wait. So which was “the good thing” and which was “the bad thing” in the minimum-wage/war-funding bill? Worse yet, it implies a confirmation that he only voted to increase the minimum wage because it was tied to funding GWB’s Iraqapades.

McCain, then criticizes Obama for voting for the energy bill because it had pork in it for the oil companies. He then complains that if off-shore drilling is brought to a vote, it will have other things attached. He’s right, it will. You can complain about that, and I have many times. It’s a bipartisan dishonest tactic, but it is what it is.

But right when I’m starting to understand where he’s coming from and think, “Okay, let’s have a policy discussion about how to best achieve this. Can we grow the economy in such a way to increase the real purchasing power of low income people, without legislating a wage floor, and if so how?”

Of course that’s not what happened. The segment ended. McCain could have answered the question from the start with this tact, and it would have been honest and interesting. But no. Instead he chose random things in an attempt to criticize Obama and paradoxically paint Obama as a friend of Big Oil. If he had answered the question, then I could respect him, but that’s not what he did. He said, “Hey! Shiny! Look at the shiny!”, and then tried to turnaround and act responsible.

Cra-zay.

The best part? It was playing “I’m not a Bimbo”

Since there’s no permalink, I’m reposting after the jump.
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Andy Borwitz misses the point.

1. Logic has no place in a political campaign. The republicans have shown they are quite adept at the Rovian tactic of attacking your opponents strength, and letting his weaknesses speak for themselves. Who is in the best position to continue the growth of the economy? The opposition party. Who is the war hero? The guy that can’t even bother to show up to the National Guard, not the guy who was wounded in combat.
2. She’s the fucking veep. She’s JV. She’s the farm team. I would have thought the Republican response would have obvious to even the most simple dullard, but apparently not. “Of course she’s not experienced enough to be president! That’s why she’s the vice president!”

But of course is HuffPo where Arianna’s favorite commedian friends can expound such insightful remarks.

Now why am I supposed to find HuffPo relevant again? Oh yeah, Arianna used her money to have CNN promote it and her D-Class “comedy” troupe as part of their “Best Political Team on Television.”

Fuck HuffPo.

Now that I’m done ranting about jackasses on richbitch.com, let me turn my attention to the VPILF.

The GOP is going to do several things. First, they’re going to ride her vagina. They’re going to ride that all day long to get as many PUMA-people as possible. You counter that by showing that she’s a self-hating female. She’s anti-choice, and anti-equal-pay.

Next, they’re going to paint her as a mavrick. Now you’d that’s not what the base wants, but if there’s anything about the Republican base, they know how to fall in line. Also they know the whole “mavrick” thing is just a tactic to win. They’re going to say how she’s anticorruption and held oil companies responsible. You counter that by highlighting the fact that she (and everyone else in Alaska) is a big fan of Ted Stevens. She’s Miss Bridge to Nowhere. She’s Miss Prudhoe Bay.

They’re going to use her as their pointwoman on healthcare by having her parade out her retard kid. Just accept that. You’re going to have to attack on policy there, and that’s where the republicans are going to manufacture sexism. As much as they whine about “a culture of victimhood,” they’ll employ it, and the MSM will love it. It’s an easy controversy.

McCain might have tipped the field just enough in his favor to win. There’s no reason why the race is this close, other than the fact that the Democratic brand is so tarnished that a damn convicted child molester could be elected president as long as he’s a Republican. Well that, and the Democrats are wusses.

Does that mean Obama is a wus? I don’t think so. You don’t win a Democratic primary from the South Side of Chicago without knowing how to use a knife, and last night’s speech I think (or at least hope) that Obama is willing to brain McCain with a baseball bat. Or if you prefer, shoot a man on a couch during a debate and say, “Oh I’m sorry. Did I break your concentration?”

Obama is the nominee by acclimation.

Never doubted it.

Somewhere along my travels I came across a link about Red Mercury. This is a substance that may or may not exist, and may or may not actually be exotic.

Red Mercury is supposably some sort of super substance that increases the explosive power of nuclear weapons. Sort of like naqahdriah in Stargate. There’s been people saying that Red Mercury exists and does different things for 20 years now. Of course, what it does seems to depend on who you ask. Sometimes it’s an enhancer. Sometimes it’s fissionable material. Sometimes it’s actual reddish mercury. Sometimes it’s some type of mercury from Russia. Sometimes, it’s not even mercury, nor from Russia. All four quadrants of the real/fake-covert/open matrix filled.

Apparently, there’s no end to the conspiracies about it.

From the banging-around-the-hdd-for-eight-months-department…

There are near perfect counterfeit bills floating around the world. You may even have one right now (assuming of course, you’re like my dad and carry bills in excess of $20). They have the same paper, watermarks, mylar strip, uv ink, microprint, and optical variable ink. Not only that, but the bills are constantly updated, and aren’t produced in quantity. Only $50 million have been seized in 18 years, and that’s not enough to make the runs profitable.

The rumor was that North Korea was behind the bills, but they can’t be because, they don’t have the ink, and there’s questions about whether than can even do the printing. (Of course that’s not stopping the Bush Administration from saying North Korea is behind it.)

The really weird thing? They’re not perfect. They’re intentionally flawed.

So what’s going on here? There are several questions here. First, who is capable of doing this? Printing and Engraving gets the ink from Swiss Sicpa. The paper comes from Crane & Co., and I believe that Crane & Co is legally forbidden to sell the paper to anyone other than the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, so that makes it unlikely that they are the source of the paper. It’s possible that someone is making a copy of the paper.

The bigger question is of course, is that if you could make super accurate counterfeits, then why would you make them flawed? That’s more interesting. The only reason why I could think of why you would want copies that accurately replicate all the anticounterfeit devices, but then add flaws in typically unexamined parts, is to mark them. Someone wants to be able to identify these bills later. The only reason I can think you would want to do this is a track them.

So who could be behind this? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t count out the CIA. They have the means, the presses at Printing and Engraving, the question is the motive? That I don’t know, but I could easily see distributing US currency and tracking it as part some standard intelligence gathering tool, or at least some CIA operating manual. So why is the ironically named Secret Service talking about this? Easy. They don’t need to know, and the fact that the US Government is investigating this, deflects suspicion away from the the US Government.

Just sayin’.