Friday, November 03, 2006

ö Weird Al is just too White and Nerdy [GoogleVid] COMIC RELIEF DEPARTMENT: "Weird Al" Yankovic's White and Nerdy music video from his new album "Straight Outta Lynwood". The snap isn't from the video, it's Al's Home Page. Anyway... here's some of the lyrics:  I've been browsin', inspectin' X-Men comics, you know I collect 'em The pens in my pocket, I must protect 'em My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored Shoppin' online for deals on some writable media I edit Wikipedia I memorized "Holy Grail" really well I can recite it right now and have you ROTFLOL I got a business doin' web sites When my friends need some code, who do they call? I do HTML for 'em all Even made a home page for my dog Yo, I got myself a fanny pack They were havin' a sale down at The Gap Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap Pop pop, hope no one sees me... gettin' freaky I'm nerdy in the extreme and whiter than sour cream I was in A/V Club and Glee Club and even the chess team Only question I ever thought was hard Was, do I like Kirk or do I like Picard? Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Faire Got my name on my underwear   permanent link #     ^ TOP ^  what is this place?

ö 35,000 in Secret Bush Prisons?  I'm at the Center for American Progress, listening to Sid Blumenthal and Glenn Greenwald talk about the Imperial Presidency, and one thing is important enough for me to want to live blog. Sid says that Wilkerson, Powell's old chief of staff, believes that the correct number of victims in secret Bush prisons is 35,000, only 5% of which "may" have to do with terrorism. More than twice what I thought, and hardly any to do with the "war on terror." Wake up America, it's getting closer.  permanent link #     ^ TOP ^  what is this place?

ö hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to the one heavenly lord  Enough With the 'One God' Stuff In the world today, one ancient religious ideology, monotheism, stands out as especially dangerous, repressive and loony. [...] But monotheism posits one omnipotent, lonely sucker all by himself -- "the sky god" as Gore Vidal once called him. The first five books of the Hebrews' Bible reveal, not surprisingly, that the sky god is often angry, jealous, vengeful, and even murderous -- regularly toying with, manipulating and punishing the puny beings he creates to worship and amuse him. Not surprisingly, he's a self-absorbed ascetic who invents for his "children" bizarre, impossible-to-comply-with rules governing a multitude of tiny details of daily life. Sometimes he goes berserk about minor infractions; frequently he ignores major violations of his own rules. He's the original bad father, threatening awful punishments, with no wife, lover, siblings, friends, co-workers, neighbors or relatives to reign him in. Early Christians and then Muslims added to monotheism the great creative innovation of the promise of eternal life. [...] Inevitably, some prominent believers turn out to have long been hypocrites, liars and secret sinners -- adulterers, gamblers, drug users, homosexuals. But hypocrisy poses no threat to the monotheists who say the hidden sins demonstrate the awful power of the evils they battle. The self-righteous condemn the sins, of course, but they actually approve of the lies, insisting that "hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue -- to the one heavenly lord. more   And, on a related note, Ted Haggard, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has given up his post while a church panel investigates allegations he paid a man for sex. He also happens to be a friend and advisor to Dubya. I posted about Pastor Ted's New Life Church, Colorado Springs (USAFA) and young officers who believe in a coming apocalypse being appointed to the military academies by zealous congressmen last November. permanent link #     ^ TOP ^  what is this place?