Documenting My Audacity

During the Summer, Friday feels a lot like Thursday except without The Office

LINKS:

The media sucks, and that’s an opinion shared by a lot of people.  However, every once in a while somebody in the media will do something that’s worth noting.  Yesterday, the amazing blowhard Chris Matthews went off on this right-wing talk show host, and it was amazing.  MyDD has video. [MyDD]

Bill O’Reilly got a little testy that DailyKos shared that video of him exploding on Inside Edition, so he decided to talk bad about DK on his show by comparing them to David Duke.  Media Matters has the video [MediaMatters].  DailyKos, not to be outdone, published several of the e-mails received immediately after BillO went off on them on the air.  The e-mails seem a little more David Duke-like than anything on DailyKos. [DailyKos]

Guitar Hero 4 is coming out this fall, and they are releasing details.  Baller. [Slashdot] [Gamespot]

I talked a little bit yesterday about John Edwards as VP.  I said that MyDD ran a story about how Hillary Clinton would be a better VP as a smoke screen against Edwards.  Well, they came right out yesterday and said Edwards would make a bad VP [MyDD].  DailyKos has a nice piece about the place where all the Clinton people are standing in regards to the primary.  It’s funny. [DailyKos]

California stood up for human rights and overturned their ban on gay marriage [NYTimes].  That’s good news for Ellen DeGeneres, who is now getting married [ThinkProgress].

David Sirota blogged on OpenLeft, and as usual, hit the issue of trade right on the head.  He’s great. [OpenLeft]

This is me, some other UK Dems, and David Sirota.  I don’t have a bottled water.

I mentioned earlier today that John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama and that I am very happy about that.  Allow me to elaborate.

When I was sixteen years old, I became interested in politics.  I don’t really know why, but in 2003 I became deeply interested in political affairs and also bucked my whole family and became a huge liberal.  I suspect it had something to do with my school, my age, and AP US History.  Whatever the reason, when my political nacency began, Kentucky had just elected its first Republican Governor, and the Democratic nomination for President was really heating up.

I watched C-SPAN a lot in the Winter of 2003.  I liked Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt enough, John Kerry kind of made me yawn, and Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton made me nervous.  One guy, however, really inspired me–John Edwards.  I’ve always had a pretty large populist bent.  The issues that really get me going are poverty, unionization, and the role of corporate America in the Government.  Lo and behold, there was a candidate who was talking about all of those things.

I was very excited when Edwards was selected as Kerry’s running mate in 2004.  When they lost, the only silver lining I could find was the fact that Edwards might be running again in 2008, and I would get to support him again.  When Edwards decided to run again, I was really hyped, and got a bumper sticker.  That’s not nearly as ballsy as my good buddy Richard, who actually went to Iowa to work for him.  At any rate, I was really sad to see Edwards decline in the polls, and I felt kind of crappy when he dropped out.  I didn’t think there was much chance of him going for the Vice-Presidency again, but I hoped (and still kind of hope) that he would find himself as the Attorney General.

Well, maybe this endorsement has changed the game.  Speculation about John Edwards as VP started with Taegan Goddard at Political Insider.  I’ve disagreed with Goddard a lot in the past–I think a lot of his ideas are way off the mark, and I thought that was the case with this piece.  However, the idea got a little traction when Paul Rosenberg Open Left posted the video of the endorsement and pointed out that Edwards had sufficiently blended the themes of Obama and Edwards.  Today, Rosenberg pointed out how putting Edwards on the ticket reinforces and balances the ideals of Obama, instead of just balancing, which is what a Clinton Vice-Presidency would do.

Add to that the tenacity of MyDD–the Clinton-backing blog that has the “HOLY CRAP, IF WE NOMINATION THE BLACK GUY WE’RE GOING TO LOSE” map in the left hand corner of their front page.  Today, Todd Beeton blogged that a Clinton Vice-Presidency was “the will of the people,”  which I think is an affront to Paul Rosenberg and Open Left’s advocacy of and Edwards Vice-Presidency.  Interesting.

There is no telling if Edwards would accept the Vice Presidency or not.  I suspect that he wouldn’t, if you want my opinion.  If, however, Edwards is offered and accepts the VP slot, I would be elated.  Not because one of my favorite politicians would be receiving a great position, but because the melding of Edwards and Obama’s message would just be magnificent.  I talked a few days ago about Obama’s progressivism, and how that makes him a great leader.  Progressivism, however, isn’t all about a movement–it’s about issues, too.  Edwards was always the best person in the campaign on the issues.  Blending the movement candidate with the issue candidate would make for an insanely formidable ticket–and one that could lead us with dignity to the future.

So its Thursday.  The Office Season Finale is tonight, and my time in Lexington this summer is coming to a close.  But, enough about that.  Links.

John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama yesterday.  John Edwards was the first politician that I really liked after I started paying attention–he inspired me back in 2004 during his Presidential run, and I supported him whole-heartedly until he dropped out.  Now he’s endorsed the guy that I like.  Sweet. [NYT] [Video: OpenLeft]

The ‘Ville Voice linked this really cool piece from Velocity (of all places) about WFPK in Louisville.  I really liked the Velocity piece–it took FPK to task while making sure that it was still known that they are the best station in the city.  Louisville really could use a station like WRFL in Lexington. [Velocity]

I hope you remember the post I did about the Farm Bill recently.  Update about that: the Farm Bill passed with a veto proof margin. [TheRuralBlog]  The Environmental Working Group was not happy about it, for good reason [Mulch].  Oh, also, our Senior Senator, Mitch McConnell, made sure that there was SEVENTY MILLION DOLLARS for the millionaire horse farmers in Kentucky. [DMKY]

Obama wrapped up another 4.5 Superdelegates, including both the President of the College Democrats of America (Lauren Wolfe, who is a fantastic person.  So is the VP, Awais Khaleel, and all the other CDA people).  [DailyKos]

I hope you got a chance to see the Bill O’Reilly video the other day–you know, the one where he flips out and cusses at everything.  CBS managed to get a bunch of them taken down very fast–but not the DANCE REMIX.  This is even funnier than the original. [YouTube]

Kentucky loves coal, so we spend our taxpayer money to finance Moutaintop Removal propaganda. [PolWatchers]

On Election Night in November, I was in Frankfort with a bunch of other College Dems to ring in the election of Steve Beshear and a host of other new Democratic Officials.  It was a pretty glorious night.  Steven eventually got up and spoke, and his speech was impressive.  I remember leaning over to Richard and saying “I don’t see how in four years we aren’t standing here doing the same exact thing.”

Times change.  Sometimes times change very quickly.  Survey USA’s poll numbers have Governor Beshear’s approval rating at under 40%, something that while totally believable, is extremely surprising nonetheless.  It is believable because this legislative session was a complete debacle.  But it is worth noting that this is not necessarily Steve Beshear’s fault–he inherited a terrible budget situation, and had to balance fixing the budget with trying to make progress on some of the issues on which he campaigned.  Which is hard to do.

Its also worth noting that Beshear didn’t exactly inspire a ton of confidence with his leadership.  Instead of finding creative solutions to the problems with which Kentucky was faced, Beshear started laying into David Williams–with good reason.  However, this doesn’t do much to solve our problems.  Hence, our current situation.

To get a better grasp on the reason for this situation, I ask everybody to take a look at the political culture and political structure of Kentucky.  First–the Governor is elected in November, sworn in shortly after that, and then has a little more than 2 months to plan their whole legislative plan, because Constitutionally, the session has to end by April.  So, given that the budget crisis wasn’t known when the Governor was elected, it’s not surprising that he was caught so off guard.

There are a ton of other things that play into this–the change in the relationship between the legislature and the Governor over the past few decades, the brevity of legislative sessions, and the lack of audacity among citizens of Kentucky to change anything, just to name a few.  In short–Steve Beshear isn’t totally at fault here.

I didn’t want to be a Beshear apologist in this post, but I guess that’s what I’ve become.   The Governor is in his first year of a 4 year term.  I think he has plenty of time to come back.  If Kentucky politics has taught me anything, it is that comebacks are almost expected of Governors–even until the very end, people expected Gov. Fletcher to come back from the dead.

So, hopefully the Governor will get it figured out soon, and will manage to get some legislative victories under his belt.  Hopefully with a resolved Budget, this will be possible. I expect the next few years to be decent ones for the Governor, but I’ve been wrong before. Hopefully I’m not wrong now.

Riding Roller Coasters was fun, but now I’m back in Lexington.  Doesn’t that just make everybody happy?

SAVE THE EARTH LINKS:

Cars that never need gas–I want one.  Sierra Club has an article about how to do it.  [SierraClub]

Bottled Water really sucks.  I explained why before, but the guy who wrote this is both smarter and more well informed than I am about these things.  [sprol]

If you are like me, you will meet lots of people who say climate change does not exist.  If you get as frustrated as me because there is so much evidence and consensus that it exists, but don’t always have the facts and figures at your fingertips, fret no longer, for there is a website dedicated to debunking every climate change skepticism. [Gristmill]

LINKS PERTAINING TO KENTUCKY:

Everybody all of a sudden hates Steve Beshear.  [PolWatchers]

No worries though, everybody hates the legislature even more. [PolWatchers]

Anne Northup is running for Congress again, and she’s pushing alternative energy.  Does this mean my problems with her have subsided?  No.  Alternative energy to a Republican apparently means Coal, Nuclear, and drilling in ANWR.  Disgusting. [Mark Hebert]

LEO previews the 3rd District Congressional race.  They are funny, and I like them. [LEO]

LINKS PERTAINING TO THE UNITED STATES:

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton won West Virginia by a big margin because its full of older white people with not a lot of education.  However, some media outlets decided that this means that Clinton has risen from the dead or something.  Those media outlets are stupid. [OpenLeft]

Also yesterday, Democrats won a House Seat in a R+10 District in Mississippi.  Now, Mississippi has 3 Democratic House members.  Out of 4.  Seriously, if Mississippi can do it, we can too. [TheFix]

A few things I didn’t know: 1. John McCain has a daughter.  2. Said daughter is very attractive.  3. She blogs about her dad’s campaign.  Interesting.  Worth visiting just to realize that John McCain’s progeny is more attactive than some of his campaign’s supporters. [McCainBlogette]

I tagged this post as “Art.”  So sue me.

I grew up on Nintendo.  My first encounter with video games was when we visited my aunt and uncle in Cincinnati when I was about 3 or 4 and my cousin had an NES.  I played Super Mario Brothers and it was awesome.  When I was about 7,  I received a Game Boy (the huge gray clunker), and I played Tetris and Super Mario Land with much elation.  The first big system I ever owned was a Nintendo 64, given to me as a birthday present by my parents.   I collected 150 stars in Super Mario 64, won many races on Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing, defeated Gannondorf and Gannon in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, saved the Mask Kid in Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, bested Andross in Star Fox, and played many, many more games for hours and hours.

In high school, I got another system for another birthday.  Instead of a Gamecube, I received a Playstation 2.  On this system, I different games, such as Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Xenosaga.  Even though it was well publicized that the Gamecube kind of sucked, I was very sad that I didn’t own one.  I missed Mario and Link.  I craved Donkey Kong.  I yearned for Fox McCloud.   It wasn’t until last year that they all came rushing back into my life.

Last year I bought a Wii.  Even without the Nintendo brand, the Wii rocks.  I dont think so much ingenuity and innovation has ever existed in a video game system right out of the box.  I played Wii Sports and Wii Play for a while, and over last summer I played Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  The first two games were were simple, and LoZ:TP was more of a Gamecube port than a true Wii game.  I got some more games that were fun–Tiger Woods Golf , Mario Party, Guitar Hero III, etc, but not until Christmas did the guys who made my childhood return in force.  Over Christmas Break I played Super Mario Galaxy and it was awesome.  One of the best games ever made, in my opinion.

Last semester, Nintendo decided to come out with two of the best games for the Wii within two months of each other.  I had the money to buy both, but I (smartly) held off until the end of the school year before I bought them.  They are amazing.

Mario Kart has a long history of fun and awesomeness.  I remember when the original appeared on the scene for the Super Nintendo.  I’d played Top Gear and a few other racing games, but the placement of familiar Nintendo characters in the racing game was a cool thing.  And when Mario Kart 64 came out, I think it revolutionized racing games forever.  3-D did a lot of things for different genres of games (See Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid), but racing games saw a huge change.  Obstacles were difficult to see and graphically boring.  Introducing 3-D may not have made huge jumps, massive spin-outs, and those annoying shell shots possible, but it made them 1000% better.  Mario Kart 64 was a great racing game, and we were still all very enthralled with the possibilities of the Nintendo 64 when it came out.  In the next generation of systems, we were used to 3-D.  Mario Kart: Double Dash for the Gamecube improved the series by adding a whole bunch of different features: different Karts, multiple characters, and gimmicky courses.  It was a decent game.

As Nintendo did with Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii gets back to the basics of what made the 64 a great system, and removed a lot of the things that made the Gamecube kind of boring.  Mario Kart Wii is much closer to the 64 version than the GC version–one person per Kart, straightforward courses, and skill instead of luck deciding the winners.  However, they’ve improved the series in a few amazing ways.  First: the wheel.  The wii-mote fits directly into this plastic wheel, and the player can use that to drive the Kart.  It’s ridiculously difficult, and I have a hard time with it, but its undeniable: its a ton of fun.  Also, instead of the traditional 8 characters per race, this game has 12.  Which is awesome.  It makes every race like Talledega–insanity.  Also, they can race in bike and Karts…which is fun but not that big of a deal.  In addition, there are CLASSIC TRACKS.  So I’m a Mario Kart fan, right?  Well, many of the great tracks from every iteration of this game are included in this game.   Finally, there are a plethora of new items which do all sorts of crazy things.  My favorite: Bullet Bill. Bullet Bill has always been one of my favorite guys in the Mario series, and he’s finally on my side.   The process of unlocking characters is long–I’m only about 2/3s of the way there and I’ve played this game A LOT.  The coup de grace is online play.  Taking on the world has been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.  Playing with your friends is fun, but being able to access that type of play at any point during the day is awesome.  So, buy this game.  Its worth it.  I’ve really only scratched the surface.

Now, Mario Kart has been a great series with a great history.  There is another series with Nintendo characters in it also.  Mario Kart only include Mario/Donkey Kong related characters, but Super Smash Brothers include all Nintendo series, and now even a few from non-Nintendo series.  Smash Brothers has also always been a little bit more edgy than Mario Kart, and this is no different.  Instead of the traditional Wario, for example, Smash Brothers has Wario in his “Wario Ware” gear.  This game also includes a lot more of the character development that has taken place in the past few years: Luigi is full of fear, Bowser is evil but with a nice streak, King Dedede is an idiot evildoer, but is still a decent guy at heart.

At any rate, this game includes every fun feature of the previous Smash Brothers Games: Staged competition until taking on Master Hand, Target Breaking, Beating Punching Bags as far as you possibily can, a ridiculously fun multiplayer mode, and a ton of events.  However, this game also has a full-on Adventure mode.  Its easily a 8 or 9 hour sidescroller with a full story–and its a good story.  The thing that makes this game, though, is the cornucopia of playable characters.  There are all the usuals–Mario, Link, Captain Falcon, Pikachu, Ness, Kirby, Jigglypuff, Fox, Luigi, Samus, Yoshi, etc.  There are most of the characters from the Gamecube version–Falco, Gannondorf, the Ice Climbers, Mr. Game & Watch, Marth, Zelda/Sheik, Peach, and Bowser.  But Brawl goes way beyond that and pulls out some really awesome characters–Sonic the Hedgehog, Solid Snake, R.O.B, Wolf, Pit, the Pokemon Trainer, Wario, Toon Link, King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Olimar.  There are a ton of characters.   This game has always been great because of its easy of use, and difficulty to master.  The controls are all the same for each character, but the moves themselves do very different things for each character.  This is preserved, and expanded with the use of the “smash ball,” which when broken allows each character to do their most powerful move.   Certain characters, if they misuse their final smash, can end up falling off the stage.  Others have final smashes that are difficult to use.  At any rate, this is a great game.  So you should get this one too.

So, since class has let out, I’ve been playing a lot of video games.  If you have a Wii, you should be too.

So, in the spirit of the geeky link dump, I will continue in what may be the only great tradition of this blog, the Book Report.  Being in college means that you read a lot of stuff that you don’t want to read (exceptions this semester: Dr. Wilke and Dr. Rice).  Parsing that sentence: you read A LOT, and stuff that you DON’T WANT.  This generally means that you don’t ever get to read anything for fun.

That was definitely true of me last year.  I read literally two books for fun–Dune and Dune Messiah.  I started several others only to abandon them in futility and neglect because nearly all my reading time was done on such books as “The American Presidency,” “As Dangers Gather,” “Kentucky: Politics and Government,” “Intermediate Microeconomics” and the like.  But these two books managed to hold my attention long enough to merit reading them instead of studying, which is what it takes to get fun books read during college.

Science Fiction/Fantasy, in my opinion, is the furthest reaching genre of literature.  First, there is amazingly good work that comes out of this genre (Lord of the Rings, the Space Odyssey series, The Chronicles of Narnia, Dune, Star Wars, Final Fantasy, etc), but there is amazingly bad work also.  If you get your hands on a good work of Science Fiction/Fantasy, the points on which it touches are astounding–philosophy, scientific method, politics, religion (+theology), economics, ontology, etymology (a LOT of etymology), epistemology, etc.  The first two books of the Dune series are a great example of this fact–they touch on each of these subjects.

The rest of this post is about the books.  I’ll try to keep it as spoiler free as possible, but the second books is a sequel, and its pretty tough to talk about a sequel without giving away what happened in the first book.  So read on at your own discretion.

The first two stories center around Paul Atreides, a price of a Great House, whose family has been called to a new Planet–Arrakis, or Dune.  Paul is a very special child.  His mother, who is a part of a religious sect which experiments in genetics in hopes of creating a super human, bore him in hopes that he might be the Kwisatz Haderach, or a human who can bridge space and time.  Paul is also being trained to be a mentat, which is a sort of human computer.  Arrakis, the planet the Imperium sends Paul’s family to, is the only source of melange, or ’spice,’ which when ingested, opens up individuals senses and expands consciousness.  This spice is very valuable, because it allows for space travel, allows humans to act as computers, allows certain individuals to see the future, and also–because nearly everyone in the universe is addicted to it.  The Atreides family is immediately usurped by the evil House Harkonnen, who kill Paul’s father and abandon Paul in the desert to die.  The remainder of the novel tells of Paul’s return to glory while probing his religious powers.  The book attacks the themes of religion, fate, government, corruption, evil, and lots of other things.  It’s really an amazing book, and you should check it out.

The second book takes place after Paul has become emperor and begins a religious jihad. The bulk of the book is about a conspiracy to take Paul’s life, a plot which centers around the resurrection via science and religion of Duncan Idaho, Paul’s former mentor.  The book is a considerable amount shorter and quicker than Dune, and the plot is a little thinner.  However, it still probes at themes in just as much detail.  Theocracy, fate, religion, norms, and many other things are the items tackled in this book.  If you read Dune, you’re probably going to want to read Dune Messiah.  It won’t be a waste of your time.

So, now its summer and I can read a little bit more.  What do you think I’m reading?

So I leave for the wild of Northern Ohio in a few hours, but don’t fret good readers, I shall leave you some links before I leave.

THE ONE NEWS RELATED LINK:

Kentucky is full of people who think Kentucky is full of racists. [PolWatchers]

THE ONE LINK YOU SHOULD VISIT IF YOU VISIT ANY LINK TODAY:

I stumbled upon this video the other day.  Every once in a while, I see or read something that makes me want to shout “YES!”  This is one of those things.  If you want a succinct version of what I believe or what I want to do with my life, Annie Leonard and the Story of Stuff fully describes the issue(s) about which I am the most concerned.  It’s a 20 minute video, but I promise, it’s definitely worth it. [StoryOfStuff]

THE ONE LINK THAT WILL DEPRESS YOU:

I’ve taken the Ecoological Footprint quiz a whole bunch of times.  I’ve never received any score less than 2.  Which means that if everyone on Earth lived like me, we would need two Earths.  We are so screwed.  You should take the quiz though, it’s really enlightening. [EcologicalFootprint]

THE TWO LINKS THAT WILL MAKE YOU SMILE:

Rankings are always fun, but some are better than the rest.   Cracked.com does rankings on a regular basis, and this is my favorite.  The Top Ten Most Terrifyingly Inspirational 80s Songs.  I left the accompanying videos on my friend’s facebook walls yesterday. [Cracked]

Who doesn’t love viral videos?  There have been several that it seems everyone in the world has seen-Star Wars boy, Bush and Kerry singing “This Land,” Numa Numa guy, Leeroy Jenkins.  This list has all of those, plus a bunch more.  Watch them all. [PCWorld]

 I changed the theme of the blog again.  This theme is called sunfeast.  I downloaded it from wptheme.net.  If you want to know the designers and the coders, they should be at the bottom of the site.  I like it though, its greener, and has a pretty fun picture.  Someday, I’ll learn css and make my own theme.  I mean, one of the 101 things from the list I linked earlier said that it is really annoying when people use a free theme and don’t edit it any.  I am guilty of that, for sure.

I also touched up a few more things about the site.  I didn’t realize until about 10 minutes ago that my “About” page was still the basic wordpress default.  Whoops.  So, I rewrote the about page.  Also, I edited the SGA page so that its a little more up to do (read: I added a header).

I’m going out of town tomorrow.  Me and a bunch of friends are going to Ceder Point, to ride roller coasters.  It should be awesome.  However, FEAR NOT!  Because I’ve front dated at least two (2) posts which will (hopefully) post when I am gone.   They are reviews.  One day is about books, the other about video games. We shall see if they actually get posted.

This isn’t much of a post, except to say thanks to everybody reading right now.  Ever since I wrote the post about Greg Fischer and Bruce Lunsford, I’ve quadrupled my average visitors per day.  So, I hope that everybody continues to read, and if you’ve just started coming to this site, I hope that you continue.  I’m kind of getting into a groove, where I will hopefully be posting everyday.  Even when I’m gone.  So, how about that?  I hope you guys have a nice next few days, because you know I will.

Today, there are a few geeky links.

NOT GEEKY LINKS:

Christian Group deems Starbucks logo “slutbucks,” calls for a boycott.  My ends are furthered by other’s ignorance.  Hooray! [ThinkProgress] (h/t to What’s Required, but only because he got there first)

Many people attended the KDP Fundraiser last night, but I didn’t take a free ticket because I’m stupid.  Luckily, I know everything that happened thanks to a plethora of liveblogs [Barefoot&Progressive] [PageOne] [What’sRequired]

The Amazing Jim Pence has a video of my alma mater singing ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’  The choir hasn’t been the same since my sister graduated. Go Manual!  YPAS is cool too! [HillbillyReport]

Hey look at that!  Obama WILL campaign in KY.  Unfortunately the day that he chooses to come, I’ll be riding roller coasters at Cedear Point. [PageOne] [PolWatchers]

GEEKY LINKS:

101 ways to annoy people with your blog.  I am guilty of so many of these, its not funny. (h/t to Justin Lamb, I didn’t even know he had a blog) [alphaBlogDesigns]

15 people who changed the Internet.  Awesome read, even though Al Gore is absent.  [GradeMoney]

Trailer for the new Star Wars: Clone Wars movie.  I got goosebumps.  I haven’t been this hyped for an animated movie since Middle School [StarWars]