Oh look, Krinn venting. This is an angry post that is unlikely to be read by anyone who it attacks - but it needed writing.

I finally realized why it rankles me when people say “oh all extremists are alike.” The part I already knew was that generally, “oh the extremists on both sides are equally bad,” is
Not Even Wrong (or possibly wronger ( Read more... )

I am, in fact, the kind of person who despises professional sports in their current form, and the Super Bowl in particular. However, most of the time I keep a lid on it in order to be civil. Yesterday was reasonably nice, and I was blissfully working on other things without being forced to think about overpaid 'roid-head modern gladiators ( Read more... )

I've caught flickers of news from the ongoing Proposition 8 trial, and what I see makes me smirk. I'm cautiously optimistic about the trial as a whole. Part of this is because the anti-equality side is doing their usual pompous, stuck-up, snot-nosed American bullcrap that makes me want to go into full vulgarian mode. I won't - but I will mock ( Read more... )

Let me tell you about a terrible habit of mine. I think less of my money-starved friends when, for instance, they make serial videogame purchases, they go see movies, they eat out. I shout in my head - no! what are you thinking, those are luxuries, save your money and fight the poverty ( Read more... )

It is traditional to open with a joke - so here you go. The Mother Of All 9/11 Posts. Watch out especially for the white Flavor Flav imitator and the 4chan contributions in the "deliberately offensive" category.

This post, on the other hand, is going to be more in the vein of Jon Schwarz's "Today Is The Anniversary Of An Enormous Opportunity." ( Read more... )

That's from a video called "The Largest Street Gang In America," which is making the rounds for a good reason. It was disturbing to watch: I had to pause many times while watching so that I would stop shaking. It has one of the things that make documentaries compelling: footage that speaks for itself. One clip after another shows police ( Read more... )

On Sunday I watched The Hurt Locker, and shortly thereafter In The Loop. Now, while these are both good movies and you should watch them, you should not watch them close together because of the peculiar alchemy they have in combination. Independently, I would say that Hurt Locker is about .6 Requiem For A Dreams (standard measure of movie ( Read more... )

Need to report police abuse? There's an app for that.

American Casino is a documentary that lacks focus, but the director's wandering eye helps it portray the huge scope of its subject: the subprime mortgage crisis. Produced by wife-and-husband team Leslie and Andrew Cockburn, the documentary is part of a steady stream of media works produced in the last year that examine the economic crash. It has ( Read more... )

If you found Robert Bork floating in your toilet bowl, he'd look right at home. I was just reminded by a Newsweek interview that he still exists, and I'm good and cranky about that fact. He's in that class of authoritarian that I don't respect enough to have a coherent argument with: I'd much rather get up in his face with a good hearty fuck you! ( Read more... )