oh boy an abortion argument eh K?


But beyond that, just the fact that he received such an award during the administration of Harper (the wanker) does say something for the general thrust of Canada. YAY!
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 5:59 PM on July 2, 2008

I thought the movie was pretty damn good. And I gave up listening to critics of any kind long ago. Anyone who needs a critic to tell you what you are suppose to like needs to grow the hell up.

One of the best things about the movie? The robot psych ward breakout, and subsequent saving of the day. The misfits (of which Wall-E could be said to be one) save humanity. Yay.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 11:54 AM on July 1, 2008

DU: The Incredibles got overanalyzed as a Ayn Rand-ian influenced movie.

Which was as stupid as calling Wall-E an Environazi flim... in other words, really fucking stupid.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 11:57 AM on July 1, 2008

Disney must get on it's knees on a weekly basis and thank the powers that be that they got attached to Pixar before someone else did... seriously. I don't think Disney has much internal pull with Pixar at tis point.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:01 PM on July 1, 2008

Hey! Look at us! We are special because we hate something that everyone else loves! *Waves arms futilely*

I friggen hated Titanic *Waves arms futilely*
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:06 PM on July 1, 2008

I find it slightly amusing that people who have no qualms about talking and thinking rats/cars/toys/fish, get hung up on issues of where did the robots get their personalities and how the hell will these fat bastards procreate and walk around. I tell ya, if FTL is possible than I have no issues with robotic personalities.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 1:38 PM on July 1, 2008

Taking a peek at AZ's GF's little film above kinda confirmed something to me. The audio playing on the preview she watches is audio used in Brazil (the movie), there was more then once or twice when my wife and I looked at one another during Wall-E and mouthed "Brazil!".

Wall-E is of course not Brazil, but there are elements of it tucked here and there, which amuses me.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 1:53 PM on July 1, 2008

"BnL Homeland security"

Made me snort
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 10:44 AM on July 2, 2008

He is actually doing a fundraiser for Christopher Harmon, a twin cities chap who is quadriplegic, deaf, and legally blind, and raising funds to make a movie.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 7:23 PM on June 29, 2008

Admittadly this is just blathering at this point, but a small part of me thinks that in a way this silliness is going to go a ways towards McCain not winning the election in Nov. If it had been a one-off, something that lasted a week or so, then it would be no big deal, but an ongoing, popular, national outlet that just keeps on making fun of McCain in this manner will (I think) undermine McCain bit by bit. Another week or so will make it near a month's worth of high tech mockery.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 8:49 PM on June 28, 2008

I'm pretty sure the Comedy Central / YouTube crowd does not form a large part of McCain's constituency.

Well certainly not his core constituency. But in American presidential politics, especially in the last 20 years, who wins the middle wins the election. Given that all the candidates, McCain too (numerous times), have appeared on The Daily Show, that 1st tier representatives appear on the Colbert Report I think they (these popular shows) play a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 5:09 PM on June 29, 2008

It certainly makes good business sense after a fashion.
Personally I've never got the whole getting-angry-at-the-gas-station phenom. I mean, I guess I understand that gas stations are an easy target for the misplaced anger, but they operate on razor thin margins. Out of everyone in the chain, consumers and gas station owners are the ones really taking it in the ass. Guess it is like American workers getting angry at immigrants, misplaced anger. If people ever wised up collectively...... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 4:56 PM on June 29, 2008

I look at guns like I look at cars, a powerful mechanical object. If you are trained and a good operator then owning and using one is not a huge issue. You do not have a constitutional right to own a car however, even though it probably has more of a practical impact on the majority of people's lives than owning a gun ever will.

Therefore I have no real issue with gun ownership if it is regulated sufficiently, such as cars, but I feel that inclusion of said ownership as... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 10:04 AM on June 26, 2008

S'funny. We (culture wise) use to revere rock and rollers for this kind of lifestyle... now people point and laugh. Not sure if it is an improvement or not.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 10:15 AM on June 23, 2008

well bugger
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 10:12 AM on June 23, 2008

There is a weird disconnect between absolute numbers and % numbers. Yeah the 20th century was the bloodiest in terms of sheer number of people killed, but overall it was average to low in percentage of humanity killed in war, and the number of cultures actually lost forever was pretty low. All said however the 20th century was pretty brutal.


As to the wider question of the necessity of war... much of war is fought because of the political institutions that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 4:29 PM on June 21, 2008

I don't know why they don't just fucking make you fly naked, I mean wearing clothes is just so Victorian after all.

Christ

There are plenty of people out there who get legitimately freaked about people seeing them nude, just because some people are copacetic with waving their naggers around to strangers doesn't make it something that most people want to do. These are not doctors, these are ill tempered security agents who operate behind the wall... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 3:05 AM on June 14, 2008

Wisc Dells is just fricken insane during the summer... mindblowingly insane.

Course S Wisconsin is a weird place to start with, about 1/2 hour from there (Wisc Dells) is the Forevertron
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 6:22 PM on June 9, 2008

When I heard the news snippet today my thought was, pretty much verbatim "humm I wonder if the US, China, Russia, Israel and India have agreed to it"... damn I substituted Israel for Pakistan, but nailed the rest of the SOBs
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 9:42 PM on May 28, 2008

major .
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 1:21 PM on May 25, 2008

Heavy emphasis on SOME. I think there has been an interesting discussion on whether or not Neanderthals and early humans interbred at all, but even that is seeming more and more unlikely.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 7:19 AM on May 5, 2008

Hey, thats right I have GIN in the freezer, thanks for reminding me.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 8:54 PM on April 26, 2008

As much a dick as GG could be I still prefer him to Geraldo
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 7:31 PM on April 26, 2008

Well, yeah Scalia would want people to get over it. I mean if I made a decision that fucked up an entire country for most of a decade I'd want people not to talk about it either.

It was a controversial historic decision, I don't think people are not going to talk about it for a long long time, even if they can't do anything about it. When his obit is written it will have a line in it referencing hat decision.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 7:49 PM on April 25, 2008

That Choc Thunder link could have been a good backbone for a fun FPP about shattered backboards and the changes made to them.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 10:28 AM on April 24, 2008

The further infantalization of America. By the time I was 10 I was wandering all over the city I lived in, I had earlier in my life then then been sent of fin the woods routinely, where we lived at that time, to find grown-ups who got lost.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 6:34 PM on April 12, 2008

One more step to the complete digitization of movies I think. what.. another 5 - 10 years and we'll have our first movies that are completely animated but not marketed as being animated, and will be hard to tell.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 6:25 PM on April 12, 2008

I am always amused to see Low mentioned, they are such a non nonsense, or at least non-rockstar group, it creates a little disconnect to run into Al at the local Co-op then see this group of his in a national scene setting.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 1:51 PM on March 23, 2008

heh, Weds? I might have to, going to be a stressful week and I don't know which day the stress is coming on, so if it has arrived by Wed I may well go, otherwise it's more worrying and biting nails.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 5:45 PM on March 23, 2008

Earlier tonight I was trying to think of countries that have elected members of a "racial" (sorry the anthro in me makes me quote mark it) minority to the head of government and I came up pretty blank.

This was in response to some concerns a family member raised regarding the few women in high office and the nature of feminism (which I consider myself a feminist) and Clinton's support of large segments of that bloc, despite Clinton being where she is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:06 AM on March 19, 2008

Oh, and to be fair Clinton did pick up two SDs today (Murtha and some fella from WVa)
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:08 AM on March 19, 2008

You are kind of acting like an ass MM.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:12 AM on March 19, 2008

I was more than a little hesitant to use S. Africa for obvious reasons, but Fujimori is a good one overall, I forgot about him.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:18 AM on March 19, 2008

grr, sorry I should have consolidated.

Biologically human races are without a doubt a farce concept, but culturally/socially it is real so I would take small exception to the "illusionary concept" label
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:21 AM on March 19, 2008

heh, you know I just had a low level ephinay, in some aspects this speech was the advanced and nuanced version of Dean's comment years ago about trying to enfold Southerners who have a gun rack and the Confed flag on the back of their truck.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 11:04 AM on March 19, 2008

During the Clinton years democrats lost the Senate, the house, the plurality of governorships. Clinton himself did not win either election with over 50% of the vote, and it is quite likely he would have lost the '92 contest if it was not for Perot. So, I have serious doubts to any claim that Clinton politics have been beneficial or terribly effective. And I say that having voted for him.

Until the issue was forced and he had to make some concession to it I think Obama... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 10:30 AM on March 20, 2008

waits with baited breath for d-load to finish

Might just have something new for my swank bar DJ gig next week
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 6:32 PM on February 29, 2008

You know what I like about this, apart for the songs being great and a VU song that hasn't seen the light of day since... whenever, is that it is encoded at a nice high bit rate 250VBR, so none of this bootleg + 64kbit = extra crappy but tantalizing.


nice nice nice
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 8:50 PM on February 29, 2008

(Incidentally, I understand Lou is giving the Keynote at SXSW this year)
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 9:07 PM on February 29, 2008

**Coff** ...land of the "free"... **Coff**

void where prohibited, may cause rash actions, foul language and incontinence


On a slightly less snarky note, it is interesting that at the same time that 6% of all people who are black are incarcerated we also have a viable candidate for president who is also black.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 12:22 PM on February 28, 2008

See, how you talk counts for an awful lot. Have the right accent and you get respect, even if people disagree with you. If he was so smart then it was a tragic self-absorbed smartness, just because you can construct internally consistent belief systems doesn't make you worthy of respect. I won't explicitly Godwin the thread, but it doesn't take much intellectual fortitude to come to the conclusion that "smartness" does not a great person make. Some of the best people I know would be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 1:29 PM on February 27, 2008

And I second Armitage Shanks' opinion of SCTV's Buckley imitation. It does not appear to be on Youtube (gasp)
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 1:30 PM on February 27, 2008

So, surround yourself as a teenager with people telling you that you are great that you are beautiful, give yourself millions of fans and people who buy anything that has your name on it. Combine this with enough lack of control through career management, told how to look and what to do. Combine all of this with (I am guessing here) a lack of critical thinking skills that someone with a better education might have had. Combine it with the fucking Horatio Alger mindset that seems so prevalent,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 7:21 AM on February 26, 2008

Incidentally, a small correction, or perhaps just an aside from misha's comment. Mental illness can qualify you as being disabled.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 7:54 AM on February 27, 2008

I definitely lean DFL with some serious Green core beliefs, and yes in 2000 I voted for Nader, in a State that was nowhere close to voting for Bush. Even so, at that time the argument that Bush and Gore where more alike then different seemed at least plausible on certain levels. In a lot of ways Bush's presidency is more of a reactionary term of office then anything else, without 9/11 we, most likely, would not be in two wars, running such a absurd deficit, have gitmo, the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 2:08 PM on February 24, 2008

Undoubtably when people go to his journal they will notice his radio/monthly web stream. It's worth keeping track of, usually is pretty good.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 10:15 PM on February 22, 2008

So... why would you waste clicks to open doors given that the number is random anyways whether you open a door or just stick with one?
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 1:38 PM on February 22, 2008

this is my surprised face... not wait here it is... oh damn is this the one... mutter mutter. That's right I threw it out, I am frankly no longer surprised by anyhting. They could announce tomorrow that Saddam was still alive, they really killed his beneficent twin brother, and I think I still wouldn't be surprised.
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 11:43 PM on February 21, 2008

(but I really really really don't think it'll go down that way, even if I want it to for the sheer theater)
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 3:16 PM on February 21, 2008

whoever wins the middle wins the election

And my read is Huckabee can not win the middle. he would get the right wing, and the hard core xtians, but nearly every single person who voted for Clinton (see, I personally don't buy the mass voting for any candidate so they can vote against them in the fall theory, there is just no credible evidence of it), every single person who voted for Obama, every non Christian, every person who does not want the bible writ to the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 3:25 PM on February 21, 2008