New Blood

Hey Guys!

Just so you all know, I invited David, Mark, and Richard to join our lovely blog.

Also, my mom got really angry when she found out who McCain's running mate was. She said, "What! Does he think all women are idiots!?" Love it!

Oh, and if you missed Obama's acceptance speech:

1. Hit yourself in the nuts. Twice.
2. Then watch it here.

Hugs!

That dude can TALK!

If Obama can make Biden sound interesting, I don't think he'll have any trouble talking circles around McCain. Now we only have to hope he doesn't so something retarded, or get swiftboated/ gay-marriage'd.

Edit (Friday Aug 29)

THAT DUDE CAN TALK! REDUX!

I'm only mildly cheesed about the onanastic (from onanism, hurr hurr hurr) nature of national news coverage during an election year. Shit, international news coverage as well.

I'm speaking specifically about the fact that NPR spends 7 minutes of its 10 minute news at tops of hours talking about the damn election. When was the last time they talked about the power-sharing talks in Zimbabwe, or the flood in India?

NEVER THATS WHEN!

FUCK YOU NPR! SCREW YOU!

Injustice!

omfg, I hate Metro (Houston Transportation) Police. I just got a ticket for jaywalking that could be anywhere up to $200. And a court date two days before my exams.

Peter, GET THE FUCK OUT OF TEXAS!

JESUS CHRIST!

Everything about this article is wrong.

Also being in New York is Fun.

Love from,

Emad.

Rated E For Everyone

Hey Dudes!

Since I've had disposable income (over 10 years and counting!), I've spent money frivolously on video games. More often than not, I will pay extra for the "Special/Limited/Collector's Edition" of a game because I want the goodies. After all, I spent $130 to own a Halo 3 and a Spartan Cat Helmet! Nerd alert!

However, I had a small victory this spring when I refused to buy the special edition of Grand Theft Auto IV. $90 for a lock-box and a soundtrack?! No thanks!

Sure, I've got a the special editions of Spore, Fable 2, Fallout 3 (omg! Fallout!), and Gears of War 2 pre-ordered for this fall, but I just wanted to show you guys that I still have some self control.

1. I'm not buying a Fallout 3 alarm clock for $130 lol

2. Nor am I purchasing Gears of War 2 replica chainsaw machine gun for $140 roflol

Oh, and I've restarted my campaign in Mass Effect with a character who looks like Barack Obama. Together we are going to save the galaxy.

You guys are awesome!

-John

P.S. Here's a video for Peter:

Meanwhile, on the Sugartop Candy Mountain

Come on Thomas L Friedman, you know that the same energy policy that works in Denmark wouldn't work in the US. We're too spread out in the rural areas for us to ride bikes to work ("why yes, I would love to ride my bike 50 miles a day with a 300 lb hay trailer hitched to the back"), also no one likes radical change save for the Danes (change forestalls the impossibly high inevitability of suicide. Number 27 in the world, WOOooo!)

Yeah, but still, some of their ideas are pretty awesome. Especially their use of waste heat, the only problem is the insane amounts of spending on infrastructure that this would require, and the fact that increasing gas taxes (the only conceivable way to pay for these expenditures) is political suicide in the best of times, and a way to get assassinated in these times.

Olympics

At least the US has presence and grace where it counts: telling France to STFU in the men's 4x100m relay. http://english.aljazeera.net/sport/2008/08/2008811626123505.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/sports/olympics/11swim.html?_r=1&ref=olympics&oref=slogin

Watch the video, it is AMAZING.

WAR!

I'll give you one guess as to why Russia is so keen to keep Southern Ossetia out of the hands of Georgia.

I'll give you a hint, it's referred to as Texas Tea.

Maybe the United States isn't completly immoral, irrational, and corrupt. Then again, maybe it is.

Hamdan gets 5 months of prison for driving a car, instead of a life sentence.

Now if he can go back home after those 5 months, and if the 5 years and 1 month previously served under harsh conditions and torture didn't happen, I'd be pretty happy with the military tribunals.

And if all the other torture, extraordinary rendition, unjust wars, private military corporation immunities, political sniping, political hirings to apolitical jobs, pandering to big business and the rich (like doctors), and backhand dealings with governments who have oil (Read "The Goal of the West for Less-Developed Oil-Rich States: Spend All of the Money on Western-Built Infrastructure; the Saudi Arabia Project") would stop, I could say I was proud to be an American.

Sorry I'm such a Debbie Downer.

Hurricane Edouard(sp?)

I have survived the Hurricane. It actually just ended up raining a fair amount, but nothing too astounding. Houston has some sort of hurricane repellent. School was canceled today for it, and it was almost as good as a middle school snow day.

In the recent past, I could have been found doing wedding stuff (cake tasting and music listening are the things within my expertise, and I have been excused from flowers etc.) or preparing for the new school year. I acted as some sort of adviser for incoming first year students, having forgotten a small amount of bitterness while my cold heart warmed in the summer. The first years were charming, I must learn their names.

I have come up with an idea for a video game that I think would be fun. It is very strange, and I don't think that I can do it justice by simply describing it. John, learn to program. Emad and Justin will do graphics, and Chip can write the music (no a capella! Capella only.)

Edit: Where the heck is Slacker "I'm a Slacker" Chen?

Second edit: For those interested in watching good stuff:
Emad's Suggestion: http://www.hulu.com/watch/28343/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog

Warning: Scary! http://www.watchtvsitcoms.com/dexter.php

Ugh busy busy busy.

So much stuff going on i barely read anything at all for 2 days shocking I know;

A couple of Op-Eds to keep peoples happy:
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, that awesome Russian author who Americans loved then kinda disliked for pretty crappy reasons died. Youse guys should totally read “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” It's totally awesome.

- The Wall Street Journal's Op-Ed plays devil's advocate (for the WSJ) that if we're gonna tax oil companies on windfall we should tax all sorts of other companies. I never thought I would say this, but I completely agree with the WSJ editor on this one. (uhh I agree about the tons more taxes on everyone, not the last paragraph of the piece.)

- A Times (of England) female editor writes a stirring piece about saving men, of all people.


Um, some newsy things happened today as well, but we'll get to those things tommorow (Like in 20 minutes of this post).

LATER LOSERS WHO I'VE ALWAYS HATED!

Nuclear problems, waffles in energy, dead children in Palestine, and net neutrality.

And I thought weekends were supposed to be news free.

Iran is not going to stop enriching uranium, so the EU can sit on it. (Just saw a Happy Days episode.) They missed an informal deadline in the "freeze-for-freeze" offer.

Obama is going to "consider" offshore drilling to assuage voter fears, but not actually help the problem because it's going to take at least until 2025 for the oil to get onto the market and even if they opened up all the fields available to the US it would only add 800,000 barrels of oil a day (That is around 1% of the world's total oil produced per day, meaning a 1% reduction in prices at the pump [4 cents at $4/gallon]). Meanwhile Iraq during a war produces around 1.2 million barrels a day (It's now producing around 2.8 million barrels a day). And American's are all, this will get us off foreign oil. Why are Americans so dumb? (Seriously youse guys, tell me why.)

(8/7/08 9:56PM: Edited to better reflect current situation. The above numbers are from this episode of the Diane Rehm Show)

Two kids shot dead by the Israeli army in a village in Palestine, report from a dude who was there. Notice the bit about the wall being illegal? That is the International Court of Justice in the Hague giving that ruling in '04.

Remember a couple a days ago I posted about the WTO talks collapsing? Here's why they did.

The FCC says that comcast can't block Bittorrent. In celebration here's a link to a torrent of the full series of Aliens in America.

Nothing going on but the rent.

Like if you went to a girl and was all, "hey baby, wassup?" She'd be all, "The rent motherfucker, the rent."

No, but yeah, not much today, aside from the usual campaign bullshit;

Pakistani intelligence (Har har) is thought to have been responsible for blowing up an Indian Embassy in Kabul according to the CIA (which is, if true, technically an act of war). Course, the NYtimes has been wrong on a few occasions *cough*WMDsinIraq*cough* excuse me, i think i might have swallowed a fly there.

And one of the dudes suspected of releasing anthrax in 2001 killed himself before he could be tried. The trial and the suicide could have been unrelated (no, for serious, it could be he was just depressed, it says so in the article!)

Also the economy is crappy.

Peace out bitches!