GOP’s Lamest Generation Encourages Domestic Terrorism
The so-called Greatest Generation is striving to become the Lamest Generation. Power-crazed conservatives in the GOP spearheaded by John McCain have thrown their lot in with extremist domestic terrorists and will leave a weakened legacy for future generations. A generation of people once regarded as heroes are risking their reputations and honor in order to play dirty politics and screw over the American people.
The GOP has ceased to be a party of patriots. They have been waylaid by extremist radicals that threaten the security of America.
Sarah Palin, John McCain and John Boehner are playing a dangerous game. They are encouraging violence, aggression and armed revolt over a domestic issue that should be a slam-dunk: healthcare for all Americans.
How did we get to this? How did the Greatest Generation turn into the Lamest Generation?
John McCain used to be an honorable war hero. He successfully portrayed himself as a maverick, populist figure. Seeing his behavior now, I thank God that he did not ascend to the Presidency.
Why does the Greatest Generation hate America?
Why does the Sarah Palin and the GOP encourage violence and domestic terrorism?
Why does the GOP want to derail the greatest piece of legislation to come out of Washington D.C. in fifty years?
There is an opportunity to create a lasting and meaningful legacy. Both houses of Congress can show future generations that a post 9/11 America can work together. Both houses of Congress worked together in the immediate months and years after 9/11, but once the Republicans lost power, then suddenly the time for America “working together” and bi-partisanship became a side note. A literal punch-line. Talk about sore losers.
The Republicans have incessantly stoked the fires of fear and hatred. It lost them an election in 2008, yet they continue to feed a reign of domestic terror, bigotry and hatred. The Republicans in the GOP is no longer the Grand Old Party, they have lost their way and as long as they advocate violence and rage all they will accomplish is driving people away from the Republican party.
Extremists of any type should be shunned, but for a group of people who mandated endless war to help foreigners - without a payment plan, it is ludicrous that anyone is AGAINST any plan that will help all Americans! There is no price too great to guarantee security for America. That’s just one of the stories they told the America to promote their underfunded war.
In this story in 2006, they couldn’t even account for $4 BILLION dollars but they’re afraid to spend a nickel to help you and your children.
This is wrong.
It is wrong for the Republican party to promote hatred.
It is wrong for the Republican party to stand by while fellow Americans are attacked.
It is wrong for the Republican party to attack the future of America.
The Republican party has lost their way. It’s time for America to, “Just Say NO!”
Republicans don’t love America anymore. Shame on John McCain, shame on Glenn Beck, shame on Sara Palin, shame on Michelle Bachmann, shame on John Boehner, shame on Rush Limbaugh…the list goes on.
Vote the Republicans out.
Vote them out now.
Honoring a major scientific contribution
A seminal chapter in the history of modern neuroscience closed this Tuesday when Henry Gustav Molaison passed away at age 82. Mr. Molaison, previously known only as H.M., underwent experimental surgery in 1953 to remove part of his hippocampus as treatment for severe seizures. After surgery, Mr. Molaison found he could not form new memories of people, places or experiences, although his personality, the memories of his life prior to surgery, and his capacity to form other types of memories (e.g. muscle memory) remained intact. His case revolutionized our understanding of memory and identity, and is familiar to any student of modern psychology or medical science. The New York Times has an interesting piece on his life, including accounts from the scientists who worked with him over the years.
“He was a very gracious man, very patient, always willing to try these tasks I would give him,†Dr. Milner, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute and McGill University, said in a recent interview. “And yet every time I walked in the room, it was like we’d never met.â€
Thank you, Mr. Molaison.
Colin Powell Endorses Obama
Former Secretary of State General Colin Powell (ret.) outlines his reasons for crossing party lines and voting for Barack Obama:
Powell’s points:
Noonan, Murphy, Todd and an OPEN MIC!
RNC coverage is everywhere in St. Paul this week. Marc Ambinder has posted the full transcript, I have highlighted some excerpts - along with what Todd actually said as opposed to what Ambinder posted.
“Is this really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?” -Chuck Todd
“Most qualified? NO. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives.” -Peggy Noonan
“You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is ‘no cynicism’ and this is cynical.” - Mike Murphy
Legislating Happiness: Why?
States like Massachusetts, California and New York have begun reluctantly allowing folks to seek a gay marriage. This is an outrage! There is no reason for these states, or any states, to force an expectation of happiness onto any bickering couple of disgruntled partners. If people want to despise each other, if they insist on hating, then by all means, it is their God-given right to loathe their very existence!
Passing legislation mandating joy and happiness is beyond comprehension. Just because it’s in the constitution doesn’t make it any more right! Even if everyone on earth were married there would be only a handful of couples who would declare their marriage to be gay.
The rest of us? We’d be working on the honey-do list…or working to avoid it! By definition, the very nature of settling down with one other living creature for the remainder of our lives is flawed. Wolves seem to practice serial monogamy. But only you and me - FOREVER!? It’s madness. It’s a bad song from the 50s. It is fitting that in the animal kingdom only a vicious species of wild canine are one of the few examples of monogamy. I doubt that they are happily monogamous. It is likely that their monogamy is what drives their viciousness.
There is no such thing as a gay marriage. You can legislate all you want, you simply cannot people to be happy! By definition, once you are married, there is no happiness. There is no joy. In the end, your only joy from the imprisonment of marriage is the silent release of death. Once you are released from your earthly bondage, any happiness you were forced to enjoy through legislation won’t matter anyway.
Great tits cope well with warming.
GHIII Patent Infringement!?
Gibson is claiming that Activision’s Guitar Hero III is violating a patent filed by Gibson in 1999.
According to their complaint filed in US District Court in LA,
Gibson’s 1999 patent covers a virtual-reality device that included a headset with speakers and that simulated participating in a concert.
If this is the basis of their legal claim, then I would suggest they start filing patents for things like, “possible future profitable thing that simulates something we not yet created or thought of but if someone else creates something nobody else is currently producing and selling we will use this patent to stake our claim.”
C’mon Gibson. You may have thought of something about simulating a concert, but clearly, if you were going for a VR headset-type thing, you were watching too WAY many pornos (or maybe the same skin-flick over and over over and and - OH MY!) where a lone stroker sits in a room with a VR headset and enjoys act after act of mind-blowing orgasms.
Activision is being sued not for patent infringement, but for producing a profitable game franchise. There may be some behind the scenes things going on we will never know about, like Gibson licensed something to Activision or vice-versa and one of the companies thought nothing of whatever legal arrangement they signed off on, when suddenly this game took off like a rocket and now the company who signed the crappy agreement is feeling robbed. Who can say?
Ah hell, I am heading down to the courthouse to file a patent on something not yet created but might produce a profit for someone at some future time. Or maybe I’ll just go play Virtually Jenna.
Jeopardy! Brainbus Visiting MN
If your ego is bigger than your brain then mark Friday on your calendar! Hell, if you just want to have fun or see if you can hang with the local competition, you’ll want to stop by the Mall of America to test your brainpower mettle under the pressure of competition!
Date: Friday, March 7, 2008
Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Location: Mall of America, Sears Court
It looks like they’ll give out prizes, host “just for fun” games and also present pre-screening for auditions to get on the actual show. Want your fifteen minutes of fame? Can’t sing? Got no other talent?
Your quest for glory could start Friday! You could be the next Ken Jenningsor Brad Rutter,but get your buzzers ready, you can’t answer unless you ring in first!
Museum of Modern Ice
What’s ninety-five feet long and twelve feet tall? Too short for a skyscraper and too big for a queen on Clark. Not too big for a MOMI though! 
I guess the MOMI website address could be interpreted as a mangled malaprop if one were to read it as, “mod, er…nice!”
Aside from all the other wonderful reasons to visit Chicago in the wintertime, there is now a temporary museum! MOMI will be around for the month of February only so make your plans now. I suspect some 8n5ers will make their way down to Millennium Park, perhaps we could get a review of the museum?
Not that you need any more justification to explore the Lake Michigan branch of 8n5, but if you happen to be in town in February make sure you give a call!
Google Trent Lott and Benjamin Nicolas to Find Out Why Trent is Resigning
My experience with the Xbox 360
About two weeks ago I received an Xbox 360 for my birthday from my wife. She did a lot of research and got a really good deal on a refurbished machine with an extra controller and a copy of Halo 3. Now, I know that 360s are notoriously unreliable and one might immediately assume getting a refurbished machine is a bad idea, but the reduced cost and the supposed elimination of the red-ring-of-death problem (that’s what they refurbish) made it seem like a good idea.
Once opened I immediately activated Xbox live and went to a store to pick up a game with the 25$ gift card that some friends had given me. I expected to get Gears of War or Crackdown because they’ve been out for a year–I was wrong. The used version of each was pushing 50$ which I found astonishing. It turns out that triple-A 360 titles are holding their value as much as triple-A Nintendo titles (go try to find a used copy of Smash Bros or Mario Kart). The only good game that I could afford was Dead Rising by Capcom. I think it was a launch title and it was still 30$ so I had to pay a little. I’d never played the game before but I know it reviewed well and I trust Capcom with zombies. The game turned out to be great (lawn mower + zombies = awesome), I had a fellow eightandfiver over and we played passing the controller. We also played a little halo but the game isn’t that good to watch and my wife was playing with us and wasn’t a big Halo fan. We actually ended the night playing Super Mario 3 that was just made available on the virtual console–score one for the Wii.
Within the next week I had gotten Bioshock and Orange Box through game fly. I also had Gears of War briefly but there were too many new games to play before I went through the catalog. I sent it back and got Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (another good Capcom game, this time for the wii, also with zombies). I also managed to throw down a reservation for Rock Band that involved trading in an assload of games to get to the $160 and the last 360 reservation available at the GameStop I shop at.
Bioshock was great, although with Orange Box I had trouble committing to it, I’m sure the significant other and I will get around to it at some point. I put a lot of time into portal and even started replaying Half-Life 2. Damn these are great games. I had trouble playing team fortress 2 because all my multi-player time was going to Halo 3 (also a great game). I really felt like I had in the heyday of the PS2 when we had just tons of great stuff all at the same time (GTA, SSX, Burnout, Katamari…). I was in heaven—and it was during a game of portal just after I got the weighted companion cube that my 360 froze for the first time.
I restarted and started to play Half-Life 2 and got pretty far when it froze again (thank god for tons of auto saves). This time when I restarted the 360 it was flashing red. It was the standard red-ring-of-death that a refurbished Xbox isn’t supposed to get. I know this because the towel trick worked. The problem lies in some solders that fail to connect. The towel trick involves wrapping the console in a towel to deliberately overheat it so the solder expands and connects again. A temporary fix at best.
The real downer was that the next day I got to pick up Rock Band and then leave the house and spend thanksgiving in North Carolina (where I had a marvelous time). I got back on Sunday ready to try the 360 again, with the towel trick if need be, to finally get to try out the killer rock band drums… I couldn’t get past the title screen.
I managed to get a hold of the company that refurbished it and get a return authorization. They were really responsive and allowed me to keep the hard drive and all other accessories. The system is currently in transit to them, they’ve assured me they have a quick turnaround time and that they’ll mail off another system within a day of receiving mine.
I hope I get it soon. I’m afraid my weighted companion cube is going to miss me.