Steaming Turd

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,233318,00.html

Very weird. The folks who compiled it were probably trying to be ironic, but it’s still weird even without the political statement. Makes you what other songs are “hidden” in long speeches like that.

Also, I’m probably the last person left on the planet who hadn’t seen it before today.

Years back - in the 1994-1996 range - there was a network computer game that was popular on campus for a short while. Not Doom, not Descent, not Duke Nukem 3D. It was a top-down shooter vaguely reminiscent of the old Combat-style games, except the arena was much larger than the screen and, of course, it was played over the network. At one point, I think an early version of the game was one of two games banned on campus (IIRC, Doom v1.0 was the other) because we had the World’s Largest Unswitched Ethernet Network™, and the two banned games used broadcast packets which thus propagated and generated responses from every one of thousands of machines on campus.

If any of this helps you remember what this game was called, please respond. It’s driving me balls.

Maybe the reason the Clowns got beat 30-0 this weekend by the Bungles is because the throwback 1950s-era helmets they were wearing look like billiard balls.

This one’s for you, Homis. Spoiler warning for any Atlantis fans out there.

Apparently, the federales haven’t learned their lesson with the last couple of attempts to make us use dollar coins.

The problem that the US Mint never seems to understand was best expressed by a Simpsons episode. Marge explains the (well… a) story of Sacagawea, and at the end, she pulls out a Sacagawea dollar to show to the kids.

Bart: What is that? A quarter?
Milhouse: A Chuck-E-Cheese token?
Marge: No! It’s a Sacagawea dollar! You can trade it in at the bank for a regular dollar!

Today, the incoming House Democrats voted on their leadership positions. They’ve decided they really do want San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. But in a political setback for Pelosi, those same Democrats decided that her pick of outspoken anti-war John Murtha wasn’t for them due to ethical concerns. Instead, they picked Steny Hoyer, a far more moderate Democrat who has had a somewhat turmoiled past in his minority leadership role under Pelosi. It’s interesting in the first place that the first thing Pelosi said after the election is how she’s going to reach across the aisle in the spirit of bipartisanship, and then the second thing she does is push for the very divisive and vitriolic Murtha to become Majority Leader.

But what I find really interesting is that the Democrats have proclaimed that Pelosi is definitely going to be Speaker starting next January, and the media is taking it as a foregone conclusion that she will win. That’s not how it works, though. In January, the new Congress will convene, and the entire membership gets to vote for the new Speaker, not just the Democrats. The Republicans could pull a partial coup by unanimously supporting a moderate Democrat rather than voting for a Republican who’s obviously going to lose. Other moderate Democrats would be in a better position, because their legislation would be less likely to get vetoed than that of liberal Democrats, and if moderates had control of the Speaker’s chair, they would also have control of committee business and would get to direct their legislation to the floor. Republicans would be in a better position by not having a liberal as Speaker, meaning that some of their ideas might see the light of day as well. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to play the political blame game in 2008, but a reasonable person would rather have some of their ideas put into law than rely on a shaky campaign strategy that’s two years out, especially when voting across the aisle means they get to seem like the real bipartisans, contrary to Pelosi’s claims.

Considering how badly Pelosi’s nominee for Majority Leader lost (149 to 86), and considering that the Democrats have a pretty slim majority going into the next session, I wouldn’t count my chickens just yet if I were the media.

She said it.

And the blogosphere snickered.

On a barely more serious note, Senator Harry Reid’s future faux pas reads as follows:

All over America tonight they have come to the conclusion - as we did some time ago - that a one-party town just simply doesn’t work.

I wonder - among the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, which one are the Democrats planning not to claim in 2008?

See number 11.