Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.11

Darfuristan
Remember Darfur? Of course you do. It was a big problem with genocide in.... Africa or someplace, Ryan Gosling wore that Darfur t-shirt, then everything got fixed. Not so much. In a sprawling Rolling Stone article, Ben Wallace-Wells takes a look at how the various international efforts and strategies have created a quagmire situation in Darfur and how the problems going on there are different, yet still as potentially bad as the ones that were occurring six years ago.

Florida Lawmaker Attempts To Deny Tax Credit To Movies Filmed With Gay Characters
That's right, a Florida legislator is trying to deny a tax credit to any film that lenses in Florida with a gay character or otherwise doesn't conform to his standard of returning America's wang and our meth and gator repository back to an imagined Mayberry like existence. Luckily this doesn't pertain to films that hire gays or were written, directed, or starring gays. Otherwise no film would lens in Florida. Sadly this means that Sean and mine's attempt to film and all-gay remake of the Passion of the Christ will have to find another state to film in.

Reconciliation Not Easy to Influence
Whither the scummy lobbyist and industry shill? It seems in all this talk of reconciliation this and "improving health care" that we haven't been considering the feeling of insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. Thankfully Roll Call is there to let us hear their lamentations about how the reconciliation process will largely shut them out of making tweaks and suggestions to any bill. Oh sure, they've cut several pounds of flesh from the bills that were already passed, but how will they be able to survive unless they get a bill that completely caters to their whims? I don't want to live in a country that forces me to contemplate that thought.

Number of millionaires in America increased 16 percent in 2009.
Sure, you don't have a job and you just stole food from your cat, but thankfully our social and financial betters were able to become richer during these hard times. It's nice to know that most of this unpleasantness is being confined to the peasants classes. Rich getting richer? Poor getting poorer? I think we're right on track for a return to serfdom in 2019. That ought to make medieval studies students happy.

That's a hella number: Scientists call for new word to describe 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
,000
We mostly applaud scientists and the pursuit of knowledge around here. But that's mostly because we took them to be serious scholars. Who knew that there were corners of science filled with brew-dog chugging frat bros chest bumping to Limp Bizkit. Why else would they propose that 'hella' join the ranks of giga, mega, and kilo. Sure, 27 zeros would need to be involved before the word hellameter was invoked, but it's the damn principle of the thing. Can't we use something classy, like 'fuckin' or 'shit-ton'?

Chile Earthquake Moved Entire City 10 Feet to the West
Earthquakes: they steal time, mess with our axis, and screw with out precise GPS and longitude/latitude systems. As of now, Concepcion is 10 feet west of where it used to be, Santiago moved 11 inches west, and even Buenos Ares moved an inch. Just imagine in Concepcion, you now have to walk a few steps further to get where you want to go. Also: your entire city was largely destroyed. Talk about piling up inconveniences. This is too much, I think we need to have a talk with the mole people or the CIA earthquake satellite so me can stop this time altering, geography shifting nonsense.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.28

Dominick Dunne’s Quarter-Century
Lost in all the hubbub over some Senator dying was the passing of Vanity Fair journalist Dominick Dunne. While he wrote on many subjects he was most known and most acclaimed for his work looking at how celebrity and high society interacted with the judicial system. From Claus von Bulow to OJ to Phil Specter he covered a hell of a lot of rich crooks. Vanity Fair has been kind enough to put up links to his greatest hits. Good read.

An Emptied Flask Makes for Empty Promises
As if you didn't already know, science has come out and definitively proven that all that shit you claim you're totally going to do when you're drunk (take a swing at your old man, ask that pretty girl out, better yourself, stop taking shit from people, pulling your life together) are all just drunken bullshit. They even coined a term for it: alcohol myopia. But don't worry, after a couple more shots and a few more beers you'll show those fucking eggheads who'll do what, you'll show everyone.

Small Midwestern States To Be Hit Hardest By Climate Change: Report
Ahh Life, it's your small ironies that give you such great flavor. See it turns out that some of the states most opposed to global warming and climate change legislation will hilariously see their parcels of land most resemble an ultra-hot, skin melting frying pan. Oh sure, we'll all fry, but they'll fry a little hotter and burn a little crisper. Now if only all the coal states were within flooding distance for when the icecaps melt....

California Garage Sale: State Holds Giant Garage Sale To Raise Funds
If you were in the market for a giant state seal with a bear on it it or perhaps some stuff Jerry Brown forgot to take out of his gubernatorial storage locker, the state of California, comically reaping the bitter harvest of electing Arnold Schwarzenegger and their idiotic ballot measure system, have been reduced to hawking their goods in an attempt to pay for stuff like schools. If you buy over $500 worth of stuff, Arnold will personally deliver it to your house and say whichever catch phrase of his you want to hear.

War in Darfur is finished, claims UN commander
You know what I think tipped the tide: the hipsters with their Darfur t-shirts. But still, you see all the good that can happen when you just let a despotic government genocide itself out? By strategically doing nothing we made sure that they'd eventually fall into our trap of getting tired of ethnically cleansing the countryside. Well done, international community!