The Future is Now

I'll take one with purple hair and soft hands.

More details courtesy of the BBC.

Politics Nerd Nirvana

A bunch of non-political posts are forthcoming, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out the greatest political link of the last year.

This is turning into a hell of a month.

Drip, Drip, Drip

Second verse, same as the first.

A Rove-ing We Will Go

Still no sign of the missing white woman in Aruba, but investigators have reported a sighting of something far more elusive: a spine in the White House press corps.

Where She Belongs

Before the recent bombings in London, the big political story around Washington, D.C. was that journalist Judith Miller of the New York Times was sentenced to jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's name to the media, via "Douchebag for Liberty" Robert Novak. In-crowd "journalists" like Andrea Mitchell (that's "Mrs. Alan Greenspan" to those of you following along at home), subbing this week for Chris Matthews as host of MSNBC's moribund "Hardball" political gasbag show, moaned for days about how journalists need a federal shield law to protect them from violating a source's confidentiality.

Never mind the fact that it appears that Judy Miller is trying to protect Karl Rove, the sleaziest liar ever to work at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Never mind that the outing of CIA agent Valarie Plame, who worked in weapons of mass destruction and was hence a vital tool in the war against terror, as a cheap political stunt is an act bordering on treason (thanks to a law brought to us by George Bush I).

Judith Miller does not deserve the benefit of a federal law shielding journalists, because Judith Miller is not a journalist. I don't know exactly what she is, for sure, but she's about as much a journalist as Jeff Gannon.

As the architect of the "aluminum tubes" story that helped to get us into this disastrous war in Iraq, as the primary mouthpiece of embezzler, liar, and friend of Iran like Ahmad Chalabi, and as a writer with a proven track record of misinformation (or is that disinformation?), she very definitely is not a journalist.

Judith Miller is a criminal. And as a criminal, she gets to sleep exactly where she should tonight: In a jail cell.

Think this is over the top? Check out this Daily Kos post, which sums up Judy's track record over the last several years.

There is something deeply wrong with American media.

Beatlemania Invades the Analytical Engine

Last Tuesday I flew out to Columbus, Ohio for the Origins International Game Expo, the second-largest American game trade show and one of two "must attend" conventions I've been to every year for the last eleven (the other being Gen Con Indy). Visiting Columbus reminded me of summers back home in Minnesota, except about three times muggier (that's a lot of muggy) and with about a million fewer mosquitoes. So I took the good with the bad, and reminded myself how nice it is to live in Seattle in early July.

Paizo's booth looks like a huge Erector set, and is essentially a giant brain teaser. A heavy, giant brain teaser. Made of steel. So as you can probably imagine, it takes two people with limited mechanical ability oh, let's say six hours to set it up. The only saving grace besides good company was my killer combination of a 2,600-song iPod Photo and the OnStage dock/speaker system, which I just happened to have in my bag from the trip earlier in the day.

I thought the other folks putting together their booths might enjoy some music, but I wanted to be sure to choose something that just about everyone would think was cool. I turned, of course, to the only place I could turn in such a time of crisis: The Beatles.

I only recently started listening to the Beatles within the last 6 months, since my move to Ballard. I'll have to save the lame justification for this base lapse of sense and good taste for another post, but it has something to do with a lifetime tradition of going out of my way to avoid things that almost everyone in the world agrees is awesome. I have incredible interest in and knowledge of peripheral culture, but a fairly retarded experience in mainstream cultural subjects. In any event, I come to the Beatles as a 30-year-old man, a bit embarrassed but pleased as hell that he finally got on one of the greatest bandwagons of all time.

During the booth set-up, I finally decided that I have a favorite Beatles album, a trait that, like the ability to grow a decent beard, has come somthing like 15 years too late. In any event, here it is: Magical Mystery Tour. Revolver is a close second.

My current favorite Beatles songs:

Elanor Rigby
She Said She Said
Norweigan Wood
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I am the Walrus
Strawberry Fields Forever
Penny Lane

Please feel free to make suggestions. I'm new at this.