The Random Ten

I found this idea over on Pandagon and I liked it so much I decided to steal it and make it a regular feature. Can't say I like their new site design, but the writing's still as sharp and the ideas just as theft-worthy. This can be a group activity too. See, take the music source of your choice that has a random feature on it and list the first ten songs it picks for you randomly. Now, as they mention on Pandagon, there is to be no cheating. If an embarrassing song comes up or you end up with six songs by the same artist, well tough luck. After all, maybe you'll get a better set next week.

Here's mine (Song title - Artist):

1) I Got A Right Ta - Common

2)War Within A Breath - Rage Against The Machine

3)The Bachelor and the Bride - The Decemberists

4)Piano Solo - Dream Theater

5)I Don't Rap in Bumper Stickers - Sole

6)Aisle of Plenty - Genesis

7)Mic Check - Rage Against The Machine

8)Narcissist, 1999 (Live on WRIU) - Sage Francis

9)Long, Lonesome Highway Blues - Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band

10)Give Me - Atmosphere

Not a bad mix. Don't forget to post your own Random 10 in the comments.

T-Minus....

I'm going to begin a four hour exam in ten minutes and I'm terrified. Just had to share that...

Link o' Rama

Evil Avatar gave me some help finding these linkaroonies...

Good Lord, is 2 Days To Vegas be in the next generation of games? The seasoned and cynical gamer in me says this can't be right, but I suppose we'll see soon...

Hiroshi Yamauchi is retiring from Nintendo. During his 52 years (count 'em!) as Nintendo's President he's seen the company move from more traditional games (I think they were in cards before) to video games and ushered the company through the gaming systems that we grew up on. And to top it all of he turned down his retirement package because he wants it to be spent on game development. What a guy.

Thanks to VE for this link...

Microsoft big wig J. Allard still thinks Rare (makers of Battle Toads and Donkey Kong Country among many others) was worth the $375 million they paid Nintendo a few years back to get the company. There have been and remain many doubters, but as the article says, I think buying Rare was a much more long term investment than most gamers thought originally. I'm betting there will be at least a few Rare games pretty early in the Xbox 360's life.

And these come from a variety of places!

'Nother Photoshop Phriday, and this pretty decent!

Here's a nice recap of the President's press conference from last night. Live blogging always reminds me of reading someone's notes from class. And here's a nice comparison of things Bush said last night to things he's said in the past.

Here's a not so nice review of Serenity. I think there are some spoilers there depending on how much of the show you saw of filled in yourself. I don't know though, with so many of these test screenings I get the feeling that the people that write the reviews are either the hardcore fans or people that have no interest in the specific type of film they saw. It's just little comments like, "And there you have your typical sci-fi channel psychobabble." Now maybe the movie's different, but there was actually rather minimal psycho or techno babble in Firefly, as I remember it, so I can't help but think this person just doesn't like sci-fi much. I don't know, maybe I'm just rationalizing. Still, based on the show and what I've seen from the movie, I think this is gonna be a winner.

Another interesting note about those Marvel movies I mentioned yesterday is that I forgot to mention that Marvel is going to be making these movies themselves at their own brand new studio rather than farming the work out to studios that don't know the material. Also, supposedly they're including "The Avengers" as, I gather, one or more of the characters, so it's unclear how much that's going to effect my list.

A company called DSP Design has made a computer that draws its power not from a power cord, but through ethernet. Of course, it's a crappy weak ass computer that most of us probably don't want, but it's still cool. Imagine being able to have a truly wireless computer. I'm not talking a computer than can work sans wires, but one for which there aren't any wires.

Back to work!

In Lighter News

I should be studying, but I can't stay away from you, our adoring public. While you're thoughtfully considering whether Sozialismus is or is not a Pharisee, here are some funtastic links for you; bulletted for your pleasure!

Looks like the Loony Tunes won't be going psychotic after all! Of course, the truth is that an online petition, no matter how big, has never really changed the goings on of a company that didn't already have their minds changed.

Here's the final Batman Begins trailer. I think the kids would call this "kick ass."

Here's a video for Grandia 3. I played the crap out of the second one back on the Dreamcast. Perhaps there's some way I can afford to get a PS2 and play this one sometime.

Here's yet another video, this one for Black & White 2. The first one was much better than you could have told from the whining, but it did have problems which seem to have been heard by the designers. If only I had a PC powerful enough to run it.

Here's a site that has some screens from the resurected first person shooter Prey, which was much vaunted by 3D Realms (makers of Duke Nukem) in the late nineties only to drift into obscurity. Looking at the pictures, perhaps it should have stayed there. Monsters with gun hands?

Here's a link to Bryan Singer's video journal for the production of Superman Returns. I haven't watched all of them, but it's a very cool thing to do. The one all of you *must* watch, however, is Journal #7 "The Call". Trust me, it's surreal.

Ain't It Cool News is reporting that Marvel has made a deal with Paramount to make movies of 10, count 'em, 10 characters and two of the movies will be about Captain America and Nick Fury; not together I'd assume. Supposedly we'll hear about the other characters soon, but here's my list: Silver Surfer, Thor, Cable, Doc Strange, Havok, Luke Cage, Namor, and Venom. Yeah, I know, not the strongest list, but it did say characters and not teams, so I had to look for people that have worked alone. Any thoughts?

Super Hero Hype let me in on a little secret. Let me share it with you: They're filming two sequels to Sin City and filming them back to back starting next February with an expected release date of summr 2007.

The Next four links I got from /.

Some one has discovered Darth Vader's blog from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Another person found the original Google web site.

Kevin Smith has reviewed Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and likes it.

And just for Czar, here's a review of the new silly Mac OS, Tiger.

I'm a Pharisee?

I was called a Pharisee by a conservative Christian recently. Why? Apparently, because I disagreed with his religious beliefs.

Dr. Laniac's Articles:

What fundamentalists overlook, of course, is which side of the social spectrum Jesus associated with. It was not the powerful, the wealthy, the established order. It was fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, the poor, the outcasts of society. Who did Jesus reserve his harshest words for? The Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious fundamentalists of his day and they were powerful, wealthy, and the arbiters of who and what was appropriately pious. They were also notable hypocrites. Is this starting to sound familiar?

Article also contains a more detailed references from an online Catholic encyclopedia. Via Rox Populi, via feminist blogs.

Buecher

Two books I've recently read:

I recommend Ann Crittenden's The Price of Motherhood. She demonstrates quite convincingly, using both social science data and vivid anecdotes, how care, particularly the care of children, is devalued in our society, and how caregivers, particularly mothers of young children, are systematically discriminated against. Depressing, but still an excellent, thoughtful read.

I cannot recommend Stephen Ducat's The Wimp Factor. The book's description makes it sound like a thoughtful psycho-sociological study of men's ideas about gender, and the way these ideas are expressed politically and theologically. Unfortunately, the writing is of extremely poor quality and the 'arguments' are mostly little more than psychoanalytic speculation. While I am inclined to think the author's thesis -- that ideological misogyny is closed tied to a personal gender identity he calls `anxious masculinity' -- is correct, he does a poor job of defending it.

Salon.com | God doesn't take sides

Salon.com | God doesn't take sides:

What the right has 'appropriated' has nothing to do with God as most of us believers experience God. Their pronouncements about God are based on the great palace lie that this is a Christian country, that they were chosen by God to be his ethical consultants, and that therefore they alone know God's will for us. The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do. The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.

I just think Bush and his people have gotten it so wrong.

I believe you'll have to click through an ad if you don't have a subscription to Salon. I think it's really worth the hassle.

Serenity Trailer

The movie I'm most looking forward to this year.

Blogroll

Bored? Nothing to read while your favourite Staff of Ra heroes are slaving away in the grad school mines? Here's a list of the blogs I check a couple of times (like, five to ten) a day and recommend. Go waste your time there.
(Note: Not all of these are feminist blogs. Just, like, most of them.)

1. Eschaton (Atrios)
   
2. Daily Kos
   
3. The Panda which has left (featuring Amanda! she's cool!) (NB down for the next few days in some kind of update)
   
4. Echidne of the Snakes
   
5. Bitch Ph.D
   
6. Playing School (Profgrrrl)
   
7. Trish Wilson's blog
   
8. Caught in the Rain (Manda) (updated infrequently; get with it, mi amiga!)
   
9. This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) (updated irregularly)
   
10. Anne's Anti-Quackery and Science Blog
    
11. Well-Timed Period (reproductive health blog; a top google hit for how to use the pill to avoid having periods entirely, apparently)
    
12. Learning Curves (it's about math!!!! math is cool!!!!)
    
13. feminist blogs (metablog, includes some of those I've covered above along with others)
    

And here's a picture of the Sims version of my friend Mal.  

This is a test of Picasa 2's blogging thing. This is also a picature of my friend Annie from her trip to India 

Me Too

As I have finals coming up as well, I too will be posting irregularly for a couple weeks. I'll try to find fun stuff for you as often as I can, but it won't be a lot. I heard a rumor once that we had two other posters though....

Time off

Personal reasons, end of the semester crunch, etc. I'm taking some time off from blogging, probably for about two weeks. Unless something big comes up, I won't be putting up anything other than interesting links, sans commentary.

Late-term abortion

Furthering our ongoing discussion on late-term abortion, I'd like you all to read this testimonial. I believe the abortion procedure the woman, a Christian from Texas, describes is a dilation and extraction

In a procedure very similar to an amniocentesis, Thomas’s heart was stopped with a simple injection. In that moment, as I held my husband’s hand, I met God and handed him my precious boy to care for, for all eternity.

Over the next 17 hours I labored to deliver Thomas’s body. It was a painful experience, but the only option given to a woman at 24 weeks gestation.

And here's a Wiki entry on intact D&E. It includes descriptions of the procedure from both PP and National Right to Life, an anti-choice organization.

Those wacky radical feminists!

From Rad Geek People's Daily, we have two quotations from Dworkin and MacKinnon, which seem rather relevant given the shit that's been going down in North Carolina et al.

Meanwhile, in the writings of insane radical feminists who nobody listens to or has even heard of and are clearly hysterical and completely out of touch with reality and who don’t ever write about politics anyway:

"The state is male in the feminist sense: the law sees and treats women the way men see and treat women."
—Catharine MacKinnon (1989), Toward a Feminist Theory of the State

And:

"There is not a feminist alive who could possibly look to the male legal system for real protection from the systemized sadism of men. Women fight to reform male law, in the areas of rape and battery for instance, because something is better than nothing. In general, we fight to force the law to recognize us as the victims of the crimes committed against us, but the results so far have been paltry and pathetic."
—Andrea Dworkin (1979), For Men, Freedom of Speech; For Women, Silence Please

This Blogging Not From Concentrate

With the end of the semester hanging over me Damocles style I just have time to bang out one post of bullet points. Sorry for the lack of commentary, but if someone puts something down in the comments I'll probably be unable to resist the urge.

• Bill O'Reilly is going on a cruise. Watch out ladies.
• Japan spends less money on healthcare than we do by a mile and still has a better system.
• The retiring Henry Hyde is finally honest about the Clinton impeachment and what we knew all along is therein confirmed. Evidently the original version of the story was a little too spicy for ABC, but I found ya the real deal.
• Even though E3 is still a little ways off we have some hot pics of the successor to the Xbox, the Xbox 360. We'll know soon enough how final these designs are. Also in Xbox 360 news, we have the patent for the X360's graphics chip.
• And last but not least we have the first photo of the new Superman in costume.
• Bravo's going to have a series of specials on Superherodom starting in late May. Sounds interesting to me, but I think we can establish from this list that I'm a bit weird.
  

No Help To The People That Need It Most

Despite the fact that bankruptcy is extrodinarily easy for corporations to do, Bush today signed a rewrite of the bankruptcy law for normal citizens making it harder for individuals to have their debts erased.

Berzerker Rage!

Seriously, DeLay's gone so crazy we're lucky he doesn't have adamantium claws.

"Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

Now let's just ignore all the things he's saying about international law that are just factually wrong. Kennedy using the internet is incredibly outrageous? I mean, does DeLay know something we don't about Kennedy's surfing habits? Really, I'm just baffled, he's gotten to the point where he's not even making sense.

Thanks Atrios

It's fundy time!

Echidne waxes poetic on the occasion of the election of a new pope, some fundy Catholic asshole from German.

He says nothing about the scenarios people hold about values in general. I can think of at least three: Some (including old Ratz) believe that there is one single framework of values, given to everyone by some superhuman being (not Echidne, though). Others believe that every society has its own value frameworks and that those outside that society cannot evaluate them meaningfully. This would be the relativist viewpoint. Yet another theory argues that there are certain almost universally held values but their actual manifestations differ in different societies because of historical reasons and reasons of weighing the basic values differently. This one Ratzinger ignores in his homily, perhaps, because it requires thought to understand and apply. Obviously, it is the one I follow!

None of these three lines up exactly with what I think, but I am rather inclined towards something like #3 these days.

Ratz is a fundamentalist. The problem with religious fundamentalism for me is twofold: First, I don't believe that divinities wrote the holy books in the first place. I believe that they were written by religious people of their time and place and that they largely reflect the values of those societies. So what Ratz tells me is to live my life according to the values that nomadic shepherds had two thousand years ago.

Second, fundamentalists have a lot of trouble ranking the messages in their holy books, and ranked they must be if they are to make sense in actual decision-making. Is the condemnation of usury more important than, say, the ban on wearing wool and linen at the same time? What about all the pro-poor statements in the Bible? Should they take precedence over the few statements which advocate killing the witches or subjugating the women or murdering the gays? Questions, questions...

In reality, all fundamentalists take the bits they like and magnify them while ignoring the other bits. This is value relativism, of course.

These are the two points I have with fundamentalism, too. Some of you may know I have a particular lady friend who I'm rather partial to, yet is also an evangelical Christian with some conservative leanings. We've had some very angry and upsetting conversations about religion in this vein. Usually I was angry, and she got upset; sometimes I'm not so nice.

Ben 1-6

Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has been choosen as the 265th Pope. He's 78, and though he was considered somewhat liberal in his youth has become something of a traditionalist in his old age. He has chosen Bendict XVI as his Pope name.