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Showing posts from 2015

Tonight's Debate Preview

Moderator:  Mr. Trump, can you please fight with Ted Cruz? We would really enjoy that. Trump: Ted Cruz is kind of a maniac, but that doesn't matter because right now China is ripping us off.  We're getting ripped off by so many people because our leaders are stupid. And when I'm President, I won't be stupid so we will make America great again. Moderator:  Senator Cruz, would you like to respond to that? Cruz:  Y'know...Mr. Trump is right that the Obama/Clinton foreign policy has put us at a serious disadvantage around the world, and we need to re-examine how we do business if we are going to compete overseas. Moderator: Senator Rubio, how would you re-examine Cruz's statement to start a fight? Rubio: I don't have to re-examine it because my parents came from abroad, so I have one of the greatest American success stories ever.  We can easily have a new American century, but it has to begin with somebody as charming and charismatic as I am...

Trump is the "Fuck You" Candidate

Today we're going to get the first GOP debates for 2016, and as it stands Donald Trump of all people is the leader of the polls.  For the last several hours, conservative media people have been running around with their hair on fire about how Trump is just a plant by the Clintons in some secret conspiracy to destroy the Republican party's chances of winning the election thanks to the fact that Bill encouraged him to run in a phone call. They can't stand the thought of Donald Trump, and that's not really surprising.  Donald Trump is an egomaniacal asshole who could bankrupt the only lemonade stand operating in the middle of the biggest heat wave anyone's ever seen.  And if that isn't explicit enough as to whether or not I think of myself as a Trump supporter before we get into the rest of this, here it is in plain English: no, I do not think Donald Trump would be a good President. I don't think he's trustworthy. I don't think anyone should vote for ...

Why I Could Never Get Elected to Anything

"Mr. Rex, do you think President Obama is a Christian?" "What?" "Do you think the President is a Christian?" "Why the hell are you asking me? I'm not the Pope. It doesn't matter what I think of the President's personal religious values.  What the President thinks is his religion is none of my damn business, and even if it mattered in the least as to his particular policies, he'll be out of office in short order anyway so it's a moot point either way. The fact that you would even formulate those words in that order is insulting to me, the President, and your entire profession.  All the stuff that's happening in the world and you're going to sit there and ask me the journalistic equivalent of 'Oh my God , did you see what Tiffany was wearing last night!?' How the fuck did you get this job in the first place? See this is why people hate you people and everyone in pretty much every political office from dog catc...

A Tale of Two Kirks

Star Trek has had a profound effect on my life. I grew up watching the original series in reruns and seeing the movies in theaters. As Star Trek: The Next Generation matured into a great show, so did I mature through my teenage years. The ethical debates we had in college classrooms had nothing on heated arguments I had about Captain Janeway’s decisions in Star Trek: Voyager . Even when I finally developed an interest in politics, I was more concerned about the reboot of Star Trek than I was about Obama’s attempt to reboot America. Such is the world for people who don’t have time to follow the minute by minute machinations of Washington. It’s why politically savvy people my age spend so much time trying to impress upon conservatives just how important it is they engage in the culture. Not only does it inform our politics, it reflects what we value as a nation. In fact, the difference between the original Star Trek and the rebooted version demonstrates how drastically A...

#GamerGate: The Last Stand of Individualism

Sometimes the hero is the one you least expect... Their goals and their demands vary. Their movement requires almost nothing of its members to join, and so their diversity of both personalities and physical traits is astounding. They're also the last people one might expect to get into a culture war. "They" are the supporters of #GamerGate, and they have been confounding people for almost a half a year now. Even after all that time, it's still a Herculean task to convince people of the significance of #GamerGate, with all "the happenings" as the gamers would call them making it nigh-impossible to wrap it up in a neat little bow for people to understand (though I did take a stab at that .) Those who do take an interest are often stymied by the chaotic nature of a leaderless Internet subculture. David Pakman , for example, spent many of his initial interviews grappling with the notion that a movement with such a low barrier to entry can simultaneously ...