Here’s a great list of 9 things many Americans just don’t understand — I’ve distilled it down to just the main headings, but you should read the whole thing.
Museums (good museums, that is, not trashy sideshows like Ken Ham’s rubbish in Kentucky) have a real problem: they’re expensive to maintain. They aren’t dead piles of old bones, but are sites of active research, and they have to employ knowledgeable people to do the science that goes on there. It takes lots of money to keep one going.
But along comes a dilemma. Who has great big piles of money? Unfortunately, money tends to concentrate in the hands of assholes. And one thing many assholes would like to do is buy respectability and influence from more prestigious institutions…like museums. Some of the biggest, most assholish, ignorantest rich people are the Koch brothers, and the Koch brothers have been very generous in promoting their agenda by throwing money at museums.
This little fact surprised me.
Gen Con is currently Indianapolis Convention Center’s largest annual convention, bringing the city tens of millions of dollars in revenue. It was originally held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in the late 1960s and organized by none other than Gary Gygax, the father of modern role-playing games. Since then the event has morphed into a four-day event combining tabletop miniatures, board games, video games and live-action role-playing games. It regularly creates in excess of $50 million in revenue for the city of Indianapolis.
Of course he is, because this is America, and anyone can become president here, as long as they curry enough favor with enough billionaires…and America also has plenty of crazy billionaires. Cruz is just the first to officially announce his candidacy, and pretty soon Huckabee and Rand Paul and Rick Santorum will come along and we’ll have enough clowns to start a circus.
But as for Cruz…I’ll just let Charles Pierce tell you about him.
In 2003, a reporter asked candidates for the mayor of San Francisco questions from the Voight-Kampff test. Most of them failed.
I’ve been reading the Ferguson report. It’s a horror. Every page documents an appalling violation of the whole purpose of having a police force: these people weren’t there to serve and protect, they were there to skim off as much cream from the community as they could. This wasn’t a police department, it was a racist extortion racket, oozing corruption.
There’s an effort to get Lego to put out an HMS Beagle kit. It’s beautiful! All you have to do now is go vote for the Beagle (no cost!), and if it gets enough support, they’ll come out with a set and instructions to build it.
David Petraeus has made a plea deal on the charge of revealing secret military plans to his paramour/biographer, and of lying to federal investigators. He’s getting off with a trivial misdemeanor rather than getting strung up for treachery. Popehat has a few things to say about that.
I knew she would. You can read her post about her speech at CPAC right now.
