You want this sprawling mess in a tidy package? You can’t go wrong reading this lengthy breakdown by Kyle Wagner, who is probably now on a hate list somewhere.
One thing I particularly appreciated was the analysis of the attempt to coopt the young gaming jerk group by conservative culture warriors and anti-feminists, in particular the ridiculous Christina Hoff Sommers. Here’s the bit where he tears apart her video.
Behold, the handsomest man in New Hampshire! No, greater — the Eastern US…the Western Hemisphere…never mind, I cannot imagine a more gorgeous human being on the planet. It’s the flowing locks, the noble brow, the shell-like ears, that nose — so graceful, so aristocratic — and those full lips. The chin so strong, and the swan-like neck. I include a large image of the man, in case you want to print it out, frame it, and hang it by your bedside, so you can blow New Hampshire Representative Steve Vaillancourt a kiss as you slip off to sleep.
Alas, he has to be trading on his glorious good looks to get elected, because lurking behind that proud forehead is the brain of a sewer toad. He has weighed in on another race in his state, between Republican Marilinda Garcia and Democrat Annie Kuster.
This bad.
Officially, it’s Columbus Day tomorrow, everywhere except the two big cities I most strongly identify with: Seattle, near where I grew up, and Minneapolis. Both are politically progressive, probably because of my influence (it couldn’t possibly be that my background influenced me), and both have renamed Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day.
Pam Mazanec addressed the Colorado state board of education with an argument for “improving” the teaching of history.
As an example, I note our slavery history. Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today! Shouldn’t our students be provided that viewpoint? This is part of the argument that America is exceptional.
A creationist sent me this charming image to show that Nazis were evolutionary biologists.
Hitler using evolution theory to justify racial supremacy
If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.
Zing! That put me in my place.
A literary site, Dear Author, recently published an analysis of a digital publisher, Ellora’s Cave, which markets erotic/romantic fiction. That genre is undergoing booming growth right now, but Ellora’s Cave has declining revenues and is apparently failing to pay authors.
The NRA wouldn’t allow stupid people to handle a deadly weapon, would they?
