obama for (democratic candidate for) president

A speech given by Barack Obama, thanking Iowa voters for their support a week before the caucus. I think it's pretty rare to read or hear of something this inspiring - when was the last time you heard a Republican say anything with this kind of conviction and oratorical finesse?

I never thought it was such a bad little tree

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Luke 2:8-14

Web 3.0

Something crazy just happened.

I took my last turn at Facebook Scrabble aka 'Scrabulous,' and having finished my FB adventures for the day, was about to watch some internet cartoons on adultswim.com.

Lo and behold, atop my facebook page, was an ad for Adult Swim Video. Wanting to reward AS and FB for their advertising partnership, I clicked it, and was brought directly to the page. Until now, I had never seen an ad for the exact thing I wanted at the time. More importantly, I had never seen an ad where my expression of interest was enough to get me the desired product. A perfect harmony of content delivery and accurate demographic research.

Web 2.0 is clearly old and busted; Web 3.0 is the new, as-yet-undiscovered hotness. Web 3.0 can only be:

a) an internet that uses itself
b) an internet that already knows where you want to go

imo we're on our way

today in history

1192: King Richard the Lion-Hearted is captured in Austria on his way home from the Crusades.

1606: The Virginia Company sets sail from England to build the first permanent English settlements in America.

1803: The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.

1835: First signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence at Goliad, Texas.

1860: South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.

1945: Peter Criss, drummer for KISS, is born.

1996: Carl Sagan, author and astronomist, dies at the age of 62.

1981: Dustin O'Connell, pseudo-intellectual slacker, is born.

(Wikipedia)

I like embedding video, just because I can.

telecom immunity is illegal and ill-advised

long video, worth watching. Props to Sen. Reid for pulling the FISA bill from the floor after veto threats and half a million emails descended on the Senate when Americans found out that the President wanted to protect phone companies who have already broken the law, at the President's request:

arkansas 1, rest of USA 0

North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan recently co-sponsored an amendment to the farm bill currently being extruded from Congress making subsidies unavailable to farms with more than $250,000 in annual income. (There are fewer than 100 farms like that in America.)

It didn't work out. And Arkansas senator Blanche Lincoln shares the blame. It's a variation on a theme that Republicans have been using to jam up the Democratic legislative agenda. It works great, which is probably why Sen. Lincoln, a Democrat, used it on her Majority Leader.

There are other, less counterproductive ways to make the point that all politics are local. Certainly the state of Arkansas benefits, but it does so at the expense of a perfect opportunity to show genuine discipline and leadership.

ping

this is not an advertisement for GEICO, though they are my insurer of choice.

that is all, for now.

wait, no it's not.

I feel like I'm working on a tiny, insignificant part of the Drawball, and people keep coming over and erasing it or painting over it, sometimes on purpose, but sometimes just because they're painting their own stupid crap and it runs over mine and they don't notice. The problem is that I'm actually working on a piece of a large picture on the Drawball, and they're fucking it all up. (metaphorically.)

WTF? Knock it off. (seriously.)

And finally, can you blend hockey pucks?

i like rice, 'cause it's a grain

i like rice, so i'm not insane!

Give some free rice to hungry people by playing this word-definition game. I'm at level 43 and I've only had two incorrect answers so far...

but I've had more than two lucky guesses.

happy thanksgiving

Like many others, I'm going home for the holiday. I'm grateful it's a ten-minute drive. Without further ado, brought to you by YouTube for the holiday, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in three acts:

failure

I wrote a great post describing in detail Obama's health-care plan and comparing it to the plans of all the other Democratic candidates for president. Between research and typing, it took me almost two hours.

Despite a little bubble that pops up every five seconds saying, "Now Blogger saves your drafts automatically!" Blogger ate the post while I was trying to preview it and fix links. The introduction was still there, but all the actual work I did had disappeared.

I'm not spending four hours a day to write a long post twice. Fuck you, readers.

Mostly, fuck you, Blogger. I hate you.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

the only poker post

from my favorite poker IRC channel:

rockshock: i got Rizen on my table
rockshock: to my right
rockshock: ;(
mrace7: who cares
mrace7: rizen ain't great or anything
rockshock: hah
mrace7: he's alright
rockshock: hes good
mrace7: if i were u
mrace7: i'd fear people like lilholdem, imperium, or bgizzel
mrace7: u know rizen and them won't mess around without a certain range
rockshock: but they aint on my table
mrace7: fear people with no ranges
mrace7: who are also good

indeed.

happy to serve you

Greetings! It's been 15 months since my last post. Here's to continuity.