fyi: two posts I'm working on rewriting.

It has been a while since I posted anything of note, so I just wanted to explain that I'm working on revised versions of these two posts.  They are two of the most viewed on this blog, and considering how much attention they've been receiving I'm really not satisfied with the quality of the writing (ad hominids!?!?! wtf).

http://gloriacoffea.blogspot.com/2011/05/1984-in-brief-nietzsches-critique-of.html

http://gloriacoffea.blogspot.com/2011/06/amusing-ad-hominids-aside-i-remain.html

So... yeah... now you know....

I'm not going to hold my breath.

I read way too much stuff on Salon; anyways go read this post, "Joseph McCarthy Reborn."  Here's the last paragraph, emphasis added:

So beware, Rep. West, beware: In the flammable pool of toxic paranoia that passes these days as patriotism in America, a single careless match can light an inferno. You would serve your country well to withdraw your remarks and apologize for them. But if not, perhaps there are members of your own party, as possessed of conscience and as courageous as that handful of Republicans who took on Joseph McCarthy, who will now abandon fear and throw cold water on your incendiary remarks.

Heh, and right after that the congressional Dems with admonish Obama for the ever expanding war on terror insanity.

whoa.... shiny......

A bit out of it lately, but not in a bad way.

• I replayed some of Halo: Reach today.  It's been a long time and it feels good to remember just how much I love Bungie's games.

• I'm feeling completely overloaded on political/social/economic literature.  I think I'll shelve Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and finish the Warhammer 40k book I have laying around.

• I'm horribly ignorant of contemporary European politics (wait, didn't I just say I'm sick of this stuf?!? aaahhh!!!!) but the voting in France has me concerned.  Just under 20% of the vote went to a far right candidate.

• Apparently, however, a nominally Socialist candidate took the single largest group of votes at just under 30%.

• Questions I have:
• How do French elections work?
• How do French electoral politics normally play out?
• What are the historic precedents for the performance of the various parties?
• How "far right" are we dealing with here?
• Are there any real Socialist parties (anti-capitalism, in favor of mass democracy, etc) worth noting in France?  What about Marxist parties?

• Quick!  I must go do extensive research on French politics walk my dog and play more Halo!

When the fuck did this start to happen?

God damn it, when did Wisconsin, my home state, turn in to this?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wow [something positive]

Don't laugh; I'm just having one of those neurotic moments when I need to post something [relatively] cheerful because the top post on my blog is too depressing :P




edit: *facepalm* posted wrong version of video at first.

That IS NOT acceptable.

Just an example:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/10/gaza-executions-hamas-human-rights

I support the Palestinian resistance but capital punishment, targeting civilians, and political repression are never acceptable.

It's hard to support an organization when it so consistently sinks to level of its opposition.  I understand that revolution and resistance are bloody affairs, but that does not excuse such cold-blooded and calculated killings.

Truly the, "Yeah well the Americans do this all the time," defense is an ethically bankrupt phrase.

A surprisingly non-flaky article.

It occurred to me just now that I never posted a link to this surprisingly (given the title and subject matter) good article.

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/politics_makes_people_stupid/

Speaking of hippies, George Orwell once complained that “the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism,’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist and feminist in England.” 

Feminist, mind you.

*wince*

I also want to puke.

Neat video showing lots of love for Femshep from the Mass Effect series.

The comments section for that video is painful.  Just fucking disgraceful.

http://kotaku.com/5899965/raise-your-hand-if-you-prefer-femshep

Some jackass named Demolition_D

Sadly, the novelty wore off quick. They put this totally unrealistic, poorly spoken, testosterone emitting female lead with the same lines, same animations, and same everything as male Sheperd into a universe and story that takes itself so seriously that, as a writer, made me want to puke it was so poorly stitched together.
That's why I traded that bitch in for DMC HD.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for a strong female lead. But this is not how it's done. You shouldn't have to make a womanly do super manly things to convince us that's she's a strong female lead. Make her earn that conviction. Go watch David Fincher's "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" if you want some indication of a good female lead, Bioware. You're supposed to prove to us that's she's strong in her own, original way, like tying a rapist to a bedpost and tattooing the word pig into his chest.

This kind of bullshit is endemic to pretty much all hardcore gaming communities, particularly for FPS and fighting games.

Incidentally I just figured out yesterday that Jennifer Hale, who does the voice for Sheppard, also did excellent voice work for the character Dr. Elizabeth McNeil in Doom 3's expansion pack, Bastila's voice in Star Wars: KoTOR, female Jaden's voice in Jedi Academy, all of which are games I love.

Leninism/Trotskyism and bulleted list! Yay!

I intend to eventually write an at length post about this stuff, but maybe I won't, and I just feel like posting something right now before I run out of coffee and, subsequently, motivation.

• War Communism was a horrifying mistake.

• Suppressing the Kronstadt Rebellion in 1921 unacceptable hypocrisy; if anything the Kronstadt revolutionaries were among the first ones to realize that something was going horribly wrong in the Soviet Union.

• The failure of the Bolsheviks to include the lower-class peasantry (not all peasant were 'peasants' in the sense we use the word today, some were actually quite wealthy) in the power structures of the new society they were trying to create was one of the crucial failures of the early Soviets.  It led to a feedback cycle of callousness and hostility that led to senseless factionalism and frustrated the economic health of the Soviet Union, to say nothing of the brutality of the suppression of peasant discontent or the millions of people who starved to death.

• Many lefties support strict bans on handguns and rifles.  This is born, in part, of an ignorance of the history of revolutionary struggle.  One example; in Chile on the eve of Pinochet's military coup president Allende allowed the military and police to confiscate the weapons that were being hoarded in places such as factories as insurance against a fascist counter revolution.  Allowing that disarmament to happen was, to put it mildly, completely moronic, and should have been apparent as such even before the coup happened.

• The United States does not have a problem that we are near the point of too strictly restricting access to weapons.  The recent murders of Trayvon Martin and Bo Morrison have started to bring to people's attention a long-standing problem with our society: we have a culture and legal system that encourages violence and murder.

• When I write the word 'eve' I instinctively write it in all capital letters, as EVE.  Holy shit I am addicted to EVE Online.

edited for formatting and grammar