GroupThinkTank
Revolutionizing the world, one "I agree" at a time
Monday, April 30, 2007
Mark Dixon, 6:47 PM:
Mike Gravel's "national initiative"
I'm personally opposed to Gravel's "national initiative" idea for citizen-initiated lawmaking on a nationwide scale.
Here in California, the popular initiative system has led to some of the most ill-conceived, poorly thought-out and downright dangerous laws being passed. People vote based on slanted TV commercials that distort and outright lie about the issues at stake and most don't bother to read the text of the proposed laws before they vote. Thankfully, some of the worst have been overturned by the courts.
Side note to Russo: Gravel apparently studied economics at Columbia in the 1950s and was a cabbie in Manhattan to pay his way through school.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Mike Russo, 10:28 PM:
Al Qaeda: Pioneering Anti-Alien-Invasion Tactics Since 1988
I know, two posts in forty minutes. But had to pass this along:
"One thing that popped into my mind was that the only way Americans would be in an asymmetric war on the other side would be if we were attacked by aliens. Everyone chuckled, but then after a minute the comments started setting in," Taylor said.
"Then we really got to talking about it and we thought, well, you know, we really might need this contingency plan anyway," Taylor said.
Failure to prepare may mean mankind will have to dig in and fight with improvised weapons and hit-and-run tactics, much the same way Islamic extremists have battled the U.S. military in Iraq, Taylor said.
"You'd have to create an insurgency, a mujahideen-type resistance," Taylor said. "The insurgents know how to win this war against us. It also tells us that if we were attacked by aliens, this is our best defense."
Link
Insert obligatory joke about the aliens lacking an exit strategy and blaming the insurgency on those fucking Aldebarans.
Mike Russo, 9:59 PM:
Erudite Spam
I don't ordinarily get all worked up about spam, but 1) it's the middle of finals and I'm easily distractable and 2) it doesn't get much better than this:
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Sadly, I deleted the email without looking at it once I saw it was spam, so this is all I have of it -- but the Putty screen was still open after I quit out, and since it stayed there for a moment I suddenly had an inkling of what it was. Digging the dead-tree version out, I was able to confirm; this is bits of the Circe section of Ulysses, cut up so they're even less coherent. I know it's just a bot slicing away at whatever texts are freely available on the net, but still. Made my night.
Also, I was just looking at the NYT write-up of the Dem presidential candidate debate, and realized that there was this Mike Gravel guy running who I had never heard of. Am I being slack-jawed, or is this seriously someone people know about? Also, apparently he wants Congress to pass legislation "'making it a felony' for the administration to say in Iraq." I have no idea what that means, but consider: would that be a bill of attainder?
