Pandagon

Experience: What counts?

I've already stated that I think Washington experience is overrated, so I'll admit up front that my personal opinions don't have a huge stake in this, but after reading the 15,000th Clinton-leaning piece of writing referring to Obama's "lack of experience", I decided to ask for some clarification.

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Ready for a Creation Museum expansion?

Are you lining up for tickets for the dinosaurs-walked-the-earth-with-Man venue this summer? And they want to inflict this anti-science BS on other cities, with mini-versions in churches.

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"A Fistful Of Quarters" is funny without seeing any movie, though

I like this topic, so I'm stealing it for a post here: What films should you not watch until you've seen others that give you the background material? Ones suggested in the thread: "The Great Escape" before "Chicken Run" and the Romero movies before "Shaun of the Dead". (I love "Night of the Living Dead" with ferocity, and I still missed the part in "Shaun" with "I'm coming to get you, Barbara." Auguste had to point it out to me.)

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Love Me, I'm A Luddite

This is a genre of essay that I'm getting increasingly impatient with---call it "Love me, I'm a Luddite". Sarah Hepola's essay about why she's frustrated with text messaging, and especially the self-congratulatory ending where she (gasp!) writes a letter on a legal pad (whatever happened to stationary?) is cute and well-written but pointless. Let's face it; the main reason people are threatened by text messaging is because it's new and different and reminds you of how old you are and therefore how far you are along on your march towards the grave. Because taken on its own, text messaging is a brilliant innovation that's improving the quality of life for those who've embraced it.

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Stephen Colbert interviews FRC's Tony Perkins

I forgot to post this gem - Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council delivers his response to the California Supreme Court ruling on marriage to Stephen Colbert. Ah, Tony's a real masochist -- who knew? PageOneQ:

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Unhinged Clinton supporter: Dems throwing election away for 'an inadequate black male'

Oh my - the bigot knives came out big time at the Rules Committee hearing chaos. Take at look at what Jane Hamsher captured -- this inconsolable Hillary supporter, Harriet Christian, screaming at reporters in this clip about how the party is...

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Obama resigns from church

It was simply time to cut his ties to the Trinity United Church of Christ. (AP):

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ALLEGEDLY

Would you get on a plane flown by this man?

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Breaking the silence on silence

I just want to write a quick post about the issue of "silence" arguments---i.e., the "why aren't group A writing more about topic B?" posts. It's similar to the "you can't prove a negative" fallacy. All too often, when we get angry with someone for not blogging a specific news item, it's not that they don't care, but something more mundane. They were napping when it came out and missed it in their news reader. They don't feel they have anything useful to add to the discussion, and think someone else blogged about it more eloquently. They cover similar topics so often that they occasionally skip a news item on the topic lest they come across as shrill, one-note bloggers. There's only so many hours in a day, and even the most devoted bloggers spend some of those napping, earning money, or keeping their marriages together. And of course, at least 50% of the time someone is accused of ignoring an issue or story, they actually blogged it and the complainer is ignoring that or conveniently missed that to make a point.

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Way Behind Reviews: Heroes

Since I so often find myself compelled to write reviews of TV shows I catch well after they initially came out, thanks to the combination genius of Netflix, iTunes, and just buying DVDs straight up (though mostly Netflix), I thought I'd just start calling these Way Behind Reviews. Marc and I just finished Netflixing all of the first season of "Heroes". I'll admit; I was skeptical of this show after catching a random mid-season episode, which I watched because a friend of mine with usually stellar taste recommended the show. The episode I caught seemed way too corny and derivative for my tastes, but what I realized watching the first season from the beginning was that the corny, derivative aspects are part of the fun. With the constant nods to comic books and other sci-fi and fantasy shows, the show wears its derivative aspects like a badge of honor, as if to say that these stories are the new mythology of a secular era.

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Dems meeting to figure out MI, FL delegate dilemma today

(NOTE: the festivities started at 9:30 AM ET; Joe's liveblog is here. You can watch the DNC's live video feed here and here.)

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It's Time! It's Time! It's Catholic League Time!

The Catholic League's stated mission is to "defend [...] the right of Catholics – lay and clergy alike – to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination."

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Rape: Pretty much legal in Britain

Well, this is a new one. Most of the trackbacks I get from people not accusing me of blogging about what they want me to blog about---it goes without question that their judgment on my obligations is better than mine---comes from people accusing me of not blogging enough about how we should liberate Muslim women from head coverings through bombing aimed at liberating them from their earthly existence. Occasionally I get a leftist lamenting that I spend too much time making this place entertaining instead of a nobly unread drag that posts to a non-existent readership, but mostly it's the right wingers demanding that I free Muslim women by blogging against their right to live free of being killed by American shrapnel. But this guy is accusing me of wasting my time exposing religious nuts who want to deprive both men and women around the entire globe of pretty much every freedom you can name, and instead suggesting that I don't---get this---write enough about rape. That I write about rape 1000% more often than any other blogger with this much traffic, except maybe the fine ladies at Feministing is no matter. Because by my neglectful inability to dwell non-stop on a topic that's, let's face it, pretty fucking depressing, I've personally caused the abysmal sexist politics that have resulted in a 6% conviction rate for rape in Britain.

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