Last year, the world watched, aghast, as history's greatest superpower struggled to provide water and food to tens of thousands of people stranded in a metropolis. They were the victims of a predictable natural disaster, and they starved as their president strummed a gi'tar and the VP was golfing. The media wanted access to the gruesome photos and video of people suffering, dying, and adrift. The Bush administration, masters of image and marketing (but of little else), naturally fought to keep such images buried.
So on the 4th anniversary of 9-11, Michelle Malkin decries the "mainstream" media's thirst for gore:
"So the MSM wants to see bodies? On this fourth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, let's remember these: (picture after picture of 9/11)
The "MSM" (which includes you, Michelle, and your handlers at Fox, "the nation's highest-rated cable news network") doesn't want to see bodies. They want to show the extent to which this government has utterly failed its tax-paying citizens. They want to show that all the cowboy talk of "bring it on" and "courage" and "stay the course" have real costs. They want to show that appointing Brownies and ignoring reality leads to tragedy.
How dare you use the images from 9/11 to support your president's sheer incompetence. What is it that we are supposed to "Never, never forget"? "Never, never forget that when your ratings tank, you can evoke memories of 9/11?" "Never, never forget that no matter how bad you screw up the country, you didn't actually pilot a plane into the WTC?" "Never, never forget that the American population hates Osama more than Bush?"
For shame.
This is simultaneously appalling and amusing. Design Dating Patterns parodies the GoF Design Patterns approach to recognizing standard problems and cataloguing solutions... but in the area of dating. More specifically, guys trying to pick up girls:
he true genius from the Gang of Four was not how to create elegant enterprise software systems.
* It was Trojan Proxy.
* It was Encapsulated Big Fat Opening.
* It was most definitely Half Bad Boy Plus Protocol.
It was Dating Design Patterns. The ultimate reusable set of solutions for a complex system. The Gang of Four's original and most ingenious work. With assistance from Christopher Alexander.
When the Gang, as well as Grady and Christopher, were in college, they invented the ultimate reusable set of patterns for the most complex system of interactions available: dating.
Their success with women was famous throughout the state. As Christopher said at the time, “Do you have any idea how unusual that is, for guys who read Knuth for fun?”
James Wolcott has written a nice little slam of the notion that "Hollywood is out of touch with Heartland America". Great quote:
The heartland issue is such a crock, especially when it's taken up by pseudo-populist pundits who cling to both coasts and wouldn't move to the middle of the country unless the name of that middle was Chicago. Fuck the heartland. It doesn't exist. It's a metaphor for all the simple good things Americans would believe in if they flattered themselves by believing in simple good things.
The problem with blogs is that you have to write them. I wish my blog would just fill up with irreverent witticisms so people would think I'm cool. But alas, there isn't such a thing as a blog ghostwriter.
Or is there?
Google tells us that I'm not the first to ponder this idea: link1 link2 (Wow, someone thought of this in 2004... I'm way out of date!)
Anyway, so last month I went to PyCon in Dallas. This past weekend we moved our horses from Cadence Ranch in Liberty Hill, TX to Rocking B in Pflugerville (or is it Manor?). And right now I'm working hard on (re-)implementing Chaco.