Why do US people believe their country is a leader in everything, when cold, hard numbers eminently suggest otherwise? Mass-hypnosis?
Because, obviously, the US is leader in free [CENSORED]. Concerning news and political discourse, I think if you compare our [CENSORED] to the [CENSORED] of any other [CENSORED], you will find that our [CENSORED] is head and shoulders above that of any other [CENSORED]. Admittedly, certain alarmist elements, such as the [CENSORED] and those of the [CENSORED] party may lead you to believe that our government engages in [CENSORED] but the reality is that intellectual debate and news reporting in this country are [CENSORED], [CENSORED], and most important of all [CENSORED]. Really, all of this concern is just alarmism. We have nothing to fear except [CENSORED].
Does this mean my "What Would Xenu Do?" t-shirt isn't legal?
The problem with "WWXD?" is that it's just not a terribly useful guiding philosophy. For instance, imagine you're in a situation where you're having trouble getting along with your coworkers, and so you ask yourself, "WWXD?" The answer is that Xenu would round up his coworkers, put them on some starships shaped like DC-8 airliners, ship them to the distant reaches of the galaxy, and then nuke them into oblivion. So, as you can see, "WWXD?" has two major problems:
First, the solution is *always* to put people on spaceships shaped like 1950s-era jet airliners and then nuke them, because that's all we know about Xenu. "WWXD?" dictates that you put people on DC-8 shaped spaceships and then nuke them in any situation, whether it's marital problems, dealing with the poor, or feeling frustrated that you dropped your grilled cheese sandwich: just round up a bunch of people, put them on airplane-shaped spaceships, and then drop a bunch of H-bombs on them. It's just not very flexible as a philosophy.
The second issue with the "WWXD?" philosophy is more practical. Xenu was an evil galactic overlord. As a galactic overlord, he had lots of resources, in particular, lots of minions and henchmen to round people up and put them on spaceships, and lots of spaceships shaped like DC-8s, and lots of thermonuclear bombs. Unless you have access to similar resources, "WWXD?" is just not practical to apply to your everyday life. Although I admit, when I think of how to deal with Scientologists, and then ask "WWXD?", I have to admit that the philosophy does have some appeal.
I know a way out of this. The Pirate Bay just has to change their name from "The Pirate Bay" to some weird and completely unintelligible symbol that nobody knows how to say. How can the lawyers sue them if they can't even say their name?
So you're comparing the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, to the infernal demons from the lowest, blackest depths of the abyss of Hell? Man, that's pretty harsh. I think you owe those demons an apology.
I'll go Ray one better. We will have this before 2029.
Yes, but what do they mean by "human level intelligence", in particular, which human are we talking about? I mean, if "human level intelligence" means "as smart as George W. Bush", then I wouldn't trust that machine to handle my taxes, let alone any really critical tasks.
If they aren't boycotting the games already, then there is very little chance they would have any real concerns about Chinese human rights issues.
How much impact do you think Stephen Colbert would have had if he'd said, "the White House correspondent's dinner? But I hate the White House, I'm going to boycott it!" Instead, he took that as an opportunity to criticize the president, to his face, in front of all his staff and in front of the media. And there wasn't a damn thing the president could do.
Not showing up to the Olympics is pointless. You're throwing away years of hard work, and for what? China isn't going to suddenly stop supporting Sudan and Burma, or stop oppressing Tibetans just because a few athletes don't show. Or, you could show up, win a medal, get a moment in the spotlight, and use it to shed light on China's abuses, in China, with the entire world watching (of course, it might be a good time to bring attention to some U.S. human rights abuses as well).
I could be wrong here, but I don't think that the Chinese have the slightest clue what they're in for. The government can't simply crush dissent under the treads of a tank, like they did during Tienanmen, there will be witnesses everywhere, all with wireless laptops, Blackberries, blogs, cell phones, cell phone cameras, digital video recorders... everything will be covered by a dozen cameras and thousands of well-connected witnesses; it's the perfect time to make a statement, and it will be almost impossible for Beijing to stop you or retaliate. In a way, they're a little like our Bubble-Boy president, George W. Bush. He and his advisors inhabit a reality-proof bubble where dissent is not heard, so he was utterly unprepared for the idea that Colbert might use the opportunity to criticize him. Likewise, the Chinese leadership lives in a bubble where open dissent is not permitted, censorship is everywhere, and people will only criticize the government in private. After all those years of living in a heavily censored society, I think the idea that someone might actually stand up and speak out, publicly and in full view of everyone, is just inconceivable to them.
So what? There are no criminal penalties involved.
You don't get it, do you? When you mess with the Presidential Records Act, you're messing with the entire National Archives system. That means they take away your National Archives Library Card. Want to check out that official copy of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, or the Marine Mammal Protection Act? Sorry, buster. You're gonna have to make do with a photocopy. And guess what? Without that card, you can still get in to see the Constitution... but not after hours.
The other issue I would like to point out is that putting RFID chips into people and treating them as cattle has for some time been a dream of the uber wealthy elite classes.
Why? By definition, people who are obscenely rich have lots and lots of money, which is a far more effective way to manipulate people than RFID tags. Come on, really, do you picture the super-rich saying, "man, what I'd really like is to be able to implant electronics into the working class so I can watch their every move"? They're rich. They have yachts, and private aircraft, and small islands, and can do anything they want with their lives... do you really think they give a shit about what time Joe Sixpack staggers home with some drunken bar skank?
So overall the amount of our energy usage that goes to household lighting is 0.09 x 0.20 = about 2% of our total energy usage. If you manage to make lighting that is, say, 10 times more efficient than incandescent, then you will replace 2% with 0.2%, for a grand savings of 1.8%. Not impressive.
Not by itself, and for that matter, it's unlikely that any single energy-saving technology is going to make a significant difference. But what if we were able to get a 2% reduction in energy usage on 5 different fronts: internal lighting, building cooling, building heating, electrical appliances, and internal combustion engines. That would be a 10% reduction in our overall energy usage, which would be a lot of energy, given the size of our economy and how much energy we consume.
Think about the development of the laptop computer, and what it took to make that possible. There wasn't a single development that made it possible to make computers that weighed under 10 lbs., it was a whole host of new technologies: thin displays, powerful batteries, smaller hard drives, and then some clever application of existing technologies. Likewise, if your goal is to reduce energy consumption, it will probably take a whole host of new technologies and some careful considerations of how to better use our existing technology to do the same job with less energy.
Not just that, but a bunch of drunkards. Apparently their ranks are filled with so many alcoholics, that this Anonymous group needed to start a 12-step program.
There are other ways of doing that: nuclear, or the massive oil fields in Alaska. But no politician seems willing to put them all on the table and compare the pros and cons of each.
Nobody's really sure how much oil is in ANWR, but the estimates run from 5.7-16 billion barrels, with a mean of 10.4 billion barrels. To put things in perspective, Saudi Arabia has about 250 billion barrels of reserves, and Iran and Iraq put together have about that much. Kuwait and the UAE each have about 100 billion barrels. Personally, I'm in favor of developing ANWR if we can ensure that a close watch is kept on the oil companies to make sure they don't screw up the environment, but there's no way it will end our dependence on the Middle East.
We still have Obama. Party doesn't really matter anymore.. the country is getting further and further fargone and needs real leadership. McCain (war hero or not - honestly, it's noble but doesn't impress me) and Clinton both represent entrenched politics and more of the same old. Sounds funny, if I can't have Ron Paul, I want Obama.
I agree that the country needs real leadership, but the question is, what does real leadership consist of? Yes, Obama is dynamic, charismatic, and gives a great speech. In short, as much as he positions himself as an outsider, he is a master politician. But do those things mean he has the leadership we need?
Pretty much everyone agrees that the country is in trouble. The economy is headed downhill, we have a 9 trillion dollar deficit, the situation in Iraq is quieter but still very dangerous, Afghanistan is in danger of falling apart. These are serious problems. We need more than hope, optimism, and flowery speeches. Obama sometimes reminds me of that book Oprah is always pitching, "The Secret" which says that if you just think positive, really really hard, everything will turn out okay. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld already tried that in Iraq, however, and it didn't work.
What we need is someone who will take a brutally honest look at the problems we face, figure out what we need to do to solve them, and then fight like hell to make those things happen. It will not be easy. I think that a tough bitch like Hillary, who lives and breathes the details of policy, or a tough son of a bitch like McCain, who kept arguing for a change of strategy in Iraq, is the kind of person we need. Washington... well, Washington has always been a vicious political rat's nest, I don't think one young, idealistic politician will change that, and I think that the lack of civility between Democrats and Republicans, while frustrating, is the least important of the challenges we currently face. If anything, a leader with the strength and determination to take on the nation's problems will have to step on a lot of toes and twist a lot of arms. Implementing real change is going to create some real enemies. Clinton and McCain, of course, have plenty of experience with making enemies.
A couple years ago, my father used a phrase that struck me, the phrase "good corporate citizen". It's the idea that beyond just turning a profit, a corporation has the obligation to make sure it's conduct has a positive influence on it's community, just like you have an obligation to make sure that you're a good citizen. It struck me as being a sort of noble idea (my father is a small business owner, and I'd like to think that's what he's trying to be) and one that seems quaint and outdated in today's world where the bottom line is the last word.
American society is so self-centered: we spend so much effort on looking out for ourselves, both at the level of the individual and at the level of the corporation, and not enough on making sure that we're looking out for our friends, family, neighbors, and country. Google's not perfect, and I'm not sure I like their approach to dealing with China, but I think that their "don't be evil" philosophy is a refreshing change from the downright predatory practices of many companies. At least they're making an effort.
Frankly, I am appalled by the irreverent joke comparing Mohammed to Super Saiyans. This is exactly the type of disrespectful behavior that the article is complaining about, and you ought to be ashamed for making fun of other people's religions. Is it that hard to have a little respect and basic tolerance for other human beings? I find it disturbing that people are so ignorant and prejudiced as to mock our Prophet in this fashion. We faithful take our Prophet, the Super Saiyan known as Goku, very seriously.
See people, we can create freakish nightmares of creation without even using genetic modification! Really, being afraid of the unnatural qualities of "Frankenfood" makes about as much sense as being afraid of "Boo-Berry" cereal.
I have a deathly phobia of Boo-Berry cereal, you insensitive clod!
Security theatre at a railway station would be a much harder sell. Nobody is going to fly a train into a skyscraper. They're not going to have a lot of luck hijacking it either.
However, they could detonate a bomb while it's moving at high speed, and the resulting accident would probably kill everyone on board. It's already been tried on the high speed AVE train in Spain but it was unsuccessful. Assuming Al Qaeda or a similar group does attempt to attack in the U.S. again, they will probably target mass transit, just as they have in Spain and Britain.
Except for Senator, what public office has she held
Because, you know, being a senator doesn't count. And of course, all she ever did when Bill was in office in Arkansas and D.C. was bake cookies and iron shirts.
In my field I've gotten to know a couple of men, academics who were near the top of their field in terms of their accomplishments and reputations. And what both of them had in common were very hardworking, intelligent, capable wives. One in particular would see his research basically grind to a halt overnight if she ever left him, because she's the person who does the organizing, the networking, the making sure things get done, she edits papers, she's basically on the Blackberry 24/7 keeping his entire career running. These wives do a hell of a lot of the hard work, and their husbands get all the credit, and I'm sure if either were to apply for a job, people would say, "but what did she ever do? She doesn't have that much experience," because he was the one who got the title, even though they were a team. I could be wrong, but I get the impression that much of the time, Hillary and Bill's relationship was a lot like that. If so, then that means she has picked up one hell of a lot of valuable experience, probably almost as much experience as Bill has, even if it's not the kind of experience you can put on a resumé. And frankly, I think that if the contributions women make to their husband's careers are so casually written off and belittled, well, it just underlines the extent to which misogyny and sexism linger in our society.
I'm one of the 4 UNSW scientists who designed PLATO. We certainly are using the fuel efficiently. When the sun is up we get over 1kW from solar panels, and we run one diesel generator at a time with just enough heat output to stop the fuel from getting too cold and turning to gel. Interestingly, the solar panels are considerably (about 30%) more efficient than you would expect from temperate site measurements - the colder temperatures (-50C at the moment) help, as does sunlight reflected from the snow.
Wow, that's great! You see, this work is relevant to the script for a sci-fi movie I'm currently working on. Maybe you could give me some details about the project to help make my screenplay more realistic?
See, the premise is this: arrogant scientists, in their hubris, invent a high-tech robot telescope and install it in the remote reaches of Antarctica where no one is around. And then the robot telescope becomes self-aware, and goes insane and wants to kill everyone. That's the first act. However, I'm having a little trouble figuring out what happens in Act 2... I mean, the robot can't move, and there's nobody around to kill. So right now, in Scene 2 the robot just sits there and sulks, and sends spiteful emails to the research team, and muses on the nature of existence. So it's sort of existential, I was hoping for something very "Terminator"-like and it's coming out a bit more like "Waiting For Godot".
But I can only imagine how stressful this is for people who just want someone sane in the White House.
Which is why the Cult of Obama frustrates me. As a young, white, left-wing male, my demographics predict I should be an Obama supporter, but I'm not: he's my #3 choice; Hillary is my #1 choice and McCain is #2.
After eight years of the incompetent Bush presidency, I don't care about charisma. I don't care if the candidate is someone who'd I'd like to have a beer with. I don't give a rat's ass if they can make fancy speeches. I want someone who can get shit done, right.
Sure, Obama's speeches are laden with inspiring messages of hope... I don't give a damn. We've suffered enough from eight years of well-meaning idealists. Replacing a bunch of right-wing idealists with left-wing idealists is not going to help, we need realists in power. I want someone who can implement practical policies to deal with the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, repair international relations, and get legislation passed. Hillary strikes me as a smart, shrewd, competent political operator. McCain strikes me as a very level-headed guy. Obama strikes me as bringing platitudes and inspiration to the tables, not policy solutions. Until he's convinced me that he's the best guy to solve problems, not just take principled stands and make stump speeches, he can be as articulate as he wants, he remains a distant third.
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For a biting critique of Florida's new standards, and a defense of craziness, see "Our Reputation for Flakiness is at Stake" by Carl Hiaasen [ http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/carl_hiaasen/story/421075.html].
Because, obviously, the US is leader in free [CENSORED]. Concerning news and political discourse, I think if you compare our [CENSORED] to the [CENSORED] of any other [CENSORED], you will find that our [CENSORED] is head and shoulders above that of any other [CENSORED]. Admittedly, certain alarmist elements, such as the [CENSORED] and those of the [CENSORED] party may lead you to believe that our government engages in [CENSORED] but the reality is that intellectual debate and news reporting in this country are [CENSORED], [CENSORED], and most important of all [CENSORED]. Really, all of this concern is just alarmism. We have nothing to fear except [CENSORED].
The problem with "WWXD?" is that it's just not a terribly useful guiding philosophy. For instance, imagine you're in a situation where you're having trouble getting along with your coworkers, and so you ask yourself, "WWXD?" The answer is that Xenu would round up his coworkers, put them on some starships shaped like DC-8 airliners, ship them to the distant reaches of the galaxy, and then nuke them into oblivion. So, as you can see, "WWXD?" has two major problems:
First, the solution is *always* to put people on spaceships shaped like 1950s-era jet airliners and then nuke them, because that's all we know about Xenu. "WWXD?" dictates that you put people on DC-8 shaped spaceships and then nuke them in any situation, whether it's marital problems, dealing with the poor, or feeling frustrated that you dropped your grilled cheese sandwich: just round up a bunch of people, put them on airplane-shaped spaceships, and then drop a bunch of H-bombs on them. It's just not very flexible as a philosophy.
The second issue with the "WWXD?" philosophy is more practical. Xenu was an evil galactic overlord. As a galactic overlord, he had lots of resources, in particular, lots of minions and henchmen to round people up and put them on spaceships, and lots of spaceships shaped like DC-8s, and lots of thermonuclear bombs. Unless you have access to similar resources, "WWXD?" is just not practical to apply to your everyday life. Although I admit, when I think of how to deal with Scientologists, and then ask "WWXD?", I have to admit that the philosophy does have some appeal.
This medication has experienced a fatal error. Please restart the patient's heart.
I know a way out of this. The Pirate Bay just has to change their name from "The Pirate Bay" to some weird and completely unintelligible symbol that nobody knows how to say. How can the lawyers sue them if they can't even say their name?
"My eyes! The goggles do nothing!"
So you're comparing the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, to the infernal demons from the lowest, blackest depths of the abyss of Hell? Man, that's pretty harsh. I think you owe those demons an apology.
Yes, but what do they mean by "human level intelligence", in particular, which human are we talking about? I mean, if "human level intelligence" means "as smart as George W. Bush", then I wouldn't trust that machine to handle my taxes, let alone any really critical tasks.
How much impact do you think Stephen Colbert would have had if he'd said, "the White House correspondent's dinner? But I hate the White House, I'm going to boycott it!" Instead, he took that as an opportunity to criticize the president, to his face, in front of all his staff and in front of the media. And there wasn't a damn thing the president could do.
Not showing up to the Olympics is pointless. You're throwing away years of hard work, and for what? China isn't going to suddenly stop supporting Sudan and Burma, or stop oppressing Tibetans just because a few athletes don't show. Or, you could show up, win a medal, get a moment in the spotlight, and use it to shed light on China's abuses, in China, with the entire world watching (of course, it might be a good time to bring attention to some U.S. human rights abuses as well).
I could be wrong here, but I don't think that the Chinese have the slightest clue what they're in for. The government can't simply crush dissent under the treads of a tank, like they did during Tienanmen, there will be witnesses everywhere, all with wireless laptops, Blackberries, blogs, cell phones, cell phone cameras, digital video recorders... everything will be covered by a dozen cameras and thousands of well-connected witnesses; it's the perfect time to make a statement, and it will be almost impossible for Beijing to stop you or retaliate. In a way, they're a little like our Bubble-Boy president, George W. Bush. He and his advisors inhabit a reality-proof bubble where dissent is not heard, so he was utterly unprepared for the idea that Colbert might use the opportunity to criticize him. Likewise, the Chinese leadership lives in a bubble where open dissent is not permitted, censorship is everywhere, and people will only criticize the government in private. After all those years of living in a heavily censored society, I think the idea that someone might actually stand up and speak out, publicly and in full view of everyone, is just inconceivable to them.
Quit your complaining. Didn't the government just raise the chocolate ration by 20 grams?
You don't get it, do you? When you mess with the Presidential Records Act, you're messing with the entire National Archives system. That means they take away your National Archives Library Card. Want to check out that official copy of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, or the Marine Mammal Protection Act? Sorry, buster. You're gonna have to make do with a photocopy. And guess what? Without that card, you can still get in to see the Constitution... but not after hours.
Why? By definition, people who are obscenely rich have lots and lots of money, which is a far more effective way to manipulate people than RFID tags. Come on, really, do you picture the super-rich saying, "man, what I'd really like is to be able to implant electronics into the working class so I can watch their every move"? They're rich. They have yachts, and private aircraft, and small islands, and can do anything they want with their lives... do you really think they give a shit about what time Joe Sixpack staggers home with some drunken bar skank?
Not by itself, and for that matter, it's unlikely that any single energy-saving technology is going to make a significant difference. But what if we were able to get a 2% reduction in energy usage on 5 different fronts: internal lighting, building cooling, building heating, electrical appliances, and internal combustion engines. That would be a 10% reduction in our overall energy usage, which would be a lot of energy, given the size of our economy and how much energy we consume.
Think about the development of the laptop computer, and what it took to make that possible. There wasn't a single development that made it possible to make computers that weighed under 10 lbs., it was a whole host of new technologies: thin displays, powerful batteries, smaller hard drives, and then some clever application of existing technologies. Likewise, if your goal is to reduce energy consumption, it will probably take a whole host of new technologies and some careful considerations of how to better use our existing technology to do the same job with less energy.
Not just that, but a bunch of drunkards. Apparently their ranks are filled with so many alcoholics, that this Anonymous group needed to start a 12-step program.
Nobody's really sure how much oil is in ANWR, but the estimates run from 5.7-16 billion barrels, with a mean of 10.4 billion barrels. To put things in perspective, Saudi Arabia has about 250 billion barrels of reserves, and Iran and Iraq put together have about that much. Kuwait and the UAE each have about 100 billion barrels. Personally, I'm in favor of developing ANWR if we can ensure that a close watch is kept on the oil companies to make sure they don't screw up the environment, but there's no way it will end our dependence on the Middle East.
I agree that the country needs real leadership, but the question is, what does real leadership consist of? Yes, Obama is dynamic, charismatic, and gives a great speech. In short, as much as he positions himself as an outsider, he is a master politician. But do those things mean he has the leadership we need?
Pretty much everyone agrees that the country is in trouble. The economy is headed downhill, we have a 9 trillion dollar deficit, the situation in Iraq is quieter but still very dangerous, Afghanistan is in danger of falling apart. These are serious problems. We need more than hope, optimism, and flowery speeches. Obama sometimes reminds me of that book Oprah is always pitching, "The Secret" which says that if you just think positive, really really hard, everything will turn out okay. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld already tried that in Iraq, however, and it didn't work.
What we need is someone who will take a brutally honest look at the problems we face, figure out what we need to do to solve them, and then fight like hell to make those things happen. It will not be easy. I think that a tough bitch like Hillary, who lives and breathes the details of policy, or a tough son of a bitch like McCain, who kept arguing for a change of strategy in Iraq, is the kind of person we need. Washington... well, Washington has always been a vicious political rat's nest, I don't think one young, idealistic politician will change that, and I think that the lack of civility between Democrats and Republicans, while frustrating, is the least important of the challenges we currently face. If anything, a leader with the strength and determination to take on the nation's problems will have to step on a lot of toes and twist a lot of arms. Implementing real change is going to create some real enemies. Clinton and McCain, of course, have plenty of experience with making enemies.
American society is so self-centered: we spend so much effort on looking out for ourselves, both at the level of the individual and at the level of the corporation, and not enough on making sure that we're looking out for our friends, family, neighbors, and country. Google's not perfect, and I'm not sure I like their approach to dealing with China, but I think that their "don't be evil" philosophy is a refreshing change from the downright predatory practices of many companies. At least they're making an effort.
That's funny, I searched for the story using Yahoo and couldn't find any mention of it.
African or European A4 Skyhawk?
Frankly, I am appalled by the irreverent joke comparing Mohammed to Super Saiyans. This is exactly the type of disrespectful behavior that the article is complaining about, and you ought to be ashamed for making fun of other people's religions. Is it that hard to have a little respect and basic tolerance for other human beings? I find it disturbing that people are so ignorant and prejudiced as to mock our Prophet in this fashion. We faithful take our Prophet, the Super Saiyan known as Goku, very seriously.
I have a deathly phobia of Boo-Berry cereal, you insensitive clod!
However, they could detonate a bomb while it's moving at high speed, and the resulting accident would probably kill everyone on board. It's already been tried on the high speed AVE train in Spain but it was unsuccessful. Assuming Al Qaeda or a similar group does attempt to attack in the U.S. again, they will probably target mass transit, just as they have in Spain and Britain.
Because, you know, being a senator doesn't count. And of course, all she ever did when Bill was in office in Arkansas and D.C. was bake cookies and iron shirts.
In my field I've gotten to know a couple of men, academics who were near the top of their field in terms of their accomplishments and reputations. And what both of them had in common were very hardworking, intelligent, capable wives. One in particular would see his research basically grind to a halt overnight if she ever left him, because she's the person who does the organizing, the networking, the making sure things get done, she edits papers, she's basically on the Blackberry 24/7 keeping his entire career running. These wives do a hell of a lot of the hard work, and their husbands get all the credit, and I'm sure if either were to apply for a job, people would say, "but what did she ever do? She doesn't have that much experience," because he was the one who got the title, even though they were a team. I could be wrong, but I get the impression that much of the time, Hillary and Bill's relationship was a lot like that. If so, then that means she has picked up one hell of a lot of valuable experience, probably almost as much experience as Bill has, even if it's not the kind of experience you can put on a resumé. And frankly, I think that if the contributions women make to their husband's careers are so casually written off and belittled, well, it just underlines the extent to which misogyny and sexism linger in our society.
Wow, that's great! You see, this work is relevant to the script for a sci-fi movie I'm currently working on. Maybe you could give me some details about the project to help make my screenplay more realistic?
See, the premise is this: arrogant scientists, in their hubris, invent a high-tech robot telescope and install it in the remote reaches of Antarctica where no one is around. And then the robot telescope becomes self-aware, and goes insane and wants to kill everyone. That's the first act. However, I'm having a little trouble figuring out what happens in Act 2... I mean, the robot can't move, and there's nobody around to kill. So right now, in Scene 2 the robot just sits there and sulks, and sends spiteful emails to the research team, and muses on the nature of existence. So it's sort of existential, I was hoping for something very "Terminator"-like and it's coming out a bit more like "Waiting For Godot".
Which is why the Cult of Obama frustrates me. As a young, white, left-wing male, my demographics predict I should be an Obama supporter, but I'm not: he's my #3 choice; Hillary is my #1 choice and McCain is #2.
After eight years of the incompetent Bush presidency, I don't care about charisma. I don't care if the candidate is someone who'd I'd like to have a beer with. I don't give a rat's ass if they can make fancy speeches. I want someone who can get shit done, right.
Sure, Obama's speeches are laden with inspiring messages of hope... I don't give a damn. We've suffered enough from eight years of well-meaning idealists. Replacing a bunch of right-wing idealists with left-wing idealists is not going to help, we need realists in power. I want someone who can implement practical policies to deal with the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, repair international relations, and get legislation passed. Hillary strikes me as a smart, shrewd, competent political operator. McCain strikes me as a very level-headed guy. Obama strikes me as bringing platitudes and inspiration to the tables, not policy solutions. Until he's convinced me that he's the best guy to solve problems, not just take principled stands and make stump speeches, he can be as articulate as he wants, he remains a distant third.