Presidential Snark

Ahahaha:

Official White House Response to "Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016":

This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

That's awesome, I don't care who you voted for.

The Ezra Klein Show

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

We've been seeing a lot of Ezra Klein on MSNBC lately. Washington Post's "Wonkblog" editor is now Rachel Maddow's go-to substitute host, and there are rumours floating around that he may get his own show. That's how Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry got their start on the network, after all.

I like the guy and he's really smart, so I wouldn't mind seeing him join the lineup. He needs work, though. You can tell he's trying to develop more on-screen charisma, but right now he's copying Maddow's inflections and mannerisms too much. (Don't worry, Ezra, Chris Hayes used to do that too and he's much better now.)

If the show rumours are true, my suspicion is that MSNBC is trying to tap into the geek love generated by Nate Silver's polling triumph in the 2012 election - which is funny, because Nate Silver apparently hates punditry.

P.S. Yes, I know I talk about MSNBC people all the time. I haven't drunk the Kool-Aid, it's just that Fox News is too absurd and CNN is too boring, and all my other favourite news sources are on the Internet. I think of the network as a tidy case study of everything that is good and bad about cable news.

Election 2012

h/t @moikl

I love politics. For some reason.

HBO's "The Newsroom"

Days after Keith Olbermann gets fired from Current TV, we get this spectacular teaser from Aaron Sorkin.
 

I'm hooked. Sorry, "Mad Men."

(I can see it now. Sorkin in interview after interview, saying "Why, my character is completely fictional! He's a combination of a range of different TV personalities! After all, he's a Republican!")

Melissa Harris-Perry's "Nerdland"

Fair play to MSNBC. They're actually starting to seem a bit edgy - at least on the weekends.

I've loved watching Dr Harris-Perry as a guest and guest host on the network. As a tenured professor and a political scientist, she makes me feel like I should be taking notes and doing homework - a rare thing for cable news.

Now she has her own show, following the equally nerdy "Up with Chris Hayes". Michael P Jeffries writes in The Guardian that this proves MSNBC's commitment to education and intellectual debate:

The Harris-Perry show will not solve the deeply-rooted inequities that restrict access to higher education for so many Americans. But it does represent MSNBC's recognition that the public thirsts for earnest intellectual discussion, driven by data and evidence and facilitated by trained professionals. All members of the academy, regardless of discipline or political preference, should recognize the value of the Harris-Perry show, as its host explicitly acknowledges the different skill sets and demands of academic research and public intellectualism.

Sounds great. If we see more of this intellectual style brought into the primetime lineup, I'll be a happy news geek.

Review: Steve Jobs

Originally published in The Dominion Post's "Your Weekend", 26 November 2011.

Since the death of Steve Jobs on October 5, the stories surrounding him have taken on a life of their own, linking Jobs with everything from the glories of American capitalism to the rebellious spirit of the Arab Spring. Fortunately, biographer Walter Isaacson has the skill and insight to tell the story of an extraordinary person on a human scale.

Drawn from over 40 exclusive interviews with Jobs over two years, along with interviews with his family, friends, colleagues and competitors, Steve Jobs: A Biography pays tribute to a modern genius while avoiding the notorious “reality distortion field” that surrounded him throughout his life.

Open and reflective during his struggle with cancer, Jobs gave Isaacson his full co-operation and urged people to be honest about his mistakes.

The book starts with his childhood in the San Francisco Bay area and follows his career from beginning to end. At each step – co-founding Apple with Steve Wozniak in his father’s garage, revolutionising personal computers with the Macintosh, creating animated movies at Pixar or tackling the music market with iTunes – Jobs strived to combine cutting-edge technology with art and imagination.

Drunk Ron Paul Fan

I need to not run around showing this to every Libertarian I can get my hands on. That would be rude.



Constitution. Read it. Live by it.

Olbermann's Back

He gets a fancy promo in TIME Magazine and everything:

"Same title, same tirades, new channel. Having parted ways with MSNBC, Olbermann takes his passion for politics to the far reaches of the cable dial, on the channel founded by Al Gore. Current, premieres 6/20."

I'm interested in seeing how the new show plays out. Obviously Current won't give him the ratings that MSNBC did at the end of his eight years there, at least not at first.

But I get my cable news almost entirely through podcasts and online material, and I suspect it's only a matter of time before the old ratings system goes out of style. By throwing his considerable star power behind an interactive, web-savvy channel like Current, Olbermann might be giving the whole system a shove in the right direction.

Now you might be asking yourself, "Gosh, it's been six months since Keith Olbermann left MSNBC. What's he been doing to pass the time?" Oh, you know, the usual - hanging out on the Internet, reading James Thurber short stories aloud to his fans while wearing a vintage baseball jersey over a dress shirt for no apparent reason.



You bet your ass I'm watching his show.

Graffiti

We have a lot of taggers in Wellington. Generally they annoy me, but sometimes they take me by surprise, like this one at an Island Bay bus stop. It was painted over by the end of the week.

ScienceGate

Okay, this? Is driving me up the wall.

Some top officials of a Nobel Prize-winning climate-science organization are acknowledging the panel made some mistakes amid a string of recent revelations questioning the accuracy of some of the information in its influential reports. [...]

[T]hough they say each revelation itself is small, they worry that the continuing string of them is damaging the IPCC's credibility—not just with experts who question the premise of human-induced climate change, but with the public at large.

I’m definitely angry with the scientists at the IPCC. I’m counting on them to be the rational reliable people in this debate and it does nobody any good when they cut corners and don’t own up to mistakes.

But what really gets me is that every time scientists do admit to a mistake, no matter how minor it ultimately is, the anti-science crowd start screeching at the top of their lungs. This disproves the entire theory! It’s all a conspiracy! Environmentalism is nothing but a cult!

Of course this makes massive headlines, which is all the deniers really want to do – not address the evidence or improve our understanding, but simply shout the whole thing down. And in the meantime scientists have to run around trying to convince the public that they're not evil, instead of focusing on scientific issues that really do need scrutiny and debate.

For the last time, nutjobs – true science is not a religion. It does not attempt to define the great cosmic Truth of the Universe. Science is about gathering evidence and creating, as best we can, a series of models that explain how the world works. If you find a mistake, you fix it. If you want to scrap an entire model, you come up with a better one. Those are the rules. If you’d paid attention in high school Chemistry class, you’d know that.

Gawd.

Official Spokesbird

Okay, name me another country that would take a joke like "shagged by a rare parrot" and embrace it so completely that the FREAKING PRIME MINISTER gets in on it. Hint: You can't.



Rachel Maddow has been all over this story today, so I have to tell you, it's a proud day for all New Zealanders.

More information about Sirocco, our Official Spokesbird for Conservation, can be found at www.spokesbird.com.

From the "Oh Geez, I Actually Wrote That" File

May as well be up front about it, really.

When I was in college, I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. I mean like "watched Fellowship of the Ring twelve times at the cinema" obsessed. Embarrassing to admit, but I was studying computer science at the time and the LOTR films came out right in the middle of Finals Week and I NEEDED ESCAPISM OKAY.

So I was idly reminiscing about it today and I remembered this:

The Story of Legolas and Enoreth

That right there is a complete, novel-length LOTR fanfiction story about Legolas Greenleaf, written by me. And a satire, no less. Fanfic about fanfic, how meta.

I'm blushing just looking at it, but you know, the story has its moments. The bit with the talking raccoon still makes me laugh. Poor Legolas, the Mary Sues will be the death of you.

I once wrote Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanfiction too, but damned if I'm going to show you where that is.