Month: June 2015

The Machete Order for watching Star Wars films.

This is from 2011, but my wife told me about today, so I don’t care. Machete Order is a modified version of a way to watch the Star Wars flicks… oh, let him describe it to you.

I’d like to modify this into what I’ve named Machete Order on the off chance that this catches on because I’m a vain asshole.

Next time you want to introduce someone to Star Wars for the first time, watch the films with them in this order: IV, V, II, III, VI

Notice something? Yeah, Episode I is gone.

To make it simpler: the way we learned it it would be Star Wars, Empire, Attack of the Clones,  Revenge of the Sith, Jedi, with Phantom Menace tossed out in the trash.  And, do you know something?  This is exactly how the series should be watched. Everybody must do it this way now! Science demands it!

SCIENCE DEMANDS IT!

Are you ready for …AMBASSADOR Charlie Crist? (Cuba.)

Oh, God, the Senate confirmation hearings.  THE CONFIRMATION HEARINGS. Marco Rubio can keep asking Charlie questions in Spanish.

This would be like candy to Rick and me and the rest of our sort.  CANDY.  We’d go nuts.

You’ll get gay married and LIKE it, Brian Moylan.

:Leaden tones: Your life as you knew it is OVER.

It’s frankly adorable that this guy thinks that he has a choice.

Now that the Supreme Court ruled that marriage equality is the law of the land, a marriage with my boyfriend in New York would be just the same as my brother’s. Like all those people who immediately washed their Facebook profile photos in a rainbow bath, I’m overjoyed at the decision and glad to finally have the choice to get married. But, as of right now, it’s a choice that I’m deciding not to make.

This is the price one pays for mainstreaming one’s identity-group; which is to say, one must mainstream. That means marriage. That means kids. Which, by the way, means much less in the way of disposable income that can be spent on trips and extravagances, like furniture that isn’t kid-resistant. Does Brian Moylan think that his mom nags him now about getting married? Just wait! Continue reading You’ll get gay married and LIKE it, Brian Moylan.

George Will just wants to watch a stealth-Marxist regime burn.

To mangle the John D. MacDonald quote: when it comes to the Commies* running Greece George Will is the iceman, and he’s going to make one delivery only.

This protracted dispute will result in desirable carnage if Greece defaults, thereby becoming a constructively frightening example to all democracies doling out unsustainable, growth-suppressing entitlements.

[snip a long passage in which you can almost hear George Will sharpening his knives on a grindstone]

It cannot be said too often: There cannot be too many socialist smashups. The best of these punish reckless creditors whose lending enables socialists to live, for a while, off other people’s money. The world, which owes much to ancient Athens’s legacy, including the idea of democracy, is indebted to today’s Athens for the reminder that reality does not respect a democracy’s delusions.

Continue reading George Will just wants to watch a stealth-Marxist regime burn.

Ooh. Pelgrane Press is putting out a hardback Cthulhu Apocalypse campaign setting.

I thought that that was what the countdown on their site was for. Anyway, I’ve previously bought the gaming supplements that are acting as the backbone for Cthulhu Apocalypse; it’s basically all about how to roleplaying out the end of the world, Mythos-style. Which means, yeah, the world is going to end and that is the way of it. You don’t play anything with the title ‘Cthulhu’ in it for a Magical Sparkly Happy Ending and the Krogan baking you a cake, is what I’m saying.

On the Matter of the perverted Messianic romanticism of Islamic State.

Via @cayankee comes this article with a provocative (to me) title, but that’s mostly because the article actually understated the influence of the Arthur legend on Tolkien.

But the story of the arrival and lingering global charisma of ISIS features something that sets it apart: the idea of the Caliphate. Last June, the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself caliph. The grandiosity of the claim was likely lost even on many educated non-Muslim observers. A position that has been gone from Islam in anything but name for 1,000 years, the caliph has to meet certain requirements: he must control territory, must enforce sharia law within it, and he must descend from the Quraysh tribe, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad (the Ottoman emperors claimed the title into the 20th century, but their claim is widely rejected because they did not descend from the Quraysh). Pledging allegiance to a valid caliph, when one is available, is an obligation that ISIS supporters view as binding on all Muslims. And while Baghdadi’s claim has been divisive even in the world of violent jihadism, groups in Nigeria and Libya have apparently made this vow of allegiance.

[snip]

Far from being a parochially Islamic impulse or a nerd’s fantasy – something you can get involved in from ‘your mama’s basement’, as one counter-terrorism expert has said – the myth of the Caliphate echoes dreams of transcendent legitimacy that are deeply embedded in European culture and literature. To find a story of a sovereign authority long lapsed in kingship but still entitled to the allegiance of all the just, and fated to reappear at an auspicious moment, we need look no further than The Lord of the Rings (1954-55).

Continue reading On the Matter of the perverted Messianic romanticism of Islamic State.

Quote of the Day, Victories Are Fragile edition.

This here is an important point that can’t be brought up enough.

Ever wonder why no interesting center-left Democrats aren’t challenging an increasingly vulnerable Hillary Clinton? There aren’t any. Nobody. No one.

As Britain and France were bled white by their World War I battles, the Democrats were drained by a series of midterm debacles in which those in swing states were punished by voters, and all but the bluest of blue were cut down. On the altar of healthcare, Democrats sacrificed the fruit of two cycles of party-expansion, the picking of people who could win in red states and red districts, to bolster the party’s breadth and appeal.

Continue reading Quote of the Day, Victories Are Fragile edition.

Tweet of the Day, So, Yeah, @RichardDawkins’ Utopia Is Whites-Only edition.

This is why people shouldn’t try to write alternate history without doing their technical reading first.

Continue reading Tweet of the Day, So, Yeah, @RichardDawkins’ Utopia Is Whites-Only edition.