Entries tagged with politicking

Current Mood: giggly

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Amazon shoe reviews go political

Those excellent hot pink tennis shoes Wendy Davis wore for her marathon filibuster? You can buy them on Amazon. Which means you can post reviews of them on Amazon. Which people are:

"If you live in North Dakota, make sure you purchase these within the first six weeks of your running program or you will be prohibited from purchasing them. It's for the safety of the shoes."

"The next time you have to spend 13 hours on your feet without food, water or bathroom breaks, this is the shoe for you. Guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day."

Go. Read. Cheer.

Current Mood: relieved

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Three awesome things about today

(1) Senator Wendy Davis from Texas and the People's Filibuster

(2) Goodbye, DOMA!!!!

(3) The U.S. Army Quidditch team:

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politicking

With page numbers and publication date, please

What happens when a Wikipedian attends a political rally
(I do love xkcd).

wikiprot

Current Mood: vexed

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Droning on and on

So the military has come up with a new medal to be awarded to drone pilots. Without getting into the question of whether remotely piloting a drone from the safety of, say, Peoria deserves a medal at all, or the broader question of the ethics of drones in the first place, this seems a rather odd method of implementation:

"The new Distinguished Warfare Medal, announced on Feb. 13, will rank just below the Distinguished Flying Cross in the military’s official order of precedence. That means it will technically rank higher, and be worn on a uniform above, the Bronze Star with V device, which honors heroic conduct on the battlefield, as well as the Purple Heart, which is awarded to troops who are injured in battle." (Navy Times)

A petition to demote the medal has been posted on WhiteHouse.gov, if anyone is interested. They need 100K signatures by March 16 to get it officially addresed by the White House; as of today they're at about 17K. Feel free to spread the word, if you know people who might be interested.

Personally I'd prefer a petition to ban the damn things altogether, but hey, we do what we can...

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: sounds of silence

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Star Trek red shirt myth exploded, plus more

Those of you with a mathy turn of mind will be interested to know that it's actually command gold that loses the highest percentage of its wearers, not the stereotypical expendable red shirts. But sciences and engineering are still the safest. Go Spock!

And since we're in a Star Trek moment, please enjoy the ten most awesome things that happened during ST:TNG's 25th reunion. (TWENTY FIVE. Wow do I feel old. So imagine how Jonathan Frakes feels!!)

Also, Patrick Stewart has made the NRA's enemy list (and is apparently quite proud of it). He's also been attacked by some sort of squid/fruit hybrid, but I'm sure there's no connection.

Oh, and Mississippi finally banned slavery.

That is all.

Current Mood: bouncy

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So you want to write smut...

I'm amused by the fact that I'm sure I saw Joe Biden surreptitiously counting how many pages were left in the President's speech, round about the 40 minute mark :D

But wait, I was going to talk about smut! Check out this great episode of The Storyboard, in which well-known authors talk about how to write ~~good~~ fantastic sex :)

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Current Mood: giggly

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Nate Silver is the geek world's Chuck Norris

The hashtag #natesilverfacts has been trending on Twitter since Election Night. Here are some of the best:

‏

@weldonwk: Nate Silver wasn't born, the probability of his existence just increased #natesilverfacts

@edyong209: Immense RT @TrojanScientist: Before going on a date, Nate Silver calculates the prior probability of reaching third Bayes.

@petridishes: Han Solo lets Nate Silver tell him the odds. #natesilverfacts

@edwardbenson: Nate Silver escaped from a Prisoner of War camp by shrugging and making an independence assumption #natesilverfacts

@Smedette: Nate Silver can recite Pi. Backwards. #NateSilverFacts

@clarklab: Statistical margin of error will now be referred to as “Distance from Nate” #natesilverfacts

We also have the (fictitious, one hopes) #drunknatesilver ("Last night, I walked onto a maternity ward and pointed out the 53rd President of the United States. #DrunkNateSilver").

Then there's the hilariously over-the-top parody account @fivethirtynate, which has gems like this: "@fivethirtynate: Molten variables hiss and roar. On my mind-forge, I hammer them into the greatsword Epistemology. Many are my foes this night!"

Also, some people think he's a witch :)