Word of the Day

I’ve subscribed to the Dictionary.com word of the day email list for quite some time.  I find today’s word appropriate after last night’s debates:

circumlocution \sir-kuhm-loh-KYOO-shuhn, noun:

“The use of many words to express an idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language.”

I guess politicians are masters of circumlocution.

Unfair Stereotype?

A Democrat wants the government to take care of you from the cradle to the grave.  

A Republican just wants the government to make certain you make it to the cradle.  After that, you’re on your own.

» Truth serum - online fact checking sites for political open season - Download Squad

This site has links to some pretty good places to go to see how the candidates really stand.

Still no bail out

“ It reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the IT revolution - on the eve of PCs and the Internet - is pounding the table for America to make more IBM typewriters and carbon paper. ‘Typewriters, baby, typewriters.’

—

Thomas L Friedman on Republicans Supporting Drilling for Fossil Fuel (via livejamie)

This is sad because it is true.

A very failed pitch I made to Slate about the Presidential election and Battlestar Galactica

nickdouglas:

McCain is Tigh, Palin is Roslin. OLD JOKE. But it’s spread through the sci-fi community because it’s so surprisingly accurate: It’s not just that they’re doppelgangers, it’s that McCain shares with Tigh a history of torture by the enemy that many of his constituents feel could have ruined him as a leader, though no one dares to openly suggest this. Palin, like Roslin, an unexpected leader brought to power out of mundanity, abuses her power and defends traditional religions convictions that make her a mockery while endearing her to other believers.

And in all this, no one mentions Adama. A Tigh/Roslin power axis doesn’t even make sense in science fiction without the tempering wisdom of Admiral Adama. He is the sure hand on the trigger that keeps Tigh from sacrificing humanity in order to avenge the dead. He is the only one strong enough to imprison Roslin for abusing her power. His son is a young version of himself, the one willing to treat the demonized Gaius Baltar as a person deserving rights despite his sins. Young Adama is only considered a possible politician after a stirring speech. He’s so idealistic that the lawyer who could make him president nearly shoots him just to spare humanity from a false hope.

If the parallel only applied to the Republicans, this story would be worthless. But even a fictional government facing an enemy of its own creation needed a leader who would not sacrifice his humanity for victory, who even reconsidered whether his inhuman enemy wasn’t in fact human. The Battlestar comparison reveals the necessity of a cool head like Obama’s and provides an image of how that leadership would play out.

Because America can’t have a triad like the Battlestar society, it must make a choice that even the war-torn fictional version of humanity never had to face: A hard line against the enemy and a tendency toward corruption and bad bets, or a compassion toward the fallen that many fear will put the citizenry in danger?

On Oil...

Here’s a thought for all of those people who think we need to tear up Alaska and the US coastal area to drill for oil…

How about instead, we institute a If you drill it here, you must sell it here policy.  I bet if that were the policy, then we wouldn’t be seeing all of these commercials pushing for more drilling.  Instead, we’d see more being done to pursue alternative sources of energy.