I’ve been pretty much convinced over the past two days that Geneforge 5 is utter bullshit. There’s no way that game is balanced. I’m playing it on casual–because I like story more than gameplay–and my characters are getting murdered on silver platters.
Either I’m doing something INCREDIBLY wrong here or this is just unbalanced. I think it’s the latter. The new Avernum remake didn’t have the same problem–in fact, on casual, it was almost too easy. I don’t see similar things in the Avadon demo. So I think Geneforge 5 is BS.
Mish Shedlock, a renowned macroeconomist, bets that economic growth in China over the next decade will average 3.5%. This is known, in the advanced, academic jargon of economics, as “pitiful.”
It seems that no matter what your ideological position is…you hate Thomas Friedman.
Not that it’s hard. I blogged about him last year and how much of a pompous moron he was (and still is today.) My only question now is: why do so many people take him seriously? Or do none of us take him seriously, and this is all one big in-joke? No, the New York Times isn’t that smart.
If you really want to know why people continually dislike and distrust modern, contemporary news media, look no further than this outburst from an MSNBC anchor which makes her look like she’s five years old.
I’m serious.
The topic in question is this BS story about Romney allegedly cutting a guy’s hair in school back in the 1960s, a story which really doesn’t have any relevance to anything today (and which might, apparently, actually be false.) Tim Carney, of the Washington Examiner, was trying to put the story into context, and why whatever Romney’s response really shouldn’t matter. It’s something I wholeheartedly agree with–even though I am no fan of Romney–but apparently, Tamron didn’t:
HALL: So there you have it Tim. And the point is, he’s doing local television—that’s a local reporter asking something that is important to the people of that particular state. His response, you know, people are raising an eyebrow about.
CARNEY: Okay, well, I’ll talk about the marijuana in one second. But what you’re doing here is a typical media trick: You hype up a story, and then you justify the second-day coverage of the story by saying, “Oh, well, people are talking about it. Here’s how Romney responded to it—“
HALL: You don’t have to answer a single question I ask you. You do not. And you did not have to accept the invitation to come on. You knew what we were going to be discussing. [Unclear]
CARNEY: [Unclear]
HALL: Hang on, Tim. You’re kind of in my house here. The problem is this: The story’s out there, and you’re right—I am not saying that we should belabor what happened 50 years ago. We are talking about the response by the campaign and the governor, not just on this issue, but—
CARNEY: You are bringing up a meta story here, which is, “What is the Romney response to this other non-story?” I’m trying to go meta-meta on you, and say here’s some media treatment—
HALL: You don’t want me to go anything on you, because you are actually irritating me right now. I’m going to be honest with you—yes, you are, because you knew the questions and topics we were going to discuss. You knew them; you agreed. And we are not talking or demeaning—listen, 50 years ago, I was a much tougher kid probably than Mitt Romney was in high school. I’m not talking about the issue of whether he was bullying or not. He says he doesn’t remember; to be fair, I cannot say he does. What I am asking about is how the campaign has handled this situation, how he handled the Colorado reporter, how he handled same-sex marriage where he said he agrees with gay parents be able to adopt, but he does not agree with same-sex marriage? Just the handling of questions beyond the economy. If you’re not comfortable talking about that, I am a-okay, but you’re not going to come on and insult me, you’re not going to come on and insult the network when you knew what you were going to come on and talk about. Done. Now, let me talk to Jimmy, I’m done.
CARNEY: Are you going to cut me off?
HALL: Yes, I am.
This is why people are ceasing to watch TV news, or read the newspapers. It’s a combination of the shortsighted arrogance that news anchors and journalists decide what is and isn’t a story, and the technique of trying to hype up things in order to be “entertaining.”
In other words, it’s complete and utter horseshit. And people aren’t buying it.
Newsflash to Tamron Hall: More people get their news through Twitter and blogs than your TV show. Kicking Tim off your show won’t change any of that.
The whole point of having news is having a wide variety of opinion. Yes, there is a point where you have to say “stay on topic,” but you can do that in a far more civilized and adult manner, and you could also ask first where this is going. Second, Carney was talking about the topic at hand. She was asking about Romney’s response to a reporter, and how that might be the same nature as what Romney exhibited in the past, so Carney decided to talk about the media’s hyping up (which is really what it is) about the past story.
Trying to control the discussion in that manner is not news, that’s propaganda. And that shows a distinct lack of integrity on Tamron Hall’s part.
(In her defense, though, that “I’m going to go meta meta on you” line from Tim just sounded utterly crass, and he should not have said it. That was dumb.)
People got that sense from media coverage around the 2008 election, and they’ve been getting it a lot during the Obama administration (and a little before that too; we had it during the build up to Iraq, for example.) This was a crystallization of that distrust. And I think when people think about what’s going on here–not the mindless ravings from places such as ThinkProgress–you’re going to find that 52% trust in the media will evaporate.
This is why people read blogs, go on Twitter, and generally get their news sources from places you wouldn’t traditionally think of as news. It’s not just technology–though that plays a part–it’s because the traditional media outlets are extremely haughty and think they have the right to be the gatekeepers of all knowledge. And if you don’t toe their line…you get Tamron’d.
Also, a couple of quibbles:
“I bet I was a lot tougher than Mitt Romney when I was a kid:” REALLY? You went there? Wow, that’s like, so, like, awesome, like. Seriously, isn’t that a phrase uttered by children? Because you’re so tough when you’re a teenager. Really.
Where, at any point, did Carney insult you or the network? As I’ve said repeatedly, all he was doing was providing context to your question. If you don’t like that, well tough. That’s what he’s doing. He was discussing your question. If anyone was insulting, it was you, Ms. Hall, for saying “You don’t want me to go anything on you.” In fact, that might constitute a threat, which might be at the level that can bring on legal action.
I normally don’t get involved in these things–I said nothing about that whole Chris Loesch Twitter pseudo-debacle–but I abhor bullies, and that’s exactly what Tamron Hall was today. A bully. MSNBC should be ashamed of itself for having her on the show.
[Note: Tried to write this faster but I was so angry I had to get up and pace around my office. This video infuriates me that much.]
What I find most humorous about this is that Romney is not a Tea Party candidate whatsoever. The guy is a big government establishment Republican. He has nothing, really, in common with the Tea Party. Heck, he put Obamacare through its trial run in Massachusetts, for crying out loud.
I think the best response was this:
.@cher I think all the anesthesia from plastic surgery has fried any functioning brain cells you may have had.
As I wrote in one of my earliest blog posts (to which I never supplied the promised sequel), I was raised in the United Methodist Church. I never fully bought into it–even as a child, I considered myself an “agnostic Methodist” of sorts–but I do remember it quite fondly, particularly as it is far more moderate than many of the hardcore conservative evangelical denominations (such as the jerkface from North Carolina who advocated parents hit their kids if they start turning gay.)
I don’t see the Methodists in the news very often, so I was surprised when I saw Matt Yglesias tweet about them banning products made in the settlement territories in Palestine. From the New York Times:
The United Methodist Church, the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, voted against two proposals on Wednesday to divest from companies that provide equipment used by Israel to enforce its control in the occupied territories.
The closely watched vote, at the church’s quadrennial convention in Tampa, Fla., came after months of intense lobbying by American Jews, Israelis and Palestinian Christians. After an afternoon of impassioned debate and several votes, the delegates overwhelmingly passed a more neutral resolution calling for “positive” investment to encourage economic development “in Palestine.”
However, the Methodists also passed a strongly worded resolution denouncing the Israeli occupation and the settlements, and calling for “all nations to prohibit the import of products made by companies in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.”
An international movement for “boycott, divestment and sanctions” has gained steam as the peace process in the Middle East has come to a virtual standstill, and allies of the Palestinians have argued that these strategies could pressure Israel to stop building settlements and return to the negotiating table.
I may not consider myself to be a Methodist, but by gosh by golly do I agree with the above sentiment. Let’s be honest about what’s going on in Palestine, here: Israel has turned the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into bantustans, depriving the Palestinians of water, food, electricity, and basically anything approaching a free market, all in the name of “security,” and now is moving into what little land they have and taking it. And they have the gall to wonder why they’re being rocketed? Really?
It doesn’t take a braniac to see that occupation leads to violence. Anyone would notice that. Kudos to the UMC for taking a stand, though personally, I think a boycott of goods made in the territories will do jack squat. This is just symbolism.
Unfortunately, the Church balanced out the good with some bad. Again, from the New York Times:
The United Methodist Church, at its convention in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday, voted not to change long-contested wording in its book of laws and doctrines that calls homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
The vote was 61 percent to 39 percent against the change to the church’s “Book of Discipline,” indicating little change to the deadlock on an issue the church has been debating for the last four decades. The delegates also defeated a compromise amendment proposed by the advocates of equality for gay members, which said that Methodists can agree to disagree on homosexuality and still live together as a church.
Now, there are multiple considerations here. First off, it is certainly a religious tenet that homosexuality is bad. That’s their religion, and if that’s what they believe, they shouldn’t change it. But certainly they can still be accepting of those who are they way, instead of blatantly stating that their lifestyle is “incompatible.” (I mean, when we think about it, is Christian teaching is also incompatible with cheating on your wife, war, and misleading your flock? Does it mean you should be bothering people at funerals when they put their loved ones to rest? I have to wonder what else is “incompatible” with Christian teaching.)
But second, I always got the impression the United Methodist Church, while not “okay okay” with homosexuality, was “okay” with it, at least in the toleration sense. That’s why I’m a bit surprised to see this sort of language. I always figured they just didn’t mind all that much about it.
But this is why I’m an atheist. I’m not going to let some “General Conference” tell me what is or isn’t okay to think. (Though, technically speaking, that means I’m a “freethinker,” not necessarily an atheist. Though if there’s an “Atheist General Conference,” I’d like to hear about it.)
The good news is, I submitted my entry for the DC shorts screenwriting competition yesterday. It was probably not the best I could do, though I had been fiddling with it off and on for the past month, and I decided that it was time to submit. Supposedly, Leonardo da Vinci once said “Art is never finished, merely abandoned,” and I feel that is quite accurate. However, part of the competition is getting feedback, and since that’s all I really want to obtain, I already consider myself a winner.
The bad news is that I failed to finish the ScriptFrenzy script I was working on. I had to have 100 pages by today, but I think I have somewhere between 20-25 pages. Why? Why did I fail? I think the sole reason was because I did not work on it constantly. I got myself into a position where if I wrote six pages one day, I felt I could take off the next day and not feel bad, but that was a mistake. Seemingly every day I got home from work I would feel wiped and unable to write. On the weekends when I would shoot for big gains, whatever I produced was marginal due to multiple reasons (which I won’t really dig into here.)
Ultimately, the lesson I learned is that you must write every single day. Any pause and there will be major issues.
I will continue writing it, however, because the idea that I’ve had for this has been in my head for years, ever since middle school. And I think that, as long as I put my butt in the chair and write–even if its only 3-5 pages a day, or less than that–it will work. It’s all about routine. It’s Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break The Chain” concept. And while to me it seems like a cheap cop-out, I think, after looking back on this, that its the truth.
So I will continue to write and finish this thing, hopefully over the next couple of months. There are already big changes in my life that should help me with that–I’m changing day jobs soon (my current gig is having me bring work home with me and keep it stuffed into my head, which is not fun), and since I recently reinstalled Windows on my home computer (bringing it from the ancient age of XP to the relative modernity of 7) all of my games are gone.
Except for Avernum. Just let me solve that one and I’ll be good, I promise…
Sometimes–sometimes–there is a deeper meaning. But 90% of the time, the curtains are just blue.
I believe this is because most English teachers are wannabe literary authors, who are automatically rejected because nobody reads that pretentious shit. You know what people read? Twilight, Hunger Games, Halo. Not “The Rusty Bicycle Overlooking The Cliff” or, god forbid, Ethan Frome.
And that’s why you should never listen to your English teacher.
