Just attach a generator to Alfred Nobel’s Body

I know the Nobel Peace Prize has been a political joke for a while now. They gave it to Al Gore for his work in fighting climate change (because, you know, flying around the world in a private jet bloviating about how other people should do something is very important), after all. Now, apparently, they’re handing it out for completely imaginary accomplishments.

In case you haven’t heard, President Barack Obama was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

I’ll put aside, for the moment, the problems I have with awarding effort rather than accomplishment. I’m not even going to argue about how much I disagree with him and feel that his leftist policies are ultimately going to lead to more war, strife, and misery than anything his predecessor could ever have done. Instead, I want to focus on one point: at the time he was nominated, Barack Obama had been in office for less than two weeks.

The fact is, as much as President Obama likes to whine tell us about all the problems he faces as President and how every single one of them was caused solely by George W. Bush and dropped in his lap, it’s very rarely true (and even when it is, how many predecessors did the same thing?). In this case, though, it probably is. This award has absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama and his “efforts,” and everything to do with the fact that the committee simply hated George W. Bush.

This may be the scariest thing I’ve ever read…

Eric Scheie asks, “Who Are The Real Criminals?”

The problem with relying on discretion is that it lends itself to completely arbitrary rule, and with everything being illegal, it’s just a question of whether the government feels like prosecuting you.

I know that’s a very short excerpt, but there are so many blockquotes and links in Eric’s post that it’s difficult to figure out exactly what to cut. Go read the whole thing.

Air, Parts 1 & 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, we went to see Mike Birbiglia on Friday. Unfortunately, the timing of the show was such that I didn’t get to see the premiere of Stargate Universe. Fortunately, the show was on Syfy^[a], so it’s been on several times since then, and between one showing that started at 11pm (too late for me to watch through to the end) and another that started at 5pm (too early for me to get there for the beginning), I was able to catch the show before this week’s episode.

I’m a fan of the Stargate universe^[b], especially Stargate: Atlantis, and I was looking forward to the new show with some skepticism. It sounded a bit too much like Star Trek: Voyager, with a bit of the darkness of the new Battlestar Galactica thrown in.

Actually, at first glance, the Voyager comparison is probably unnecessary, since the more relevant comparison would be to Atlantis. Like Atlantis, the crew is stuck on an Ancient ship, cut off from their allies and Earth, and left to survive on their own (Travel to Pegasus and back did eventually get easier, but it was impossible at first). Unfortunately for the Universe crew, the similarities end there. The Destiny is at least an order of magnitude older than Atlantis, and it hasn’t been hidden at the bottom of the ocean protected by a shield, either. Power issues aside, Atlantis was in pretty good shape. Destiny is not.

Plus, the Atlantis crew brought supplies with them and were able to establish relationships with other worlds. At this point, the Destiny crew doesn’t seem to have the ability to choose where they dial their gate at all (the one wormhole we’ve seen open was opened by the ship, not by the crew), and the fact that they’re travelling and different Stargates are in range at any given time would seem to preclude the ability to establish lasting relationships.

Finally, the Atlantis crew was prepared for their mission, more-or-less. The Destiny is crewed with refugees from a base that was about to be destroyed, and much of the expedition team that was supposed to actually come through the wormhole is seriously injured or killed (not to mention that they didn’t get much of the supplies). They don’t have a doctor, and they certainly don’t have the advantage of having Rodney McKay (or even Zelenka) around, so they’re going to be in pretty rough shape when it comes to fixing up this ancient Ancient ship.

Anyway, with one episode down (or two, or two-thirds of one, depending on how you choose to look at it), I’m definitely sticking around for the new episodes, but I’m still a little annoyed that Atlantis was cancelled for this.

Spoilers and general comments follow.

More …

1. Ugh. I hate that name change. [↩]
2. Not to be confused with Stargate Universe… I’m going to hate this show’s name, I can tell that already. [↩]

On Friday night, my wife and I went to see Mike Birbiglia in Huntington. With the exception of a rather odd choice of opening acts^[a], it was an excellent show.

We were in Huntington’s Veteran’s Memorial Field House^[b], which is a little run-down at this point, but I thought it was okay as a venue^[c].

The opening act, whose name we didn’t catch^[d] was disappointing, but she was followed on stage by Geoff Tate. Tate’s comedy is slightly cruder than that of Mike Birbiglia^[e], but their mannerisms and attitudes are very similar, and he was an excellent warm-up for Mike’s appearance on stage.

For those not familiar with Mike Birbiglia, he tends to be a little awkward (One of his routines involved the coining of a new word to describe himself – deciding that he’s both pudgy and awkward, Mike dubs himself “pawkward”), and has a knack for, as he puts it, “making awkward situations even more awkward.” His comedy generally consists of telling (presumably) true stories about his life, and even stories that could be considered quite serious (especially some of the stories about his sleepwalking, caused by rapid eye movement behavior disorder) are hilarious when Mike tells them.

It was particularly funny to us when we noticed that Tim Irr (who kicked off the event by thanking the alumni association, mentioning the event’s sponsors, and embarrassing his daughter) nor any of the other announcers even attempted to say Mike’s last name, simply calling him “Mike.” I guess they didn’t want to screw up and call him Mike Bahooski.

All in all, it was a great show (with the exception of The Cheerleader, who actually was quite funny – unfortunately for her, she wasn’t trying to be), and we hope to catch another show the next time Mike is in West Virginia.

1. A choice that was made, apparently, by the Marshall alumni association, and which we can only guess was made solely because someone had some extremely embarrassing photos of at least one member of the association. [↩]
2. I know that article shows “Fieldhouse” as one word, but the Greater Huntington Park and Recreation district shows it as two, so I’m trusting them instead. [↩]
3. I do wish they’d invest in some chairs, though. [↩]
4. I probably wouldn’t give it if we had, since I’m not sure that my reaction to her performance was fair, since a former Marshall cheerleader singing self-written songs interspersed with country versions of songs originally by Whitney Houston and Green Day isn’t generally what one would expect when one has come to see a comedian. [↩]
5. The only issue we had with Geoff’s performance wouldn’t have actually been a problem if we hadn’t been sitting beside my wife’s former teacher, which made her a bit uncomfortable when Geoff’s jokes started veering toward sexual topics. He wasn’t really crude, but sitting next to your sixth-grade teacher while a comedian compares being gay to liking Thai food is apparently almost as embarrassing as watching Cold Mountain with your grandfather. [↩]