His YouTube channel says he's a performance artist. It seems people actually pay him to dress up like an animal and hang out at clubs, ren faires, art festivals, and the like.

Looks like he even does birthday parties. Or at least, that's what I think the title to "Birthday Tiger means.

I like Grayson's populism. I suspect it's far more genuine than the faux populism of the Republican leadership. But let's face it: his sound bites are pretty vacuous. Not as vacuous as the stuff put out by the Right (death panels? lol), but still ungrounded in any real critical thinking.

I say this as an independent, though one strongly in favor of a public option.

Heh, I watched the episode they were on a few weeks ago. The husband was a total douchenozzle. This is awesome.

I'm not really sure what's happening here, but I like it.

As much as I have a natural fondness for minority religions in general, the more I learn about Mormonism, the more concerned I become about it. Like other conservative denominations and offshoots of American Christianity--the Assemblies of God and the Jehovah's Witnesses come to mind--it contains dangerous apocalyptic strains and a toxic focus on moral purity--where moral purity is defined less by genuine enlightenment and wisdom and more by adherence to sexually repressive, patriarchal norms.

>> ^dannym3141:
^ Basically, my point is:
It doesn't matter exactly what the bible tries to teach. If everyone in the entire world lived EXACTLY AND WITHOUT EXCEPTION OR FAULT BY THOSE SAME STANDARDS then everyone would be perfect. I could write my own lengthy book about how to conduct yourself and substitute it for the bible, and this would still hold true.


No. A code fraught with internal contradictions would not lead to a perfect world if followed by everyone; the contradictions would cause inevitable irresolvable conflicts.

Christian ethics is such a code. For example, Christians are told to "love everyone," and that God himself "loves everyone," yet it is a point of Christian doctrine that some will be eternally damned by God himself. Indeed, by Jesus himself, not the Father, as modern pastors seem to have forgotten. Paul himself makes clear this relationship, and it was reflected in early Christian iconography; depictions of Christ as Pantokrator show him in his role as judge. Eternal damnation is incompatible with both love and justice. Hence, mutually contradictory resolutions arise, impossible to decide between except by gut preference.

Such a world could not be perfect.

UPDATE:

The trooper Daniel Martin ended up getting 5 days unpaid suspension for his role in the incident. Which, given the Good Old Boy system so prominent in Oklahoma, is probably about all you can expect. They should have taken the guy off patrols, but they didn't.

As a result, he's now under investigation for a second incident this year. Apparently, he beat a man with a nightstick for no reason. I wish I could say that I'm shocked they didn't put him on desk duty, but that's Oklahoma for you.

There was a guy at my university who fell out of a truck like that.

He wasn't quite as lucky as those girls. He had to drop out because after he woke up from the (thankfully short) coma, he wasn't capable of reading above a fourth grade level.

So no, not much laughing over here.

Actually, this is the very idea that the ancient Greeks had. It's pretty well known that Sparta deliberately cultivated homosexual relationships between soldiers. It's somewhat less well known that Thebes did something similar. They formed an elite team made up exclusively of gay couples that led them to a 40 year string of military victories, defeating armies several times their size. This Sacred Band, as it was called, was only defeated by the superior tactics and weaponry of the Macedonians, who rolled over the Greek states like a tidal wave.

So it's not just comedy. It actually works in at least some situations.

Neiwert's blog can be found here: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

There's some real food for thought there even for an independent like myself. I can't say I agree with much of what he says, but there are things there worth thinking about.

Holst has been my favorite composer since I first heard the Planets at 14. This was only confirmed when I played the euphonium in high school. (Concert band, not marching) His First Suite in E-Flat had the best solos I've ever played.

Seems like Michael Moore wants something like Distributism.

Upvote for anything with Peter Singer in it.

I think his overall approach to ethics is fundamentally wrong-headed, but his tremendous willingness to ethical theory into action and to raise awareness of the usually overlooked ethical aspects of of day-to-day life are eminently respectable.

Edmund McMillen is a god among game artists.

Man, I think I used to work with that guy. How'd he get a job in sales?