silveradept | Right, and more

Today was today, not good, not bad, mostly normal - except that whole stuffed up nose thing. Which is a pain in the butt. Wish it would go away.

I have fallen back into the curse of receiving no comments, so if I am slow or nonresponsive, this is why. If it’s something properly important, draw it to my attention with regular e-mail or other communication methods, please.

Leading with a positive thing for once, Cranking Widgets offers six simple ways to be a nicer person. I hope I’ve got most of those internalized, especially on the job.

The good mood is crushed swiftly, however, A possible system of flagging LiveJournal entries for "inappropriate" content may be coming soon. As it is described in the post, it looks bad and pretty easy for someone to abuse-spam and troll those who they don’t agree with. (Although, wasn’t there already a flagging system implemented somewhere? Or are those still hypotheticals?)

Even worse (for some of us), The Japanese government has made an official appeal to United States authorities to suppress fansubs. Which could kill the licensing companies’ best inexpensive market research.

(Another) report saying that peak oil has already arrived. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this before, at other times, but the fact that it’s even making it into the news indicates that it would be a good idea to find a method to generate the required amounts of energy from a source that is renewable... while we can still generate the cheap power to manufacture the expensive stuff with.

Atari's founder calls current video games "trash". Well, to each their own opinion - it’s true that a lot of games get published that probably shouldn’t. I’d like to see more in-depth reasoning, but the founder doesn’t have any specifics on the record.

Before we get into quiche, the CIA gets special mention for pure, unmalicious stupidity. Feast your eyes on the "Terrorist Busters" logo. This has apparently been in existence for a while. (And Keith made it his Worst Person in the World for today.) Perhaps following suit, or trying to appeal to the same demographic is the National Security Agency’s Cryptokids. Teaching cryptology with young, attempting to be hip anthropomorphs. Think this strategy will work or backfire horribly? Or worse, will it be co-opted as a resource to work through if and when such a unit should appear in their schoolwork?

On the fringes of quiche territory, yet another dittohead saying that every time things go well in Iraq, Democrats are ready to slit their political wrists. You know, if Iraq turns out well, everyone will give credit where it is due - to the people who managed to rebuild it and keep it safe until the domestic powers took over - or those who brought it back from the depths of civil war into a stable democracy. The people who will try to take credit for it, however, are likely the people who will least deserve any of it, regardless of which side of the aisle they sit on.

It’s quiche time, as the graphic above notes. Our leading SSRC says that the people who are having their homes burned in California are the people who hate America. Luckily, the rest of the country does not hold the same opinion, and has mobilized the National guard and fire teams, as well as declaring a state of emergency. Having learned a bit about disasters with the hurricane one, hopefully this one will be controlled better.

In a different style of insensitivity, Angry Asian Man has a roundup of "Asian" Halloween costumes, all aiming for sexuality. Yeah. There’s plenty of costumes that you can do - or, if you’re going to go for that aim, find yourself an anime character so that you can do the makeup in the drawing style and be accurate. Between that and Hogwarts Headmasters, you could easily offend every fundamentalist Christian within your neighborhood. You may want someone who’s a copy of Dungeons and Dragons to drive the point home, however.

Moving in toward our quiche criteria, the Pentagon co-opted an "editorially independent" newspaper as part of a PR campaign for Mr. Bush's war in Iraq, transferring funds away from the paper into the coffers of a PR firm hired to do the selling to Americans. Without notifying the editors. I’d hate to believe that this sort of thing is turtles all the way down, though.

Different malevolence, different result, but environmental regs were suspended to permit the construction of a fence through a national conservation area, under the auspices of the director of homeland security. The wall to keep out the immigrants is more important than the preservation of what little natural scenery and land we have left.And even better, said director actually has the authority to do so.

But, deserving and earning a quiche to the face for being the most Stupid, Stupid Rat Creature in this entry is a mult-quiche winner, Michelle Malkin, who derides and dismisses those objecting to the "Islamo-Facism Awareness Week" project of David Horowitz. If you want, you can have a look at the student's guide to IFAW.

To clear your mind of this (and perhaps to instill a different line of questioning), PETA has convinced an Australian model to appear nude for a campaign poster extolling vegetarianism. How, precisely, does PETA manage this, with their general perception as a fringe group?

My professional self once again hopes that the books used in these art projects are old, withdrawn, and have no interest in being preserved in an archival collection. That said, MonkeyFilter links to several artists that use books as their medium.

Staying in the cool stuff department, Fire Ants Versus... pits fire ants versus other insects, with the fire ants winning a least one bout.

If technology is your thing, try building your own 50s-era satellite, like the Russian one that went up. Components and housing for such would be pretty inexpensive. Getting sufficient lift to put it up into orbit might take a bit more expense. So, instead, it might be better-utilized for some other purpose here on Gaia.

Almost taking top honors tonight as the best thing in this entry is a page that has Christopher Walken reading Poe's The Raven. Of course, there’s also all sorts of background sound effects and an echo effect on Walken’s reading. Still good, and would work well for your Halloween parties. And if you’re in the are, perhaps seeing the all-female version of the Dreaded Scottish Play is good for getting into the right mood.

Our far-and-away winner of Best in Show tonight goes to josh g.‘s notes, for coming up with the rules to Escalating Office-isms, a game that not only requires a good knowledge of buzzword bingo, but requires the players to play a bit of a game of one-upmanship while around the water cooler. Wins are counted by laughs from your opponents, losses when people have to go back to work. Try it yourself.

Since I have to get up early again, bedtime is on the horizon. There’s been another study that says sleep is excellent for your memory and learning, and that REM sleep and dreaming is a great place for all that association to take place in, so make sure you get sufficient amounts of it to stay smart. I’m going to try for some so that I can stay healthy. Or get healthy, rather.