So let me get this straight.  We’re supposed to just accept the incredible physical damage that these men do to each other in the course of a game of Pro Football – Ostensibly because their hearts are so completely devoted to The Game that there’s no other prerogative they can conceivably obey.  We’re meant to believe that they destroy their bodies and, physically, their brains for a game that nobody anywhere in the chain of command/production  can figure out how to play in a stadium with half the lights out?

Yes, I understand that only one team’s comms were were out.  I get that the season’s narrative wouldn’t make as much sense if the final test were on a field that nobody played on in the regular season.  But the mythology of the NFL is that these men, and the test they put themselves to, is incontrovertibly meaningful.  If that was the case, they’d find a way to play.  In fact, they waited until the light was just right to resume the show.

I don’t know, if I can see the players sitting around stretching, they can see the ball.  There’s this huge mythology that the NFL builds about The Gridiron, and how The Players will Play no matter how snowy or cold or muddy it is, but they can’t get up and play in a half-lit stadium?  Please.

Very excited about the tomorrow’s Big Event.

Why?  Why can’t I look away?

http://vinepeek.com

This is so infuriating that I honestly don’t even have the words to describe how reading it made me feel.  The hubris, the audacity of these people; That they think so highly of themselves that they feel justified in taking from the world an irreplaceable part of its history.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/28/mali-timbuktu-library-ancient-manuscripts

I’ve been asked what I think about JJ Abrams being slated to direct the next Star Wars film. The answer awaits you on Whatever.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/01/26/all-right-fine-heres-what-i-think-about-jj-abrams-directing-star-wars-episode-vii/

All Right, Fine, Here’s What I Think About JJ Abrams Directing Star Wars Episode VII

Do you ever hear politicians say particular things on the news that peeve you so much that you yell at the TV or radio? For me, they’re usually lines that are factually just plain false, but sound good, I’m sure, to the majority of people who don’t know the facts.

Here are just two I’ve heard today—no attribution because they’re both lines I’ve heard repeated again and again by different politicians and pundits:

• If you’re that worried about your carbon footprint, you should stop breathing (or other statements mentioning human exhalation as a source of carbon)

Yes, we all know from middle-school science class that we breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. But that’s totally unrelated to the carbon emissions we’re worried about as a pollutant. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon that has been locked up (“sequestered”) underground for millions of years is released back into the atmosphere all at once, promoting increases in the total level of atmospheric carbon, in turn contributing to greenhouse effects resulting in overall climate change.

But when we breathe, we’re using the oxygen we inhale to “burn” the carbon-based nutrients from things we eat—mostly carbohydrates from plants—to provide us with energy, and exhaling carbon dioxide. But that carbon dioxide was already in the atmosphere very recently, just until those plants we ate used it in photosynthesis to sequester carbon and release oxygen into the atmosphere. That’s why it’s a “carbon cycle”—animals (including humans) take in oxygen and release CO₂, plants take in CO₂ and release oxygen. No net effect, so no need to stop breathing, thank you very much. (At a gross level, changes to the world population of animals, whether humans or quite notably cattle, can contribute to a net effect, but that’s a completely different issue.)

• If we keep this up, we [the government] are going to spend ourselves into bankruptcy (or other statements saying US government spending will lead to “bankruptcy” or “insolvency”)

This is just one of the many, many fallacious economic lines that rest on incorrectly equating the US economy to the finances of a family or small business. (See also the way debt and deficits are framed, the idea that in hard times the government has to “tighten its belt”, and so many more.)

If you believed the line: how, exactly, would that work? Imagine the government, instead of building one road or school, builds two, or four, or four thousand, “spending too much money” to pay for the workers and materials. Some number in some account somewhere goes negative, so we’re “bankrupt”. And then what happens? The Chinese foreclose? Debt collectors pester the President at all hours? Somebody (who?) swoops down and auctions off the US Capitol building to pay off the debt?

At least since we left the gold standard, the scenario of running out of money by spending it just isn’t possible. Can the government spend so much that bad things happen to the real economy? Surely, and it has happened at times. Can local and state governments “go bankrupt”, in our traditional understanding of the term? Certainly, and they do even as we speak.

But the federal government can’t “spend” its way to “bankruptcy”, and politicians who say that are willfully misleading people who don’t understand macroeconomics and how fiat money or sovereign government spending works. That, or the politicians themselves are totally ignorant of the fundamentals (which is sadly plausible too).

So, this just happened.  I live on a very exciting block, it seems.

I’m a part of a lot of different communities. 

I’m a sports fan, a group that essentially condones violence and war games. It’s a rigid collection of superstitious and ritual based individuals. 

I’m a gamer, a group that also condones violence and war games. It’s violent, aggressive, competitive and often misogynistic. 

I’m a fangirl, a group that condones violence and obsession. It’s biting, conniving and at times more cut throat than gamers. 

I’m a goon, a group of disgusting, inappropriate  and crass human beings. There is no such thing as too soon and, by god, if you do something ridiculous one of them will post a picture of your front door.

I’m a nerd, a group that doesn’t collectively know how to express emotion. They keep themselves aloof from the world unless there’s someone they can correct.

I point out the worst in these communities because, no matter what, every single group has shown me the beauty that is humanity. There have been charity drives, volunteer hours, taking care of their own and the rest of the world.

I guess I need to make a point that most of us are inherently good people. Yeah, all of us have our faults. I’m not a perfect person and I know I never will be – I’m a deeply flawed individual. The important thing is that I give a damn; I care about people who need to be cared about. As negative as these communities are viewed, each and every one of them is full of people who want to think beyond their own broken shells. 

People are awesome. 

Don’t let the assholes make you forget that.