My Political Compass

A friend put me on to this site: http://politicalcompass.org/. It tests your political compass. Very interesting. This is how I ranked, using a composite of two images to show my relation to certain historical figures. I'm the dark red dot near Ghandi. It goes without saying that I'm very happy to be nowhere near Hitler and Stalin, as my conservatives friends often suggest! I'm sure if they answered it honestly they would find themselves closer to those not-so-august circles than me!

Beavis and Butthead

This is brilliant:

"The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead." - Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman

Freyja's Day

My oldest son is driving in from Upstate New York tonight so I'm busy cleaning house. I had expected him Saturday but decided to try to head off a storm. I'll sacrifice to Thor to ward him on his journey. He's smart enough to stop and stay in a motel if things get too bad. I didn't raise any fools.

It's cold here, about 16 degrees, but it's sunny. I haven't looked at a forecast yet (haven't had time!) and forecasts are never very accurate anyway. So we'll wait and see.

Devin is anxious to see him. They haven't seen each other in two years, when Devin was 2. He's going to enjoy playing some of his favorite games with Ross. I'm looking forward to it too. I get to see far too little of him.

I'm already tuckered out from the cleaning. I wish now I'd started yesterday but I have a rare opportunity to write so I seized it with both hands. I'm taking a break now but I should be able to finish to my satisfaction. He won't be here till late, maybe 9 or 10 pm depending upon conditions on the road. It's about a 9-hour drive.

Meanwhile I've also tried to catch upon Digg and will catch up on my blogging this afternoon since I won't be doing much of either for the next couple of days. I visited the forums yesterday so I can hold off on that till tomorrow if I have to. I try not to comment too much on threads anyway, since I want to let conversations develop. We have a good group there though and conversations do just fine without me, which is a nice feeling.

For now it's about lunch time so I'm going to take off and manage operations here at the homestead!

Mayor of Lansing Michigan Rips Into Fox News Anchor

I need to post this somewhere. It's too enjoyable. Every town needs a mayor like Lansing has:

Thor's Day

It's been a strange couple of days again. Got some snow, but the snow melted right off and yesterday it rained all day like the monsoon season is upon us. It was 39 while it rained, and was 31 two days when Devin and I went outside to play. There was still some snow on the ground in shadowed areas then but the rain took care of that. Now I wake up to find snow coming down. It's 35 so unless it gets colder it won't last, but what a bizarre winter. The old term "spring thaw" has become meaningless in this new era of Global Warming.

The little guy is feeling poorly. We're all fighting something off this time of year. He was a little feverish last night and today is treatment day so all I can do is hope for the best. I gave him medicine before bed and put him down early but he hasn't slept and well, we all who have had or been around kids know how that goes.

I haven't accomplished much the past couple of days. I've spent more time with him, which has been nice. I haven't been much on Digg, Facebook, the Blogosphere or any other virtual realm. And I think I kind of shot my bolt with three long, intense posts in three days. A little decompression was in order.

The picture above was sent me by Indrani. I don't know what it's attribution is. A friend of hers at JNU University in Delhi sent it to her and she passed it along to me. Like her, I think it's perfectly appropriate.

Since today is treatment day I don't suppose I'll get a lot done either. If Devin is too sick for the treatment I'll cancel but then I still won't be online much because the little guy will need some care and comfort. I'm going to see what I can get done in the next half-hour before I have to rouse him.

New Article

Check out my recently published content on AC:

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Conservative America and Revolutionary Iran

A Letter to Rush Limbaugh

Congratulations! You have been selected by the Obama administration, the mainstream media and 20 million of your most passionate followers to be the new head of the Republican Party. As such, you are given all the rights and responsibilities that come with being a true political leader. Your mission is simple...

read more | digg story

Sunna's Day

What a day! Nothing like what I grew up with in early February in Minnesota. All the snow is gone, save for a few patches. Incredibly ugly outside. It felt like a wet fall day, right after a rain. Normally I wouldn't complain, but I kind of miss having a winter that...well, lasts all winter. These intermittent spring periods are a drag. Fortunately I'm not doing any cross-country skiing these days or I'd be even unhappier.

I watched a few minutes of the Pro-Bowl. It's not a game I've ever gotten excited about, mostly because the players themselves aren't. Nobody is going to risk their career for this game. I think the players on the winning team get about $45K and the losing team gets about half that. Not bad sounding to the rest of us but chicken feed compared to their regular salaries.

I've taken a step back from Digg today. It gets a bit overwhelming and it can consume a lot of time reading through the shouts you get from various people about things you care nothing about. I mean, there are some weird news stories out there. I'm limiting myself to news and politics/religion. There isn't a religion category there but there is some religion news. I also take a peak at stories about web development, of course.

I had intended to get some blogging done today instead but I've been having some trouble with my blood sugar levels. I was diagnosed with diabetes a few weeks ago and this is the first real trouble I had. The other day I was left utterly weak and miserable feeling out of the blue. I didn't know why. Turned out my blood sugar had crashed. I couldn't even lift my arms. At least now I know the symptoms to watch for. I can catch it before it gets that bad.

So tomorrow, back to the blogging so I can catch up on what everyone else is doing, and of course, the forums. I also want to get back to mosmaiorum.org this week. So many pages to update with the new footnote style. It's going to be hard work but it will look great.

Blogging a-Viking

I am for some reason banned from chatting on Facebook. I've no idea why. It's rather Orwellian because they won't tell you what you did and they won't tell you how long the ban will last. I don't know if somebody got my password and did something naughty and I can't even appeal their decision. It's like being thrown in prison and never being told why.

It's fascist, is what it is, and I would love to tell Facebook they're now on my shit list but they've isolated themselves in their own little reality bottle that isolates them from the consequences of their decision-making paradigm (which could be the roll of dice as far as I know).

It's frustrating because I was finally figuring the place out and have some good liberal friends there as well as family. Now I just have to wait, go back and check periodically and restrain my frustration at not being able to participate in the discussions taking place. And I thought old AOL was bad. Little did I know that technology doesn't free us from tyranny, it only tightens the grip of the Dark Side.

Speaking of which, looks like I'll finally have to upgrade my gaming system. I bought a refurbished XBox about six years ago and it's still going strong. My son is using it now more than me. But I found out from Gamestop today that they won't be buying back anymore XBox games after Monday and once they're sold out, they won't be getting any more in. Terrible! I bought this thing to play Halo on and never bought Halo (because it was so expensive) and now I'm going to be forced to buy that to justify the initial outlay! It's madness.

Which leads me to madness. I saw the vote on the DeMint Amdt. No. 189 "To allow the free exercise of religion at institutions of higher education that receive funding under section 803 of division." It failed by a vote of 43-54 but that is not nearly a big enough defeat. To think the damn thing nearly got an even vote. And my own Democratic Senator shoved a knife up my ass and gave it a twist with his Yea vote. Evan Bayh, you suck.

I wrote the bastard and told him that I'd be carefully tracking Senate votes for the next two years and that I would use my own vote appropriately next election. Yes, I'll hold this against him. He'd best do something useful to redeem himself. They all better. Because at this point, no matter who we elect its just more of the same. Yes, I'm saying it again: It's time for change again.

I'm in the kind of mood that would have sent my ancestors a-Viking. But I can't do that. So I'm blogging instead. It's less effective. For one thing, I can't burn the religious institution of my choice. I can't get any loot to spend and everyone knows money makes you feel better. I can't even sacrifice anyone to Odin or throw anyone into a bog. I mean, let's face it, as going a-Viking goes, blogging isn't real effective. But it's all I got, so bear with me. If it makes you feel better, just imagine that a bunch of Vikings are burning your church and giving the monks and nuns and good time while they carry off all the gold.

Now that I think of it, I feel better already! Maybe blogging a-Viking isn't so bad after all!

The Action Americans Need

"Criticisms of my plan echo the failed theories that led us into this crisis--theories that Americans rejected in November." Op-Ed Writer-in-Chief!

read more | digg story

Tiw's Day

I think I finally have this blog pretty much set up to my satisfaction. I have to keep in mind that this is my personal space. I have a place for politics and another for religion and I even set one up for fantasy football. But here I can talk about any old thing I want, which is kind of freeing. For two long Heathen's Day had to be host to whatever whim I put it to.

I spent most of the morning catching up on my blogging and on responding to news stories on digg, and arguing with a few conservative die-hards along the way. I also did today's post on Restitutor Orbis, a little earlier than I generally do, but there was a lot to report already today and I can always post an update later for breaking news.

I also played Star Wars Battlefront (the first one) with my little boy on XBox. He really enjoys that and it's a little more enjoyable for me to have somebody to play with, even if he doesn't actually shoot too many bad guys. I kind of got the boot today, though. He told me he wanted to take a break, at which point I hear familiar sounds coming from the livingroom and discover that he's STILL playing, but without me. So apparently, the break was from papa. I told him I thought he was taking a break and he got all grumpy on me, like he'd been caught out. He got even grumpier when I told him I wasn't going to play his TMNT game with him. I'm very tired of that particular game and especially the sound effects.

I've been nursing a headache since Saturday and I'm really hoping it will finally go away. Makes it hard to do anything when the side of your head is throbbing. I have more I want to do on Mos Maiorum, like updating the articles to include the new CSS for footnotes, but that's going to be hard until the headache is gone. The same goes for painting that Dark Eldar army I was talking about the other day. I did find those nice illustrations on the Games Workshop site so at least I have some ideas how to paint them. My old Dark Eldar army was red with black. Not sure what I'll use this time. I'm thinking some black and purple like the Baltimore Ravens. Very ominous.

And speaking of football, I have my fantasy football blog set up, or at least partly set up, as I noted above. I'm going to have a site to host statistics but I thought it would be fun to blog a little about it. I've wanted to but have generally restrained myself from posting ff info on Heathen's Day. Obviously, I won't be doing a lot with it until things get going during the off-season (particularly the draft). I put a little NFL widget on it for news updates. I can add more once the season gets going again. Until then I plan to post a little on strategy, etc, but there is no rush.

Back to the grind!

An Open Letter to John McCain

Dear John McCain:

We, the Democrats, won the Presidential election in 2008. We voted for Barack Obama. We did not vote for you.

Why? Because we believed in change. We no longer accept the validity of your old ways of thinking, or the effectiveness of an already failed Republican economic policy.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that you won. You appear to think you are in a position to dictate terms to the White House. To impose your will - the will of a defeated minority - on the chosen, duly elected president of the majority. You seem to think you are a position to dictate your failed policies to the American people, who have already rejected them.

In case all of this escapes you, you lost. That's right. You lost the election. You are no longer in a position to dictate anything.

We did not vote for Barack Obama so that the Republicans can stay in power. This is now how things work in the United States. We expect actual change to take place.

That change will not occur if the majority continues to follow the failed policies of the Republican Party.

So you want to negotiate? We already did. It was called the presidential election. End of negotiations.

You lost. Please accept this as fact. Please become part of the solution or become irrelevant in truth.

Super Sunday

It's Super Bowl day again. I like no longer having to work Sundays. I missed so many classic Super Bowls between 1983-2004 that it saddens me still. I like that I've been able to enjoy the last three at least. It helps to have teams to vote for and I got lucky this time. I'm a Cardinal fan but if the Steelers win I still get to see history made (six wins for one franchise) so I'm not going to be terribly saddened either way.

I'm not going to watch much of the hype leading up to it. I've seen a couple episodes of NFL Total Access this week and that's probably enough for any human, with all the player interviews during Media Day and the analysis of various former players. I can understand the cause of the hype but it almost makes the game itself anti-climactic so I tend to enjoy the spectacle more without.

I've been trying to get some blogging done today as well as connect to more blog groups or catalogs to increase traffic. It's not something I've spent a lot of time or effort on until recently but now that I have Mos Maiorum up and running I feel the need to work a little more at it. It still does not qualify as active searching but it's a little more pro-active to put yourself out there than to just sit back and wait for people to show up. I feel Mos Maiorum's message is important and I do want to reach as many as possible, or at least make myself as "findable" as possible in the time I have available (which is never enough).

Going back to entertainment, we saw Underworld: Rise of the Lycans yesterday and it was great. Awesome combat sequences, decent acting and dialogue, good special efforts and a good score as well. I'd give it a 4-4.5 out of 5. It's nice to have some of the background to the series and the end of the movie ties the whole thing together rather nicely. It left me wanting to watch the first two movies and I'll probably do that this week, time permitting, while the movie is still fresh in my mind.



I am also going to try to find a few spare moments to paint up some Dark Eldar figures for Warhammer 40K. I used to play that as well as Bloodbowl but after losing my Dark Eldar army in a fire I didn't do it anymore. But I've a friend now who had some spare Dark Eldar figures from before he decided to go Space Marine so he gave those to me. There are a couple of nice figures in the set, including a Dracon, a Sybarite with blades and a Sybarite with a whip. I will probably try to add some Wyches as well to stiffen the spines of the rank and file. I'm not certain how many points I need to have in my army so I have to get with my friend to find out what they usually play with. It will be fun to get back into it again.