Internal Monologue

This is what YouTube videos do best: point out a ridiculous cliche that you've seen a zillion times, but haven't recognized as a cliche until seeing the video:

Those progressives ( like me ) who warned the Democrats about Lieberman at least have the consolation of saying " I told you so ". Small comfort for the loss of the public option from the Senate health care reform bill. And we're not even getting some kind of substitute. The scuttlebutt is that Rahm told Reid to cave to Lieberman (who will probably find something else to object to between now and when the final bill comes up for cloture.) It could get put back in during the conference committee, but I assume Lieberman will raise the same stink he's raising now. Fixing our political institutions is very important. And the Senate is one in most desperate need of reform. I understand that most of the country is more right-wing than me. That's fine. But it's not fine that the Senate gives disproportionate power to one side of the political spectrum.

I fully agree with Scott Adams : Technically, you're already a cyborg. If you keep your cell phone with you most of the time, especially if the earpiece is in place, I think we can call that arrangement an exobrain. Don't protest that your cellphone isn't part of your body just because you can leave it in your other pants. If a cyborg can remove its digital eye and leave it on a shelf as a surveillance device, and I think we all agree that it can, then your cellphone qualifies as part of your body. In fact, one of the benefits of being a cyborg is that you can remove and upgrade parts easily. So don't give me that "It's not attached to me" argument. You're already a cyborg. Deal with it. So, should I upgrade my current original iPhone component to an iPhone 3GS or a Motorola/Google Droid? I'm leaning towards a Droid right now, but could go either way. By the way, why do the Droid advertisements evoke HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey ? [spoiler

Someone somewhere said something like, "Afghanistan isn't so much the graveyard of empires, it's more like a place that empires eventually realize isn't very important." (Google reveals it was Matt Yglesias .) I am pessimistic about this 30,000 troop escalation. Can't say I didn't see it coming: Obama campaigned on increasing our presence in Afghanistan. Seems stupid (what interests do we have there? Couldn't terrorists just go somewhere else? Weren't the 9/11 folks radicalized in Europe?) and immoral (How many people have to die for this?) to me. Internal Monologue is going on record saying this proposed increase is a bad idea. I should probably outline my argument more extensively and clearly. But I just wanted to put another anti-escalation message out there.

Remember the uncanny valley ? Monkey's have it too: New findings published in PNAS this September are putting some long-overdue experimental rigor behind the uncanny valley. Last spring at Princeton’s Neuroscience Institute, Asif Ghazanfar developed a computer model of a macaque monkey designed to interact with real macaques. But the monkeys weren’t fooled. Further testing revealed that, much to Ghazanfar’s surprise, his model was eliciting an uncanny valley response from the monkeys. It was the first time scientists had ever observed such a response in a non-human species. The article is a pretty good history of the notion of the uncanny valley and various explanations for it. I didn't know Freud wrote about the uncanny, but it's not surprising.

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage." -The Texas Constitution Oops. In an effort to prohibit gay marriage or domestic partnerships, it appears as though Texans have abolished marriage . I don't know why people are just discovering this now, since it happened a while ago. But it is pretty funny.

Wingularity, the : the point at which the insanity from the far right and those controlling the Republican Party [continues] to grow exponentially until it reaches an unsustainable weight and collapses upon itself. This is also known as the Purity Spiral, wherein the density of wingnut increases compared to mainstream conservatives to the point of pure wingnut. As the ratio rises, this creates a phenomenon wherein no logic or sanity can penetrate or escape. When rightwing argument has become completely inaccessible to the uninitiated, it has reached the Wingularity.