The Gamer's Quarter

dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:23 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 7:53 am Post subject:

I do ask (not that I'm in a position to enforce this) that no one try to use my death to further their political purposes. I went to Iraq and did what I did for my reasons, not yours. My life isn't a chit to be used to bludgeon people to silence on either side. If you think the U.S. should stay in Iraq, don't drag me into it by claiming that somehow my death demands us staying in Iraq. If you think the U.S. ought to get out tomorrow, don't cite my name as an example of someone's life who was wasted by our mission in Iraq. I have my own opinions about what we should do about Iraq, but since I'm not around to expound on them I'd prefer others not try and use me as some kind of moral capital to support a position I probably didn't support.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

That should be made law or something.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

That's really something.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dhex · Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject:

this fits better over here rather than shitting up general with silliness.

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dhex, I think these three entries are right up your alley. They're about group mentality, misleading labels, and their implications for American politics. Stuff you already know, but well-enough put to be good reading.

And Overcoming Bias has some of the best commentors, at least when they don't get into pithy battles or whine about Yudkowsky's atheism. The dissent there is often thoughtful. Only site I read the comments for a thought rather than a laugh.

(Edit: Well, ok, especially from their own staff. Hanson and Yudkowsky's back-and-forth's are the most worth watching.)
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject:

i like those guys.

do you read jim henley? i'm not so into the football but the foreign policy stuff is usually interesting.

unrelated:
Police in Lima, Ohio shot and killed Tarika Wilson, a mother of six, and seriously wounded her one-year-old son during a drug raid yesterday.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:32 pm Post subject:

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2006/11/most-dangerous-roads-in-world.html
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:50 am Post subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as3AYVzWmOI

AMAZING
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dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:03 pm Post subject:

that david lynch iphone bit is the only thing by him i think i've truly enjoyed. (the straight story was good but too long)

man i have a friend who loves lynch, and when he loaned me lost highway i did try watching it but the credit sequence pissed me off for some weird reason and so i turned it off without watching it. he was pissed at me about that pretty badly, but maybe my love for this clip will win me back into his good graces.

(it's really just the way he says "fucking" that works, the rest is kind of BUT IM AN AUTEUR type wankery that fits better in the 1920s than now)
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

How do you feel about this Lynch film, dhex?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 5:53 pm Post subject:

i'd watch that movie.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:14 pm Post subject:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080108/ap_on_re_us/medical_raid
http://wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59566

whoaaaa:

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:48 pm Post subject:

someone i know, talking about waco this afternoon:

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

my friend's dad is the first ATF agent that is shot and drug back out of the window. he was supposed to spend the weekend at my house before it happened, but his mom ended up letting him anyway so he could catch a break because he ended up seeing his dad get shot about 500 times due to it being replayed over and over on TV. (note: he had stopped watching TV after realizing the first day what he had seen, it was just on every channel that much.)
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject:

that sounds like a sick joke.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject:

in the interest of full disclosure:

this was a completely clownshoes response to an extremely serious thing, ron.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

VOTE PRON HAUL 2008
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:55 pm Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:08 pm Post subject:

but damn he was kicking all sorts of ass in the debate!
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

Will Wilkinson has the harshest libertarian take I've read, which I mostly agree with. As I've said elsewhere, it's been fun watching Paul make the other Republicans look like buffoons and namedropping Austrian economics on popular TV, but eh. A lot of things about him really suck, and this makes them obvious.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

dhex · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:02 am Post subject:

swimmy, what do you think of reason (and other's) general take on this being a cultural split between old right paleos and what they call new libertarians or (in postrel's words) "cosmopolitan libertarians"?

where i disagree with wilkinson is that most people already associated the term "libertarian" with all sorts of horrible things (be they libertinism and drug addicted child hookers or racist corporatism or whatever) and paul, even with this stuff (which hasn't gotten that much play, really, in the mainstream world) has done a lot to bring all sorts of people together under a loose rhetorical framework of "liberty".
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

I'm not that up on my libertarian history (I guess I need to read Doherty's book?). From what I can tell, the paleocon "split" is a little overblown. It's a nice dynamic for dissasociating yourself from Paul's racism / racist friends / whatever (and it's certainly preferable to defending him), but up to this point most of the Reason types I read kind of glossed over Paul's nationalism. "We don't agree with his immigrant stance or the gold standard stuff, but look! Good things! Go Paul!" Wilkinson's been one of the few to say, "Ron Paul is not my kind of libertarian and I don't particularly support him." Maybe that's all just election excitement, which I caught a little of myself: Paul's in a major party and getting major airtime to talk about these things, so we'll enjoy the ride. But, yeah, I really need to brush up on the history here. Obviously the Mises institute has some of the kookier ideas in common, and it would explain the animosity they've shown to more cosmopolitan / pragmatist types like Milton Friedman.

I'm not as worried about the damage to libertarianism's reputation. Paul's still a Republican, he hasn't been fostering hype for libertarian institutions necessarily, and the comments on H&R right now ("Paul's a racist! You put him on your cover! That means you're racist!") aren't that much different from the usual stuff. And let's face it, most of the people who find drug and prostitution legalization downright scandalous probably don't think of associating with racists as all that bad.

Edit: But hey, Reason happy hour tonight. Maybe I'll ask the staffers what they really think.

Edit again: I should say I've really liked the Reason et al response so far, especially in contrast to Good ol Rockwell himself or Paul's more ardent defenders. It just strikes me as odd that a gesture of condemning group politics--that is, disowning a politician whose ideas you like, to hell with solidarity--should be framed in terms of. . . more group politics.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 1:52 pm Post subject:

rockwell is such a fuck.

unrelated:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0107/p09s02-coop.html?page=1

this was pretty interesting, though i disagree with his ideas about the real-world consequences.
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dhex · Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/13/hate_speech_laws/index.html

weird. the video is worth watching.

i still wish someone would drop a truck on mark steyn though. from space.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:15 am Post subject:

man you know how occasionally you'll meet someone who is less than bright and you're like "shit, she's so dumb she makes god cry?"

man i met the lady that makes god's god cry on friday. kind of scary looking too. that's gotta be rough. at least some people win the stupid but attractive lottery.

on top of that she was kind of obnoxious. very pushy. like being louder made her deficiencies less obvious, or her flaws more endearing. plus she had a lot of polite people to inflict herself on in a small area. ugh.

so i conclude it's like the old saying:

fast, cheap, good - pick two. (this is a pretty handy rule of thumb for spec'ing out almost anything)

with people it's more like

ugly, obnoxious, stupid - pick two.

pretty, if stupid and annoying, is ok
annoying and ugly is ok if smart
ugly and stupid is ok if they're nice
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:03 am Post subject:

http://crookedtimber.org/2008/01/10/usa-electoral-compass/

it's interesting to see how dutch political scientists see american politics.

i've always liked the concept of the compass, of having two axis to describe political values, a lot more than the execution. not being able to weight one's answers kinda sucks. i.e. i'm surface-wise pro-guns, pro-open borders, pro-gay marriage, and against intervention in general, but how one weighs those particular stances says a lot more about their politics. i.e. someone that puts gun rights or gay marriage head of open borders or intervention (in either direction) will generally fall into a different category than i would, despite sharing those values to some degree with other people.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:46 am Post subject:

just obnoxious.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:10 am Post subject:

i like steven pinker, despite his wacky haircut.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:31 pm Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:49 pm Post subject:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jgPRrAOa7_9-xd_LD8Ogt3ZXZ8JgD8U3BH6O0
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-perrin/the-liberals-ron-paul-pr_b_81465.html

the huffington post is raw sewage, digitized for your convenience.
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dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject:

if the huff is sewage (read the comments! these are the ones that think they're smart!) then this is simply good theatre:

http://www.prison
planet.com/articles/
january2008/
011308_not_racist.htm
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I enjoy that The New Republic has been referred to, in the links you have posted, as being both Conservative and Liberal. Welcome to American politics!

(Also, dude writing an article attacking liberals for being mindless attack dogs that only care about who stands in opposition to them is like, the foyer of American politics.)

dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject:

but it's so badly fucking written.

total sewage.

also i'm counting the comments section.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

You know what it reads like is that one article about how all of the KIDS ARE FUCKED AND MAN WE WERE OKAY; THESE KIDS THOUGH, WHOA, MAN, THEY'RE IDIOTS AND WE'RE FUCKED*.

Except I don't think either of them used a semi-colon.

I don't even read comments on the internet anymore unless I know 100% going in that it's shits and giggles time. Even then I get queasy after a while.

* - The best part of this was the logic that using computers and watching TV is what's caused this, as if TV somehow became more damaging since the 1960s and that texting somebody on your cell phone is obviously far more dangerous to your mental development than shoving a giant sheet of what-you-hope-is-LSD into your mouth**.

** - Okay, so I kind have some sympathy for this one.

dhex · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:06 pm Post subject:

i tend to think of lsd as being less damaging than cell phones, for sure.

but of course i would say that.
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dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:33 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:45 am Post subject:

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597
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dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:20 pm Post subject:

i just found one of the meaner things i'd ever tried to turn into a tgq article. it was merely a collection of aphorisms i wrote while on a car trip to maryland that i didn't want to take.

dhex · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:23 pm Post subject:

btw, filtering shhhh mup into shooter really makes my last point there.
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extrabastardformula · . Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 295

While I don't use that word regularly, I always apply it when talking bout Euroschmups, Not sure why.
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boojiboy7 · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:38 pm Post subject:

I just get tongue-tied trying to say it and say Shump.

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 9:44 am Post subject:

thankfully it don't come up that much in day to day conversation. at least not round these parts.

unrelated:
levant is a dick, but this was completely on point.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 9:47 am Post subject:

first draft, and funny to maybe 2% of you:

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dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:03 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:14 am Post subject:

http://standingonthebox.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-box.html

dhex · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject:

http://www.bkmarcus.com/cache/POW/

a very interesting account of cigarettes as currency in pow camps post ww2.
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

My professor used that as his key example to explain micro economics for over half a semester He LOVED it. Cigarettes, chocolate, and saltines, but cigarettes were always the primary unit.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.