|
[Thursday 31 December 2015|07:29am] |
|
Comments on this post will be screened. Comment here if you want to tell me something privately, since LJ has, in its infinite wisdom, nixed the utility of posting a comment and then quickly deleting or screening it.
|
|
|
[Tuesday 15 December 2009|05:30pm] |
It turns out that almost a quarter of the ACLU's operating budget was donated by one guy. That one guy has been rendered somewhat less wealthy than he used to be by the economic events of the past 18 months and can no longer support the ACLU the way he used to.
The ACLU is soliciting donations right now to try to make up for the shortfall. Someone is matching the donations for the moment (no idea who - the email doesn't say) so even small donations are being doubled.
I don't think I've ever posted about the ACLU here before, but it's an organization that I really believe in. They are typically portrayed as being flaming liberals, but it isn't like that ... they are just as fast to defend crazy right-wingers if the right-wingers' civil liberties are being infringed. It's kind of a sad comment on American culture at the moment that an organization that defends civil liberties gets routinely maligned. I don't know when civil liberties became a bad word in the United States - probably around the same time liberal became a bad word, and if I had to guess I'd say it likely started with the black civil rights movement - but civil liberties are really what this country is all about. They are what separates the United States from its enemies. When right-wingers say, "the terrorists hate us for our freedoms," the freedoms they are talking about are the ones defended by the ACLU, which if you think about it is really ironic.
(That's not true, by the way - it's not our freedoms that the terrorists hate)
Here is the link to the donation page:
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=a7GLi0B8McvN__q5sV8tvQ
Upon clicking it, you will be immediately redirected to an https site. There is a list of suggested amounts, but you can put in any amount in the blank box, and even $5 would help. Only credit cards accepted, though.
I've disallowed comments on this post because I'm not really interested in a political debate or a debate about the ACLU. Click it or not - donate or not. Your decision, either way.
|
|
|
[Sunday 27 September 2009|01:07pm] |
I read GI Joe (A Real American Hero!) vs the Transformers yesterday, the miniseries by Devil's Due. Unexpectedly entertaining and really hilarious. I was somewhat disconcerted by Starscream's black repaint; it made him look like Skywarp. Also: Thundercracker gets no love. NONE.
But the most entertaining aspect was the revelation that energon, if hit by a nuclear blast, is capable of cracking the planet in half.
Now, let's think about that. Energon, to Transformers, is like delicious cake crossed with booze crossed with nitroglycerin. It is simultaneously fuel, intoxicant, and high explosive. Already we can see that the Quintessions really hated the Transformers when they decided to make Transformers run on energon, and to be honest I'm not sure how they can take so many laser blasts to the chest without exploding. They must be gas-sippers when not trying to get smashed.
Now we learn that the explosive aspect of it is even more extreme than previously believed. CRACKING THE PLANET IN HALF. Just add a nuclear device and you have planet-destroying capability. We're not even talking about all that much energon, here. I'd say that it was about as much as Prime could carry in his trailer (if he had a trailer, which he didn't in this miniseries, which was just wrong). That's not a lot of energon.
I'm trying to think of a legitimate reason to build a robot that runs on something that is capable of destroying worlds if, like mixing bleach and ammonia, you add the wrong stuff to it. I'm willing to buy energon being explosive in the ordinary sense, since we are stupid enough to run our vehicles on explosive chemicals. But come on. Seriously. Cracking the planet in half? Really?
|
|
