Google Fly!

Remember how I told y'all about how awesome the Sky part of the new Google Earth is? Well, because I am not that bright, I did not even realize there was a fucking flight simulator hidden in it. Just pop it open, click on the globe, and hit Ctl+Alt+A. Once you do it for the first time, it becomes an option in your Tools menu.

It's kind of tricky, but it's a flight simulator! Through the "real" Sky! Beats the crap out of the landscape in Pilotwings, I can tell you that. Anyway, thanks to Lifehacker's top 10 software easter eggs, though this is totally the best (teddy bears in Picasa? Who gives a shit?).

Feeling good about yourself, ladies?

Well we can fix that! Just pop open the new game Miss Bimbo, where you can adopt your own bimbo avatar, and make sure she goes through enough diet pills, boob jobs and face lifts to, I guess, win? From the Times:

The Miss Bimbo internet game has attracted prepubescent girls who are told to buy their virtual characters breast enlargement surgery and to keep them “waif thin” with diet pills. Healthcare professionals, a parents’ group and an organisation representing people suffering anorexia and bulimia criticised the website for sending a dangerous message to impressionable children. In the month since it opened the site, which is aimed at girls aged from 9 to 16, has attracted 200,000 members. Players keep a constant watch on the weight, wardrobe, wealth and happiness of their character to create “the coolest, richest and most famous bimbo in the world”. Competing against other children they earn “bimbo dollars” to buy plastic surgery, diet pills, facelifts, lingerie and fashionable nightclub outfits.

And how do you succeed, you ask? Never fear, there are carefully designated levels:

Level 7 After you broke up with your boyfriend you went on an eating binge! Now it’s time to diet . . . Your target weight is less than 132lbs
Level 9 Have a nip and tuck operation for a brand new face. You’ve found work as a plus-size model. To gain those vivacious curves, you need to weigh more than 154lbs
Level 10 Summertime is coming up and bikini weather is upon us. You want to turn heads on the beach don’t you?
Level 11 Bigger is better! Have a breast operation
Level 17 There is a billionaire on vacation . . . You must catch his eye and his love! Good luck!

In case you missed it earlier, this game is aimed at girls 9-16. You know, when they're at their most confident about their weight and breast size, and totally not susceptible to outside influences (like "Bigger is better! Have a breast operation". Not a lot of ambiguity there, hmm? ). I'm all for freedom in gaming and all that, but one does wonder what sort of parents approve of this sort of activity for their prepubescent daughters.

I am an American and yet not a Christian

Doesn't that mean this is not a Christian nation? How else could that be true? I do not get it and you people fucking piss me off. I should not be allowed to LIVE HERE in your fucking Christian nation, as an affront to everything you believe in. Yet somehow, I go on, day in and day out, not being Christian. It boggles the mind.

Regardless, people disagree, and some are willing to go! All! The! Way! to the Supreme Court to be able to issue a prayer before a City Council meeting that specifically mentions Jesus Christ. A non-sectarian prayer is already ok (bastards), the only issue is making it exclusively Christian, which is, you know, not OK. The plaintiff, a Jesus-loving council member, has already lost the district case, but will not give up the (holy) ghost, claiming that he is exercising his right to free speech, that the official City Council prayer is not government speech, and therefore their failure to let him invoke Jesus infringes his "First Amendment rights of Free Speech, Free Exercise of Religion, and non-Establishment of religion and equal protection under the law". The district court sanely disagrees -- from their decision that his prayer is in fact government speech:

Plaintiff’s characterization of his speech ignores the primary purpose of the prayer, and the effect it has on others. First, the central purpose of the program in which the speech occurs is to conduct City Council business. Second, the local government can (and must, to comply with the Establishment Clause) exercise editorial control over the speech’s content. Third, the identity of the speaker, Councilor Turner is a government official, acting in his official capacity. Contrary to Councilor Turner’s assertions, the ultimate responsibility for the content of the speech, rests upon the City Council on whose behalf the prayer is offered. Additionally, the Mayor presides over the City Council meetings in his official capacity, and recognizes individual Council members to deliver the City Council’s opening prayer. The prayer may not be offered without the Mayor’s permission. The prayer by the City Council member is an official agenda item, listed on the meeting agendas.

Thanks! Everything else pretty much follows from there, based on Marsh v. Chambers which still allows legislative prayer based on historical precedent as long as they're not sectarian, and that's the end of that.

Except it's not, because a federal appeals court just heard arguments on this case last week. But whatever, lots of luck getting it to the Supreme Court. Of course Brennan who is still on the Court wrote the original dissent for Marsh, back in 83, saying:

The most commonly cited formulation of prevailing Establishment Clause doctrine is found in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971): [463 U.S. 783, 797] "Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the Court over many years. Three such tests may be gleaned from our cases. First, the statute [at issue] must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster `an excessive government entanglement with religion.'"

That the "purpose" of legislative prayer is pre-eminently religious rather than secular seems to me to be self-evident. "To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws," is nothing but a religious act. Moreover, whatever secular functions legislative prayer might play - formally opening the legislative session, getting the members of the body to quiet down, and imbuing them with a sense of seriousness and high purpose - could so plainly be performed in a purely nonreligious fashion that to claim a secular purpose for the prayer is an insult to the perfectly honorable individuals who instituted and continue the practice....

Damn skippy. This whole thing is an insult! To me, anyway, though I am not that honorable. But the decision to overturn the appeals court in favor of permitting legislative prayer is all predicated on tradition, and given special dispensation since there has always been a prayer before Congress, etc. Of course the original folk being prayed at and writing the Establishment clause in the first place also wore ridiculous wigs and rode horses and walked around in shit all the time, and we seem to have no problem with losing those traditions in favor of tasteful toupees, cars and indoor plumbing, but whatever. The main decision in Marsh justified itself and pointed out the special nature of opening prayers by including this:

In the very courtrooms in which the United States District Judge and later three Circuit Judges heard and decided this case, the proceedings opened with an announcement that concluded, "God save the United States and this Honorable
Court." The same invocation occurs at all sessions of this Court.

Well then stop fucking saying it! Problem solved! I should be on the Court. Jesus Christ.

The Truth About Space Invaders

They're not just faceless aliens, people! Witness the destruction of a whole society in this fantastic music video for Ken Ishii’s “Space Invaders 2003”:




It's really rather depressing, on top of its awesomeness.

What to do

When you're a free market, limited govermnent loving rich person with a bunch of commie liberal heirs? Leave your money to DonorsTrust, of course! From one of their emails:

"We love our children, our grandchildren, and our families. But that doesn't mean we always see eye to eye with them. Sometimes we just have a difference of opinion on trivial matters. Other times it becomes quite obvious that they do not share our fundamental understanding of the world and the way it operates. That's why our clients use DonorsTrust. They love their families but know they can rely on DonorsTrust to carry out their charitable intent. DonorsTrust erects a protective boundary, which means our clients' successor advisors will never be able to support the likes of Greenpeace or MoveOn.org."

Not Greenpeace! NEVER!