Looking for some new shows to watch? Well let me suggest two shows for you...

Spaced (1999)

Circumstances force Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes to be roommates along with other oddball residents of the house they're renting. Plot complications and hilarity ensure. Despite its typical premise it really is a clever and funny series. Here's a complete episode to give you a taste. You really don't need anymore background than I've given you to appreciate it.

Legit (2013-)

For some reason Tivo decided I would like this series and started recording for me. And what do you know - I do.

Here Australian comedian Jim Jeffries plays a struggling actor in LA who's delightfully offensive (both on purpose and by accident) and his dealings with agents, women, and his loserish friends/roommates one of whom is both dying of MS and perpetually horny. Here's a short clip.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:49 PM | Comments (1390)
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So yeah just letting you know that I am counting down the minutes until I am disappointed by Agents of SHIELD, even though I technically don't really care.

Meh. After that I'll watch the stupid Iron Man 3, which I also think will disappoint me Because Terrorists Are Always Working For American Corporations You Guys.

I'll let you know.

Open Thread.

All I've got is this, from @comradearthur -- Popular Science is shutting down its comments because they tend to destroy "scientific doctrine."

Yeah it's about Global Warming. Assist to Evolution.

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.

Oh and Andy, @theh2, says the following is worth a watch.

Mike Rowe gave some kind of much-discussed TED talk. (I never heard of it.) I guess he said some funny things. Maybe not intentionally funny. He now explains this.

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Posted by: Ace at 03:57 PM | Comments (594)
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Between this and Gravity, I'd rather see this. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:32 PM | Comments (143)
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Really. You don't say.

A recently published study strongly suggests men succumb to sexual temptations more than women -- for example, cheating on a partner -- because they experience strong sexual impulses, not because they have weak self-control.
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Previous research has shown that men are more likely than women to pursue romantic partners that are "off limits." However, until now, the explanation for this sex difference was largely unexplored.

One possible explanation for this effect is that men experience stronger sexual impulses than women do. A second possibility is that women have better self-control than men. The current study's results support the former explanation and provide new insight into humans' evolutionary origins.

Supports and yet does not prove. So we'll need another round of $1,500,000 or whatever to fund a new study into this fascinating, important line of inquiry.

Actually, I don't know if you paid for it directly. But you do fund universities, to the tune of $150 billion per year.

That Reason article discusses Obama's new play for "scoring" universities, as far as delivering them aid. Surprise: It's about political payoffs to his base.

Few such ratings include measures of learning, the only thing that really matters. The Obama plan would do nothing to fix that. Despite lip service to outcomes such as graduation rates and the ability to pay off student loans, measures that already exist, the administration's proposal includes no information on how the school is educating its students. How much do their skills improve? How do they compare in earnings with students with the same high school test scores?

Instead, the proposal would tie schools' financial aid to "affordability and accessibility." Universities graduating more low-income students receiving federal Pell grants would get a higher rating. In short, existing federal aid will justify more future federal aid. The ratings would promote political, not educational, goals.

Posted by: Ace at 02:50 PM | Comments (145)
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I point out that Cruz said this because it seems to be at least on the same vibratory plane as the emerging Vitter or Paul plan to compel the Political Class to live by ObamaCare's terms, same as anyone else.

As Allah would explain to you were you to click over there, Vitter's plan is to end the special subsidies that Obama's afforded the political class (Congressmen, their staffers, Administration staff, etc.).

Rand Paul, on the other hand, would force them into the ObamaCare exchanges.

There can be no damn question that the Political Class must live under the laws they inflict on others. This isn't even up for debate.

The only way to get the Political Class to understand that ObamaCare is a problem is to make it a problem for them.

As NRO notes, Democrats would have an easier time voting against Paul’s bill than Vitter’s because they can argue that it’s unfair to disrupt health coverage for rank-and-file blue-collar federal employees over a partisan ObamaCare dispute. It’s harder to make that argument when we’re not talking about the rank and file but rather Congress and its support staff, and it’s really hard to make that argument about special federal subsidies that only our political leaders and their aides get. If ObamaCare’s so wonderful, fine — let the people’s representatives and staff try to manage the cost of it the way average Americans will have to.

I'm all in favor of it. My only question is, "How do you force this when you can't force anything else?" If we're going down in defeat on Defund, why would we imagine this tactic would work any better, or that there'd be a more united caucus for it?

Because I guarantee you a lot of Republicans aren't going to like this plan. They, understandably, don't want to labor under ObamaCare, either.

Are they going to agree to do so just to force the Democrats and Obama's staffers to do so?

I doubt it.

Answer: According to Niedermeyer's Dead Horse (@mflynny), Vitter was pushing this during his own floor appearance earlier.

His idea, she says, is that he'll insist that this bill inflicting ObamaCare on the Political Caste must be passed into law before any CR.

Okay, that could work... but that once again assumes that the GOP will fight for it.

Will they?

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (334)
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Reposting Gabe's link:

Flip over to CSPAN2 or their online digs to see Sen. Cruz speaking now.

Shock: NBC Reporter offers non-sequitor snark at Ted Cruz. This makes no sense.

Posted by: Ace at 01:32 PM | Comments (86)
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Eh.

You know the thing that bothers me here? It's not whether or not Cruz wins or not (he won't), and it's not whether the Establishment is vindicated or not (and when you're partly arranging for your own vindication, that's not such an achievement).

What bothers me is the Hot Talk about crap that most of us, frankly, know very little about, and I include myself. I'll confess that when Gabe and Drew were discussing defund vs. delay on the podcast, I honestly had no idea what they were talking about. I was just silent, because I was listening. Learning.

Right now there are all these Narratives cooked up -- by our side; we have our own Narratives too -- about Cruz the Hero and how anyone who thought this plan was a bit cockamamie is a RINO.

And everyone's shouting, and everyone's full of emotion, and shouting crowds out talking and emotion crowds out thinking.

Well, this Rand Paul thing, if true, sort of pricks the balloon of the easy Narratives where the world gets divided neatly into Black Hats and White Hats.

Which is something we all should have known, and when I say "we" I mean me first of all.

I personally ventured a lot of conveniently vague opinions on this stuff without really having much good thinking to support those opinions.

I think online stuff is very much geared to produce "momentum" for ideas, or people, or products. And there's a viral mindset we online (I include myself again) have, where "success" is determined by whether one can help gin up some viral momentum for something.

It's sort of the Drudge Siren idea (which I of course swiped and made a Flaming Skull). There's a certain amount of fun or satisfaction in pushing something out there, or pushing something along. But I think maybe it's too much fun, or there's too much satisfaction in it.

To the extent it becomes overvalued, or over-rewarded, and therefore over-done.

And this requires, as any political campaign does, the excision of facts that messy up clean Narratives. And it also requires an application of heat to get the soup boiling.

And in the end, what? This is all foolish. This wasn't going to work. So what was all the fighting about? The symbolism of it? Do we usually have Enormous Bruising Fights over stuff that is completely symbolic and without force?

This reminds me again that we seem to want to fight other conservative-leaning people more than we want to fight Democrats. We don't like Reid, but we hate the RINOs among us.

I don't know. People will probably tell me not to give up the fight, and actually I intended to not say anything about how cockamamie I've come to think this all is until it was over, so as not to hurt the cause.

But I'm not sure what the cause is, here, exactly. It seems pretty obvious that Cruz is not going to prevail on this point. So it's not about that.

It seems pretty plain to me now at this point this was a purely tactical argument about a hypothetical plan to defund ObamaCare (which was never in the cards). It is largely about political positioning.

And it doesn't seem to me, then, this being about procedure over a hypothetical plan, that so much emotion should have attached to it.

This isn't to say that there was no debate to be had. But given that this was largely just about procedure and tactics for a doomed cause, should there have been so much emotional debate over it? Should this have been trigger for the 6,000th RINO vs. TrueCon meltdown?*

This is just how I'm feeling right now. I'm feeling like, "What the hell was all this about?" Apparently nothing, it turns out.

* I'm not knocking the TrueCons, actually. I'm knocking everyone. The RINOs sure got pretty hot over all this too. The oppo dumb to Chris Wallace was a nice, classy touch.

It's like one of those arguments that people in doomed marriages have in which they start screaming at each other over the most trivial things -- "Did you wear my sweatshirt without asking me?!"

Because the argument is not about the sweatshirt; it's about the fact that both parties want to split and go their separate ways.

Eh. This is part of the reason I don't even want to be a part of this party. The party is in an unstable state and really cannot do much of anything until it works its own shit about.

Now here's something heartwarming.

Uh, ignore the fact that the lyrics aren't quite appropriate here. Don't overthink it.
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Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (399)
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They probably did a solid three minutes on "Is CrossFit murdering people?" though.

A new study from the Media Research Center found: “Not a single network bothered to report the stunning news [Monday night] or Tuesday morning.” The conservative media watchdog group called the lack of coverage about the scandal figure's resignation it “blatant censorship.”

MRC said it wasnÂ’t surprised, noting that the networks have given up covering the ongoing scandal over the IRSÂ’ targeting of Tea Party groups and delaying their bid for tax exempt status during President ObamaÂ’s reelection campaign.

According to the MRCÂ’s analysis, itÂ’s been 90 days since ABC last mentioned the story on either their morning or evening news programs, 89 days since NBC mentioned it, and 61 days at CBS.

ABC often gets a pass because NBC is so spectacularly biased (especially through their id, MSNBC), but in fact ABC might be the worst of the lot.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (117)
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Flip over to CSPAN2 or their online digs to see Sen. Cruz speaking now.

Apparently CSPAN won't let you embed. Or I can't figure it out anyway. Just open in another window. He says he's going to talk until he cannot stand. This is an awareness-raising floor speech, not a true filibuster, as it doesn't push back the time for the first cloture vote which is set for tomorrow.

Townhall's Guy Benson has more on Cruz's speech, as well as the RNC's petition drive "Stand With Ted," launched simultaneously.

I know several folks were asking where Chairman Priebus was in all this. He wants you to sign the petition.

More: If you missed it this morning, the timeline for the next several days goes like this, with the Senate ultimately passing a CR of one sort or another on Sunday, giving the House just one day to respond. The timeline can change, however, if the parties unanimously waive the Senate rules, as has been discussed among the GOP conference this afternoon. They're considering agreeing to shorten the time for consideration in the Senate in order to get a CR back to the House faster.

And a little bit more: As you'd know if you listened to the AOSHQ podcast, I've been a little concerned that Sen. Reid could try and get cute with the Senate version of the CR and undo sequestration cuts. A staffer at the Senate GOP Budget committee press office got back to me:

I hope they're right. I asked the same question of another Senate staffer (working in a different office) over the weekend and got the same answer.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:04 AM | Comments (406)
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I don't know if Ted Cruz or Mike Lee actually had a plan at all, or just talked about "doing something," and then came up with this convoluted plan afterwards.

But I do know this is plainly disingenuous by McConnell.

In the video captured and published by Roll Call, McConnell argues that Cruz’s strategy to defund Obamacare will not stop the law’s implementation. McConnell, instead, argues that “even some of the bill’s fiercest early backers are looking for an escape hatch.”

“But there’s only one escape hatch that will fully help those trapped by this law, and that’s full repeal,” McConnell said. He said backs the House bill that defunds the law, but will Harry Reid's procedural moves to restore funding.

“That’s why I’m supporting the House-passed CR,” McConnell said. “Not only does it defund this terrible law, it doesn’t increase government spending by a penny. And it keeps the government from shutting down, which nobody wants. And it does something else. And this is really important. It puts the focus right where it belongs, on the Democrats who voted for and continue to support Obamacare. Because once we invoke cloture, Mr. President, the focus will turn to our friends on the other side of the aisle — the Senate Democrats.”

What does he mean it "defunds" the law? Does he mean on its face it purports to do that? That must be what he means, because no other meaning has any truth at all in it. Any suggestion that passing the CR "defunds" ObamaCare is simply a lie.

Maybe he should have stuck with what he believes the truth to be, which is that he thinks this won't work. He does say that. But then he also says this other business that he would have you believe that he believes that passing the CR defunds ObamaCare.

Of course he doesn't believe that. So why is he saying that?

He seems to say a lot of things he doesn't really believe.

But apparently at some point we'll get these Democrats on the record and then we'll Win or something.

Except we won't. Actually, Ted Cruz's plan -- and Mitch McConnell's, too -- is sort of jackass. Because now the Red State Democrats could, if they needed to, join Ted Cruz in his filibuster, thus showing they rilly rilly want to defund ObamaCare, serious you guys. Alternately they can vote for cloture-- they can claim their vote means whatever their constituents want it to.

And on the "real vote," the one to strip out the defund langauge, those Senators can be permitted to cast symbolic votes against stripping out the defund language, knowing that Reid has 51 or more safe Democratic Senators that can be used to strip it out without consequence.

Thus Mary Landrieu can be permitted to vote in favor of the defund, if her political situation requires it, and so can Joe Manchin, and the guy from Alaska, and the one from Arkansas.

I don't have to buy into Ted Cruz's Master Plan to see what Mitch McConnell says is complete nonsense.

I suppose Ted Cruz's plan could have worked at least in this way (getting Red State Democrats on the record as championing ObamaCare, not opposing it, as they sometimes claim to appease their constituents), but only if Republicans were united on the meaning of each vote.

As Mitch McConnell here is providing Joe Manchin and Mary Landrieu cover -- "Hey, I voted for cloture because Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it would defund ObamaCare, that's why I voted for it, Serious You Guys" -- you don't even have that little much.

This is a shitshow all around.

Here's what we now get out of this exercise: Less than nothing. Less, because now Joe Manchin and Mary Landrieu can cast whatever supposedly "anti-ObamaCare" votes they like and there's no one really who can say that they're lying.

After all, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says a vote for cloture "defunds ObamaCare."

I have this sneaking suspicion that Mitch McConnell and other members of the Establishment believe that their more conservative constituents (or ex-constituents) are outright stupid and will believe anything.

That's sort of not a good starting place for a mutually-beneficial relationship. Any genuine relationship begins with respect.

Ted Cruz is attempting a "talking filibuster" (a real filibuster, where the vote is delayed only as long as you occupy the floor and speak on the topic) which was scheduled to begin at 2:30. Fox News, I'm told, is covering it, but I assume that means sporadically.

Posted by: Ace at 10:57 AM | Comments (86)
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