Rampantly Sexy Sexism!

Here's another awesome Scopitone video, this one with an extra helping of ye olde schoole gender identity.

And for completeness sake, here's the original.  Unfortunately, it's not a Scopitone.  We'd probably get more sexy ladies if it was.

George, Teddy & The Condors

Check out the Go-go dancers on this one!  And the song is fun, too.  I think it was originally done by the Coasters.  The Hollies covered it too.

I imagine that for it's time, the black men/white women dynamic was pretty controversial.

Daddy's Little Proletariat

My one year old, Lucius, has succesfully completed his first chores.

A couple of days ago, he was picking up his bottle (which was empty) and waving it around and hooting. My wife, Tersa, who was not feeling very good said, “Well, if you want more milk bring it to your dad and have him fill it up for you.” Lucius grinned ear to ear, and made a beeline to me. He handed me the bottle, then promptly yanked it out of my hands and tried to drink out of it. “What do you mean there’s no milk? I went to Daddy like you said.” I said, “I have to fill it up silly. Follow me and we’ll get more.” He grinned at his mistake and then attempted to follow me to the kitchen, only to get distracted by the barber chair in the dining room.

First lesson learned.  Follow instructions, do the work, and get a reward.  He's now learned how it should work.  (Ignoring the hidden costs of milk and bottle, which he has not yet earned.  We'll cover that in a later chapter.)  I don't start covering exploitation, and Daddy passively owning the means of production until the kids are at least two.

Yesterday, he worked on his second chore, which was slightly less successful (from my point of view at least).  He was cruising around the living room, and started to engage in his favorite game of "Throw diapers all over the room".  Yeah.  That game is awesome.  I got down on his level and said, "OK, buddy.  Time to clean up the mess."  I modeled putting the diapers away, and he mostly got it.  Then grabbed more diapers and threw them on the ground.  "Look Dad, we can play some more."  So we did it a bit more, and he got positive feedback for putting things away, and none for throwing things on the ground.

Sometimes it's overkill to try to apply Marx to a situation, when B.F. Skinner would suffice.

Oh, Spambot.

Had a lovely conversation with a pornbot/Nigerian phishing scheme this afternoon.

Click to enlarge.

The Wonders of Technology

Ugh.  This is absolutely horrible.

Text messages, and to a lesser extent, Facebook helped organize the latest Nigerian sectarian violence, urging members of both the Christian and Muslim communities to slaughter each other.

"The messages helped escalate the violence in Jos in that some of them instructed people on how to kill, dispose of and burn bodies," said leading rights activist Shehu Sani.

The texts were aimed at "spreading rumours and inflaming tensions," said Sani, who heads a coalition of 32 Nigerian civil and human rights groups called the Civil Rights Congress.
One of the messages seen by AFP read : "War, war, war. Stand up ... and defend yourselves. Kill before they kill you. Slaughter before they slaughter you. Dump them in a pit before they dump you."

In Kuru Karama, a former mining village and Muslim enclave in a Christian district south of Jos, attackers who killed more than 150 villagers disposed of the bodies systematically.

Ah Humanity.  Always finding wonderful new tools to kill each other.

h/t BoingBoing

Back on the oxys?

Y'all have probably seen this.  But watching evil men embarass themselves to Lady Gaga is always fun.

Some night time loud

SELFISH CUNT, "England Made Me" mp3

Turn this up.  Loud.  This song is so unbelievably bad ass.  And any front man that looks like he's channeling Iggy Pop AND Lux Interior is ok with me.

PIERCED ARROWS, "Paranoia" mp3

These guys are fun.  It's like AC/DC by way of the Tiger Lilies.  And the album just came out today, so be the first on your block.

Welcome to Rapture: Colorado Springs Goes Bioshock

OK, so the lede is a little unfair.  The Underwater City of Rapture, the setting of 2K Games Bioshock, was a hellhole due to the logical failures of Libertarianism/Objectivism.  Colorado Springs on the other hands is a hellhole because of the logical failures of Conservatism.

Via the Denver Post:

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

Welcome to the Ownership Society!

Colorado Springs is the town that brought us Ted Haggard.  Colorado Springs is the town that brought us James Dobson and Focus on the Family.  McCain took Colorado Springs by 19 points.  And then there's this:

Voters in November said an emphatic no to a tripling of property tax that would have restored $27.6 million to the city's $212 million general fund budget. Fowler and many other residents say voters don't trust city government to wisely spend a general tax increase and don't believe the current cuts are the only way to balance a budget.

This is Grover Norquist's government that's small enough to drown in a bathtub.  Or it would be if there was any water left in Colorado.  You get what you pay for, and the voters have chosen to pay for a city with Third World level of services.

Welcome to Rapture.

h/t Daily Kos Diarist Bink