Archive for September, 2009

Three Cheers for Trevor9661!

Posted: September 3, 2009 by datechguy in doctor who, hobbies
Tags: , , ,

Today I received some used Big Finish Doctor Who episodes that I won on eBay from England.

That in itself is not a reason for a new post (except for a review perhaps). Over the last couple of years I’ve picked up quite a few of them. Today however the seller Trevor9661 managed to surprise me.

A very common problem with buying used copies of the Big Finish adventures is that often the internal plastic on the CD’s are damaged. It’s not a huge deal in the sense that I usually import them and sync them to the Ipod at once, but it can make for some issues when I loan them out to promote the series.

However Trevor managed to think of something that nobody else did. As I opened each cd case there was a small 1 1/2″ square of bubble wrap.

That little bit of wrap assured me that the internals of every CD case was in pristine shape.

Once I confirm all the CD’s are listenable I’ll be leaving proper eBay feedback but until that moment let me give public recognition to Trevor9661, the fellow who thought of what nobody else managed to.

…are just so easy to annoy:

According to the Ada Evening News, the hometown newspaper of the Oklahoma-born singer (and avid hunter), Blake’s irreverent humor in his Twitter remarks ruffled a few PETA feathers. One PETA tweet which read: “Animal testing breaks hearts,” prompted Blake to respond: “Yeah, and bow hunting breaks their lungs!” Another PETA tweet which read: “There’s nothing funny about BBQing cats,” got this rapid reply from Blake: “Ha! Ha! Sorry but when you say it like that it, is damn funny! Ha!”

For a hunter like Mr. Shelton this is an incredibly easy shot.

Banned by PETA is going to sell a lot of extra country albums.

…and the rest of the men who signed this letter to Yale:

To the Editor:

Yale University Press, owned and operated by the University, has retreated into shameful censorship. The Press accepted for publication “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” by Brandeis Professor Jytte Klausen. But it deleted from her manuscript the actual cartoons. Why? Because the cartoons — which ran in newspapers and are available on the Internet — might lead to more violence.

The Press went even further, stripping out all depictions of Muhammed, such as a 19th Century painting by Gustave Dore. Why? Because Islamic law forbids depictions of Muhammed, and — there might be violence. Evidently Yale now excises from its books any content that might encourage someone to violence. And we all know what kind of “someone” the Press has in mind.

Yale’s shocking surrender to unknown potential belligerents drew scorn from the American Association of University Professors. Yale’s new policy, according to AAUP president Cary Nelson, is: “We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands.”

This disgraceful resort to censorship also violates Yale’s own explicit policy: “Above all, every member of the university has an obligation to permit free expression in the university. No member has a right to prevent such expression. Every official of the university, moreover, has a special obligation to foster free expression and to ensure that it is not obstructed.”

All Yale alumni have a vital stake in preserving a free press at Yale. We urge President Levin and the Corporation to immediately nullify the Press’s cowardly action. Yale should print Klausen’s book with all the censored material restored and distribute it to university bookstores around the world as a tangible reminder that a free press can never be taken for granted.

If you are a fan of free speech let me have a big AMEN to that. Via Atlas.

I hate the kid stunt stuff. We have a great arguments on the merits we shouldn’t do stupid kid stunt.

Of course as Doug Powers points out it’s better than this

or this

It’s videos like this that really makes us wonder about the president’s address to the kids.

I prefer this video from Reason (via Glenn).

It puts things in their soviet style historical context. Maybe this should be in the religion category. Instead I’m creating a new obamacult tag.

Update: Dan Calabrese this Steve Green is overreacting. It wasn’t too long ago that I would have agreed, myself I’m not worried if my kid had enough guts to be the only one when asked by his teacher who supported McCain in his particular class then he can handle this.