A Christmas Carol

Via Lisa Derrick, FDL:

Adventure Time: Hamlet as rendered by Ryan North

(Image from TVTropes)

From Allison Flood, The Guardian:

A choose-your-own-adventure version of Hamlet featuring jokes, ghosts and the previously unseen pirate fight scene, has raised more than six times its goal on Kickstarter in less than a week.

Ryan North, a Canadian comic book writer, launched his appeal on 21 November. In three-and-a-half hours it had raised its goal of $20,000 (£12,500), and today is at almost $150,000 and counting. His version of Hamlet will be called To Be Or Not To Be, and will be an illustrated, chooseable-path adventure story.

In this strange age, one of the good things to emerge is the entrepreneurship that Kickstarter aims to nurture. For a few dollars, you can buy into a venture ranging from an RFID-proof card caddy to dice rings and a silicone baking mat.

Ryan North wants to re-write Hamlet in accessible language, which one can experience from the viewpoint of various characters. While I don’t think he gets the concept of venture capital (investor rewards seem to be mostly psychic), it sounds like a product I would buy… and think would be a blockbuster as as a video game.

A Pro-Obama video worth watching

It’s fun and well-done. I sent it to a right-winger who keeps sending me shovelfuls of BS. Hopefully like garlic to a vampire.

Paray fer Emerica, nu? /Updated

Recent comment by a middle-aged Mormon with some college education (no link): My God Will supply all i needs according to his Riches in Glory nu Chirst Jesus.

If we could reform right-wing spelling, we might have a chance at their theology. Nu?
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Update, HuffPo:

Preacher Todd Bentley may think he has a cure for what ails you–and it’s a swift kick in the face.
…
In one interview, Bentley claims that the “Holy Spirit” told him to kick an ill elderly woman in the face with his biker boot.

“Just as my boot made contact with her nose,” the 36-year old said, “she fell under the power of God.”

In another video segment, the preacher claims he cured a man of both cancer and a broken sternum by socking him in the chest.

OK, maybe even spelling reform would not touch this theology.

Breaking! Romney picks VP

Reliably reported:

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney stunned the political establishment and left pundits scrambling for their notes this morning when he announced his choice of freshman Florida Congressman Allen West to round out the GOP ticket. If Romney is elected, West would become the first African American and only the third paranoid schizophrenic to hold the office of Vice President of the United States.

More news here

Kellercod

Bill Keller, editor of the NYT, was forced to deny that he had written an Op-Ed defending Wikileaks:

The fake in question was a cod Keller op-ed entitled ‘WikiLeaks, a Post Postscript’. Visually, it was immaculate – replicating perfectly the typographic style of his column down to the author’s photograph, tool kit and Times adverts. [Charles says: only the Grauniad would have missed the obvious comma sitting where a semi-colon is indicated and call it perfect. The Times is far more willing to be dead wrong about an important issue than to miss a punctuation mark.]

The fake in question said things like:

I find myself in the awkward position of having to defend WikiLeaks. During the House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on July 11th, several Republicans made it clear they also want New York Times journalists charged under the Espionage Act….
…
You don’t have to embrace Assange as a kindred spirit to believe that what he did in publishing those cables falls under the protection of the First Amendment.
…
I’ve said repeatedly, in print and in a variety of public forums, that I would regard an attempt to criminalize WikiLeaks’ publication of these documents as an attack on all of us, and I believe the mainstream media should come to his defense. Obama has clearly not lived up to his 2008 campaign promises to protect whistleblowers, rather his policy is more like China’s treatment of dissidents.
…
I wish these were my final words on the existential drama that is WikiLeaks, but don’t get your hopes up. With an ongoing grand jury, extradition ruling, and Bradley Manning’s court martial, the WikiLeaks Postscript has only just begun. I fear I am condemned to a life in Sartre’s No Exit (or is it Kafka’s The Trial?).

Personally, I think that the Keller who works at The New York Times is the fake, and the fellow writing at Opinion-NYTimes is for real.

Apparently “cod” is British for “fake”

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For those still searching for the comma in question, it occurs in the phrase, “promises to protect whistleblowers, rather his policy”

Echidne writes

Click to read

She also has a post on education with this elegantly simple explanation:

The basic problems in the US education system are income inequality, residential segregation and the local funding of education. When those are put together we end up with an unequal system, one where the districts that really need more resources than any other districts in fact end up with fewer resources. Then the schools in the poor areas (where the students have many more problems) will fail and the solution is to punish the schools and the teachers.

Advertisers know their audience

Echidne had this gem:

Excerpts of How to Speak Republican

This is a Jimmy Kimmel schtick (no link) written by Jonathan Bines, although it may also constitute entries in the next Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Capitalism: A system of economic organization that has never been attempted.

Christmas: A holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, now rarely celebrated due to persecution by atheists.

Compromise: (uncommon) A form of political suicide.

Communism: The belief that the government should ever do anything.

Constitution (U.S.): The hallowed founding document of the United States, the text of which must be interpreted strictly and amended immediately.

Corporations: Large people who are overtaxed.

Extremist (Liberal): Espousing or adhering to political beliefs that are held by only a majority of Americans.

Fact: Information that has been verifiably posted to a Red State comment board.

Jesus: Charismatic religious leader and son of God; born in Bethlehem in the year 0; beliefs include love, charity, enhanced interrogation, privatized healthcare, elimination of the estate tax, and the right to carry concealed semiautomatic weapons.

Marxism: A political and economic philosophy developed by Karl Marx and promulgated by Paul Krugman.

Click for more

The sublime to the ridiculous or, how to say sane while doing extremely boring work

What I watched today to decompress from actual work (I landed there after a search for an unusual word).

I have almost no idea what they are saying, since it’s apparently in Serbian. Evidently, the animals are shipwrecked in Japan. Not understanding a word, I am positive it’s better for kids than what plays on NICK or the other cartoon networks.