Category Archives: Pedantry

So maybe I just like polls

Perspctv snapshot

I’m never one to turn down an opinion poll via phone or postal mail. Oh, I’ll decline to participate in silly weblog polls, but I am often of the opinion that five minutes spent answering a couple of questions about how you feel about public transit is probably a heck of a lot more influential than the ballots I cast every June and November. As a part of a smaller samplings, my opinions get amplified, whereas in a state with 34,000,000 people can kinda down me out a bit.

Pollster.com has spent some time sitting in my list of links over there to your left, but it’s a carefully-collected and calibrated resource aimed at serious people. I wanted something automated. Something web 1.9. Something with the cojones to just scrape together some raw data and cook it down into a sanitary, easily-digested format. Something that blindly aggregates other people’s RSS feeds. Today I found it in Perspctv.com.

Shall we play a game of “let’s make some numbers say anything we want them to?” I love that game. Let’s start with “McCain is a media darling getting disproportionate news network news coverage compared to his polling numbers.” Your turn.

The Republicans are Right

Ah'll cut your taxes, Cullyfornyuh!

Sometimes I think I’m a little too hard on them.

  • Bailing credulous homebuyers out of their lousy mortgages is not the role of the federal government. The government should ensure that parties abide by their contractual agreements. If you didn’t like the terms, you shouldn’t have signed five times and initialed thirty places in front of a notary. If your bank is violating those terms, then it’s time to get the government involved.
  • International trade is, on balance, a good thing. Protectionism generally leads to the kinds of international relations that yield wars. There is a trade imbalance between the United States and several notable nations, but when you purchase something from a store, there is a trade imbalance between you and the merchant. He profits and gets your money. You get a good or service that you felt was worth at least as much as the money you paid for it.
  • You’ll pay whatever the oil companies demand for gas. Your gas prices may be affected by market speculation and big-money manipulation, but fundamentally you’re being charged what the market will bear. You’ll know when they’ve crossed the line when you stop buying it. This is not a position that the Republicans are keen to shout from the mountaintops, but that’s just because economic populism sells.
  • Competition works. Well, it works when there’s real competition, and there are some markets that simply do not lend themselves well to competition, in which case the government will have to step in and make sure the natural monopolies keep things above-board (the Democrats largely agree with this, but there’s a lot of common ground).
  • Beefy Austrians make for interesting governors.
  • Guns are cool.

Cthulhu

They're Esoteric and Orderly

It’s an election year, so normally any musings on my part regarding the Mighty Cthulhu would center around his election to the presidency of the United States. But this time we’ve got another Great Old One from the trackless times undreamt of beneath the sea, so instead my thoughts wander to Hollywood. You see, later this month there’s a movie coming out named Cthulhu.

I had heard some time ago that there was to be a Call of Cthulhu remake featuring Tori Spelling. I thought that was a bit amusing, going from Beverly Hills 90210 to Lovecraftian horror. Figured I’d give it a shot for pure kitsch. Probably catch the matinee and laugh about it with Chunkbot or Daniel. Why not? It’ll have a big CG sea monster, crazy bayou cultists, it’d be a hoot.

Then I saw the trailer. Oh my. The Apple site describes it as “Adapted from a story by H.P. Lovecraft.” Well. Really, now? Are you sure it wasn’t adapted from 99% of the half-baked Chaosium RPG plots that have sprung up in basements and rec rooms over the past twenty years, a hodgepodge of creepy tales of Deep Ones and the Esoteric order of Dagon, with a sprinkling of “daddy never understood me” family angst. A manhole cover with a tentacled form etched onto it? Really? It’s set in coastal Oregon?

Maybe I’ve just grown too used to indie interpretations of actual Lovecraft stories, but this may take a few weeks to get my head around.

Hoo, boy.