Duck Goes Moo

Samurai Girl

Charles Guthrie — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:58:02 -0600

Okay...

SAMURAI GIRL, the TV series

I know I shouldn't judge things I don't understand, but I don't understand this show, I haven't even watched it, but I am going to judge it anyway.

Is this some sort of bizarre product of a bored marketing department or a bad case of groupthink?

The tag line for the show is, "Her Strength is her Destiny".

What? Huh?

Find Out More Here!

Jon Stewart - My Hero

Charles Guthrie — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:05:06 -0600

Okay people, it's politics season, so if you're getting tired of all the political postings you better strap in because it going to get a lot worse from here on.

After watching the last day of the RNCC I needed to recharge my mood a bit. Thankfully, Jon Stewart (or his writing team) have been busy with the haha and the very, very poignant political jabs:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card

Note: you'll have to wait through the commercials, but it's worth it.

EDIT:

Actually, I have found the clip on the YouTube, most likely to be pulled soon:

FURTHER EDIT:

Even better, today's Daily Show:

On Glass Ceilings

Charles Guthrie — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:09:12 -0600

Major Drop in Obama's Rating

Charles Guthrie — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:59:03 -0600

Polls lately show little gain for McCain, but a major drop for Obama:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com

We'll see how tonight's speech by McCain affects things and how things develop over the next few weeks before the first big debate.

I'm once again watching the RNCC, causing me to shout at the TV again. I may not like what they say, but I do want to at least hear them out and see how they are going to be selling the McCain presidency.

Still, I will say this: There is a profound difference between genuine patriotism and collective narcissism.

GOP Veep Day

Charles Guthrie — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:22:57 -0600

Well, I just got done watching today's session of the GOP convention. There was a lot of Obama bashing, as expected, and Giuliani delivered quite a few blows in his speech. One of them implying that Obama hates towns like the one that Palin came from because it isn't "cosmopolitan" enough for him: "I'm sorry, Barack, that it's not flashy enough. Maybe they cling to religion there", he said, playing off Obama's clumsy comments about problems with closed-mindedness in rural areas.

Giuliani continued a common thread that most of the GOP have been following since Clinton withdrew and Palin came onto the scene: insist that the Dems are sexist and hate working mothers. He wagged his finger angrily and condemned the Democratic party for attacking Palin's ability to lead because she has children.

He said, "How dare they question whether Sarah Palin has enough time to spend with her children and be vice president. When do they ever ask a man that question?"

Okay... who in the Democratic party has raised this issue? Give me a name or give me it a rest. The only voices even mentioning anything about this issue are the ones carrying the GOP talking points in their pockets. There, I've said it.

Giuliani also said, "You have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer ... What?"

Well, whatever Rudy, people in the crowd seemed really roused by that one along with thousand of other zingers about how Obama's work to help impoverished families and churches in the south side of Chicago to have a voice in America is something to laugh at. Just keep on insisting that Obama is an elitist who is out of touch with the poor if that makes you so happy.

The main show that day was of course Palin, who indeed gave an incredible speech, but I of course didn't agree with or like much of what she had to say, being a liberal supporting Obama.

She definitely seems to have won over those in the GOP, or at least those in the stadium that night. Her role as the attack dog (or barracuda, as she is known in Alaska) is in place and she gave a ripping series of attacks on Obama. We'll see how well Obama defends himself against these attacks in the coming days.

Some of her quotes, the first of which is the standard "the media is run by liberals and they are in cahoots with the elitist villains in the government" line:

"I've learned quickly these last few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone."

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

"Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit."

and of course, the baffling:

"Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."

Huh? What? What on Earth is this statement based off of?

Still, I think we may indeed have a rousing series of debates ahead of us, and with Palin and Biden as the Veeps, I hope that we have more than one Vice Presidential debate this season.

I think that both conventions show that this country is far from deciding who our next president will be and that we have a very, very exciting two months ahead of us as this presidential election year comes to a close.

GAME ON!!!

GOP Convention

Charles Guthrie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:28:17 -0600

I watched a lot of the GOP convention today, and I was reminded of something a great American author and playwright one time said:

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and holding a cross."

I was okay with the celebration of the military, the prayer sessions, and the saluting of the flag... but when they started saying things like, "Bush has kept us safe for seven years by staying on the offense", it just started to irk me something awful.

It's frighteningly similar to what I've read in history books, and in some fictional books like "1984". Here is a quote from the Wikipedia entry on "Perpetual War":

The 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell was written from the viewpoint of a citizen of one of three fictional world-dominating superstates. These nations are in a state of perpetual war with each other. The state of war is used by each of the states to justify the control of their populations using Stalinist or other methods. By artificially creating fear and hate of an enemy, the actual existence of which is never made completely certain, the governments provided an excuse for their failures and, in the case of Oceania, enforced obedience to Big Brother. Moreover, eternal war formed the bedrock of the economy, as people could be kept busy manufacturing goods that would not improve their living standards, but would instead be destroyed on the battlefields. Thus perpetual war not only kept the population busy, it also encouraged a "siege mentality" in which hatred of the enemy and love for the government's protection were social norms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war

I'm not saying this is what is going on, but some of the people and the things they said at the GOP convention smacked a little similar.

There was the complete and total denial of any past mistakes on behalf of the administration, the rewriting of history (for example, Bush saying that McCain never cracked when he was being held as a PoW. McCain did crack and bend to their will, McCain has said so in his interviews), and the repeated phrase "we must stay on the offense to keep America safe" with no mention of an end or an enemy to be fighting, and how people kept repeating the idea that Bush has kept us safe all this time.

It can't really be as bad as it seemed. It must be the liberal media twisting the events to make it look creepy... even though all the media companies are owned by conservatives and I was watching it on FOX News.

Oy, I think I'll stick to my silly elephant and donkey cartoons and stop with the conspiracy theories before I scare myself sick.

Wonky-Tonk Women

Charles Guthrie — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:38:24 -0600

I watched some of this last night.

Hoo boy, this is wonky politicking at its best. Watching Carville and Bachmann go at it was more fun that I've had in a long time. From Bachmann's frozen smile to Carville's looks of utter befuddlement I giggled myself silly.

Though I admit I was a bit creeped out and offended by Bachmann.

For one, she looked like she just got back from a Scientology rundown session. She just kept this frozen smile and stare, almost completely motionless during the whole debate. I wonder if she really was just trying to show a contrast between her and the sneering, frowning Carville.

Second, there was how she kept pretending to be offended by the things Carville said. Anytime Carville expressed a different opinion than her or tried to explain his viewpoint she would then say she was offended, say that Carville was being sexist, and then blather on in her consistent, rhythmic talking style to make sure that Carville couldn't get a word in refute her charges of sexism.

Michelle Bachmann, I have taken feminism classes, I have studied and read about feminists. You, madam, are no feminist.

I mean, really, she kept insisting that Carville was the one being demeaning when it was really her who was being demeaning to women. How dare she co-opt the long and painful struggle for equal rights and treatment for women to defend the GOP's poor choice of a Veep? I imagine all of her talking points and accusations of sexism were all scripted out and planned, the idea being to keep souring the Dems in the minds of women everywhere.

Do Michelle Bachmann and the GOP think that women are so weak-willed and gullible that they would fall for such an obvious political ploy? Now that is demeaning.

Obama Surging Up in Polls

Charles Guthrie — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:32:11 -0600

Lately Obama has surged up higher in the polls than he ever has before. Now almost half of those polled say they want Obama to be our next president:

RealClearPolitics.com Poll Chart

But hold on, let's wait and see how things fair after the GOP convention this week. McCain might experience a similar bump and take the lead. We'll see tonight if Bush and Cheney speaking on his behalf helps or not. Conservative policy wonks are saying that the pick of Palin is energizing their base and that women are swarming to their ticket... but no polls really seem to reflect that at all.

They've even gone as far as to lie about whether or not people clapped for her.

In her grand introduction she mentioned how she was in the great tradition of women who break the glass ceiling like Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton... and the people booed.

This morning a conservative guest on NPR insisted that they all clapped when she mentioned their names.

Hey, I watched that speech live. Don't tell me that people clapped when I heard them boo. Feh!

That's a big bill...

Ben Gerber — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:03:23 -0600

As as I was taking a shower today, my mind was wandering. For some reason I remembered a story I'd read a few weeks ago about Warren Buffet and his comments on federal debt. If you're interested, Here's a version of it on Reuters. That article came to my mind and got me thinking about the problem.

The basic jist is that people talk about the $9 Trillion and growing government debt owed to the public. This is the money borrowed by issuing government bonds sold to private citizens, foreign government and companies. But most people don't talk about the account deficit including the intragovernment debt, and that second part is way way bigger than the publicly held debt.

The basic story is that the government collects taxes into many accounts. Each account is "owned" by the government but has a specific purpose for the account. So there's a tax on gas that pays for the highway system, and the payroll taxes go into a trust fund for Social Security and Medicaid. There must be dozens of these little trust funds all over the place.

It's not often talked about, but the government has been plundering these trust funds for decades. Instead of borrowing a few trillion every year, they take the extra trust fund money from these accounts and use it on this year's government spending. So if Social Security takes in 450 billion and only spends 200 billion, then the general government has been "borrowing" the extra 250 billion every year for decades. This allows them to borrow less from the public each year, and decrease the amount of interest they pay on the debt. But there's still the obligation to provide the money back to the trust fund if the account balance falls too low... This wouldn't be a problem, except that my parents and their entire generation are about to retire in the next ten or fifteen years. Once that happens many of these trusts are going to start running negative yearly balances, and the general government is expected to replace the borrowed money to make up the account deficit in the trust every year.

If you use the numbers provided by the article above, the total debt is over 50 trillion over the next 75 years which our general government is expected to provide. That's huge. When I read it at first I though, "That's a way bigger number." I didn't fully realize just how big this obligation is... If you take 53 trillion and divide it among all the Americans in America... It turns out to be about $177,000 for every man, woman and child. That's more than twice my mortgage, and if you include my wife's debt that's almost 5 times our mortgage.

The politicians of my grandparents and my parents era have saddled me with a huge debt almost five times the mortgage on my house. That kind of pisses me off. What were they thinking? How could they have not seen this huge wall coming at them from farther off... If we can now predict the account short fall 75 years out, then they could also, but they decided to ignore it.

You know what. If Social Security and Medicaid fail because of them, then I have little sympathy. Those politicians spent a whole lifetime spending their own piggybank, and if there's nothing left when they need it they have nobody to blame but themselves. You know, our parents are going to suck the money out of our lives to pay for their retirement because they squandered their retirement savings. I'd rather just junk both these programs now, and have my retirement and healthcare be on my own shoulders.

Imagine if you're a single mom with 2 kids... Yea right you'll come up with a spare $531,000 over the next few decades to pay for your parents healthcare and retirement.

Some time during the next 20 years, the shit is going to hit the fan, and the solvency of the American Government is going to be in trouble.

Google Chrome Comic

Charles Guthrie — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:58:02 -0600

Well, Google has gone and done it and come out with their own browser, which is cool, but what is even cooler is that they hired Scott McCloud, one of my idols, to do a comic to introduce the how and why of Chrome:

Chrome Comic

High School Art Club

Charles Guthrie — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:26:54 -0600

My old art teacher, Ron Isom, recently uploaded a picture that I believe includes me on end on the left:

Also included are some old friends, Todd Whatley, Rebbecca Whetstine (my first crush), Ben Gaa, and some others whose name I currently cannot remember (sorry...).

Adama Roslin 08

Charles Guthrie — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:15:54 -0600

I finally realized who Sarah Palin reminds me of: Laura Roslin.

This is indeed an interesting parallel, as Roslin was a person of very little experience suddenly thrust into being the president of the surviving human race after the cylon holocaust. So that's the GOP's plan, they're not trying to win over female voters, their trying to get the sci-fi geek vote.

Of course, one of the main love stories in BSG (among way, way too many) is that of Adama and Roslin:

But of course nothing like this would ever happen between McCain and Palin... or at least not likely:

Well, I suppose in a way McCain does look a little like Adama:

But wait... who am I fooling. McCain looks a lot more like Saul Tigh:

And their stories are so much alike. Saul was tortured horrifically in an enemy internment camp, just like McCain. They're both old and balding and at times strangely silly. Though I imagine that McCain isn't a cylon... unless some insane political stunt was pulled and the RNC paid Ronald Moore a billion dollars to make McCain the final cylon.

St. Louis Arch in SimCity Societies: Destinations

Charles Guthrie — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:33:20 -0600

I recently bought an expansion set to "SimCity Societies" called "Destinations" and one of the buildings you can build in the game is the St. Louis Arch! They call it a "Commemorative Arch", but if you look at these screenshots I took after I placed it in one of my cities you'll see that it is undoubtedly our arch and none other:

I'm tempted now to try to recreate St. Louis in the game, but I imagine someone else has done so and uploaded the map already.

McCain / Palin 08?

Charles Guthrie — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:33:39 -0600

Wow, who would of thought it. The choice for VP on the GOP ticket is not Romney, Pawlenty, nor Huckabee, but is instead the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, a self described "hockey mom".

A very interesting choice, besides the obvious reason being to try to lure in female voters who are disgruntled with Clinton not being the nominee or getting the VP slot, though Palin is most likely not going to be most Clinton-voters had in mind as the first female VP or Prez.

She's against abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. She wants to drill Anwar, loves automatic weapons, and wants creationism taught in schools. Though she did fight against the "Bridge to Nowhere" and won against the powerful Ted Stevens.

Once again a very bold and interesting choice, and apparently one that is all part of the "make the GOP seem like the party of change and the Dems the party of empty talk" campaign strategy that all the conservative pundits are now pushing forward with, including Ben Stein.

I had forgotten that Ben Stein started out as a campaign writer for Nixon, but have now been abruptly reminded of how wonkish he can be. He was on Larry King last night talking about how negative and underhanded the Obama campaign is being, and how McCain has not run one political ad that went negative or said anything defacing about Obama's character.

When Larry King reminded Stein about the "Celebrity Ad" and others like it, Stein replied that those ads were not negative or any sort of attack ad as they were accurate in their portrayal of Obama. Wow...

Still, there may have been indeed some truth stretching in Obama's big speech last night, which is something the GOP pundits have stressed. FactCheck.org dissects his speech and picks out the parts which may have been less than fully forthcoming.

None-the-less, with both Veeps chosen and the debates ahead, it looks like the next two months are going to be quite a roller coaster ride of politics and punditry.

Ah, 'tis the season to be wonky.

How Pandas Are Born

Charles Guthrie — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:10:59 -0600

VSM - Personality Assessment Test

Charles Guthrie — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:33:12 -0600

Maybe I'll start meditating again.

Ben Gerber — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:10:56 -0600

This morning was kind of a downer.

Basically I woke up as Sonnee was going to work in the morning. She leaves around 7:30, and I don't have to be anywhere till 1:00pm. So I've been waking up as she leaves, and then I can get some study done. I give her a kiss and tell her to have a nice day as she walks out the door. She gets about two steps out, then immediately she runs back into the house crying.

There is a scene of carnage in front of the house... Some animal has killed two of the fish from our little pond and left their fish bodies lying on the sidewalk, headless with little golden scales scattered around. The lone surviving fish is totally hiding in a crack between the filter and the side of the pond, down in the deepest waters.

This situation sets off a cacophony of emotional and logical developments in me.

First off, I have this crying wife... That's a big problem, because I feel empathy for her. I find it upsetting when she's upset, so I've got to deal with that right away.

Secondly I'm thinking, this is a couple fish bodies, not the mangled body of our house cat. The emotional attachment for me is not all that great, but Sonnee's totally emotionally attached because she thinks of them as pets. So some part of me is slightly irritated that first thing in the morning, before I've had any tea, I need to deal with a wife who's all upset over a couple dead fish.

Next there's the fact that I suddenly realize she has little right to be upset over the fish. I'm the one who's fed them, cleaned the pond, saved them from an algae plume that nearly choked the pond, and generally payed attention to the fish. If I'm not upset over the fish that I care for, then why should I have to somehow deal with her being upset over the dead fish...

OK, so two deep breaths... One... Two... OK, I've got the paper towel now, and in my robe, I'll pick up the remains and put them in the back of the house. Now let's get the hose, and these little rocks in the driveway kind of hurt my feet, and let's spray the little golden scales into the grass... OK, so scene of carnage neutralized.

While I'm dealing with the physical problem here, I'm thinking of ouch these rocks hurt my feet, and I bet that half blind stray cat that Sonnee feeds because she thinks it's pathetic is what killed my fish, I mean cummon, the bodies are lying right next to the now empty food dish she leaves every night... I told her it was a bad idea to be feeding stray cats, and I'm totally going to throw something at that cat if I see it again...

So I lie a bit and tell Sonnee I'm not mad, cuz seriously I'm a little bit mad at the whole situation, but I have to tell her this lie so that she'll calm down and go to work.

A couple minutes later, she's gone and I change into pants and shoes so that I can go out back and bury the dead fish... I thought about putting them in the trash, but I felt that they would rot for a week (trash day was yesterday) and probably attract more animals, anyway if I put so much effort into keeping them alive I should at least bury them to give my self a sense of closure. But I don't have a shovel... New home owner Me hasn't bought one yet, so I use a serving spoon and dig a shallow grave under the oak tree in the back yard.

I unwrap the paper towel and look at the little bodies as I put them into the grave. For some reason it irritates me that the cat only ate their heads. I suppose it likes the fatty taste of brains but was frustrated by the scales protecting the meat. I replace the dirt. There's a little pile of river stones in the back, so I pick out a hand-full of blue ones and put them on top. Seamed like the right thing to do. I'm feeling a bit sad now... Mostly I feel sad thinking of the one lonely fish who survived.

Strangely this is not the first time this has happened to me... You know the whole burying a house pet in the back yard early in the morning. I think this is the fourth house pet that I've had to bury in a backyard grave in the morning. One time the old cat Dusty froze to death after falling asleep in the winter under the dryer vent. There was the time FuzzBall was hit by a car in front of the house. Another time, Mom backed over a Peaches's head in the driveway on the way to work. Why do I always get this shitty job? So in those situations, it's the same. My sister was too upset to deal with the slain pet, Mom's not inclined either, and my brothers are too little, so Ben has to go bury the pet. Basically the girls are emotionally devastated by the situation, and no other guys are around to do it.

I'm no stranger to dead flesh. And I generally don't feel much when I see it. I spent all last summer filming dissection videos for Gross Anatomy at Mizzou medschool. Late nights in the dissection lab with myself and 27 cadavers as I cut and pull at a dead woman's armpit are not a new or unsettling experience.

There's a big difference for me between death and the corpses living things leave behind. I feel that loss of life is kind of sad, regardless of the form of that life. Corpses on the other hand are simply remains, like the dirty dishes and scraps that are left over after a party.

Over the last few days I've been feeling generally sad that my life is kind of imbalanced right now. Basically I work on school, and talk a bit with Sonnee each day. That and maintaining the house are all that I have going right now. I tried to meditate yesterday, and when I close my eyes I fell my left side is dark. I think I need to start writing and reading other non-medical stuff. Maybe I'll start meditating regularly again (haven't done that since highschool).

Evolution of My Comic Style

Charles Guthrie — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:34:01 -0600

I first started trying to draw comics about two years ago. The idea was to try to do a daily comic in hopes that I would then get enough skill to one day be able to make a political cartoon called "Strange Bedfellows", which I talked about in one of the first posts on this blog.

Here is the first daily comic:

I struggled around for a while trying to find a good style, trying some different random ideas:

and to some degree I began to copy the humor of Toothpaste for Dinner:

and Natalie Dee:

after two months of making comics I stopped, though I started to go into the political realm a bit near the end:

I briefly tried to make a regular scifi/furry comic called "Changing Gears", but I eventually decided I lacked the drawing skill to draw what I wanted to draw and decided to reboot the series. Still, when I look back, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't the comic I was wanting to make:

Then a year later I decided to return to comic making with a slightly new style:

I still mostly came up with quick, random ideas, but I kept trying to up the quality of the images I made:

Then I one day stumbled upon a new way to draw, also adding in shading, highlights, heavy lines, and more of a focus on creating interesting characters:

This entertained me for a while, but then I decided to add a common format with an interesting scene and characters with a quote at the bottom:

The style developed further as I became better at drawing, shading, and inking:

I tried to keep things clean, but some immature moments popped up here and there:

but none-the-less I was getting better creating characters and scenes:

and eventually I had come full-circle in my comic drawing and I had finally developed enough skill to start work on my original idea:

I tried briefly to keep up the work with another side project called "Situations Which Do Not Require a Cat", but the idea eventually fizzled out. Still, there were some good issues of that:

So for now I am just going to focus on "Strange Bedfellows" and see if I can make a new one of those at least once a month. I really don't have the time these days to spend making comics, but I want to keep developing the skill out in case I ever do get more time or somehow start making money off of it all.

Either way, I had some good times cracking myself up here and there.

Michelle Obama - A New Kind of First Lady

Charles Guthrie — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:11:05 -0600

I just got done watching Michelle Obama give a speech at the DNC, and I have to say she gave an incredibly impassioned and powerful presentation, perhaps almost as good as the speeches of her husband. It got me thinking that perhaps the idea was to start off the DNC with Michelle to perhaps win some of the Hillary fans away to worship another strong woman who might one day be president.

Maybe in 2016 the ticket can indeed be "Clinton/Obama" as in "Hillary/Michelle".

Still I have to admit that the choice of music they played after her speech was a bit... well, demeaning. Here was this woman giving this very intelligent and empowering speech and they follow it up with "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder.

Now, I do like that song a lot, but it almost seemed to downplay how wonderful and well-done of a speech she gave, as if to say, "But, Hey! Nevermind how smart and talented she is, she's just for looking!"

Okay, well, perhaps I'm reading too much into that, but I did notice that she was also wearing sleeves now. Apparently you can't be the first lady in a sleeveless blouse.

War of the Roses

Charles Guthrie — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:09:25 -0600

I finally got some time to finish this issue of "Strange Bedfellows", which is about two months late. It still needs some sprucing up, but my time is still a bit packed these days and I can't spend forever on it.

Some notable errors:

on the forth panel Edward's trunk goes on the wrong side of his arm

the fence posts are a bit oddly placed

Edward's hair isn't consistent again. Oh well, perhaps that can be an ongoing gag

Still, I am glad I got this one out of the way so I can move on to another.