A coulrophobes dream game?

Joystiq has recent coverage on a cool new game sure to bring a smile to many coulrophobes: clowns falling down stairs. Billed as the ultimate physics game, one of the brains behind the game explains why it will succeed.

Yesterday, in his talk at the Independent Games Summit, Matthew Wegner beat up clowns. To be specific, he showed a physics sim clip of a dozen full-costumed clown ragdolls tumbling helplessly down a spiral staircase. Wegner, head of the physics game site Fun-Motion, called clowns falling down stairs “the ultimate physics game.” Why? Because it’s a lot easier to identify with clowns in peril then, let’s say, a bunch of shapes. Besides, it’s just hilarious. Later on, Wegner also showed a sim of a few hundred cows falling through a mess of painful looking barriers. Also very excellent.

Physics, clowns, and stairs. Really, what else do you need?

[tags]Clowns falling down stairs, A coulrophobes dream games[/tags]

White House pledged Plame leak investigation – no investigation performed

I can’t say I’m surprised, are you?

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who took over the helm of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in January, took a long look at the Valerie Plame affair today and found that the White House never conducted an internal security investigation of who leaked the formerCIA agent’s identity, despite a pledge by President Bush to do so.

Duh! No politician is going to perform an investigation, or at least a well-managed investigation, when the damning evidence will lead back too high into that politician’s close ranks of advisors, aides, or peers and close colleagues.

A snip from the (much longer) letter Waxman sent to the White House concerning the responsibilities of White House representatives and questioning the failure of those representatives to perform legally required actions.

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Bill to give DC full priviliges of Congressional spot

It seems the Democrats have been working on a bill in the House of Representatives which wouldgive the District of Columbia a full rights seat in the House (there’s more to the bill, but I’m just zoning in on the big target of the bill – bear with me, please). Part of the argument for the bill is that denying DC residents full Congressional representation is unconstitutional. On the surface, that seems like a reasonable claim (to me at least). From the discussion of the bill, we even get:

“Continued disenfranchisement of more than half a million Americans is unconscionable, indefensible and wrong,” said Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.

Republicans have been delaying the vote on this bill because the Constitution states that congressional seats are to be apportioned among the statves, and DC is not a state. Republicans, however, finally agreed to move forward with the vote with one ammendment to the bill. What ammendment? Well…

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Congress-critters show unusual intelligence in recent vote

Tuesday we received confirmation that the Senate has chosen to repeal the law allowing indefinite duration temporary (i.e. permanent) appointments of U.S. prosecutors without Senate confirmation. Next will be moving the legislation through the House of Representatives. This was part of the response to the firing and replacement of 8 U.S. prosecutors last year. In case you are wondering, the 2 votes opposed to reclaiming legislative review of appointments were from Republican Sens. Kit Bond (Mo.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.). If the repeal passes the House, the previous 120 duration will be restored.

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Worth1000.com Attack of the Clones contest #11

Recently, Worth1000 had an Attack of the Clones contest. Some of the entries are really good. Naturally, I really liked the entries with multiple Jessica Alba shots, although the multiple Katherine Heigl shot is probably my favorite in the group. Check out the contest results for some really great photochopping (and shorter link if that’s broken) of easy-on-the-eyes images. Here are the full contest details:

In this contest you will clone any famous person in such a way that they appear to be interacting with their twin (as demonstrated in the themepost).

The rules of this game are thus: You are to take any famous person and “clone” them. The clone should interact with their twin in the image in such a way as that the interaction looks real, not like you just took the original and mirrored it. NOTE: We only want images of FAMOUS people, not an image of your weird Uncle Carl wrestling with himself. As always, quality is a must. You’ll have 48 hours for this contest, so make your submission count.

[tags]Worth1000.com Attack of the clones contest[/tags]

Department of Justice issues massive report on PATRIOT act abuse

The federal government has a web site dedicated to spreading lies and propaganda stating that the PATRIOT act is good for the country and never has caused anything bad. What’s so odd about that is that while it appears to be a Department of Justice site, that is the department that has just written a massive, damning report on the many abuses of the PATRIOT act. Of course, there are still too many Americans (not surprisingly, mostly conservatives with a smattering of independents) blinded by their love of our current President, regardless of how many times he lies and deceives, who believe the executive branch representatives when they say the PATRIOT act is not abused and that Americans’ rights are protected under the PATRIOT act.

We have to suffer Presidential signing statements, though they carry no legal force, regardless of President Bush’s determinination to make the Executive branch also function as the Legislative branch. We have an attorney general who states that Constitutional protections against taking rights away don’t mean we actually have those rights. We had ongoing discussion among various high-level political folks about the validity, legality, and appropriateness of torture, especially in terms of dealing with Al Queda prisoners. To me, the fact that even the easily followed guidelines in the PATRIOT act which allow our government to ignore our Constitutionally protected rights are not followed is not hard to believe.

I’ve been opposed to this law even when I thought the bad provisions were at least subject to the oversight written into the law. Now that I see that those charged with protecting us can’t even resist abusing the simple rules which allow for paper trails, I’m totally disheartened. When are we going to see this undone? Why can’t the liberals do something useful with their tiny majority in Congress to get rid of this? My theory is lack of backbone, but I’m open to other interpretations.

[tags]Department of Justice issues massive document of PATRIOT act abuses, PATRIOT act abuses, Continuing loss of rights in America[/tags]