Yahoo answers (as far as I can tell from the last 15 minutes), is filled with people too dumb to use google. Take for example This man, who is an idiot on so many levels it’s disturbing.

Open Question

 

Was it a good idea to ground my daughter for voting for Obama?

My daughter is still in high school, but she turned 18 in time to vote in the election. When I heard she voted for Obama I was shocked. The man has no experience and has terrorists for friends. So I grounded her for 2 months. Obama did not win our state, Arkansas, so her vote didn’t really matter. Should I let her off the hook even though Obama won?

It seems like Spike TV has been showing nothing but Star Wars movies since Sunday. With Rebecca working nights, that means I’ve watched episodes I-III again. I must say, watching them in close proximity to each other makes them flow much better. It also reminds me of everything inherently wrong with them. For no real reason, here go a whole bunch of snarky comments at Lucas’ expense:

• I know Lucas likes droids, but where did he find an acting droid that looks just like Natalie Portman? I swear, if you don’t listen to the voice, it almost looks like a human being.
• I know the real reason they have to start Jedi training so young. Let’s just say if they didn’t, untrained adolescent Jedi would know the “Jedi mind trick” as the “bra remover”.
• Attention George Lucas: It is possible for someone to injure another human being in a sword fight by methods other than limb removal. Really.
• Some time between 1977 and 1999 screen wipes went the way of the disco ball and shag carpeting. I don’t know exactly when or how it happened, but I do know that someone forgot to include Lucas on the memo distribution list.
• A droid shooting a weapon whose payload consists of some form of energy (like a laser), should never miss it’s target. If it does, the person who designed it should be fired. From a canon.
• What’s with Anakin anyway? He’s 8 years old in the first movie. I’m going to give you a look at what his stream of consciousness should look like given his age: “I really like Padme, she’s pretty, and nice, and cool, and oh look – A butterfly!” Seriously – 8 year olds do not fall in love.
• Yoda: I can say nothing bad about Yoda. I know he’s a puppet, but somehow I’m afraid that if I do he’ll find a way to kick my butt. The fight scene against Dooku in Episode II was cool – Yoda flying around the screen like a toddler on Pixie sticks, Dooku flailing a flashlight at an imaginary object which would later be put there by a computer – it’s amazing it came out so well. The fight scene in episode III is even better. Yoda simply owns the scene. Owns it. He might be 2 feet tall and computer generated, but he carries himself with panache.
• Yoda doesn’t draw his lightsaber before a big fight – he holds out his right hand and the lightsaber flies into it. Now that is badass. (Also something I didn’t notice the first few times I saw the movie). The scene is on youtube if you want to verify it. (1:35 in).

Theoretically let’s say you had a country. It’s not the most developed or modern, but it’s also not third world. There are regular elections for the prime minister who has a long term (15 years), but strict term limits. There are almost no checks on the power of the prime minister though – he is the head of the army, there is no judicial review, and he can completely ignore the legislative branch if he wants. Essentially he has all the powers of a dictator, but he’s elected. Is this country still a democracy?

Long one of the staples of science fiction, directed energy weapons are finally being deployed.

Every so often I see a scene which I find so fascinating, I can’t help but stare for a few moments. The picture at the right is one of them. You have four Muslim women walking in the center of Nazareth, an Israeli city. As they walk, they pass a German car sporting an Israeli license plate on one side, and street vendors selling American ice cream, Israeli soft drinks, and German beer on the other. Their destination appears to be the arch decorated with Jewish stars and a Christian cross.

I posted a few months ago about the discrepancy of kashrut agencies when requiring a hecksher for sake. I finally got around to emailing the cRc a few days ago to see why they required a hecksher. After an initial response which said nothing at all, I got a response which said next to nothing:

That was determined by info we received a few years ago, but it happens that we are in the process of reviewing that again, and it may change.

Well I guess that’s something. Sorta. I’ve decided (with the backing of my local rabbi and the star-k), that I do not personally require a hecksher on sake for the basic reason that it’s beer made from rice. This is a good thing too because I stopped into a Japanese grocery store last week looking for sake. They had a very large selection, including the two kosher brands I’ve seen. I asked the lady behind the counter for assistance, and while she barely spoke any English (which, IMO, only makes her that much more qualified to express an opinion on sake), she informed me that those two brands were pretty much the bottom of the barrel. Her non-heckshered recommendation was simply delicious.

Things I learned today:

1. The phrase “Abra Cadabra” (uttered by cheap magicians everywhere) is derived from Aramaic.
2. Dr. Ruth, the 4″7 sex therapist, used to be an Israeli sniper.
3. This 4 bedroom house in Georgetown selling for $375K is a typo.

I’ll try not to beat a dead horse, but I just want to make 2 post-election points

Sasha and Malia have a lot to live up to. link1 link2 link3 link4

As a youngster in the White House, Tad Lincoln, [son of Abraham Lincoln], once hitched two goats to a chair and drove it into a sitting room where his unamused mother was giving a tour.

Tad Lincoln once discovered how to make all of the White House bells ring at the same time — much to the surprise of the entire staff and residents of the building!

While living in the White House Quentin Roosevelt, [son of Teddy Roosevelt], a notorious troublemaker, ran his toy wagon straight through a priceless painting of a first lady, and nearly topped a 350-pound bust of Martin Van Buren.

John Kennedy Jr. so liked the hiding place in his father’s desk that he had to be removed occasionally by an aide before important business could be done.

I decided to find the most liberal of the liberal – the voting precinct in Washington DC with the highest Obama/McCain split. I present to you, precinct 118. Located in Anacostia (but you probably guessed that already), Obama carried 99.74% of the vote. The other four votes were split between McCain (three) and McKinney (one).

In fairness, I also tried to find the most Republican precinct in DC. I found it in precinct 9. Located in Massachusetts heights (right here, just past the Cathedral), precinct 9 is a hotbed of conservative activism that propelled McCain to gain a whopping 31% of the vote, with Obama taking 68%.

update: A commenter points out that Bob Barr wasn’t on the ballot in DC, so that may have changed vote totals.

Exit polls show that 77% of Jews voted for Obama. This is almost exactly halfway between the 79% that Gore got, and the 74% that Kerry got. Now, can we all shut up about Obama’s “Jewish problem”?

Now this puts the “trick” back into “trick play”.