Readers of Middle Raged Punk should know I’m very unhappy with Sally Kern and her ultra-conservative, homophobic views. Well, she’s gone and said something else that I don’t agree with, but at least it’s not as bad as when she said that homosexuals are a bigger threat than terrorism. This time she said something that I just don’t understand:

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, told members of the Cleveland County Republican Club Tuesday that being a conservative means supporting religion and morals in government as strongly as cutting taxes.

Quoting George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others, Kern said the Founding Fathers expected U.S. government and society to be directed by biblical principles.

“I am not saying everyone has to be Christian; this is not a homogenous nation,” Kern said. “What you have to be is someone who believes in a Judeo-Christian ethic, in other words, in knowing there’s a right and wrong.

…

My Lord made it very clear to me that I’m a cultural warrior for Judeo-Christian values.”

Eh? Since when does Judeo-Christian beliefs, much less any religion, have a corner market on knowing between right and wrong? Plenty of Atheists, Agnostics, Wiccans, Humanists, and Flying Spaghetti Monster worshipers have what would be considered “morals”, like don’t hurt anyone, or steal. Even some animals have basic knowledge of what’s right and wrong. Just think back to the last time you saw your dog or cat doing something they’d been punished for doing before. Or if you come home and see them looking guilty, only to find a whole bag of chips strewn out all over the living room.

Oh, and she must have really cherry picked her quotes. (Ha, get it?) Here’s what I have from those two Founding Fathers:

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” -George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.” -Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814

Anywho, I’m sure you’re asking how all of this helps to get rid of Kern. Well, there is someone running against her this year, and he’s having a fundraiser this weekend! Party down with Ron Marlett!

This is a call to arms, you know, the ones attached to your body. On Saturday, August 30th, at Eldon Lyon Park, arms will be in the air to celebrate freedom and equality in Oklahoma. The inaugural “Rock Your Freedom” voter registration drive and free concert will be a challenge to hatred, intolerance, and scapegoating in Oklahoma. So even if you’re registered, come down at noon, bring a folding chair, and enjoy the music of 5 diverse bands; The Electric Primadonnas, Laci Stark and Band, Jesse Cahn and the Junkyard Dogs, Sha Sha Jones, and the well known artist, Blake O.

For those of you out of state, fly, drive, bus, and walk in if you have to, join us, discover famous Oklahoma hospitality, and help us raise our voices for liberty.

I don’t live her district, but that’s one return on election night I’ll be watching closely. We need to show everyone in the US that not all of us are conservative, religious, anti-science, and pro-hate by throwing her out of office! Go Ron Marlett!!!

Technorati tags: ron marlett, oklahoma, sally kern

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve got a serious girl crush on Mur. She’s a huge geek, with tons of the same interests I have! I mean, check out her very awesome Suicide Girls article where she talks about having a Kindle, but being very anti-DRM. *swoon*

The best part is that she actually does what I just talk about doing…she writes! Her superhero novel, Playing For Keeps, is out in print, and on August 25th, there will be a rush on the Amazon sales charts to push her up onto the NY Times “bestseller” status. It was released as a free, serialized, podiobook, and as an added bonus, you can download the full PDF of the novel, plus a new short story, for free!

(Back in March, Scott Sigler’s book Infected got the same treatment, and it did pretty well!)

If superheros aren’t your thing but zombies are, at the very least check out her podcast The Takeover.

About The Takeover

The Takeover is our audio blog describing Zombinc’s merger with a local web company. Be sure to take a listen to find out what goes on in a day-to-day office environment with zombies, humans, and a mad scientist. Why does a web design company need a mad scientist? Well, why not?

So check out her stuff, and at the least, head over to her site and tell her to kick ass on the 25th!

Technorati tags: full of fun fridays, mur lafferty, girlcrush, playing for keeps

Another two-fer! Figure that’s the least I could do since I’ve hardly done any posts lately. Work has been super busy, and I’ve hardly had time to MINE, let alone do posts. I’ve got at least four in mind, if only I get the time! Anyway, let’s get on with the Fun!

British sitcoms, or Britcoms, are a normal part of a geek’s diet. Just saying the words “Monty Python” will often result in a barrage of quotes and discussions of favorite episodes. It’s natural, then, that geek culture made its way into the Britcoms.

Spaced is *finally* now available on DVD here in the US. It stars the brilliant Simon Pegg, and is directed by Edgar Wright, who are known for one of my favorite movies of all time, Shaun of the Dead. You’d also recognize Nick Frost, who plays…what else…the best friend of Simon’s character. I can’t recommend this show enough! It’s got lots of geek and pop-culture references like Star Wars, The Matrix (hey, it was relevant back in 1999!) and Resident Evil, with that unique and hilarious sense of humor Pegg and Wright fans have come to love. And a great techno-dance version of The A-Team theme song that will stick in your head for days.

The latest geek laced show is The IT Crowd. As you can guess, its focus is more on the IT geek, but the show “features a large number of references to geek culture, mostly in set dressing and props. Dialogue (both technical and cultural) is usually authentic and any technobabble used often contains in-jokes for geek viewers”. It’s a whole lot of fun to try and spot them all, like a Flying Spaghetti Monster, EFF stickers, and geek shirts. I enjoyed the show so much, I have the theme song as my ringtone. Plus I just love cracking myself up when I use Roy’s stock answers to an IT problem, “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” and “Are you sure it’s plugged in?”, for troubleshooting PCs where I work. Yes, I am easily amused.

Now, the coolest part is that the the writer of the show, Graham Linehan, just finished the scripts for the 3rd season, and he wants suggestions for the geek stuff that lays around the main set!

How would you like to help in designing the look of series 3? Specifically, you’d be helping us choose the stuff that litters the main set. I’m talking about posters, comics, fanzines, T-shirts… anything you’ve seen in the last few months that you think is pretty cool or captures the spirit of the show or a particular character. By now, most of you know the kind of things I like…weird toys, indie comics, sci-fi, geek references, internet memes, boardgames…normally I’d delight in tracking down the stuff myself, but as I say, it’s just not going to happen this time round.

…

Please send your suggestions to ben.capel@talkbackthames.tv

There are already a ton of good suggestions in the comments, so I’m getting excited to see what will come of it. And for those of you who haven’t seen the show, but are interested, it will begin airing in the US on Independent Film Channel, beginning September 29th! I will be watching it again, just to see what I missed the first watching.

Technorati tags: full of fun fridays, britcoms, spaced, the it crowd

I told you there would be more posts about this. The previous Full of Fun Fridays post highlighted the Survival Edition of the game that you can buy with your very own Pip-Boy clock, which will be arriving at my house in just about 2 months. Sweet!

Many gamers are also Penny Arcade fans, obviously. And with their unique and often twisted sense of humor, it was a natural fit for them to create Fallout 3 comics to tell the story of The Vault Experiments:

There are currently three comics, with more to come in the lead up to the October release date. Click the above comic to catch up!

The second gem came from watching the trailer from E3. The very cool “Duck and Cover!” retro video flashed a phone number you can call to reserve your spot in a vault. 1-888-4-VAULTTEC After seeing it, I rushed to the phone and called it, surprised not to hear a commercial, but instead a recorded message. It directs you to Vault Tec, who asks you to hold due to high call volume. No biggie. Except there are 101 million people in front of you, with 8643 hours of wait time. Even the website Prepare for the Future just redirects you to the phone number. Hmmm, looks like I may not make it to a Vault in time.

Technorati tags: full of fun fridays, fallout 3, penny-arcade, vault tec