Good afternoon. Just a couple of quick announcements for you Crasstalkers:
Please take a moment to read the new commenting guidelines and the writing rules posted by our Beloved Leader last night. Also, there will be a writers workshop thread starting about 8 pm EST tonight. Please join in if you are writing or want to in the future. Also Coffee and Cigarettes is hosting the first Crasstalk Book Club Meeting on Sunday. Better get to reading, kids. Continue reading
The Grand Inquisitor
2012 posts
Good morning. Hopefully you are more chipper than I am today. A couple of housekeeping announcements. Please take a moment to read the new commenting guidelines and the writing rules posted by our Beloved Leader last night. Also, there will be a writers workshop thread starting about 8 pm EST tonight so we can all get together and talk about our “art.” I hope that we can all use this as an excuse to exercise our pretension muscles. Actually, I am really hoping we can give each other support and develop our ideas. Continue reading
Good evening, or good morning to our European partners. Please take a moment to check out the new articles on commenting and writing guidelines. We have commenced herding cats and we are hoping that this will make Crasstalk more fun for everyone. Please feel free to give us feedback in those threads.
Usually for open threads I post a few news items, but since I am guessing we can all find the BBC I thought I would do something a little different. I am going to post a few of my favorite Wikipedia articles. I am picking them because they are fascinating, weird, or thought provoking. Post yours as well and maybe we can find out some interesting things to talk about.
Lysenkoism is the manipulation of scientific fact for political purposes. The term is named for a Soviet agronomist who was favored by Stalin for his loyalty. Lysenkoism is the worst outcome when science fuses with politics. This page illustrates the awful consequences of dogmatically driven politics.
Toynbee tiles are a set of weird, cryptic messages found embedded in asphalt in several US cities. The messages reference the movie 2001, but are named for Arnold Toynbee who is also frequently referenced.
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-born actress who emigrated to the United States. A classic beauty, she starred in Cecil B. Demille’s Samson and Delilah. However, there was much more to Hedy than looks. Along with a musician friend she developed a rough frequency-hopping idea which served as a basis for modern wi-fi.
Have a wonderful night Crasstalk.
Happy Valentine’s Day, even if you are single you have the Crasstalk love to keep you warm tonight.
Just a quick rehash in case you haven’t been over here. We did a redesign last night and hope that everyone is feeling very pretty. Please give the new format a chance, but please also report any bugs or issues to crasstalk at gmail dot com. Here’s a few headlines to start of the conversation tonight:
Iranian security forces clashed with protesters today in Tehran. Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the street after last week’s detention of a number of journalists and activists.
Pro Publica has an interesting investigative report on disabled student loan borrowers. People who become disabled are entitled to get the loans forgiven, but apparently the process of doing this has become confusing and arbitrary leaving many disabled borrowers in severe financial trouble.
A report from Politico details the enduring nature of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy. While national politicians will not touch the issue state and local politicians have taken up the cause. Ten states so far have introduced birth certificate requirement bills before their state legislatures. I am sure this is a productive way to spend lawmaker’s time.
Hope you all have a wonderful evening.
Good morning fine Crasstalkers. I know you may feel a bit out of sorts by the changes, but please give this a try because we think you will like the new design. Courage.
Please see the post from our fearless leader for more information about the redesign. We hope that we are making you look as fancy as you all deserve. While no news on Crasstalk is as important as what is happening on Crasstalk, here are a couple of stories from overnight. Continue reading
Hi all, hope you are having a relaxing Sunday. Here’s a couple of conversation starters (as if we need those).
The Atlantic has some fantastic videos of the reaction of protesters during the moments after Mubarak was removed a s Egyptian President. It really captures the emotions of a beautiful moment.
Ron Paul (R-TX) won the CPAC presidential poll this weekend in Washington. This is the second year he has won, but Paul is not exactly embraced by the mainstream part of the Republican party. Alex Jones is probably pretty stoked though. Sarah Palin finshed third, suggesting that their are limits to crazy, even at CPAC.
The Economist has an interesting article about income inequality in Angola. While the country has become rich from national resources, corruption, poor planning, and lingering animosity over the civl war have meant most Angolans still live in abject poverty.
Also, Jerry Springer turns 67 today. Try not to throw a chair or get anyone knocked up during your celebration.
Well, it has been an exciting week in politics. There was revolution in Egypt, scandal in the House of Representatives, and probably a lot of secret, gay sex at CPAC. All of the usual pundits have weighed in with the predictable, self-serving “analysis.” However, if we want some really entertaining commentary we need to transport ourselves to the less lucid part of the Internet. We need to take a trip to the WingNutverse. Here’s a smattering about the topics that are important to the batshit crazy tonight:
At Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, Glenn explains how the Egyptian revolution is all a conspiracy against Israel and will kill us all. I think, he’s really hard to follow. Anyway, he includes this handy organizational chart to clear the whole thing up.
Best quote: “I hope these things don’t happen, but I fear they will.”
Bonus points: He blames The New York Times.
Over at Newsmax (home to Ann Coulter) they want to give you the truth about Islam. Their hard-hitting report addresses important issues:
- Home-grown terrorists and their “stealth jihad”
- A violent struggle for Shariah in Detroit
- Rape and murder — disturbing incidents “justified” by Shariah
Are you terrified yet? Want to know more? It will only cost you $4.95 to find out. Waiting only means that someone will rape and kill your family.
Bonus points: You do get a free radio with your order. I’m not kidding, follow the link.
Let’s go to Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government (hold me). Tonight we are discussing how the presidential nominating process could favor Donald Trump (I am going to need you to keep holding me). Apparently The Donald has the media savvy and star power to capture the Republican nomination (fuck it, just shoot me).
However: BG’s crazy readers are skeptical.
Bonus points: This is how much I hate Mr. Breitbart.
All right, that’s enough with the scary stories tonight. Let’s all go back to celebrating Egypt, being reasonable, and pretending these people don’t exist.
Attention fellow patriots: Crasstalk needs you. It is time to spread the word to the masses about the glorious Crasstalk Revolution.
I think we want to start first by collecting the refugees from the Gawker media meltdown. We need to spread the word on all the sites and try to find those who have yet to migrate. Got an I09 or Dead Spin account? Pimp us out. Notice one of your fave commenters isn’t here? Try to hit them up to join us.
So far we have a twitter and a fancy new FaceBook (thanks BBK). We can also be Stumbled Upon thanks to Muppet Baby. However I am sure we can think of a few more ways to spread the word.
First, we need a nice logo. Anyone got a flair for design? I can also open us a YouTube if we want to make some videos, which could be fun.
Anyway, I am opening this post to see who can help, and what kinds of ideas other people have for getting the word out.
Together we can win the Internet.
UPDATE: So I think we got some good ideas. I will open a YouTube and a Drop Box over the weekend. Let’s keep getting the word out in the Gawkerverse so our friends can find us. I will post a new thread to check in over the weekend. I also just want to say thanks to all of you guys, this has been a lot of fun for me. Please email crasstalk at gmail dot com if you have questions and/or suggestions.
Night, nite.
So I guess Mr. Denton feels that the era of the blog is over and it is time to move on. Maybe this is true for Gawker, but there are still some really excellent blogs being produced by some really talented people. Blogs are a pretty democratic form of communication and they can often focus on local or niche issues that would not generate enough revenue for larger websites. While blogging may seem like a trite pastime, there are some serious issues being discussed out there. For every hipster jack ass bitching about some band there is a neighborhood activist covering issues their local papers cannot. For every dumb girl writing about how drunk she was last night there is a watchdog covering corruption and graft (often in countries that don’t take kindly to such activity). I thought I would share a couple of my favorites and I am hoping you will do the same in the comments.
Barefoot and Progressive: A fantastic blog about Kentucky politics from a liberal perspective. There is some great reporting going on here, and you get a ring-side seat to the Tea Party circus.
The BLager: Like beer? This blog is for you. Updates on beer news, beer events, and recipes in short, delicious posts. A must for the functional alcoholic in your life.
Duck of Minerva: A great foreign policy blog run by a group of international relations professors. Cool analysis and some pretty good snark.
Africa is a Country: I cannot say enough good things about this blog. Written by a South African who lives in New York it covers African politics, literature, and sports. He also has fantastic taste in music.
So there are my favorites, and yes The Grand Inquisitor has a couple of blogs (you can see them by clicking on my Intense Debate profile). Please share you favorites here and bonus points if you post one of your own.