From Twitter 08-04-2009

• 02:23:12: So do the Blue Dogs in Congress walk around with nerdy rock musicians on their backs? Because that's what I've been led to believe.
  
• 02:27:34: Does being elected to public office automatically make people greedy, or what? It just seems like lobbyists are pretty much invincible.
  
• 02:28:45: Is it really so hard to get re-elected that you NEED to accept shitloads of tainted money?
  
• 02:34:31: I just looked up Max Azria, and found that his design company is called BCBGMAXAZRIA. Looks like a spam header to me.
  
• 02:36:05: If I ever write a post on the Russian Oz books, I'll have to remember to use the title "Strasheela Take a Bow."
  
• 02:46:42: When people use the expression "seeing things," don't they really mean "seeing non-things"?
  
• 13:30:36: If @colinmeloy is singing with a faux British accent, why does he consider it acceptable to use the American pronunciation of "aluminum"?
  
• 13:43:59: @Clamanity I don't know that I'd want to rock my soul in the bosom of someone who was willing to sacrifice his own son.
  
• 13:45:25: @DVDBoxSet Hey, "The Passion of the Christ" was the same way.
  
• 13:46:54: @colleenanne Not if they actually use the expression "seeing things," do they?
  
• 13:47:51: @michaelianblack Well, they kill porpoises for no apparent reason, which might mean they're worse than sharks.
  
• 13:48:56: @twobitme Garlic ice cream? Are you having Mario over?
  
• 13:51:15: I just found out that, according to his birth certificate, Obama was actually born in Ozamaland.
  
• 13:52:16: I have to wonder if he was brought to Hawaii by the Umbrellaphant.
  
• 13:59:23: The world is not ready for a bottomless swimsuit.
  
• 13:59:45: Slap a ham on Omaha pals.
  
• 15:57:58: So Bill Clinton was able to get those two imprisoned journalists pardoned? I see Willy is still as slick as ever!
  
• 17:02:35: So the North Koreans finally released Ling-Ling the Panda?
  
• 17:36:52: What advantage does Tumblr have over other blogging sites?
  
• 17:41:58: http://bit.ly/15SUNY
  The Oz characters in 25 different styles
  
• 17:43:18: Why is it so common for people to draw the Tin Woodman looking like the Iron Giant?
  
• 17:58:52: "Wicked" was all right, but it bothers me that people who have no interest in the actual Oz books are reading it.
  
• 18:30:36: The one haircut that the Woozy hates most is a Krizzle-Crewcut.
  
• 18:31:16: @jlbellwriter I don't know that I've seen him riding a horse, so he's probably not from Amaland.
  
• 18:32:49: @miscellaneaarts Which ones?
  
• 18:33:38: @TarynAria Yeah, that bothers me, too. Come on, silver shoes look elegant! Red shoes look trampy!
  
• 18:34:40: @colleenanne Maybe it's punishment for when you angered Poseidon.
  
• 18:35:31: @NowIsStrange Maybe it's slang for heroin or cocaine.
  
• 19:13:36: Maybe I should stop lying down to read. It's been making me fall asleep.
  
• 20:11:15: @TheRealTavie I'd say it depends on the kind of cake or pie, wouldn't you?
  
• 20:52:45: I think Steve Doocy might be the evil doppelgänger of Fred Rogers. Too bad he's the one who's still alive.
  
• 21:08:35: I want to see the alternate ending for "Roger Rabbit" where he wasn't framed at all.
  
• 22:20:01: If Obama's health plan is an attempt to kill old people, then what was Bush's attempt to overhaul social security?
  
• 22:20:21: Come on, no politician wants to kill old people! They're the ones who vote!
  
• 22:23:32: @JaredofMo Yeah, everyone knows fairies are extinct!
  
• 22:24:17: @JaredofMo Maybe that's why they brought the Flit gun when Witch-hunting later in the movie.
  
• 22:25:03: Joseph Smith wasn't really a very good writer.
  
• 22:30:05: I hear that the Birthers are expanding their suspicions, and claiming that Springsteen WASN'T born in the USA.
  
• 23:43:31: People say that everybody gets their news from the Internet and not newspapers, but what about online versions of the papers?
  

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The Real Moogles

One archetype that you really can't get away from in the world of fantasy video games is that of the hopelessly cute sort of creature. Hey, Pokémon is pretty much entirely made of them. In the Final Fantasy universe, this role is filled by Moogles, little creatures that look sort of like pink and white teddy bears with tiny bat wings.



Moogles first show up in FF3, and make appearances in almost every later FF game, as well as some related titles like Secret of Mana. They can communicate through telepathy, and are known to have other magical skills as well. The animals are generally friendly, and while sometimes shy among humans, have been known to assist mankind by delivering messages, setting up safe houses, and the like. In FF6, there's a playable Moogle named Mog, who speaks in human language (most of them just make squeaky sounds transliterated as "kupo"), can perform dances with magical effects, and bosses around a yeti. Oddly enough, FF7 refers to the entire species as "Mogs." You'd think the translators would be more consistent in this respect, but a possible explanation is that Moogles are basically just the stuff of legend in the FF7 world. There's a Summon that calls a live Moogle riding on a Chocobo, but otherwise they're only seen in video games and stuffed toys (including the one incorporated in the Cait Sith robot). So maybe the archaeologists who have researched Moogles don't realize that "Mog" was the name of an individual rather than the species. Hey, it's possible, right?

Keeping It in The Family

Secret societies have long been a popular subject for conspiracy theorists. The Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, Skull and Bones, the Elders of Zion, and the 4-H Club have all been identified as secretly ruling the world. I'm sure the amount of truth in this varies. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was, from what I've heard, both forged AND plagiarized, although that doesn't stop actors from movies about survival in post-apocalyptic Australia from believing it. But with some of these other organizations, even if there isn't really anything underhanded and Satanic going on (and most of the time there probably isn't), I'm sure they sometimes can help people make useful connections. And I've actually just learned recently about a secret society with a lot of connections to power, known simply as "The Family" or "The Fellowship," although it has other names as well. Its current leader refers to it as the "Christian Mafia," even though the actual Mafia is already Christian (maybe "Protestant Mafia" would work better?). As that last name suggests, they're allegedly a Christian group, but they want no truck with the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, and all those other unpleasant people that somebody named Jesus talked about on a mountain all those years ago. Instead, they make alliances with people in power, apparently reasoning that the powerful must be that way because of God's election, and the Elect can do no wrong. The group was founded by a Norwegian-American minister in 1935, in order to oppose the New Deal and what he saw as the rise in socialism (which makes me wonder what he thought of Acts 4:32-37). It's been said that they've held up dictators like Hitler, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, and Osama bin Laden as role models, at least in terms of gaining and retaining power. They're also down with the marriage of fundamentalism and corporate control, which is quite common nowadays, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you think about it.

Recently, The Family has been somewhat in the news (although not the mainstream news, as far as I can tell) for the house that they own on C Street in Washington, which houses several Congressmen and Senators. It seems to especially attract members of government who participate in scandals, including John Ensign, Mark Sanford, Chip Pickering (who, it turns out, is actually a former Representative, not a member of the cast of Hee Haw), Oliver North, and Watergate cover-up orchestrator Charles Colson. Yes, people who belong to a group that promotes Hitler's tactics can apparently still be elected to public office. Isn't that good to know?

Honestly, from what I've heard of this organization, they scare me even more than the Church of Scientology. I mean, having members of government on your team seems more dangerous than having Vinnie Barbarino. And The Family's religion is allegedly mainstream, even though it seems to have to less to do with the teachings of Jesus and Moses than those of the Dark Lord Sauron.