The First Non-Native Candidate
Well it seems official to me that McCain is not a natural born citizen and is technically not able to be president. In regards to McCain in particular I certainly think he is qualified to run even if he does not meet the current standard. McCain’s lawyers argue that technicality was not ever intended but instead of trusting people to follow the spirit of the law congress did move to fix the problem.
It’s these kind of cracks that should let us reevaluate if our standards are correct. I certainly think we could have a much more broadly defined qualification with out much change. That a citizen who identifies with America far more then any other nationality might be sufficient if extremely hard to test for. For the most part I think the election process is enough the rule out anyone who is not viscerally American.
Inadvertent Author Geocaching
A new game has appeared on youtube unbenounced to the people playing it. Author Geocaching consists of an author signing a book in a book store (preferably their own; jump to the 3 min mark) and then a fan rushing to the store to find it. I hope more authors expand this idea. Perhaps reshelving the book in a fun place.
Neal Stephenson does a pretty amazing breakdown of the Speculative Fiction genera
Neal Stephenson does a pretty amazing breakdown (if dryly read) of the Speculative Fiction genera as he tries to define it and then jumps in to the intellectual stratosphere (around the 30 min mark) has he breaks down why current post structuralist literary critics look down on it as naive and unintellectual.
Charlie the Unicorn 1 & 2
Very much ala Adult Swim or Adventure Time.