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Google has announced a new suite of tools for activists and non-profits at their Ideas conference in New York today, including tools for evading web censorship and oppressive regimes. The biggest focus has been on DDoS attacks, a kind of brute-force action that can easily take down a small site without leaving any clues as to the culprits. DDoS has been a persistent problem for small-scale activists on the web, but Google's new Project Shield would aim to fix that, offering free DDoS mitigation services to sites serving "media, elections, and human rights related content."

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A friendly ghost hug for you! u

Morning people

Political fact-checkers, like our own Glenn Kessler or the Tampa Bay Times's PolitiFact, are in an unenviable position. There so many politicians and pundit spreading so many misinterpretations, misleading characterizations, and outright falsehoods that it'd be impossible for the checkers to catch them all. They'd be forgiven for occasionally wondering if their project was actually useful.

Turns out it is. Two political scientists — Brendan Nyhan at Dartmouth and Jason Reifler at the University of Exeter — have conducted a field experiment (summary here) that shows that state legislators really are less likely to mislead the public when they know fact-checkers are watching.

Here's how it worked. In fall 2012, Nyhan and Reifler looked at nine states that had their own PolitiFact affiliates. They randomly selected a group of those states' legislators and sent them notes informing them of the study and reminding them of the presence of PolitiFact affiliates and the negative consequences to their careers that could result from lying. Members of a second, placebo group were sent letters that informed them of the study but did not mention PolitiFact or any negative consequences of lying. A third group got no letters at all.

The idea was to see if the group that got the reminders about PolitiFact acted any differently from the other groups. They did. Those receiving the warning letter were 55 percent less likely to get a negative rating from their state's PolitiFact affiliate during the 2012 election season. Their odds of having the accuracy of statements they had made questioned, either by PolitFact or other media, fell by 75 percent.

This probably substantially underestimates the power of fact-checkers, since, by necessity, they lump in politicians who read the warning carefully with those who just ignored it.. "We can only estimate the effect of being assigned to receive the treatment letter," the authors write. "It is unlikely that every state legislator to whom we sent the treatment letter received it and read it carefully. If the negative consequences of inaccurate statements were salient and accessible to all elites, the potential effects on their behavior would likely be even larger." What's more, fact-checkers of necessity can't evaluate every statement a candidate makes, which makes the fact that there was a still an effect on fact-check grades, even when candidates know their odds of getting evaluated are low, all the more striking.

This isn't a slam dunk. It's entirely possible that the treatment group responded by discerning what kinds of false statements fact-checkers tend to challenge, and limiting their falsehoods to other areas. But the study makes clear that there's at least some response to the presence of fact-checkers, even if that kind of premeditated lying muddies the waters a bit.

And the results suggest that higher volume fact-checking operations, which can evaluate a greater share of candidates' statements, would be more effective still. The main takeaway to get from this is that we need two, three, many Glenn Kesslers!

Thomas Friedman had a mostly sensible column in yesterday's New York Times, in which he endorsed the crazy, dangerous, irrational, doesn't-make-any-sense-at-all idea of seriously negotiating with Iran. Not only did he correctly note that Iran might see a nuclear capability (if not nuclear weapons) as insurance against regime change (i.e., the same reason that other nuclear-armed states got them), but he also made a useful comparison between Iran today and the People's Republic of China. Here's his big question:

But how much of their "nuclear insurance" [is Iran] ready to give up to be free of sanctions? Are they ready to sacrifice a single powerful weapon to become again a powerful country -- to be more like a China, a half-friend, half-enemy, half-trading partner, half-geo-political rival to America, rather than a full-time opponent?

This analogy is even more illuminating than Friedman thinks, because back when China was first developing its own nuclear capability, it was described in virtually the same terms that hard-liners now apply to Iran. For example, here's then Secretary of State Dean Rusk testifying to the Senate Subcommittee on Far Eastern Affairs in 1966:

[The Chinese communists] are now developing nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems.… But such weapons need not serve a defensive role. They can be used directly by Peking to try to intimidate its neighbors, or in efforts to blackmail Asian countries into breaking defense alliances with the United States, or in an attempt to create a nuclear "balance" in Asia in which Peking's potentially almost unlimited conventional forces might be used with increased effect. These weapons can ultimately be employed to attack Peking's Asian neighbors and, in time, even the United States.

Rusk noted that such attacks would be "mad and suicidal," but then went on to say:

Peking's present state of mind is a combination of aggressive arrogance and obsessions of its own making.… I would be inclined … to advance the view that a country whose behavior is as violent, irascible, unyielding, and hostile as that of communist China is led by leaders whose view of the world and of life itself is unreal.… They seem to be immune to agreement or persuasion by anyone, including their own allies.

Sound familiar? The language and arguments advanced by Rusk regarding Maoist China are strikingly similar to the way hawks have described Iran for years. Like China back then, Iran is said to want nuclear weapons for various offensive purposes. And like China back then, the fact that any use of such weapons would be suicidal can be of no comfort to us, because we are supposedly dealing with people who are irrational and whose view of life "itself is unreal." Remember when neoconservative historian Bernard Lewis warned of an imminent Iranian attack on Aug. 22, 2006, based on his belief that Iran was infused with a "culture of martyrdom" and that Aug. 22 corresponded to a supposedly significant date on the Islamic calendar? (I may have missed something, but I'm pretty sure that this date passed without incident.)

The second lesson, of course, is that Rusk was dead wrong. China tested nuclear weapons and eventually built a modest nuclear arsenal, but it didn't try to blackmail, invade, or intimidate anyone. In fact, the acquisition of nuclear weapons did almost nothing to increase China's international influence. What did increase China's global stature were the post-Mao economic reforms (the "Four Modernizations"), which unleashed three decades of rapid economic growth.

And that's the third lesson too. The nuclear issue has dominated U.S. policy toward Iran for more than a decade, and while it is not a trivial problem, it's probably not the most important one either. Iran is not going to give up control over the full fuel cycle (meaning it will insist on keeping some enrichment and reprocessing capabilities), though it may agree to some limits and to intrusive inspections. If we demand more than that, there won't be a deal. Put differently, any deal that Teheran will accept is still going to leave it with the ability to produce a bomb if it ever decides it needs to; we are mostly going to be negotiating over the length of time it would take them to do so and thus how much warning we are likely to get.

But over the long term, what really matters is Iran's overall power potential and not whether it has a latent nuclear capability, a few weapons hidden away, or a fully developed arsenal akin to the ones that Israel, India, and Pakistan already possess. Iran has a large, relatively young population, considerable oil and gas, a lot of well-educated people, and considerable economic potential. As with communist China, sooner or later the leaders who have mismanaged Iran's economy will lose their grip or change their policies, and the sanctions imposed by the West will be lifted. At that point, Iran is likely to take off rapidly. So the real question is whether a more powerful Iran will be eager to be a "half-friend" to the United States -- which is how Friedman now describes China -- or will it be angry and resentful and looking to push us out of the region entirely? That depends at least in part on us.

Someone asked:

 hey! whenever I see someone talk about your old p4 or MGS comics, I like to tell them “hey, she’s retired that name and those comics, but she does this really awesome comic you should totally check out!” and then I link them to cucumber quest. is that an okay thing to do? or should I be all like, “maaan, forget those comics! why don’t you check out THIS comic by a person who is completely and totally unrelated to and is definitely not that other person at all even a little bit. you’ll be the raddest kid in school!!”?

Hi! Thanks for asking.

When I was in college, I drew really quick, sketchy comics about video games. They were fun, and I liked drawing them at the time, but then I got tired of drawing them, so I stopped. I don’t really associate my current work with them, but I won’t pretend I never wrote them. And if you still like them, that’s cool! The only thing I want people to understand is that I’m not really interested in them anymore.

So, what you’re doing is really great! Thank you so much.

Constructivism is less of a cat and more of an instagram filter. 

What does that mean?
Well, it means what you make of it.

Even though there may be one or two exceptions out there, Finn remains, as far as we know, the last of the human race. Do you think this is something that ever bothers him? 

From his own words (I forgot which episode), Finn did say thinking about it makes him all “soul-searchy” so he doesn’t bother :)

Because if I were in his position, I’d feel pretty down knowing that I’d spend the rest of my life as the last of my kind. 

Before Finn, there is one other pop culture icon who is the last of his race:

And yes, he may look human, but Clark is nothing like us humans. We’re greedy, selfish, prone to violence and stupidity. He could hurt them with a mere flick of a wrist. He could dominate them if he wanted… but he doesn’t. He learned from his parents and from his Kryptonian heritage. And instead of telling people how to live, he became an example on how to be human. Truly human.

And he may be the last of his kind, but he’s surrounded by friends and people who care about him, people he’s fought alongside with and ate and drank with. He is alone, but he’s never lonely. And I’m referring to both Finn and Clark. 

It’s probably why his romantic affections so far have all been towards non-human princesses, because, on some level, he knows he has no choice. What do you think of this?

On some level, yes, but Finn doesn’t look at whether they’re non-human or not. Love and attraction is just love and attraction. Finn isn’t attracted to Hotdog Princess not because she’s a living hotdog, but that she “smells of old hotdog water”. 

Multivac: 

“INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Editor's note: This post was originally published by our partners at PopSugar Tech.

Did he know a little too much about you on the first date? You might have to start vetting future admirers for, er, NSA employment. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that employees of the National Security Agency, which was accused of collecting private user information from social networks and Internet providers, kept their love interests under surveillance.

After that romance-charged breaking news hit the Internet, #NSAPickupLines and the slightly more romantic #NSALovePoems hashtags began trending on Twitter and Tumblr. Even intelligence officers do crazy things in the name of love.

Laugh at more of the funniest — but also, creepiest — NSA pick up lines after the break.

Every breath you take Every move you make Every bond you break Every step you take I’ll be watching you #nsapickuplines

— Stewie Griffin (@FamilyGuy_) August 25, 2013

I'd tap that. #NSAPickUpLines

— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) August 25, 2013

Hi there beautiful. Can I buy you a drink? And by the way Happy Birthday! #NSApickuplines

— Luna (@SophiaMariaLuna) June 10, 2013

Did you fall from heaven? Because there's no tracking data on how you arrived at this location. #nsapickuplines

— Norm Wilner (@wilnervision) June 10, 2013

You come here often. #NSApickuplines

— Stop The Wars (@sickjew) June 10, 2013

I know EXACTLY what will make you happy. No, seriously, I've been looking into that for a while now. #NSAPickUpLines

— Jude Morrissey (@Steampunk_Gypsy) August 25, 2013

I was going through your email & noticed you like cats too #NSAPickUpLines

— Anonymous (@TheAnonNation) August 25, 2013

Are you a FISA violation? Because you've got fine written all over you. #NSAPickUpLines

— PRISM US Gov (@PRISM_NSA) August 25, 2013

#NSAlovepoems #NSAlovehaiku i could get so lost staring so deeply into your metadata

— darth potato™ (@darth) August 25, 2013

Images courtesy of ryanoferguson, SanaSaeed 

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by Stephanie Carvin

[Stephanie Carvin is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She is the author of "Prisoners of America's Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo" (Hurst/Columbia 2010) and co-author of the forthcoming "Between Annihilation and Restraint: Law, Science Liberalism and the American Way of Warfare" (Cambridge University Press) with MJ Williams.]

I have a number of concerns over the Syrian intervention debate as it has played out over the last two weeks. First, there seems to be a very real and frequent conflation over US goals in Syria. The proposed use of military strikes (the plan which seems to be on the table) is not about bringing peace to the war-torn country. Rather, it is about punishment for the use of chemical weapons and to deter their future use. This is a key point to keep in mind as there is a huge and significant difference between the two in terms of politics, law and strategy. While peace may be the overall preferred goal, punitive strikes that may hinder the Assad regime from further use of chemical weapons seems is a far less ambitious and more realistic goal.

This relates to a second concern, related to the constant refrain: why intervention *now* after 100,000 people have already died in over two years of fighting. Quite simply, chemical weapons are a game changer. While no one is disputing the idea that conventional arms are capable of incredible damage, they may be used discriminately if armed forces choose to do so. (And, of course – as is well established, where they have not, individuals may be held accountable for their actions.)

Chemical weapons on the other hand are entirely indiscriminate. It is simply not possible, particularly in an urban environment like the suburbs of Damascus, to use them in a way that is by any standard legal. Further, the risk that the Syrian battlefield may turn into one where chemical weapons in a region that is already incredibly unstable from sectarian rivalries, the fallout of the Arab Spring and, yes, the 2003 intervention in Iraq, raises very real security concerns. Is having open chemical warfare in the Middle East something the world can conceivably tolerate from a security perspective?  For many governments, the thought of a battlefield where chemical warfare becomes a regular occurrence is just too practically awful to ignore.

Both of these points are related to a third over-arching concern, namely that the debate over intervention in Syria, particularly (but not solely) within academic circles, seems to be one focused on enforcing norms for norms sake (“norm enforcement affirmation”) and questions over international law that are rather removed from the situation on the ground.

Indeed, I have a serious concern that some are replacing what should be a political discussion about consequences of intervention with one about legal ‘tick-boxing”. To crudely paraphrase: if 15 men sitting around a table in New York say it is okay to strike, then somehow it is fine. If 15 men do not, then it’s not okay. This seems to be an incredibly poor way to decide how to respond to the attack. Rather than seeing who signed what convention and what “norm” is law, isn’t it better to simply think through the ramifications of an intervention/strikes?

The deeper issue here is why is it that so many of us are willing to answer the question of intervention by seeking a false certainty in law? Why are we willing to let the treaties make our minds up for us, rather than engaging in practical judgment over the issue. Maybe it helps scholars and politicians to lay in their beds at night, happy with their legal-scientific conclusions. But they should, in reality, be seeking the uncertainty of debate.

I firmly believe that discussing and pondering the legal dimensions gives us a framework for thinking about military action. However, my concern is that this is not sufficient. That thinking through whether or not this is case of R2P, reprisals, humanitarian intervention, etc, is not particularly suited to the very practical and real issues resulting from the active and aggressive use of chemical agents. And what the effects of any form of intervention might be on the conflict.

Outside of law, I think a better argument against a US military strike is that it very well may not work – that is the real issue to be wrestled with. International Crisis Group has prepared a very useful brief on the consequences of intervening here. And, as they wisely note in their post:

Debate over a possible strike – its wisdom, preferred scope and legitimacy in the absence of UN Security Council approval – has obscured and distracted from what ought to be the overriding international preoccupation: how to revitalise the search for a political settlement. Discussions about its legality aside, any contemplated military action should be judged based on whether it advances that goal or further postpones it.

Indeed. The stream of legal pontification by individuals far removed from the situation, who do not have any kind of accountability, seems to miss the point of the debate entirely. We are derelict in our discussion.

Those with concern for global governance and the international rule of law need should think about how law can help support a peace agreement, international or national trial and requirements/aid for the no-doubt lengthy and painful rebuilding process that a post-conflict and likely unstable Syria will need for years to come.

So tell me, how many warheads can dance on the tip of a pin?

CNN recently published an interesting article about how most of the public believes that violent crime is rising, despite the fact that it has actually fallen dramatically over the last twenty years:

You can’t escape the headlines. An Australian going to college in the United States is gunned down by teens who police say killed him out of boredom. A few days later, a World War II veteran is beaten to death for reasons still unknown….

Although the cases have struck a nerve with their disturbing randomness and apparent cruelty, the reality is that living in the United States may never have been safer, and you’re much more likely to be the victim of a crime committed by someone you know than you are to be assaulted by a stranger.

Nearly eight of every 10 murders in the United States between 1993 and 2008 were committed by someone the victim knew, according a 2010 report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics….

Pair that with figures on overall crime: According to the FBI, the violent crime rate in the United States is about half what it was in 1992.

And between 1992 and 2011, the annual number of murders in the United States fell from 23,760 to 14,612 despite a growing population.

Rape, robbery, assault, even property crimes also fell in a well-documented decline that has gone on for years….

But perceptions of crime haven’t always followed the reality.

In May, a Pew Research Center study found that 56% of Americans believe that gun violence is higher than it was 20 year ago, even though it has fallen precipitously since the 1990s.

And in 2011, Gallup found that 68% of Americans believed crime was getting worse, despite the reality of declining crime rates nationwide.

Public overestimation of the crime rate can influence policy. On the right, people who believe that crime is worse than it actually is are probably more likely to support an aggressive War on Drugs, and to tolerate the massive militarization of the police that has arisen over the last thirty to forty years. On the left, inaccurate perceptions that gun crime is going up help fuel calls for stringent gun control measures.

I. Causes of Public Ignorance About Crime Rates.

Why is public opinion on crime rates so inaccurate? It would be easy to blame a sensationalist media that trumpets atypical cases like the recent crimes noted in the CNN article and implicitly suggests that they are the norm rather than the exception. Yet accurate reports about crime trends are not hard to find in both the media and other readily available sources. The CNN article is itself an example of such. A logical voter reading a sensationalistic crime story should ask himself whether the event described is at all typical before drawing conclusions about policy. A few minutes of googling could probably lead him to the right answer.

Unfortunately, however, most voters have little incentive to either acquire accurate information about crime policy, or rationally evaluate the information they do know, such as sensationalist media accounts of individual crimes. Because the chance of casting a decisive vote in an election is so extremely low, this kind of ignorance about crime is actually rational behavior, if the only purpose of seeking out the truth is to become a better-informed voter. For ideologically committed “political fans,” it is actually emotionally satisfying to interpret sensationalistic media stories as evidence of rising crime rates that (for the right) demonstrate the need for aggressive law enforcement or (for the left) the need for stronger gun control.

II. Why Public Opinion is Less Ignorant About Local Crime Trends than National Ones.

Interestingly, Gallup poll data on crime reveals that people have more accurate perceptions of local crime rates than national ones. In a 2011 survey, only 11 percent said that crime is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in “the area where [they] live” compared to 54% who believed that it was in the United States as a whole. Similarly, throughout the 2000s (when crime was falling in most years), only about 40-50% believed that it was rising in their local communities, compared to 60-75% who believed that it was rising in the US as a whole. While people still seem to overestimate local crime rates, they overestimate nationwide crime much more.

That is likely because people have reasons to become knowledgeable about local crime that go beyond casting better-informed voters in elections. If you overestimate local crime rates, you might take wasteful precautions that make your daily life unnecessarily difficult. If you underestimate it, you take the risk of being robbed, mugged, or murdered. Mistakes of either type might also lead you to take up residence in the wrong jurisdiction (either mistakenly passing up a desirable low-crime area, or mistakenly settling in an area where crime is higher than you think). By contrast, if you have inaccurate perceptions of national crime rates, the worst that will happen is that you will vote the wrong way in an election where your mistake has only an infinitesmal chance of making a difference. This is yet another example of how people have better incentives to acquire information and evaluate it rationally when they “vote with their feet” than when they do so at the ballot box.

Bradley Manning was just 22 when he leaked his trove of Pentagon and State Department secrets to WikiLeaks in 2010. By the time he’s released from prison after serving his sentence for those leaks, he may be close to 56 years old.

After a three month trial, military judge Denise Lind on Wednesday morning sentenced Manning to 35 years in prison under the Espionage Act for giving WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified files regarding the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, and the Guantanamo Bay military prison, along with more than a quarter million secret State Department memos. That sentence, much longer than Manning had offered to serve in a plea bargain that was largely rejected, represents the longest Espionage Act prison term ever handed out for leaking state secrets to the press.

Manning was convicted last month of 19 charges related to his document disclosures, including 12 Espionage Act and theft charges as well as others including wrongfully storing classified information and misusing computer equipment. He was acquitted of other charges including the most serious charge of “aiding the enemy,” which could have led to a life sentence, but still faced as many as 136 years in prison.

Manning may be able to seek parole after serving one third of his sentence, and has already spent three years in jail since he was first identified as the source of the WikiLeaks releases. He was also credited with serving 112 days of his sentence after Judge Lind ruled that he was improperly treated during his detainment at a facility in Quantico, Virginia. That mistreatment included being kept in solitary confinement, forced to sleep naked nightly. Thanks to those possible shortenings of his prison term, WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed called Wednesday’s outcome a “significant strategic victory,” pointing out that he may be eligible for release in less than 9 years.

Even so, Manning’s sentence is far longer than any other Espionage Act prison term for releasing information to the media in U.S. history. “I don’t think there’s ever been a sentence remotely like this for a leak to the press,” says Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. “This is the longest sentence by far.”

Manning is only one of seven individuals to be prosecuted under the Obama administration for leaking classified information to the press in recent years. John Kiriakou, a former CIA official, was sentenced earlier this year to 30 months in prison for revealing the name of a covert CIA agent to a freelance journalist. In 2010, FBI translator Shamai Leibowitz was sentenced to 20 months in prison for giving classified secrets to the blog Tikun Olam. Former NSA analyst Tom Drake had his felony Espionage Act charges reduced to misdemeanor charges of computer misuse and was sentenced to a year of probation. So far Manning remains the only defendant to be convicted under Espionage Act charges for his leaks–the others were convicted only of lesser crimes.

Among other leakers to the media, only Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the New York Times and other newspapers the 7,000 page top secret Pentagon Papers in 1971, has faced an Espionage Act prison sentence anywhere near as long as Manning’s. Ellsberg’s charges promised a maximum of 115 years in prison, though he was freed after his case was declared a mistrial due to improper behavior on the part of the prosecutors and the Nixon administration’s attempts to prejudice the judge in his case.

During the sentencing phase of his prosecution earlier this month, Manning apologized for the first time for his leaks, which he’s argued throughout the trial were meant to serve the public interest by exposing wrongdoing. “I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions,” he told the court. “When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.”

Manning’s defense can still seek an appeal, and Bradley Manning Defense Network activist Nathan Fuller argues there are grounds for one based on factors like Manning’s 11-month pre-trial solitary confinement, the three year delay before his trial began, and comments made by President Obama himself and captured on video, declaring that Manning “broke the law” before his trial had started.

Nonetheless, Fuller admits that he’s “crushed” by Wednesday’s outcome. “I think it’s a tragedy that Bradley might have to spent decades in prison,” Fuller says. “This is going to do exactly what the government asked the judge to do: Send a message…No one can release any information, no matter what crimes or corruption it may expose.”

—

Follow me on Twitter, and pre-order the upcoming paperback edition of my book, This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice.

This is a grammar comic about the proper usage of who versus whom.

Friday, August 16 — 10:00 AM

Today’s comic is based on a true story!  Sarah, much to my surprise and delight, expressed an interest in playing through EarthBound for the first time when watching me go through Happy-Happy Village.  She ended up finishing the game last week and loved it (that’s my wife <3), but I distinctly remember when she was fighting Diamond Dog, she scrolled through Paula’s goods and looked for any item that might be useful.  The For Sale sign was mixed in with Paula’s stuff so…presto, instant comic!  Just add water (or art).

Now, on the subject of EarthBound…here comes a super-sized podcast!

Download link

[Act 1] Introduction (00:01) - Another podcast, another iffy impression from Matthew.  Also, the sound file was left at Matthew’s parents, so you’ll have to live with him scatting the main theme (poorly) this time.

[Act 2] Game Discussion–EarthBound (01:40) – The EarthBound coverage starts with a brief look of the game’s tumultuous history, then continues onward as Matthew and Chris talk about the elements of the title that still stand out today, and why gamers still embrace it 18 years later.

[Act 3] Why Did They Do That? Super Mario 3D World (25:53) - Despite his cheerful demeanor, even Matthew can get riled up by some of Nintendo’s decisions.  This section runs Mario’s recent games through the ringer a bit–Matthew rants because he loves!

[Act 4] Comic Talk: 476-500 (40:39) – A super-sized Comic Talk is next, although due to the sheer volume of comics here, only a few are covered in detail.  Learn about the lazy secret behind the Frederick strips, as well as Chris’s awful initial impression of Mega Man!  Includes backstory on the milestone 500th strip too, of course.

[Act 5] Digital Deconstruction: Timelessness in Games (58:11) – In this new segment, Digital Deconstruction, the boys share their ideas on the deeper elements of games.  Today’s topic is timelessness–what makes a game stand the test of time, as opposed to simply being reflective of being “trendy”?  Activision catches a little heat in this section.

[Act 6] Music Break: “EarthBound Medley”(1:10:54) - I love this game’s soundtrack! Download link to song

[Act 7] Leftovers (1:13:04) - Brawl in the Family: Volume Two?  And why is Chris’s head so BIG?

[Act 8] Closing Comments (1:15:40) - We’ll be trying these more frequently!  Hopefully.  Now BUY EARTHBOUND.

[Epilogue] Sarah’s Weird Voice Mail Ultra-Remix(1:16:00)

Also:

We’ll have a dedicated section to the podcasts very soon, so it’ll be easy to access them all!  And the online store will have stuff on sale up until the end of this month, so act fast!

-By Matthew

Tuesdays with Moe

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” - Richard Bach

You have a lovely headcanon anon. And it’s not about shipping for once. Thanks for sharing it.

IT IS a pain to have to check in a bag when you're flying, and most business travellers try to stick to carry-on luggage. When it can't be avoided you can find yourself spending up to an hour waiting in line to drop off your bags and get the tags printed. That's time that could be better spent talking to clients, catching up on e-mails or reading The Economist.

Travellers already print their boarding passes at home (or simply use their smartphones). So why not allow flyers to print their luggage tags at home, too? That's the method Iberia Airlines is promoting. Instead of requiring specialised luggage-tag paper, Iberia allows customers to print the tags on regular paper, which they then fold up and put in a reusable plastic sleeve that they can pick up the at the airport. (Here's a video explaining the process.) The time saved is significant, and it probably saves Iberia money, too. With fewer flyers waiting in line to drop their bags, the airline won't have to employ as many desk agents.

Print-at-home luggage tags could lead to some problems with tags falling off and bags getting lost. But that happens with normal...Continue reading

luvr4photography:

decimalsanddollars:

I wanted to .gif the best parts but then I realised I would have to do the entire movie

ITS A BIRD ITS A PLANE ITS A MOTHERFUCKING SHARK 

cheezetits:

the downside of being a virgin is that u can literally be used as a blood sacrifice at any given moment