Think about this: somewhere there is a marketing exec who can present a chart with the hits for this video and web site. That marketing exec can say, with no exaggeration, that this is the most successful ad for teat cup silicon liners for milking that has ever existed.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear War-Mechs shall not be infringed." Therefor, FDR shall ride a Mech onto the battle of the Bulge. Image by sharpwriter.
The problem with 'originalism' is that most often 'originalism' is simply a cover for the ideological choices the Supreme Court Justices take. A friend I know who is a very conservative constitutionalist pointed out that more than half the time when Scalia defends a stance based on originalism, it's because he couldn't come up with anything better and is post-hoc self-rationalizing himself.
Which is not to slam originalism so much as to point out it's very inconsistent use.
That said, we live in an era of previously-legalized torture, where killer invisible robots roam the skies and blacks are now considered people, the government can mandate healthcare but can't tell people not to buy 50-caliber rifles. I don't think the founding fathers really thought this far ahead.
American Express has a new advertising scheme in which they're offering various amounts of cash withdraw from their Amex bill if they finish Halo 4: $25 for the first difficulty level and so on. They're using the classic trick of the super-fantastic-non-monetary-status-prize for the kick: the first few to beat the hardest difficulty level will get tickets to E3 - the videogame version of the Paris Fashion Week.
I feel like you could just add some pigeons and this would be right out of B. F. Skinner's playbook. I won't claim even basic fluency in the current consensus on Skinner's psychological theories, but it seems functional enough to me. By playing a videogame that they were going to play and enjoy anyway, but be rewarded with cash, players are receiving a double whammy of positive reinforcement; the pleasure of playing the game and the pleasure of getting free money (for doing something they enjoy enough to pay for).
For young, moldable minds that is a lot of conditioning for the buck, and I would argue that the propensity for gamers to find ways to find shortcuts or capitalize on a reward system would even make this more effective. I see this as a two pronged attack: get 25 bucks if you do this things now that you enjoy and were planning on doing anyway, and also here is a semi-impossible goal which still gives the dream of winning a ticket to the Valhalla of videogame culture.
All this aimed at a target group of young males with some amount of discretionary income (enough to buy a $60 game, which will rapidly depreciate in price) who are already committed to the franchise and may already have their banking system directly wired to this beautiful box of endless entertainment (for a price, of course).
I think this bears repeating; Romney (IMO) is like the penultimate American politician, the Platonic ideal of the soulless, morally-flexible, deceitful man of power. This puppet-self he has made through his actions somehow seems to occupy the same body as a genuine, caring and ethical person who loves his wife, believes in self-betterment, and sincerely wants the nations to be prosperous.
I am reminded of T.S.Elliot's eerie words;
Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death’s twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men.
My guess would be that after weeks of more or less steady poll numbers (or going steadily up in Obama's favor) the media finally has a story that isn't Romney messing up. So they're having a field day. Honestly, no one panics like liberals, especially in an election this consequential. I am guilty of this myself.
But the nice thing is outside of that Pew poll things aren't going too terribly, and Obama has a big enough cushion that we're still in good positions to win as long as he can stem the bad news come the next debate.
Or so I hope.
And yes Andrew Sullivan is a liberal, or at least an American leader. Some closets are harder to come out of than others.
