geekosystem

I guess it was only a matter of time. The White House has slowly made itself completely and totally a part of the Internet by invading social media like Twitter, so it's not all that surprising that they'd branch out to engage with people in other ways. Still, an official White House Tumblr? Yeah, that's a thing that exists now.

Next to demolition derbies and monstrously sized hamburgers unfit for human consumption, America can't seem to get enough of the innumerable, money-gauging critters from Japan known across the globe as Pokémon. Demonstrating that there's a clear difference between being a devoted fan and a lunatic who lacks a firm grasp on reality, one overzealous devotee of Pikachu and company felt that it was their patriotic duty to post a petition on the White House's We the People website advocating that the nation stop sitting idly on its hands and have each of the 50 states select their own Pokémon to represent them. With a demand as bizarre as this, it's no wonder that the petition was pulled. Guess the President is more partial to Digimon.

The 2012 presidential election is over, and despite a valiant campaign, Halo series hero Master Chief will not be bringing his personal brand of interstellar diplomacy to the White House any time soon... Or will he? There's still a chance that fans could get the government to bring everybody's favorite nondescript space marine to the nation's capital, at least as a lawn ornament. You see, someone filed an official petition this week suggesting that president Obama commission a statue of Master Chief petty officer spartan John-117 and put it outside the White House.

With CISPA's first day in Congress coming up in the next week, it's about the time you could expect the White House to comment on the bill, specifically whether or not we can expect opposition in the form of a veto. The good news is that the White House has issued a statement that echos the same kind of privacy and civil liberty concerns that many CISPA critics have. The statement does not, however, mention anything about vetos, or even refer to CISPA by name. That said, the gist of the message is pretty clear.

Yesterday, Twitter user David Wiggs tweeted "This WH correspondence briefing isn't nearly as entertaining as yesterday's," to which the White House replied with the above tweet, the video embedded in the permalink. We're now living in a world where the American government publicly Rickrolls people. Kind of awesome.

(The White House via The Next Web)

Here's your amusing computer glitch of the day: Real estate listing website Redfin.com aggregated an example listing from Owners.com, and thus appeared to be offering the White House for sale.  By the owner. Yes, that White House.