Jimmy [chat]

Should we be talking about The Spill? Yes. But Jimmy from Degrassi now a rapper.



My favorite part is were he rhymes "bitches" with "Business"

Logic Fail

Children in the custody of same-sex couples in parochial schools
And this guy is teaching philosophy... musta skipped out on his logic classes.
-J-, I am curious to here you rant on this.

Glee: Journey, Season 1 Finale

The only part of the Glee Season 1 Finale you need to watch.

Obama: Putting the "illusion" in "disillusionment"

Let me take you back to January 2008, to Obama's South Carolina Victory Speech.

And as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we’ve carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:

Yes. We. Can.

Remember how you felt. Remember how it was. Remember how you stayed awake until all hours of the night to hear the results of the primaries. Remember when you cared about the election, when you studied the most recent delegate counts, when you were actively concerned for Obama's candidacy, for the opportunity for him to enact his change, his hope, his promise. Remember when the phrase "Yes We Can" sent shivers up your back.

Remember how you trusted in, believed in, hoped for a better future, a promise of possibility and a yearning to redirect a failed history towards a brighter horizon. Remember when you felt in the depths of your soul that this man could actualize a novel, new, unprecedented path for our future, that we could walk forward with our heads held high, with our ideals untarnished and unmasked, striving together towards a common goal.

It's nice to know that was all fucking bullshit, isn't it?

Obama to Reopen Oil Drilling

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration, facing rising anger on the Gulf Coast over the loss of jobs and income from a drilling moratorium, said Monday that it would move quickly to release new safety requirements that would allow the reopening of offshore oil and gas exploration in shallow waters.

Change we can believe in, my ass.

We swallowed the rhetoric. We fell for the lies. We blindly stumbled after a false prophet. We let our hopes, our dreams, our ideals get the best of us. We imagined ourselves to be living in a world of possibility, a world of good, a world in which the best-intentioned could remain pure of heart and mind despite the soul-crushing malevolence of an indifferent, evil reality of effete tedium and dull mediocrity. We gathered together and convinced ourselves that we followed a king adorned in the purest robes of well-intentioned statesmanship.

But we were really just staring at a big black dick who was eventually going to fuck us.

I know the oil spill is not Obama's fault. I know the health care mess was not Obama's fault. I know that the tea party nonsense and Glenn Beck and all of that bullshit since the election is not Obama's fault. But he has sure as shit not fixed the fucking problem, and we never received our GOD DAMNED CHANGE!!!

I know that Obama went on the Today Show and said he was looking for "an ass to kick". And that's fantastic. I mean, personally, I kind of wish Obama would just drag BP CEO Tony Hayward into the middle of Times Square by the scrotum and put a bullet hole in his fucking forehead. But I guess I'll settle for Obama talking to fishermen and academic experts so that he can suss out whose ass he is supposed to kick...as if that were really a question the answer to which required any fucking research at all.

It would be one thing if we could pass this all off as the collective insanity of an over-zealous populous. It would be one thing if you, I, everyone who voted for Obama made it up ourselves, fabricated our own notions of Obama as a reformer, as an agent of change, as someone who would go to Washington and transform it into what we all want it to be. It would be one thing if you and I said "Obama will be different" and the candidate himself remained silent on the topic. But it was not us; we did not create this illusion; he did.

Our mistake was believing it.

I sat in front of a television on February 5th, 2008, and I watched Obama's Super Tuesday Speech. I heard Obama proclaim his eloquent tapestry of hopes, of dreams, of possibilities, of change. I heard Barack Obama tell me that he would be different, that we could be different. I heard Barack Obama say that you, that I, that we could go forth together into a new, better tomorrow wherein our ideals would be actualized and we could fulfill the promise of our deepest desires. We were going to bring change; he was going to lead us.

We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have little; who've been told that they cannot have what they dream; that they cannot be what they imagine.

Yes they can.

We are the hope of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake with doubts that tell him he cannot give his children the same opportunities that someone gave him.

Yes he can.

We are the hope of the woman who hears that her city will not be rebuilt; that she cannot reclaim the life that was swept away in a terrible storm.

Yes she can.

We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be.

Because we know what we have seen and what we believe - that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest - Yes. We. Can.

No, we fucking can't.

Government to BP: Please Do not Block Media Access

This shit is fucked up.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government generally is not restricting news media access to oil spill disaster areas in the Gulf of Mexico and wants oil giant BP to do likewise, unless there are good security or safety reasons, a Coast Guard admiral said Monday.

If you or I were to occupy a public beach with knives, guns, and truncheons to prevent access to that public beach we would, most likely, have our asses kicked by the police or coast guard. We have no right to deny access to a public beach; we are simply private citizens. Only a governmental force, with the backing of the legal system, could deny access to a public beach.

Except, apparently, not only can BP deny access but when they deny access the result is not legal restrictions and penalties imposed upon BP, but rather the government says, "Oh masa, would you pretty pretty please with a cherry on top allow these journalists to take pictures of dead pelicans? Please allow them access to your public beach!"

This shit has been happening for a while. Back in May there was a story of a CBS crew being denied access to the shore in South Pass, Louisiana. The crew was met by members of the coast guard who told the journalists they could not film the beach, saying: "This is BP's rules, it's not ours."

Which makes sense, until you remember that the coast guard does not fucking work for BP! The Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces, which are the military force of the United States, which means that the Coast Guard works for the government of the United States who I was told, in fourth grade, works for US! But apparently my fucking fourth grade teacher, kookie bitch that she was, got it wrong; the United States Armed Forces work for BP.

How the fuck did it come to be the case that the government is in a position of asking BP to allow persons access to a private beach? Since when does the government have to ask companies to not break the law? And why the fuck is the Coast Guard following BP's rules? Who the fuck are BP to set the rules?

At some point you really have to wonder what the fuck the Tea Party people are bitching about, what the hell Glenn Beck is bitching about. Private companies need less government oversight? Private Companies need to not be controlled by the government?

Take a peak at the Gulf Coast, assholes. Private industry is doing just fine. Because, apparently, the fucking Coast Guard works for BP.

Scott Pilgrim MTV Movie Awards Clip: Throwdown

Before watching this clip I did not think that Cera could pull off the action sequences in this film. Now? A strong "perhaps". Also, the little special effect text addins? So fucking great.

Finally, Wallace is awesome.

Scott Pilgrim: Is Ramona Flowers Evil?

(Re: Spoilers. Scott Pilgrim Volume 1 was released in July, 2004. So since you've had six fucking years to read these books I'm not going to worry about spoilers. Either you've read the series and so none of this will be spoiler, or you have not read the series in the 6 years it has been available, and so do not care.)

So, with Scott Pilgrim Volume 6 set to release on July 20th and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World set to release on August 13th I have been thinking about the series quite a bit. I have invested a wealth of time and emotion into this series, its characters, and come to self-identify with Scott's relationship plight to a, more likely than not, unhealthy degree. While I have been thinking about the possible endings to the series, what may happen, I've been stuck trying to answer a question which has been bugging the shit out of me since Book 4.

Is Ramona Flowers evil?

Throughout the entire series Ramona seems to be somewhat standoffish or isolated within her relationship with Scott. At the beginning of Book 4 Ramona says that she likes Scott because he is "pleasant and simple-minded". She asks Scott what he likes about her and Scott's reply is that Ramona is "mysterious". They have been together for 4 months, but he knows virtually nothing about her other than the number of evil exes she has. When Scott then asks how old she is, Ramona refuses to answer. Throughout the series Ramona keeps to herself. She goes out with Scott, spends time with Scott, sleeps with Scott, but never lets Scott know about herself or her past.

I initially thought that Ramona acted this way as a sort of coping mechanism. She has dated a lot of jerks and so put up a front of detachment to protect herself. But then as the series goes further along, it starts to seem like her attitude is not a mask; it is how she really is. She is not an emotionally caring person who protects herself but putting up a front; she really genuinely seems to just not give a shit about Scott.

Think about the situations between Scott and Ramona's exes. Ramona seems to be completely indifferent to Scott's plight. At the end of book one, when Ramona and Scott discuss the exes, Ramona says, "Um, I guess you have to fight my -- seven? -- evil ex-boy-friends. Um, if you want to, like, date me." When she says this it comes across as a statement of fact; she is not trying to get Scott to want to be with her but rather is simply letting him know that if he wants to be with her, if he wants to be the one to put forth the effort towards actualizing the relationship, then he will have to fight her exes. In book three, after Scott is tossed into a wall and lands in a pile of garbage, all Ramona says to him is "Are you well?"

We can explain that as a bit of comedy, a sort of feigned detachment between Ramona and Scott, but within the greater narrative it seems to be indicative of her character; Ramona is just sort of there watching what happens without any genuine concern for Scott's well-being or, really, the relationship itself.

It gets even more complicated when you start thinking about the evil-exes in and of themselves.

Many of the evil exes are not evil in themselves, but turn evil after Ramona leaves them / abandons them / cheats on them. So she doesn't date fundamentally evil people; she dates guys who she turns evil after she hurts them. Take, for example, the twins. She dated them both at the same time, unbeknownst to either, and after realizing that she cheated on them they became evil. Or consider the first evil ex, who turns evil after Ramona leaves him due to "pre-adolescent capriciousness". Or in Volume 2, when Lucas Lee says to Scott, "There's a lot of things that Ramona doesn't mention, Pilgrim. She likes to act like she's little miss perfect, but the truth is...she cheated on me."

It seems to be the case, throughout the entirety of the narrative, that the backstories to Ramona's exes place the origin for their being evil on Ramona's actions. The exes become evil after Ramona hurts them.

So, right now we have Ramona's indifference to Scott's well-being and their relationship through the series. We have Ramona's exes becoming evil after they date Ramona. And now we need to look at the entirety of Ramona in book five.

First off, the twins in book five join the League of Evil Exes because Ramona cheated on them with one another, played them against one another. So there is the whole "Ramona turned them evil" theme again. And we have Ramona's reaction to Scott having to fight the exes. Where previously she would attend the fights, now she stands in the general proximity of the fight and asks other people how Scott is doing, never talking to Scott himself. We get Ramona kicking Scott out of the apartment due to his losing his keys. We get the scene where Scott and Ramona are in bed in which Ramona calls Scott a liar and a cheat, which is just the pot and the fucking kettle. We get Ramona refusing to explain the lines that come out of her head when she is stressed, or someone mentions Gideon. We get the unmailed letter to Gideon Scott finds in the drawer.

And, finally, we get Ramona cutting her hair and disappearing, leaving Scott completely alone without any explanation of what happened.

In book 5 Ramona and Scott are living together, so they have spatial closeness, but she is generally more standoffish and isolated from Scott than in the previous four books. While one might expect that with the passage of time the two would grow closer, we actually find them to be further apart with Ramona far more apt to leave Scott on his own while she seeks out either the company of others, or is secluded, by herself.

It does not seem to be the case, if we read through the whole series so far, that Ramona is an emotionally healthy person enacting a genuine relationship with Scott. It seems to be the case that, for Ramona, Scott is just the guy with whom she happens to be at the time as she navigates a life full of obstacles (evil exes) who she, herself, created due to her actions. The whole series seems to point to the Ramona from book 4, when Scott happens into Ramona's mind via subspace, wherein Ramona is kneeling at Gideon's side smiling and blissful with Gideon's arm around her, as being the true Ramona. The one and only time we get a glimpse into Ramona's mind the Ramona we see is evil. Ramona Flowers is not a nice girl to whom bad things happen, but rather is an evil harlot who continually harms those who try to get close to her.

Which really puts a bizarre spin on the whole series. Think about what this says about the League of Evil Exes.

By my read it is not as if the League of Evil Exes is trying to prevent Scott from getting to Ramona due to their liking Ramona. Rather, the League exists as a definitive feature of who Ramona is. So, Scott is continually battling against persons who stand as indications of Ramona's true self; what Ramona's relationships actually are. Scott is trying to get to be with a girl who cheats on and abandons those with whom she had relationships. Scott is continually presented with proof of Ramona's past wherein she harms, cheats, and leaves exes, so turning them evil, and yet Scott continues to fight to be with her.

Given this read, I am very concerned for how book six will end. Either we are going to get some "Bitchiness ex Machina" ending which somehow explains that Ramona was good all along, that the evil exes were evil in themselves, that Ramona really super did care about Scott despite everything she does to him. Or book 6 is going to end with Scott losing his fight with Gideon, or winning only to have Ramona leave, or Scott becoming the 8th evil Ex.

As it stands now, though? I think it pretty damn obvious that Ramona Flowers is evil, that she effectively created the League of Evil Exes by her own actions. And that Scott is a nice, well-intentioned guy giving the benefit of the doubt to someone who demonstrably does not deserve it.