Huckabee: I see what you did there.

This is great.

Mike Huckabee is holding a press conference right now in which he was supposed to unveil a new negative ad against arch rival Mitt Romney. But Mr. Huckabee came to the press conference and announced he’d had a change of heart and would not be broadcasting the ad after all.

But wait! It gets better.

He then broadcast it for a room crammed with reporters, photographers and television cameras. The assembled media found the display hilarious and at several points laughed out loud.

I'm not going to write that Mike Huckabee fucks children in their assholes with the limbs of aborted fetuses. I'm not going to suggest that each morning he kills a puppy with his bare hands before masturbating onto its dead carcass. I would never write that Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee opens his Bible to a random page every night and covers the page in shit to blot out any text the page might contain. I would never write or suggest those things.

SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

2007: May the door hit you.

Right now in Indiana it is 2007 (AD or CE depending on your own personal preference) but in Australia it is 2008 (AD or CE). Think about that for a moment. Really think about it. I assure you that it does not make one damned bit of sense.

In case you have all forgotten we live here:


All of us on that oblate spheroid rotating in space for no good reason at all. So to say that over there it is 2008 (AD or CE) whereas right here it is 2007 (AD or CE) is entirely fucking stupid.

For one thing we are all on the same damn oblate spheroid; it does not age in sections. It is not the case that the arbitrarily defined section of the globe which contains Australia is somehow older than the section which contains Indiana. It's all, the entire oblate spheroid, the same age. And we all know that age is 6,000 years for Young Earth Creationists, 4.54 billion years for Geologists, and completely fucking irrelevant for everyone else.

For another thing the numbering system itself does not make any sense. 2007? 2007 WHAT? Even the crackpots at conservapedia acknowledge that Jesus Christ was not born in 0 BC/AD/BCE/CE. So, given that the earth is either 6,000, 5.54 billion, or some other fabricated number of years old out of whose hat was 0 BC plucked? To answer my own question it was the hat of Dionysius Exiguus who, being a monk, obviously had a sensible, well-reasoned grasp on reality and undoubtedly a very fine hat.

For a third thing how the hell much sense does it make to group quantities of time in this manner? Is it really sensible to lump that chunk of time together as the 1900s and this chunk of time together as the 2000s? Does that actually behoove human beings in their thinking about the world? Does that allow for an accurate understanding of reality? Certainly it allows for appropriately titled VH1 specials concering various decades but in what sense are those decades meaningful? How does the transition from 2007 to 2008 MEAN anything? What will be different between today (2007) and tomorrow(2008), what is different in Australia (now in 2008) that is somehow not the same in Indiana where it is still 2007?

I contend that there is no meaningful difference but rather an interpretation of perceived differences resulting from this stupid system of measuring prolonged periods of time.

But I digress.

Despite the arbitrary nature of the date, its complete lack of meaning, and irregardless* of how old you, personally, think Earth is I invite you to have an enjoyable end to 2007 and wish you a delightful 2008. With any luck 2008 will be better than 2007. Though, admitedly, that would not be a very difficult task to accomplish.


*This is not a word, Twardy, you fucker.

Festivus for the [chat] of Us!!

Its a Festivus Miracle!

Pope to Go After Satanists

It turns out that there has been a rise of Satanism. To solve the problem our friend Pope Palpatine has:

The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.

So, as we enter the new year, please keep your eyes out for people in funny hats screaming "The Power of Christ Compels You" i would walk quickly (but not too quickly) in a different direction

A Very Weeble Christmas

The Weebles were hung by the chimney with care...



...and Weeble hoped PETA soon would be there.

This isn't Final Fantasy, David!

Snow [chat]

PSA

It is the season to rememeber that "Gift that keeps on giving."

A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain by Ben Franklin

http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf1/m7.htm

This is moderately fun to read... well i skiped around.

I imagine J will enjoy parts of it.

Intersections

I am going to let this one stand on its own.

DIKE, IOWA -- Baptist minister and anti-abortion supporter Mike Huckabee was asked today about 16-year old celebrity Jamie Lynn Spears' decision to continue her unplanned pregnancy.

While the candidate has been notably caught off-guard by breaking news events recently, today he passed a test of pop culture with flying colors.

News of Britney Spears younger sister's pregnancy broke this week and now graces international tabloids including OK! Magazine. While the candidate's answer may have fit any out-of-wedlock teen in the same situation, he commented with knowing confidence:

"It's a tragedy when a 16-year-old who is not really prepared for all the responsibilities of adult life is going to be now faced with all the responsibilities of honest-to-goodness adult life. I respect it."

"Apparently, she's going to have the child and I think that is the right decision, a good decision, and I respect that and appreciate it. I hope it is not an encouragement to other 16-year-olds who think that is the best course of action."

"But at the same time I'm not going to condem her. There'll be plenty of people in line to do that and I always look for the shortest lines. I just hope that she will make another right decision and that's to give that child all the love and kindness and care that she can."

Falling Down the YouTube Hole

Instead of writing I have spent most of the afternoon crawling around YouTube Watching Tom Lehrer videos. Lehrer is a world famous mathematician who is best known for this satirical songs.

below are my favorates. Please enjoy.

Dodd?

Read this youaredumb article.

Harry Reid tried to pass a Bill which gave immunity to the telecommunications industry who illegally wiretapped american citizens.

While other candidates for president stayed on the campaign trail, Sen. Dodd spent eight hours debating on the Senate floor until Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada acquiesced and agreed to postpone a vote until after the new year. Sen. Reid agreed to reconsider the immunity provision. A House version does not contain the wiretap immunity language.

So out of all the Democratic candidates it was Dodd who was willing to do what needed to be done, who had the balls to stand up for what is Right, who actually did something rather than just bash Bush and tell people what they want to hear.

vote Dodd?

I Hate Gift Cards.

Since the year is ending and Christmas is upon us I think it sensible to craft a Christmas Public Service Announcement, fulfilling both my obligation to write something Christmasy as well as my obligation to accumulate some number of hours of public service before the year ends. So without a needless amount of ado...

Gift Cards: STUPID.
a rant.

1) Gift Cards are a scam.
The reason companies sell gift cards is to boost their sales and enable a greater accumulation of profits. Say you buy a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy and give it to Chuck. Chuck now "has" $50 which can only be spent at Best Buy. The problem? Nothing Chuck wants costs exactly $50. So either he will utilize the gift card in addition to his own money to purchase a $50+ item (generating greater profits for Best Buy) or he will use the $50 card to buy an item which costs, say, $47.86 and then either throw the card away (wasting the $2.14 remaining on the card) or Chuck will carry the card around until his next purchase so that he can spend the remaining sum of money.

In all scenarios Best Buy, not Chuck, wins. Either Best Buy obtaines $50 plus whatever Chuck Pays, Best Buy gains $2.14 which is never spent, or Best Buy obtains whatever Chuck spends on his next visit the purpose of which is to burn off the remaining "money" on the card.

2) Gift Cards are not Thoughtful
Gift Cards are actually anti-thoughtful, they are the negation of thoughtful. A thoughtful gift is the purchase of vodka for someone who enjoys vodka (provided that the recipient is not a non-functional alcoholic). A gift card lowers the bar of personal understanding from "I know you wanted this particular CD from this group you enjoy" to "You can probably find something at Best Buy."

Even if we were to grant the assumption that purchasing a Best Buy gift card somehow indicates an understanding of the person for whom the card was purchased we must remember that Gift Cards are, in fact, a scam. A Best Buy gift card limits an indivual and possibly requires that they spend their own money to obtain the "gift".

Additionally, a Gift Card does not indicate that one has knowledge of the person for whom the card was purchased. A Gift Card can be a last minute purchase as one stands in line at the checkout incapable of finding a true gift. If one receives a Best Buy gift card this does not mean that the purchaser sought out Best Buy but rather it means that at some point in time the purchaser was at Best Buy and bought the card.

3) Gift Cards are a Pain to use
Have you ever tried to return something purchased with a gift card? It does not work. Has your wallet ever been overflowing with gift cards which you tote around in the hope of eventually spending that $2.14? Have you ever had the magnetic strip malfunction, the card reader malfunction? Gift Cards are an incredible pain and burden on the user. If only there were an alternative, a useful currency accepted at all stores which left no burden or restriction on the recipient. Is there such a gift? There is!

3) Cash, dumbass
Cash is the greatest non-gift gift a person can receive. If one truly has no thought of what to purchase and no specific gift in mind then cash is the perfect solution. Cash can be used at any store at any time. Cash can be absorbed into one's supply of economic resources to buy items, food, pay bills, etc. Cash says, "I respect you enough to not limit your choices or burden you with plastic." Cash shows that one thinks the recipient responsible, diverse, and mature enough to accept the gift for what it is. Also, one can fold $50 bills into wicked awesome paper airplanes or very tiny $50 cat hats.


So, remember. If you cannot think of an actual gift to purchase for a friend or loved one give cash. Becase cash does not suck.

WoW Figure Prints.

Great idea? Or, The Greatest Idea?

Rather than buy some generic Paladin or Warlock figure you can have a 3D model made of YOUR OWN CHARACTER!

Quidfacis shall live!

Edit: $99.95 plus $14.95 Shipping and Handling to any address in the US and Canada

When Fascism Comes to This Country, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag Carrying a Cross.

In response to Mike Huckabee's Christmas ad a quote was used by Ron Paul:

"It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.' Now I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross, like he (Huckabee) is the only Christian or implying that subtly."

When Fascism Comes to This Country, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag Carrying a Cross.

What does that mean?

It means that the people are fooled by misdirection. It means that the concern of the people is not for truth or the betterment of humankind but rather their focus is on the mundane, their concern is for their own well-being. The people care about invisible men in the sky and zygotes and celebrities and television programs and the terrorist bogeymen who, incidentally, are not a threat to us or our way of life.

The true threat is not those conveniently labeled as enemies, the vilified caricatures of evil who shake their fist at us from across the ocean. The true thread is ignorance, complacency, fear. The only thing we have to fear is, in fact, fear itself. The Real Enemy is, in fact, those who would use our fear against us, who would steal the freedoms for which this country was created and replace them with the illusion of security.

When Fascism Comes to This Country, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag Carrying a Cross.

The greatest threat is the enemy in plain sight, the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. The doltish leader who trashes our rights in exchange for illusions and rhetoric. The zealot whose allegiance is to an invisible man in the sky and not to us, the people.

There will not be a torrent of gunfire or the flash of a great bomb. The true threat is the one noticed too late, the wound that slowly festers. Suspension of a right here, construct a secret prison there, manipulate one political institution at a time. Dominoes slowly fall one into another, rights disappear in the name of security. Meticulously, one at a time.

And then it is too late.

When Fascism Comes to This Country, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag Carrying a Cross.

It will wear a red sweater as it sits before a Christmas Tree wishing you a Merry Christmas (vote Huckabee). It will wear an American Flag pin upon its lapel as it assures you that you are safe (but could be safer).

Undeniably it will greet you with a warm smile, offer you its hand, and tell you all you wish to hear.

When Fascism Comes to This Country, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag Carrying a Cross.

Count on it.

"It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," she tells OK!. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he."

Mike Lewis: i am going to have to chance all by Britney Spears good girl / bad girl examples to her little sister
Mike Lewis: now
Mike Lewis: and there just arent as many good pictures
JaaPee: why her sister?
Mike Lewis: she is having a baby
Mike Lewis: at 16
Mike Lewis: etc
JaaPee: good for her
JaaPee: that way her cooter will have time to snap back to something resembling a keyhole, as opposed to the cavern her sister whistles into
Mike Lewis: wow
Mike Lewis: working blue tonight
JaaPee: it happens
JaaPee: i channel red fox and thats all she wrote

pre-edit edit: Lynn Spear's (the Spears sisters mother) book on raising christian childen has been delayed

Pay attention, Huckabee.

Let's try this again.

The job of the President of the United States is to represent the citizens of the United States of America. All of them. Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Whites, Clowns, Lawyers, ALL of the citizens. One need not agree with everyone but one need recognize the importance and value of all of us.

We are all in this together.

Mike Huckabee's "celebration of the birth of Christ" Christmas ad showed in no uncertain terms that not only does Mike Huckabee not care about non-Christians but also showed that Mike Huckabee loves prostrating and whoring the name of his personal Lord and Savior in the hope of getting some votes.

If you are a Christian and are not completely outraged by this then I suggest you read the fucking Bible, you ignorant dolts. I suggest starting with the narrative of Jesus and the money changers.

If you are not a Christian and you are not completely outraged by this then I suggest you fucking pay attention.

If you are a human being living in the United States of America and are mad as hell at Huckabee right now? Good. You've been paying attention.

If you are Mike Huckabee right now? Find a Bible. Read it. Find a copy of the Constitution. Read it. Because you don't understand Christianity or the job of the President of the United States.

But I'll give you one thing on the Christianity bit: You know enough to exploit it.

Huckabee Baiting: Political Ads Suck

Huckabee is running a poltical ad about how awful poltical ads are because he get in the way of talking about how important it is this time of year to celebrate the birth of some guy who may or may not be real.

That is not "present".

This article discusses a "death star galaxy" described as containing a "super massive black hole blasting its galactic neighbor with a deadly beam of energy". According to Dan Evans "This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling."

The problem?

"The deadly galaxy — the largest of two in a system known as 3C321 — is aiming the high-energy jet from its center at a smaller galaxy 20,000 light-years away from it, or roughly the distance from Earth to the Milky Way's core. The entire system is located about 1.4 billion light-years away from Earth."

If the entire system is 1.4 billion light-years away from Earth and we see it now then this all happened 1.4 BILLION YEARS AGO. The system is not causing, blasting, or aiming. The system caused, blasted, aimed.

Since this already happened 1.4 billion years ago why the FUCK are they using the Present Participle?


Edit: Also, how would a young-earth creationist explain our observations of a system 1.4 billion light years away if the universe is only six thousand years old?

On Tony Snow

“The average Iranian is more Pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country.”

Marriage

While listening to sibling talk about her upcomming wedding she listed her reasons for getting married. These reasons include and seem to be limited to "love", "living together", and "babies". I know that one need not marry in order to love or live with someone. Upon consulting wikipedia I learned that "Marriage is not a prerequisite for having children." So I began to wonder what would happen if one removed the stupid shit from the equation and analysed objectively what the social institution of marriage actually did for the individuals involved.

I found this handy list of "Rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States" which contained that which I desired. It seems that marriage is, in fact, not required to procreate, live together, or love one another. Marriage does, however, bestow certain rights such as power of attorney, survivor's benefits, various tax and legal benefits, and one's spouse's flower sales count towards meeting the eligibility for Fresh Cut Flowers and Fresh Cut Greens Promotion and Information Act.

So, since living together, loving one another, and making babies are in no way related to marriage as a social institution I must ask, "What the fuck?" If one desires to read books one need not obtain a library card. If one desires to live together, love one another, and procreate one need not get married.

I understand that there is a plethora of stupid shit that is baggaged onto the idea of marriage. But if we removed that stupid shit from the equation and view marriage as it actually is the necessity fades away and we are left with a bundle of legalese where once there existed a social proclamation of love.

Great words

All that needs to be said about this link is w00t!!

Misanthropic [chat]

All is be misanthropic.

Christmas, O'Reilly, History

O'Reilly declared "victory" in the War on Christmas

Unfortunately, Christmas itself may not be very Christian.

I can't think of an appropriate metaphor.

Bill Moyers: Olbermann

The Bill Moyers interview with Olbermann

Watch it!

16 minutes into it he addresses the, well, "Aren't you just the anti-Bill-O?" question.

"Well, they're better written. The first-- no, I hate to-- I-- it's the most vulnerable point because it bothers me, too. It do-- it's the one criticism that I think is absolutely fair. We're doing the same thing. It is-- it becomes a nation of screechers. It's never a good thing. But emergency rules do apply. I would like nothing better than to go back and do maybe a sportscast every night. But I think the stuff that I'm talking about is so obvious and will be viewed in such terms of certainty by history that this era will be looked at the way we look now at the-- at the presidents and the-- the leaders of this country who rolled back reconstruction. I think it's that obvious. And I think only under those circumstances would I go this far out on a limb and be this vociferous about it."

Calendar.

World of Warcraft "Gear a Day" desk calendar

I think this is a wonderful idea.

(If you get a 404 error just follow the link again.)

Drenched in Dumb.

Warsaw is still not showing Golden Compass for reasons unknown. This morning I voiced my frustration and was inundated by a torrent of dumb which drown me in reminders of why I hate this town:

"Is it not coming to town because of the religious messages?"
"Aren't those books about killing god?"
"How can you kill something which is eternal?"
"You can't see that movie! The author of the books is an atheist!"
"I don't want to see it because if I go I'll want to read the books and they are about killing god."
"This movie is just like those anti-American war movies. We can't support it."

As is the case with a deluge there was no structure. Rather, these comments burst forth as if I had smashed the spigot or decimated the dam of accepted social silence which on most days keeps these thoughts happily contained in their reservoirs of idiocy.

I seem to have a water theme going today.

These critiques were not even assessments of the film itself. Rather, their understanding of the film, gleaned no doubt from a snippet from a half-read article, was subjected to their own rubric.

Atheism bad.
Golden Compass written by Atheist.
Golden Compass bad.

Forget an assessment of the thing itself. Forget the number of other movies written by super-secret atheists. Forget the content of the film (polar bears wearing armor who fight). No, stop at "an atheist wrote the book upon which the movie is based". That is apparently all one need know.

It's not even a sensible world view or life philosophy. It would be like flatly refusing to eat any food which contained or existed within proximity to vegetables; adopting the view that regardless of the entire dish that minute, inconsequential aspect somehow tarnishes the entire experience.

The film is not about atheism. Watching the film does not somehow endorse any religious view any more than viewing a movie based on a book written by someone who smokes pot is somehow an endorsement of pot. It's a movie which contains polar bears wearing armor who fight. Can't we all just focus on that so that I don't have to drive 45 minutes to a city not populated by dipshits with "head-up-ass" disease in order to see the fucking movie?

Please?

PRO IP Act

Helen A.S. Popkin wrote an article that was surprisingly not idiotic about the PRO IP Act, which is surprisngly idiotic.

Since you don't want to read the Bill here is a summary:

* Fines in copyright cases dealing with compilations would be increased. Right now, as in the case of Xoom v. Imageline, the maximum penalty for infringement of one compilation is $30,000. Now courts would be able to make "multiple awards of statutory damages" when compilations are infringed.

* Maximum penalties for repeat copyright offenders would be easier to obtain. Current law says that anyone who "willfully" infringes a copyright by distributing over $1,000 worth of material (including over a peer-to-peer network) is a criminal. The PRO IP Act keeps the 10-year prison term intact for felonious repeat offenders--but, crucially, deletes the requirement that repeat offenders must have distributed at least 10 copyrighted works within 180 days.

* Any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime could be seized by the Justice Department and auctioned off. The proceeds would be funneled to the agency's budget. The process is called civil asset forfeiture, and typically the owner does not need to be found guilty of a crime for his property to be taken.

Probably the most extensive part of the PRO IP Act is its creation of a new federal bureaucracy called the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, or WHIPER. The head of WHIPER would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

I'm going to go ahead and say that this is behooves no one except the RIAA.

New Blizzard MMO?

Anything Kotaku can post we can post better.

In response to speculation on the WoW forums about a job posting at Blizzard there was a blue post which said:

No, it is an unannounced Next-Gen MMO.

And that doesn't mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.

A Next-Gen MMO? Not an expansion for World of Warcraft?

I don't want to play Diablo 3 on a Next-Gen Console and I don't know why Blizzard would release a MMO to compete with WoW.

Thoughts?

He's totally gay.

Hero.

BERLIN - A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.

Huckabee: I appreciate the effort.

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks in an upcoming article, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

To begin let me say that I truly appreciate what Mike Huckabee is trying to do. Mormons are insane and that fact cannot easily be contested. The problem is that while Huckabee intended to strike a blow against Mormons he actually struck a blow against Christianity.

You see, Mormons believe that God is the Father of all. So, it follows that Jesus and Satan would be brothers (given what "father" and "all" mean). The problem is that the source of this belief is not found in The Book of Mormon or some crazy Mormon writing. It is from the Bible:

"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
-Ephesians 4:6

The belief is not Mormon; the belief is Christian.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. I doubt that many people will take the three minutes required to find the passage and realize that it is in Ephesians. This could lead to some delightful idiocy of the "Mormons are heretics because they believe something written by Paul" variety.

The saddest part of all of this is that Huckabee could have said, "Don't Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri and that Native Americans are one of the lost tribes of isreal and that Jesus lived in North America and that Joseph Smith found golden tablets buried in a hill near his house?"

Huckabee could have focused on MORMON beliefs that are uniquely MORMON and so illustrated how STUPID Mormons are. Instead Huckabee displayed that that:
1) Christianity is dumb.
2) Huckabee is dumb.
3) Huckabee has never actually read the Bible.

I appreciate the effort, though.

BIRTHDAY PRESENT!

PRESENT!!!

A Patrick Swayze Christmas

Huckabee: The Mark.

Huckabee on homosexuality (Source):

"Let's understand what sin means -- sin means missing the mark. Missing the mark can mean missing the mark in any area. We've all missed the mark. ... How we miss the mark is less important than we all miss the mark. The mark is that we have marriage -- men and women, they marry, they create children, and they train their replacements and you have a future generation then that creates their replacements and trains them. That's the mark. If we didn't have that as the ideal, we wouldn't have a civilization that was able to perpetuate."

I stare at this and no words come. Then I realize the problem: Pleasure. That's what is missing from this quote. Pleasure, love, desire, admiration, respect, companionship, attraction, beauty, honesty, love, love, love.

It's not there.

Huckabee has dismissed homosexuality as an option by removing humanity from the human race. Relationships do not exist for pleasure, for companionship, for love. There is no human element in it, no life. Huckabee reduced human social interractions to a mechanical, cold, lifeless march towards the continuation of the species. No respect. No love. No passion.

Reproduction.
Continuation.
Babies.

It's inauthentic. It is a lie. It is incorrect. It's not just theologically problematic, existentially problematic, or logically problematic. It is actually problematic.

"The mark is that we have marriage -- men and women, they marry, they create children, and they train their replacements and you have a future generation then that creates their replacements and trains them. That's the mark."

Human beings are cattle, machines, inanimate lifeless beings who exist to reproduce and spawn new lifeless, inanimate beings forever marching towards no particular end other than continuation.

Ignore the theology, the hate, the illogical grasping at straws. Ignore all of the problems which result from this view and grasp the view itself: Huckabee does not acknowledge passion. Huckabee does not acknowledge love.

Christ had passion. Christ loved.
Homosexuals have passion. Homosexuals love.
Human beings have passion. Human beings love.

What is Huckabee?

Best handheld games of 2007

As another year comes to an end we enter that delightful period during which the "best of" list thrives. MSNBC has provided a list of the Best Handheld Games of 2007. Let's take a look:

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Jeanne d'Arc
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
Crush

DS: 2
PSP: 6

If we removed the retarded picks from the list (Syphon Filter, Ratched & Clank, Crush) we are left with three strategy RPGs for the PSP and two DS games.

Thoughts?

I'M THE BIRTHDAY BOY!!!!

Today is the greatest day of the year; a veritable Christmas in December. Today is my birthday! All shall sing of my greatness and bask, BASK, in wonder at my awesome!

Also, Bunny with pancake on head!

Tom Nook is a Thieving Bastard: The Game

Last semester I picked up BASIC programming again and spent a couple of months learning how to do some of the things I was too stupid to do when I was a kid: things like drawing bitmaps, making rudimentary text parsers, and capturing keypresses in useful ways.

Jay and I started to do a game, which of course means that we had a lot of fun brainstorming, and then the concept died, whithered on the vine. But no matter, because here is a simple game I put together this March which allows the player to shoot Tom Nook in the head and take his damn bells (well, you can move a crosshairs over Nook's head and press SPACEBAR, and a bag of bells will appear as Nook disappears).




Special thanks for Animal Crossing for featuring the most child-slave-drivingest raccoon in the universe.

Source code on the comments page (if it'll work).

Speed Racer: Side Effects include everything.

If any of you suffer from Bulimia nervosa you no longer have to shove your finger down your throat; you can simply watch this trailer for the new Speed Racer movie directed by the Wachowsky Brothers.

Casting Edit:

God, it's His DAY OFF!

2 killed in Christian center shooting.

When asked for comment Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brusquely pushed aside reporter's questions saying, "Look. It's my DAY OFF. And if you had actually read the Bible you would damn well know that! And even if it wasn't my day off I can't just make random gunmen not kill two innocent people!"

When reports then questioned how, exactly, the human embodiment of God was unable to do something the Son of God dropped his pants and instructed reporters to quote, “Read My Scripture! Read My Rock-Hard Scripture!”

Gingerbread [chat]ler

It's that time of year again.

Is no Girlfriend. Is Lolcat!

For Reference:


I was listening to Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend". Today is Caturday. What follows is the result.

The idea is that the video is an assortment of pictures of a lolcat with the lyrics as the captions. Where Avril's version is about the persuit of a boy who is dating another girl this version is about a lolcat's persuit of a cheezburger which is currently maintained by another lolcat. Is all u kneed 2 no.

Hay hay, u u
I don't like ur LoLCat
Nowai, Nowai
I think u kneed a nu 1
Hay hay, u u
I cud b ur LoLCat
Hay hay, u u
I no that you lol'd meh
Nowai, Nowai
I no it's not a secrit
Hay hay, u u
I want to b ur LoLCat

Ur so fine
I want u mine
Ur so deliciouse
I think about u all teh time
Ur so addictive
Dunt u know what I can do 2 eat u in 1 bite?
(in 1 bite, in 1 bite, in 1 bite)

Dunt pretend I think u no I's damn preshious
And hell yeah I's the motherfuckin' prinsess
I can tell u like meh 2, eat u in 1 bite
(in 1 bite, in 1 bite, in 1 bite)

She's liek so whutevar
U cans do so much bettah
I think we should get 2gether now
And that's what everyone's lolin' bout!

Hay hay, u u
I don't like ur LoLCat
Nowai, Nowai
I think u kneed a nu 1
Hay hay, u u
I cud b ur LoLCat
Hay hay, u u
I no that you lol'd meh
Nowai, Nowai
I no it's not a secrit
Hay hay, u u
I want to b ur LoLCat

I can see teh way
I see teh way u look at meh
'nd evan when u look away I no u think of meh
I know u lol about meh all teh time again and again
(again and again, again, again)
So come ovar haer and tell meh what I want 2 haer
Better yet, make ur lolcat disappear
I don't wanna hear u say her name evar again
(not again not again not again)

Cause
She's liek so whutevar
U cans do so much bettah
I think we shuld get 2gether now
And that's what everyone's lolin' bout

Hay hay, u u
I don't like ur LoLCat
Nowai, Nowai
I think u kneed a nu 1
Hay hay, u u
I cud b ur LoLCat
Hay hay, u u
I no that you lol'd meh
Nowai, Nowai
I no it's not a secrit
Hay hay, u u
I want to b ur LoLCat

Oh
In a 2nd u'll b crammed inside mah tummah
'Cause I think, 'cause I think that ur yummeh
Is no other, so now meh teef shall sink en
U so yummeh, what the hell is that clinking?

Oh
In a 2nd u'll b crammed inside mah tummah
'Cause I think, 'cause I think that ur yummeh
Is no other, so now meh teef shall sink en
U so yummeh, what the hell is that clinking?

Hay hay, u u
I don't like ur LoLCat
Nowai, Nowai
I think u kneed a nu 1
Hay hay, u u
I cud b ur LoLCat
Hay hay, u u
I no that you lol'd meh
Nowai, Nowai
I no it's not a secrit
Hay hay, u u
I want to b ur LoLCat

Nowai, Nowai

Hay hay, u u
I don't like ur LoLCat
Nowai, Nowai
I think u kneed a nu 1
Hay hay, u u
I cud b ur LoLCat
Hay hay, u u
I no that you lol'd meh
Nowai, Nowai
I no it's not a secrit
Hay hay, u u
I want to b ur LoLCat
No way, no way

Hay Hay!

Urgent and Dire

By my count, and I admit I cannot actually count, and just gamble on numbers, we have 10 contributors.

I now pose a question of urgency.

Who amongst us is unfamilar with the letters NES and what they stand for.

Who amongst us has cause for shame?

SPEAK NOW, lest your mockery be eternal!

RiffTrax: Star Wars Holiday Special.

They did it.

They really did it.

Special Comment

Bush: Pathological liar or idiot-in-chief?

Subtle.

Why, Helen A.S. Popkin?

Before I die I would like to meet Helen A.S. Popkin for two reasons. The first is that I think Helen A.S. Popkin is the name for a bot MSNBC created which combines links to stupid stories about internet culture with stereotypical phrases "the kids today" say (G4 hosts speak, as it were). The second reason is that if Helen A.S. Popkin is an actual person I want to be the one who helps pay for her to finally obtain her G.E.D.

The latest half aborted shit child article to be ejected from her dilapidated idiot womb is entitled, "Is Facebook still all up in your business?" or "Lord God I am a gigantic fucking tool!" The focus, in the liberal sense, of the article is on the Facebook / Moveon.org spat about privacy which I'm sure you all already know of and find incredibly interesting and important. Helen's opinion on this matter is that, well, I'll let Helen speak for herself:

"And as anyone who ever raised and/or dated one knows, nobody is guiltier of the insincere apology than dudes in their early 20s.

(Ladies, am I right?)"

It's the use of "dudes" and "Ladies, am I right?" that lets me know deep down that she deserves her writing gig.

You see, the CEO of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg is 23 years old and male. So, according to Helen A.S. Popkin, Mark Zuckerberg can never, in any way, be sincere in his apology. For more on this sensible world view I direct you to feministing.org. Or was it .com? I can't remember. You see, I'm a 24 year old male. I am accident prone and find honesty to be in all ways elusive.

In addition to her flawless utilization of the ad hominem style of argument, Helen A.S. Popkin cites a recent event in which Facebook attempted to have documents regarding Mark Zuckerberg removed from a website. Because somehow Facebook selling user information and trying to restrict the circulation of information regarding its CEO is apparently problematic. Given that I don't share Helen A.S. Popkin's Kool Aid (I can make pop-culture references too!) I am not entirely sure what the actual problem is. I think the perceived "problem" for Helen is somehow related to this little nugget of joy:

Then Zuckerberg continues to (metaphorically speaking) urinate on our heads and tell us it’s raining. “We were excited about Beacon because we believe a lot of information people want to share isn't on Facebook, and if we found the right balance, Beacon would give people an easy and controlled way to share more of that information with their friends.”

OMG! How is that so not a lie? Does Zuckerberg mean to imply that Beacon was not born first and foremost a money-generating marketing program, designed specifically for marketers, with cursory consideration toward the marks?

Newsflash: Companies exist to make money.
Newsflash: In the attempt to make money compies will lure consumers into a false sense of security by offering free services which, in turn, allow the company to make more money.

I can understand out-of-touch octogenarians being shocked into a late grave by the news that companies exist to make money. But Helen A.S. Popkin? She is hip! She is "with it"! She writes MSNBC's "Netiquette" column! She's not allowed to feign ignorance of the manner by which Internet based companies accumulate vast sums of money. Though, I will admit that it is probably the case that none of Helen A.S. Popkin's ignorance is, in fact, feigned.

My favorite part of this article, though, is the end:

"Now, if only users could learn the same thing. The facts are these: Despite the big media dust up, Facebook didn’t lose many profiles in its wake. The MoveOn Facebook protest collected only 70,000 members — barely a drop in the bucket compared to the site’s 50 million users, most of which really couldn’t care less."

I love endings like that. It contains that twist of irony in that the "victim" is also the enabler. You see, even though Mark Zuckerberg is male his ability to profit off of Facebook users is fundamentally the result of the users themselves. The users of Facebook, knowing that Mark Zuckerberg is collecting, selling, and profiting off of their personal information continue to use Facebook! Helen A.S. Popkin, the faux savior of the Facebook community, has tried to incite the mass exodus required to rectify this most unjust of situations but her audience, her flock, the people to whom she communicates her message of truth are uninterested; they "really couldn’t care less".

And that's the final jab. Helen A.S. Popkin knows that in spite of her eloquence and the underhanded, completely reasonable business practices of Mark Zuckerberg the users of Facebook will continue to use Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg will continue to profit off of Facebook users, and nothing will really ever change.

Which leaves me with the following question: WHY THE FUCK DID SHE BOTHER TO WRITE THE DAMN ARTICLE?!

Now that's wit.

[22:38] Courfeyac: was hotsteating heroes.. then lost it.. and let them hotseat it.. now.. hotseating a new game
[22:39] Darthbert: Maybe you oughtn't set your chair on fire
[22:39] Darthbert: unless it is on fire with the gay
[22:39] Darthbert: in which case burn it

This Used to Be My...

Young House Tea Tasting

from intra:
"Young House will be sponsoring a tea-tasting party on Saturday, December 8 from 1-5pm. Over half a dozen teas from around the world will be available for sampling. Faculty and students welcome. Come enjoy; snacks and music also provided!"

Hanover Live

Christmas concert is tonight at 4:30 or 5 (choir starts at 5). I may or may not have a solo-ish part. Either way, if you're so inclined, you can hear our choir sing Christmas stuff. We're worn out by now, but we're still not that bad. And sometimes we sing acapella (acapella performance in 4 weeks with 20 people = not bad).

Live feed site.

The Humans Are Dead

I have recently discovered Flight of the Conchords. Their "Frodo" song is also quite good, but I think this tight version of "The Humans Are Dead" suits the general atmosphere of EoiaS better.

Since I don't know how to imbed the video, link is here.

Mitt Romney: Faith in America

Mitt Romney gave his "get out of Mormonism free" speech today entitled Faith in America. There is no one reaction which can be had to this speech save a blank, utterly bewildered stare as one's head slowly drifts to a side and one's mouth becomes more and more slack. So, for you, gentle reader, I present my "rant by paragraph" critique of Mormon Mitt's duck-fucking-stupid speech.

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Just...just prove that. Actually, you know what? Don't even prove it. Just embark upon the road of proof; set your feet softly upon its well-worn soil. Take a first step. Take the smallest, the meekest, the most hesitant step possible towards proof. Try it.

"Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate's religion that are appropriate."

Our what?

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

Secularism is, indeed, incorrect. It is not a case that the lack of an established religion means that no religion, ever, ought to exist or wander into the public domain. If you desire to place your nativity scene on your front lawn and I desire to adorn my lawn with flaming pentagrams covered in goat blood then so much the better for liberty. The problem exists in the gem of, "No religion should dictate to the state".

Mitt does not believe this. Get on the google, pick a debate, and peruse the stupid shit he says. If Mitt thinks that he thinks religion and the state ought to be seperate, that an individual politican's influence ought to not come from their religious beliefs but rather an objective assessment of the world in which we live, then Mitt is a far more confused individual than his mormonism indicates.

"We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'"

Print out this quote. Do it now. Once you have printed it carry the paper on which it is printed, while wearing protective gloves, to the nearest toilet. Place the paper gently into the toilet and then, in a culmination of Truth and Right let fall onto the paper a gigantic bowel-movement of historically accurate truth.

IT'S AN EXPRESSION YOU GOD-DAMNED DOLT! It's a figure of speech. When one calls Mitt a "God Damned Jesus-raping ass-infesting tick fucker" one does not mean this literally. It is a figure of speech. It is a practice of the society in which we exist. I am not making an appeal to an actual "god", a literal "jesus", an objectively verifiable "tick". It is a colloquial phrase, an expression, something people say which has no literal meaning but rather a socially understood meaning. So to is the "under god". So too is every reference to god in the Constitution.

It's rhetoric. It's prose. It's an expression.

GOD!

"We believe that every single human being is a child of God – we are all part of the human family. The conviction of the inherent and inalienable worth of every life is still the most revolutionary political proposition ever advanced. John Adams put it that we are 'thrown into the world all equal and alike."

If by "we" you mean "not every citizen of the United States of American" then, sure. But I do not understand why an individual would use "we" if they did not, in fact, mean "we" in a universal, whole, collective sense. I do not think every single human being is a child of God. I am a citizen of the United States of American. So fuck you, Mitt.

"We cherish these sacred rights, and secure them in our Constitutional order. Foremost do we protect religious liberty, not as a matter of policy but as a matter of right. There will be no established church, and we are guaranteed the free exercise of our religion."

One little addition to the end, there, Mitt. You forgot "or lack thereof".

It's fine. People often forget things when they are stressed and preoccupied with other matters. Such as, you know, attempting to have your Mormonism and avoid it, too.

I think that is enough for now.

Fucking Mormons and their god-damned headache invoking idiocy.

Consolidarity.

Zero Punctuation: Assassin's Creed

Huckabee Baiting: "None of us could've predicted what [Dumond] could've done when he got out." Edition

I am going to start out with the LINK and give you a chance to read it before I move on.

So, as governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee "aggressively pushed" for the release of Wayne Dumond. He raped a women. Than Huckabee let him out of jail 25 years before his sentence was up. He than went on to rape and murder another women.

Since then, Hukabee as said over and over that:

"None of us could've predicted what [Dumond] could've done when he got out."

Turns out Huckabee was wrong. And today a staffer leaked a a file containing letters from other women that claimed Dumond raped them. So, this could mean two things.

1) Huckabee is a strong believe the power of the prison system to reform criminals. or
2) Huckabee does not believe that rape is real. The women were asking for it.

This is the best part. After Huckabee was elected in 1997 there was a lot of pressure being put on him from religious right and other right wing intrests.

In 1996, as a newly elected governor who had received strong support from the Christian right, Huckabee was under intense pressure from conservative activists to pardon Dumond or commute his sentence. The activists claimed that Dumond's initial imprisonment and various other travails were due to the fact that Ashley Stevens, the high school cheerleader he had raped, was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and the daughter of a major Clinton campaign contributor.

The case for Dumond's innocence was championed in Arkansas by Jay Cole, a Baptist minister and radio host who was a close friend of the Huckabee family. It also became a cause for New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy, who repeatedly argued for Dumond's release, calling his conviction "a travesty of justice." On Sept. 21, 1999, Dunleavy wrote a column headlined "Clinton's Biggest Crime - Left Innocent Man In Jail For 14 Years":

"Dumond, now 52, was given conditional parole yesterday in Arkansas after having being sentenced to 50 years in jail for the rape of Clinton's cousin," Dunleavy wrote. "That rape never happened."

This fucker was let out of jail because the woman he raped was the daughter of a Clinton supporter and her family had donated money to the Clinton campain.

How nice.

Huckabee sucks.

Maps, Maps, gimme more Maps

This is kinda cool.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0332239320071203?pageNumber=4&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

Blog of Agglutination

Entry #9

Most Adorable.

Does Pickled Garlic go bad?

So I took this jar of pickled garlic out of the fridge tonight with the thought of finally trying it. Then I looked closer.



Best by Nov 98, indeed.

Fetus Soldiers.

Fetus Soldier Ornaments

Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?

Plastic replica of an 11-12 week old fetus, 3" long, holding a firearm in its precious little hand, with an assortment of other military paraphernalia, encased in a translucent plastic ornament, with a patriotic yellow ribbon on top. Includes a metal ornament hanger. If only a womb were this safe, attractive and reasonably priced!

Show that you support the "culture of life" by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans.

Also available in a "Brown" model

"I Am Legend"? You are suck.

Apparently this is "reviews of movies I have not seen" week.

This morning I was watching the MSNBC and some guy was talking about the new film I am Legend. When describing it to the host of the show he said, "It's Castaway with an army of mutant lepers". Upon hearing this I froze, turned slowly towards the television, and felt fear overtake my entire being.

"Oh no," I thought, "they couldn't have..."

THEY DID.

In the new I Am Legend, Will Smith fights "mutant cannibals". In the novel? In the original? The main character fights VAMPIRES.

Ok. Who thinks that Mutant Cannibals are better than Vampires? Who makes that call? Who in the depths of their ignorance thinks, "Man, Vampires are stupid. I need to change the story so that Will Smith fights Mutant Cannibal things instead."

WHO THINKS THAT?

Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman have writing credits for the film. So apparently one of them decided that vampires suck. The only explanation I could find was on the wikipedia page where it says, "While the infected become vampires in the novel, the film depicts them as "dark seekers" (Neville's term for them) who consume living flesh, with a design inspired by the concept of their adrenal glands being open all the time."

Bri-fucking-illiant.

Hollywood as a collective entity needs to have its "rewrite" liscense revoked. Beowulf fathers a dragon-baby? Fine, ok. But when they take stories containing vampires and replace the vampires with mutant cannibal whatever-the-fucks? They've shown that they are incapable of making sensible decisions.

Polar Bears Wearing Armor who Fight.

The Golden Compass will be in theatres this Friday and it will be the greatest film of 2007. I have not seen this movie; I have not read the book upon which the movie is based. So, how do I know that The Golden Compass will be the greatest film of 2007?



Polar Bears.
Wearing Armor.
Who Fight.

I do not need to know the context; I do not care. Are these polar bears wearing armor who fight real? Are they imaginary? Are they part of an elaborate dream? These questions do not matter. For, The Golden Compass offers me something no other film has ever offered: Polar Bears. Wearing Armor. Who Fight.

Other reviewers will attempt to distract you by focusing on the plot, the religious controversy, or Nichole Kidman's kind of visible bra. Some will go so far as to call this film the anti-Narnia, tempting reviewers to digress into rants about how watching The Chronicles of Narnia is indistinguishable from gargling rancid shit for 143 minutes and how your idiotic friends lied to you when they said Narnia was a religious allegory because it isn't a fucking allegory: Aslan isn't Jesus, the Ice Queen isn't Satan, or the Romans, or the Jews, or original sin, or Judas, or Hitler, or fucking ANYTHING, and C. S. Lewis can just go fuc

No...must...



That's better.

The Golden Compass is the greatest movie you will see this year. It might be the greatest movie you will see during your entire life. It is even possible that The Golden Compass is the greatest movie of all time, a movie against which all other movies are judged which fundamentally captures the human condition and succinctly expresses every being's most fundamental desire, man's ultimate achievement, and for each and every one of us the very meaning of our lives:

Polar Bears.
Wearing Armor.
Who Fight.

It r Lady Enide's Birthday.

Happy Birthday!!

More news from the "We are all fucked" front

Activision and Blizzard have said they will form "the world's most profitable games business" in a deal worth $18.8bn (£9.15bn).

US-based Activision also makes hit console games such as the Tony Hawk series and Guitar Hero.

Nine million people pay a monthly subscription to play World of Warcraft.

Link

Good-by Diablo 3, hello Diablo Pro-Skater Hero...Expreme

November Stats

Site Usage
7,151 Visits
11,170 Pageviews
1.56 Pages/Visit
79.33% Bounce Rate
00:01:46 Avg. Time on Site
70.26% % New Visits

85% of our hits are still coming from google searches for Hellgate London Skill Tree infro

November's last [chat].

The last [chat] of November.

Cowbell Hero

Huckabee Baiting

So, during the GO-Pee debate this week our favorite candidate Mike Huckabbe was asked about his position the death penalty, about what Jesus would do about it: Huckabee responded:

You know, one of the toughest challenges that I ever faced as a governor was carrying out the death penalty. I did it more than any other governor ever had to do it in my state. As I look on this stage, I’m pretty sure that I’m the only person on this stage that’s ever had to actually do it. […]

Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office, Anderson. That’s what Jesus would do.

That is interesting. Jesus WAS smart enough no to run for public office. Which is good because Israel was occupied by the Roman Empire, and you know - It had been ruled by a King and shit before that. So, unless Jesus was running for the local water drainage board or the head of the neighborhood watch: he didnt really have a lot of options.

To push this a little further Thinkprogress did some checking about found, in 1997 Huckabee had this to say:

Interestingly enough,” Huckabee allowed, “if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, ‘This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency’

I think if we were to make a syllogism
Jesus was sentenced to the death penalty
Jesus did not ask for clemency
therefore
Jesus supported the death penalty.

i think that is how it worked. But i got a D- in logic.

Also. Huckabee is a religious zealot rapped in Ned Flanders Clothing

Glacéau VitaminEnergy

Glacéau, the people who make Vitamin Water have an Energy Drink.

The Caffeine Information for the beverage is that it contains 9.38 mgs of caffeine per fluid ounce. But more important is that it contains 50.34 mgs of Delicious per fluid ounce.

DRINK IT.

Bender's Big Score

The good news is that there's a Futurama movie, the bad news is that its straight-to-video both in terms of its method of distribution and its overall quality The joke writing was lazy, relying on zaniness, shock value, and a contrived running gag for what I'll conservatively estimate to be 99% of the movie. Inside jokes were also present, but generally relegated to a sort of Where's Waldo meets Dane Cookian "Hey, see that? You remember that? You do? Good for you"

There was a fairly serious subplot, which featured a twist so obvious, they may have well included it in the title, and a title so contrived that it barely even describes any event in the movie.

And then there were the cameos, which probably would have been more endearing if I didn't see these characters on Futurama reruns every weekday on Adult Swim already. Since I do, however, they did little more than flesh out the waste of time.

There were a few songs, which failed in nearly every way, save for that they had a melody and lyrics, hallmarks of most music.

In short, I hated it and I wish they hadn't made it. However, they found a way to make Amy Wong more of an inconsequential character, and for that I have to give them a little credit.

New t.A.T.u. video.

I had no idea that people in Russia spent so much time walking around in ther underware .

Happy World AIDS day.

Today is World AIDS Day.

But it's not a "happy world" AIDS Day. And it's not a Happy "World AIDS" day. But rather the wish is for one to have a "happy" day on which the world thinks about AIDS. Sort of like Earth Day but for fags, fornicators, needle sharers, and African babies.

Foreigner, God damn it!

There are some people who don't know who Foreigner is.

For them:



Freaking Women.

What to do on a date.

If only I had seen this while in college...

Zero Punctuation: FEAR

Evel Knievel Died.

Evel Knievel died.

Is sad.

Even Ron Paul's supporters are confusing.

Read this.

I had no idea that this was a pro-Ron Paul article until the last three paragraphs. My conclusion is that I'm supposed to understand this as a some sort of Ron Paul ex machina piece.

And that "Dr. Paul wants to return to the gold standard" jab? Was that a jab? Did Joe Murray mean for it to be a good thing?

Fucking libertarians.

Warsaw Bank Robbed

From the Times Union Online:

At 9:40 a.m. today, dispatch received a call of an armed robbery at Lake City Bank, 420 Chevy Way, Warsaw. Two men, allegedly dressed all in black, walked into the bank and robbed an undisclosed amount of money, and left in a dark-colored mini-van on Ind. 15. Police were not sure of the direction the mini-van headed. No further information was available at press time.

A great day for wall enthusiasts

Elusive biblical wall found at last.

Apparently this is Nehemiah's wall discussed in Chapters 3-6 of the book of Nehemiah, the walliest book of the Old Testament.

$10 to the first person who claims that the discovery of these "pottery shards and arrowheads found under the tower" indicates that Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of God.


Edit: Seriously. Read Nehemiah 3-6. It's wall pron.

"But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews." - Nehemiah 4:1

It's like the Melrose Place of Wall Erotica. Sanballat is totally not going to stand for that wall erection!

Beowulf

Note: This article contains Beowulf movie spoilers.

There's a scene in Beowulf where a fellow tries to get Beowulf to admit to a loss in a swimming match, but Beowulf explains that he only lost because he was otherwise engaged in killing the shit out of sea monsters. According to the men who sail with Beowulf, however, the sea monster story has grown a bit in the repeated telling, and is not quite as impressive as he makes it sound.

I think this scene is very important to the movie because it introduces the notion that oral tradition, specifically Beowulf's oral tradition, is prone to exaggeration and selfish modification, and in instances where the truth is known, his version does not always match it. This idea opens the door for a different yet more cohesive interpretation of Beowulf, which in most cases quite closely follows the outline of the original, but makes bold changes in sequences that would have been reliant on only Beowulf's word.

The most obvious example of this is when Beowulf heads into the marshes to kill Grendel's mother. According to the original, he enters the cavern alone, and by his account, he fights with and eventually kills the monster who gave birth to Grendel, returning with Grendel's head and a melted sword to show for it. The head proves that Grendel is dead, and that Beowulf was in or at least near the lair of the monster, but the sword, which Beowulf claims was melted by the mother's poison (or something), is open to interpretation, and there is certainly no hard evidence that Grendel's mother has been killed.

The film assumes Beowulf is lying about the encounter, and creates an alternate version in which Beowulf has a son by Grendel's mother, and that son grows up to be the dragon that appears later in the story. Grendel himself is revealed to be the son of Hrothgar, who apparently found himself in a similar situation as Beowulf regarding Grendel's mother.

Now, there's a part of me that hates that. It's the part that groans when changes are made in the journey from book to film, but I found myself actually appreciating the alterations in this case. I think I liked them because they seemed to serve a purpose, that is, to facilitate the version of the story they wanted to tell, which was allowable via the theory that anything that happened without witnesses is bound to be inaccurately reported. If they had been all frivolous or pointless changes (such as when Beowulf becomes king after Hrothgar dies rather than returning home to be king there), then I'd probably say the film was mismanaged, but they were not.

I'm afraid the other reason I liked them is because my expectations for the movie and my personal interest in Beowulf were so low that I'd have been impressed by nearly anything.

Did anyone else see the movie? Thoughts?

Mike Huckabee: Heeding the wrong text.

Apparently Mike Huckabee did well in last night's CNN debate. While one CNN debate is not the proverbial ballgame it is quite terrifying that Mike Huckabee could do well in a Presidential debate. Why? Because this is who Mike Huckabee is:

"I put my head on the pillow and I just want to make sure that the father above is pleased. In essence, I can say that I have one client I have to please."

Dedicating one's life to the pleasing of one's chosen Deity is sensible for a preacher. It behooves a member of the clergy to focus their efforts on Deity pleasing. Unfortunately, as we learned from the Muhammad Teddy Bear story, Theocracies are a bad idea. They are problematic. Even if Mike Huckabee's goal is not to establish a Theocracy maintained by the sentient zygotes he "saves" I still think it would behoove both Huckabee and Huckabee's supporters to read Article II of the United States Constitution.

Go ahead and read it. I'll wait.

...

Done? Alright. Now go back to that page. Search for the word "preacher", "clergy", "cleric" and any other term you can think of for a person with a religious ideology who has dedicated their life to the pleasing of their chosen Deity. You won't find any of those words.

It's not the President's job to enforce his or her religious ideology. It's not the President's job to be the Pastor in Chief. It's not the job of the President to command via the Bible.

And most importantly? The President does not have only one client. A President is not only subject to their chosen Deity. A President is subject to the American People. All of them. A President's job is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Mike Huckabee cannot do that. His concern is not for everyone. His focus is not on Article II.

His obligation is to his chosen Deity who is not, interestingly enough, a citizen of the United States of America.

3G iPhone next year.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said that a 3G iPhone will be available next year.

Link 1
Link 2

YATTA!

On Teddy Bears, Islam, and Imprisonment

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/11/29/sudan.bears/

Note to remember on your travels to Islamic countries: Do not name your teddy bear Mohammed.

Drobo has price.

Drobo has a price. Drobo is $499. Drobo does not come with hard drives. You must provide Drobo with a hard drive.

Worship Drobo. Drobo stores your shit.

Straight Faces are for noobs.

debbie downer-lindsay lowham
Uploaded by linvsay

The skit isn't funny. Lohan's inability to keep a straight face is funny.

Damn it, Margaret Ann Gordon!

I'm getting really fucking sick and tired of reading about people being killed by dogs. The latest story is of Margaret Ann Gordon, 56, who was attacked by a "pack of about eight wild dogs". Apparently, "her legs were gnawed to the bone" and she died of blood loss.

How the fuck hard is it to punch a dog in the neck? I mean, really. It's not terribly difficult. You locate the head (the part with the teeth) and you locate the body (the huge mass below the head) and then you aim your blow between these two things. Then when the dog falls back from your initial blow you pull out your knife (Because who the god-damned fuck doesn't in the year our lord 2007 carry at least one fucking knife with them everywhere they go?) and you stab the beast until it dies.

If there are 8? You repeat the process 8 times.

I'm not endorsing cruelty to animals. I don't think killing dogs ought to be one's hobby. If you are in Bulgaria, though, and 8 wild dogs appear and try to eat you? Go ahead and prevent them from eating you. Because you're a human fucking being. You have tools. You have multiple appendages with which you can inflict damage on other beings.

And you're being killed by this:



Stop it!

24 Season 7

Bauer Must Help President Walrus Find hiz Bukket!

David Irving and Free Speech

Free Speech is a logical extreme. Free Speech can only truly exist without censorship, without limitations. The problem is that human beings want both free speech and censorship, they desire the ideal as well as its negation. Human beings, as always, want to maintain their cake and at the same time consume their cake. This brings us to David Irving and the Oxford Debating Society.

The Oxford Union Debating Society invited David Irving and Nick Griffin to speak at a debate about Free Speech. This pissed off many, many people. Among those who were pissed off and so protested was one David Block, co-president of Oxford's Jewish Society, who supplied this delightful quote:

"My main grievance about this debate is the accusation that we want to deny people free speech. We just don’t want to give them any more platforms to air their views, which are disgraceful."

At the risk of invoking the wratch of David Block's schmutz'd schmeckle I'm going to go ahead and call him a dipshit, or "putz". Why? If you don't want David Irving to spout his idiocy at your university then you don't want free speech. Censorship denies free speech. And everyone wants censorship.

No? Think about it. I am fine with an absense of censorship in many ways: I think a person ought to be able to yell "fire!" in crowded mall if they so choose (it will make the mall less crowded). I think people ought to be able to say "fuck" and "nigger" if they so choose. But I do not think creationism ought to be taught in science classes. I want to limit what a science professor says in a science class. Granted, the position that science professors ought to only teach science in science class is reasonable and, dare I say, correct. But it is a limit to free speech; it is censorship.

I think humanity ought to rid itself of the rhetoric of "free speech". No one wants free speech. No one wants everyone to be able to say anything they want at any time. Even the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States doesn't really mean "free speech". Slander and Libel, for example, are not protected.

It is possible to want a reasonable degree of "free" speech; one can argue for the ability to say things within a context of limitations. But no one wants "free speech". No one wants absolutely no limits, ever, on what a person can say. So qualifying your protest of free speech by saying that you really do want free speech is simply idiotic. You do not want free speech.

So fucking say so.

*sigh* 250,000 People Cant be Wrong

We are truly fucked. After five months of being totally awesome the Creationist Museum is expanding.

LINK

PETERSBURG, Ky. (AP) — Northern Kentucky's Creation Museum is evolving into a larger facility.

The museum will add 663 parking spaces, outdoor canopies and a maintenance building and will move its main entrance as part of a $500,000 upgrade, according to a report in The Kentucky Enquirer.

The controversial museum, which uses literal interpretations of the Bible to tell the earth's history, welcomed its 250,000th visitor five months after its opening on Memorial Day. The museum had expected to get 250,000 visitors its entire first year.

The larger-than-expected crowds left the facility with an overflowing parking lot, forcing staff to park miles away.

The Boone County Planning Commission approved the plans by an 11-1 vote, the newspaper reported.

Three years ago we thought this was the biggest joke in the world, but now...now it is dropping half a million dollars to expand. BECAUSE IT IS SO POPULAR. We are just one election cycle from this place hosting a Republican primary debate.

Also - to add insult to injury Kevin DuBrow the lead signer of Quiet Riot has died. Who now will help us Cum feel the Noize. I need to feel the noize and no one could help me like Quiet Riot.

We are all truely fucked. fucked real hard.

Mp3s are not Crab Bisque.

Sellers of digital media need to watch the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld.

The Soup Nazi was able to cook "great soup" desired by all. To obtain this soup a customer had to comply with the Soup Nazi's strict customer behavior requirements. The Soup Nazi could dictate the terms by which his soup could be obtained by his customers since he was the sole supplier of his soup. If an individual failed to meet his requirements the Soup Nazi could, and did, proclaim, "No Soup for you!" and the customer was fully denied soup; the customer had no other means by which the Soup Nazi's soup could be obtained. At the end of the episode Elaine finds the recipies for the Soup Nazi's soup, thereby allowing people to obtain the soup without adhering to the Soup Nazi's will.

The problem with modern resellers of digital media is that they desire to be the Soup Nazi while failing to understand the important lesson the Soup Nazi episode taught us all: Don't be a dick.

To stay with the Soup Nazi metaphor, the recepies have been out of the armoire since the mid 90s. Napster and its subsequent offspring allow customers to bypass the Soup Nazis of digital media and obtain files without complying with any requirements; sellers of digital music cannot proclaim, "No Soup for you!" No one needs to buy music files from Apple or anyone else to listen to songs. For, you see, bittorrent exists, the Elaine to their Soup Nazi, if you will. Customers do not have to adhere to any strict regiment of behavior to obtain the desired product. But does this mean that no one will ever buy digital media? No.

This weekend I purchased three Rifftrax. Rifftrax are .mp3 files of commentary that one plays alongside movies. Why did I buy them? The files are reasonably priced ($4 for a movie length of commentary), high quality (great audio quality and superb humor), and in a reasonable format (.mp3). I was happy to exchange money for this product. People will pay for products they desire. And, yes, if the product is only available from a Soup Nazi then the customer will adhere to the requirements placed on them by the Soup Nazi. But if a customer can bypass the Soup Nazi? They will.

The goal is to not be a Soup Nazi. The goal is to not make one's customers want to bypass the system. If the Soup Nazi was not a Nazi, but rather a pleasant man selling delicious soup? Elaine would not have delighted in the discovery of his recipies. Elaine would have happily bought his soup just as I was happy to buy Rifftrax. But if an individual or group maintain their Soup Nazi ways while there exist simple alternative means by which their product can be obtained? We'll make our own soup, we'll download our own digital files, thank you very much.

Possible NYE activity

New Years eve is always fun. We have played Risk, Axis and Allies, Poker, got drunk, made fun of Cary, made fun of jolly, etc.

Over the thanksgiving break Jay Adam and I watched 3 of our favorite movies, only with Rifftrax commentaries. And i have to say - it was a blast.

So, that non-sequester not withstanding, i think that it is put up or shut up when it comes to ironic film viewing - thus my suggestion.

Giltter and Crossroads....with rifftrax.

Happy [chat]sgiving.

Remember to take a moment to think about all you are thankful for. I am thankful for pies and term limits.

Stupidest Litigation Evar

The Romantics are suing Activision for covering their song too well. Activision is not being sued for music they did not pay for, but are instead being sued because their cover sounds too much like the original.

I can't imagine this going too far, especially considering that GH denotes that it isn't the actual band in question at the start of the song. I'm just amazed at the gall of this band.

Second Amendment.

While I am not a Constitutional Scholar I am a native speaker of the English Language. So I think that with regard to sentences written in English I have some ability to assess them and discern their meaning. That being said, here is the Second Ammendment to the Constitution:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It does not seem to be a sentence so much as it is four clauses:
1 A well regulated Militia
2 being necessary to the security of a free State
3 the right of the people to keep and bear Arms
4 shall not be infringed

Is that even a sentence? I know that it is four clauses. But do these four clauses a sentence make? And since there are four clauses, which is the main clause? What are those other clauses doing?

Here are some possible combinations I have devised in the three minutes in which I have thought about this:

A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, shall not be infringed.
A well regulated Militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

Which is the correct read? I think it depends on what is the main clause and what the other clauses are doing. Is the primary focus on militias? Is the primary focus on the right to keep and bear arms?

I think the "being necessary to the security of a free state" is the primary focus, the main concept being stressed. The rest of it modifies and clarifies, through a lack of clarity, what is necessary.

My guess is that the focus is not "Everyone ever ought to have guns always" but rather "States need to be Free" and the result of that is that gun ownership is required. But I could be wrong.

Blog of Agglutination

Entry #8

Well, if Mike Franc says it's true...

I was reading the conservapedia and found a link to an article entitled, "The Reality of Thanksgiving" on humanevents.com (Leading the Conservative Movement since 1944).

I was surprised to learn that the Conservative Movement had access to the tubal interwebs since 1944 but more surprising was the information that Thanksgiving is actually a celebration of the triumph of Plymouth Colony over communism. From the article:

"But the Pilgrims’ triumph over hunger and poverty at Plymouth Colony can be traced to something more than the charitable gestures of a few local Indians. Rather, it involves their courageous decision to replace a failed, socialistic agricultural system with one informed by the free-market principle of private ownership of property"

Note the use of the word "Indians" as opposed to "filthy savages". The Conservative movement has truly come a long way.

Anyway, the article explains that Plymouth Colony suffered great hardships until "the colony’s leaders identified the source of their problem as a particularly vile form of what Bradford called 'communism'.” I always thought that the problems of Plymouth Colony were malnutrition and death, but apparently a socialist ideology was the true culprit. This evil force was that solved by applying liberal (get it?)amounts of free-market capitalism which allowed the colony to thrive.

The article cites no external sources to verify its claims which is fine I guess. I can't imagine that Mike Franc, vice president of Government Relations at The Heritage Foundation, would lie to anyone about anything.

Tahmincioglu

One mother's epic Attempt to Boycott China is covered in this article.

This thing is gold. It's drenched with alarmist idiocy, irrational self-imposed rules, and has enough "but I meant well" to absolve Hitler of everything he ever did minus that one painting of a boat.