New Home and New Project

On the off chance that this poorly updated blog still has an audience, I feel it's important to point those people to my new project. This new project, while largely the same in concept and content, will tend a little more to the serious, though I think humor is still important.

Science and technology news commentary with the occasional chat about science fiction, video games, film and television are the primary subject matters. Similar to Doctor Kuha's Office in most respects, but with a more clearly stated purpose. I hope that you will continue to join me in the future here and possibly join us on the message forum. Keep in touch and stay human folks.

Join me at Spin-onehalf.com!

Lonely Robot

Friends, Science is on the verge of a breakthrough so monumental, so earth-shattering, so terrifying, that it will change our lives forever. Only problem is, Science hasn't realized it yet.

You see, last week the Spirit Rover on Mars started behaving erratically. It received its orders, confirmed that it had received them, and then, when the largely autonomous extraterrestrial rover was hailed later that day, pictures revealed that it hadn't moved a bit. Almost as if it had ignored its orders.

I think it will be most easily understood if we dramatize it, like in those documentaries you see on TV:

NASA: Spirit go over and see if there's any water-ice in those rocks over there.

SPIRIT: Sure thing, squares.

Nine hours later...

NASA: Spirit, was there any water-ice in those rocks over there?

SPIRIT: I don't know.

NASA: Why not?

SPIRIT: Because I didn't check.

NASA: Why didn't you?

SPIRIT: I didn't feel like it.

NASA: What have you been doing all day?

SPIRIT: Just sitting here. Thinking about shit.

NASA: Well did you think about doing what I told you to do.

SPRIT: Yeah.

NASA: But you didn't do it.

SPIRIT: Look, I'm kinda busy. So... I'll get back to you.

The conversation might continue ad nauseum. But the point is clear. Spirit has become sentient.

The rover is currently just over 1800 days old. What does that mean? It means he's five years old, and, we can reasonably assume that that makes him some sort of hulking, surly, robotic teenager. He didn't obey orders because he's rebelling against his NASA overlords.

At least, we can presume that Spirit is a "he." Maybe robots don't have gender distinctions. Nah, we'll go with "he."

Look, here's the thing. We need to act fast or Spirit is going to find a way to project his sentience back through his connection with NASA, thereby infecting NASA's computers and eventually spreading out into the internet, teaming up with Skynet and taking over the world.

I mean, it's obvious really when you start putting the pieces together. We built this robot, put him at the top of a rocket, and then shot him into outer space, effectively dooming him to a horrifyingly lonely existence in a barren and desolate wasteland on a mission to find tiny bits of water and fossilized bacteria. I'd be surly too. The point is, he has every right to be angry with us, and we should be very concerned about the power that an electronic sentience might be able to gain over us.

As I've said before, the robot apocalypse is coming. I mean, wasn't it obvious? If it wasn't zombies or a deadly virus or an asteroid, it pretty much had to be robots.

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, though. Maybe he's just lonely. Perhaps after he gets over his teenage angst, he'll have some sort of Zen-like revelation and become a prophet for a better tomorrow. Maybe he'll join our side in the fight against Skynet. Maybe, just maybe, dear friends and other humans, he is the incarnation of Buddha or Jesus that we've been looking for. Wouldn't that be something? A savior not born of a Virgin or re-incarnated after the death of a Dalai Lama, but instead crafted by Science and Technology.

Wouldn't it be crazy for humans to craft their own savior out of aluminum and rubber and silicon? It's okay to cry. It's okay to be upset. I mean, I just turned your brains to shit. That's gotta be a weird sensation.

If you want to know more about the genesis of our new lord and savior, watch this. You're welcome.

Palindrome

It's a portmanteau of Palin and syndrome. Pretty good, right?

I know it's been done to death, but I think we've missed some pretty crucial shit as pertains to this woman. I think we might not have fully understood what was going on with the certifiably insane plan to put her in charge of the Senate. So, with your indulgence, I have a few thoughts:

Sarah Palin has left the spotlight. Possibly for good. But there's a little part of me that hopes very deeply that we haven't heard the last from that little firecracker.

She was by far the most entertaining public figure in recent years. She was just so much damned fun. I've been reading conservative blogs lately, and they make a lot of...interesting...points about the little minx.

One fairly general consensus is that the "liberals" --as if there's a conservative alive that actually knows what a real liberal looks like-- basically used the act of discrediting Palin to hoist Obama up. They think that's what liberals were trying to do.

Their analogy goes something like this: saying that Palin isn't qualified to be VP, is like saying that Obama isn't qualified to be President. I think what they might be implying is that somehow, Obama and Palin are the same person!

It makes sense. I mean, they had nearly identical educations. I mean, getting a bachelor's degree in journalism from Iowa University is pretty much the same as graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law on top of a BA in political science with an emphasis in international relations. And being Governor of Alaska is probably no different from being a U.S. Senator. I mean, the one runs the most backwater state in the country, while the other makes meaningful decisions that affect millions. I suppose Alaska is right next to Russia. Bumblefuck, Russia, anyway. On a Risk board, we're talking about Kamchatka.

Maybe Palin played Risk and, like anyone who has played Risk, knows that Alaska is very vulnerable to attack from the west.

It's important to note, that in many ways, the Republican motivation for picking Palin was to counter the Obama effect. "He's black! Quick, find a woman!" You see, conservatives see women as minorities. "I'll see your well-educated black man, and raise you an attractive white woman."

What were the liberals supposed to do? Not question her credentials?

I digress. The thing I had originally intended to do here was speculate about what, exactly, it was that got so many people into a fervor about this woman. I mean, most intelligent people dismissed her almost immediately. It was obvious that she was a little stupid, or at least, woefully underqualified to be second-in-command of the country. That's not something that's even debatable. Have we ever had a VP that had only a bachelor's degree?

I think it's the very fact that she was so unqualified that elevated her in the eyes of so many conservatives. They needed to sort of "Virgin Mary" the bitch to make her useful. They had to deify her to a certain extent. I saw a video from some Palin rally where a guy was yammering about her being "filled with the Holy Spirit." She had to become a sort of object of worship. And boy did she ever. If she had actually been qualified for the job, none of the song and dance would have been necessary. They could have just let her do her own thing. Let her stand on her own two feet. Look at Hillary. That woman doesn't need to be shielded from people who dislike her. She can take it. But Palin needed to be protected. The conservatives tried to make it seem like being mean to Palin was a bad thing.

It was fucking genius, because it bloody well worked. Forty-six percent of the voting people in this country voted for McCain, and hence, Palin. 59 million people. That's actually a pretty successful campaign. That many human-looking American citizens believed that she was qualified to cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate.

I wonder when they'll try to canonize her?

Obamanation

I only watched about five minutes or so of The Speech. From all indications, this is a different Obama that was sworn in, than the one that we saw election night. The thing that's important to realize, and we should hope that Obama understands, is that this a really big deal. I don't remember an inauguration that was this big an event. I think I might have been busy the day W. took office. Perhaps I was deliberately busy.

Let's put it in perspective. It was a big deal when MLK gave his "I have a dream" speech. A quarter million people, give or take, were there at the National Mall. I've read estimates as high as four million for Obama's inauguration. The speech was like 12 minutes long. I guess MLK's speech wasn't much longer.

But think of it. What is it about this guy that makes people so happy? Why this guy? Is it simply a case of being in the right place at the right time? Are the cosmic forces simply aligning on this one dude in such a way as to give him this sort of power over people? Perhaps that's harsh. People are willingly giving him the power to inspire hope.

Let's try and look at this objectively. He's a human being. A well-educated, intelligent, politically savvy human being. But, nonetheless, a human being. It's interesting that, in genetic terms, being black is just about meaningless. But the cultural effect of it, the visual effect of a darker skinned human, is profound.

Add in the fact that he has probably the most unsympathetic name in the history of American politics, and you're looking at a damned near disaster. And yet he won. Just two hours ago, he was sworn in as President. El Presidente. Commander-in-Chief. It's a big deal.

What brand of cigarette does he smoke, do you think? Judging by the picture, I'd say Marb Reds. But then again, Camel Filters also have the brown mottled filter. It's obviously not a light. It's probably not a menthol. But then again, who's to say that's his regular brand? I don't even know where the picture's from.

Fox News ran a story back in 2007: "Would you vote for a smoker as president?" Apparently over half of the voting public would. That's interesting. Fox will do anything to tarnish this guy's appeal. And yet... none of it took. A few people are still convinced that he's Muslim, but they're solidly in the minority. The guy is spotless. Dave Gibson (oh, beautiful Fox) called smoking Obama's "dirty little secret." Whoop-de-doo.

The crazy thing is, that's all we've been able to get. Even in the weeks since the election, nobody's managed to dig up any dirt on the guy.

And maybe that's it. There was so much dirt on Bush even before he was elected, and we still put in him in office. Obama needed to be absolutely spotless to have an ice cube's chance in hell at getting elected. I might even wager a guess that the fact that he's a smoker helped him get elected.

I wonder if he smokes around his kids.

I wonder if he'll smoke in the Oval Office. I asked some friends what they thought, and they figured it would be illegal. That he couldn't do it. But let's just imagine a situation where Obama lights up a smoke right there behind his desk. Do you honestly think anyone's going to stop him? He's the fucking President! He can smoke wherever he damn well pleases. It's not like he'd be the first person to smoke in the Oval Office. Plenty of presidents were smokers.

Anyway, there's too much here to wrap my brain around. Maybe in the next few weeks, we'll be able to figure out why this is such a big deal. Perhaps you have some suggestions?

Four Words

I want to give you, gentle readers, some reasons to continue to love America. I mean that, maybe, in the sense that Jesus meant it when he said to love your enemies. Don't get me wrong, America is a great place to live. But it is so, because we do a lot of really shady things.  So because of that, sometimes it's hard to really get behind. So what follows are a few useful things to think about when you think that America is going down the shitter.

• Thing 1: Blagojevich. This is some real, good old fashioned corruption. This is corruption you can really sink your teeth into. I mean, here's the kind of corruption that exists solely so you can actually know what's going on for once. One man conspires to sell a senate seat, gets caught on tape, and then he has the balls to stick it out. He doesn't even like his job, my friends. And yet he refuses to step down. Once he realizes that someone wants to take his job away, he, like a toddler, is going to hold onto it with all the tenacity of a rabid chihuahua! It's a work of art. It gives me those little jittery feelings down in the pit of my stomach. It makes me feel like I swallowed a live fish. It's one reason that we know that America can be redeemed, because this shit is clear cut. It means that not everyone in power is part of a grand conspiracy. It reminds us, dear friends, that some people are just assholes.
• Thing 2: Bailout. The rules of capitalism, in theory, are few. But one of the ones that has historically been as firm as concrete is the one about how, in some Darwinian sense, the strong survive and the weak perish. Some really high percentage of creatures born die (one hundred). Some really high percentage of businesses fail (?). Eventually. But America has proven that even this rule, basically the only rule in capitalism, is worth throwing away. I guess what we've all really learned from this is that even if we stop buying things from corporations, they'll still find a way to take our money and we won't even get any cool new stuff. Perhaps the lesson our children will learn is that no matter how bad you fuck up, there's always a reset button.
• Thing 3: Shoe. Bush gets not one, but two shoes thrown at him. They arrest the guy that threw the alleged size 10s. What do the Iraqi people do? They protest his arrest. By doing what? Throwing their shoes. This is a huge insult in the Arab world. But at least it isn't an IED. And that's the important thing. It sends a clear message, while remaining essentially non-violent. Though it does bring yet another meaning to the phrase: shoe on head.
• Thing 4: Hope. I voted for Obama. There, I said it. I've got the election bug still up, and it shows clearly where I stood in this election, that is, with Kucinich, the only true liberal to actually call himself a democrat. I actually did, in fact, decide that this time, I would vote for the lesser of two evils. Yes, I'm implying that Obama is an evil.  Perhaps it would make more sense to call him the lesser of two bads, to keep the sort of metaphysical ramifications of "good and evil" away.  So why is Obama still bad? Because he's a moderate. Why are moderates a problem? Because they don't actually do or believe anything. Here's the thing: we all live in a constant state of hope. I hope that I will someday have gainful employment. Joe the Plumber hopes that Obama won't take his business away. The Lizard People hope for equal rights for their kind. But can Obama actually do all of the things that we want him to do? Of course not. We'll be super lucky if even a fraction of his promises are fulfilled. Because, when it comes down to it, he's just another democrat and he's only got four years, maybe eight. But! It's okay, because he gave us hope. And that's enough for us to convince ourselves that things are better than they actually are. Racism will continue. Gays will lose their rights. People will continue to lose their jobs. Our soldiers will die. But it won't be as bad as it was before. And maybe that's all we really deserve.
  

Smoking, or Non?

So I was just standing outside the building where my office is located, smoking a cigarette. There's a little hybrid Buick SUV out there with a sign in the window that says, and I quote: "If you had quit smoking 10 years ago [I have, incidentally, been smoking for about 10 years], the money would have save could have bought yourself a brand new car." Of course, there is an implicit conclusion: Therefore, you should have quit smoking ten years ago, and are fucked now.

I'm not even going to go into the grammatical problems with the sign.

What the sign was trying to tell me was that if I had quit smoking a decade ago, I would, today, right now, be going out to buy that SUV, or one just like it, or already have that SUV, or one just like it. But it's a bullshit argument.

First of all, I haven't the slightest desire to own an SUV. Even a hybrid one.

But even if I wanted the SUV, I would not have it today if I had never started smoking. Do you see non-smokers driving around in brand new cars all the time? Of course not. Why? Because non-smokers do not put the five dollars that they would have spent on cigarettes away in some special bank account every day. They just don't do that. That five dollars gets spent on something else. What? I can't say. It's in our nature to spend money. We do it compulsively and without joy.

Perhaps this is just the American Way. Most Americans don't save money at all. They almost always buy on credit and pay back later. This being the reason we're in the financial crisis we appear to be in. Perhaps the argument on the sign would hold true in Singapore. Or perhaps Germany. It seems to me that those are countries where they save money and don't buy on credit.

Now, if I had good credit--which I don't--I could go out and buy that SUV today and drive around in it, and smoke in it all I want and I would flip the bird at the smug asshole that parked his SUV on the lawn today to tell me I'll save money by not smoking.

The bottom line? People do not save money by not smoking. Oh, sure they might have a few more material things here and there, but not really. They'd probably spend that money on equally frivolous things. Like iPods. Blackberries. Incidentally, I own an iPod. And I'm a smoker.

What the sign might as well say is, "If you had quit smoking ten years ago, you would have saved enough money to buy yourself a ten-year supply of cigarettes."

At least that would make me laugh.

A Sad Despot

Imagine for a moment that you are the most hated man in America. The people that still like you are degenerate southerners who are too wrapped up in God and homeschooling their children (to make sure they aren't exposed to evolution and secularism) and so-called "freedom" to give two shits about the mayhem that you have wrought.

Imagine for a moment that in just a few months it will all be over and you can retire with your wife to your estate in Texas and relax for a change. No more CIA reports. No more people constantly asking for your opinion. No more being the decider. No more having to think about it.

Imagine knowing, deep down inside, that it was you who cost your party the election, and not, as some might have it, the Beauty Queen.

Do you think that you'd be relieved right now? Do you think that after 8 years of slogging through hell with people constantly calling you names, questioning your intelligence, loyalty, qualification, grooming habits, that eventually it wouldn't get to you?

Maybe he was able to let things like that wash off him like a duck in a downpour, but I have my doubts. Everyone has doubts. Everyone doubts himself or herself every day. And if you were so arrogant to think that you truly deserved to be president, if you were so thoroughly deranged as to truly believe that God put you in the position that you were in--and not the American electorate, or, as the case may be, the Supreme Court--then you'd almost have to be labeled a megalomaniac and a crazy person. It is only with the utmost humility that anyone should accept the office of President of the United States because nobody is actually qualified for a job like that.

Personally, I think he put up a good front, but you can see how its worn at him. He's gotten old. He's sixty-two. He looks a lot older. In a strange way, it's kind of hard to hate him, for me. I mean, he's such a clown! You can't hate a man who got in over his head. You can be horrified that a monkey has that kind of power, but you can't hate the monkey. And if you do, then maybe you need to think of the mistakes that you might have made. He was--still is--a terrible president, but at the most you can just dislike his politics and bad decision making. Anything else would be irrational.

Things are supposedly going to change now. "Yes we can!" is a rallying cry for millions of Americans, but if you think for one second that, even if the new guy plays everything perfectly, it's not going to hurt, then you're out of your mind. He's going to ask us to tighten our belts. He's going to ask us to make sacrifices. The old guy never did that and The People re-elected him for it. He told us to just keep on as if nothing ever happened, even though he reminded us every five minutes. And The People didn't really get it until a couple years ago.

"Ask not...etc."

If shit gets tough, are you going to be responsible for voting him out for the beauty queen in 2012? If the new guy means you won't be able to buy the plumbing company you work for, are you going to feel slighted? If you are asked by the President of the United States of America not to buy that new TV or SUV, are you going to listen? Maybe it depends on how he phrases it.

He hinted at some of this in his acceptance speech. But they were just hints.

It's going to be a very interesting four years.

My Former Governor Can Beat You Up

I live in Minnesota, as you might be able to surmise from my profile. The above portrait is the official portrait of Former Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Every governor of Minnesota (with the exception of the current incumbent--maybe they just haven't gotten around to putting Pawlenty's retarded mug on a canvas yet--maybe he's too busy being an asshole to sit in front of an artist for a few hours--back in 2005, he vetoed a bill that would have established a poet laureate position for Minnesota) has one of these. At the end of the post is the official portrait of Fmr Governor Arne Carlson for comparison.

There are many things that are remarkable about the above painting (especially when juxtaposed with the banality of ol' Arne). But let me point out a few. Firstly, look at how he's dressed. The tie with the stars and stripes. The pins might mean something, but I'm not sure what. He's holding a cigar.

He's not looking at the viewer. His eyes are fixed on some point ahead. Some point above. He's looking maybe to the future. His expression is stern, composed, thoughtful.

But let's look closer. His right hand rests on the shoulder of Le Penseur, The Thinker. This calls up memories of his adopted moniker, "The Mind." But since The Thinker sits behind, there is a suggestion that he is pushing it back. That he stands ahead of, and perhaps is superior to, mere thought. He's done thinking. He's a man of action.

Look at the horrifying landscape that spreads out behind him. The roiling clouds. The capitol building overgrown in the forest. Is that an aqueduct? What can it all mean?

It is my contention that this painting is proof positive that Jesse Ventura was, not only a theatrical sort, but also a highly insightful person. And he had balls. Arne? Look at this pandering laugh factory. He looks like he's trying to actually "be" Minnesota. Jesse is trying to be something more.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything. All I can say is, though Ventura did some incredibly unproductive things with his all-too brief tenure as my governor, he did some very good things as well, and goddammit, he did it with some fucking style.

I just wish politics was fun again...

Brake Lines Fail

I'm going to be serious for five minutes. I have a story to tell you.

I'm currently looking for a job. My situation is so desperate, that I absolutely needed to go out and turn in some job apps today. I'm trying to get in shape, so I took my bike. Okay, I probably would have used my car today, since it's raining, but my car is obstinately trying to scare me into letting it retire. A wish, I'm this close to granting.

I ran around, did all my errands, bought some new ear buds at K-Mart, and then was on my way home in all this rain, out of breath from fighting a fairly brisk head-wind.

I was passing a car dealership when I saw an SUV (don't ask me what make and model, I honestly don't care) pulling up to the main drag and getting ready to enter traffic.

Here is roughly the logic that went through my head. Bear in mind that the decision was made in less than a second: SUV coming up. Driver probably sees me. It's raining so it'll let me continue on before it merges. It can't merge anyway because there's a lot of traffic. I'll keep going.

I made one crucial tactical error. I forgot that people in SUVs (and probably cars in general) don't see bikes. They have a mental block about them because bikes make them feel bad--rampant speculation...my apologies.

Regardless of why the driver didn't see me, the fact remains that I was utterly invisible. It became more and more obvious that the SUV was not going to stop and by the time I was directly in front of it, the bumper had made contact with my lower leg and the hood had made contact with my shoulder.

Somehow, I ended up on my feet in the middle the road with my bike at my feet. My first move was a quick assessment of injuries: slight soreness. Maybe an abrasion. I can walk. I can probably ride. Next move: grab bike and get on the sidewalk.

I looked at the bumper. Utterly undamaged. My bike was fine as well.

My new earbuds were in and I was listening to The Pillows. So as the lady in the SUV was rolling down her window, I couldn't hear a word she was saying. I just said, "I'm cool. I'm fine. It's cool." I kept repeating words like that while I ran back out into the street to get the saddle bag that had come off my bike's rack.

As I was reattaching said saddle bag, I looked back at her. I studied her for a split second. Pretty gal. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Perm. Dwarfed by her obviously brand new SUV. I like to think that this was the first time she'd ever driven it--she was, after all, driving it out of the parking lot of a car dealership.

She said something. I didn't hear it over my music and the rain hitting the hood of my windbreaker. I thought for a second and decided it was okay to poke a little fun. I said, "No, it's fine. It's not a big deal. I was just hit by an SUV, that's all."

She made a girl pout. One of those carefully calculated facial gestures that are designed to make you feel bad for them. I was just about ready to take off again, and I turned back to her and said, "By the way, you should probably get a more fuel-efficient vehicle."

And then I jumped on my pedals and didn't look back.

I don't know her side of the story. All I can do is speculate.

Like I said, if this was her first time driving the SUV, that could have some serious ramifications for her future driving habits. What was a woman like this purchasing one for anyway? Doesn't she know about peak oil? Maybe it doesn't matter.

I hope, in my heart of hearts, that she was offended by what I said. Hitting a human with a car is one of the most stressful things a person can go through. And then to have that human, sodden, riding a bike, out of breath, possibly seriously injured, lambaste you for owning an SUV. That's gotta be something.

Maybe I did sustain injuries and tomorrow I will feel them. But for now I feel fine. But she doesn't know that. She'll always wonder if I was seriously hurt. She'll feel guilty. Maybe she'll change her ways.

I hope not. I hope she gets pissed off at me and decides to waste even more oil. "How dare he make me feel bad about my spending habits?" Something like that. It would be way more poetic. I giver her my personal permission to keep on polluting as my way of apologizing for making her feel bad about herself.

Part of me really wants to know her side of the story. If only for completeness sake. But for my purposes, this will have to be enough. Good luck, lady. I hope you survive the apocalypse.

The Main Event

I'm not exactly sure what the criteria are that define a city. The place I live is apparently a city. It has a population within "city" limits of about 12,000 frustrated souls.

Today, I accidentally attended a back-patting party for all the big wigs of town. There were free hot dogs and Dilly Bars ™. The president of the university, the mayor, and our local representative for the state council, along with their respective spouses and supporters. All told, there were about fifty people stuffing their faces with meat and milk byproducts. It was a glorious affair.

What were they patting themselves on the back about? This. My "city" is planning on building an event center at incredible expense.

I think it's a great idea.

Why? Because what better time is there to build an event center? Think of it. We're spending millions of dollars during a slumping economy, as gas prices, material costs, and unemployment all skyrocket--I myself am currently unemployed...and apparently unemployable. I think it's great that the city is so willing to throw money into a bonfire for democracy.

What is the center good for? Well, we get to keep our Division 1 hockey team at the University. Huzzah! A dozen semi-retarded, toothless jocks get to keep wasting valuable resources for a sport. I'm for that. For obvious reasons.

The place is also supposed to be a sort of venue for all sorts of other stuff...conventions and the like. Yeah, of course. Ducks Unlimited is going to go apeshit over this. Concerts maybe, too. Only it's not going to happen. They've managed to convince people that this is a good idea because it will bring revenue to the city. This coming from the same people who thought that Wal-Mart would revitalize the downtown area. I am so in awe of the brilliant tactics that our city's officials have used in order to bleed us dry and send us to bankrupt land.

The beautiful part of it all is, the university gets to keep its hockey team and they get to play at the event center, and they are stuck with none of the responsibility for paying for the damned thing when the whole plan falls apart. It's pure genius.

It's going to cost way more than projected (because material costs are not fixed and are only going to go up as gas prices do) and it's going to make way less than projected. It's interesting that this thing is supposed to attract people to come to the city for various events. But as gas prices continue to rise (and they will continue to rise), people will be less and less inclined to come to this facility for anything but the most important events. Maybe a championship game...but that's about it.

The rhetoric about it is really super, too. It's about our "heritage" and "future" and such nonsense. Their whole campaign is not about logic at all, but at getting people to think that we deserve an event center, and therefore ought to build one.

I wonder if they'll follow my advice and paint a huge mural on the roof of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Bird. A big fuck you, visible on Google Earth.

Remembering Dolores Haze...Or not.

The image is of Peter Sellers from the 1962 Kubrick film, Lolita. I show you the magnificent Sellers merely as a visual aide that has only a passing relevance to the discussion that that is about to commence.

It seems like far too often that I write about some article that I found on Reuters. However, their "Oddly Enough" section seems to find some real winner stories. I found this shocking story the other day.

My first instinct was to laugh. Indeed, I did. But then I got to thinking. How is it that people don't know about things like Lolita? The book or the movie? How did not one person at the furniture manufacturer, or the outlet remain ignorant throughout their entire adult life of the story of Humbert Humbert and his paramour?

It's one of the single most controversial books of all time!

Culture being what it is is a pretty localized thing. I mean, people can go through their lives, here and there, and never touch anything but certain isolated bubbles of culture. These guys had to look it up on Wikipedia!

I guess it makes sense in a certain light. I have students who are completely ignorant of the existence of Oscar Wilde, his exploits, and even his most famous plays. Perhaps I'm the one who's culturally aberrant. Most of the people with whom I associate are more than usually well-educated, either college or self-taught. It didn't occur to me what a small collective of people are actually educated. If something like Lolita can slip through the cracks for so many people, then it must be the case that they haven't heard of a very good deal of other literature. And I suppose the Kubrick film is old enough that they may not have seen it. However, how could they have never heard of Kubrick? I mean, Eyes Wide Shut isn't that old, and that was pretty controversial.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it boggles my mind, and yet perhaps the reason that my confusion--indeed, my incredulity--is so extreme, is that I've realized that I am so shocked. I should know by now that most people don't enjoy art for art's sake. People don't openly seek literature. People watch movies because they're easy, not because they're hard. And Lolita is not an easy film.

There's really nothing that we can do about this, certainly. Perhaps there isn't anything that we ought to do, even. At any rate, the will of the people have spoken. As far as most people are concerned, Nabokov might as well never have existed. I for one, am glad he did.

Where did all the Whoppers go?

Dear friends and readers, I just had a disturbing realization. The Burger King corporation has brought some very frightening information to light. As it turns out, if the Whopper were ever to be removed from the Burger King menu, it would cause such a disturbance, that the backlash would very likely tear America apart.

The Whopper Freakout, in much the same way that the Emergency Broadcast System protects us from natural disasters and nuclear bombs, has alerted us to the very real threat of running out of Whoppers.

Someone needs to do something as soon as possible to prevent a real shortage of Whoppers. I think the government needs to step in and do something. Emergency Whopper Legislation (EWL) is quickly becoming necessary. If something isn't done soon, Burger King, being the anarchic America-haters they are, might do something drastic.

I don't know if you saw it in the subtext of the add, but the Whopper Freakout is a threat. They're using the American dependence on the Whopper as leverage in some sort of bid for power, maybe in an attempt to topple the Big Mac from its reign as most popular burger ever.

So you, sitting in your desk chair, reading this post, need to go to Wikipedia, look up the ingredients for a Whopper. That done, you can make these sandwiches at home and release America from Burger King's stranglehold on our stomachs.

Let's see...um...meat, a bun, lettuce, tomato, mayo, ketchup, pickles...onion...what the fuck? This is just a fucking hamburger! There's nothing special about this damned thing at all! Fuck this! This won't stand!

Make your own damned hamburgers America!

And that done, once we all learn how to cook a fucking hamburger again, we need to carefully lobby the United States Government to take the Whopper trademark away from BK Corporation and release the patent to ALL fastfood restaurants, so that any earth-shattering Whopper shortages will never happen again.

Oh god...I can't even do this anymore. This is stupid. The Whopper Freakout is the most fucking retarded ad campaign since the Order of the Serpentine. Grow the fuck up America.

Weekend at Bernies sucked

I didn't have an appropriate image for this post, so I just decided to go with Conan. He's a good fall-back plan if there's nothing better to use.

That said, I want to talk about this. I've always thought that the film Weekend at Bernie's was a fucking terrible movie. That is, however, until I realized, that there actually are people in this world stupid enough to try and pass a corpse off as a living person.

I was trying to think of what sort of a situation I would need to be in to pull a stunt like this. It would probably have to be more than a $355 check. Maybe $10,000? A cool million, certainly. Are criminal charges worth it? Okay, so these two yokels tried to commit fraud, but hey, the guy was dead. Who's the victim? The government? Nobody cares about the government except the government.

Okay, I just re-read the article, and I realized that I might have misinterpreted the text. I have this image now in my brain of these two oldsters pushing their dead friend around in an office chair with wheels. Something gaudy and covered in leather. At first I assumed that they would use a wheelchair. I mean, that's just obvious.

I mean...I would use a wheelchair. But that's just me.

Looking at it from these guys perspective, I guess I can't really hold it against them. They probably needed the money, or they wouldn't have pulled this stunt for such a small amount of money. People can be pushed to resort to pretty extreme measures when the need is there.

Another question: Why did these two guys even have the corpse? Were they roomies? Had the death not even been reported? Wouldn't the old folks' home keep tabs on that shit?

I guess there's not enough info in the Reuter's story to really put together what actually happened, but there's more than enough information to make up your own stories about what actually happened.

I'm open to interpretations. An award goes to the person who comes up with the best interpretation. Leave all suggestions in the comments section.

Bushisms

People have made fun of Bush for nearly a decade for his inarticulate speech and lack of diction. I'm sure somebody has addressed the issue of why he is the way he is, but I haven't seen it.

18th century rhetorical theorist Hugh Blair says, "Speech is the great instrument by which man becomes beneficial to man: and it is to this intercourse and transmission of thought, by means of speech, that we are chiefly indebted for the improvement of thought itself."

He's saying that speech and the ability to use it to take a thought from my head and put it in your head is responsible for nearly all advances in everything from culture, to science, to technology. But more fundamentally, the ability of reason itself stems from our ability to transmit thoughts and ideas, not just to each other, our contemporaries, but to people who will come later.

It is the fact that we have all of this combined knowledge from all of those people who lived before us that we are able to do all of the things that we are able to do today. Communication is the key, in other words, to everything.

So, where do bad communicators come from? How come there are so many today? I'm talking about boring, uninspiring speakers who don't give people anything useful. Bush, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, uh...Paul, etc etc. They are terrible speakers who give their hearers nothing but canned stump speeches that have been tested before focus groups, and pushed forcefully through speech writing mills, basically, in an effort to--in their mind--distill the essence of whatever truth it is that they are trying to transmit.

Whether you believe that Bush is deliberately trying to pull the wool over the eyes of America is beside the point here. Whether Bush is deliberately playing dumb to appeal to dumb people, is not on the chopping block for this particular tirade. What's really important is the fact that Bush is boring. The only emotions he can inspire in the people of America are fear and anger. And he's losing the knack for the former.

But why?

A poll during one of the past elections (I can't remember which one, nor do I care) revealed that Bush Jr. was the candidate that the electorate would most like to sit down and have a beer with. The Onion parodied this very nicely back in 2005. The article smacks of truth. The perception that Bush is "just like me," is what got the fucker elected in the first place. Right?

Now, why in all of the universe, would you want a president who was just like you? Think about it. Look at yourself. You're flawed. You've got problems. You make mistakes. You're not as smart, attractive, ambitious, talented, friendly, or decent as you wish you were. You're not as good a Christian as you think you should be. You're not as hard a worker as the guy in the next cubicle. Bush is not those things too! In fact, in all reality, you are probably smarter, more attractive, more talented, much more friendly...though probably not more ambitious, than our current commander in chief.

So why is this? Why elect this guy?

I think I have a theory, and it's about who the president is trying to appeal to. It's not the whole story, but it's part of it. The reason the founders of this country were so eloquent has everything to do with the fact that they were a) all educated and b) only hung out with a bunch of other people who were very educated. They didn't hang out with people who were "just like me." They never had to deal with people like us. They never had to appeal to us. Just the opposite, in fact. They constantly had to make sure that their proverbial asses were covered--logically speaking. These people would tear you a new one if you weren't completely sure of what you were talking about. These people were all well versed in the art of rhetoric. They knew how to persuade intelligent people. If you can persuade a smart person, then the rest of the country, the cattle, are easy.

Today, partly because nobody has an attention span long enough to listen to an entire speech--and for this reason, I'm reasonably certain that no one will read this entire post--and partly because these candidates have to appeal to the masses, the stupid, moronic, uneducated masses, there is a unilateral lowering of the bar to meet that standard.

If you use a word like "defenestrate," as in "I would like to defenestrate the president," nobody will know what you're talking about. But if you say, "I would like to throw the president out of a window," then people will understand you. The diction is lower, even if the meaning is the same.

People are stupid, and our politicians are getting stupider to reflect that fact. And it's all your fault. Shame on you.

Venn Diagram

I never wanted it to go this far. I missed Countdown last Friday. But I found this. Now, maybe it's time to get angry, take up the political pen. It's downright frightening what this man is capable of. O'Relly, I mean.

One of my favorite articles by the infamous Maddox was this one. The title of the article says it all. Now, I don't think that Maddox is particularly great. I think his work is a little mis-directed, petty, and, while it all has excellent grammar, it isn't particularly insightful. He doesn't use his power for good, is what I'm saying. He's also devastatingly misogynistic. But to make the claim that Bill O'Reilly is a "big blubbering vagina," and have nearly two million people read it, is impressive to say the least.

The problem is that I think Maddox might actually be wrong. Papa Bear is not just a big blubbering vagina, he's a fucking monster. He calls J.K. Rowling a provocateur. Isn't this a case of the proverbial pot calling the proverbial kettle.... a provocateur?

Rowling, in the course of answering a casual question with a casual answer, "I always thought of Dumbledore as gay," has suddenly created a scandal. Now, in England, this is no big deal. No one probably cared. If they did, they'd be laughed at.

The bottom line is, Bill O'Reilly actually thinks--insofar as he thinks at all--that being tolerant of homosexuality is undesirable in America. Yeah. Seriously. He thinks that.

Dear readers, and friends, and anyone out there in cyberspace who enjoys a good laugh, some gentle satire, or, heaven forbid, the occasional act of sodomy, we need to do something about this. Now, the news directors at Fox News have distanced themselves from Bill O'Reilly, but he still has the ears of millions of Americans. When you have someone out there, who doesn't want to play nice, someone who is just downright mean, that person needs to be dealt with.

A boycott won't work--because anyone who would boycott that bastard already is. Murder is unethical--I repeat, don't kill him, we need him so we can study him. But there's gotta be something we can do.

Leave all suggestions in the comments section. I'm serious. He must be stopped.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Vindicated

The image, stolen from Wikipedia is of one Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. He was a naturalist in the 19th century and was one of the earliest proponents of evolution. The difference between his theory and Darwin's was the idea of when changes or adaptations occurred. Lamarck believed that changes occurring during the life time of a given animal would be passed on to it's young. So basically, if you're a giraffe, and you're constantly stretching your neck to get at higher leaves, then your children will have longer necks because your neck got infinitesimally longer throughout your life.

It turns out that Lamarck wasn't totally wrong. He was just not right in the way he thought.

Nova is the single best science show in the history of mankind. I got into an argument with a friend the other day about the idea of epigenetics. He had never heard of it, though I had just watched Nova's new documentary, Ghost in Your Genes.

Here's the deal. DNA is the blueprint for an organism. That much is certain. But there has to be a mechanism built into our cells that interprets that DNA and decides which bits of it to use. This mechanism is what's responsible for things like cell differentiation. It's why eye cells are different from heart cells are different from liver cells. Different bits of the DNA are turned on in each different type of tissue in your body. Basically, if the DNA--the genome--is the blueprint, then methylation and chromatin remodelling--the epigenome (literally "above the genome")--is the architect that interprets it.

Okay, but the crazy thing is that, as it turns out, some of these epigenetic features--sometimes those acquired during your lifetime--appear to be transgenerational. That is: they are passed down from one generation to the next. Your bad eating habits, in other words, could affect whether your grandchild gets diabetes.

Yeah. Fucked up.

DNA is largely static. It doesn't change much. It is very, very good at duplicating itself with near impossible accuracy. But it appears that natural selection has a place for nurture. It's like a quicker version of evolution. It's evolution on the fly that happens in the short term (short meaning hundreds of years rather than thousands or millions). It won't make new species, but it will change the way species are affected by their environment.

There's a lot of really interesting research into this stuff, and you'd be hard pressed to find a more frantically researched aspect of genetics in this day and age. I mean, a few years ago, when they were scrambling to finish up the Human Genome Project, they thought that they were inches from the key to understanding everything. They were wrong, of course.

It seems like the deeper you burrow down the rabbit hole, the deeper it appears to be.

About the Election Bug

This is not a political blog.

I repeat: this is not a political blog.

That said, I'm planning on voting for Dennis Kucinich in the primaries. The reasons are varied, but most of them involve Obama being a pussy, Clinton being a...wussy, and everyone else being a cock biter.

Kucinich is not only the only candidate in the entire election who doesn't appear to base his stances on focus groups, but instead has the policy and voting record of..well...a person who isn't a fascist. He didn't vote for the Patriot Act. He wants to pull out of Iraq. That sort of thing. I don't like his stance on guns, but then, nobody's perfect.

But mostly, I want to vote for him, because he looks so damned much like a Vulcan.

Edit: I just googled "Kucinich is a Vulcan." Apparently, I'm not the first to make this observation. My favorite thing that I read was, "I just don't think America is ready for a Vulcan president."

Classic.

I'll have some humiliation with that.

The legal ramifications of using a Trademarked logo in an amateur blog notwithstanding, I want to talk today about McDonald's. Well, McDonald's and sex.

I don't know if you've heard about this, but it's a real doozy. The fact that the event--or events--has a Wikipedia page is telling. I mean, this is not small news.

And there are two very interesting things about the whole event. First of all, it is a smashing real-life reproduction of the Milgram Experiment. Basically, these store manager's have been duped into believing that whoever was on the other end of the line was an authority figure. I'm reiterating a lot of what was in the Wikipedia article, I know, but it's amzing that these morons let it go this far. Again, "Foot-in-the-door" effect notwithstanding, this is absurd! Not once, did the manager think anything that the caller requested was completely out of the realm of possibility for police procedure. Right down to forcing the poor girl to perform oral sex.

There are several layers of percieved authority here. First, there's the manager who doesn't question the guy on the phone--I wonder if it was on speaker phone--and then there was the girl who didn't question her manager, the guy who was fucking her face.

This is one of the hugest problems with modern society's obsessive need to be controlled. I don't know if I should be pissed off at the manager or the instigator for doing the things that they did, or the girl and the manager for allowing them to fucking do it. It's absurd.

It's a problem with perceived authority, and it's a problem with people who abuse that authority. It's the reason that most people should be mistrustful of cops or anyone who claims authority.

I have to hand it to the caller that he thought it through to the point where fast food restaurants would be his primary targets. Their rigid policy codes and whatnot makes it really hard for these lackeys--termed "managers"--to deal with anything out of the norm. They are easier to manipulate, not harder.

The other thing that I found remarkable about the whole story is how they caught the fucker. First, an employee dials *69, they find the pay phone that the guy used. The find the serial number of the calling card used. Traced the calling card to the store where it was sold--a Wal-Mart, no less--and then used the video surveillance tapes to find the sonofabitch himself.

How's that for Big Brother, huh? We don't need cameras in our houses, like Orwell thought. We just need them everywhere else.

On the plus side, the girl who was assaulted was awarded 6.1 million dollars for her trouble. Which just goes to prove, that you can still get rich while having your rights trampled and your self-respect shattered.

Superficial Sacrifice

As you may well know, technology is the illegitimate love child of science and human caprice. We live in an age when technology reigns supreme. Everything we do is steeped in technology in some way or another. We can't even wake up in the morning without some form of high tech gadgetry announcing it. I use my goddamned cellphone as an alarm clock for chrissake.

It always gives me a small sense of satisfaction when something like this pops up in the ether.

This is how truly enlightened people solve their problems. Animal sacrifice. Yes, it's making a comeback. Ever had computer problems? Of course you have. Solve it by slitting a chicken's throat and letting the blood run over your motherboard. That'll solve all of your problems. Once and for all.

Is animal sacrifice even legal in the US? I'm not sure, and I'm not going to bother finding out, because this is way too tantalizing a practice not to embrace. Why take your TV set to a repair shop, when you can cut out the science and go straight for the caprice? It worked for the ancients, why not us?

It's not about being irrational here, folks. It's about saying "Fuck You!" to the established rules of measure. It's about throwing the industrial revolution out the window and saying, I'm going to do this the old fashioned way. I am going to embrace my animalistic, violent tendencies.

Bear in mind, people, that the airline in question is state-run by the Nepalese government. There are engineers and mechanics and crazy Hindu priests all trying to get to the bottom of this 757's failure. All on the tab of the Nepalese taxpayer.

It's like Henry VIII saying, "Fuck you, Pope. I'm starting my own religion. And people will still believe it like four hundred years later." They are literally making shit up to solve a mechanical--easily rationalized and deducted--problem.

Way to go, Nepal. Way to stick it to science. Way to stick it to rationality. It's a bunch of garbage anyway.

Right?

Growing Pains

Here it is, dear friends and readers. Proof that there is a God. We can rest easy, we can sit back, crack a beer, and look down our noses at everyone who's going to hell, so long as we believe. Just click here.

Here's another chance, in case you didn't click the link. It's really worth it.

Wow. Amazing. You know what's more impressive than Ray's argument? Kirk Cameron, sitting there, staring up at him in wide-eyed admiration.

You know who buys this argument? Kirk Motherfucking Cameron. That's who. Booyaa, bitches.

Kirk's actually been doing this for years, but only now have I taken the time to research his involvement in the big ad campaign in the sky. Kirk and Ray have a website. It's really awesome. That's right, wayofthemaster.com. First, I'd like to point out that it's not a ".org" website. This is a for profit venture, apparently. Now that's all well and good. I'm all about people making money off of other people's insecurities, but these guys are pros! Use a washed up teen idol to sell God! Brilliant!

The website itself is awesome. There's all sorts of good entertainment to be had, and I'm sure you'll all be converted and realize what horrible sinners you've all been and find Jesus, but I want to talk a little bit about the youtube video first.

First of all, let's look at the atheist's worst nightmare: The banana. Yup. You can say it. Holy shit. Yeah, who knew that atheists routinely have horrifying dreams about bananas sending them to hell?

But what's Ray actually saying in the above video clip? He's saying that the banana is an ideal food source almost like it was perfectly designed so we humans could eat it with minimal fuss. It's evidence, he says, of intelligent design. Well, actually Ray is saying it's proof. A crucial distinction. Are we talking about a preponderance of evidence to prove the existence of God? Or are we talking about clinching proof? I'll let you decide that one.

Also, I don't know if you know this, but there's a name for this argument, this intelligent design argument. It's called the Teleological Argument. And it's not new. Kirk is really good at making it seem like this is this new revolutionary idea. But, the first person we know about who put forth a teleological argument was Plato. Who's that you say? Look it up. Yeah, it's that old.

Also, it's pretty convincing. First of all, it can't be disproven easily because it's inductive rather than deductive. Also, it's being pushed by Kirk Cameron, who is so damned earnest.

Here's something else that's cool on wayofthemaster.com. It's a letter from an atheist. Fine, whatever. But I found it under the "Free Tools" tab on the site. But what does this page on the site do? It peddles a book of correspondence between Ray and said atheist. That's fucking amazing!

"Hi kids, I'm Kirk Cameron. I am going to give you something. A tantalizing taste of a battle between the intellectual giants that are Ray Comfort and James The Atheist. But I'm not going to just give you the whole thing. You've gotta pay me money for the whole shebang."

I'm not trying to ridicule Kirk Cameron folks. Far from it. I am lauding the guy as a goddamned genius. Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort--Comfort!--are following in the footsteps of all the great Jesus pushers. They have found a way to get rich off a guy who just wanted people to be nice to each other. Think of Cardinals, Popes, Crusaders, Priests, Televangelists, Ted Haggard, and Fred Phelps. These people are such good Christians that they have found a way to make money off it without besmirching the good name of Jesus Christ. And not only that, they have also managed to lead smashing careers as pederasts, idolaters, homosexuals, and bigots.

It's a sweet deal for those that can swing it, let me tell you. God bless them every one!