D3lta V

Space X

2011-06-24T00:21:00.000-04:00

SpaceX

SpaceX is low cost to orbit spacecraft lauching company. The company's long term goals though are to increase the reliability and lower the cost of spaceflight as much as possible. Ideally, this company wants to be the means with which humanity becomes a routinely space faring civilization, which is really awesome! Elon Musk founded SpaceX after selling Paypal, with the 165 million he got for that company and not a small amount of investment money.

SpaceX's launch vehicles:

FALCON 1

Thrust: 347 kN (78,000 lbf)

Price: $10.9M

Mass to Orbit: 1010 kg

FALCON 9

Thrust: 4.94 MN (1,110,000 lbf)

Price $54M - $59.5M

Mass to Orbit: 10,450 kg (23,050 lb)

FALCON HEAVY

Thrust: 17 MN (3,800,000 lbf)

Price $80M - $125M

Mass to LEO: 53,000 kg (117,000 lb)

The World's most powerful rocket!

Email me bro!

Quantitative Easing Explained

2010-11-21T13:51:00.000-05:00

Obama and Hu Jintao speak about...things

2010-08-05T21:07:00.001-04:00

[ open on C-SPAN card ]

Announcer: We will now take you live to Beijing for the joint press conference already under way between U.S. President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

[ dissolve to the press conference setting ]

President Barack Obama: As I already said privately, uhhh -- I would like to thank President Jintao for his kind welcome and generous hospitality, and I hope that during this visit we can have a productive dialogue about the serious issues of concern that remain between our two countries -- issues ranging from the unfair valuation of your currency to the trade imbalance, and, most importantly, human rights. Uhhh -- I believe there can be a great partnership between us, but it will require compromise and understanding.

[ in each instance, as Hu Jintao responds in Chinese, his interpreter translates into English for Obama's benefit ]

Interpreter: Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to add that I completely understand why you feel entitled to come here and lecture China on our shortcomings. After all, my country does owe the United States a great deal of money. Oh, wait! Hold on a moment! I believe I had that backwards. In fact, now that I think about it, it is your country that owes us a large sum of money. Is this correct?

President Barack Obama: Uh... yes.

Interpreter: Now, it's coming back to me. I believe it's $800 billion.

President Barack Obama: That is correct.

Interpreter: Such a large sum.

President Barack Obama: Yes, it is.

Interpreter: And, yet, you haven't even mentioned it. That's so odd.

President Barack Obama: Uhhh, look -- you're going to get your money.

Interpreter: Are we? Are we going to get our money? Because, from what I read, your country is in the middle of a serious recession.

President Barack Obama: Uh, well, while this is true, there are signs that our bailout has steadied the financial markets, and our stimulus package has been effective in fixing the job crisis.

Interpreter: I'm curious: How many jobs has it created?

President Barack Obama: Uhhhh -- so far... none.

Interpreter: I see.

President Barack Obama: But our health care reform plan -- we're confident -- is going to lead to enormous savings.

Interpreter: How exactly is extending health care coverage to 30 million people going to save you money?

President Barack Obama: I... don't know.

Interpreter: And this "Cash for Clunkers" program? I have read that you purchased many clunkers with our money.

President Barack Obama: Yes, we have.

Interpreter: What does this word "clunkers" mean?

President Barack Obama: Well, a, uh, clunker is a car --

Interpreter: I know what a "clunker" is. And, just so there is no misunderstanding, you are not allowed to pay us back in clunkers.

President Barack Obama: Of course not.

Interpreter: You know, as I listen to you, I am noticing that each of your plans to save money involves spending even more money. This does not inspire confidence.

President Barack Obama: I assure you, you're going to get your money.

Interpreter: Will you kiss me?

President Barack Obama: [ confused ] Sorry?

Interpreter: Will you kiss me?

President Barack Obama: I don't understand.

Interpreter: I like to be kissed... [ they raise their voices ] when someone is doing sex to me!!

President Barack Obama: [ stunned ] There's no need for that.

Interpreter: No? You know how many uninsured we have in China? One and a quarter billion. Billion! But I'll tell you this: We don't owe anyone $800 billion.

President Barack Obama: Well, obviously, we take our debt to you very seriously.

Interpreter: I suppose if I really wanted to get my money, I could call and say I was a Wall Street banker who needs his bonus. But, really, why should I have to stoop to that level?

President Barack Obama: You don't have to stoop to any level.

Interpreter: Please understand, if it were my $800 billion I wouldn't care. But it belongs to my country. I feel like I should bring it up.

President Barack Obama: You're going to get your money.

Interpreter: Say, while you're here, are you at least going to treat me to dinner and a movie?

President Barack Obama: I'm sorry?

Interpreter: I think it's the polite thing to do... [ they raise their voices ] before doing sex to me!

[ Hu Jintao bends over ]

President Barack Obama: Mr. President, please!

Interpreter: Very well.

President Barack Obama: I assure you, that as soon we solve this economic crisis --

Interpreter: Which one? The one that your country's reckless real estate speculation caused? That one? I just want to make sure I know which one we're talking about.

President Barack Obama: We are taking steps to make sure that what happened will never happen again.

Interpreter: What steps?

President Barack Obama: Uhhhh -- reform of banking regulations.

Interpreter: Do I look like Mrs. Obama?

President Barack Obama: What?

Interpreter: Do I look like Mrs. Obama?

President Barack Obama: Of course not.

Interpreter: Then why are you trying to... [ they raise their voices ] do sex to me like I was Mrs. Obama?

[ Hu Jintao bends over ]

President Barack Obama: Now, now!

Interpreter: Just do it! Get it over with!

President Barack Obama: Mr. President!

Interpreter: Don't be a tease!

President Barack Obama: I just --

Interpreter: I can take it!

President Barack Obama: This is not the time or place!

Interpreter: Very well. In that case, I call this press conference to a close. And, "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!"

Hello there sports fans!

2010-08-05T19:54:00.003-04:00

Check out this article:
New Mexico's Frightening Court Ruling That Demands Christian Photographers Must Shoot Gay Weddings

A business that was run by a Christian couple was fined app. $6000 and was ordered to cover a lesbian wedding. Let me state the situation in a different way, paraphrase a bit:

Business told how to operate by the government!

What style of government controls all business and owns all private business in everything but on paper?

FASCISM THAT'S WHAT!

What's that sound in the distance that sounds like singing? It almost sounds like a fat lady singing....

MULTICULTURALISM IS EVIL

2009-11-08T22:18:00.002-05:00

With the events of last week, specifically the massacre at fort hood, it has become obvious to me that thanks to people refusing to judge a religion as inherently evil, and death seeking will almost certainly lead to the end of western civilization.

Please, allow me to define that of which I speak about:

noun
the policy or practice of giving equal attention or representation to the cultural needs and contributions of all the groups in a society: special emphasis may be given to minority groups underrepresented in the past, as through bilingual education

Close to what I mean, but not quite. What I'm talking about is closer to the idea that the morality of any given culture is as valid as any other. What this means in practice, is that a suicide bomber is as moral as a sky-scraper architect. Do you not see how this is supremely evil? Anything is moral, as long as the culture it takes place in values it.

"Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001. Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year."

All the outward signs Hasan displayed over and over to his colleges, co-workers, and friends were completely ignored for the sake of "tolerance" and political correctness and believe it or not, multiculturalism.

Let me tell you, reader, this is only the beginning of the end. These sort of attacks will increase in frequency and effectiveness because western culture teaches tolerance even in the face of obvious antagonism. This has been used against us again and again because when you see strange signs like only learning to fly a plane but not land, most people refuse to morally judge anyone who is not a member of our culture.

All cultures are not equal, all cultures are not good in their own right. If you follow Islam to the letter, you will be lead to kill others, if not yourself in the process. For that matter, most religions advocate the killing of others to be moral, be they called "pagans," "infidels," or "heretics."

At the current rate of domination of western countries by Islam, I seriously doubt that western civilization will survive this millennium. The War on Terrorism will be ended in shame because no one in charge now or any time soon will do what a victory in war takes: DESTROY THE ENEMY'S WILL TO FIGHT. To win the war on terror, we must destroy the will of Muslim's to fight us by any means. Until this is accomplished, until this is even a stated goal, the United States will continue to loose soldiers pointlessly with no end in sight.

I also think that the United States will be ruled by a Fascist state within the century it seems to me.

later.

Commercial real estate crash

2009-10-11T19:27:00.001-04:00

So stores are closing locally, I guess this is the commercial property crash that I heard was coming. If a bunch of stores close, and this being a service economy, we have only yet begun to see unemployment go up. I wonder if this administration will nationalize more stuff? No crisis goes unused i suppose...

If unemployment rises after a short and slight lowering, I would buy a gun. I've recently heard a story about an attempted break in that went something like this:

A work at home gunsmith just finished cleaning and loading an AK-47 when he heard the sound of breaking glass. He looked up to see three men coming inside. The would be robbers looked up to see a man with an assault rifle in his hands aiming to shoot. They quickly bugged out while a clip was unloaded at them. They escaped seemingly unhurt if not for blood found on the broken glass. Blood from bullets or breaking a sliding glass door to get in? I'm sure a hospital in the area knows for sure.
I don't know about you, but this might be a increasing trend, and I'm considering carrying a pistol around my house perhaps.

Dumb ass wins Nobel peace prize
I had doubts about the legitimacy of the peace prize before but now I know it means completely nothing. Even if you agree with Obama, you have to admit that he has done absolutely nothing to earn it. I mentioned this at work and I was told to not say it to loudly, because there are other employees who think it's the best thing in the world. I couldn't help but express a desire to have a serious interview with such a person. How could it not be interesting??? I asked if the person I was talking to if he could direct me to such a person, but he would not believe that it would be completely serious. The world continues to turn.

Later.

Any which way but Loose

2009-09-05T12:19:00.004-04:00

The following movies are on netflix! So if you have some time and a subscription watch 'em!

I think I have found the most objectivist movie I have ever seen. This is one of the few movies that I have no objections to! The movie does not hate America, does not promote hippie/collectivist mindset. The sense of life is happy and Eastwood's character doesn't fight anyone unless it's a competition or he is defending himself. Productive men and women are even glorified for being hard working and not fearing worthless motorcycle gang thugs.

"Philo Beddoe is an easy-going trucker and a great fist-fighter. With two friends - Orville, who promotes prize-fights for him, and Clyde, the orangutan he won on a bet - he roams the San Fernando Valley in search of cold beer, country music and the occasional punch-up. But he is floored himself by a dainty little country and western singer, who gives him the slip when she realizes he's getting too serious. Phil, Clyde and Orville set off in pursuit, pestered by bikers."

- Written by David Wark {dwark@automail.com} from IMDB

Navy Seals

Navy Seals is a really cool look at what a typical week might be for a U.S. Navy Seal team. I liked it alot having been in the navy. I've heard the craziest stories about the Seals in my time in like leaving candy bar wrappers from many different countries around Yasser Arafat's home. Fun Movie!
One thing that annoys all Sailors in navy movies is characters constantly wearing the wrong uniforms at the wrong times. I didn't have any objections.

Talk to you later, readers. Enjoy these movies and enjoy your life for it's own sake!

Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?

2009-09-03T21:34:00.004-04:00

If I had a time machine what would I do with it?
I would first like to make a few Objectivist objections to this conundrum:

-time travel is likely severely impossible, despite what certain famous physicists might say. So you can't make energy for free and the entropy death of the universe is unstoppable but you can totally violate cause and effect like a cheap two dollar whore on demand? Give me a break!

-Can you legitimately ventilate someone like a microwave dinner in self defense for the deadly implications of their philosophy hundreds if not thousands of years in the future?

-Back to the Future is awesome.

I would first go back in time with a time-traveling corvette stingray and stab Kant to death with swept hilt rapier laughing the whole time that "The power of reason and of the mind recognize reality brought me here today to kill you muah hahahahahahaa" though of course, none of this is possible, because I don't own a corvette.

Then, I would push Hoover and FDR off a cliff after pointing up at the sky and saying "hey look at that!" I think there would be two quiet splort's when they hit the ground.

I would round it all off by murdering Plato with a chainsaw to the face after running him over with an Enzo Ferrari (harder than it sounds with the low ground clearance) then I'll make a memorized speech in Greek to explain why I did it, thus making all the previous murders have absolutely no purpose what-so-ever other than fun.

Then I would attempt to become my own grandfather, if possible.

Later folks, have a good three day weekend if you have it off, if not, work hard for yourself and no one else.

Edit: I would like to just say that contrary to many critic's of objectivism opinions, it is any given person's great misdeeds that they should be put to death for, not simply just having an evil philosophy. If you are a Communist or a Nazi, you should simply just be closely watched, as should anyone who desires to kill for fun (not for self defense). But if you are proven evil man by your actions such as the Nazi high command in Inglourious Basterds that is when every effort should be made to kill you dead completely unmercifully.

This here is a Gov't Road!

2009-08-12T00:49:00.000-04:00

Tell me, would you take a hot meal cold at any restaurant? Would you be ok with you, if you bought a brand new car with rust all over? If you purchased a freezer at Best Buy, would forty degrees Fahrenheit be cold enough performance? Would you ever be satisfied with electricity that only worked half the time? No? Then why in the heck does anyone accept the many short comings of the national highway system?

Have you seen these various signs of gov't run road system:
Pot holes that stay for months- or years
And when holes are patched or repaved the repair job is truly terrible
Poorly designed exits/entrances
Traffic jams that occur in the same place for decades without out anything being done
Poorly run toll booths
Low speed limits
Bearly visible lines for years before being repainted
Poorly lit
Choked with freight that should be on the rails if it also wasn't gov't run
Cops that treat tickets like a source of income for the local gov't (because it is)

I think we all know that these things would never be tolerated if you could take your business elsewhere, or if paying for this shit was voluntary. The ubiquitous traffic jams the reader sees everyday are a sign of over-reliance on gov't run and paid for national and local highway systems. What would have taken the place of such a transportation system had the gov't not interfered? I got some ideas for starters!

Someone please tell me why in the hell can I beat an AMTRAK train from Charleston to Charleston at 1/30th the cost in 1/5th the time in a car? Something is seriously wrong when a car can beat a train that has no reason to stop and no reason to go slower than 150mph all the way there! Maybe if train cargo was cheaper our roads wouldn't be choked with eighteen-wheelers! One has to wonder what other forms of transportation would have been developed had the national highway system hadn't been there to crush it? How many jobs would have been created? How many lives saved by safer roads? What kind of cars would we be driving had so many CAFE standards not been enacted?

Although rarely recognized, the government highway system is a robbery perpetrated on the American people 40,000 lives and billions of dollars wasted every year. How many more years should such a simple job be done so poorly on our dime?

Prelude to Civil War

2009-08-08T14:40:00.003-04:00

Greetings komrades! First I would like to mention that if you are looking for a good copy of the Obama/joker poster, I have it saved on my computer and I will put it at the end of my post.

This week we have witnessed the anger of common citizens over the health care bill and it's blatant violation of our rights. Representatives and Senators have suddenly stopped answering questions or even having a town meeting at all! There are cases of town halls' audience's being stacked in favor of health care before anyone else can enter. One would question the point of even bothering to have a town hall meeting of people that agree with you, but that is apparently the state of politics today.

What's especially strange about this all is the looter's insistence that all the protests are fake. Why would it even matter if all the protests are "AstroTurf?" Is it no longer permissible to protest in this country? Is assembling in large numbers over some issue wrong now? This is very close to an attempt to shut down free speech. I would say this is normal and expected, but this is not an election year. This is very, very, scary.

I have some reasons why I think that this could be politically, a powder keg situation.

Both sides believe in using force to achieve their goals, one, in using it to make everyone believe in knowledge without perception, the other to make us all "equal" and by that I mean punish all achievers of any worth what-so-ever. The worst part is that both sides see themselves as righteous in their violation individual rights and the opposition as evil. As often happens in history, both are evil, and neither have any idea as to what is right and moral might even actually be.

What I see as a possibility of happening is some kind of violence at the hands of either some union goon or some armed security officer "guarding" a congressman. All that is needed for national strife is a spark of violence involving death or maiming. All that has to happen is the government to be seen oppressing the people with violence for speaking out.

Get ready, buy some bullets for self-defense (and a gun for that matter), because it all seems to already be starting!

Obama The Great Spender

2009-07-21T21:28:00.004-04:00

So Obama's federal budget has exceeded more than 100% of federal tax income (a budget shortfall or deficit). What this means is, instead of spending away countless fortunes, the entire goddamn country could have had a 100% tax free year-long holiday, and, budget wise, we would still be in exactly the same situation. YAY for government boondoggles!

Brought to you by the United States Congress: Spending other people's money for personal advancement since the 18th century!

Chart Time!

The 2010 Budget proposed by President Barack Obama projects significant debt increases. The debt is projected to nearly double to $20 trillion by 2015, but is expected to increase to nearly 100% of GDP by 2010 and remain at that level thereafter. These estimates assume real GDP growth (after inflation) ranging from 2.6% to 4.6% annually from 2010 through 2019, which exceeds Blue Chip consensus estimates. Approximately 70% of federal spending is in four categories: Defense, Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt. As of June 2009, Obama's policies enacted into law were only a minor influence on debt and deficit projections. However, Obama himself has been criticized for not having a realistic plan for addressing the increasing debt.

-Wikipedia

Hey guys and gals whats up!

2009-07-21T20:44:00.002-04:00

It has been TOO long since I last posted huh? OK, well lately I've been thing about how to decorate my house that I'm closing on at the end of the month. I have been assembling a list of crap to buy:
1. Roomba- surprisingly, the cheapest original model is only $120. It may not be a very good vacuum, but it is a robot slave! It will work tirelessly until its battery dies!

2. A good surround sound system to match my projector. Unfortunately, most of the package deals at best buy include a dvd player, which I DO NOT need when I have my xbox 360. It looks like I'll buy a receiver and some very good but cheap Polk speakers for $99 a pair.

3.I am totally going to decorate my study room like Masterpiece Theater/The Matrix. I'm going to get the following: Bookcases, Swords to put the wall(two twin matching swept hilt rapiers, and the sword from Gladiator) a floor-globe (google it) that opens up as a liqueur cabinet, a Leather wing-back chair from the "red pill or the blue pill" scene in The Matrix, and I don't know what else.

4. Something called "Roman" blinds. They are kind of a cross between curtains and blinds. Don't look at me like that! They are difficult to describe. Google it?

5.Other assorted furniture to fill additional space

Questions? Comments?

I'm so sorry...

2009-05-15T19:46:00.001-04:00

I am addicted to this video. SLAP CHOP REMIX ACTIVATE!

Obama the tax cutter!

2009-04-20T19:11:00.002-04:00

Obama saved $100,000,000 today, did you hear?

That is, he lowered the budget deficit by .000025%! All Obama needs to do is find 40,000 other ways to do this and the budget will be balanced!

Tea Party

2009-04-15T22:19:00.006-04:00

Hi reader!
Today I went to a Tea Party protest in Charleston, SC.
BTW: click on images to see them full size.
With this hat (image is flipped so you, the reader can read it easily)

and this license plate I was ready to go!

As I walked from the parking garage, I wondered how many people would be there. A lot? few? I was about to find out. To avoid parking problems, I was about 30 minutes early. This is what greeted me.

The whole scene:

The Fuzz was on hand in case we got violent. Can't really imagine this, half the people there were over 60 at least.

Three tv stations seemed to also be present.

Maybe some achivers were there also?

Burn! Burn man, thats a burn.

Don't know about this, really, I will have to see if this "movement" lasts more than this week alone.

Defiantly! Perhaps this person senses that both parties are fundamentally flawed?

I'm glad someone besides me recognizes this.

I think this would be great in the newspaper's crossword puzzle! lol.

The hopelessly unhelpful christian right was there, plugging god and country together as one. Its pictures like this that start to convince me that Dr.Piekoff might be right after all.

Hey look! There's at least two of us! Maybe I'll use my whole hand counting us some day!

Holy Zombie jesus I hope not!

One of a bunch of apparently Union guys picketing back and forth, supporting the Free Choice Act. The were booed and I heard three chants:
"Go to France!" "Unions suck!" and many people yelled separately "You are in the wrong place!"

These guys right here were seriously not liked at all, which is a good sign.

An observation about the quality of character of the average Washington D.C. politician. A rare "Who is John Galt?"

Yeah.....I really don't think that would go well....Tribalism is making a comeback from the middle ages where humanity left it.

Guy from the radio, 94.3 FM talking about the founding fathers.

Another view from high above!

Eventually the streets around the customs house had to be closed, due to the crowd.

After all was said and done, about four people told me I had a nice hat, and one wanted to know where I got it, a good sign for this nation, although greater than .1% would have been nicer I suppose. Will this country-wide rally matter? I guess we will all find out won't we? Unfortunately the USA has about a five minute attention span and the "Hate AIG propaganda blitz" seemed to have been successful so I think the administration expects to be able to control public opinion from now on. Japan is still looking rather cool if things don't work out...

Hafnium B O M B?

2009-04-10T17:18:00.003-04:00

I have heard a quote from a Cato podcast as follows:

"Hafnium. Thats an interesting isotope, I urge you to Google it. Right now hafnium is in a state of development very similar to the atom bomb in the early 1920's. It is only a matter of time before that isotope becomes weaponized. That element is going to have a profound effect on the way we do business."

This is from I think Benjamin Friedman, Research Fellow in Defense and Homeland Security, Cato Institute. Link to article.

WTF???

I was intrigued, knowing a substantial amount about regular fission reactions myself to hear something mentioned in passing about a new type of nuclear reaction involving a neutron absorber!

I searched on the internet at google, and nothing came up. only one search result even mention hafnium in such a reactor/bomb context. WTF? Either this is not real, or almost no one knows about it, or no one is being allowed to speak about it or something. Eventually, I found this broken link:

http://www.utdallas.edu/research/qua...eseg3.htm#CONC

Why broken? don't know, but with many web addresses that don't work I shortened it until I got a valid address. This led me here. Strangely, there does not seem to be any references what-so-ever to this hafnium reaction. I have no idea what made me wonder if one of the pictures was a link now, but I hovered my mouse over one (the top right hand picture that has a picture and caption that are completely unrelated.) and eureka! Jackpot! I found a treasure trove of information that I am still reading. Does anyone know anything about this? Is this a real nuclear reaction? Can hafnium really be weaponized?

Penny Arcade Podcasts

2009-04-05T17:36:00.002-04:00

If you listen to podcasts all day, and are a huge nerd/geek, Penny Arcade's sporadic podcasts of Tyco and Gabe writing their comic are HILARIOUS! fyi

US Debt

2009-04-02T16:37:00.002-04:00

By Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I'm not an economist, but even I find stories like the following to be a bit unsettling.

First, there's this announcement by US Senator Gregg (R-NH) that, "The United States wouldn't even be eligible to enter the European Union if it wanted to because of its debt levels".

For a visual representation of the projected deficit (which is only how much we're adding each year to the total cumulative debt), the Washington Post has a nice graphic:

In the first independent analysis, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that President Obama's budget would rack up massive deficits even after the economy recovers, forcing the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade.
Second, there's this OpEd in the March 29, 2009 Washington Post which warns against an Argentina-style financial crisis in the US. Here's an excerpt:
...Many economists and analysts are worrying that the United States might go the way of Japan, which suffered a "lost decade" after its own real estate market fell apart in the early 1990s. But I'm more concerned that the United States is coming to resemble Argentina, Russia and other so-called emerging markets, both in what led us to the crisis, and in how we're trying to fix it.
Again, I don't think that an Argentina-style collapse is the most likely scenario for the US.

But the fact that more mainstream analysts are mentioning this as a live possibility is not a good sign.

And of course, if you want to know what sorts of problems ordinary Argentinians faced (and how they coped), don't forget this detailed essay which has been making the blogosphere rounds lately.

I sincerely hope the US never gets to this point. But it's not outside the realm of possibility.

Originally posted by Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood, ReBlogged by Meta Blog on Apr 2, 2009 at 12:28 PM |

Gentlemen........BEHOLD!

2009-01-24T15:34:00.004-05:00

This is madness? Madness?

Recession/Depression correlation with Republican Administration

2009-01-18T13:25:00.002-05:00

Have you ever heard people say this? That the economy goes in a downturn when republicans are president? I think it might be worthwhile to think about this a bit here. Some correlations mean something, some don't. Would the reader grant the fact that whatever economic policies any president enacts, there would almost certainly be some sort of lag before it starts to affect business.

Now I believe that normally republicans are viewed as pro-business and democrats as anti-business. Am I wrong here? Generally democrats tax "big" business and republicans traditionally don't, or not as much. Although, the Fed plays an important role in economic policies also.

I think that taxes don't change much for the most part and it's not like congress passes laws to buy stock. Like one blogger said:
"The stock market goes up and down for a number of reasons, but if you try betting on presidential cycles you will likely lose out in the long run. It makes just as much sense as betting on lunar cycles (which it’s sad to say some people do!) and their effects on stocks. Executive policy has an impact on the economy over time, but that relationship to markets is ambiguous and can likely only be evaluated on an individual basis, not categorically as Republican or Democrat. Regardless of party affiliation, it is an axiom of economics that free markets produce greater abundance than centrally-run economies."

Dihydrogen Monoxide: stop the deaths now!

2009-01-17T19:41:00.000-05:00

Ban DHMO: Dihydrogen Monoxide!

The Invisible Killer

Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and sickens over 4 billion and kills over 2 million people every year (United Nations World Health Organization, 2008: www.WHO.Int). Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

"Recreational DHMO illness can have a significant impact on public health not only because
of the severity of the illness but also the number of people who die."*
*Department of Health, State Of Washington (www2.DOH.WA.Gov).

Dihydrogen monoxide:

is also known as hydroxyl acid, and is the major component of acid rain.

contributes to the "greenhouse effect."

may cause severe burns.

contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.

accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.

may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.

has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

contamination has been found in all floodwaters where death has occurred and violent thunderstorm rains containing destructive lightning.

changing from crystalline to liquid is a leading cause of the destruction of arctic ice and glaciers.

Contamination Is Reaching Epidemic Proportions!

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and recently California. DHMO contamination is even found in most cells in the human body!

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

as an industrial solvent and coolant.

in nuclear power plants.

in the production of styrofoam.

as a fire retardant.

in many forms of cruel animal research.

in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.

as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.

to dissolve medicines before giving them to children and older adults.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!

The Horror Must Be Stopped!

The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the Navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive millions of tons of pure DHMO through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network daily. Many facilities store large quantities for later use. Many municipalities also have DHMO storage facilities.

It's Not Too Late!

Act NOW to prevent further contamination . Find out more about this dangerous chemical. What you don't know can hurt you and others throughout the world. Write to your Congress person and Senator. Urge them to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide NOW! Brought to you by the Coalition to Ban DHMO: http://BanDHMO.org.

Further Reading:

Anderson, A., & Olson, L. (1961). DHMO: The Untold Story. Chicago: Paladium Press.

O'Boyle, J. (1997, January 7). DiHydrogen Monoxide: What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us!. USA Today.

Win-Tang Woo, K. (1948). DHMO: Molecular and Constancy Theory. London: Oxford University Press.

Other Web Sites for more information:

The United Nations World Health Organization.

Information about DiHydrogen Monoxide deaths from the CIA World Fact Book.

Amazon.com World Wide Web Bookstore for more information about chemical compounds.

Chaaaaange?

2008-11-25T20:28:00.002-05:00

Fellow Business Executives:

As the CEO of this business that employees 140 people, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama will be our next President, and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way.

To compensate for these increases, I figure that the Clients will have to see an increase in our fees to them of about 25%, but since we cannot increase our fees right now due to the dismal state of our economy, we will have to lay off thirty five of our employees instead.

This has really been eating at me for a while, as we believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who will have to go.

So, this is what I did. I strolled thru our parking lot and found 35 Obama bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem. These folks wanted change; I gave it to them.

If you have a better idea, let me know.

Sincerely,

I.B. Anonymous, CEO of Anonymous Enterprises

From here.
I lol'ed. I wonder if this could ever be explained to an Obama supporter?
Wait! I forgot. Trickle-down economics doesn't work. My bad.

Nice....

2008-11-22T11:38:00.001-05:00

As usual, South Park displays their usual stethoscope on the heartbeat of pop culture....

Dr.Peikoff's Opinion

2008-11-14T19:25:00.004-05:00

Just so you readers out there know, Dr.Peikoff was Ayn Rand's best and last friend, and her Philosophical successor. This is his opinion about this election. His web address is here

Q: In view of the constant parade of jackassery which is Washington, is there any point in voting for candidates of either entrenched party? Throwing out the incumbents "for a change" is to me an idea based on the philosophy that my head will stop hurting if I bang it on the opposite wall.

A: How you cast your vote in the coming election is important, even if the two parties are both rotten. In essence, the Democrats stand for socialism, or at least some ambling steps in its direction; the Republicans stand for religion, particularly evangelical Christianity, and are taking ambitious strides to give it political power.

Socialism—a fad of the last few centuries—has had its day; it has been almost universally rejected for decades. Leftists are no longer the passionate collectivists of the 30s, but usually avowed anti-ideologists, who bewail the futility of all systems. Religion, by contrast—the destroyer of man since time immemorial—is not fading; on the contrary, it is now the only philosophic movement rapidly and righteously rising to take over the government. Given the choice between a rotten, enfeebled, despairing killer, and a rotten, ever stronger, and ambitious killer, it is immoral to vote for the latter, and equally immoral to refrain from voting at all because “both are bad.”

The survival of this country will not be determined by the degree to which the government, simply by inertia, imposes taxes, entitlements, controls, etc., although such impositions will be harmful (and all of them and worse will be embraced or pioneered by conservatives, as Bush has shown). What does determine the survival of this country is not political concretes, but fundamental philosophy. And in this area the only real threat to the country now, the only political evil comparable to or even greater than the threat once posed by Soviet Communism, is religion and the Party which is its home and sponsor.

The most urgent political task now is to topple the Republicans from power, if possible in the House and the Senate. This entails voting consistently Democratic, even if the opponent is a “good” Republican.

In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man’s actual life—which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world.

If you hate the Left so much that you feel more comfortable with the Right, you are unwittingly helping to push the U.S. toward disaster, i.e., theocracy, not in 50 years, but, frighteningly, much sooner.

The above statement may be reproduced or disseminated at will, without any requirement to consult or inform Dr. Peikoff.

Wow. I had no idea. I voted for the libertarian party. I guess in some way it was good that Obama won and the democrats got more seats in congress. Ominous words come to mind that I heard Glenn Beck say on his radio show once....

"Government should be based around god and Mormonism!"

I knew he was serious, but I thought "Mormonism....lol." Didn't think about the difference in will to do it...The mormons are goddamn crazy and crazy determined. But I always told myself how can anyone believe in such a religion that is obviously illogical, with the stupid "see-er stones" to translate made up shit that is obviously not from a man informed of total lack of the evidence of the technology needed to create steel armor. I mean, shit, Egyptian copper furnaces are still there for fuck's sake! I digress...the South Park episode about Mormonism explains all of this. I can see though...a religious theocracy is sooooo much worse than vague socialism.

I have to say it...."NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Our three weapons are fear, surprise....what was the third one? Wait, I'll come in again....."

Oh...also....to say the least, this post means that Atlas Shrugged was really, really, good, and everyone should read it.

Supersize That Rescue by Rob Long

2008-10-26T15:48:00.003-04:00

Super Size that Rescue
Hank P and Mickey D.

By Rob Long

TO: All McDonald’s Team Members

FROM: Management

RE: New Federal Guidelines in wake of the federal rescue

Dear Team:

As most of you are aware, the past few days have been challenging for all members of the McDonald’s USA and McDonald’s Worldwide Team.

McDonald’s, as you know, maintained a complex and highly-leveraged commodity futures operation, and recent events in the financial markets have made our risk-management strategies impossible to maintain.

All along, as we faced a softening demand for our products and in the wake of our increased exposure to losses in the commodity derivatives market of beef futures, hog swaps, egg instruments, bun swaptions, potato debt flotations, and partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil puts, it was our intention to reach some productive and effective understanding with our creditors and our business partners. Unfortunately, due to market conditions, that was not to be.

Effective close of business today, the McDonald’s Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federal Department of Agriculture. They wisely — and quickly — stepped in to provide management with a credit facility, in exchange for ownership of the company. If you’ve seen the recent news about what the Treasury Department has done for AIG, the troubled insurance giant, you’ll understand what happened here. It’s basically the same, but with fries.

Many of our newest Team members on the griddle station, or at the Fry-O-Lator, have come to us from senior positions in the old-line Wall Street firm of Lehman Brothers, which recently experienced its own financial crisis. For those of our employees who are confused about the turbulence in the financial markets, we suggest you reach out to these new Team members for a full explanation. During your break.

Until our new management team at the Department of Agriculture forms a plan for the eventual sale and disposal of the company and its assets, it will be business as usual.

That said, we are now a department within the federal government, and we will have to adjust our business practices to reflect that:

The target service time, from the customer’s order at the counter to the delivery of his or her meal, with change. The old target of 120 seconds will be replaced by a new, federal target of three hours.

Ketchup will no longer be available.

Our new hours: 10AM to 3:15PM.

In light of federal diversity programs, all images of the “Hamburglar” will be destroyed. New character images will be delivered to franchisees as soon as possible.

The paper hats will be replaced immediately with OSHA-regulated helmets.

All members of the McDonald’s Team are now members of SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, and as such are no longer required to work while standing or looking directly at the customer. Obviously, this is going to take some getting used to for Team Members used to the “old” way of doing business. Large chairs will be delivered to each location for use behind the counter. Employees will be taught to mumble darkly, and to sigh in an irritated fashion.

The Drive-Thru facility will remain operative in every location for the convenience of the customer, and orders will continue to be taken via the intercom. But in keeping with federal guidelines dictating “convenience,” both the payment window and the pickup window will be permanently shut.

If you have any questions about the above changes, please refer to the leaflet: “So, You’re A Federal Employee! Here’s What You Don’t Have to Do!” which is being distributed by the new managers from the Department of Agriculture.

All of us here in management know this is a trying time for Team Members, and we sincerely apologize for the situation we all find ourselves in — although, frankly, we’ve got it a lot better than our friends at WalMart, who just last week were bought by the Department of Commerce, and who now have to undergo a painful and complicated conversion to the work rules of the Association of Federal, State, County, and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME).

McDonald’s is a proud American firm. Indeed, for many, we represent America at her finest and most delicious. We are grateful to our partners in the Department of Agriculture for recognizing that McDonald’s, truly, is too big to fail.

We’re all excited about the new, Federally Owned McDonald’s!

McDonald’s Executive Team

(until close of business tonight)

[A vote for Obama is a vote for socialism...and an end to the prosperous and free USA you have come to know and love -th3ranger]

Tax Man Cometh

2008-10-26T15:32:00.001-04:00

"This narrowing of the tax base makes federal tax receipts precariously dependent on the fortunes of a few, including the ups and downs of the stock market (which suggests fiscal 2009 tax receipts will come in far below the mid-2008 estimates). It also makes federal spending appear free to millions of voters, which makes it even more tempting for politicians to offer additional subsidies to politically influential voting blocs.

Politicians appear particularly tempted to blur the distinction between taxing and spending by proposing more and more refundable tax credits deceptively labeled as “stimulus checks” or “energy rebates” or “middle-class tax relief.” Because such spending schemes are administered through the tax side of the budget, they involve giving away borrowed money without any of the standards we might expect if they were more candidly described as, say, poorly-targeted welfare checks (Ferrara).

If anyone even bothers to ask how the federal government can possibly pay for all the costly new promises (in addition to such old ones as Social Security and Medicare), some suggest there would be ample revenue available if only we would raise marginal tax rates on the incomes of the top 1-2% and on their taxable capital gains, dividends and estates. This is a dangerous delusion."

The USA can't pay for these hand-outs. We can't possibly afford additional taxes of any kind. When Obama's poorly calculated tax "plan" fails who will have to pick up the pieces if there are any left? The middle class. Where will people get jobs after company after company goes under? The government. Which is all this is about- a huge grab for power in the form of a new socialist state- The United Socialist States of America.

Joke

2008-10-25T15:00:00.003-04:00

Why didn't Jesus tell his followers to wash their hands more often?

I sure as hell don't know, but it would have helped a little during the following 19 centuries of plague and disease!

Anthem

2008-10-21T18:49:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I read Anthem by Ayn Rand. This book is about socialism taken to a personal and philosophical extreme with the abolishment of the word and idea of "I." In fact, until the main character discovers the word "I," the word "we" is used instead, a little confusingly at first. I almost thought that groups of four or five people were named as a group and treated as a unit, but no, the names refer to one person who refers to himself/herself as "we." All in all, I enjoyed the book a lot,
and, as Prometheus (his self given name) escaped from the city, I was definitely rooting for him.

Similarities.
I found this story similar to 1984, or rather, 1984 is similar to this book, since Anthem was written about ten years previous. It is about one man, awakening to the nightmare world around him, despite the barriers in the way of independent thought. I should probably look on on wikipedia exactly what others have said about the similarities. If I had to guess, these two book are similar in plot, but, they are both products of the same era, not one being a copy or jumping off point for the other. This is one of those situations where the question is asked "What if blank didn't invent/write/exist?" I have read that there are two views about this question, one, that if some crucial person didn't exist, the progress of mankind is measurable slowed. The other, is that inventions, books, or discoveries are the product of an era. I think, that (without looking up anything about the suspicions of the time) this is a rare case where both books where written independently, and recognized for the brillance that they are. As the reader can imagine, this doesn't normally happen with inventions, since there would be no point to invent something twice.
Atlas Shrugged is next.

>UPDATE< one hour later...dun dun duuuun
I looked up information about my suspicions, and now know that a book called We was written in 1924 and it's possible that both writers may have read about this book or heard about it. I guess everyone wanted to write their own version of hell on earth.

In other thoughts, it is interesting that although all their physical needs are fulfilled, none of the characters are satisfied. It is never enough to have all you might ever need. It may be a true fact that mankind is not satisfied until he has all that your neighbor could ever need, also. In a unattainable society where there are no wants, Mankind will have to had been drugged out of desire, or his mind is warped to unrecognizability.

SNL sketch that bashes DNC

2008-10-07T17:56:00.003-04:00

Wow, Saturday Night Live did a 180 on their usual spin and actually said a foul word against the democrats! Er...well to be honest I haven't watched in years out of disgust, since, for as long, it has seemed, if you only had SNL as a news source, it would have seemed that the DNC can do no wrong, when both parties are goddamn morons. Well anyway I digress, here is that sketch. Apparently it is difficult to find, since it seems to repeatedly disappear where ever it has been posted.

SNL Sketch

Really good video about atheism

2008-09-02T13:24:00.001-04:00

Seriously good...the best and the brightest

Finnally, a story related to my blog title.

2008-08-06T23:41:00.003-04:00

There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71 Blackbird (The Air Force/NASA super fast, highest flying reconnaissance jet, nicknamed, "The Sled"), but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane - intense, maybe, even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.

It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat.

There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury. Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him.

The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot who asked Center for a read-out of his ground speed. Center replied: “November Charlie 175, I'm showing you at ninety knots on the ground.”

Now the thing to understand about Center controllers was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the "Houston Center voice." I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country's space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that and that they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios. Just moments after the Cessna's inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed in Beech. “I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed.”

Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. “Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check.” Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a read-out? Then I got it, ol' Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: “Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground.”

And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere seconds we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it - the click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. “Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.”

I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: “Ah, Center, much thanks, we're showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money.” For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A. came back with, “Roger that Aspen. Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one.”

It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day's work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.

Source unknown, however copied from here

The Power of Christ Compells you!

2008-07-16T21:55:00.003-04:00

I recently discussed with a friend how funny it would be to screw with some evangelist who comes to your door. I might, after looking though the peep hole, grab a pitchfork and horns and answer the door like I just casually wear them all the time.

Would I like a brochure? Now this is where the fun would start. At first I thought, "Oh hey, burn the pamphlet in front of them!" No wait! Even better. Use some sort of crazy slight of hand to light it on fire without the evangelist seeing the lighter. Like, perhaps, I, being a minion of Satan, can summon fire from my hands. Now that would scare the holy hell out of some poor bastard.

This would be pretty cruel. How can I make it worse yet? Like say, make them use god's name in vain as they run away. I know! Use a scary voice! Hmm...now what scary voice would be appropriate for a demon? Maybe I could just talk low and scary like the movie announcer guy.

Meh. I will update on this hilarious subject as the opportunity presents itself.

Disturbing Psychology Expiriments

2008-07-01T23:40:00.005-04:00

I have recently read some disturbing psychology experiments, some of which I have read about before. The difference now is that I believe that, taken together, they spell out how to manipulate large numbers of people.

You can read about them here.

If you want someone to think/act a certain way, you must do, it would seem these things:

1. Make the subjects think the majority have already decided to support/oppose the idea/product/political issue and will judge you negatively for not joining the "righteous masses"

2. If you want something not to be done, allow the subjects to be able to assume "others" will do it. This often results in nothing being accomplished.

3. Anyone, given no accountability to any other party, will do, up to and including the most "evil" acts you can possibly imagine. "Evil" being something that is not beneficial to the whole, frequently, something that is only beneficial to the individual.

4. This goes mainly for people in the public eye. Make your views seem more allowable for the election, then as soon as you are elected, amp you views up to what they really are.

Now that we have written these techniques down has any of these been used in real life?

1. This one is used very often.
Polls after polls after poll. Strange that these polls, especially election coverage projections are often very wrong. Perhaps some influence of the outcome was attempted? It is especially revealing to point out by asking, "what influence whatsoever does other peoples' opinion have on your vote?" So some spoiled movie star like some such candidate? Who, honestly gives a damn? I always thought that you should decide for yourself the pros and cons of any idea or candidate. Guess I was wrong, you should just obey! Just listen to the finely honed marketing pitch quietly jabbering into your ear from your television or radio! Remarkably, even when it is well known that all ballots are secret. It's not like you can vote a certain way to gain popularity among your friends. All you have to do is lie (or not, as the situation dictates.)
Often I see this method used in marketing campaigns. Example. In that you tube video, it seems to me that Sony is trying really hard to make it seem like if you are cool you will love CAKE, and if you don't, you are old and stupid (although, between you and me, CAKE is really good.) This is detestable to try to manipulate the unsuspecting public like this. Even when the music speaks for itself and really does not need the help. Pathetic Sony! I would expect this from a political campaign, but you? Although I suppose it isn't all that surprising.
The "green" campaign currently sweeping the nation, thanks to Al Gore, is another offender. I must first say that being more green, or environmentally friendly, is in the long term intrests of mankind. However it should never be practiced at the expense of mankind. If anyone is really serious about this, it would seem to me that orbiting solar power stations would have been proposed. This has not happened, despite the fact that it would solve our energy needs, for oh....say about....12 goddamn billion years (assuming humanity will even still be present in the solar system after the sun goes red giant.) It is also worthwhile to point our that, at the current rate of technological progress (exponential for those who might not realize) that no one has the faintest clue what our civilization will even be like in twenty years, much less what our cars will run on. I digress, it seems to be the goal of allowing people to make the foregone conclusion that everyone is trying to be more green why not you? Hey Al! Why not let individuals weigh being green or not on an individual basis instead of attempting to force your idealology on to them? I have a hybrid, not because I want to be loser hippy who thinks he can save the world, but because it saves me alot of goddamn money!

2.This is how to accomplish nothing, and in my personal expirience, more applies to whether or not someone fills the coffee pot, not manipulating the masses for fun and profit.

3. A very good reason for the "Seperation of Powers" in our Constitution. Additionally, a good reason to support the second ammendment. "People should not fear their government. The government should fear its people." "Absolute power corrupts absolutly." Although to remind the reader, you are only altruistic to others because you are accountable to your aquaintences/friends/family and stand to gain from it, one way or another.

4. Politics as usual. We see this in every election, in every candidate, even The Amazing, The One the only....Obama. There truly is, at least in politics, nothing new under the sun.

Satan's Deer

2008-06-09T17:43:00.005-04:00

This didn't happen to me, but it is funny, and I got the story in a email. I always thought that the deer on the navy base seemed tame and stupid...perhaps not.

As I sit here behind this laptop, I now realize that this definitely wasn’t the brightest idea I have ever had. I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.

The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope.

The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it.

After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up — 3 of them. I picked out.. ..a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw.. ..my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me.

I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.

I took a step towards it…took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.

The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.

A deer– no chance.

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.

The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature
off the end of that rope.

I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere.

At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.

Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer’s momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn’t want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand…kind of like a squeeze chute.

I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist.

Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head –almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.

It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it.

While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp.

I learned a long time ago that, when an animal — like a horse — strikes at you with their hooves and you can’t get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.

This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.

I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.

The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head.

Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the prey.

Slavery

2008-03-28T17:51:00.001-04:00

I hate to remind everyone, but in ancient times weren't the losers in battle/war often sold as slaves? So theoretically all of our ancestors were a slave at some point. I guess most people don't realize this. Should we all figure out who exactly was a slave of who since the beginning of recorded history and exchange the required apologies? Somehow it's only the most recent incident of slavery that counts. What exactly is the minimum amount of time to pass before its too long ago? Methinks that a certain minority group thinks that it still has something to gain by crying foul.

the Tax System

2008-03-06T17:56:00.001-05:00

Our Tax System Explained: "Bar Stool Economics"

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten
comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go
something like this:

The first four men (The poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all
such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily
beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the
first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they
divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They
realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from
everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up
being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be
fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded
to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to
drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare
their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to
the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth
man. "I only saved a dollar, too It's unfair that he got ten times more than
I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back
when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute,"
yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The
system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down
and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they
discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of
them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how
our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most
benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being
wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start
drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics University of Georgia

Political Issues

2008-02-26T19:07:00.004-05:00

Hi there Sports fans! (not)

I thought that it might do some good to go over the issues this election year, one by one. Who is on the correct/best side of each issue, according to my Libertarian/Atheist/Pro-reason point of view. As you can imagine this is going to be fairly spread out in terms of which side I like. So here it goes, and, by all means, if I am wrong, do not hesitate to email me with a detailed and well reasoned argument.

Abortion

A woman has a right to choose, pure and simple. Aborting a fetus is the same as choosing not to have sex one day, just at different points in the time line. Every time you don't have sex you are technically killing a potential life.

Budget and Economy

Spend less and tax less. Period. Have you ever had an instants where government was not a barrier in your life? Need I cite simple, everyday instances? The DMV. Need I say more? Income Tax. Don't you just love it when the government takes 23% of your money or more every paycheck to inevitably waste? I won't even mention all the other myriad of taxes your state and local governments levy on you. I'm pretty sure the revolutionary war was fought over far, far, less. But let's just bend over and take it.

Civil Rights

I am not sorry but I am against affirmative action. The reader should NEVER have to indicate what race he/she is for ANY reason. (or gender for that matter.) There is simple no good reason to have a question on some stupid form that asks you "What race are you?" I'm sorry is this the middle ages??? Since when did this matter in any way? Blacks out there who think that they need a leg up to level the playing field are wrong. This kind of thinking is admitting that you are lesser in some way and need help to compete. Or that you are broken in some way and need help. Pathetic! We all have the same goddamn DNA since thousands of years ago! Act like it.

Gays: Since when does being gay make you a lesser person? Any questions? Now eliminating your own genetic line from the gene pool is another matter, but I suppose it's OK seeing as how its voluntary. Oh well! More resources for my own descendants!

Corporations

Since when does practicing capitalism even make this an issue? Why do people think that company after company moves overseas? It certainly couldn't be outrageous profit taxes or parasitic unions. Certainly not, no sir.
The only regulation I think even need to be considered is Anti-monopoly/Anti-trust and Net Neutrality. Competition is always good. The Internet is a resource, the embodiment of free speech. In addition to this, there is no effective law that can be passed against/or regulating the Internet. There is ALWAYS a work-around. It's very ignorant to even try. Proof? Bit-torrent.

Crime

If you commit a crime you should be put in jail. If you commit a murder you should be put in jail. I don't believe in capital punishment. If it really served as a deterrent wouldn't murders have slowly stopped? The fact that death has been the de-facto punishment for murder for as long as there has been human civilization only serves to prove the pointlessness of capital punishment. It sure hasn't worked for quite some time. A lifetime in jail...now that is hardcore punishment. Insanity can only bearly begins to describe it.

Drugs

Legalize them. Then subject them to the 6% sales tax. Why the hell not? Alcohol is just as bad, hell, worse that many illegal drugs, not to even mention cigarettes. This would, of course, eliminate organized crime dealing with these. I guess alcohol and tobacco companies were powerful enough to stay legal apparently. It was, as far as I can tell, the religious organization that decided this arbitrarily from the "good" book anyway right?

Education

Our education system is a JOKE! Richest country in the world and we are also the dumbest (nearly). Anyone who denies that we have a very poor primary school education system is in league with the teachers union. Why not introduce competition for funding? Why not introduce survival of the fittest? This needs to be fundamentally changed. Government run anything is always inferior to the free market. I had the misfortune of experiencing the public education system in my senior year of high school.
What a joke!
However I feel it important to mention that our college system (probably because it it not government run) is by far the best in the world. Though as Penn Jillette points out in Bullshit, it is very far left leaning, which is fine, but college is intended, I believe, to be about the exploration of many different ideas, not just leftist ones.

Energy

We need exponentially increasing amounts of energy. Solution? Short-term, nuclear power. Nuclear power is very safe, and nuclear waste should be stored in Yucca mountain. I don't know if the reader realizes this, but when it comes to nuclear power, all the safeguards are taken. Every possible problem has already been thought of, and eliminated. Safety precautions are not left to the operator, they are automatically controlled. All modern reactors in use today are completely fool proof. The standard thickness minimum for reactor containment was tested by shooting a fricken phantom jet at it. Nuclear waste transport vessels were tested by hitting it with a freight train going 60mph. In both cases neither were harmed. Like I said they pull out all the stops for nuclear reactor safety...
Fear deadly radiation? Guess what? Everything is radioactive. Literally what I just said is true. Everything is radioactive. The very soil emits = to or > 300 mrem per hour. Workers in nuclear subs and aircraft carriers receive a career dose 1/10 of what you would receive from a day at the beach.
Long term solution? Solar power. The problems to overcome are limited spectrum response, and cost. Even now a 10 square mile solar panel plant could power the entire US, except that it would be very expensive. If they can be made to respond to ultra-violet, clouds would not be an issue. This is being researched right now.
Another way to solve the solar power problem is orbital solar power stations. This has already been done in orbital tests. On the other hand, if you can beam megawatts of power down to earth there is no reason this couldn't be used as a weapon. At least this seems that way to me, I'll have to read up on this a bit.

Environment

The earth is changing. It always has, for billions of years before we came around. Not everything that happens is humanity's fault. I equate global warming to earthquakes. It's not any one's fault, shit happens. In the age of the dinosaurs it was much warmer. The oceans were higher, there was more oxygen in the air, there were more plants. Was any of this their fault? No. The earth is an impassive observer, witnessing the rise and fall of various lifeforms. If thousands of species are dying out, who are we to argue evolution? In the earth's history countless wild and wonderful lifeforms have lived and died by the trillions. As most likely the first sentient species, we just love to blame things that happen on ourselves.
With new technology, less and less pollution will occur, simply because of increases in efficiency. Humanity today outputs far less pollution than in the past, despite the increase in population. Huge forests in the United States have grown back, forests that used to be completely cut down and used for firewood and building material. This is not the case today, with the advent of tree farms and widespread electricity.
I wish I would stop seeing honest companies being penalized in the name of the environment. Why does the reader think they move overseas? If you want to live like a freaking Amish, and all your friends to be homeless and jobless then screw you. The rest of us enjoy spending money on cheap electronics while not farming my own food, thank you.
We need to stop trying to legislating people's life for them. If you think a company is polluting the environment don't buy their products. If you think that you should drive a smaller car do it, but don't force me to. I drive a Honda Civic Hybrid. Not for the goddamn environment. It can take care of itself! It has for billions of years without me, so I really don't think it needs any one's help now.
Whenever something becomes a big enough problem, something ridiculous is invented and changes everything. Just wait.

Foreign policy
Death to our enemies. Friendship to our allies. No negotiation with terrorists. All is fair in love and war. If I had to choose between myself and someone else, who lives, I always choose me. Everyone would make this choice, and at some point down the line, one of your ancestors probably did, for you are here!

Free Trade
Yes. Free trade means cheaper prices and a better standard of living for everyone. Without free trade local economies can set whatever prices they please. This would be impossible for any single person or government with global free trade. I don't know if the reader realizes this, but globalization is inevitable. The world government is inevitable. Its just a matter of time till humanity realizes its differences are cosmetic at worst and unites to colonize the stars.

I'll post the rest tomorrow. I'm tired. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Global warming

2008-01-28T20:35:00.001-05:00

OK. Everyone seems to believe that mankind can do something to stop this, and not only that but that we can stop it and save the world. Ha. Here is a few logical points to cause you to think otherwise. I am not saying global warming isn't real. The earth has undergone many, many, climate changes since life began. OK so here it goes.

- 99 of the past 100 million years were warmer than now. Really the last 10,000 years have been an abnormal cool period. (including NOW!)

- With this in mind, and the fact that most if not all (another can of worms, but I digress.) dinosaurs were cold blooded, including and especially the largest. It would have to have been very warm for them to operate for millions of years and flourish. Very warm indeed. MUCH warmer than today. Here is a picture of the world at that time.

See that shit? There are areas that are flooded on EVERY CONTINENT. This has happened before, perhaps a dozen times over. In fact here is the website I got that picture from here. Oh, by the way, that is a picture of the world right before the dinosaurs were wiped out. That's what the tiny bull's eye is.

I know you have probably have seen these pictures before, but I thought it might be a good thing to review.

-On every "stop global warming" website, or for that matter movie, they always show meaningless sort of recent past charts that only go back a few hundred thousand years.
Last time I checked the earth has had meaningful weather for BILLIONS of years. I wonder what percentage of 500,000 is of 5 Billion?

Let's see here....

500,000 / 5,000,000,000 =.0001 or .01%

Wow...apparently .01% of the earth's geologic history is enough to hamstring the world economy for "progress". Ha. Why don't these global warming save-the-world morons just admit that they are just anti-industrialist and would like to live like cavemen.
Any moron can point to a chart, but a sense of scale will help you to see the truth.

-I must admit We should be concerned with our impact with the environment, but really we should only be concerned when rush hour effects ambient temperatures or the entire planet is covered by a world consuming city. That's when mundane human activity will effect climate. Now is not that time, and it probably won't be for a hundred or more years. I should clarify. I mean when just the heat output of humanity is a significant factor in global climate. Like "I have a 100MW reactor in my backyard just like everyone else" kinda heat output.

What I'm basically saying is that there is nothing we can do at the present to stop global warming. It's just warming up like it used to be, in the good old days.

Haunted Stitch Doll

2008-01-28T20:28:00.001-05:00

This is soooo hilarious. Was his fiance playing a trick on him? Or was it all made up to sell a stitch doll for 11,000? Found via stumbleupon at:
http://www.tongs.org.uk/wiki.pl?HauntedStitchDoll

No reserve - I just want it gone

The following auction is true. I will not be mentioning any names here, as I do not want any of my family or friends to be hounded by people wanting more information. The only one who would know anything other than me would be my fiance anyway. If anyone has questions, they can be asked of me directly. I please ask that no one try to contact my fiance, as she has gone through quite enough with this ordeal. Pictures are at the bottom of the page. OK, I've come to the last thing I can think of to get rid of this cursed thing, but I'll get to that later. Last summer, my fiance & I were visiting her family in Florida, and taking a stop in Disney world. As big fans of the Lilo & Stitch movies, we were interested in buying some Stitch toys. We ended up getting quite a few, of all shapes & sizes. We have had no problem with any of them - they're all regular friggin teddy bears. One, however, has been a problem since day one. That was the one we picked up on our way from Orlando to Daytona Beach.

We stopped at a little out of the way place while looking for a restaurant. This place was small, and kind of dingy, but they had food, and a 'gift shop', if you could call it that. I wish I could remember what it was called, but the only thing that seems to ring a bell is 'Leary'. Anyway, they had another Stitch toy there, which looked just as good as any we had picked up in Disneyworld, and was a quarter of the price. The person behind the till seemed a little too pleased to be making the sale, and now I can see why.

Anyway, we visited my fiance's family, and flew back home, without any incident. We thought we had just had a normal vacation.

We displayed the toys on our TV stand, with some other stuffed animals my fiance has collected over the years. Nothing has ever moved them, except for when cleaning & dusting, and then they are promptly put back in place. After the new Stitch toys were put up, about once a week, we would find one or two of the other stuffed animals on the floor, on certain mornings when we would get up. Originally thinking nothing of the fact (we have a dog, who we thought maybe bumped the stand - more on him later), we would put the animals back up on the stand. This became a semi-regular occurance until early November, when we awoke to a loud slam in the middle of the night. I got my fiance to stay upstairs, and crept down to see what was happening. I had the light on at the top of the stairs, which meant I could not see clearly into the living room to see what had happened, but I did notice different things scattered on the floor. I turned the light on at the front door, and saw that the items on the floor were actually all of the stuffed animals, and other Stitch toys. The only thing left on our TV stand was the Stitch we had picked up from that store. That would have been enough, but the top of the TV was cracked as well - it looked as though something heavy had been dropped onto it. We still have no idea what happened there.

At this point, I knew that there was something wrong with this 'toy', so right then & there I threw it in the garbage, in our kitchen cupboard. I put the stuffed animals back as well as I could, and went back up to bed to explain to my fiance why that Stitch would not be on the shelf when she got up in the morning. Since I didn't want to scare her, I told her it got ripped open when it fell off the shelf, and I had to throw it away, as it looked too bad to repair. Sleep was hard to come by that night.

The next day I got up early, emptied the garbage, and threw it in the dumpster in the parking lot before leaving for work. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

Later that morning, I got a call from my fiance, asking why I thought it would be funny to joke about throwing one of her stuffed toys away. I explained that I put it in the dumpster that morning, and she asked why it was still on the shelf. Both doors were still locked, and no windows or anything were broken. I left work early.

As soon as I got home, I explained to my fiance what had happened, and told her I was getting rid of the toy. I grabbed it and left, and drove out to a Safeway that is a few blocks away. I tossed the thing in the dumpster there, and took off for home. Thankfully that time, it didn't come back. For 4 days. The strangest thing is that it was clean - it looked like it had never left the house.

Trying to dump the Stitch in different places, on the other side of the city, etc. became a regular thing. Since no one believed us when we tried to tell the story, there was nothing else we could really do. Thankfully, neither my fiance nor I were seriously hurt at all - the only injury worth mentioning was it had tripped me (as far as I can tell) as I walked down our front steps one day. I didn't notice it there when leaving the house, and I definitely caught my foot on something, and when I turned back, it was there. Thank god I only got a scraped knee & palm.

Christmas was thankfully quiet in regards to our 'problem'. Unfortunately, right after the new year, the worst came.

I had taken the teddy out to the landfill site just outside of the city limits, and buried it under any other debris I could find close by. It had been close to 3 weeks since we had seen the thing, and we were starting to think that the nightmare was over.

In the early evening on a Thursday, I let our dog outside, just as we normally do all the time. After he had been outside for about 10 minutes, I thought maybe he had found some food, or something else to eat, as he usually does. I looked outside, and saw him laying in the snow, and he wasn't moving. I ran outside, and grabbed him, and noticed the Stitch toy laying beside him. Our dog was breathing, but unconscious. I rushed him inside, and called the vet. We were able to take him to the emergency clinic, and after examining him, we were told that they could notice nothing actually wrong with him. It appeared that he had just passed out, but his blood pressure was extremely high, and he was still having problems breathing. They kept him overnight for observation, which was good, because I wanted him kept as safe as possible.

When we got home, we decided to burn the toy in our fireplace, but we could not get it to light. We even tried lighter fluid, but as soon as it touched him, it was completely absorbed - he did not feel damp, and did not smell of the fluid.

If we could not burn it, we would incapacitate it. I grabbed a pair of scissors, and cut off each arm and leg, and the head. I took the 6 pieces, put them in a garbage bag, tied the top, and put it outside on the front step, to get rid of in the morning.

The next morning, I went outside to get the Stitch, and the bag was gone. I could not find it anywhere in our yard, or the parking lot. I went back inside, and there it was. The toy was back on the TV stand, and it looked like it had never been touched. Not a speck of dirt, not a rip or tear on it.

I grabbed the toy, ran to the car, went downtown, and ran into the first pawn shop I could find. The owner said they did not take used stuffed toys, as they can be dirty. I told him that he could have it for free - I just did not want it. He started to ask why, but I left it on the counter, and ran out of the store. I thought maybe if someone else were to buy it, it would stay with them, and away from us.

February was a great month. Our dog was healthy, and my fiance & I were able to sleep peacefully, as the Stitch was nowhere to be seen. I felt bad that maybe we had put the curse on someone else, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

2 days ago, it came back. I opened the front door to go to work Monday morning, and it was sitting on the front step, facing me. I put it in the house, pinned under our TV, and told my fiance about it, and to leave the house as fast as possible.

After discussing what to do for a few days, we have decided that we really have no other option than to try and list this on eBay, and get it as far away from ourselves as possible. We do not want to send it to someone who is not expecting it, and we want to send it to someone who is asking for it, this is why the opening bid is $0.01, and there is no reserve. We just want to get rid of it. Thankfully it has stayed under the TV up till now, with no real signs of change. I don't want to sound like a wuss, but this bear is the scariest thing I have ever experienced, and I am a horror fanatic. It may look like a regular stuffed toy, but it's evil.

Please, if you have children or pets, think twice before bidding. This is not a 'toy' for a child. I can not say with any assurance that you will have the same experiences as us, but there is a strong likelyhood that you will see what I mean, and I do not want to feel any guilt for harm coming to a child or an animal.

We also cannot guarantee that the item will stay with you after you have received it. If it stays as persistent as it has previously, it may try to get back to us. I will not be putting a return address on the package, as if when you realize that the item is evil, as I'm sure you will, I do not want you sending it back to us. It will become your responsibility as soon as it enters your possession.

The buyer is to pay for shipping, in whatever form they would like. I can dismember the item before shipping as well, if you would feel safer that way, but I can not guarantee it will arrive in this form. If you would like the toy shipped without being cut up, I will attempt to immobilize it with either duct tape, or rope, or a combination of the two. It is your choice.

Payment accepted for this auction is PAYPAL ONLY. I do this, because I do not want the winning buyer to have my address, for the same reason listed above.

Again, I have to warn that if you have children or pets, please, please think about what you are bidding on. We are not responsible for anything that happens after this item leaves our possession.

The pictures below are as follows - there is an image of the Stitch, as it is now, trapped under the TV. There is a picture of the top of the TV, where it was damaged previously. The last picture is an old picture we took after we had finished decorating, showing where the Stitch was sitting with other stuffed toys. It is the second from the right.

Serious bidders only please. I do not want to have to keep this for any longer than I have to (10 days for the auction is already pushing it, but I want it to actually be sold, so I need as many people to see it as possible). If you have less than 20 feedback, please let me know you are serious before bidding.

Lastly, if you have any questions, please ask. Thank you.

On 17-Mar-05 at 08:35:08 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE I have had a couple of questions asking why I am selling this item, instead of simply giving it away. We have TRIED giving it away, but it continually makes it's way back to us. Finally, as a last-ditch effort to rid ourselves of this curse, we have decided to try to sell it. Our reasoning is this; we started having the problems after we bought the Stitch. Maybe because we purchased it, we now OWN it, and everything that comes along with it. Since giving it away, or throwing it away does not work, and we cannot destroy it, maybe we can sell it, and whoever purchases it, will then own the curse. If worst comes to worst, and it does end up coming back to us, we will still have a bit of time free from the demonic toy. I plan on talking to a priest in the next day or so, to see if the toy can maybe be exorcised. Even if it can, and everything seems to be successful, I will still want to get rid of it, as I won't be completely comfortable until it's completely out of my life. I just want to make it as safe as possible for any potential new owners. I'll keep you posted as to any news.

On 17-Mar-05 at 09:25:18 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE If you live in Alberta, PLEASE DO NOT BID. I would like to get this item as far away from myself & loved ones as possible, so I would like it at least out of the province. I'm sorry to anyone who is interested who lives nearby, but this is a safety issue.

On 17-Mar-05 at 12:18:47 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE I have contacted a priest at a church close to my house, and asked if he would be able to come, and at least investigate as to what could be happening with this toy. Unfortunately, he said that the toy can not actually be possessed by a demon - demons can only possess living beings, so an exorcism would not have any effect. He said if anything is happening, the toy may be haunted by a spirit, who is either unable to rest as it has something it needs to do, or it does not want to rest, in which case it is most likely an evil spirit. If this is the case, the item will stay haunted until the soul is at peace, which may never happen. I asked if he would still be able to come and investigate, to see if he could give me a more conclusive answer, and he said at this time he is too busy to make a house call, but I can go and see him tomorrow in the late afternoon. I should be able to stop by after work, and if so, I will be bringing my camera to document the priest examining the toy (if he doesn't mind).

On 17-Mar-05 at 19:30:31 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Wow. It just doesn't stop. It has moved itself again. The Stitch toy had almost gotten itself out from under the TV (which was the heaviest thing I could think of to pin it under). Since I can't update the pictures here, ask me, and I will email you the picture I have taken, showing where it was when I got home. I have to find somewhere else to put it now. I can probably stuff it back under the TV until my trip to the church tomorrow, but I wonder if my dog & fiance will be safe until then...

On 18-Mar-05 at 00:10:54 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Oh my GOD. I took the toy to the church tonight, because with it moving, I couldn't wait to see father Durell. He said he would look at the toy, but not to expect much. Then, after he grabbed it, he suddenly dropped it right away. When I asked what had happened, he said he would not be able to help me, and to leave right away. He let me see his hand, and take a picture. It was very badly burned. I went out and bought a safe to put the Stitch in. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

On 18-Mar-05 at 03:58:45 EST, seller added the following information:

OK I just woke up toa crash sound and the safe was on the floor.. I had to open it and look and stitch is there but how did the safe falll and why is this happening to me need to get back to sleep ealry work tomorrow

On 18-Mar-05 at 08:16:00 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE OK so this morning before work I put the safe in the basement in our guest room and locked the door. I hope that if it is able to move, or god forbid, escape the safe, that it will be locked in the room long enough for me to get home. I think it seems to know that we are planning on selling it, and it doesn't like that.

On 18-Mar-05 at 12:27:38 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE My fiancee called me at lunch, and told me that when she went home to check ob the dog, she could hear bangnig &a screeching sound coming from the basement. I'm starting to think that we will never be rid of this curse Is it only the toy? Or is that just a vessel the spirit has decided to use for now? If we finally get teh Stitch toy far enough awayy from us that it cannot get back, will whatever is inhabitiing it move to something else? I'm starting to notice grey hairs, and the shaking is getting worse.

On 18-Mar-05 at 15:46:40 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE So my fiancee & I have made plans to stay with my parents tonight. They do not understand what is going on, but notcie the visible stress with the both of us. The toy will hopefully stay lovked in the safe, and the room is locked so it shoudl be ok. I hope it doesnt come to my parents house maybe its not a good idea to endanger them maybe hotel woul dbe better I don't know.

On 18-Mar-05 at 20:31:31 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Sorry for the urgency of the last couple of posts - I've taken some medication, and have calmed down. I had a bit of time today to look for information on other possessed toys, and possibly ways to eliminate the spirits, or demons, or whatever they are. I was able to find this link, with some information on a doll that had similar occurances, but would actually move, etc. right in front of the owner: The Doll

If anyone has any other information, or pieces of advice, please let me know. I know a lot of people are keeping track of this, and many have given links and tips - thank you to all who are helping. I will keep you updated as much as I can. Thanks again.

On 19-Mar-05 at 13:09:17 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE 2 updates this time. Update 1 - We got home from our stay with my parents, to a completely trashed house. Clothes, food, and garbage were strewn all over the floor. The entire house was a complete mess, except for our guest room upstairs. When we looked in it, we saw absolutely nothing wrong. It appears that the Stitch didn't even enter the room. It makes me wonder if it didn't have time, or if there is something in there that keeps it away...

When I went downstairs to check on the toy, the lock on the door was broken, but the Stitch was still in the safe. There's nothing else I can think of to do until we get rid of it.

Update 2 - I have posted all of the pics taken so far to an Imageshack page. Check back soon for the link.

On 19-Mar-05 at 20:59:23 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Sorry for the delay - work has to come first. No other news, well - nothing that has been noticed as of yet. Maybe it's tired. Anyway, please see here for the pics: Pictures

Until next time...

On 20-Mar-05 at 11:57:48 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE This morning I awoke to a scratching sound at our bedroom door, but when I went to open it, the door was stuck in place. After several attempts, I grabbed my keys, and climbed out our bedroom window. I got down to the ground (NOT a fun thing to do with ice on the roof), and entered the front door. I ran upstairs, and checked the bedroom. One of our kitchen chairs was wedged under the doorknob, preventing us from leaving the room. As soon as I moved the chair, I heard running water come from the bathroom. I checked, and both the sink, and bathtub taps were on. I turned them off, and could still hear running water, coming from downstairs. I checked the main level, and both the sink, and downstairs bathroom taps were on as well. After they were turned off, things were calm again, but these things were not happening before. It seems like the longer we keep the toy here, the worse it is getting.

On 20-Mar-05 at 17:35:23 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Amazing how bad news never seems to end. My fiancee & I tried to relax & watch a movie today. Any DVD we try in either of our players comes up with an error, and any VHS we try to play comes up as pure static. Also, any magnets we had on our fridge were on the floor today, and when we try to stick them back on, they will not stay. It almost appears that there is some kind of electromagnet force present. We need this thing out of here. I may be ending the auction early, if possible, so if any of the over 400 people watching are at all interested, you may want to either bid or make me an offer soon, as this may be over soon, if eBay will allow it.

On 21-Mar-05 at 09:55:10 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Last night I awoke in the middle of the night, and saw two eyes at my dresser, that blinked. Sideways. I cleared my eyes, and they were gone, so it was just a fleeting glimpse. I don't know what to make of it. As I have had many, many people send in suggestions, and comments expressing their concern, I have to say thank you very much for all the support I have gotten. As many people are also sending emails stating that they are very scared, and bothered by this auction, I feel it is my duty to say "ghosts do not exist", to ease some people's minds. Anything that happens must have an explanation, right?

On 21-Mar-05 at 12:55:11 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE OK - some people are questioning why I am attempting to get rid of the Stitch toy, when it is most likely a spirit that needs help with something. I had not really considered that would be what the reason for the haunting is, but I suppose it is a good idea. Unfortunately, I am not the most courageous person when it comes to spirits, or things unknown to myself. My hope is that whoever wins the auction will experience whatever I have, and have the courage to get more information, and hopefully be able to help. I know there are a lot of people out there with much more knowledge and experience than me out there. Thanks again for all ideas & support.

On 21-Mar-05 at 16:05:41 EST, seller added the following information:

Not really an update - I've been at work, so no news. Just wanted to again say WOW, and thanks all for the massive support. This ended up getting waaaay bigger than I had ever expected, and the information I'm getting from people with much more paranormal experience than myself is amazing. I have so many things I can try doing now to get more information, and the more I think about it, the more I think it may just need help with something. Unfortunately, as I've stated before, I am just not experienced enough to feel comfortable trying to communicate with something I don't understand. Anyway, no real new information here, just didn't want you all to think I was dead or anything.

On 21-Mar-05 at 19:21:54 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Again, no real news today - I returned home from work, to nothing out of the ordinary. I'm not complaining, though. I have received several questions from people expressing interest, but worried about not actually receiving the item. I guarantee that whoever wins this auction will receive the Stitch toy pictured in the photos, in perfect condition (as stated before), but with no guarantee that any paranormal activites will occur. If, in fact, it turns out that the Stitch is just a vessel for a poltergeist or other spirit inhabiting my home, chances are the spirit will stay here if the item is sent too far away.

IF the buyer does NOT receive the item, a full refund will be given via Paypal. The package will be delivered FOR FREE, with delivery confirmation. If anyone attempts to get a refund because of an empty box, they will need to give full, conclusive evidence that the box was empty when they received it, supported by the mail service, stating that the package had damage when received.

I hope that clears up all questions about the shipping, and worries about not receiving the toy. Thanks.

On 21-Mar-05 at 19:41:54 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE After checking www.warrens.net (VERY informative site), I have learned a few things. In it's FAQ, the site suggests not giving the spirit (doll/toy/etc) recognition, as that can make it stronger. I believe this may be why nothing seemed out of the ordinary when I returned home today, as the only update I made before returning home today really wasn't talking about the toy. I also believe this is why things started happening more strongly, and with more frequency, since I have listed the auction, as I have been speaking about it a lot. I will try to ignore it as much as I can over the next day or so, and see if that helps, so any updates may be very mild, in my effort to calm the spirit. The site also recommends putting a symbol of your religious faith in each room. I am not a very religious person, but I do follow mainly Christian beliefs, so I will be picking up some cruxifixes to put in each room.

Next, it suggests having a priest bless every room in the house. I will be contacting the priest I dealt with before, and hopefully he will be able to give me assistance, or recommend someone who can.

Lastly, the site recommends that you show no fear, and command it to leave, in the name of Jesus Christ. If I am confronted with an actual occurance, I will try my best to stay brave, and demand it leave.

Again, this was a very informative website, and thank you so much to the eBayer who recommended it.

On 22-Mar-05 at 09:33:02 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE I know I said I want to downplay the updates for the next little while, but I had to share this. My fiancee & I were going to bed, and as soon as we turned off the lights, our closet doors shook. It wasn't the dog, as he was on the bed with us. Strange, but houses settle - not a huge deal.

At 2:30 last night, I woke to our dog scratching at the floor. I calmed him down, then noticed light coming from under the bedroom door. I opened it, and the light downstairs was turned on, as was our outside light. I turned them off, and went back to bed.

This morning I asked my fiancee about it, as I thought maybe she had let the dog out or something - she did not. She also remembers (as do I) that we definitely turned the lights off last night, as we always do. Just another thing to add to our list...

Also, I think it is time for me to make an update about the photo of the burned hand, as many, many people are noticing the difference in the dates of the photo, and the update about it. The picture was taken on the 17th, and the update was written the same night, after midnight. You can see the timestamp says 00:10, which means 10 after midnight. So, it is technically the next "day", but the update really was posted the same evening. If anyone has more questions about it, please let me know, and I'll be happy to answer them.

On 22-Mar-05 at 15:38:32 EST, seller added the following information:

MAJOR UPDATE

Below is an email I received from Gary Spate of Spirit Searchers - I would explain, but I'll let it speak for itself. I am a co-founder of England-based paranormal investigation team the Spirit Searchers. I am interested to know if the toy does anything else for the winning bidder. If possible could the seller please forward on my contact details to the winning bidder as we are making programmes about the paranormal for television in England and would like to include this toy in one of our programmes should the winning bidder be interested. Many thanks. Gary Spate (Co-Founder of the Spirit Searchers - www.spiritsearchers.co.uk)

This auction has received much more attention than I was ever expecting. I suppose everyone loves Stitch, even a haunted one!

On 23-Mar-05 at 08:50:42 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE After work yesterday, I stopped by a bible society bookstore, and picked up some crucifixes. They are not very big, but hopefully they will hold the same power as any other. I put one in each room, including the guest room which was previously untouched, just in case. Everything seemed to be fine last night, but I was woken by a scratching sound at my door. Needless to say I didn't sleep anymore after that, and neither did my fiancee. I am assuming this happened because there is no cruxifix in the hallway. I will either pick more up, or possibly stop by the church as soon as possible, and pick up some holy water. I just keep looking forward to getting a full night's sleep soon.

I have also been getting quite a few questions from members about the last update. Some people are thinking that I made up the message from Spirit Searchers, to gain more interest. This is NOT TRUE. I received the message yesterday via the eBay question service. I will be contacting Gary, to see if anything can be done to prove the validity of this message (possibly a small tidbit on the website?)

On 23-Mar-05 at 12:00:05 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE OK - I got another email from Gary, who has now put an article up on his production website, so any people who doubted my seriousness can click below for validation. Black Valley Productions

If anyone has any questions or comments, please let me know.

On 23-Mar-05 at 18:32:53 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE I feel I need to address the fact that I have been getting a number of questions about the actual Stitch toy, and people wanting to know if they will receive a refund if the toy ends up not being haunted. Please remember: You are bidding on a regular Stitch stuffed animal, that may or may not be haunted when it arrives at your residence. IF in fact the toy ends up haunting you, it becomes your sole resposibility. IF in fact it does not haunt you, that is the chance you are taking, as I am not guaranteeing that the toy itself is haunted, as it could be something else. IF in fact the toy is haunted, and the spirit decides to rest, or stay with me, that is the chance you are taking, as I do not guarantee there will be a spirit in the toy when it gets to you.

Please see in the original description, that I do not guarantee that you will experience the same things I have with this toy. If you have any questions or comments on this, please let me know.

In stranger news, the toy was sitting on my front step when I arrived home after work. The front door was locked, and when I took it downstairs, the safe door was undamaged, but open. I have since put it back, and duct-taped around the entire safe. Only 3 days left of this...

On 23-Mar-05 at 19:55:58 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE I was just contacted by a local newspaper that would like to interview me for an article on this auction. I will post how it goes, and if anything else happens. Thanks again to everyone for the overwhelming support!

On 23-Mar-05 at 23:04:24 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE So, against my better judgement, but due to an overwhelming amount of people asking me to, I have left the camera running on the Stitch in the basement. It has been going for about 35 minutes now, and I will probably leave it for another couple of hours, then I will review the tape, and see if I can find any change of position. If I can, I will post the pictures in the photo archive linked above (I will post a new link).

On 24-Mar-05 at 01:02:11 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Wow. Just when I thought things were calming down. OK, I don't really know what to say, but it looks like it was a good idea to set up the camera, and look for any difference of position. I have posted 2 new pictures on the pictures site, and you can see a difference in the ear between the pictures. You can see that these pictures were taken with 1 second apart - I tried to get one with the movement, but transferring from a video to a still is not the easiest thing to do, and it was lucky enough I got these 2 pics.

As soon as I was done, Stitch was back in the safe with even more duct tape than the last time. Here is the link to the pictures again:

Updated Pictures

Let me know if you have any comments. Thanks

On 24-Mar-05 at 13:08:36 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE I have been getting a number of messages from people saying that they cannot access the picture page. This is because it is extremely busy right now - please try again in a bit if you cannot access the page. I'm sorry for the trouble, but there's not much more I can do, and I really do not have the time to email them to everyone who wants to see them. Again, sorry for any inconvenience.

On 25-Mar-05 at 04:33:52 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE just awoke to the tv on in the living room downstiars playing static and it wouldnt shut off with the remore. I think the battteries might be dead but i Dont' know and can check tomorrow dont know why it would turn on though. I also notice thta my last update didnt get put up for some reason- when I arrived home from work today our fornt door was open -it was locked but open. i called my finacee right waay and asked if she had closed the dooor and she said she had slammed ir shut and it was closed, so what??

On 25-Mar-05 at 22:54:27 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE No updates earlier, as we decided to take the advice of a fellow eBayer, and put the toy in the guest room, and everything stayed calm today. I only wish we could have thought of this sooner, as it looks like it could have saved us some grief. As the toy was in closer quarters, our dog got a little agitated, but this was to be expected. I would like to again thank the countless people who have given suggestions, and for everyone's positive thoughts and comments. I will be updating once again tomorrow (if possible - I don't know if I can update when there is less than 12 hours left), to let everyone know the final actions of the toy before sending it off to the winner. Thanks again everyone.

On 26-Mar-05 at 02:52:55 EST, seller added the following information:

UPDATE Apparently putting the toy in the guest room did not clear everything up - while out tonight, enjoying the first night out I've been able to have without constantly worrying about the toy, I received a call to my cell phone. The number was my home phone number, and when I answered, there was a strange kind of static sound, with a child's voice saying "come home daddy" and then the line went blank. As I do not know if I will be able to update tomorrow, I would like to let everyone who would like to know if everything is OK after the toy is gone, that I will be listing an 'update auction' after everything is done. If all is well, it should be listed soon, and if anything happens in the future, it will be listed then. This was the only way I could think of to let everyone know what is happening, as I do not know how to make a website, and I do not have contact information for everyone.

If anyone has any last comments or suggestions, they are always welcome. Hopefully (if I cannot update tomorrow) the next time you hear from me will be positive news. Thanks again.

the doll sold for $11,400

Atheism: The Newest Internet Trend

2008-01-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

Atheism: The Newest Internet Trend

Sunday, January 13, 2008 Update by Ian "Salmon Season" Golding
via somethingaweful.com where the internet makes you stupid

People will do anything to be cool, even if it is a bloated nonsensical mutation of its original meaning. Remember the violence surrounding Starter Jackets? Well, atheism is the Starter Jacket of the Internet. Innocent people are getting attacked everywhere because of this new trend, but with a lot less crack cocaine.

Atheist.
Before I start, let's cover the three main factors of atheism.

1) Atheism Has Been Around Forever
Uuurg the nomad sticks penis in fire. Fire burns penis. Uuurg says a spirit lives in the fire. The spirit is angry. Later that day, his brother Hroqar says he's full of shit.

2) Atheism Relies on Religion
Though atheism is the sworn enemy of religion, it cannot exist without it. Religion is the pitcher, atheism the batter--you need both to have a boring struggle for power.

3) Atheism is Really Fucking Simple
Bible, Torah, Qur'an, scriptures, no need; atheists follow the official dogma of "Nuh-Uh."

Is there anything wrong with atheism? No. The only problem with atheism is the Internet, where people with low self-confidence in IRC rooms and game servers align with any group that either accepts their self-diagnosed problems or allows them to force their opinions onto others. Basically, Atheism is the new Aspergers--Catholics are now responsible for their awkwardness, not mental illness.

For your own sake, don't say any of this to an atheist. To a believer (are they called believers of atheism, or disbelievers of religion?) Well, to an atheist, his or her "faith" is an extremely complex system of beliefs. But, the central philosophy is little more than "the opposite of whatever religion says, 'cause religion's for idiots." Atheism is the ant farm of beliefs; there's no queen but the workers still follow, digging their own tunnels of meaning and getting extremely pissed off if you shake their tiny world.
Atheist.

So while technology is breaking apart ancient religious theories with new discoveries, it is also destroying atheism by giving the followers an equal voice. The atheists are executing the most passive-aggressive jihad ever against all religions. A true Crusade of Apathy. I love seeing people of different faiths discuss religion with atheists. It's like a group of college grads, some in fine arts, others in business, and the dude who dropped out of middle school to work at the Circle K down the block. How serious is atheism? Why don't you see for yourself at their headquarter...errr... I mean wikipedia article. "Yeah, it's long, and starred, yes a star means it's a featured article, no big deal really. Our main purpose is to inject anti-religious paragraphs into random articles." The Christianity article is almost surpassed by criticism of Christianity. All over the world, theists are getting FUKN OWNED by the hour, and they don't even know it! But if subtle corrections to encyclopedia articles aren't powerful enough to open eyes, atheists resort to plan two: calling Jews, Muslims, and Christians fags.

Theist.

This very second, there is a huge body of young atheist extremists set on ruining as many lives as possible... on the internet, never in person (much like Ron Paul supporters, actually they are probably the same 8%.) These atheists are bloodthirsty, soulless (self-proclaimed), and they hunt the Internet for arguments and beliefs to troll. No message board is safe from their loose collection of semi-beliefs, lines copy/pasted from wikipedia, and database of a million image macros. They're absolutely ruthless.

And that's what atheism has become. An edgy fad. Bashing "mainstream thinking" is cool, so the most counterculture thing to do is aim for religion. How anti-establishment. How individualistic. How fucking obnoxious. But what can you expect from a generation who's mythos is based around night elves and Yoshi? Noah didn't save the animals, Sonic the Hedgehog did by defeating Dr. Robotnik. They've been a survivor, a healer, the first son, and the omega in 8 bit and 3-D. Amen.

The final verdict on all world beliefs relies on one test, and one test only. Microsoft Word auto-capitalizing.
Judaism
Islam
Hinduism
Christianity
Taoism
Shinto
atheism

Sorry atheism, looks like you didn't make the cut this year. Maybe you'll count as a serious population group in Office2009.

Best Buy Bodhisattva by Julian "rabbit" Murdoch

2007-12-18T18:55:00.000-05:00

Best Buy during the holidays is a special kind of hell. Swarms of soccer moms trailing toddlers, looking for the new game of the year. Overweight dads butt-glued into recliners in front of NASA-style walls of aggressive televisions, commenting on the silent football games arrayed before them. Hordes of middle aged couples making dreadfully misguided computer purchases.

But the best part of the best buy holiday extravaganza are the demo kids. And it was one of these kids who showed me something I will never see again.

Guitar Hero 3. "Through the Fire and the Flames." Expert.

This is a good year for Demo kids. At our local (meaning a half-hour drive) Best Buy there are several honey-pots distributed. Each is well placed in order to siphon off as much parental traffic towards easy-to-purchase, high-margin merchandise. Along one aisle, a big screen TV is set in a small 12 by 12 carpet square, with a 5.1 sound system (the rear speakers on mic stands) and a handful of low-to-the-ground "gaming chairs."

In the cabinet under the TV sits an Xbox 360. In the chairs sit - perpetually - three teenage boys, their eyes intent on game-du-jour. This Sunday, it was Halo 3 splitscreen. Nobody was deluding themselves that this was any kind of demo - these kids were settling a score, and they were there for the duration.

At the main entrance, a much larger setup is dedicated to Rock Band. Tellingly, the guitars are both Guitar Hero 2 era wired Explorers, the workhorse standard in the guitar game universe. The drum kit features duct tape in several places. As I walk by, 4 teenage boys are playing "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a choice not only unlikely due to the song's laconic and decidedly non-hardcore tone, but also due to the fact that one of the boys is actually singing, amplified, and doing it quite well. That Rock Band has brought baggy-trousered boys out of their basements to actually sing in public is a testament to the game's power. That my four year old son Jake is also singing every word with perfect diction and not-half-bad tone is a testament to how many hours I've played it, not any expression of talent on his part.

And then there's the Guitar Hero setup. Let's face it, if there was a battle going on between Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3, GH3 not only lost, it packed up its marbles and went home. An entertaining extension of the franchise to be sure, it is been relegated to a mid-aisle station in the PC gaming ghetto, not even worthy of console-land real estate. The Xbox 360 is perched atop the shelves connected to a paltry 20-something standard-definition screen. One heavily abused wired Gibson guitar hangs by its strap, calling out to me even though I know I have the game at home, can't play anything particularly impressive, and have no time to waste as we press through the herd.

As I stare wistfully down the PC game aisle, the posse approaches. Four teenage boys (it always seems to be boys), not so much walking, but dancing, like poised ballerinas. Their torsos are almost entirely motionless as their legs slide along the floor. Their pants are ridiculous: large enough for two and beltless, each clearly a plumber's apprentice. They wear unmatching zip hoodies. The tallest of the boys is perhaps 6 feet. His skin is pasty white and pimpled, with what might pass for baby-soft stubble. His hair is a mass of center-parted brown grease. I feel a deep sympathy for him.

As one and with purpose, they stop in front of the GH3 shrine. Choreographed in their movements, the smallest of the clan hands the well-used Gibson Les Paul reverently to the leader.

"OK Kyle, here you go."

Kyle takes the guitar from him. Jake is getting antsy.

"Ratatouille! Daddy we haven't even seen Ratatouille!"

I lose my focus on Kyle as I negotiate the non-purchase of Pixar's ratmovie. Uncurling from the bent over toddler-discussing Yoga pose, I see Kyle move through the selection screens, and my heart jumps to my throat.

"Through the Fire and the Flames" on Expert.

The inclusion of Fire and the Flames in Guitar Hero 3 always struck me as something of a cruel joke. Upon beating the game, Fire and the Flames plays as the credits roll. It plays in a kind of practice mode, so that you have the opportunity to flail on the ridiculous note chart. The song itself is classic hair-guitar, and while watching the original guitarist play it is a jaw dropping "holy-Jesus-on-a-popsicle-stick" experience, as music goes it's not the kind of thing I put on my iPod for casual listening. It exists purely as an expression of guitar hubris.

As the stage swirls on the screen, a calm comes over Kyle. His face slackens a bit. He closes his eyes. His lieutenants absorb his tension, shuffling their feet, biting their nails. The highway of the fret board starts rolling, and as the first note falls, Kyle's eyes open.

The entire intro of Fire is hammer-ons. There's no preamble. There's no warm up. It starts hard and it stays hard. Both of Kyle's hands are poised over the fret buttons as he taps out the notes. He is not looking at the screen. He is looking at his fingers. His long neck and arms make the guitar controller look even more diminutive than it is. He is curled over it, completely motionless but for his fingers. I look at the screen as he passes "200 note streak."

The second half of the intro starts at about 30 seconds in and moves from hammer-ons to a rapidfire staccato. I've seen this on YouTube ego-clips, so I'm expecting the sharp jackhammer of the strum bar as he approaches what must be 20 notes per second. But instead of loud and frantic flailing, his face slackens, his lips parting slightly, and he is nearly silent. Instead of slamming the strumbar with mechanical arrogance, he holds it between two fingers as if plucking petals off a rose, each stroke a delicate whisper.

300 note streak.
400 note streak.
500 note streak.

At about one minute in there is a pause, perhaps five seconds where the band's singer mumbles some 1980's era lyrics into a microphone. I've never particularly cared what he had to say. Kyle is absolutely motionless. There's no shaking out of hands, no turning to make knowing glances at his audience or worry about his hair.

He blinks.

The song enters another manic section. Occasionally he shifts his right hand up from the strum bar to tap out a hammer-on section. His face continues to soften. He has lost at least an inch of height as his spine and knees succumb to gravity. A minute and a half into the song, I see him falter, missing a note for the first time and resetting his multiplier to zero. It's not clear that Kyle has noticed. The shortest of his kinsmen, the one who had so reverently handed him the guitar, sends a glance my way, then down towards my knees to the eyes of my 4 year old. I bend over and pick him up.

"Can we go?" Jake asks.

A reasonable question for which there is no reasonable answer. "Just a minute, I need to see this." I point at the screen.

3, 4, 5 minutes into the song. Kyle slips deeper into what is clearly a state of Samadhi; He no longer perceives a space between himself and the game. There is no him. There is no song. There is no guitar.

At 6 minutes in, a small crowd has formed, perhaps 15 of us. His sravaka - his disciples - look nervously at us, absorbing the distractions, protecting him a bubble of calm. There is complete silence. Even my son is staring slackjawed, like he does in church during communion, not understanding the content of the ritual but understanding the tone and sacredness of the space.

At just over 6 minutes, the song becomes even more ludicrous. While actually playing it will ever remain for me an uncrossable gap, I am enough a student of the form to recognize the crux. He is Lance Armstrong approaching the bottom of Alpe D'Huez: Will he attack? Kyle has yet to use the Star Power crutch he has carried throughout his meditation.

He continues to ignore it.

His posse is immobile now: brows furrowed in tension, fingers white and digging into palms. I realize I haven't blinked in too long and force myself. My palms are sweating, my left hand cramped in sympathy. As the song comes to it's unrelenting conclusion, I can only stare at Kyle's face. His eyelids have dropped, half covering his irises.

He hits the last orange note. He lets the guitar fall from his hands onto the floor. It's not an act of disdain or bravado, his hands simply open and then there is no guitar. I look at the screen. "You Rock!" Jake echoes with the screen. 500,000 points. Kyle isn't looking. The small crowd claps for a second, then starts to disperse.

I try to catch his eyes, to make some feeble 40-year-old-dad gesture: maybe a nod, or a humble utterance of "nice." But, his sutra complete, his eyes have gone to his shoes. His companions pat him on the back, not with a juvenile high-five, but with an almost loving touch, they way you'd touch an aging parent on the back when asking if they're pneumonia was getting better. They turn away from us and walk back down the aisle in the direction they had come.

Jake squirms. I put him down and take his hand.

It's warm and soft and surprisingly strong as he squeezes mine. As we walk out of the store, I have the odd sense of being aware of my breathing. For a moment at least, it becomes a conscious act.

Human Evolution is Accelerating

2007-12-07T21:42:00.000-05:00

Researchers discovered genetic evidence that human evolution is speeding up - and has not halted or proceeded at a constant rate, as had been thought - indicating that humans on different continents are becoming increasingly different.
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“We used a new genomic technology to show that humans are evolving rapidly, and that the pace of change has accelerated a lot in the last 40,000 years, especially since the end of the Ice Age roughly 10,000 years ago,” says research team leader Henry Harpending, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah.

Harpending says there are provocative implications from the study, published online Monday, Dec. 10 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

– “We aren’t the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago,” he says, which may explain, for example, part of the difference between Viking invaders and their peaceful Swedish descendants. “The dogma has been these are cultural fluctuations, but almost any temperament trait you look at is under strong genetic influence.”

– “Human races are evolving away from each other,” Harpending says. “Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin. We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity.” He says that is happening because humans dispersed from Africa to other regions 40,000 years ago, “and there has not been much flow of genes between the
regions since then.”

“Our study denies the widely held assumption or belief that modern humans [those who widely adopted advanced tools and art] appeared 40,000 years ago, have not changed since and that we are all pretty much the same. We show that humans are changing relatively rapidly on a scale of centuries to millennia, and that these changes are different in different continental groups.”

The increase in human population from millions to billions in the last 10,000 years accelerated the rate of evolution because “we were in new environments to which we needed to adapt,” Harpending adds. “And with a larger population, more mutations occurred.”

Study co-author Gregory M. Cochran says: “History looks more and more like a science fiction novel in which mutants repeatedly arose and displaced normal humans - sometimes quietly, by surviving starvation and disease better, sometimes as a conquering horde. And we are those mutants.”

Harpending conducted the study with Cochran, a New Mexico physicist, self-taught evolutionary biologist and adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Utah; anthropologist John Hawks, a former Utah postdoctoral researcher now at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; geneticist Eric Wang of Affymetrix, Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif.; and biochemist Robert Moyzis of the University of California, Irvine.

No Justification for Discrimination

The new study comes from two of the same University of Utah scientists - Harpending and Cochran - who created a stir in 2005 when they published a study arguing that above-average intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews - those of northern European heritage - resulted from natural selection in medieval Europe, where they were pressured into jobs as financiers, traders, managers and tax collectors. Those who were smarter succeeded, grew wealthy and had bigger families to pass on their genes. Yet that intelligence also is linked to genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher in Jews.

That study and others dealing with genetic differences among humans - whose DNA is more than 99 percent identical - generated fears such research will undermine the principle of human equality and justify racism and discrimination. Other critics question the quality of the science and argue culture plays a bigger role than genetics.

Harpending says genetic differences among different human populations “cannot be used to justify discrimination. Rights in the Constitution aren’t predicated on utter equality. People have rights and should have opportunities whatever their group.”

Analyzing SNPs of Evolutionary Acceleration

The study looked for genetic evidence of natural selection - the evolution of favorable gene mutations - during the past 80,000 years by analyzing DNA from 270 individuals in the International HapMap Project, an effort to identify variations in human genes that cause disease and can serve as targets for new medicines.

The new study looked specifically at genetic variations called “single nucleotide polymorphisms,” or SNPs (pronounced “snips”) which are single-point mutations in chromosomes that are spreading through a significant proportion of the population.

Imagine walking along two chromosomes - the same chromosome from two different people. Chromosomes are made of DNA, a twisting, ladder-like structure in which each rung is made of a “base pair” of amino acids, either G-C or A-T. Harpending says that about every 1,000 base pairs, there will be a difference between the two chromosomes. That is known as a SNP.

Data examined in the study included 3.9 million SNPs from the 270 people in four populations: Han Chinese, Japanese, Africa’s Yoruba tribe and northern Europeans, represented largely by data from Utah Mormons, says Harpending.

Over time, chromosomes randomly break and recombine to create new versions or variants of the chromosome. “If a favorable mutation appears, then the number of copies of that chromosome will increase rapidly” in the population because people with the mutation are more likely to survive and reproduce, Harpending says.
“And if it increases rapidly, it becomes common in the population in a short time,” he adds.

The researchers took advantage of that to determine if genes on chromosomes had evolved recently. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, with each parent providing one copy of each of the 23. If the same chromosome from numerous people has a segment with an identical pattern of SNPs, that indicates that segment of the chromosome has not broken up and recombined recently.

That means a gene on that segment of chromosome must have evolved recently and fast; if it had evolved long ago, the chromosome would have broken and recombined.

Harpending and colleagues used a computer to scan the data for chromosome segments that had identical SNP patterns and thus had not broken and recombined, meaning they evolved recently. They also calculated how recently the genes evolved.

A key finding: 7 percent of human genes are undergoing rapid, recent evolution.

The researchers built a case that human evolution has accelerated by comparing genetic data with what the data should look like if human evolution had been constant:

– The study found much more genetic diversity in the SNPs than would be expected if human evolution had remained constant.

– If the rate at which new genes evolve in Africans was extrapolated back to 6 million years ago when humans and chimpanzees diverged, the genetic difference between modern chimps and humans would be 160 times greater than it really is. So the evolution rate of Africans represents a recent speedup in evolution.

– If evolution had been fast and constant for a long time, there should be many recently evolved genes that have spread to everyone. Yet, the study revealed many genes still becoming more frequent in the population, indicating a recent evolutionary speedup.

Next, the researchers examined the history of human populationsize on each continent. They found that mutation patterns seen in the genome data were consistent with the hypothesis that evolution is faster in larger populations.

Evolutionary Change and Human History: Got Milk?

“Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities for adaptation,” the study says. “The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease.”

The researchers note that human migrations into new Eurasian environments created selective pressures favoring less skin pigmentation (so more sunlight could be absorbed by skin to make vitamin D), adaptation to cold weather and dietary changes.

Because human population grew from several million at the end of the Ice Age to 6 billion now, more favored new genes have emerged and evolution has speeded up, both globally and among continental groups of people, Harpending says.

“We have to understand genetic change in order to understand history,” he adds.

For example, in China and most of Africa, few people can digest fresh milk into adulthood. Yet in Sweden and Denmark, the gene that makes the milk-digesting enzyme lactase remains active, so “almost everyone can drink fresh milk,” explaining why dairying is more common in Europe than in the Mediterranean and Africa, Harpending says.

He now is studying if the mutation that allowed lactose tolerance spurred some of history’s great population expansions, including when speakers of Indo-European languages settled all the way from northwest India and central Asia through Persia and across Europe 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. He suspects milk drinking gave lactose-tolerant Indo-European speakers more energy, allowing them to conquer a large area.

But Harpending believes the speedup in human evolution “is a temporary state of affairs because of our new environments since the dispersal of modern humans 40,000 years ago and especially since the invention of agriculture 12,000 years ago. That changed our diet and changed our social systems. If you suddenly take hunter-gatherers and give them a diet of corn, they frequently get diabetes. We’re still adapting to that. Several new genes we see spreading through the population are involved with helping us prosper with high-carbohydrate diet.”

Source: University of Utah

5 Awesome Sci-Fi Inventions (That Would Actually Suck)

2007-12-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

By CRACKED Staff, Keith Mclean
article image

Remember all those Star Trek gadgets you wished you had because they looked so cool? Well, it turns out looking cool is about all they'd be good for.

Here's five inventions that will be available some day ... even if nobody wants them.
#5.
Flying Cars

As seen in:
Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Back to the Future II, Futurama, The Jetsons ... it's actually kind of difficult to list sci-fi that doesn't feature some variation of the flying car.

Why we thought we wanted them:
First, we don't mean some kind of sissy half-plane, half-car hybrid that some people will try to tell you is a flying car. No, we mean real, float off the ground, how the crap is that happening, Jetsons sort of flying cars. Admit it, when you were 7 years old, there were only two things you were sure of: Transformers fucking rule, and the future would be full of flying goddamn cars.

Of course, once you learned to drive you wanted one even more. Every time you're stuck in traffic, you can picture yourself flipping a switch and swooping into the sky, leaving those honking bastards behind. You'd fly straight to work, free as a bird.

Why we were wrong:
Well, guess what: They're not gonna let you do that. People just flying wherever the fuck they want would be a death warrant for every radio tower and power line in the country.

No, you'd have to fly according to a wussified autopilot, along pre-set pathways. Air-roads, in other words. And, once everybody has a flying car ... well, have you ever been driving to work in a city at around, oh, eight or nine in the morning? If so, you'll know exactly how bad traffic can get during rush hour. Now, imagine if there was not just one layer of cars, but there was layer after layer of flying metal death traps over top and below you.

That's not even the worst part. The many people who have tried to invent flying cars over are finding out that every single thing that's bad with cars (cost, safety, etc) is made worse when you try to make the thing fly.

For instance, no matter what kind of engine they invent, a flying car will always burn more fuel than a regular car, especially on short trips (you burn a bunch of gas trying to overcome that gravity thing on takeoff).

Even worse, even a minor crash with another flying car could send both vehicles plummeting to the ground while you scream in terror. Imagine the poor guy on the ground, sitting there at a red light, as a flaming five car pile-up is hurdling down towards him from the sky. If you're not scared yet, try to imagine what they're going to charge you in insurance premiums as a result.
#4.
Jet Packs

As seen in:
The Jetsons (again), The Rocketeer, James Bond used one in Thunderball, Boba Fett... too many to count. If you've never heard about and/or purchased a toy featuring a jet pack, you are from the 1800s.

Why we thought we wanted them:
Because every single human wants the ability to fly, pretty much from birth. We're talking the ability to fly, not ride in a thing that flies.

Why we were wrong:
We're going to skip past the obvious point that the Rocketeer here would be left with charred stumps below the thigh, since that exhaust is coming out at around 2,000 degrees.

Modern jetpacks just use tanks of compressed gas that basically fart you into the air. If that sounds lame, you're right. The prototypes they have now let you fly a whole 30 seconds.

But let's assume they overcome all that and make one that actually works. All those safety issues we have with the flying cars? You've got all that, only without a car around you to protect your fragile body. The only possible method of saving your ass when you crash/fall asleep/run out of fuel is probably a parachute, which means you'd need extensive training on how to land without impaling yourself on a tree branch.

The only alternative would have to be some kind of air bag that instantly inflates around you in an emergency, letting you bounce gently to safety while you involuntarily shout, "WHEEEE!!!" The problem with that, of course, is that we'd be intentionally crashing all the time just so they can do that happen.
#3.
Holodecks

As seen in:
Most people would know the holodeck as being an invention out of the Star Trek series, but they probably took the idea from a Ray Bradbury short story called The Veldt where a family has a holodeck that simulates an African veldt, and then are (predictably) eaten by virtual lions.

Why we thought we wanted it:
The holodeck is just big room, that can simulate any number of environments and/or experiences for the user, and can trick all five senses into believing that it's real. You don't have to hook anything up to your brain, you can walk in and out of it like any room. A room that happens to be full of ninjas and naked women and everything else you don't have in your real life.

Why we were wrong:
Of course, we here at Cracked were too busy practicing Jujitsu and working on our dragsters to watch something as geeky as Star Trek, but we do know that the dangers of a holodeck were demonstrated in Episode 234 ("A Fistful of Datas", aired November 9, 1992, Stardate 46271.5). This episode proved that if you get shot by a cowboy in the holodeck world, you really die.

Now, assuming the creators of the real holodeck are not completely retarded and they install something that makes it so the simulation cowboys do not shoot real bullets and that the veldt lions don't really eat you (both of these would seem to be first-day considerations in the design phase), there is another problem.

Imagine how you'll react if you're in your holodeck and somebody interrupts you. Say, you're halfway through your chess game with Darth Vader, when suddenly he disappears, Scarlett Johansson is no longer sitting in your lap, and pizza costs money again. You'd find the guy who turned off the machine and snap his damned neck. Dilbert creator Scott Adams jokingly points out in his book The Dilbert Future that the holodeck, "will be society's last invention." It's no joke; once we had it, there'd be no reason to have anything else.

It's not just that it would be addictive; it's that it would literally fill every possible human emotional need and utterly eliminate all motivation to ever do anything ever. Everyone's only goal would be to do just enough work to keep food and electricity coming into the holodeck, to keep those interruptions by reality to a minimum.

People would stop reproducing, your virtual Scarlett Johansson could have perfect virtual kids who'll never wind up in jail or steal money from you to buy crack. If you get tired of them, tell the holodeck to blink them out of existence. If you're saying that you're a high-minded person who pursues spiritual goals and would never be sucked in by anything as crude as a simulation, hey, they've got a holodeck for you, too. You can sit down to dinner with Plato and Abe Lincoln and Gandhi and Jesus. If somebody yanked you out of that to go work at the post office all day, you'd barricade yourself in with a shotgun.

If aliens showed up to Earth 1,000 years later, they'd find an abandoned planet with ten billion mummified corpses laying on the floor of ten billion dusty holodecks, with huge smiles on their faces.
#2.
Teleporters

As seen in:
Star Trek, The Fly, countless video games.

Why we thought we wanted it:
Here's a technology that'd make the flying car and the jetpack both look like that retarded Flintstones car you drive with your feet. We're talking instant transport to anywhere, any time. You can live on the beach in Hawaii and live in New York. Sit there in the morning and sip coffee until about five seconds before the meeting is set to start, then step into your transport and there you are, in the conference room.

Why we were wrong:
Many later science fiction writers have declared that a device that can disassemble and reassemble a human molecule-by-molecule would be patently unsafe (the most famous and grotesque portrayal of a teleporter accident came, of course, in the film Spaceballs). But, even if they get the bugs worked out (what method of transportation is perfectly safe, after all?) there is a much larger and much weirder issue.

A teleporter wouldn't actually break down your atoms and then shoot those same atoms thousands of miles through the air; even if it were possible, there'd be no reason to do it. It would instead just grab Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms from out of the air and assemble you out of those (one Hydrogen atom is the same as another, after all).

In other words, teleporters would work more like fax machines than mail. It transmits a signal and the machine on the other end spits out a copy. Only instead of a copy of a letter, it's a copy of a person, right down to all their thoughts and memories and here the original is destroyed. This was demonstrated in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode 250 ("Second Chances", aired May 24, 1993, Stardate 46915.2) where they failed to destroy the original Will Riker and were left with two of him.

Are you grasping the weirdness of this? The original is destroyed. That means when you step into a teleporter, you die. But, the rest of the world won't know you died, because a copy of you will step out of the other end of the machine. It won't be you, though, it'll be another you that happens to share your memories. To the outside observer the thing will always work fine, and the thing that steps out of the receiving end will think it worked fine. The one person who knows it didn't worked fine, can't tell anyone because they fucking died via total atomization the moment they stepped into the machine.

So, the first time Captain Kirk used the teleportation device to beam down to an alien planet, he was basically resigning himself to an immediate death and hoping that his twin would carry out the mission for him.
#1.
Matter Replicators

As seen in:
Again, Star Trek

Why we thought we wanted it:
You're hungry, and you don't really feel like cooking or even going out to get something. Well no need to starve! This machine will replicate virtually any food that you can think of. Or, at least a series of foods that have previously been programmed into the machine.

Not just food, either. Anything. Need new batteries for your remote? Replicator. New pair of shoes? No problem. Forget your girlfriend's birthday? Punch a button on the replicator and it'll spit out a pair of flawless diamond earrings.

Why we were wrong:
Since it's just assembling molecules, presumably it would be cheaper for this thing to make you a pair of diamond earrings than a hot dog, since fewer molecules and less energy would be required. It could print perfect counterfeit money. Hell, punch a button, and it'll crank out a molecule-for-molecule replica of The Mona Lisa.

The bad news is, of course, it would eliminate your job. Your job, and all your friends' jobs, and, well, almost everyone else's. No need for farms or factories or stores. The only people who'd still be working are doctors and the people who make replicators. Oh, wait, you can just have a huge replicator that makes replicators. Nevermind.

It's just as well, even if there were jobs, there would be no way to pay you. You could make bars of gold in your replicator. Yes, we're talking about the utter collapse of the entire basis by which every society has ever existed on the planet.

The end of everything will come on the day when anyone can make anything. Except a flying car, those will still be useless.

Star Trek: Enterprise

2007-11-28T22:02:00.000-05:00

Holy crap this show is soooo poorly written. You probably have no idea. Let me help you. Here is a cursory glance:
- One episode featured Deuterium burning. Ok so you might be saying to yourself "big deal." Well deuterium is water with hydrogen that has a few extra neutrons. Why in the hell would "heavy" water burn???

The only thing it's good for is fusion. Why would they need this, considering they can gather interstellar hydrogen with Bussard ramjets. So you are wondering "what the hell is that?" Well its a way for any sort of fast moving space vessel to gather hydrogen for fuel with large magnetic fields. (hydrogen is thinly spread throughout the universe.)That's what those red things on the corn dog pods on the sides of the ship are supposed to be.

-every episode features doors you have to press a button to open. Have grocery store doors been forgotten?

-every episode does not feature nukes. Why would huge bombs not be effective in space. Better yet how about nuclear tipped missiles?

-In terms of energy transfer, projectile weapons are far more powerful. Okay, lasers are cool, but anything, even sand, moving at close to light is really damaging to everything. Especially antimatter bullets.

-Did I mention that the theme song sucks sooo hard

-the captain is gullible and hilariously inept. Well, that is, the writing for the character is bad, but the acting is worse. You would think the star of quantum leap would be better than this.

Man star trek has fallen far. This series was ok for the first two seasons, and then, according to reports that I read, they had to "sex" the show up a little to avoid getting canceled. What a mistake. But then nothing good ever comes from upn I guess.

Breath of fresh air

2007-11-07T18:59:00.000-05:00

SARKOZY (via translator): "America liberated us, and this is an eternal debt we owe America. (applause) Every time, whenever an American soldier
falls somewhere in the world, I think of what the American army did for France. I think of them -- (applause) -- and I am sad as one is saddened
to lose a member of one's family.
...
To the millions of men and women who came from every country of the world and who -- with their own hands, their intelligence, and their hearts --
built the greatest nation in the world, America did not say, "Come, and everything will be given to you." Rather, she said, "Come, and the only
limits to what you will be able to achieve will be those of your own courage, your boldness, and your talent." (applause)
...
The America that we love throughout the world impedes this extraordinary ability to grant each and every person a second
chance, another chance, because, in America, failure is never the last word. There is always another chance. Here -- in your country, on this soil
-- both the humblest and the most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That is what
constitutes the moral value of America.
...
We need France to be stronger. I am determined to carry through with the reforms that my country has put off for all too long.
I will not turn back. I will implement all of them, because France has turned back for all too long. I have come to present to you today a France that
comes out to meet America, to renew the covenant of friendship and alliance that Washington and Lafayette sealed in Yorktown. Together, let us be true to
their memories. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I say this to you on behalf of the French people: Long live the United States of America. Long live France.
Long live French-American friendship! (applause)"

This bodes poorly for me in Jan. 2008..

2007-10-27T20:29:00.000-04:00

I'm totally going to be liquidated as an enemy of the state.....so long...rofl

Found: Artifacts from the future

2007-10-27T19:57:00.000-04:00

Hail! Glorious leader of the Proletariat, Comrade! Better Red than Dead!

Hillary Clinton is a Socialist Commie!

2007-10-27T19:50:00.000-04:00

The most revealing remarks from Hillary Clinton…. EVER. I can hardly even believe that I am reading this, and that she said these remarks in New Hampshire, the most Libertarian, anti-government state in the Union. She’s either got some balls or she’s an absolute dolt. Thanks to Faisca for sending it along to me.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it’s time to replace an “on your own” society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.

Shared responsibility… whatever, I guess I can accept that. I mean, I’d expect to hear that from Sesame Street, not a presidential candidate, but whatever, it’s not horrible. But prosperity? Shared prosperity? I pay 30% of my meager income in taxes a month, don’t you think we’re already sharing our prsoperity enough!?

The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an ownership society really is an “on your own” society that has widened the gap between rich and poor.

This is the same tired Marxist line that’s been repeated since the 1800s. Has anybody woken up to realize that “widening the gap between the rich and the poor” is not a bad thing when both the rich and the poor continue to get more rich, together?! Has anybody noticed that in every socialist country in the history of the world, the “gap between the rich and the poor” has not only been wider but the rich have been millionaires while the poor have been starving?! ARG!

“I prefer a ‘we’re all in it together’ society,” she said. “I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none.”

By, ‘Work for all Americans,’ she really means that the government will work for no Americans, or a very small minority of those who she would want to have vote for her. A ‘we’re in it all together’ society!? No shit we’re in it all together, that is exactly why I do not want the government taking anything else that I earn.

That means pairing growth with fairness, she said, to ensure that the middle-class succeeds in the global economy, not just corporate CEOs.

The one thing that the Middle Class likes the most is not having their money taken from them and put into trillion dollar bureaucracies.

“There is no greater force for economic growth than free markets. But markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed,” she said. “Fairness doesn’t just happen. It requires the right government policies.”

I don’t think that anybody told Mrs. Clinton that a government that REGULATED FAIRNESS INTO THE MARKET IS NOT A FREE MARKET! You Socialist Dolt.

“We have sent a message to our young people that if you don’t go to college … that you’re thought less of in America. We have to stop this,” she said.

……. What? We have to stop encouraging young people to go to college? If one person drops out of High School and another person graduates from college, we’re not allowed to celebrate the college graduate?

Beyond education, Clinton said she would reduce special breaks for corporations, eliminate tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas and open up CEO pay to greater public scrutiny.

The “eliminate tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas,” is one thing… but it’s happening already, and nearly every politician — except for the Libertarians — support that. Open up “CEO Pay” to greater public scrutiny essentially means that businesses must open their trade secrets to other companies; reducing “special breaks for corporations” means raising corporate taxes, killing the economy, and slashing jobs.

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.“

Hillary Clinton is a Socialist

She was right… It takes a village.. to raise a village idiot.

Credit: Michael Brazell

Fairwell tv-links.

2007-10-19T18:08:00.000-04:00

TV LINKS was Shut Down by MPAA

TVLINKS - an awesome link site was shut down by MPAA and forced to relocate to a server in Netherlands. From their website:

TVLINKS has been forced to switch data center’s from MPAA threats. Now we need your help. Please consider donating. Apparently it is now illegal to link to a website that displays illegal content. But what about the sites that are actually housing the video uploads? Oh wait, they’re owned by Google, and sites like YouTube have already paid off the MPAA to turn their head.

Yep, their crime was to linking to copyrighted material hosted on YouTube, Google Video and similar websites. Seriously - all the copyright owners need to do is go to straight to the source and send them a DMCA lawyergram. Hell, this is easier than dealing with torrent sites because each of this videos is hosted by a corporate entity! But I guess it is just easier to bully the little guy.

I really liked this website because it allowed me to catch up on Scrubs episodes that I missed (yeah, ever since Comedy Central started airing it I have been addicted to it!) and allowed me to check out different anime series. Instead of downloading a whole season via torrent, I could just watch a single episode to see if I liked it. TVLINKS was nice because it would organize the listings by show and season and tag the links with the correct titles and episode numbers. It was much more convenient than searching the video sites and trying to find the episode you need. Meh…

Go donate if you can. I hope they will be back online soon.

Net neutrality

2007-10-13T12:59:00.000-04:00

Let me start off by saying we love all of our friends and fans that we've made through Myspace.

But sometimes Myspace the company does some gross stuff that violates the spirit it was created under and the values of the Internet itself.

Over the last few months there has been a lot of debate over Net Neutrality, which basically boils down to one company blocking access to to another companies servers in order to gain a business advantage. This debate has usually focused on the companies that charge for bandwidth like AT&T, but recently Myspace has pioneered a new form -- blocking sites that users link to in their bulletins and profiles.

Right now if you link to anything at a site like "http://revver . com" (remove the spaces) Myspace will delete the link. Try it. That sucks right?

Revver is not the only site. There are dozens of smaller video and photo sharing sites that they are doing this to.

Why should you care?

Ask A Ninja was created because we were in control of where we posted the videos. That's a big deal because if we're forced to put them on MySpace video then FOX could take the episodes and make money off of them without paying Douglas or me anything. Which isn't fair and takes away the incentive to create cool shows for you to watch.

Why is this against Net Neutrality? Because videos from Myspace Video and Youtube are not effected. It's only these smaller, more innovative companies that haven't been sold for billions of dollars.

Here's what you can do:

Copy this bulletin. Repost it. Blog about it. Make Tom put up a little fix it bulletin saying he's sorry.

Once you've reposted this, send a message to Tom (http://myspace.com/tomanderson) like this (or even better, write your own):

I'm sending this message to request that MySpace stop blocking videos from sites like Revver. Choosing the video-sharing service that is right for me is very important and is why you built Myspace. What I like most about MySpace is that I can generally do what I want here. I like that Myspace is a relatively open platform where I can communicate with my friends (and promote my stuff) in all sorts of ways. I feel good about sharing videos from Revver because I know they respect copyright and look out for independent artists. Please bring back Revver!

You Are A Pirate (Lazy Town)

2007-10-11T21:40:00.003-04:00

ooops double post!

You Are A Pirate (Lazy Town)

2007-10-11T21:40:00.001-04:00

The name says it all. (lol)

I agree

2007-10-07T02:19:00.000-04:00

I don’t get the opportunity to listen to the radio often but was fortunate to be listening to Rush Limbaugh on September 26th. For those of you who have not heard the story yet, September 26th is the date that Rush allegedly called all soldiers who speak out against the war, “phony soldiers.” That is the story that the left needs for the American people to believe but it is nowhere near accurate and those like Harry Reid are well aware that they are spreading a lie. The transcript is readily available for anyone who wishes to read it. Rush was very specific in talking about Jesse MacBeth and others like him. Like him? Yes. For those who do not know, MacBeth claimed to be an army Ranger, decorated with a Purple Heart, who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq where he had witnessed American troops committing atrocities. The truth is that Macbeth never made it out of basic training let alone into the theater of combat. MacBeth is now serving jail time for falsifying a VA claim and military records. Unfortunately he is not the only “phony soldier” that has lied about military service in order to slander the real soldiers who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whether it is Media Matters, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin or Wesley Clark, I have a hard time believing that they are so dim-witted that they don’t know what Rush said had nothing to do with real combat veterans who choose to voice dissent about the war. Unfortunately if their blatant misrepresentation isn’t out of stupidity or ignorance, it must be for a more sinister and deceptive reason. When did we become so hateful? When did blind ideological agendas become so powerful that reality can be so easily cast aside by so many?
To clarify, the term “phony soldiers” refers specifically to individuals who lie about their military record not to real veterans who happen to disagree with the war. What should be offensive to everyone are these disgraceful liars who have to gall to claim to be combat veterans when they have never worn the uniform at all or if they have, they washed out of Basic Training. While the anti war movement should welcome veterans who oppose the war, they owe it to themselves and their supporters to distance themselves from the hundreds of Jesse MacBeth’s around the country whose deceptive behavior only serves to undermine a valid point of view.
James Gregoire, Fairfield

Language Is hillarious...

2007-10-01T17:54:00.000-04:00

This has got to be one of the funniest and most entertaining slashdot posts EVER. (rotfl)

wife power! lol.

2007-09-29T20:24:00.000-04:00

The people of Knoxville demonstrated one hell of a great way to disrupt and basically neuter a KKK rally. The 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came out to cheer them on in their own special way. Here is an excerpt from the days action.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”

Battlestar galactica....layoffs

2007-09-29T17:26:00.000-04:00

lol.

Halo 3

2007-09-29T16:08:00.000-04:00

So yeah. Halo 3 is out. Very fun. It lives up to the hype. I've unlocked all the skulls and have beaten the game on heroic.
here is a skull and terminal link
And the last skull

Good luck! (for additional help search on youtube)

This is by the way, the reason I haven't made a post in a couple days. Forgive me.

My xboxlive screen name is th4ranger if you want to play a bit. I've got a few open friends spots.
I promise that I'll write a story tomorrow.

Holy crap! Church of Google!

2007-09-23T13:07:00.000-04:00

(lol)
People can't take a joke sometimes! After reading the hate-mail, people are apparently getting really offended.

Dreamgirl blackjack

2007-09-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

Credit: Something Aweful where the internet makes you stupid
(icq pranks)

In the early days of the wild-west Internet there was very little designed to actually entertain users. There were chat rooms and Usenet, but the nascent web was just a gimmicky way for people to write crappy diaries about their crappy families and crappy companies to advertise their crappy products. Back then all of the MMORPGs were text-based and the closest you could get to an online frag-fest was to dial up your friend's modem in Rise of the Triad.

The greatest and most enthralling form of entertainment during those simpler times was self-made. All you had to do was find people on the Internet and screw with them.

To that end, my friends and I developed a game of one-upmanship we called Dream Girl Blackjack. Our rules for Dream Girl Blackjack were very simple. You assumed the identity of a stock dream girl we had made up as a series of bullet points designed to appeal to every man. In our case it was Heather and she had just turned 18 and was trying to break into the modeling business. Her interests included the exact interests of the guy we were talking to.

It might sound a little creepy, but there was a game in there. Once the guy started hitting on "Heather" we would begin laying out our "cards." The person who could lay out the most cards before the guy ran for the hills won the game. The cards we played were progressively creepier or more horrifying facts and anecdotes about "Heather" designed to repulse any rational person.

Our first few tries at the game we realized that it was very hard not to drop a card that was too horrible right at the beginning. We realized that saying, "I lost 86% of my face in a car fire" would drive people away immediately. During our next few games we realized that playing it slow could take too long and be even more aggravating. It turned out men were willing to put up with "I live with 35 cats" or "I had the worst diarrhea last night" if it might lead to a hot date with an 18 year old wannabe model.

Through repetition we learned that escalation was the trick to winning a hand of Dream Girl Blackjack. You had to start with the little hints of horror and work your way up to all-out apocalyptic vileness.

My friends are all well-heeled professionals these days, so I could not get them to participate in my little game. I think the hand I played with Heather a few nights ago was textbook Dream Girl Blackjack. I hope my one-sided version will still prove entertaining and maybe even educational.

Heather: How y'all doin 2nite?

Auron86: whats up?

Heather: n/m just feelin a little down

Auron86: whats wrong???

Heather: bad day :( got a rejection letter an my dog died

Auron86: awwwww :(

Heather: yeah it sux

Auron86: what was your rejection letter from a boyd friend?

Heather: lol no silly from a college

Auron86: lol

Heather: I dont have a boyfriend :(

Auron86: lol u want a boyfriend :P

Heather: I dont know :P If hes cute

Auron86: girls say im cute at work

Heather: Where do you work?

Auron86: circuit city

Heather: oooh you must be smart

Auron86: lol i guess my iq is like 165 I think

Heather: :O

Auron86: lol tell me about you

Heather: I'm from Corpus Christi, I was a cheerleader but I was like the nerdy cheerleader

Auron86: I bet ur hot

Heather: I don't know :( I'm really into videogames and Final Fantasy

Auron86: lol cool what do u look like????

Heather: I'm a ditzy blonde

Auron86: lol

Heather: Im in good shape but my boobs are a little too big they get in the way XP

Auron86: mmm sounds hot

Heather: what about you what do you look like?

Auron86: Im 6'1" pretty big guy but im really strong

Heather: I like a strong man :P

Auron86: ap erfect match!!

Heather: You're not black are you?

Auron86: nope im white

Heather: whew okay good

Auron86: lol dont like black people?

Heather: Not very much but they aren't as bad as Jews

Auron86: lol im totally white dont wory babby

Heather: That's reassurin, I can't stand to think I might be giving my secrets to those heeb vipers.

Auron86: u gonna tell me a secret??

Heather: Hmmm, maybe, I don't know if I trust you yet :P

Auron86: bnaby you can trust me

Heather: maybe later

Auron86: whatever u want baby your wish is my commans

Heather: ;)

Auron86: so what kind of music u like?

Heather: oh a little bit of everything

Auron86: lol havy metal?

Heather: awww that reminds me of my lil sis :(

Auron86: whats wrong???

Heather: she's just a little baby and last week she was sleeping in her crib and one of our ferrets got in the crib with her and chewed off her nose.

Auron86: OMG

Heather: Yeah it was really horrible. I had to get it out from under the refrigerator with a broom, but it was all gnawed up and nasty.

Auron86: thats fucking crazy!!!

Heather: We have a lot of ferrets and daddy said he was gonna drown them all after that

Auron86: that is fucked up

Heather: put them in a bag and drown them and you know what I dont care

Auron86: so what did they do about her nose?

Heather: that's what reminded me. My mom tried to knit a nose with a little strap to go over her head, but it ended up my daddy made one out of tin and it sort of hooks in there to her skull-face

Auron86: im so sorry :(

Heather: I'm bringing the mood down, let's talk about something else.

Auron86: are u a virgin???

Heather: that's very forward!

Auron86: lol j/k

Heather: no it's okay, I am a virgin but I've done oral sex before

Auron86: mmm that sounds hot

Heather: I practiced a lot on a broom handle

Auron86: did u get splinters??

Heather: no silly it was plastic it was a swiffer and then I asked my minister about it and he let me try it on him

Auron86: OMFG! girl u are crazy

Heather: I've calmed down a lot I was only 9 when I did that

Auron86: ummmmm how old are u now?

Heather: I just turned 18 :D

Auron86: so ur legal

Heather: totally

Auron86: Im 22 but I just wanted to make sure I wasnt in one of those tv shows I am not into kids

Heather: Kids have turned me off ever since my accident

Auron86: ???

Heather: long story, no biggie

Auron86: tell me

Heather: Oh I just had a few too many hard lemonades at Kylie's party last summer and I hit a kid on his bike and was charged with vehicular manslaughter

Heather: I mean wtf was a 11 year old doing riding his bike at like midnight??? come on!

Auron86: omg

Heather: yeah, it sucked big time, they suspended my license and now I can't drive anywhere on my own. I've hated kids ever since.

Auron86: I guess so

Heather: so are you trying to seduce me Auron?

Auron86: u can call me brian

Auron86: and maybe ;P

Auron86: was that true about the kid?

Heather: Unfortunately it is true brian but I moved past it so forget that ancient history

Auron86: its okay we all make mistakes

Heather: Yeah, like filing my teeth

Auron86: what does that mean?

Heather: oh no big whoop y'all, I just filed my teeth down to points for a play I was in

Auron86: didn't that hurt?!?!

Heather: oh yeah a ton and it looks really scary right now if I smile but im gettin them capped

Auron86: do they get cavetes?

Heather: yeah, I got a really bad abscess in my jaw and had to go on anitbiotic and painkillers

Auron86: u ok now?

Heather: all better :D but i am addicted to painkillers now :(

Auron86: i done oxy before

Heather: yeah, it's a lot like oxy

Auron86: maybe we could hook up and do it together baby

Heather: I'd love that but fyi its morphine injections not oxy

Auron86: with a needle???

Heather: of course silly, like Sherlock Holmes

Auron86: maybe not then but you could still try out those skills from the broom handle ;D

Heather: lol you are so dirty, don't you worry about sin?

Auron86: baby im a sinner!!!

Auron86: i dont believe in the bible but if you do thats cool

Heather: I don't believe in Christianity but I am a dragon

Auron86: a dragon?

Heather: Oh yeah, y'all. I am a prismatic dragon from Tothor, an elder male named Surlakk.

Auron86: I thought you said you were a cheerleader

Heather: Definitely I am that too I am a changeling. I am connected to my dragon self by the crystal I wear around my neck and I can take the form of Surlakk when I need it.

Auron86: like do you pick when you change forms?

Heather: Usually, but if I feel like I'm in danger I sometimes change forms

Auron86: that is awesome

Heather: The last time I changed was when that bat bit me on my face

Auron86: lol what

Heather: Bat done got up in our attic and mom made me chase it out with the broom before it turned into an infestation

Auron86: did you get it?

Heather: yeah, I got it alright, right in the face! scratches and bites all over

Auron86: ouch :*(

Heather: hurt more when I realized I was coming down with a case of the rabies

Auron86: did the doctor give u a shot in ur cute butt?

Heather: no the thing with rabies is you got to just ride it out, I'm a couple days away from the worst of it

Auron86: uh well good luck

Heather: you know who jamie lee curtis is?

Auron86: yes

Heather: she's got this thing called testicular feminization and she looks just like a beautiful woman but she has testicles inside her

Heather: I have that same condition, but you can't tell or anything unless you palpate my perineum

******Auron86 has disconnected

Heather: but she's so beautiful!

Heather: didn't you see True Lies?

- Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons

New glasses

2007-09-21T17:07:00.000-04:00

So I got new glasses, after our little terror, Sargent Pepper destroyed my previous last double pair. Everyone at work has been like "oooh your new glasses are great."
I don't really know what to say besides "OK thank you". I don't really know what merits this reaction. I can only describe them as Weezer glasses. I also realize that I pretty much have to put up a new picture. So here's a current one:

ok ok ok maybe that wasn't me. This is:

Bee's???? Die.

2007-09-20T16:49:00.000-04:00

If you really hate bees then please, amuse yourself with the following link:

http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1845064?

have fun.

Blossoms of light

2007-09-19T19:37:00.000-04:00

Admiral Vue watch the star Epsilon Eridani rise over the rebel planet Megak, the fourth planet in the system. It was expected that the separatist warships would use the sunrise as cover since their orbit carried them to the far side of the planet.
This brief respite allowed fleet wide laser batteries to recharge capacitors to full power and allow any needed damage control to be completed.
"The rebels had better not have anything up their sleeves. Commander Bing do you have any ideas what they might try?"
"Well, comrade...we outnumber them three to one, and we are past the asteroid belt currently, so they can't lob rocks at us. Most of the fleets' mirror hull integrity is still at 99.998% on average."
The admiral ran his fingers down his moustache, thinking about what to do next.
"Commander Jose, what is the current position of our nuclear fusion mines?"
"Current coasting toward the projected rebel fleet orbital velocity. Ready to detonate at your command."
Lt.Carter at the long-range telescope station abruptly spoke up, "Rebel fleet sighted at projected orbital. They are accelerating at a rate of approximately three gee's toward our current position. Collision course."
"So Chicken is the game eh? Fleet orders are to match acceleration on a collision course for the appropriate number of ships the rest are to take courses that brings them alongside the rebel ships. Detonate Fusion mines when rebel ships are within 1000 meters." Barked out Admiral Vue.
"Rebels are firing unguided rockets in large numbers."
"What? Unguided? Are you sure?"
"Yes, Sir. Unguided rockets, they seem to have a large payload section" said Lt.Carter.
"Tell the fleet to target rockets on intercept course and ignore the rest, Lt.Williams."
At the communications console, Lt.Williams busily started issuing orders to the respective captains.
Strange. Admiral Vue thought to himself. Unguided rockets haven't been used in hundreds of years in space combat. Sure, in ground attack frigates, but not in fleet combat. What could they be planning? Nuclear rockets? No...these were far to small and had far too little estimated mass for that class engine. But there sure were a hell of a lot of them.

**************************************************

Fleet Leader Andre Looked around himself on the bridge of the rebel Warship Free Market. He laughed loudly. This was going to be a big upset for the First Soviet Socialist Empire of Man.
"Go Red!" He said sarcastically and laughed again.
"Petty Officer Lin Yang, Please detonate sand charges at will."
Idiots. They had no idea!
The plan was so simple. Normally a warship would be nearly perfectly reflective, or close to it as possible. In principle, almost all of a laser beam would bounce off. It has taken, in previous engagements, weeks to slowly degrade a battle-grade mirror to start destroying the armor underneath. Well what destroys thin paint or enamel finishes? Sand. Especially sand moving at a third of the speed of light by the time it reached the commie bastards anyway. Then the slaughter could begin.

**************************************************

"Admiral, sir! the Fusion Mines are not responding!"
"What? Why?!"
"Comrade Vue I do not have that information at this time." Said commander Jose plaintively.
"Sir, there seems to be a large dark cloud in between the rebels and us, I can't tell what this phenomenon could be."
"Lt.Carter get a velocity and heading on this cloud."
"Aye. Moving toward our position at a speed of 98,931,511.1 meters a second."
Admiral Vue was staring at the main view screen live picture of the bow camera, when he slowly realized what was about to happen.
"Order to the fleet, Lt.Williams: Full Emergency Reverse, Disperse pattern Delta!"
"Sir?"
"Just do it!"
The Admiral mentally marked her for liquidation if their fleet survived this.

**************************************************

Andre watched thought the main telescope himself. The sand was beginning to impact the Soviet fleet. Pristine Mirrored surfaces were torn to bits and the armor underneath was heated to a dull, glowing red. The poor losers tried to dodge the searing wall of sand at the last second but it was far too late. Death by a thousand cuts.
"Sand clearing enemy fleet, and.....FIRE! Fire all available batteries!"
It was over fast. In mere moments the enemy fleet started erupting into miniature stars visible from across the Epsilon Eridani solar system.

Fiery spheres of destruction burned silently into the eternal night of the hard vacuum of space. Sometimes, yea, sometimes, the good guys win.

Credit: ME, damnit!

All to easy...

2007-09-19T19:36:00.000-04:00

nsel89: hay

Ansel89: yo i am just cleani my buddies list out and i dont kno why u are on her

Ansel89: hello

Ansel89: hey i don't want to just del you so say something

Zack: Greetings Brother

Ansel89: lolo duse why are you on my list???

Zack: From blackest sepulcher of haterapes, I greet you. We are one beneath the compound eyes of Xogoth the Monstrolith.

Ansel89: wtf

Zack: Ansel, I extend my hand of red to you in kinship. You are my brother in MURDERCHURCH.

Ansel89: uhhhhhhhh *shakes hans*

Zack: Greetings Brother!

Ansel89: hi

Zack: I have missed you at our meetings, Ansel.

Ansel89: wtf what meetings

Zack: On that star spun night of dread auspices, you stood before the altar of Xogoth and took the oath to become one with the flock. To join us in malevolent matrimony as a brother of the forever burning MURDERCHURCH.

Ansel89: lol no i didnt

Zack: You did! You drank deeply of the heartsblood. You had a sex with a black cat.

Ansel89: uhhhh

Zack: Do you not remember your vows? To uphold the three pillars of MURDERCHURCH?

Zack: Pillar one: murder the Christians sheep

Zack: Pillar two: partake the unholy sacrament of MURDER

Ansel89: no

Zack: Pillar three: drink blood from MURDERS

Ansel89: wait where are you?

Zack: The unhallowed black heath of Solomor, kissed with hoarfrost from the frozen heart of blackest murder.

Ansel89: lool ok says ilinois in your prof

Zack: It's a suburb of Peoria.

Ansel89: lol

Zack: I can Google Map it if you don't believe me.

Ansel89: no im from indiana but i go drinking in illinois sometimes

Zack: YES! You drink the heartsblood! You quaff the red wine of the innocents! You imbibe the liquid crimson philter of ruin!

Ansel89: lol wtf no keystone

Zack: There were some refreshments before the ceremony. Josh brought a cooler.

Ansel89: wait was this at the fairgrounds

Zack: YES! The forsaken pavilion normally claimed by 4H. We had it from 8PM to the Witching Hour and then it was midnight movies. At ten till midnight, when the darkest shroud of unholy nights gripped the land, we inducted you.

Ansel89: was sal there?

Zack: He attended the ceremony.

Ansel89: I havn't seen him in year what's he up to?

Zack: Ansel, don't you remember?

Ansel89: what

Zack: With the curved scimitar of the Djinn you cut off his head. It was your final act to join MURDERCHURCH. The blood sacrifice of a close friend.

Ansel89: wtf

Zack: I'm not joking Ansel.

Ansel89: ok i dont believe you

Zack: Ansel, do you believe…in direst magic?

Ansel89: no

Zack: what about bleak goblins?

Ansel89: I believe in phsychics like Yori Gellar

Zack: Yes, yes, psychic powers are closely intertwined with black sorcery and wicked goblins.

Ansel89: seriously how do you know sal

Zack: I can hear Sal clamoring at the rust-faced gates of the forlorn abyss, Ansel. If you wish to speak to him, you will need to do as I say as quickly as you can.

Ansel89: uhhh ok

Zack: Do you have a black candle?

Ansel89: no

Zack: How about a red one?

Ansel89: let me check bathroom

Ansel89: ok its kind of greenish white and it say apple crips on the side

Zack: Yes! That will do nicely. That will appease the wraiths that guard the gates of the abyss.

Ansel89: ok light it?

Zack: Yes. As you light it say aloud "Oh, Xogoth, I light this sinister flame to represent the hatefire that burns within your bloody entrails. May the Stargods of Ye Olde Tymes show the way to the gory filth-abyss that waits beyond the door of death."

Ansel89: r ead it out?

Zack: Yes. Be sure to pronounce "Ye Olde Tymes" as "yeh oooldie thimes."

Ansel89: ok candle is lit 2

Zack: Alright, this next step is very important, Ansel, so you need to focus your mana.

Ansel89: how

Zack: Think of calming things. Think of…a balloon full of brains exploding over a field of maggoty corpses.

Zack: Imagine an old rotting galleon sailing a black ocean and on the ship there is a crew of skeletons and they all turn at once to look at you and puke up chunky black blood.

Ansel89: thats not helping

Zack: Okay, try this, try a beautiful woman naked in front of you. She has huge breasts with big pink nipples and smooth tanned skin and curvy hips. She smiles and then her face starts shrinking up like a death raisin and her skin falls off in big wallpapery sheets and you can see her muscle moving underneath. Then snakes come out of her eye sockets and then start biting her body and you can hear a cackling laugh.

Ansel89: uhhhh alrigh mana focused I guess

Zack: Good. Now concentrate very murderously.

Ansel89: ok smells like applpie

Zack: Concentrate! Repeat aloud everything I type.

Ansel89: ok

Zack: Triple Ripple Swirl of Boundless Hate, Xogoth!

Ansel89: triple ripple sw irl of bondless hate xogoth!!

Zack: No, just say "ok" after you've said each part out loud.

Ansel89: ok.

Zack: Wait! You didn't say that part out loud, did you?

Ansel89: no

Zack: Alright, good, continue the incantation: Xogoth! I beseech unto your mega raped palace of rotflesh and livid tortured tissue!

Ansel89: ok

Zack: Reach into your meaty purse of the ages and draw out the skincoin of Sal!

Ansel89: ok

Zack: Xogoth! I implore you with this sacrifice to wrench his agony filled soul from the beyond!

Ansel89: ok

Zack: Now slit the throat of the sacrifice and hold her neck so that her blood fills the Ognostimaeous chalice!

Ansel89: wtf

Zack: The sacrifice man, quickly!

Ansel89: no sacrifice1!!!!!

Zack: You must! I can hear the tremors of Xogoth's approach! He is drawing near!

Ansel89: dude you didnt say sacrifice

Zack: Oh Hated Gods, quickly Ansel!

Ansel89: i got nothing

Zack: I can feel his unquenchable bloodlust gripping me! My blood is raging! My blood-filled organs are shaking! Ansel….he…is…………nnnnn

Ansel89: what!

Ansel89: hey

Ansel89: wtf dude u there???

Zack: Ansel.

Ansel89: u ok?

Zack: I am satiated. For now.

Ansel89: did xerox leave

Zack: Ha. Ha. Ha. I am Xogoth. I can smell your fear through the pitiful meat machines. I will rend your bones!

Ansel89: NOT FUN Y!

Zack: Ha. Ha. Ha. I'm coming for you, Ansel. Your Yankee Candle will not save you!

Ansel89: WTF how did you know??!

Zack: Your blood is like a juice box to me! Your fear like a parade stopping traffic! I will dine on your deepest guts before I am through with you!

****User Has Disconnected

Zack: Ha. Ha. Ha.

Source: The mad, mad, mad, mad, people from somthing aweful, where the internet makes you stupid.

Link:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/icq-pranks/ansel89-joins-murderchurch.php?page=1

Kel: Miner, Intersteller Passenger?

2007-09-19T19:34:00.000-04:00

Kel ate the replicated ham sandwich slowly, as he watch the belt asteroids move silently in the void. Mining was grunt work, but the pay was OK. Presently he was on lunch break, which he had decided to have on the fly. As long as he got his quota out for the day, he set his own schedule. He was mining to get raw materials for the first interstellar spacecraft.

The brief on the designs had been released to all of the employees on the project. It was to be called the Africa. It had an on-board fusion power plant, a powerful one too. A full gigawatt of output pouring raw power to a laser drive. It was planned to be a full two miles in length. It was hoped, that this information would give the workers of the colonization project a sense of purpose, especially on jobs like this. All it had really done was seed hatred toward the rich bastards that were to take the journey to the earth-like planet, New Caledonia.
A laser, or light drive, propelled a spacecraft by shining light out the back. Incidentally, it was well know this could also be used as a weapon, but the now united Humanity had no enemies, and no other intelligent lifeforms had been found up to now, 2567.
Kel watched the progress bar. The mining process was largely AI controlled, and really, he was simply a supervisor. Sometimes the solitude was unbearable, mostly Kel enjoyed it, but then, most miners did. The sandwich was finally eaten up, and he washed it down with a nice synth beer.
"Tan Jamaican lager. Red stripe? Terrible Autumn!"
Autumn was his particular ship's AI. He had told it to make him a lunch he would like.
"You always say that. Every time. Even when you order it, specifically."
"Meh. I swear replicated beer never tastes quite right. They have to work on the artificial alcohol taste."
"Maybe if you ordered it again it might taste better."
Kel thought that might have been sarcastic. AI's, even limited ones like Autumn always seemed smarted than they ever gave away, like they were aware that they were just a voice coming out of the speakers. Mining can often be quite fun, with the right AI partner. His last six month shift was spent with an overly optimistic, but not unrealistically so, AI named Alex. It was like having a pretentious dumb blond on call 24/7. It was not the best shift ever, but not the worst.
The one chance that made this job worth it was finding a gold asteroid. There was a chance of it, but if you found it, it was all yours.
"Hey meat bag, guess what?"
Kel groaned at the poor insult and answered. "What?"
"You'll never guess what fifty five percent of the next target asteroid is made of?
"Rock? and forty five percent iron?" Kel asked in a sarcastically hopeful tone.
"No....four over and three down on the common periodic chart, from iron."
"Goddamn it, tell me what the hell that is! I don't know my periodic chart as well as a know-it-all AI."
"Well now that you insult me never mind."
Kel waited a few moments to let the tension build.
"OK Autumn tell me what it is made out of."
"Er.. well...um........"
"Please tell me Autumn you know I could wait days."
"Oh you could? Hmm....that would be interesting."
Kel knew better than to let that happen. He started counting. "One. Two. Three... Four..." Counting was the only thing he could do to demonstrate his independence from the AI.
"OK, OK, OK! Just stop the counting! Asteroid 65322 is now marked on the cartographer as fifty five percent solid gold."
"DAMN! I'm rich! How much does a trip to New Caledonia cost?"
"Well assuming you are genetically diverse enough to allow safe breeding, about half that gold out there."
"Hot pancakes and syrup, looks like I'm going on extended vacation!"

By: Me, damnit

Mick's revenge.

2007-09-19T19:33:00.001-04:00

Mick was hungry as he sat leaning against the wall. How many bullets did he have left? Ten in the mag...six in his pocket...Was it enough? It had better be, he thought, or he'd be in deep shit. At least he had water.

He fortunately had been lucky enough to get some water bottles before they were gone. The food of course was long gone, once the fear of the impending meteorite impact had kicked in.

Ah, the meteor. Sixteen miles in diameter, twenty miles a second...it wasn't even spotted until it passed though the moon's orbit. By then, there was no time to do anything to stop it. The only good thing is that it hit China. Communist bastards...he thought as he chucked to himself. If only the destruction had stopped there. Earthquake faults had been triggered around the globe.

Seven hundred years ago a large earthquake had re-routed the Mississippi River. Well, it had again. And this wasn't the half of it, as California, had finally moved itself, where, if recent politics had anything to say about it, was no longer part of the Continental United States. "Bet it will be difficult to worry about the environment now, hippies!" He had said when he heard it on his shortwave radio.

Of course, then the tsunami's hit. They circled the globe at six hundred fifty miles an hour. Destroyed everything within seventy miles of the shore unless there was mountains sooner. Governments around the world were shattered. Anarchy reined supreme, only the military bases that survived had any kind of security.

So good old West Virginia had been a good place to live, before. Now, the abundance of hunting rifles and other weaponry had made going outside a gamble with your life on the table, a roulette table where the house usually won. Today was no exception.

The sniper shot had nearly killed him as he pissed behind a bush. Mick had dashed inside and knocked the table down just inside the front door and was presently waiting for them to come. He listened quietly to the sporadic gunfire from across the mountain. It was a goddamn sniper's paradise. Some seemed close. He looked down at his nine millimeter pistol.

"Why in the hell did I not buy a goddamn rifle!?" he yelled.

"Cause you're an idiot!" someone said back.

Shit! That was from nearby! He flipped the safety off and cocked his gun, bracing himself for the incoming gun play. He crouched behind the table and waited.

Suddenly, a grenade with out the pin bounced off the door and landed right in front of him...

He inhaled deeply and started to speak.

"Shi-"

Rather abruptly he was removed from all hardship, pain and struggle.

On the bright side, if there is one, in this cruel picture of another reality, someone else that day thought they had gained some needed fresh water. Unfortunately, the grenade's shrapnel had pierced the two gallon water bottle and it was promptly pouring out. Mick had his last and final revenge.

By: ME, damnit!

Translation of a translation = trash

2007-09-19T19:31:00.000-04:00

Credit: http://www.dynamicdiscord.com/BrianStuff/Episode_3/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

episode III, the backstroke of the west

I saw revenge of the sith last weekend at a local theater with my friend joe who was in town on business. it was much better than the first two movies and a fitting end (err.. middle) to the star wars saga.

the next day i was walking past my friendly dvd salesperson and decided to check out revenge of the sith. i was assured the quality was good and for 7rmb why not give it a shot.

aside from the counters on the top of the screen and a distorted perspective it was ok- not high quality but watchable. the captions were a hilarious surprise- a direct english translation of the chinese interpretation of what the script was saying. it varied from being somewhat close to the script to being 'far far away'....

amazingly enough, the beginning scroll is mistranslated even though the words are right there on the screen.

star war (just one)

'the backstroke of the west' is the english translation of the chinese title.

anakin: "this is where the fun begins"

obi wan: "let them pass between us"

anonymous doomed fighter pilot: "they're all over me"

obi wan, space battle strategist.

obi wan grows impatient with r2.

the chancellor warns anakin and obi wan that count dooku is... big.

obi wan assures the chancellor that it's no problem.

count dooku talks tough.

that's chancellor palpatine speaking, talking about obi wan.

general grevious gets some bad news.

the general considers punishing his troops.

anakin taunts general grevious.

the general fires off a snappy comeback

ummm... ????

we gonna rock down to... lemon avenue.

padme the homemaker

anakin tells padme about his dream.

on the hoof - idiom, 'not yet butchered; alive. used especially of cattle'

hallelujah!

yoda: "premonitions? premonitions?"

sounds like something yoda might actually say... maybe.

anakin is haunted by dreamses.

troopseses!

anakin gets frustrated with the jedi council.

the chancellor tells anakin the story of darth plagueis the wise, aka the dintmeister.

plagueis learned how to become... strong and big.

but he lost his power and died...

...then was killed by his land, so he could sleep. a tragic story indeed.

this seemed completely random until i figured out that 'jedi council' was being translated into chinese then back to english as 'the presbyterian church'.

anakin: "obi wan, may the force be with you"

tion medon: "on the tenth level, thousands of battledroids"

obi wan: "hello there"

the general tells his troops to back off, he'll take care of obi wan.

...but is it big?

the chancellor delivers anakin some bad news.

mace windu reads the chancellor his rights.

anakin bargains for the life of his cuckoldry. cuckoldry?

anakin gets a new name.

"rise!"

the emporer tells anakin... umm... something.

anakin: "i agree."

the emperor: "do what must be done, lord vader."

yoda: "goodbye chewbacca."

c3po tells the amorous couple to get a room.

padme: "no thank you, c3po."

obi wan: "who could have done this?"

obi wan can't face what he must do.

yoda insists...

...and explains that the person he once knew noed longer is.

how about a snickers?

anakin tells padme about his new virtues, now being both strong and big.

padme doesn't want strong and big- she also doesn't want to walk on a road meant for running about.

lier!!!

obi wan has heard enough.

the emperor reveals his true ambitions.

anakin taunts, but...

...obi wan stands on higher ground...

...and proclaims his love.

this translation is classic. darth vader is actually shouting, "nooooooooooooo..."

captions there be, mangled they are.

Some thumb rules to keep in mind.

2007-09-19T19:28:00.000-04:00

Example	Photo Type	What They Want You to Think	The Truth
	Blurry	Artistic	Has acne, possibly moustache if female
	Anime	Eccentric, possibly Japanese	Computer programmer
	Holding some sort of alcoholic beverage	Fun, laid back	There has never been a photograph taken of them where they weren't holding an alcoholic beverage
	Very closely cropped	Enigmatic	Fat
	Dude jamming on guitar	He's in a popular band and rocks out all the time	Unemployed
	Close-up of breasts, usually in bustier	Sexy and naughty	Fat
	Face at strange, usually downward, angle	Eccentric, possibly supermodel	Unattractive; this is the only good picture of them ever taken
	Dark, brooding	Doesn't care	Dangerous, possibly a pirate
	Cartoon character such as Bugs Bunny or Tweety Bird	Cute, playful	Immature, probably fat
	Guy with beard sitting on couch	Sits on the couch a lot, has a beard	Sits on the couch a lot, has a beard

Found on: http://www.buttafly.com/originals/friendster2.php

Smart Box

2007-09-19T19:26:00.000-04:00

This is from somethingawful.com The internet makes you stupid!

Lowtax - Tonka! Yes, hello! I am messagings you about parenting! I speak about parenting!

Colleen - Oh, hello!

Lowtax - Hello Colleen! I reads your information on web-page, I messages you about parenting, we talk, and learn!

Colleen - Oh, okay! I have some spare time this would be fine!

Lowtax - My name is Marioto Luigikawa! I am parent! I am from TOKYO! I have children of two, Myiama and Brad, they aged 7 and 11 respectivly! I read your web-page, message you about talking and child care! We both learn and teach new things!

Colleen - That would be fine.

Lowtax - EXCELLENT! I read your work, you talk about relationship of mother and father in family! Good things!

Colleen - Thanks : )

Most of my writing comes from experences I personally have and I write what I notice in our crazy little house : )

Lowtax - HA HA, nuthouse, your kids will kill you!

I mean, they will be making you insane and not really kill you, English slang? Sorry about English, I am from TOKYO! (not native language)

Colleen - I understand what you mean don't worry about it hun : )

Lowtax - Tonka! Parenting is universal language! We stick together, us parents, we must teach each other and learn, for the kids sake!

Colleen - That's why I have my website : ) So we can pool all our infomation and we can share it all : )

Lowtax - Yah! Excellent idea, I must get on Internet! Make webpage myself, GOOD THINGS!

I write to ask about parenting techniques! I have questions to ask! We talk on ICQ!

Colleen - That's what I'm here for : )

Lowtax - GOOD THINGS TOO! Excellent! You converse on web-page, cover topic of teaching child responsible behavior! What you think?

Colleen - Well I feel that we must verbally communicate with our kids and show them the consequences of every action so they know when they do something that it has repercussions and that way theyll understand responsibility. We need to stress communication more when raising our kids : )

Lowtax - Yah good things! I agree! With Brad we make some mistakes but we don't repeats them with Myiama! We get smarter with experience, understand?

Colleen - Yes, absolutely. We have seven children, so we've had plenty of experience : )

Lowtax - Haa hoo! OUCH, many kids! How old!

Lowtax - TELL ME!

Lowtax - TELL ME NOW!

Colleen - They're aged from 5 to 24. It's a madhouse around here as I'm sure you can expect : )

Lowtax - GRAR, kids running all over place, nutty land! Have your hands tied full, but Im sure you have no regreats with your little bundles of joy!

Colleen - I would'nt replace them for anything : )

Lowtax - So how you teach little one? 5 year old slob? Regarding responsibilty, how you teach that? Hah?

Colleen - Well Thomas and I just lay down the rules and let her know about them. We visiably show every action has a consequence and if they do something that there will be reprecussions. Children learn visually and we try to use that to teach them.

Lowtax - Oh, I have same feelings as you! I have own parenting theories, I studyied long times at university in free time. We think like you, teach with reprecussions! And consequences! Hyah, good things!

Colleen - Its good to know that other parents feel the same way : )

Lowtax - YES, we do! We teach Myiama with Box Learning! She is understanding us quick now, very smart little girl!

Colleen - Im sorry what's "boix learning"?

Lowtax - BOX LEARNING! We have large box, we teach her rules with box!

Colleen - What do you mean? Sorry I dont understand : )

Lowtax - We own many, many boxes of great size. Wife is owner of furniture store, we have varying boxes of size. We have great box we label "homework BOX" and Myiama does homework in box after school! It is safe place inside box, conductive for learning! No distractions, just box!!!

Colleen - How big is this box?

Lowtax - Vary large, fit sofa inside! Comfortable, dont worry! It box of learning, conductive to learning. We do studies, her test scores get better in box!

Colleen - Thats very interesting. I can understand how a distraction free area would h elp studying, but I've never heard of anything like doing it in a big box : )

Perhaps you should build a webpage about it! : )

Lowtax - TONKA HYAH, yes, I do that! When I have time I write many pages! Teach and learn! Many good things! We write about Learning Box and Box of Trial!

Colleen - What's the "box of Trial"?

Lowtax - Learning enviroment! We teach Myiama when she does bad, we place in her Box of Trial and have small radio we talk through, say "You have done it very badly Myiama, we are very much displease with you actions!" It like "time out" or standing in corner, we teach disipline!

Colleen - I understand what you'r trying to teach but I'm not sure if that's the most effective way to teach that. : (

Lowtax - No, it work! We put Myiama in box, me and wife get outside box and shove it around, shaking it! We turns lights off and on and make ghost sounds to scare, then throw things inside box, we shout "NO MYIAMA! YOU MAKE WRONG DECISION! YOU SEE BAD OUTCOME NOW! LEARN YOU LESSON!"

Lowtax - She afriad of squid, we shout outside box in ghost voice "HYAH, we squid, we come to get you!" and scares her into knowing what we say! It is hard learning, but we care for daughter and needs her to know, understand?

Lowtax - She afraid of squid, crazy child!

Colleen - And you don't think this is a bit harsh?

Lowtax - No, she learn fast! For example, we say "Myiama, you no climb tree! It near power lines!" so we put her in Box of Trial with wires and wood pole and kick box around say "See what happens when you climb tree near power lines? Play it smart, for a God's sake!" She never climb in this tree since!

Lowtax - Fast results, works well on pets too!

Colleen - What?!! That is terrible!! You train your pets that way also?!

Lowtax - Yes, we have doberman pincher, we get for security! We train it to attack burglars, so we get picture of buglar and burglar doll and put it in box with dog, we then kick box around and shove it and flip it over and shout "ATTACK ENEMY BURGLAR, PINCEE, ATTACK AND INJURY!" and my wife flips lights on and off and makes ghosts noises. Dog does not enjoy ghost noises either, so it learns that in dark with burglar, it should be attacking! Very angry afterwords, not a good thing if we in room!

Colleen - I don't think ANY of this is responsible parenting at all and as a dog lover I find that to be REPREHENSIBLE! Have you any idea what your doing?

Lowtax - Yes, throw dogs and child into box!!! We teach lessons of life with box and noises of ghost! Miss Colleen, I have MUCH experience, good thing! I knows what I do!

Colleen - I dont think you HAVE ANY idea!

Lowtax - I spend many years learning optimal teaching, you dont know what you are talking about! I don't know what you talk of, but you simply are vile, YAH!

Colleen - FIRST OFF, you don't know me at ALL, so dont you DARE call me names! SECOND I could report you for animal and EVEN CHILD abuse, so DONT YOU DARE.

Lowtax - Oh no, EVEN CHILD ABUSE! That is worse than ODD CHILD abuse, yes?

Lowtax - HA HA, I make joke on English! I am kidding you, Mister Colleen! YAH!

Lowtax - Sounds like maybe you need time in "Sissy Box", because you are acting like sissy!

Colleen - Your parenting techniques are REPREHENSIBLE and make me SICK!!!

Colleen - WHAT??!

Lowtax - Tonka! We put you in box on Tuesday, maybe let you out next Thursday, I don't know.

Lowtax - You learn fast? You afraid of ghost sounds? We throw you in with cabbage and magic markers, maybe you draw faces of your tormentors upon cabbage? Perhaps it could be theraputic for your condition? I dont know, I never try this before.

Colleen - Do you realize that with your ICQ information, I could report you to the police right now?

Lowtax - OH GOAH, NO NOT AGAIN! Please dont be reporting to police again, they already come out twice today.

Lowtax - I tells them "We dont know who call you, but we dont hear no sounds!" Police say they have complaints of crazy sounds, because we place cat in "Transgoggal Box" and try to makes it act more like attack dog, as experiment! Pet project of mine, you know. So we gots cat in "Transgoggal Box" and we load it into wheelbarrow and push it into wall a few many times, cat goes CRAZY and makes CRAZY sounds, and neighbors complain to Police! So no more Police, thank you!

Lowtax - Hey!!!!!!

Lowtax - Where you go, Miss Thang??????

Lowtax - Hello, you here? You building box? HA HA HA!

Colleen - you are SICK. Youd better hope to GOD I dont call you into the police. SICK.

Lowtax - I dont fear, prison is nothing but larger box with bars! I bring "Space Box" get in and pretend astronaut! Weeee, TONKA!

Lowtax - OK, I learn many important tips from you tonight, thank you very much! I must leave now because we must teach Myiama about math by putting her in math box and pushing it into refridgeration unit! GOOD-BYE!

- Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka

.. content end-->

Cats are insane...

2007-09-19T19:08:00.000-04:00

Author : Joshua Reynolds

"Can I has cheeseburger?" the cat whined plaintively. It's voice was an electronic squeal that grated on Jim's nerves. Jim swatted the cat on the butt and pushed it off of the desk.

"No."

"Plz?" it mewled up at him, eyes unblinking. Jim shook his head.

"I said no."

"OMG." the cat yowled. Jim threw up his hands and tried to focus on his work. Schematics for cybernetic voice-boxes filled the screen of his laptop. EMP hardened as most things were these days. No help there. There had to be-

"ROFL!" a cat screeched, rolling onto its back on the desk, swiping at him.

"Shut up!" Jim shoved it to the floor.

"Happy cat is out of happy." another cat burbled, laying flat on the floor behind his chair.

He glanced at it and went back to work, muttering, "Happy cat is out of happy because happy cat snorts catnip like it was going out of style. Happy cat needs to knock that shit off before happy cat burns out his teeny-tiny brain."

"Plz can I has cheeseburger?" the first cat purred, leaping into his lap and rubbing its head against his arm.

"No, no, no! A hundred times no!" Jim banged his head against his desk. "Just shut up!"

"I has bucket!" a third cat yowled from the top of a bookcase. Jim whirled.

"Get out of that flower pot!"

"I can fix it." a fourth cat mumbled, fumbling at Jim's laptop. Jim turned back and swatted it away from him. His computer screen hiccuped.

"Don't touch that!"

"Cheeseburger!"

"No! No cheeseburger!" Jim buried his face in his hands. "No damn cheeseburger."

It had seemed like such a good idea. People loved cats. People loved those stupid pictures. Just a slight cybernetic modification to the animal's larynx and bam! Talking cats. Everybody who was anybody wanted one. For about ten minutes. Then nobody did. The fad ended and he was left holding the bag.

"OMG lurve you." the cat on his lap grumbled. Jim sighed and stroked it.

"Thank you."

"Can I has cheeseburger now?"

"AUGH!"

It wasn't the talking that bothered people really.

It was the fact you couldn't get the damn things to shut up.

Source:

http://www.365tomorrows.com/08/18/lolcats/

Title, Comma Intro

2007-09-19T18:40:00.000-04:00

So methinks that I should explain the title, D3lta V. This could easily be changed to Delta V.

Delta is a triangle, and in physics this means "change in", and is used to describe chemistry, physics, as well as heat transfer math problems. The "V" means velocity, which is a defined speed and direction. In other words D3lta V means change in speed, and/or direction.

I think I have the change in speed side of it in mind when I write it. What has a high acceleration? Listing not necessarily inclusively; NASCAR wrecks, explosons, bullets, rockets, powerful sports cars and spacecraft.

It's not that I promise to write about these things, but I will try to update every day. I will try to mostly write short stories, and I promise, to you the reader, that I will strive to avoid politics. I will use the occasional curse word, because I believe that real, honest language does not avoid these words. I will not use them as every other word. Just for example, mainly I have in mind here exclamations, like "Oh shit!" or "Damn it!" I do not believe in any god or gods, I am an atheist. I even got South Carolina's "secular humanist" license plate that says "In reason we trust." In addition, I am a Conservative/libertarian so except for the "god" related beliefs, I have some beliefs in common with republicans. I tell you this now, reader, so that you know, as I will from time to time reflect those beliefs, though probably never on purpose.

The content of this blog will mainly be, what ever kind of short story I feel like writing. Maybe, the occasional pop-culture comment, or funny bit that I found on Stumble Upon.
I will soon start transfering most of my posts on myspace so...

here...

we...

go....

D3lta V

Space X

SpaceX

SpaceX's launch vehicles:

Quantitative Easing Explained

Obama and Hu Jintao speak about...things

Hello there sports fans!

MULTICULTURALISM IS EVIL

Commercial real estate crash

Any which way but Loose

Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?

This here is a Gov't Road!

Prelude to Civil War

Obama The Great Spender

Hey guys and gals whats up!

I'm so sorry...

Obama the tax cutter!

Tea Party

Hafnium B O M B?

Penny Arcade Podcasts

US Debt

Gentlemen........BEHOLD!

Recession/Depression correlation with Republican Administration

Dihydrogen Monoxide: stop the deaths now!

Ban DHMO: Dihydrogen Monoxide!

The Invisible Killer

"Recreational DHMO illness can have a significant impact on public health not only becauseof the severity of the illness but also the number of people who die."*

Dihydrogen monoxide:

Contamination Is Reaching Epidemic Proportions!

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

The Horror Must Be Stopped!

It's Not Too Late!

Chaaaaange?

Nice....

Dr.Peikoff's Opinion

Supersize That Rescue by Rob Long

Tax Man Cometh

Joke

Anthem

SNL sketch that bashes DNC

Really good video about atheism

Finnally, a story related to my blog title.

The Power of Christ Compells you!

Disturbing Psychology Expiriments

Satan's Deer

Slavery

the Tax System

Political Issues

Global warming

Haunted Stitch Doll

Atheism: The Newest Internet Trend

Best Buy Bodhisattva by Julian "rabbit" Murdoch

Human Evolution is Accelerating

5 Awesome Sci-Fi Inventions (That Would Actually Suck)

Star Trek: Enterprise

Breath of fresh air

This bodes poorly for me in Jan. 2008..

Found: Artifacts from the future

Hillary Clinton is a Socialist Commie!

Fairwell tv-links.

Net neutrality

You Are A Pirate (Lazy Town)

You Are A Pirate (Lazy Town)

I agree

Language Is hillarious...

wife power! lol.

Battlestar galactica....layoffs

Halo 3

Holy crap! Church of Google!

Dreamgirl blackjack

New glasses

Bee's???? Die.

Blossoms of light

All to easy...

Kel: Miner, Intersteller Passenger?

Mick's revenge.

Translation of a translation = trash

Credit: http://www.dynamicdiscord.com/BrianStuff/Episode_3/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

episode III, the backstroke of the west

Some thumb rules to keep in mind.

"Recreational DHMO illness can have a significant impact on public health not only because
of the severity of the illness but also the number of people who die."*