mis-U.N.derstanding

Palestinians attack the United Nations club bar to show their solidarity with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and Beautiful People.

Goe, not a damned damane.

before i forget

another storyblogging carnival is up.

Goe, forgets many more things than he remembers.

No posts lately

It's not that I haven't had anything to say, but that I've been reading a lot. Gotten many ideas to fold into the Generic Adventure, and jotting many things down that I will write/complain about later.

Goe, giving himself headaches squinting at all the little letters.

Henry

Sang Henry the VIII for two hours to annoy an annoying relative.

Goe, was not a farmer's dog.

The Good Fire

Was reading a book this week when I realized something I'd probably noticed before and never put much thought into. In religions (both from novels and the real world), light is a good thing. It's bright, it helps plants grow, many monsters are scared of it and a few can't move in it. Not so for fire.

Balrogs and other demonic creatures are made of fire and shadow. Hell is a fiery pit. If light is a good thing, does firelight not count?

Goe, puzzled by the enigmatic conundrum.

farking holidays.

among the recent idiocy over on fark was mention of the iranian president's most recent claims about isreal.

Iran's president suggests Holocaust didn't happen, but if it did, Israel should move to Europe

Over half the comments either claim the holocaust didn't happen, or that it happened on a much smaller scale than history indicates. Among those are people claiming that there are no reliable historical records of jews living in the middle east prior to 1948. These people are incredibly stupid, and that is why the New York Times is not afraid of Glenn Reynolds and his pajamamedia.

Pope denounces materialism from balcony of marble, gold-domed building in midst of jewel-encrusted religious icons while wearing giant gold cross

This one is sort of funny, but the pope isn't as hypocritical as they're trying to portray him. None of that stuff was bought for Christmas, and probably none of it was bought during this or the last papacy. But the materialism thing is right. Christmas is a very materialistic holiday. It's far more materialistic than any religious understanding of the holiday would convey.

It's not just Christmas though. What holidays don't have mattress or furniture sales? We're far more likely to see ads for flag day sales than actual flags on flag day. Labor day is more about outdoor cooking than about honoring a strong work ethic. Memorial day is about movies and mattresses, not fallen soldiers. Veteran's day is about cheap furniture, not the soldiers who protected us. Halloween is about candy and costumes, not scaring away evil spirits. Thanksgiving isn't about giving thanks, but about family, football, and turkey. Why does materialism only become a bad thing at Christmastime?

Goe, thinks it's a conspiracy against wrapping paper manufacturers.

Chomsky on Bush

So therefore you have... George Bush... this pampered kid who came from a rich family and went to prep school and an elite university. And you have to present him as an ordinary guy who makes grammatical errors, which I'm sure he's trained to make--he didn't talk that way at Yale--and a fake Texas twang, and he's off to his ranch to cut brush or something. It's like a toothpaste ad.

- Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at MIT.

Both political parties and the media are far to the right of the general population on a whole host of issues. And the population is just disorganized, atomized... And that's why the media and campaigns keep away from (political) issues.

And here he's just flat wrong, the american public is smeared like a bell curve across the political spectrum. Politicians and the press don't avoid talking about issues, they love talking about issues. They avoid talking about philosophy because having an underlying belief structure of any sort will often conflict with party and local interests. Most of the public doesn't put thought into their own philosophy of government, focusing instead on specific issues, which encourages politicians to ally with whatever position their pollster tells them is most popular.

The only issue chomsky believes in is 'social justice', which is a left-wing way of ignoring their mothers. My mother often told me that life isn't fair, and I think it's a fairly safe assumption that most other people heard something similar from their own mothers. 'Social Justice' is the making of that unfairness illegal, so that everytime someone does not have a clear personal gain, someone else must be part of a criminal conspiracy to wrong that person. It's this concept of punishing the lucky and hardworking that turns every socialist state into a repressive nightmare, as any reward is taken as proof of guilt.

Goe, hoping that life will be unfair to his benefit.

No Nukes for Thou

The world should work to make nuclear weapons as universally condemned as slavery or genocide, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday after receiving the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

- from here

So the UN believes that nuclear weapons should only be permitted in Europe, Africa, Asia, and everywhere else? Slavery and genocide are still fairly acceptable in the eastern hemisphere, although Chavez and Castro are working to make them fashionable on our side of the planet...

I would like to note that according to this source, the slave trade in western Europe is almost ten times that of the U.S., making the whole of the EU vastly more pro-slavery than the U.S., since most of their slave trading is done in eastern Europe. If immigration and employment laws were enforced, and border security tighted enough to prevent a terrorist attack, it would be impossible to bring slaves into this country. Any action taken to stop the slave trade anywhere would be taken as racist actions against non-domestic ethnic groups, and the people taking those actions would be condemned as racist by the 'international community', the same 'international community' that supported El Baradei's non-intervention in Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Goe, not hopeful for the future.

It's a conspiracy, I tells ya!

I love the Sci-Fi channel and reside in one of it's major demographics. It got more originality than any other channel, yet there's a pattern in everything it makes. Every show, made-for-tv film, or mini-series that is made for the Sci-Fi channel has a conspiracy/cover-up at it's heart. It's an annoyance that is spreading to sci-fi productions on other networks. Invasion, Threshhold, and Surface all have a conspiracy or cover-up. It's not just a cover-up for bad plotting, it is the plot. Our society is so obsessed with everything we individually disapprove of being forced on us by a vast conspiracy and that proof of our beliefs is deliberately covered up that the lack of a conspiracy or cover-up is less believable to us. Aren't man-eating aliens enough to make a sci-fi show interesting without the whole 'our greatest enemy is ourselves' message being thrown at us every few scenes?

This almost superstitious belief in grand conspiracies and the religious fervor with which our society claims that every individual is persecuted and threatened by these conspiracies are a greater threat to our lives, health, and happiness than any real conspiracy could aspire to, short of socialist totalitarianism (which, oddly enough, is NEVER the driving force behind any conspiracy on television, even in historial dramas).

Goe, thirsty now.

woohoo

someone else noticed the superman thing. still waiting for ANY mention that 'Munich' is a remake... they'll open their eyes someday....

Goe, not up for a weblog award.

Passion of the Superman

saw the trailer for the new superman movie. it left me with the impression that the film was going to portray superman as a christlike figure, jar-el sends his only begotten son to save us from ourselves... i found it a little disconcerting.

Goe, reconcerting.

It's all about PEACE!

Apparently, to have "peace", we have to be "beyond capitalism". and apparently regularly scheduled monthly meetings to discuss how capitalism flew planes into buildings and a secret cabal of jewish bankers were the ones who really bombed Pearl Harbor are each a 'special event'. maybe 'special' in the 'special education' sort of way...

Goe, can't go because he hasn't got a tinfoil hat.

carnival

storyblogging carnival is up.

Goe, should write more.

Bad Press

online news sites were talking yesterday about how letterman and oprah have settled their fued. apparently none of them watched enough letterman to figure out that the fued was a story letterman kept repeating on his show whenever he wanted to talk about anything oprah related. it seems that reality is something reporters can't be bothered with these days.

there are fictional stories by non-reporters, and a non-fictional impromptus.

Goe, feeling mlehish, not mehish.