Alternate "Desolation Of Smaug" Prologue

INT: THE PRANCING PONY
The pub looks just like it will sixty years later. Only strangely clearer. Like there is somehow more visual information. This might be sorcery. Also that black cat with green eyes is there.

GANDALF: Hey, Thorin, you need to unite the Dwarf armies to fight this growing dark power in Mirkwood.

THORIN: Shouldn't the elves be on top of that?

GANDALF: Nah, they are too busy admiring their pretty faces and lamenting the loss of Gondolin. They can be really needy sometimes. Also racist.

THORIN: Well it matters not. The dwarves will not unite their forces unless someone has this very particular shiny stone.

GANDALF: Why? Are dwarves like cats or something?

THORIN: We just.....really like that Arkenstone. I mean we had a Mithril backed economic system which also wasn't too smart when we ran out of places to mine it. Stupid Durin's Bane.

GANDALF: What if we could get the Arkenstone?

THORIN: Why is this so important to you?

GANDALF: It is vital the dwarves reunite into a vast army so that when the growing dark power in Dol Guldur is revealed to be Sauron they can sit around not doing a whole lot while a giant war wages during which loads of men and elves die.

THORIN: That.....sounds like terrible strategic level thinking.

GANDALF: Also you'll be rich again.

THORIN: That I can get behind. I hate being poor. Do you have any idea how much shampoo and conditioner I go through?

GANDALF: Good. So here is what I have in mind. We go and find a hobbit. He won't want to come along. But we'll convince him. He'll do a lot of whining the whole time. Then when we get to Erebor we send him in alone to wake up Smaug, antagonize him, then run out of there without the Arkenstone. At that point the dwarf party we put together rushes in to ineffectively try to kill Smaug which only pisses him off. Then Smaug goes off and kills lots of people in the town of Esgaroth before one of the town's inhabitants kills him by piercing a tiny hole in his armored scales (a bit of information we don't actually have at this point) with the only black arrow still around (which we also don't know exists yet).

THORIN: Um.....what?

GANDALF: Then, of course, everyone will fight over the spoils. There will be lots of orcs.

THORIN: This is why wizards don't get to be generals.

The Tea Party Review Of "It's A Wonderful Life"

It's A Wonderful Life is the ironically titled tragedy film directed by Frank Capra. In the film all efforts fail to dissuade the villain, George Bailey, from renouncing a life of coddling the week, empowering the lazy and subsidizing the parasite class.

The film tries to make us sympathize with the villain by showing us his upbringing. It hints that just because he stopped a pharmacist from poisoning a child and pulled his brother out of a frozen pond that we shouldn't see his communist lies for what they are.

The film reveals the true hero about half way in. His name is Potter and he understands what true values are: make money, keep the money, make sure no one else has any of the money. He rightly argues against George Bailey and his notions that the poor deserve low interest loans so they can open businesses or buy homes. Potter knows how the undeserving underclass are put in their place to be used and abused by those gifted by chance of birth with untold riches. And he understands how it is the duty of the accidentally wealthy to use their power to ruthlessly acquire what little money the poor do have.

But this film presents the lie that God would actually side with George. That a Christian God would definitely want to help someone that isn't using all their efforts to appropriate the property of their neighbors and townsfolk. This blatantly ignores Bible verses like.....um......it's somewhere in Leviticus I think.

Oh, that is that part of the Bible supposed to just be for Jews? But that is also the book that tells me to hate homosexuals! And that women are chattel....I may have gotten off point here.

Anyways in my corner are the esteemed minds of the FBI. In a memo from May 26, 1947 the FBI correctly notes:

the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a 'scrooge-type' so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

See! Even they sort of get it. They don't totally get it because they seem to malign Ebeneezer Scrooge was also an awesome character that stood up to the "taker" class until his ghost visions drove him to madness and started helping other people. As if there were any lessons n Christian mythology that implore us to help those in need.

So don't fall for the Hollywood lies! Boo this film. Repeal Obamacare. Merry Christmas.

Does The Right Wing Hate Catholicism But Love Their Embassy?

A long time ago I was given some good advice by a wandering gypsy...or a very hirsute postal worker...it was one of the two. Look, the important thing was this person existed...maybe, and did talk to me...perhaps.

Anyways this perhaps not real person of unknown providence imparted to me the following:

1) Get rick quick schemes involving yak fur are scams
2) Never shoot off a gun while inside an air lock
3) Blood covered clowns who speak with the voice of screaming children are terrible cat sitters
4) Detergent can effectively neutralize the Ebola virus
5) Never try to convince selfish people into parting with their money

The EDNA and the wacky religious right

Recently the US Senate passed the Employment Non Discrimination Act; a landmark bill that would create new federal laws to protect the LGBT community from workplace discrimination. And, of course, this means the religious right hates it. Also this means they are bringing up positively ridiculous reasons to oppose it.

18 Quotes From People That Think Obama Is A Marxist

Liberty Council: "Yet given that Barack Obama is a shadowy figure with a penchant for hiding his past (college records, etc.); that he has had avowed communists in his administration (Van Jones, Anita Dunn); that he seemed to belong to Chicago's socialist New Party in the 1990s; and that, according to former Occidental College acquaintance and ex-Marxist John Drew, Obama was a flat-out "Marxist Leninist" who believed in old-style communist revolution, well, one's imagination can conjure up some interesting scenarios."

Larry Pratt (Director of Gun Owners of America): "But it’s apparently not the misunderstanding that a communist has. And that’s really the way the president thinks. He was educated that way. He is a full-bore Marxist."

Bryan Fischer: "President Obama hates this country as founded. That's why he's trying to transform it and make it into some kind of socialist, Marxist utopia."

Jerry Boykin: "I will tell you that America is becoming a Marxist nation - I don't care what you say, I'm tired of being called a bigot because I don't like the Marxist policies of Barack Obama."

Five Issues I Have With The Covers of Dinosaur Erotic Novels

At some point in the past week I took time out from suspecting the surreal press conference where the father of a nine year old that conned his way into a free flight to Las Vegas tried to answer questions from the media while hiding his face in a hoodie was maybe the result of either a brain tumor or LSD laced water (damn you Shelbyville!) and discovered, thanks to this Cracked article, that dinosaur on human erotic literature is not only a thing that exists but is profitable enough to warrant numerous follow up titles.

Naturally I cursed my college career counselor for not alerting to me to this possible means of exploiting a very select branch of fetish for financial gain. Then I started to actually look at the covers and found that I had numerous problems with them.

#5 They get the scale wrong

Look at them! The T-Rex is too small. So is the Triceratops. And the Velociraptors are way too big. Also at least one of the Velociraptors has a giant head that looks like they just decided to take an Allosaurus skull and add more teeth.

#4 There are no feathers on the raptors

Seriously the Velociraptors look more like over sized Deinonychus than anything. And even a Deinonychus had feathers! I mean just what kind of lazy Jurassic Park bullshit is this?


#3 A Pterosaur is not a dinosaur

Yes they looked weird and existed at the same time as actual dinosaurs but pterosaurs were of an entirely different taxonomic clade. So I don't know how the author could look themselves in the mirror after so egregiously including Taken by the Pterodactyl within the genre of dinosaur erotica.

#2 Why are the women dressing up for the dinosaurs?

Seriously take a look at the evening wear being sported by the hopeful women in Mating With The Raptor and Ravaged By The Raptor. Maybe I'm being uh.....is "speciesist" a word? But I'm guessing a Velociprator that has a thing for copulating with human females is not going to care much about what they are wearing.

#1 The context of the pictures makes no sense!

What exactly is going on in Mating With The Raptor? Are they about to do it on the deck of the cloud city of Bespin? Look at it. They are seemingly floating up in the sky above the clouds. Is the genre of dinosaur erotica so played out that there now needs to be a subgenre that includes sky coitus?

T-Rex troubles is even weirder. There we have a T-Rex and a bikini clad woman about to get it on in what looks like Monument Valley in Arizona. What makes this weird is that T-Rex would definitely not like being in an arid desert and I think it would definitely not be in the mood for love should it find itself there.

How About Some Misleading Job Titles?

These are all real jobs. And some of them are pretty cool. But their names could manifest an idea of what their job is that is very much not what the job is actually about.


Dendrochronologist

Sounds like: Psychic trans dimensional historian. In order to get the chronologies right this person does battle with creatures manifested from the minds of wizards in other dimensions.

Actually is: Someone that looks at tree rings.

Free Republic Wants The Navy Yard Shooter To Be A Muslim

Free Republic is the area of the internet people go when they feel A Christmas Carol is a horror story about a fall from grace since they thought Ebeneezer Scrooge was perfect to start off with. It is a corner of the internet where people talk about Obama being a communist and a secret Muslim without irony.

And it just so happened I was there the day the Navy Yard massacre happened.

And here is their journey into the heart of the darkest part of the conservative mind.

My comments in bold, theirs in italics.

"There must be a mistake. Democrats went through great pains to make sure guns were not allowed there!"

This refers to the fact that the Navy Yard was a gun free zone. What is overlooked is that it is a gun free zone in the middle of a large, unstable culture with guns everywhere. Funny those facts.

How can this even happen? How many attacks on our bases is it going to take before we wake up?

Yeah, like that attack just the other day in.....?
 

I am pissed! How does this happen after Fort Hood? We all know how! PC Obama rot!!

That's right. Obama ordered the Navy to hire psychos. That's just how Obama rolls. 

Must be one of those crazy Unitarians, or maybe Atheists.

Um? I have no clue what they are onto here.

Of course Team Obama and his media division will use this as another gun grab opportunity.
Step 1: Cover up shooter's Islam ties
Step 2: Inform the dumb public that this is just another gun-toting, knuckle-dragging Conservative type.

I assume the possibility the shooter isn't a Muslim is just not considered. Nor that maybe mass shootings are not giant operations to pin blame.

The talking points being typed up for tonight's prime-time newscasts will read something like: "Another example of the results of freely available assault rifles, without background checks, at Texas gun shows..."

No, no. I am guessing it will be about the dead and the shooter. But then again I'm weird in that I like to use past events to predict the future. 

An AR15 “assault weapon” was used? And I’m sure the suspect is probably a Tea Party member, driving an SUV with pro-life literature in the back, drinking a Big Gulp, while spraying aerosol cans into the air.

I smell new comic book super villain: Conservopollutbagger!

black male with a dark complexion ‘Better let shooter go free: ‘Sounds like another one of Barack Hussein’s sons.

Obama is now the dad of all black men? When did this happen? And black men get away with murder? Then why are so many in prison?

If the shooter yelled, “Allahu Akhbar,” then it’s a case of workplace violence.

Yes, because we know how many times random unhinged Buddhists do that.

I wonder how anxious the Administration will be to tie this to Assad and give them a Casus Belli.

Since they didn't, I'm guessing....not very?

Late arrivals for the Million Muslim March, perhaps?

Of course. We all know only Muslim's ever go off their rocker. 

3 shooters (at least) tall dark skinned with shaven headsReligion of Peace is my bet

I'm betting you lose money on bets a lot. 

Thanks. So how many terror attacks uhhh...’workplace violence’ on US military bases under Obama’s watch does this make now?

Is the answer two? Does that mean something?

CONFIRMED, TWO SHOOTERS!!!The press and White House will be quick to assure us this is not terrorism.

Yes, we all know how Obama just loves to cover up terrorism. Like remember how he refused to even let the FBI investigate the Boston Marathon bombing?

Of course! After watching all of Stephen Couglin’s videos on Islamist terrorism just a few weekends ago, I am certain this will be Islamist jihadi’s in our own military doing this! They can’t even say Islamist or jihadi in our training manuals anymore for cryin out loud. This is what happens when a bunch of PC leftists run our levers of power. Pathetic!

A military is ineffective if vague and non useful terms are discouraged in training manuals?

One shooter was described as a “black male” — bet it’s blamed on “homegrown terrorism” (or...wait for it... Sarah Palin, or the tea party or George Bush) — the media will pull out every excuse possible.

Yeah, remember how the media pinned all those other terrorist incidents on Palin?

Since he’s a black male the media will pamper him and play down the story. I would suspect he’s some low wage civil service employee pissed off that he didn’t get promoted.
If not look for a “mentally handicapped” “war” veteran that came back from “war” and suffered with PTSD. Makes no difference that he could have been an office worker who last shot an M-16 in basic training. In the media’s mind, the military turned him into a trained killer and anyone this black vet kills because of his “mental problems” is justified. If we were white the media would immediately be calling for his hanging.

I'm beginning to wonder if the people at Free Republic get their news feeds from an alternate universe populated entirely with strawmen.

CNN reporter just said they have been instructed not to say anything about shooter’s description anymore. Whoa! That means 'Muslim' or black - right?

Or it could mean that they want CNN to stop spreading fragmented misinformation. But I guess thinking that makes me a PC Leftist.

Gosh, that religion of peace is sure peaceful and religious, huh?

Man they really want this Alexis guy to be a Muslim.

Isn't it about time this story became about something more important - like renewed demands for more gun control against those dangerous assault weapons which are so readily available to the unbalanced wacko or terrorists? I eagerly await Schmuck Schumer and Diane Feinswine (and many other Washington dignitaries) lining up at the nearest microphones, which I confidently predict will be before 4 PM and before the bodies of the victims are cold...

I confidently predict this person is a terrible predictor.

It means ME or African Muslim IMHO. PC protection for Islamists trumps all these days. It is getting our soldiers killed.

Exactly! The American people are getting sick of it too. I will guarantee this is Islamist or Islamist inspired terror attack.

And this is why we don't allow vigilante violence. So that clearly dangerous and unhinged people just go off and an attack innocents because of what the bigoted voices in their head say.

Benghazi witnesses?

Yeah, an elaborate terrorist attack was staged to eliminate witnesses to a huge non story. This is where I roll my eyes.

Is it “jihad” or “justice for Travon” or both?

Oh definitely both. As those are clearly the only two possible motivations the shooter could have.

I wonder who creates the narrative in the first hours .... amazing how the media act like a school of fish or pack of lemmings

The narrative? Was it scripted in a volcano lair?

“Two more potential shooters”. White male, military uniform, last seen 8:45. Black male, 50 years of age, olive drab possible military style uniform”.

Funny, now that there’s at least one white guy potentially involved, it’s OK to mention this detail in the description of the perps

Um.....what? Did this person miss all the prior mentions of the shooter being black? Including the one in the very passage they quoted?

Well here we go. The “crazy vet syndrome”. For all veterans out there, pray these lunatic(s) never served in the military.

My step dad served in Vietnam....I'm thinking he's safe from whatever this person imagines will happen.

False flag operation for the purpose of identifying ex-military as not being worthy to have firearms!

Well of course banning firearms from ex military is the obvious immediate reaction...in bizarro world.

Hahahahaha....Fox New cut right into Obama's lies-and-more-lies-it's all Bush's fault-campaign speech just as he was warming up. Whoosh....he was gone with the wind, cut off at the knees....hooray!

Did they watch the same press Obama press conference as the rest of us? Or was this another feed from the alternate universe?

Agreed: the timing of this right after the gun grabbing dems lost big in CO is just too much to take as coincidence - especially when they were complaining their gun-ban efforts were being “chilled” by what the voters in CO did.

Well clearly the obvious reaction to a bunch of idiot voters in Colorado is to stage an attack on the Navy in DC. I mean who wouldn't see that coming?

Exactly!! Why didn’t the NSA see this coming? I will tell you why..they are only looking at Conservatives and ‘enemies’ of big government statism. Defund them! They have caught none of these threats!

Yes, I'm sure that was exactly what happened. Why conservatives can't even leave their homes these days without black helicopters following them. 

 How could he have both a criminal record and a concealed carry permit?

*snort*

Im betting hes a muslim convert. but we may not know that for several hours

Or, like, ever. Sort of like how still don't know that St Augustine was a Hindu.

He’d be on the jihadi side, not the Syrian government side, so how could that motivate him? Unless Obama’s crawl down on supporting the Muslims is what annoyed him.
It said he was targeting specific people, but I don’t see how he could have known anybody there. Unless he was simply targeting whites or non-blacks, on the supposition that they wouldn’t be Muslims.

Hey, before we confirm this dude is a Muslim how about doing some speculating on what form of Muslim radical he is!?!

Soon to be followed up with liberal socialist headlines that read: “a conservative Tea Party favorite with ties to the Klu Klux Klan, and the Minutemen in Texas.” The need for gun control is obvious but the conservatives in Congress continue to block reasonable legislation to keep our children safe.

This alternate world of strawmen must be pretty interesting.

Black Amish

??????? What in the hell is this about?

Who knows I read another article where they interviewed his roommate in Texas. The roommate’s name is very Islamic. So perhaps yes he may be a new convert or one can say Obama Son.

Anyone want to bet that "Radical Islamic Obama Son" is a song track title for a white power rock band?

Both shooters are black. This episode is over. We will hear very little more about the “isolated incident.”

Sort of like how we never heard about the DC snipers ever again......oh wait!

Nope..the Legacy Media wont touch any news tying this punk with islam with a ten foot pole.
I have to wonder if it would be possible for a cadre of independantly wealthy “journalism students” to become MOLES in those organizations.....
People who didnt need the jobs...might be able to get jobs in the “mainstream” media...and then sabotage the normal propaganda....with some covert CAPTIONING....prior to be drummed out of the business....
Such are the dreams of an “old” man watching his beloved nation flushed down the toilet

This man wants to save the nation by paying young people to insert blatantly false information into TV broadcasts. Yeah, that is the path of a true patriot. Speaking of which I miss the days when someone could describe themselves as a "patriot" and not be a total lunatic planning to blow up government buildings.

I just have been reading local media and they are reporting on the scene and stated that the dead perp had a handgun and a shotgun beside his dead body. Nothing yet on the older black perp. I am guessing a tie in here to Somolia. We have let in tens of thousands of these “refugees”.

Somalia? Why not Chad? Chad always gets forgotten about. It can be a part of racist fantasies too.

A guest on FOX just mentioned could be workplace violence. Yup. One step away from misguided yoot.

And we all know that a lone misguided yoot would never shoot up a place.

I just caught some report on FN and the only thing they kept emphasizing over and over again was that the guy MAY have been from Texas. Nothing about his color, religion, mental state or anything else ONLY that he might have, at some point in his life, lived in Texas, as though that is the worst accusation you could make about the man.

"Well, Brian, we don't know much about the man apart from he lived in Texas but if I might engage in some wild speculation then we could imagine that he was an albino Eskimo affiliated with the eastern branch of the Church Of The Subgenius with a severe codependency problem coupled with bouts of extreme mania. He may also have been a five time unicycle card shuffling champion who also once climbed Mt Kilimanjaro wearing only a clown costume. We can imagine all that but, to reiterate, all we really know is he once lived in Texas."

I wonder if the shooter “Did this for Trayvon” nothing would surprise me at this point..I wouldnt be surprised if all of the victims were white..but he knew exactly where to go and was supposedly targeting specific people

Fact known only to racists: all black shooters are seeking revenge for Trayvon.

It is going to end up being muslims and it will all be on obama’s damned soul.

I must have missed the "Import Muslim Terrorists" program that Obama launched.

Will Treyvon inspired random killings of white people ever be considered terrorism ?

*double snort* When they become more than just wet dream fantasies for unhinged racists.

And...perps are killed/silenced rather than captured alive. This is preferable to the regime in addition to serving as rough justice.
The regime wishes Nidal Hasan had been killed at Fort Hood along with his victims. That long messy process of a court martial combined with victim families’ outrage over the “workplace violence” judgement call has angered a huge number of patriots against Muslims, terrorism, and Islam in general. Far more so than if Hasan had been popped on the spot. Knowing that he lives on even though paralyzed & confined in deep stir only adds to that anger. Very inconvenient for the suits in the WH.
The last thing this Aaron Alexis heard on this Earth was, “Good job, Aaron!”
BANG! BANG!

And the continued fall of conservative politics into the land of woo nuttery continues. They are on the crazy train and have just thrown in one of the super logs from Back To The Future III.

AH thank you very much indeed
I could spend hours vandalzing THAT name..... but I shant given the urgent need to tie up the loose ends of this dead PUNKS “religious” afflic...affiliaton
the name sounds rather INDONESIAN to me! or perhaps Pakisitani
Nutpisit Suthamtewakul
we know hes not likely AMISH!...

Remember. Unhinged people like this are the ones armed to the teeth in America. *shivers*

where are family members who swear that.....
1) “he is such a good boy.”
2) “Honor Student” at MLK High School, because he went to school twice a week
3) he went to church and sang in the choir once, and starting a promising rap career. But he got with the wrong crowd.
4) But this incident came from no where.
5) he was trying to turn his life around when it happened.
6) you’re racist if you dare question anything about this kid’s past or his behavior.
7) he was a good baby daddy to his 5 chillin.
8) all those previous 18 arrests was all by racist cops!
9) he didnt doo nufin.

Is this a parody of a growing up in the hood film?

Maybe I’m just a troglodyte, but I observe that nearly all the Police Chiefs, spokespersons, experts and folk being quoted on this situation are either women, members of a victim class, or Congress (non-voting) critter Eleanor Holmes Norton. If I want information on security, why would I look to these people?

I'd explain it but troglodytes tend to not get it.

How in the hell did he get onto a secure military base armed to the teeth?

Simple. He probably did a "favor" for a fag working the gate.

Yeah, we all know how gay security officers totally let just anyone into a highly secure area in return for a quickie.

according to the oversized liberal witch in the video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxTp8...ature=youtu.be
he had recently been to thailand...yes..
given that it might have been veiwed with suspicion if he had gone directly to indonesia....I offer that he may have gone to indonesia...by way of nearby Thailand
a perfect cover

Of course! Everyone knows a trip to Thailand can only mean a secret trip to Indonesia! Only a weirdo would just fly straight to Indonesia.

Will it be a hate crime if he killed 13 white people? I think not, but if he were white....

Well I just lose track of how many times we let black men that kill a dozen or more white people go without charges.

Notice the use of only the first name “Alexis” in the article? Cozy...kid down the street narrative.
Soon we’ll hear grandma called him “Alexis Boo-Boo” or such. All to garner sympathy for a murderer => MSM is in full spin mode.

It seems in the alternate universe the media just love to get you to sympathize with mass murderers.

Here is the PRESSER.....all the affirmative action brainiacs up now!How ludicrous this thing is...the presser.
the Police chief can’t talk with correct grammer, FBI rep is a dyke. the mayor has Dr spock eyebrows...bizzaro.

What is bizarre is that this person is among us. And somehow knows how to use a computer.

More black mayhem presided over by dykes (and I don’t mean pliers), queers and more blacks.
Revolting. It all turns my guts.
The United States is no more.

If the United States was a place without black people in power and lesbians in the closet and was destroyed then I'm glad it is no more.

Under The Dome trapped a town full of idiots

The first season of Under The Dome concluded tonight. The new show about a town that finds itself suddenly surrounded by an indestructible spherical force field that traps everyone either inside it or out. Now I don't hate the show but a lot of what happens in it seems to indicate that maybe.....well maybe Chester's Mill is just a town full of idiots.

What follows is mildly spoilerific. So be warned. I've chopped it up into three major sections: The Kids, The Adults and The Military.

Hanging with Strawmen

Perhaps I'm a glutton for punishment but I recently discovered  how awesome it is to hang with strawmen. Imagine, if you will, hanging out with a real environmentalist.

This is the part where you imagine.

And you end up with a pretty mundane person with a belief in responsible stewardship of the Earth.  Pretty boring.

Now imagine hanging out with Strawman Environmentalist. Now you've got a dreadlocked, patchouli scented lunatic who will scream about the need to kill loggers or how electricity is evil. The real environmentalist would just engage in lengthy reasoned discussions on the pros and cons of various carbon offsets in power production. Strawman Environmentalist will talk about bombing the power plant. Real environmentalist will want to discuss ways to improve housing development to make it more sustainable. Strawman Environmentalist wants to depopulate Earth of humans because people suck.

Get what I'm saying?

And this is the way it goes. For example a real feminist is pretty much anyone that believes and strives for gender equality. Heck that could be your brother. Strawwomyn Feminist, on the other hand, is always female and has the entire SCUM Manifesto memorized.

Strawman Black Activist is also an interesting character. As he bloviates on the need to oppress all white people and the constant accusations of slavery.

Also entertaining is Strawman Animal Rights Activist. Because this is a guy who is a Level F Vegan (that means anything that is part of the carbon cycle can't be eaten) who throws blood on you for having a pet cat. Way more interesting than just some person who thinks animals should not be treated cruelly.

Then there is Strawman Atheist who insults anyone who harbors a spiritual inclination is a mentally defective gutter rat.

Lastly we have Strawman Political Conservative who thinks Obama is a Muslim and wants to pollute the planet just because.


Wait.....

Oh....darn

Okay, who let the real political conservative in the building?

The Sharknado List Of Awesome Stupid

Sharknado happened. It really did. A seminal event in our current pop culture exploded onto our TV screens then went away leaving us confused and laughing. Definitely laughing. If this film was deliberately made as stupid as it turned out then it marks a new brand of self aware entertainment. So let us examine this milestone in crappy TV movies with the first ever film review on this blog.

Obama admits to being black: Right wing goes nuts

On Friday President Barack Obama wandered into a White House briefing room where reporters were expecting to see the press secretary talk about the mundane ongoing happenings of the executive branch. What they got instead was a candid account from the president on how it was to grow up black in America. Shockingly it wasn't all winsome dance numbers up and down marble staircases with Shirley Temple.

The Ten Next SYFY Original Films

The premier of the Syfy original film Sharknado looms.

I should probably pause to let that sink in. It isn't everyday that one is confronted head on with the possibility of seeing sharks and a tornado in a fever dream let alone in an actual movie. Or did you think I am making this up?

If so here is the trailer.

Also here.

Got that. Sharks, from ocean, into tornado....somehow. Also it has Tara Reid because....apparently this is what her career has come to. It was this or fight homeless men in a pit for a sandwich. Or booze....she just lives off booze these days right?

In a way you have to admire it. SyFy knows they produce crap and are just going with it. I imagine their pitch meetings include a lot of talks like this: "so there's this scary thing combined with this scary thing and it happens because F**k you that's why!"

Then they break for their usual lunch of mescaline and LSD to ward off anything that approaches sanity.

In that spirit here are some suggestions from me:

Fox & Friends, Mr Rogers and a Poe's Law Moment

It is a typical day on Fox & Friends. Brian and Steve are the craven, spineless tools of corporate interests while Gretchen spews forth some of the most awful ideas to ever leave the mouth of a human like bi-pedal primate.

And then they get on the subject of Mr Rogers.

And now things are about to get real.

Drink The Tears Of Right Wing Nuts As They Go Nuts Over Supreme Court Ruling On Gay Marriage

If wanting equal rights for all makes you a bad person I say sign me up for evil. And even if I am a bad person I am nothing compared to the vile that say or write the following

Just To Clarify Something

There is currently a mass media story brewing over a murder involving an athlete. This would be Aaron Hernandez who plays the position of tight end for the New England Patriots.

Now I would just like to let foreign readers know something. As American Football might be outside of your scope of experience or interest I thought the position of tight end could use some explanation.

It really is quite simple. There is a line of demarcation between the offense and defense. This is the line of scrimmage. On the offensive side you can have seven players line up right at this line. The tight end will line up outside of a tackle.

Except when they don't. Some teams have two tight ends. When that happens and both are on the same side one has to line up behind the line of scrimmage.

Now a tight end is lined up with the offensive linemen and can perform their duties of blocking but can also run downfield as an eligible receiver. Oh yeah, there are players on the offensive side that cannot catch a pass. The tight end can.

The reason they can be both an lineman and catch passes is because they would hypothetically be one of two players on the outside lined up on the line of scrimmage who are thus eligible recievers. Why only those two players are eligible to catch passes is......I have no clue. Someone just decided it at some point.

Some teams will field as many as three tight ends at one time. One differentiates these players as tight ends by noting....beats me what they note. I'd say numbers but a tight end can have the same playing numbers as a wide receiver.

Now if they do line up in the backfield they can only move parallel to the line of scrimmage before the snap of the ball. This means one of the extra tight ends might run by the quarterback and get the ball in a hand off thus allowing the tight end to run the ball like a running back.

So, to summarize: a tight end is blocking lineman, wide receiver who might also be a running back. So really I have no idea what a tight end really is.

I hope this helped.

The Post Where I Explain My Absence

Lots of bloggers will explain their absence. Many even tell the truth when they do so.

But how many try to explain their absence while capturing as many weird Google search hits as possible?

Only Owen Astrakhan lays that down on you.

Advertisement Campaigns That Clearly Hate Their Customers

Commercials are supposed to endear a product to a customer base. But every now and then an advertising agency just decides to sail into the wind and forge their own path. That sometimes leads to incredible, edgy campaigns. Then there are those times when it just seems like maybe they just hated who they were supposed to be selling to.

These are those advertisements.

More Dumb Ideas Advocated By Smart People

Bitcoin

What is Bitcoin? Well, it is like Monopoly money only without the tangible benefit of possibly being able to burn it for warmth after you realize you've just dumped your money into a scam. Which means that Bitcoin is not only useless it is actually worse than useless.

You see, someone, somewhere decided that current money carried with it certain deficiencies; like utility and being real. They made up for this by creating virtual money that is neither real or useful even in abstraction. Then they started selling it. Because they figured somewhere in this world there existed people who would be either stupid enough or gullible enough to pay actual real money for their vaporware money.

And they were right because you generally can count on humans to always do stupid things. In this case it was really a matter of finding a ripe market. And they found one. To understand this market I will post here an actual sales pitch for Bitcoins:

Recently I wrote an article entitled The Most Dangerous Creation In The History Of Man. The article covered the emergence of Bitcoin; an electronic peer-to-peer currency that has no central banking server, is untraceable, and essentially can not be taxed through coercive measures. The article makes the point that if a currency can not be taxed and controlled, eventually it will topple the coercively funded fascist control grid you call the modern State. Read more about it in this Bitcoin forum post that explains it in more detail. 

Get that? This is being sold as an alternative to money on the basis that it can't be taxed and is therefore superior. Thus Bitcoin is perfect for that special kind of person who hates modern civilization. Of course those same selling points are also what makes it entirely useless.

After all, what is the point of currency? It exists so that it can be traded for goods and services. What can you do with Bitcoins......you can sell them to other people for real money. That's it. If this sounds like a pyramid scheme you would be entirely right. It is a pyramid scheme. Bitcoins exist only for a sucker to buy them then realize their only use for them is to try and find someone else to buy them. And because the people most often suckered into buying them are ideological fanatics they have to resell them or else potentially admit that their present, warped, worldview might be a tad bit wrong. Which it is.

In a way you have to hand it to whatever Bond villain thought this up. They apparently visited a them park as a child, got duped into buying the special park money that then turns out to not be accepted any of the theme park's vendors and instead of simply learning a lesson on gullibility decided it was a business model they wanted to emulate one day. And they did.

Good show terrible people. Good show.

Congestion Pricing and HOV Lanes

I'm going to admit something to you all right now. I'm a transportation geek. And being a person that loves to study transportation over the years I've learned a few things: high speed rail and light rail are awesome while carpool lanes and congestion pricing are stupid.

Both carpool lanes and congestion pricing have good intentions behind them: to try and compel people through incentives to not clog roads at peak hours. And both fail miserably at their job. HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes, commonly referred to as "carpool" lanes, are supposed to give you an incentive to not drive alone. Congestion pricing uses tolls that dramatically increases during peak traffic times to give you a money incentive to not drive at that time.

The problem with both of these ideas is that it assumes people live their lives in a way where these incentives could actually get them to comply. In reality those time periods of peak vehicle travel on the roads exist because people actually have fewer choices than these measures take into account.

For example; you live in Anywhere Town because it is the only place you can afford a home but work in Corporateville. There is exactly one road you can use in the morning to get to work due to a total lack of mass transit (because this is America and using anything that doesn't have rubber tires for transport makes you a Communist somehow) and your work requires you to show up at a certain time. And no one who works with you lives anywhere close to you. Thus you are completely out of luck. You now have to drive to work every morning with carpool lanes devoid of traffic just sitting there next to you and pay a high toll because you are driving on the road at the time your company wants you to drive on the road. And don't think complaining to your employer about this. The number of companies in America that will give a damn that it costs you more money to get to work at their set hours is approximately zero.

Timecube

What is Timecube? Well it has do with inverted exponential dilation of the outer matrices quantum zone sphere. Combined with ample phlebotinum and you get your desired result.

Actually what I wrote there was a bit too cogent. Timecube may not really belong here as it is hard to determine whether the originator of the idea is crazy or stupid. Judge for yourself with this actual quote from the idea's creator:

"Ignorant of Nature's Harmonic 4 Day Time Cube Creation, the Americans are Dumb, Educated Singularity Stupid and Evil. It's not immoral to kill Americans who IGNORE their OPPOSITE sex parents who Created them, but instead worship a queer jew who claims to make people out of dirt - when the body is 90 percent water. A God so stupid that he claims only a single day rotation of Earth - while my Cubic Wisdom has allowed me to create 4 simultaneous days within a single Earth rotation. Americans do not deserve life. They live only for today, the evil singularity word bastards."

In essence Timecube is an idea created by a man named Gene Ray that proposes the existence of parallel timelines. But only four of them. And why he decided that this universal four parallel timeline constant should be called Timecube when a cube has six sides is not all evident anywhere in his rantings.

If you are ever so unlucky as to come across his webpage in whatever form it exists in now (I last visited a long time ago) you will see that his rantings are not only incomprehensible but that he actively hates all those that fail to understand his genius idea of four simultaneous timelines.

Personally I think he should have called it Timetrapezoid and then just have the page contain links to other pages that eventually link back to the starting page.

What Loons Say About The Boston Bombing

Sometimes terrible things just happen. It only takes one little mistake, malfunction or crazy person to cause them. Most of us have evolved ways of dealing with this: we process what is happening and move on because we remember that there will be a tomorrow. Then there are conspiracy theorists who refuse to believe that anything that ever happens is random. For them terrible things are made to happen by people who.....I don't know do evil things.

The following are all actual quotes from conspiracy theory web forums (here & here (enter at your own risk)) about the Boston Marathon bombing with my own comments interspersed throughout.

Things I think Only I Think About (pt 1)

Is there such a thing as a vegetable?

At some point in all of our lives we encounter that one person who simply must point out that a tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable. I'd like to think that somewhere there is a very deranged nephew of  Hans Gruber who is taking random families hostage in exchange for the dissemination of this rather insipid factoid.

Yes a tomato is a fruit of the tomato plant vine (which otherwise is a family of plants that seems to only exist to kill humans) but if you are classifying your produce at that level things start to get weird. You see I am a believer that language is not prescriptive. The point of language is to communicate. So long as that is accomplished then language has done its job. Sure it rankles purists when words take on new meanings but somehow we survive. We survived when "bad" changed to be complementary and then went back again. We survived when we stopped calling the concave pottery we eat soup out of "mortars" and adopted the word "bowl" instead. Surely we will also survive when "navel" starts being a complementary term for a person of high virtue (now you know my project for 2014).

So where am I going with this? Well words often have uses and the word "vegetable" was useful in describing produce that wasn't sweet or a grain. So, indeed, a vegetable can be the fruit of plant (as tomatoes, peppers and squash are) but that is a level of description not needed for anyone that doesn't actually study plants academically. Because at that level of description there are no vegetables, just a bunch of edible non-sweet fruits, tubers and leaves. Which is a pretty ungainly thing to have to say. Which is probably why a word to encompass them was eventually produced.

So, next time you come across someone that insists a tomato isn't a vegetable ask them what is a vegetable then. Because at least one person on this planet would like to know.

Why do people think atheists must put their non-beliefs at the center of their lives?

I occasionally have to tell people I am an atheist. I don't hide it from anyone really. It's just not something I normally feel compelled to talk about as I don't find it too important. I mean, I don't believe that there is a God out there. So what? I also don't believe in ghosts. And I don't go around making sure everyone knows I don't believe in ghosts.

But every now and then someone wants to know things about my atheism that seems to indicate they don't quite understand how it works. I've had people ask me who the "priests" of atheism are. Uh, there are none. There may be some that are notable but that doesn't mean I give a rat's ass about them or what they say.

Still other people ask me where we atheists meet to discuss our agenda and make plans. Well, I hate to break it to you all but that generally doesn't happen. It'd be like asking someone that doesn't like basketball where all the anti-basketball people meet. That isn't how it works. I mean first off just not liking basketball doesn't mean you are actually actively opposed to its existence. Similarly it is possible to not believe in a God and not be actively opposed to all religious or divine belief.

And to be honest, so long as you don't try and make religious activities compulsory, you will probably never know who is and is not an atheist around you. So, like, stop doing that religious people.

And a short one...

Does worrying a lot that you are a narcissist make you a narcissist? Somehow that question popped into my head the other day and I loved the meta properties of it.

Questions that don't exist on Yahoo Answers...but should

I'm in a ska band and need to know where a large community of deaf people reside that have lots of disposable income.

I just hung fake testicles from my truck but I can't find a bumper sticker with the word "douche"in quiet big enough block letters. Can you help me?

I just played all of the Skyrim. I need someone to tell me what year it is, who is president and if super intelligent squid have risen from the oceans yet.

The Next TV Networks We Will Need

First World Problems

Sure, the problems of third world people are more compelling in that so much more is on the line. Worrying about obtaining basic food or if the rat poison factory where your three children work is really up to snuff on safety is definitely drama with more at stake. But who can relate to that? We don't worry about not getting enough calories in a day. We count calories to eliminate them. And that is why this network exists: to showcase spoiled westerners losing their cool over problems people in most of the world wished they had.

See restaurant customers send back their french fries first for being too cold, then too hot, then for being too salty only to refuse to pay because it took so long for them to get french fries they deemed eatable. See gamers wig out and go on obscenity laced rants about their outrageous internet lag over the phone with starving workers in a phone bank who have never seen a video game console in real life. Watch as upper middle management sociopaths go apoplectic about a mistake with their credit card rewards program and take it out on an outsourced customer service employee who currently works in a dingy warehouse that might get hit by a mortar round if the rebels take the capitol. Entertain yourself with a indignant smart phone connoisseur who is outraged over the lack of a certain app on their new Ultrascreen MegaGadget Quasar 6.5 and how their lengthy thesis on the matter is read by child who lives in an abandoned chemical weapons factory and counts any day they not subject to gang rape by corrupt local police as a good one.

The Next Great Infomercial Products

Rake Erector

Let's face it, rakes are hard. They are enigmas wrapped in riddles hidden away in the vacuous space that should contain Michele Bachman's brain. Rakes are complicated. They require you to have at least one functioning hand, a tiny bit of coordination and at least a reptilian level nervous system . Hardly anyone has all that anymore. So that's where this wonderful invention comes in: it will raise and lower a rake to your hands from its holding position thus eliminating one of the most problematic actions in rake wrangling. You are still going to count on yourself to not spontaneously gouge your eyes out with the metal tines but that is why you wear goggles everywhere you go. That and preventing new yogurt related injuries.

Safety Sprinkler

If rakes are hard to use then anything to do with watering your yard is essentially like building the Large Hadron Collider. I mean who can even handle the complex nonsense that is a garden hose? After all you can trip over a hose, you can accidentally knock things over with them, you can't ever wind them back up into loops and who hasn't inadvertently strangled a pet with one? And hoses are just rubber tubes while most sprinklers are plastic! That makes them at least four times as dangerous. To counter this water spewing danger there is a plasticine face guard, proximity sensor, foam padding and a camera....because why not?

Beware the loss of tradition!

Right now the Supreme Court just heard arguments surrounding California's proposition 8. Otherwise known as the law that made illegal, again, for gay couples to get married. The case is being argued by private lawyers on both sides because California decided pretending its broken system of direct democracy is best ignored in the hopes it will go away.

Ah, but it won't go away and those defending this law may have a point. They argue that allowing gays to marry does injury to the state. How does it do injury to the state? Because by breaking with a "traditional" definition of marriage all marriages are invalidated.

Think this is crazy?

Well think back to the early twentieth century when we decided to abandon "traditional voting" by letting women do it too. No man has been able to bring himself to vote in defiled voting booths ever since.

My Ten Tips To Avoid Rape

Tip 1) Don't engage in or even attempt sex with someone that has not consented to it.

Tip 2) If you see someone who has blacked out from drinking, make sure their airway is unobstructed and refer back to Tip #1

Tip 3) When you encounter someone incapacitated from an automobile accident, call the appropriate emergency number, check to see if they are bleeding out and refer back to Tip #1

Tip 4)  When you see someone carrying some unconscious woman around make sure they are only taking her to get medical help and refer back to Tip #1

Tip 5) If you encounter someone who is in a diabetic coma, make sure they still have a pulse, call for help  and do this without sticking your penis in them (refer back to Tip #1)

Tip 6) If you happen to come across someone who has suffered a tragic chainsaw accident remember that maintaining blood pressure is of most importance, also don't rape them ( again referring back to Tip #1)

Tip 7) If you have to give a lost person on vacation directions try to get them to their destination using fewer than eight individual instructions and make sure none of them include rape ( once again we refer back to Tip #1)

Tip 8) A lost hiker in the woods is likely dehydrated so if you find one be sure to rehydrate them without trying to stick your penis in them (that would be Tip #1 again)

Tip 9)  If you encounter some guys who are going out to "rape some bitches" don't go with them, also call the police

Tip 10) Pretty much don't rape anyone you encounter anywhere

Lessons I learned In Life That Won't Help You

Unclogging a stuck drain with cherry bombs only works in your mind.

It is possible to get three rubber balls stuck in one tree in one afternoon.

When you discover the decomposing corpse of an opossum in your tool shed you should not send pics to family members.

A good way to lose a doctor is to always insist on nipple reconstitution as a joke.

You should not immerse a flash drive in boiling water.

Shaving off your eyebrows is pretty much always a bad idea.

Also, letting someone coming off opioids cut your hair is another bad idea.

Why Conspiracy Theorists Get Everything Wrong

It is one thing to banter about how wrong conspiracy theorist are. Yes it is fun but here in this article I'd like to explore why they are, so often, wrong about....well just about everything.

Conspiracy Theorists Don't Understand Science

Yes, science, is something that conspiracy theorists think they know but, trust me, they do not. They actually fundamentally fear it. However they know that the aura of science is a good way to get people to respect your brain feces so they try their best at a kind of cargo cult science. In a way it is kind of like a child who tries to get you to believe their cardboard robot will work with a bunch of nonsense words ending in "ium."

Contrary to popular belief, lipstick immediately humanogrifies a pig 

and a pair of hipster glasses really does turn your Canadian Girlfriend into Zooey Deschanel. 

You see, when you look at what they actually try to employ their version of science for it all starts to come apart. For example: I have encountered conspiracy theorists who don't understand gravity. They seem to think that it is related to air. No air, no gravity. This leads to hilarious claims that with no air on the moon anyone actually trying to visit it will float away.

The complete list of scientists conspiracy 

theorists have heard of.

Scientist most conspiracy theorists have not heard of.

The Great Sparta Hoax

Legend has it that 2480 years before the invention of Google the Persians and Greek city states were gearing up for another rumble in the Mediterranean that would be known as the Battle of Thermopylae. Ten years prior to this the Persians kind of lost another attempt to control the land nestled between the Aegean and Adriatic Seas—thus securing a lock on all future John Stamos based yogurt commercials, the highest aspiration of all cultures—thanks to their defeat at the Battle of Marathon. Perhaps they set forth with this endeavor because they just couldn't live with the fact that they were defeated in battle that would give a name to the only sport Kenya can dominate or perhaps because their leader, Xerxes, wanted a lock on punch lines about military ineptitude but knew one day the French military would sit around dumbfounded that an army would dare to use trees as cover.

Whatever it was the Persians wanted to at least look like they were doing invasion stuff proper so they sent out scouts. And those scouts encountered the Spartans preparing for battle by using their perfectly sculpted bodies in a round of calisthenics.

And that is where we must put this hoax under the glare of light. Why? Because TV has well educated me that it is impossible for a people so long ago to have been in good physical shape.

My evidence?



The Spartans didn't have door based exercise equipment

The Tower 200 from fitness outfitter Body By Jake answers the age old conundrum of giving doors a use outside of hiding our marshmallow body shame. If you've ever looked at a door and wondered "it's nice and all but if only it could exercise me?" then you are in luck. You are also probably the sort of person who stares at a garden hose and wonders why it isn't helping you make a better stir-fry. And that's why people with an industrial design degree from a diploma mill got together and decided that doors would no longer be the lazy moocher they had always been. They would now get our bodies into lean shape with a titanium frame and resistance bands.

I suppose the next task will be getting the table to help dress us in the morning. Speaking of the morning...

Guest Blogger: Niamhia Astrakhan.

Fruit Review.

Oranges.

Oranges suck.  My friend Ana tells me people used to suck oranges instead of peeling them in the old country. You’d be walking down some street in Scotland or some such weird old country and bigger boys would walk up to you and say “Gie’s a sook o yer orange” and those guys were called “Geezers”.  Ana always makes stupid crap up. I’m not even gonna return her skort because, you know, liar. First of all, wouldn’t they be called “Suckers” and second omg, there’s no need for second. That sounds so undignified for the orange but it was probably nicer for the people than the stupid oranges we have today. But anyway, oranges suck. Seriously, have you ever tried to eat an orange? You get that weird shit from their peel all over your hands that make you look like a shiny leper. And just when you think you’ve broken into the damn orange and you are all out of peel, you have to quarter it. So now your hands are soaked in orange weird shit AND orange juice and that paper cut was really painful.

They taste quite nice though. A bit like reconstituted Jamba Juice. But it’s not worth it. Oh and don’t buy oranges on Etsy. They screw you on the postage and mine came with a felt tip vagina on it. Reasonable, at $180 though.

$180 plus postage from vajayjaysonstuff.com

E-mails From The Department Of Health & Safety In Sci-Fi

 --Star Wars--

From: Lok Mare Hnen <lokmarehnen@galacticempire.net>
To: Bevel Lemelisk <Lemelisk420@despayreglobal.net>
Re: Major issue at the core

Yeah, I just got a look at the plans for this Death Star. It seems you plan to put a hypermatter core at the very center of the thing. Now I'm not a physicist so I won't pretend to know what a hypermatter core is but it sounds awfully dangerous and it seems I might be correct as you guys plan to surround it with a magnetic shielding system. Does this thing really need to be at the center of a giant space station with millions of citizens and those creepy storm trooper clone things on board? We might want to explore housing it in a separate module that can be ejected to a safe distance.

-------

From: Lok Mare Hnen <lokmarehnen@galacticempire.net>
To: Bevel Lemelisk <Lemelisk420@despayreglobal.net>
Re: Railings

Okay, you have gone ahead and started  to build the Death Star. But I couldn't help but notice that you pretty much don't have railings anywhere. And there are some chasms on this thing that just disappear into darkness they are so vast. Please tell me you will eventually install railings!

F**k You, Tharg. I Followod Yeur Specs.

I'm gotting peyd.

Some Dumb Ideas That Smart People Advocate

The Gold Standard

This is an idea that we should not have fiat money. Once upon a time all money issued had to be backed up by a gold reserve. If you had a $1 bill issued by the government there was $1 worth of gold in a big safe somewhere. This meant the money supply was usually pretty stable. It remained more or less the same regardless of what was going on in the economy at the moment.

Is this a problem?

Oh you bet it is. As the United States (and other nations) learned you sometimes need to restrict the money supply and sometimes you need to expand it. You'll restrict it to try and keep inflation in check and expand it when you need to create jobs. Without that ability the nation finds itself unable to respond to changing economic situations. Another problem is that the currency is tied to the current value of gold and that is something which can change quickly like if, say, a major gold deposit is located somewhere and mining commences. All of sudden your money isn't worth what it once was and there isn't anything you can do about it.

Also you never know when a super villain will decide to like...nuke your gold or something which would be very, very bad.

So why do people like this idea?

And what happened to the Turnip Standard?

And Now: A Word from Our Sponsor!

Use Tharg's Petroglyphs!

For All Your Petroglyph Needs.

Also. Pay Tharg. 

On time.

Three Ridiculous Things That Got Turned Into Conspiracy Theories

I covered mainstream conspiracy theories in my previous post. Now I'd like to talk about some non-mainstream ones. These are conspiracy theories that exist mostly because the people that come up with them really just cannot stop themselves. Once they get on the kick it is apparently hard to stop. It's sort of like being a meth addict only without the glamor of being a strung out neurotic shell of a person with ruined teeth.

Ranking Conspiracy Theories

Do you know any conspiracy theorists?

You probably do even if you don't realize it. They are like a cockroach to the human condition. Undying, often unseen and always so filthy and disgusting.

Which is why I love to mock them. Here I rank some popular conspiracy theories and explain why they are flipping nuts.

Apollo Hoax

What the Conspiracy Theorists believe

Essentially that we didn't really go to the Moon. Sometimes coupled with the idea that maybe the Nazis really did go to the moon and that is why we can't go there now. Another faction think there are aliens up there and that is the reason we can't go there.

The proponents of this idea like to point out discrepancies in photographs and claim it is evidence of fakery. These oddities include the lack of stars in said pictures, a lack of a blast crater under the lander and shadows that are not parallel.

Outside of that all they really have is lots of wild ass speculation.

Oh, they sent up a rocket. To Cleveland. Or something. 

As soon as my update to Wikipedia goes through, this will be canon. 

Which is also a type of ballistic. 

Why it is crazy

Well almost all of this comes down to the fact that conspiracy theorists tend to know very little about anything.

Why I should be the new Pope

We need a new pope. Well really we don't. I'm pretty sure the Earth continues on with or without one. But because there will be a new one, needed or not, I hereby throw my hat into the ring for this position.

Sure, I understand there are a few problems with me becoming Pope Innocent XIV. Not the least of which is that I am not Catholic (baptized Mormon) and will be far from innocent. But Pope Innocent VIII had a whole slew of people tortured to death for no reason whatsoever. I assure you I would be much more innocent than that. Granted that isn't exactly a high bar in terms of ethics. But if we can look at Pol Pot and go "at least he wasn't Hitler" there will always be room for some measure of equivalency. After all Pol Pot wasn't Hitler. He was still, however, a genocidal monster. But enough about that.

So, why should the Catholic church make me the infallible link to God?

Reason #1: Awesome new Cardinals

Possum habett cazeumque burgensi?

We need new vigor in the ranks of the Cardinals.

Welcome to my Utopia!

Now that America has become a socialist dystopia where you can no longer dump your industrial waste in rivers, work children to death in coal mines or lace your patent medicine with lots of arsenic there is the need now more than ever for a safe abode for "True Patriotic Americans" to live out the ideals of freedom and liberty the founding fathers bestowed upon us.

And so I now lay out my plans for The Democratic Paradise of Freedom and Tolerance hereafter referred to as the DPFT.


I'm interested in this idea, Owen Astrakhan, but where will it be located?

In Idaho right between the white power compound, Aryanville, and the new Christian militia Bible law community, Leviticusberg.

From the weapon design workshop of a bigot

Does the idea of a "gay bomb" make sense to you as a potential weapon?

It does?

Congratulations you are a terrible person.

It is the kind of idea that appeals to a very bigoted view of the world. You know, the one where you just assume that because you think gay men are a bunch of pansy pacifists that all you need is a "gay bomb" to get your enemies to stop shooting at you and start critiquing each others spray on tans before descending into a spontaneous orgy.

All I have to say is that if it actually does get invented it had better be strapped to the rear hindquarters of the bomber that carries it, have a self lubricating nipple (codenamed EJAKUL8) at the top of its cylindrical body, two empty spheres at its base for ballast and bomber crews that signal a successful release of the bomb with the phrase "done tossed good."

But continuing the line of reasoning that bigoted stereotypes make for good weapons here are some more.

The depressing future for Kevin McCallister from "Home Alone"

First off, for those that just climbed out of the bomb shelter they entered back in 1989, Home Alone is a movie about a boy, Kevin McCallister, who defeats two burglars with ingenuity after his family leaves him behind while they travel to the one hotel in Paris that actually has a view of the Eiffel Tower.

Also the Cold War ended, the USSR is no more, Princess Diana died, The Simpsons is still on the air, South Africa traded in the horrors of apartheid for the horrors of gang rape, Bono of U2 inexplicably became Man of The Year once and the new Star Wars movies sucked despite costing more than the Manhattan Project to produce.

Oh and something called Here Comes Honey BooBoo just exists. No one knows why.

Okay, now the actor behind Kevin McCallister, Macaulay Culkin, went on to have a good life. I mean he had an acclaimed theater run then went on to find true love which makes your life a "win" even if a sentient computer program exterminated all humans except you just so it could torment you for its own amusement.

Hey, ever notice that Harlan Ellison is sort of a downer?

Anyways, things would not be so good for the character of Kevin McCallister after things were over and here are why I think this would be so.

How I Became An Internet Forum Paid Shill

Rain was coming down again. It always did that when I was in my office. It served as reminder just how much the universe hated me. But that was okay, I hated the universe too.

But I didn't have time for philosophy. My name is Rifle Tracer. I'm a Private Investigator.

The door knocked and I was interested just enough to yell for whoever it was to "come in" and to part my boots that I had resting on my desk so I could see who was coming in. It was trouble, female, with a long mane of red hair as usual.

"I am so sorry Mr Tracer," the redhead started, "but I was instructed to invite you for a most lucrative job."

Naturally several things perked up on me after hearing this offer from the lady in the breezy honey colored dress standing before me, my ears were among them. "Am I following someone?" That always cost extra though I might make a discount if my client were to be extra accommodating.

"No, Mr Tracer. I'm afraid it will be unlike anything you have ever done before." She bit her lower lip for no good reason while handing me a card. Wherever she had gotten her seductress training it was good. Of course that had me wondering just who she was working for.

The card only gave a cryptic address: 688 South Ebony Raven Way.

Journal entries from the most realistic Medieval re-creation vacation ever!

Day -1: This should be an experience I will never forget. This is going to be great. I have always loved these things. That was the longest liability waiver form I've ever signed though. What in the hell is Yersinia pestis? 

Day 1: Well, they've assigned me to work in some field. That doesn't sound like much fun, I can't wait for the first feast! Man these clothes are really uncomfortable. I've been given some sort of realistic wife.....she's missing some teeth...she's got a bump down on her belly....and doesn't really have the heaving bosoms I thought I'd be seeing everywhere.

The opening passages of The Picture of Dorian Gray ruined by Google Translate

First the original courtesy of Oscar Wilde. The Oscar Wilde that was not waging war on Tesla from a battle dirigible. I can't stress that enough. The battle dirigible version of Wilde gave us nothing so majestic.

The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
 

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as usual, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-colored blossoms of the laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters who, in an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the black-crocketed spires of the early June hollyhocks, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive, and the dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement, and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.

And here it is Google translated into Swedish:

An Apology To The Men That Thought I Was Their Internet Girlfriend

The first thing you need to know for certain is that I, pseudonymous Owen Astrakhan, am a dude. Very much a dude. But that is real life. The anonymity of the internet combined with some severe naivete and wishful thinking turned me into a dream girl. But that is a lie that can continue no more.

And so I now have to break it to Jerry, Ricky, Norbert, Ricky #2, Maxwell and Craig that the woman you thought was your girlfriend never was. She was I. Or I was she. She never existed. I am........sorry.

Yes I was Nella....except for you Ricky #2 to whom I always presented myself as Nancy. Because you gotta keep things fresh.

To be fair I did try and leave a rather large amount of clues regarding this.

Disasters You Should Not Build A Bunker For

December 31st, 1999. All around the world people spent the early part of the night partying because it was literally 1999 and Prince had mercifully been irrelevant for almost a decade. In my house streams of tears dropped into empty champagne glasses.......in the movie I was watching. I really had no reason to be sad even though I was 21 years old and had nothing better to do on New Years Eve except watch TV by myself. After all my situation was positively joyous compared to the scene about three miles away where a dear friend of mine spent the night dealing with an aunt who was convinced that Y2K was about unleash the end of things. She had spent an incredible amount of money to fortify their garage into a survival bunker.

Well Y2K turned out to be a whole lotta nothing thanks to a combination of prudent work to fix computer code and the fact that most computer networks cannot just launch a nuclear missile the second they don't know exactly what day it is.

But the experience of my friend was my first view into the strange world of doomsday bunker enthusiasts. People who spend loads of time and money preparing for events that largely never happen.

Now disasters do happen of course. Trust me I know as I grew up in California which is essentially a natural disaster test zone that just happens to have nearly 40 million people living there. But it seems that the bunker people never prepare for disasters that actually happen or actually worth preparing for. Here are four disasters commonly prepared for that just aren't worth it.

Pole Shifts

In The Hunt For The Last Great Cryptid

"Don't step in it. That is fresh dung!"

I knew that Bobo was probably right. He had been collecting what he thought was the creature's droppings since the 1980's. With my foot now planted next to, instead of on, the specimen we all gathered around to inspect it right there on the path.

"What do you suppose causes the coloration?" Cliff posed to no one in particular while bending over.

"Might be french fries," was the speculation that Ranae offered while pushing her glasses back up the prow of her nose into position.

"I tells you that is its dung!" Bobo was pretty insistent. He had already pulled out a plastic container to collect the specimen. I couldn't quite figure out where he had it stashed for our walk in.

"If it is then it can't be too far away." Cliff said causing me to look around nervously along with everyone else.

"I'm gonna see if it responds to some knocks and yells," Bobo announced and before anyone could protest he had already pulled out a pizza box and dropped it. We all looked around. Nothing. "Faaaawwwxxx Nuuuuueeeewwwsss!" He yelled out once. Then again when nothing responded.

Nothing.

"Naaaasssssskkkkhaaaarrrr!" Now Matt had joined in.

"Would you all shut the hell up you lunatics!" That voice came down from a woman yelling from her third floor apartment. We might have protested but just around then a group of drunken college students rounded the corner and we knew the scene was now compromised.

Another night on the prowl for our elusive prey. Another failure. 

For some people there is Bigfoot. For others there is the monster of Loch Ness or the Bunyip. Some even still try to trap the Orang Pendek.

Me though? I'm trying to locate the infamous Sheeple.

Four Fictional Places It Would Suck To Live In

Sometimes things can be disillusioning. Sometimes these things are small (like figuring out octagon fighting is boring) sometimes they are big (like finding out Tolkien was actually a cyborg sent from the future to establish an elaborate cryptogram in the guise of some novels that leads to a cure for a disease that hasn't yet mutated into existence). This is about fictitious geographic disillusionment. More precisely four places that seem like they would be cool places to live until you start to think about it.

#4  Shermer, Illinois (the John Hughes Universe)

TV Advertising Conventions That Bug Me

Trucks make you masculine

Who uses trucks? Don't answer that. I live in a rural area so I know the kinds of people use trucks: all kinds of people. Yet trucks are invariably marketed to men. And they are marketed in a rather condescending fashion. You have gravelly voiced guy, former football star, more gravelly voiced guys, Dennis Leary's voice and Mike Rowe......okay I'll hand them that Mike Rowe is probably the best, if most unconventional, choice there.

But all those choices are decidedly supposed to appeal to men or, more exactly, to a supposed basal desire of men to always be hyper masculine. Which is strange because, when you get down to it, a truck is a practical thing that is useful in practical ways so why is there a need to connect it to masculinity at all? But that seems to be a trend that things that are actually useful to men get advertised as being part of what makes men masculine. Wrenches? Useful and always advertised in the context of men being masculine. Like building a kick ass man cave where you can mainline the NFL Network straight into your veins or tightening a bolt on a snowmobile covered with running chainsaws. Decidedly missing is the more likely use of a wrench such as making sure a bracket for a flower box doesn't come undone. Oh and apparently these wrenches are made out of female kryptonite seeing as how you never see a woman using one in any of the commercials. I guess they're all too busy being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen or something.