Biblical womanhood

No she didn't.  She says she did, but she didn't, and she damn well knows it.

Coming soon to the dark continent: Genocide

But not against the people you think.

What?  Is it crooked?

It began with the rise of Julius Malema, President of the African National Congress Youth League, who began singing the old anti-Boer song: “Kill the Boer” at rallies of the Youth League, the called for expropriation of white owned lands while he was in Zimbabwe visiting Robert Mugabe, and has most recently called Botswana’s racially harmonious society “neo-colonial,” and has called for the overthrow of Botswana’s government. Malema is a racist Marxist-Leninist. The failure of the leadership of the ANC to discipline him and remove him from the Presidency of the ANC Youth League, and his reelection to the Presidency of the ANC Youth League (despite his age of 30), have led Genocide Watch to conclude that violence against whites is now being planned and incited by one of the most important leaders of the new South Africa. Malema has considerable support among young black South Africans, and ANC leaders are afraid to discipline and remove him from his position. Genocide watch will keep South Africa at Stage 6 – Preparation, until Julius Malema is removed from his position of growing power. South Africa has not yet reached actual genocide, which is Stage 7, but the preparations for it are ominous.

Fear the Future (short term fear-mongering edition)

This is creepy as all hell.  The people with all the money in the world (almost literally) want to spy on everything anyone says about them.  For our own good, obviously.

the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, … in a Request for Proposals filed to companies that are Fed vendors, is requesting the creation of a “Social Listening Platform“ whose function is to “gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.” It will “monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria.” The Fed’s desired product should be able to “determine the sentiment [ED:LOL] of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document”… “The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.” Most importantly, the “Listening Platform” should be able to “Handle crisis situations, Continuously monitor conversations, and Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers.“

This is why Fox News is my go to site for Sciency type stuff...

Anti-Magnets!

X-Men’s Magneto isn’t the only who can shield magnetic fields.

What the fuck does this even mean?  I won't get into whether or not Magneto should be labelled as part of the X-men (and technically, he WAS their headmaster for a while) but this is just stupid.

Spanish researchers have designed what they call the world's first "anti-magnet," a magnetic cloak that can act as a shield they envision helping the military and saving lives. For example, some types of mines in the ocean are set to detonate upon detection of magnetic fields from ships passing above them. Military ships could use an anti-magnet to stop their magnetic fields from tripping the mines.

They already do, it's called degaussing.  It's been around for a while.

“It was a big explosion in science [in 2008] -- the possibility of cloaking electromagnetic waves,” professor Alvar Sanchez from from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain and the lead author of the design told FoxNews.com. “So we came up with the idea of trying to make something similar with magnetic fields, and now we have come up with a device we hope can be constructed eventually that will have these properties of an anti-magnet.”

Wait, you haven't even built the damn thing?  What is this story about, then?  "Oh hey, I've got this theory about a thing that might do some stuff we already do some other way, but we haven't built it." 

I'll bet almost anything this is being done to get funding from the Germans.  We all know that they're the only ones with any money in Europe, so Queen Isabella, or whoever the fuck is in charge of Spain probably said, "What can we do to drum up sthome cash?" (Sthpaniardsth sthpeak with a listhp, you sthee...) Some science-like type says "Ooh, I know! Letsth sthee if we can sthcam the Germansth.  They don't know anything about sthcience, right?  To make it sthound legitimate, letsth get a newsth sthathion to cover it..."

Performance enhancement

I will lay very long odds that in the coming years athletes will be drug tested for chocolate.

Church = Jail time

Alternative sentenceing at it's worst.

All my childhood illusions are crumbling...

Dinosaurs have had feathers.  Where is your god now, 8 year old me?  No where, that's where.

Fear the Future (Fear Me edition...)

Apparently I am a robot.  I took this "visual turing test" and scored a pretty dismal 23 %.

I don't know whether to be appalled or thrilled.  I may be part of the ruling class after the robot apocalypse, after all.  I promise to be a firm but fair master.  Crucifiction will be reserved for only the most heinous of crimes.

This for example, will get you nailed to a cross and/or lit on fire.

I now no longer fear the end of the world

In fact, I welcome the end, if only to see the destruction of shit like this.  Yes, I know it's the logical extension of things like "metro-sexuality" and whatever, but this is seriously a bridge too far.  Someone, please, lets get a petition going to start Theater Wide Thermonuclear War, because now, the only way to lose is not to play the game...

Funny stuff

I know it's not supposed to be a secret girl fight between the candidates, but doesn't this look like Rick Perry got tired of someone's lip and slapped the shit out of him?

"Question me on proper credit for Texas' profitability?  I've got a question for you; what did five fingers say to the face?"

You're next, old man...

It's almost like it doesn't work

We had a minister come by the office today and offer us free rain gauges.  His church had a prayer meeting last month to pray for rain and an end to the drought. He said they'd had 200 or so rain gauges with bible verses on them (mat 7:7 - ask and it shall be given) but they haven't been able to give them away.  Not even to the people in his church who attended the prayer meeting.

I asked if he had one at home.  He said, "no, there hasn't been any need to put one up. Doesn't look like there will be any time soon, either."

He may have been the saddest looking preacher I've ever seen, and I almost feel bad for laughing at him.  If it weren't for the fact that he's a preacher and thereby deserves scorn and ridicule, that is. The slow dawning of comprehension is going to be painful for the south.

Suck it, bitches!

Vampire Attacks Old Man's Face

Stephanie Meyer has a lot to answer for:

A Florida woman who claimed to be a “vampire” last night attacked an elderly man, biting him on the face and arm and tearing away chunks of his skin, according to police.

“I’m a vampire, I am going to eat you,” Smith announced before allegedly attacking Milton Ellis

Day shift

Blogging will be light until I get moved back to night shift or win the lottery.

Fear the Future

What the fuck?  A UAV that not only surveils, but upon completion of said surveillance rams itself into the target and explodes?  Sounds awesome evil.

Also, I thought machine learning was something I used to scare myself, but apparently it's real, and it's happening now.  So, this then is how it will all end.  UAV bomb planes will learn to hate us, then kill us all.

Washington doesn't do decisions

From a guy I like to read:

Nothing can change things except the utter collapse of the US economy and the burning of its cities, a singularity the other side of which is not visible. Any possible sollution would require a decision. The US no longer does decisions. It can neither stop the drug traffic nor legalize it. It can neither win wars nor abandon them, neither make money nor stop spending it, neither stop immigration nor assimilate the immigrants. Washington can beat its thumb with a hammer, yes, and notice that it hurts, but it can't stop beating its thumb. That would take a decision, and Washington doesn't do decisions.

Fear the Future

I'm not worried about mini-robotic insects carrying lasers or bombs.  I'm worried about them carrying cameras and needles with poisons in them.  That's a much more practical fear.

Department of Job Creation

This seems like a good idea.

Others in the guitar world aren't so upbeat. Attorney Ronald Bienstock says the Gibson raids have aroused the guitar builders he represents because the Lacey Act is retroactive. He says they're worried they might be forced to prove the provenance of wood they acquired decades ago.

Wow, retroactive laws.

He's even warned clients to be wary of traveling abroad with old guitars, because the law says owners can be asked to account for every wooden part of their guitars when re-entering the U.S. The law also covers the trade in vintage instruments.

I'm sorry, what the hell is the point of this?  How could a vintage guitar be in any way responsible for current tree removal?

But I guess this is what happens when your #1 priority is job creation, right?  Right? This is what happens...

Pop Culture is Filth

I think I may begin a new series of posts on why the world deserves to burn. There should certainly be enough fodder that even if it stopped right now, I could have a new post every day for the rest of my life just catching up on the backlog of shitty human behavior.

Family, re-defined

You want to know what's scary?  Family can always get worse.

The Obama administration didn’t invent the phrase but has taken it to new heights.
“Under the direction of President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano, the entire federal family is leaning forward to support our state, tribal and territorial partners along the East Coast,” a FEMA news release declared Friday as Irene churned toward landfall.
The G-word — “government” — has been nearly banished, with FEMA instead referring to federal, state and local “partners” as well as “offices” and “personnel.”

So, if use of the term "Federal Family" has been incrementally increasing since the Clinton administration, when do you think they'll roll out the phrase "dear leader?"

Cake, Entropy, and Fuck the Hippies

A little deeper conversation about the grunge music scene, second wave gen-xers and fuck the hippies.

You could argue that grunge’s anger would eventually devolve into emo, and that the second-wave Generation X sub-culture would eventually degenerate into hipsterism… you could argue that, and you might even be right. But goddamn it, the Baby Boomers have romanced Woodstock ’69 into fucking the second coming of Jesus and the return of classic Coke all rolled into one; I feel entitled to a bit of indulgence, to pointing out how cool things were while ignoring what they’d eventually become. Maybe you could argue that this trend, this cultural entropy, is part of why Generation X has been largely ignored—I leave that as an exercise for the reader. Hell, make a blog post about it, and I’ll link to it, if you write that article…

Also check out his guide to gen-x.