Rock City Troubles

More news on our case study in collapse: Detroit's city bus drivers have stopped driving.

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.

Forget about the hilarity of a (say it quietly, "black") bus driver being being by (even quieter, now, "black") teenagers on a street named after Rosa Parks.  It's best not to mention that sort of thing, after all.  Remember what I said way back in the way back about police response?  Yeah.  I totally called it.

Look upon my works, ye mighty...

... and despair.

As odd as the idea of cut-rate, illicit, butt-boosting injections may sound, this case is far from the first that has made headlines – and in some cases, the outcome has been deadly.

Oddly enough, this is the perpetrator, not the victim.  That's right, this is a dude.

Detroit Update

The reason I'm fascinated with Detroit is that it's the bellweather city for us.  What happens here, now and in the short term future, will be what happens in the rest of the nation (world?) not far behind.

Think about it. It was once a thriving city with plenty of jobs and then some, a music scene (if you can call mo-town music, that is...), artists and enthusiastic investors, all the things that go into making a good city.

Now? Not so much.

Sound familiar, america?

Detroit, Rock City!

Fear the Future

This is most likely where we are headed.

West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real "strategic" danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate introduction to the issues, often extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will soon confront our civilization. To remap the political earth the way it will be a few decades hence—as I intend to do in this article—I find I must begin with West Africa.

Soon enough, this will be the only option left to us.

Fear the Future

Some might say it's a gift to be shown how you will die.  In that spirit, happy Festivus, motherfuckers.

Danger!

It's also the leading cause of drownings in the world!  Won't someone please think of the children?!?!

Michael Caine

(The wife should get the joke in the title after she reads this... I don't expect anyone else to do so.)

Remember how in my first post I said I might post about pretty ladies sometimes?  Well, here it is.

The study, conducted by Harvard University researchers, found the face of an attractive woman triggers the same reward centres in a man's brain as the narcotic.
Test subjects were shown images of attractive females, and brain imaging scans revealed that reward circuitry fired off when they looked at comely faces.
A prominent curved forehead*, eyes, nose and mouth located relatively low, large eyes, round cheeks and a small chin were among the features men found most attractive.

So here's a pro-tip for the "porn and pancakes" church: if you want men to stop with the porn, start passing out drugs.




Drugs, not hugs.  And by hugs, I mean masturbation. So like, your hand, hugging your naughty bits.



(* - Yes, it's bolded on purpose, because some people I know are sensitive about being the apellation "dolphin head.")

Is someone going to apologize to Mr. McDonald?

Despite what our betters have told us for the last several years, fast food is not to blame for the obesity epidemic.

The conventional wisdom goes something like this: Obesity rates are skyrocketing among the poorest Americans, therefore fast-food restaurants must be to blame.
But a new study by a professor at UC Davis' medical school has found that it's Americans with salaries at the higher end of the spectrum -- in some cases as high as $80,000 to $90,000 -- who are driving fast-food consumption at the likes of McDonald's and Burger King.
"There's a strong correlation been income and obesity," professor Paul Leigh told The Times. "And so people say, 'Oh, well, it's the fast-food restaurants that are causing obesity among the poor.' But that's not true. To focus on fast-food restaurants as the sole cause of obesity is incorrect."

What?  You mean it's not the eeeeeevil corporations conspiring to make us all into fatty-Patties? 

Preposterous!

Obviously, Ronald McDonald is to blame for forcing me to eat the whole damn thing.
Asshole.

This is why my kids are so smart, I bet

Exposure to sarcasm makes you smarter, or something.  My kids are going to be geniuses!

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm.
That extra work may make our brains sharper, according to another study. College students in Israel listened to complaints to a cellphone company’s customer service line. The students were better able to solve problems creatively when the complaints were sarcastic as opposed to just plain angry. Sarcasm “appears to stimulate complex thinking and to attenuate the otherwise negative effects of anger,” according to the study authors.



This is obviously not my kid.



Fear the Future

Some day, apparently, all our food and fuel will be grown in labs.

Microbes will be the (human) food- and fuel-makers of the future, if J. Craig Venter has his way. The man responsible for one of the original sequences of the human genome as well as the team that brought you the first living cell running on human-made DNA now hopes to harness algae to make everything humanity needs. All it takes is a little genomic engineering.

"Nothing new has to be invented. We just have to combine [genes] in a way that nature has not done before. We're speeding up evolution by billions of years," Venter told an energy conference on October 18 at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. "It's hard to imagine a part of humanity not substantially impacted."

I don't need to tell you that this will not end well.  We already have a food product that was once an engine lubricant, do we need another?

A little afternoon cheer

From Fred:

What the hell is the American Dream, I wondered? Seven credit cards maxed-out, living paycheck to paycheck, upside down on the mortgage in a boring house you don't really like, a job you hate but the retirement plan gotcha, your little boy buzzing on force-fed Ritalin, wife and daughter gobbling Prozac and everyone wondering, “Is this all there is?”

Actually, yes.

--------------

A country of 315 million, nuclear-armed, able to wreck other countries it has never heard of in minutes, and the candidates sound as if they were addressing a warehouse of stuffed animals. This is the best we can do?

Yes.

I don't know who to blame

So, do we blame the wife who smashed the Star Wars toy collection , or the obvious pedophile who killed her for doing so?



Seriously, look at him. His face just screams "catholic priest."



Items for consideration:

1. The wife was pretty, young and asian.

2. She had a name that started with "porn."

3. The dude probably has a van with "Free Candy, fireworks and puppy dogs" painted on the side.

4. His name is creepy.  "La-touche" Tell me that doesn't scare the hell out of you.

Here's the real clencher, though:

5. The first thing he did after murdering his hot-young-asian-porn-wife is run to his momma and cry in her lap like a four year old.

This man was  obviously out of his league in more than one way with this woman, and so is to blame.  Not solely responsible, as his friends should have talked him out of importing a tiger mother stand in for a wife.

Lying pack of liars.

The White House has denied any knowledge of aliens, which as we all know means they're here, they're among us, and they're going to kill us all.  In fact, there's probably one right behind you as we speak.  Or even in the next room.  How would you know, have you looked in there in the last minute or so?  That's way more time than an alien needs to sneak into a dark room that your back is turned towards.



How do you know this isn't going on in the other room, right now?  You don't, do you?  Why don't you go check?



Classic Masculinity, 2011

If this is what sparks off fueds between outlaw biker gangs, excuse me, Motorcycle Enthusiast Clubs, then traditional masculinity is truly dead.

"Ugh, those Hell's Angels are just jealous of my righteous hog.  And my bike." (Get it?  He's fat!)

I'm okay, you're okay... if you're on fire, and somewhere else other than near me.

The Atlantic had a piece in 2003 on the proper care and feeding of your introvert, but it misses a pretty important point: it assumes that an introvert will necessarily have an extrovert "keeper."

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren't caring for him properly.

We won't, at least not the smart ones of us, choose to live with, or if allowed the option, anywhere near an extrovert.  This is because of the three most iportant parts of our personality:

1. People are tiring (and most of the time, not worth the cost of a bullet)
2. I need to be alone, but will want someone with whom to share snide comments about extroverts.
3. People are tiring (and most of the time, not worth the cost of a bullet)

 This makes most of us choose the reasonable option and surround ourselves with about 80% introverts.  We use the remaining 20%-ers to help us find more introverts.

"You should totally meet Joe*, he glares at people almost as much as you do. His wife hasn't said more than 5 words to me in the fourteen years I've known her."

We think alike.

The Atlantic continues with:

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone.

 There's a term I like to use for people like this: "Simple minded."  I used to use the term retarded, but apparently the retards don't want to be associated with the extroversion.  I can sympathize.

In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially "on," we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing.

 I don't need quite that much recharging, but then again, I spend my day making life harder for the outgoing personalities I'm surrounded by, and the enticing mixture of their fury and my hate recharge my batteries.

This isn't antisocial.

Well, for me it is.  My general rule is "please go away and die horribly." 

It isn't a sign of depression.

Someone please tell this to the mental health "professionals" who work here. I'm getting tired of rebutting heads with them. (get it? it's a joke!)

It does not call for medication.

Unless that medication is single malt and at least 12 years old.

For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.

They should have said "as nourishing as HEALTHY eating."  Extroverts are the morbidly obese diabetics of conversation, and talking with them is like all you can eat mcdonalds: the content is terrible, tasteless, and bad for you, but god-damn if there isn't a lot of it.




He's got a lot to say...



Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses."

I don't believe that there is an official motto of the congenitally un-social, but I've outlined mine in the title of this post.

Wait, what?

Do the people at the Department of Agriculture even remember attending a government or civics class?  Based on the evidence, nope.

So let's clarify:

-it's not a tax, but you have to pay it to the government and can go to jail for failing to do so
-it's an "added cost" on a religiously themed item by the government to promote the purchase of that religiously themed item to people who will likely purchase that religiously themed item in the first place.

Okay, understand that?  Good.  Please explain this to me.

'Sup, bitch?

Fear the Future

Ball flinging robots - obviously in training for throwing grenades.  They even have that overarm toss like they show in the old movies.

Only without the wrong handed Hitler salute...

Yes, I know I've linked to him before...

... but dammit, Fred deserves a wider audience, primarily because he agrees with me. (I guess I really agree with him, since he's older, and probably came to these conclusions before I did, but I'm thinking of his writing like a meal; it agrees with me.)

Of the standards of earlier times, only a blisterish sensitivity remains. To correct anyone's English is to provoke fury and cries of “Elitism!” this being generally conceived as worse than pederasty or shoplifting.

It was time to lie

We all have them, the times when you have to lie.  Maybe not every day, and some of us more, or less, than others.  In my most generous, I think of these lies as RAH described politeness, the lubricant that keeps the machinery of society going, machinery that doesn't work too well at the best of times.

"What do you think of this outfit?"

"What do you think about my friend?"

"This is my band's demo album, what do you think?"

We all lie.  Some of us better than others, but typically it's not lying to hurt someone, but the opposite: lying to save their feelings.  I'm not good at this type of lie and consequently I don't participate much. I'm generally seen as an asshole, because unless you're a friend or my kids, I don't like you enough to lie about things.
Chances are better than good that I hate your friends (and you!) and your outfit makes you look like you belong in a circus run by retarded people and your band should burn their instruments and go to accounting school.

This guy just heard your album.  You can see he's impressed.

Sometimes though, I'm clever enough to realize that not liking someone doesn't mean I have to tell them the ungarnished truth.  Sometimes, it's okay to lie, even to people I DON'T LIKE.

Like today.

"What did you think about that (incredibly long and pointless) training?" (It was about not allowing negativity to enter the workplace.  Seriously?  I'm a fucking cop.  Negativity is the reason I have a job, retard.)

It was time to lie.