Come and watch the fast approaching destruction of the world with me!

2011-12-16T18:21:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure where to begin. I think I have a lot of stuff to talk about but it's all just sitting around in my head like a warehouse. Give me a little time and I'll work something nice out. traditionally i've used 3 month chunks as "small" units of time so hopefully this wont be like that.

Don't ever believe me when I say I'm going to start updating regularly

2011-06-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

I think it's been about 5 months or so since I updated or even looked at my blog so if I lost the few readers I did have then it's my own fault. This reclusiveness (what the hell my spellchecker tried to claim that wasn't a word) has not been toward just the internet. It has encompassed my whole lifestyle for the last...span of time. I'm really bad at judging time. Well backwards time anyhow, I have no trouble with punctuality. What I'm saying is (for anyone who doesn't know and might care) that I've been neither talking to nor seeing anyone for any reason; outside my household that is, and drifted into a lifestyle of solitude. I haven't had a job for....a long span of time too, so I have been able to fully devote myself to working out some personal issues and reading. a lot. I've been burning through books lately as my main source of recreation. I also spend several hours every day keeping up on current events and listening to lectures or audiobooks. I have learned more in the past 2 years than I used to learn in 5 it feels like. I finally have been able to tackle some of the philosophical questions that I had avoided delving into because of the hugeness of the task for a long time. I'm approaching what I feel is a very sound and coherent worldview that has a lot of explanatory power when applied to world events and personal interactions and is also firmly rooted in strong empathy and a respect for human dignity. Through my eyes the world around me and people's behavior now makes sense. That's not especially comforting because most of what is going on in the world right now is awful and knowing the roots of it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. but if there's one thing I've always prized above happiness it's truth. I'd always rather comprehend and be less happy than ignorant and content.

Now that I've writting all that and am about to send it out into the internet to be read by random people I don't know, a few I do (hopefully), and the NSA; I will consider coming up with a topic for a new CONTENT post. I have a lot of things to say about a lot of topics since I've been silent so long. Just remember what the Title of this post is. Don't believe me when I make these sorts of promises.

Thanks a Heap

2011-02-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

Wow I've been away from the blog for a short time due to some hard core living of life and really digging myself out of the depression that has been close to defeating me for the last 3 years. It;s a struggle but for the first time i have the upper hand.

What's im writing this for is to let you know that I've seen your copious and surely enlightening comments but I haven't had time to read them through in order and form responses. So that will be coming up soon and I also wanted to say im fucking amazed that after i put that traffic counter on my page that i actually hit 50 something views last month. right on.

ok so that's that stuff and soon you will learn things you didnt know. i'd tell you know if it wasnt so urgent of a day.

-k

Man Thanks to Those taking time to Read Anything I Write.

2011-01-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

As a blogger it's easy to feel like you're just writing to yourself so any time someone even gives a small nod to let you know another human saw what you did makes it worthwhile. I notice I have a problem with consistency no matter how well intentioned I am or how much I promise to write. It really is a microcosm of how I treat most things in my life. I have a lot of extreme feelings and I derive pleasure from things by wringing every last drop it has to offer then leaving it for dead. I don't really feel guilty over that since life is full of so much material to eviscerate that I will never run out.

The way that translates into my writing habits is that for short spurts i will be brimming with ideas, strong emotions, and intense desire to express that mental location while i have the mental wherewithal to do it justice.

Due to my well known proclivity to surface and bombard people with my current mind-state only to dissapear and not be heard from for months by anyone, I felt obligated to lay out enough content to busy someone during my periods of absence. The side benefit of that is if any soul is noble enough to actually take on the recommended material, I will eventually have someone to talk to and glean the gems produced by a capable mind plowing through the same topics that lead me to write or think whatever came out. I spend most of my life feeling very distant, even from the people that i consider close just because none of them have the time or mental tools to put in the work required to just have a casual philosophical chat with me. Not to say I'm above those people by any means, just that they are not playing with the same ideas as me so I just continue on my way and occasionally one of you beautiful blog readers will bless me by reading something i recommended or watching something that moved me.

For me the greatest emotion is being understood. Now that's not to say just reading the same books as me or watching the same lectures means you understand me. You could do all those things and still not cause me to feel understood. But when a person hits that more subtle level where they can see why I think what I think and appreciate it as well as generate thoughts of their own that resonate with me when I hear them.

This blog post is not very content heavy because it was just meant as a thank you for anyone who read anything on this blog. Taylor, if you were my only reader the blog is worth it to me since you are one of the only souls on earth who follow through and pursue the things that inspire me. I'm prone to depression at times, and I get really caught up in the plights of people suffering around the world, but your comments on each blog post are one of the only things in my life that actually put a dent in my negative outlook. I love getting high and playing games and other meaningless distractions but knowing another person is really reading through my list of links and inspirations is like getting a check for a thousand bucks.

I would especially like to thank you for checking out The Ascent of Humanity, I did it through the audio version too and I've never been so moved by any peice of writing. The book is like every single conclusion and semi-formed notion about existence that i've ever felt a conviction about and written in a respectable, intelligent, clear and powerful way. I place it above any religious text man has produced and I dare to say that it basically is my religion. Humanism perfected. The amount of things I dissagreed with probably doesnt even fill a page. Listening to Lyn Garry read some of the passages with unembarassed passion brought me tears of my own at times. More than once I burst out in tears on public transportation.

tay if you get time I'd love to hear which stuff from my last list you were able to explore and what you felt about them. and any of you who I don't know who found anything here you liked I'd love to hear from you as well.

just to add flavor to this post here's a pic

Taylor I'm sorry I go so Long without checking my Own FING site

2010-12-01T23:48:00.000-08:00

I just read the comments you've left since the last time I posted and I must say that if you can keep writing responses that long and well reasoned I will make a solid effort to write as much as possible in the future. I have less than 10 readers but you and maybe 2 other people are the ones I'm writing for, so if you are interested i'll give you what I got.

Since you had so many good questions about the prison system, I'm going to let you in on my main source of knowledge on this topic. There's a guy who posts on a message board with me named HidingFromGoro. This guy is a common man genius with an incredible amount of drive. He shares a blog with 2 other Luminaries from that same message board. They each have a field of expertise that you'd be hard pressed to beat them on if you searched the validictorians of all the Ivy league schools. HFG writes clearly, thoroughly, and uncensored accounts of his experiences in the American Prison System. He has enough first hand knowledge to qualify him as an expert just off that, but now that he's out of the system he's deeply involved in issues of inmates rights, prison issues in general, and educating the general public as well as academics who want an unvarnished and untainted (by corporate money and such) view of the real problems, their causes, possible solutions, and most importantly to me, the actual depth and endemic nature of this corrupt system. It's poisoned from the ground up and it manifests itself all the way up the chain to the rich motherfuckers who own the prisons and senators who's pockets are lined to build even more of these things and get those motherfuckers full.

For me, personally, when a system is fucked from the foundation, I cannot advocate anything less than total upheaval, revolution, and constructive change. This means I will support acts of radicals operating outside the bounds of acceptability drawn by the same corrupt leaders that benefit from all of it. Fuck free speach zones and protesting where the police say you can as long as you got permits in advance. That's not activism, thats like a puppet show. We are under a constant threat of lethal violence from our law enfourcement to the point that you may be killed without ever even breaking a law. Police don't even respect the law, in fact, they know very little of it or even why it's there. They ignore all laws that limit their conduct as red tape yet pretend that the law is sacred when it applies to ruining the life of a citizen. anyway I've gone off topic. HFG is a font of knowledge and writes prodigously on that blog i mentioned. The other 2 writers are cool too and will give you insight into things like economics, polotics and whatever else. i'm less familiar with them, but only because of time constraints. so at long last here is the link Re-Think America. Reading some of the articles there will enlighten you to the point where you could clearly explain the answers to your own questions to someone else who isn't up on this topic.

Prison justice is important to me for a lot of reasons but mainly because these are the people who the public cares about the least, are victims of a system built to fuck them, for the fear that I may one day be in that system, and for the mere fact that I have a severe case of human empathy that just gets worse as I get older.

I gotta say, I'm really really really happy you are taking time to go through ascent of humanity regardless of speed. That book is basically my non-religious Bible. I'm not sure if i've suggested this before but the Podcast/radio show that exposed me to Charles Eisenstein (as well as things i've yet to write about like the deep ecology movement, altruistic economics, uneducation, etc) is called Unwelcomed Guest. The show is broadcast weekly and is two hours a pop is choc full of the best interviews, readings, discussions etc, that I have found in one place. I will go out on a limb and say it is the most valuable project currently alive on the internet.

The Unwelcomed Guest collective has recently had a period of change and rebirth, in the form of a new functioning website, graciously made by the new host Robin Upton (spelling may be fucked). The show has an archive of all 520 of its past broadcasts and for the first 10 years is was hosted by a heroic lady named Lyn Gary who was the one that chose most of the interviews, lectures, readings, and other content for the show. Her fantastic taste and genius for seeing what is relevent and powerful has set the nature of the scope that the project embodies. The topics are so numerous, meaty, and vast that I think a lesser host would not have been able to maintain a cohesive spirit, or such a powerfully focused agenda. It seems to me that no matter the show topic, it ties into other show topics so seamlessly that you'd think the various contributors where in cahoots rather than being spread over time and space yet still moving towards a central core of truths with roads from every subject imaginable.

I haven't even touched upon her strength of self that allowed her to be open about her passion for this quest for truth and human justice. When she read the entirety of Ascent of Humanity, there were times when she was in tears and reading with such emotion that I couldn't help but be moved and found myself crying visibly on the bus more than once. As she read the book, one could see her joy at seeing her feelings shared by this author she'd never met, and the relief of knowing she wasn't alone, wasn't crazy, didn't have misplaced priorities, that the core of her being was understood by others, and as she indulged in that, I was able to do the same but almost doubled in a way. Those same feelings were mine, hers, AND the authors. If they understand then perhaps people all over the world would be able to as well. I had never felt such connection or understanding since the days before I renounced christianity. the difference here was that it wasn't built on superstition or old fables but my own thoughts about the world I lived in and how wrong this society felt for someone who prioritizes caring and happiness.

Ok now to the logistics of what I'm getting at. The show was broadcast over 10 years and is still going (with a new host). With over 500 shows at 2 hours each we are looking at over 1,000 hours of material. I don't know if I know anyone besides myself who has the interest, time, and fortitude to plow through the body of the project all the way. I did it by putting 6-10 hour chunks of shows onto my mp3 player and going through them as i rode the bus and when I had time at home. I finished it all in a few months and I couldn't get enough of it. If you don't think you have that in you then I highly suggest reading the summaries of each episode lovingly written by the current host, so that anyone can read the gist and decide for themselves if the topics are something they are ready for at whatever point you are in your life/growth. I beg anyone reading to give this show a try. I don't dig the theme song but amazing quality of the content is superior to anything i've seen anywhere else. it makes TED talks look like preschool, and i like TED. This show is unafraid to ask the questions at the foundation of our societal problems. TED and the like are always attempting to solve problems in box of Global Capital and never even wonders whether the assumptions underlying their paradigms are the real source of the ills they'd claim to want fixed.

Without checking the summaries myself, I'll make a few suggestions off the top of my head, and would love to have some dialogue about the content of the eps i'm promoting. Firstly check out all the early interviews with Michael Parenti in the early eps, check out anything with Derrick Jensen and the Deep Ecology movement, any interviews with my personal savior Charles Eisenstein. If reading through Ascent of Humanity is too hard going, there is now a zip file containing Lyn's entire reading of the book, which i recommend mostly for the authentic conviction of her voice as she reads the chapters. She's feeling the words while she's speaking them and if you are able to relate even a little, the power of her conviction can potentially reach you emotionally in ways you might have thought were lost to you. woops losing focus here. more suggestions are eps involving Chomsky which can be located here, also check out John Taylor Gatto and Alfie Kohn who are an awesome pair. here's a blurb about alfie :

"Alfie Kohn speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. His main critique is that traditional parenting and education models models are too prescriptive, and assume a selfish, often narrow, behaviourist focus ("How to I get the kids to do what I want?") rather than trusting kids as independent moral agent"

Ok I think I've made my point. If I haven't then I'll state it now: Unwelcomed Guest is the most valuable collection of knowledge that is actually important (vital) to our world to the extent that even after our leaders let our world fall into chaos and suffering, the UG archive holds blueprints for starting the world anew from scratch in a way that prioritizes the inherent worth of every human being and shows us how to make a world based on dignity, empathy, prudence, love, and all the other values we say are important yet continually shunt aside as unrealistic. For my money, this is the crowning achievement of the web up to this point. If the entire internet was disintigrating and I could only save one thing it would be this archive (and some fine asian ladies). The last 2 years of my personal journey have been the deepest and least immature of any of my psychological transitions and the guiding force behind it has been this show. Everything I look for in new sources of knowledge have been collected here. Scientific rigor, intellectual honesty, questioning the unquestionable, aknowledging the spiritual dimension of life without falling into superstition or lazy philosophy, fearlessness in the face of "Authority" and treating the listener as an equal participant in our world rather than speaking down to us as ignorant students. Expecting that the lessons shared continue after the episode is over. It's expected that we will integrate our learning into what makes us individuals and in doing we can build future lessons on top of the former lessons to create a mighty structure of truth, unassailable by cheap sophistry and mindless, baseless arguments, which are remnants of the "common sense" and "realism" pounded into us by the institutions that support this society we've built on obvious falsehoods. Showing someone the preposterousness of the basic assumptions of our society is simple, the hard part is convincing them to let go of the fear that ties them to those lies and showing them that taking a quick jump into the uncertainty of a truth based world is worth the rewards and is morally right even if the rewards were not gained. Once a person lets go of the chains of obligations held in place by supposed duties to things they never agreed to, they can become free and assess all the chains binding them and test for themselves which responsibilities have merit and contribute to our growth as humans and which are bullshit, invented by those with only selfish interests as guides. We think we live free in America, but we unthinkingly allow bondage from every area of our lives to squelch that understanding. You don't have to maintain relationships that are making your life worse. You are not bound to family members just because they are your family members. You can quit a job you hate and try something else even if it's less money if it makes you happier. You don't have to marry and have kids, especially if you aren't ready or have dreams yet to be realized. Children born to older parents do better in every measure of development and quality of life since the parent is often more mature and better off financially later in life and less likely to divorce since they've had time to live as individuals and find out who they really are before bonding to a life partner. There's no rush. I could ramble like this eternally but you get the angle. questioning a foundational principal allows further questioning of others. Those that stand after scrutiny are good, the rest are waste and ready to be replaced with a supposition consistent with human dignity and social justice. Our world of Infinite economic growth, domination of all things, and the subjugation of happiness for the sake of productivity is wrong, evil, unsound, and on route towards its own destruction. man i ramble.

Let this be a placeholder post

2010-09-03T23:00:00.000-07:00

This is here to mark off a long dry spell where I didn't make much posting effort. The plan is to not do that anymore and get back in the groove since I garnered an international following recently. yeah what's up richard, this is a shout-out from the depth of earths cancerous tumor that your country unleashed on the world. Not holding it against you or anything just saying.
Since i'm here i will post some reminder type factoids about our horrible prison system shamefully robbed from the prison nation National Geographic page. Normally i'd link back to them since they did the work but it's so hot and the sun is down, it makes no sense.

With 2.2 million inmates, America has more prisoners behind bars than any other country on earth. We now have 25 percent of the world's incarcerated, with just five percent of the population.
America’s population behind bars has gone up 1,000 percent in the last three decades. Get-tough-on-crime legislation and minimum sentencing laws are blamed for the explosion of inmates.
Of all prisoners, 95 percent will be released. Half of them are currently serving a term of two years or less.
According to correctional officers, drugs find their way inside even the most secure facilities, but the more secure a facility, the higher the price. Drugs regularly go for up to twenty times their street value behind bars.
Among prisoners, 35 percent are drug addicts; 80 percent are drug users.
Since many correction departments have outlawed tobacco in prisons, the going rate for cigarettes in some prisons has skyrocketed from pocket change to $5 per cigarette. A thimbleful of tobacco goes for as much as $50.
There are as many as 5,000 prisons or jails in the U.S., employing at least 430,000 people as staff or correctional officers.[with tons being built with the last of our national wealth notes me]
In 2001, the average cost per inmate in state prisons is $22,650 per year or $62.05 a day. The taxpayer price tag is twice as much as just 15 years ago.
The number of female inmates is increasing almost twice as fast as the men’s incarceration rate, tripling in the last decade. At least 40 percent of jailed women have minor children.
Inmates in America’s prisons and jails aren’t evenly divided by race; African Americans make up just 13 percent of the U.S. population but 41 percent of the overall prison population. And Hispanics have 2.5 times the rate of imprisonment of non-Hispanic whites.
More than half of male inmates and roughly two-thirds of female inmates have symptoms of a serious mental illness.
The largest population of the mentally ill in America isn’t housed in a hospital… It’s in Los Angeles County Jail, followed by New York’s Rikers Island. In all, one-fourth of all state prison beds are occupied by the mentally ill.
"Solitary confinement" has a new name in prison systems: segregation. Single-celled, 23-hour lock-up units in some of these prisons are designed to limit inmates’ movement and contact with other staff or inmates. Officers can care for inmates electronically — from opening an inmate’s door, to shutting off his water, to turning off his lights. [another note here: psychologists have shown that total deprivation of human interaction makes people more fucked up not less, if we have even the pretense of rehabilitation this shouldn't even be allowed.]
More than 80,000 inmates are kept in isolation nationwide. The average stay in some states is now years.

And that's the list they have. it's short, doesnt scratch the surface on the worst problems and is awful enough in real life to justify our country being invaded to liberate our population from this system and law enforcement cadre (which is almost done morphing into a paramilitary force) that makes it a reality.
Does it mess with your mind at all to think that you could grow up with a person and the only thing keeping them from being able to murder you without major legal repercussion when you get older is the choice you both make for careers.
You'd think if a job was titled something like Final Arbiter of Life and Death would lend some weight to the notion that maybe it should be a job for like highly trained and well educated people with a good psychological profile and sense of fairness.
To be fair the the task of a police officer was to keep the peace originally. remember that? protect and serve...these words sound familiar? they conveiniently left the second half of those statements silent because they still serve and protect, just not you.
I get more nervous when I see police looking my direction than gang members now days. at least a gangster can be reasoned with. anyway im done complaining about this pox on our nation for today. oh and if anyone cares to tell me about how glad i should be that police are around because they protect me from all this potential harm just by their existance, you can save it. The reason black america never made a full integration into white society was because of the police mostly, they are the reasons we even have gangs at all. and what are the worst and most dangerous gangs? the prison gangs, the needlessly large, motivated and jaded prison gangs. And if you take the stance that I shouldn't worry about it since i'm white then kill yourself, i'm sensitive enough to morn your stupid ass death which is more than you deserve thinking like that. There's a lot of white people just on the earth numerically so we'll be part of whatever solution there is to tall this even though we were the root of the problem so lets figure out who's who and get to work.

Read more: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/prison-nation-3457/Overview#tab-facts#ixzz0yXGwbZz7

Is WikiLeaks the antidote to the Washington K Street Kool-Aid?

2010-08-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

Is WikiLeaks the antidote to the Washington K Street Kool-Aid?

Ubuntu Video Guide For Windows Users: Understanding The Linux File System Hierarchy

2010-08-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu Video Guide For Windows Users: Understanding The Linux File System Hierarchy

this is for me to remember to watch later. but go ahead too

I'm sorry it's been so long since i've updated....

2010-08-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

But i've been to caught up in drudgery, solitude, and unimportant nonsense so I have missed a lot of chances to get really pissed off about something in the world and summarize/editorialize it for you. Luckily today I was so repulsed by a story i learned of today that the inspirational disgust is flowing freely. winner = you.

Our subject for today is some heinous shit pulled by the american and Israeli governments right after world war 2. The time-frame really adds to the horribleness of it in my view because the very people who should be against the mistreatment of innocent people; especially based on racial/social background are the perpetrators.
The thing i'm getting at is known as the "Ringworm Affair" according to wikipedia (which by the way, is patrolled like crazy by insanely right wing Zionists to subtly whitewash anything negative posted about the Jewish state or it's "important" members.

If you didn't know, ringworm is a gross parasitic (i think) infection that occasionally occurs in young people and it's characterized by a gross ring shape of itchy bumps and in severe cases it looks really gross. I don't believe it's particularly dangerous, just not pleasant and it goes away as you get older anyway. So in the 1950's a Zionist doctor was obsessed with eradicating ringworm which he considered a genetic plague upon inferior breeds of humans. At the time the standard treatment for ringworm was a mild dose of radiation, which isn't usually even needed.
Enter the us military (aka the US/Israeli Military). They just so happened to want to do some very immoral, illegal, and disgusting research and sent this fanatical doctor a bunch of military radiation machines. The doctor was overjoyed at the quality of the machinery and came up with a great idea.

You see, not all jews are created equal. There are jews from countries around the world (in this case Morocco). breifly it's like so:
There are several subgroups of Jews with different culture and traditions:
Ashkenazic: Descendants of Jews from France, Germany and Eastern Europe
Sephardic: Descendants of Jews from Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East
Mizrachi: Descendants of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East
Other subgroups are Yemenite, Ethiopian and Oriental

So in the 1950's after the war the was a mass emmigration of jews from morrocco. These happned to be the less fortunate as far as money and health were concerned so the good doctor graciously took about 20,000 or some insane number of children from their families for "treatment" to make them healthy and get rid of that dastardly ringworm.
To make a long story short he exposes tens of thousands of kids to insane amounts of radiation just like the military was interested in because they "needed" to know how soldiers would behave after a nuclear attack (not that we're planning to ever do that again right). As it turns out the way they behave is by all their hair falling out, becoming cancerous and dying. Some died really quicly and painfully and some survived with all kinds of horrible radiation related diseases. Some are actually still alive today and tell their story in a jewish made documentary that got me to write this blog post. it's in 5 parts on youtube and called "The Ringworm Children". I suggest you watch it. I also suggest pondering the sheer volume of lies, secrecy, and experimentation our governments have been involved in that have been documented and proven and then think about why anyone trusts anything they say about anything especially on issues of exactly this nature. There's no more "conspiracy nuts" they're just people with a healthy dose skepticism about their abusive owner.
From now on i consider people trusting that the power-elite who run the globe, have anyones best interests in mind (aside from theirs) when they make a press statement or claim to be providing charitable assistance to help a struggling nation (to steal their water and mineral rights turns out), or that we need to fight a countries enemy because an entire dirt poor country smaller than our states turned "evil" and the most humanitarian way to keep the peace is to funnel billions to arms dealers, warlords, despots, puppets and our home corporations, then kill more civilians than soldiers and shrug about hard choices and goodness is never easy blah blah blah. whoever swallows that is a conspiracy theorist to me now. they just believe in a complex web of ultra rich secretive people who just wanna make people's lives better through complex geopolitical maneuvers.

I'm not saying im on board with everything-is-a-hoax by so and so, but i've seen enough to know who the players are and what team they are on.

feel free to comment.

2010-06-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know why but something told me to click the collage button in Picasa and then it said to push the Blogger button and now here we are.

There's No Role Playing in 4e

2010-06-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

There's No Role Playing in 4e

This girl has a dope 4edition D&D blog and i'm reppin the side. world mutha fuckin wide. Tryin' ta edutain you clownballs.

Play Dungeons & Dragons Online® for Free!

2010-05-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

Play Dungeons & Dragons Online® for Free!

This game is freakin free to play now and free to download so i decided i'm going to try it and about 7 other free games that look much more polished that free games used to be. well that's not counting shareware Quake 1 or Q3 arena demo

Robert Sapolsky: The uniqueness of humans | Video on TED.com

2010-04-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

Ihaven't had a chance to watch this yet but he's one of my favorite lecturers on nueropsychology and he's really fun

Robert Sapolsky: The uniqueness of humans | Video on TED.com

Pure Metal for Your Mind's Eye!

2010-04-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

Cool article stolen from a rss feed on my google reader

2010-04-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=1720&print=1

And for those of you who are too lazy to click this dudes blog here it is in full

- Talking Philosophy - http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com -

The Nature of Cruelty

Posted By Mike LaBossiere

The notion of cruelty seems to be an important concept in both law and morality. Not surprisingly, what acts count as cruels is a matter of significant debate. My intent here is not to focus on sorting out specific actions or developing a cruelometer. Rather, I am going to address a slightly more abstract issue: whether cruelty requires the capacity to suffer on the part of the victim.

Intuitively, for an action to be cruel, the victim of the action must be capable of suffering. With due apologies to Steve Martin, while there can (perhaps) be cruel shoes, one cannot be cruel to shoes. This, of course, excludes sentient shoes such as Philip K. Dick’s brown oxford.

If this intuition is correct, it would follow that cruelty would be impossible in cases involving beings that cannot suffer from the action in question.

While this intuition holds for inanimate objects such as rocks and shoes, it weakens in the case of living creatures, even when such creatures cannot suffer. For example, the human fetus is not supposed to be able to suffer from pain prior to a certain number of weeks of development. However, it would not seem irrational to speak of such a fetus being subject to cruelty. It would also not seem foolish to speak about certain acts done to brain dead or even dead humans as being acts of cruelty. As a final example, even if certain animals could not suffer (suppose, for example, that Descartes had been right) it would still seem appealing to regard some acts as being cruel to them.

One way to cash out these intuitions would be by asserting that although the actions would not be truly cruel, we regard them as cruel because 1) such acts against a being that could suffer would be cruel and 2) the beings in question (the fetus, the brain dead human, and the animals) are enough like creatures that can suffer.

One way to present a moral argument against such “pseudo cruel” acts is to use Kant’s argument regarding animals: if a person acts in cruel ways towards such entities then his humanity will likely be damaged. Since, as Kant sees it, humans do have a duty to show humanity to other humans, such actions would be wrong. This would not be because the victim was wronged but because humanity would be wronged by the person damaging his humanity through such an action.

Since the argument is based on the psychological effects of the action on the actor, acts against beings that 1) lack the relevant moral status and 2) do not create the psychological effect in question when subject to “cruel” acts would not be wrong and also presumably not cruel. This nicely matches our intuition that one cannot be cruel to rocks.

So, an act can be considered cruel if the being in question can suffer or if the action can affect a normal actor in a way comparable to an act of “true” cruelty (that is, make her more inclined to cruelty).

Of course, this discussion cannot be properly finished without bringing up a strange and perhaps irrelevant imaginary scenario:

Imagine a future scientist, Sally, has a mean sister, Jane, who is very cruel to her husband, Andy. Sadly, Jane is a crime boss and would see to it that Andy would be gutted and then cloned if he ever left her. Being a sensitive genius, Sally builds an android duplicate of Andy (an Andydroid) to replace her sister’s husband and spare him from her cruelty. She then smuggles Andy off world so he can have a better life.

Being a moral person, Sally does not want Andydroid to suffer, so she makes him immune to pain and suffering. Naturally, he has all the behavioral programming needed to satisfy Sally’s need to see Andy suffer. For example, if Jane flaunts her latest lover in front of Andrydroid and “his” friends, he will shed tears but will actually feel no emotional pain.

Sally is such a genius that Jane never notices the difference. She treats Andydroid the same as Andy, yet Andrydroid does not suffer from her actions at all.

So, are Jane’s acts against Andrydroid cruel acts or not? Bonus points for classic science fiction references, of course

Article printed from Talking Philosophy: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com

URL to article: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=1720

Copyright © 2009 blog.talkingphilosophy.com. All rights reserved.

Bullets from the Drug War

2010-04-03T05:55:00.000-07:00

Just so you know this is something i shared from another website

Bullets from the Drug War: "
[One-year update: I posted this a year ago. Right now, the Secretary of State, the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other American top brass are in Mexico City trying to spin this. Let's see if any of what I said a year ago needs to be revisited.]

The US has lost the 'War on Drugs'
The losing side is usually not the one to decide when a fight is over or how it ends
Unlike other recent defeats, this lost war is a defeat followed by an invasion
Mexico is the natural staging area for the invasion (inconvenient though it is for the Mexicans)
New franchises are being set up to service the North American drug market (which is the biggest in the world)
The CIA has to eat, and all they know how to do competently is run guns and drugs and control thugs; they get a seat at the table
The narcs have to eat too, and all they are trained to do is deal (with) drugs; they get a seat at the table too
As the federales grow weak in the US and Mexico, the battle lines will advance north of the border, leaving Mexico a quiet and largely intact backwater
This is an inter-US conflict, because Americans are the most avid consumers, sellers, and prosecutors of drugs
Life in the USA gives everyone a pain that is for many people simply not survivable without drugs: either alcohol, pharmaceuticals or illegal drugs
Illegal drugs are far more cost-effective than either pharma or alcohol — government-licensed industries which are either excessively lucrative or taxed heavily
As Americans give up hope, they will need to self-medicate in ever-larger numbers
They will be far more able financially to afford illegal drugs than either pharma or alcohol.
Illegal drugs (and moonshine) are two very large post-collapse enrepreneurial opportunities within the fUSA/бСША [Orlov 2005]
This is no longer a war against drugs; it is now a contest between alternative drug distribution systems
One alternative is a centralized, paramilitary organization run by CIA remnants, former military, and former police
Another alternative is ethnic mafias, which will diversify into many other kinds of trade.
The third, nautrally most cost-effective alternative will be provided by informal, local distribution networks based on barter, which will be all that is left once the dust settles
The downside of all this is that it will be hard to find anyone sober enough to operate a light switch
The upside to that is that the national electrical grid goes away, so there will be very little demand for competent light switch operators

FUCK THE GATES FOUNDATION AND FUCK MONSANTO

2010-03-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

Now for those of you who aren't exactly sure who monsonto is I'll give you a handy link that'll summarize why they are so fucked up and important. Now you might be wondering what my beef could be be with the worlds largest charity organization (gates foundation) and the worlds number one philanthropist (gates). Well my beef stems from what they are doing to africa and India under the banner of Globalization and if you don't yet know why Globalization is fucking up the global south (or what i mean when I say global south) then you've got a lot of self educating to do to fully enjoy my rant. But I think you'll be able to dig what I'm about.

There are a few key players in all of this that you're going to need to understand though and you need to understand that they are foundations established by the Elite to put poor countries in inescapable poverty, to the point that they have to give up their rich natural resources for pennies. These are the World Bank, The IMF (international monetary fund), the WTO (World Trade organization [these guys are really fucked up due to their secrecy and ability to usurp a countries sovereign rights to protect multinational corporations from things like being sued for dumping deforming toxins into a towns water supply because it hampers trade]), NAFTA is another thing like this but used to fuck over mexico and US workers. I probably wont mention them in this rant. Once you learn what all these things are you will have a very very good handle on how the world actually works. It used to be the countries were the most powerful entities on earth. Like now people think America is the most powerful entity on earth, but it isnt. Monsanto, Microsoft, GE, EXXON, etc, they are the most powerful because they own america. they own all the politicians. there is an army occupying washington right now. The current count is 90,000 not including support staff. DC likes to say it's only like 17,000 but that's bullshit. 90K is a fucking army. Alexander the great conquered most of the world with half that.

Supposedly a single american is supposed to be more powerful than any corporation since a person has a vote. And no matter how much money a corporation has it can't buy more votes. well we all know that's bullshit, and to make matters worse JUST A MONTH AGO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES DECIDED THAT CORPORATIONS CAN NOW SPEND UNLIMITED AMOUNTS OF MONEY ON POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. you know why? they said it would be limiting the corporations freedom of speech! somewhere along the line the courts decided money = speech. I'm pretty sure the framers of the constitution (Who im not a big fan of anyway being white elitist slaveholders) meant that SPEECH = SPEECH. money is money. oh man so man tangents about how fucked everything is is making really hard to even start my rant. If you dont know anything about the concept of Corporate Personhood Go Learn It. It more than anything is fucking up our country so bad that it;s beyond repair. I don't have time to type a huge thing on why it's so fucking bad but i'll supply a link. PLEASE OH PLEASE read the first two links on that page. they are short and to the point.

OK back to what I was intending to write about. The Gates foundations biggest partner in Africa is Monsanto (the evilest thing ever ever) and their goals are very similar. First to make a quarterly profit and second to gain patents on almost every gene and micro-organism possible. To pantent LIFE. that's their goal and they have tons of genes and micro-organisms already patented and that's not counting their special monsanto seeds that only grow when sprayed with roundup (a monsanto pesticide). One story in africa that I found very sad was in a village where indigenous farmers grew certain crops next to other crops because they knew that one of the plants was a poison to pests that feasted on the other plants so there was greater biodiversity (which scientists are learning too late is such and important thing that we may never get back [while humans exist]). Well the gates foundation came in and said oh my goodness these people are barely making enough to survive and no surplus to sell on the global market. So in comes the IMF and they say here take this large loan and only plant the one crop that you eat and not that useless other one. you can double your yeild instantly and make enough money selling the surplus on the open market. then the government of the country the village was in forced the village to do this because of pressure from the US, IMF, and Gates foundation. So the people did this and guess what. the pest that was kept at bay ravaged the crops and was immune to the pesticides that monsanto had sold them. So they were told not to worry we've got people at MIT spending millions working on a new pesticide that will wipe out this pest. turns out that didnt work either, so the people were forced to take a loan from the world bank so they could grow something else but their region was only good for a few crops. many people died of diseases of the now rampant pests and they were begging to be return to their former way of life. But we cant have that now can we. YOU MUST PARTICIPATE IN THE GLOBAL MARKET. what a wonderful thing.

My beef with the Gates foundation is that their stated goal is that global hunger can be solved by technological advances (guess what shitheads, it can be solved by logistics, there was enough food grown last year to feed every single person on earth and feed them well, we just decided it was better to throw it away or divert it to other markets.). The Gates foundation is really a cover. The actual purpose of the foundation is to have the market cornered when the biotech revolution begins. The people they are "helping" are often guinea pigs, and they are aiding companies like Monsanto gain a stranglehold on the last part of the world that hasn't been totally sucked dry of every ounce of resource. They also use the image of the foundation to make Microsoft look better. Wow what a great company. doing so much for the world. If they really wanted to help people they wouldn't be spending billions of dollars patenting genes, medicines, and the like, they'd be teaching people how to live sustainablly with what is available to them, and gift them with things that only a multi-billion dollar trust could.

Another thing about the Gates foundation: they have no rules or regulation regarding their investment portfolio in matters of environmentally friendly ventures. As an article I read pointed out as long as they make money that's the bottom line. that same L.A. Times article says

Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Another quote from the article states

The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France -- the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.

Some more from the article

In addition, The Times found the Gates Foundation endowment had major holdings in:

* Companies ranked among the worst U.S. and Canadian polluters, including ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical Co. and Tyco International Ltd.
* Many of the world's other major polluters, including companies that own an oil refinery and one that owns a paper mill, which a study shows sicken children while the foundation tries to save their parents from AIDS.
* Pharmaceutical companies that price drugs beyond the reach of AIDS patients the foundation is trying to treat.
Using the most recent data available, a Times tally showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments -- totaling at least $8.7 billion, or 41% of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign government securities -- have been in companies that countered the foundation's charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.
There's so much more to write but I think I've got it out of my system and I hope you learned something. if you want to read the entirety of that great Times articles here's the URL it's great and it's 12 pages long I think. BAM I'm out of this mug

Gonna drop some knowledge on your wig.

2010-02-15T19:51:00.000-08:00

I have found what I consider to be a gold mine of awesome podcasts stored at a site that is doing the lords work imo. The site is called Free Radio Project and it hosts a ton of progressive podcasts and radio broadcasts downloadable as mp3s. The main challenge in dealing with the site is figuring out which stuff is crap and which is gold. Lucky for you people I've been digging through and checking out some of these shows and can give you a little guidance.

IF you're a brave soul and don't mind sorting through podcasts in hopes of finding something good then have at it and report back to me if you find anything good. For those of you with less time for searching I will give you recommendations of my favorite finds thus far. the following finds are not in any particular order. but they are totally worth listening to in my opinion. first on the list is a program called TUC which stands for Time of Useful Consciousness which is an aviation term referring to the time after cabin pressure is lost and the pilot has a few seconds to attempt to set the plane on a safe course before passing out. Anyhow the show has nothing to do with aviation. I took a screenshot where you can see some of the sample topics they cover on this awesome show. here it is:

ok so this is a great place to start if you want awesome progressive podcasts. But have no fear I've got even more. Next up from Free Radio Project is a very cool show that focuses on National Security and whistleblowers. The show is called Boiling Frogs and they get very awesome guests with fantastic interviews and cover all kinds of cool national security stuff. It's very professional quality-wise for a podcast. They have a great blog to go with it found at Boiling Frogs. Their blog has some very cool articles and cartoons to read between podcasts. Since I did a preview of show topics for TUC I'll do one for them too. here it is:

Those are just a few summaries I grabbed off their site. I highly recommend this show.

I'll do a couple more just to help out those of you who don't have time to sort through a million different podcasts. The next one I'm going to post is in my opinion the best podcast i've yet found. Not because of the quality of the presentation but because of the amazing content. The show is called Unwelcomed Guest. The show has two major types. One show type are fantastic lectures by AMAZING people who's views are so awesome that I felt changed after hearing them. The other show type is where the host spends about a year reading, chapter for chapter, the most amazing book ever written. While her voice isn't the best, the book she reads is. It's called The Ascent of Humanity: The Age of Separation, the Age of Reunion, and the convergence of crises that is birthing the transition. If decide you can't deal with her reading of the book I urge you with every ounce of urgeness I can muster to read this book on your own. This book felt like the author wrote my entire soul and everything i've come to believe into a book without even having to consult me. It has reinforced my entire outlook on reality. The author recognizes the importance of what he has written and put the entire text of the book online for free at Ascent of Humanity
Since I did previews for the other ones here's another:

That's all for now but this should definately give you some stuff to work with. And if you want a little direction in just searching through the free radio site may I reccomend finding anything by Michael Parenti and locating the series called Wizards of Money. In fact do yourself a favor and make SURE you check out those last two suggestion. If you finish all these podcasts (which I have done. over 100 hours) and your worldview hasn't been totally illuminated then your brain may be broken.

Fucking retarded ass blogger settings changing for no god damned reason son of a bitch ass

2010-02-05T09:04:00.001-08:00

I found out why the comments option dissapeared on all my recent posts. some hidden ass option decided the new default would be NO COMMENTS ALLOWED. that makes sense right wtf. anyhow the option to fix it wasn't under the COMMENT MODERATION section or the SETTINGS section it was on a tiny 8 point font little thing under where you write posts that says post options. fuckin hell.

This is for the guy commenting on the prison post

2010-02-04T08:45:00.001-08:00

Since I feel the comment section is not the best place for me to state my case I decided to make another new post. I'm sorry that your point of view is relegated to the comments section but rest assured I read it and take it into consideration.

I'm going to use this post to gather up a bunch of things i've come across that I feel would be best in one place. I'll post pictures, charts, and snippets of comments that others have made on the internet that I feel are relevant. so here we go.

Now this chart speaks volumes to me. If you take a look at a couple of comparable countries and see how much lower their incarceration rates are, ours are inexcusable. Germany and Australia aren't too much different than us yet look at how low their prison population is. I'm not talking absolute numbers I just mean Rates! If you don't think that America has a police state mentality after looking at this graph I don't feel you are being genuine with yourself. Now if you decide to take the bold and racist move of blaming blacks and Mexicans for our insane incarceration rates go ahead I'd love to read it and have you simultaneously expose yourself as a racist member of our beloved law enforcement.

next I will post some quotes with some charts

The prison population has exploded in recent decades- a phenomenon known as "hyperincarceration," even though violent crime, "serious crime," and property crime has been declining:

Now this doesn't even touch upon one of my major gripes which is outfitting law enforcement like a Para-military squad. I just read that departments across the country are getting unmanned drones to patrol the skies and are shooting for 24 hour aerial surveillance. They are also hard at work developing sonic cannons that inflict horrifying pain without leaving any marks which is perfect for abuse (even better than tasers). I even saw a presentation where they showed how easily the sonic weapons could be rigged together into a wall of sonic pain delivery for crowds (crowd being more than 1 person). Not to mention the only reason we even have a micron of privacy against police is because the courts struck down thermal imaging equipment for routine surveillance. Hopefully that restriction lasts long enough for me do die with 4th amendment rights.

Here's a quote from a guy who was a former prisoner and now does work for prisoners rights and other advocacy of that sort. I'd like to give him credit for a lot of the information I presented. I don't know his real name but his online name is HidingFromGoro.

"The scope of this problem is difficult to overstate- especially because it necessarily includes things like prison gerrymandering, police militarization, mandatory minimum sentences, "tough on crime" politicians, for-profit incarceration, and all sorts of other things including guys with mansions talking about "2 Americas." This is generally known as the Prison-Industrial Complex, or as I (and others) call it- the Machine."

this next part is an excerpt from a heated debate so some of the context is lost but his passion is still there.
"What don't you understand? Why don't you believe?

What more do I have to show you to make you believe?

Tanks crushing cars. Houses burned to the ground while children look on. Puppies thrown into fires while children look on. Newborn babies brain-damaged or snuffed out while their mother is shackled to a bed with a sheet up so she can't see her baby she just gave birth to.

Black guys picking cotton at gunpoint in LA. Swarms of rats chewing off fingers & eyes in IL. Indefinite sensory deprivation. Bags of feces thrown on people in VA. Arms held out of feeding-slots to shatter elbows in VA. Pregnant women beaten so hard the braces get knocked off their teeth in TX. Men forced to fight to the death in gladiator matches in CA. Men shot for sport in CA. Men overcrowded at 300% capacity nationwide. Children given life sentences without the possibility of parole- nationwide. HIV+ inmates beaten and sent to sensory-deprivation isolation with biohazard stencils and no medical treatment. Men put in sensory-deprivation isolation for up to 36 years with no contact with the outside world (including lawyers). Secret medical experiments performed on thousands of inmates in PA. Cops running brutal abuse schemes and creating their own gangs in NY. Penises amputated in WA. Feces mixed into food in CO. These are just the things which I've provided links to on major news outlets in this subforum in the past few weeks.

Stomping on an inmate's head until he involuntarily soils his pants. 41 shots on the street to kill an unarmed man. Executing a cuffed man in front of 100 witnesses and cameras. The countless videos of abuse inside prison walls and the countless more off-camera.

The tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of rapes inside each and every year. The brutal, life-altering rape every four minutes.

Love one another. For God's sake, or whatever you believe in- just love one another. No matter how angry or outraged or just joking about it- whatever you do whoever and wherever you are just do this one thing. We are dying. You are dying. We are being tortured, we are in indescribable pain and hopeless despair. We are you. You lose your humanity when we get gangraped. You are us. We're all in this together.

Cry with us, bleed with us, scream with us.

It's us. All of us- you are us. We are us. We're all human, we're all Life.

All of us." -HidingFromGoro

"Chris J. got gang-raped in prison today. He needs surgery to fix his rectum, and probably other medical attention for the rest of his injuries but he's probably not going to get it. He knows this and is thinking about the pain his rectal scarring is going to cause him for the rest of his life. He laid in his bed for a little while covered in semen and his own blood thinking about AIDS. Since shower time has come and gone, he cleaned himself up with the water in the toilet, he also sat on it for a long time trying as hard as he could to evacuate all the semen out of him. His phone card was stolen as punishment for fighting back and he doesn't have any money in his account to call anyone on the outside, so he's just trying to deal with it on his own. Many inmates and guards are already making fun of him and discussing prices for having a go at him within his earshot. After TV time he's going to have to try and sleep in his cell with 2 other guys who ain't trying to hear his sob story and may even have been involved in his attack.

The pictures of his wife and kids were taken as punishment with promises to defecate or ejaculate on them while a different man was inside him as further punishment for fighting back. He's been clean for 9 months but that heroin would make all this pain go away for just a little while. Chris is more likely than not to go back to the heroin.

Chris will never be able to fully express the pain and rage caused by his rape even to a professional; and he's definitely not getting insurance which covers the help he needs when he gets out. This psychological trauma will have a severe impact on his ability to have healthy relationships on the Outside- out in the World- and will likely lead to bad arguments with his wife resulting in domestic violence. The effects his mental state has on his kids will be profound and probably irreversible. They might grow up in the sort of state in which prison is a very real possibility. When they find out what happened to dad how will they react?

His pain and anger will manifest itself in all sorts of ways and he might go off on some taxpayer in a convenience store or seriously injure someone who cuts him off in traffic. When that happens Chris will go back to prison and there will be similar ripple effects on his victims. Even if that doesn't happen remember Chris uses heroin to suppress his pain and will likely be re-arrested on a drug charge or a property crime he did to get heroin money.

Since there are no secrets in prison when Chris returns it will already be known he is a bitch who likes it in the ass, and he will have to become someone's sex slave. Staff will encourage this. Or he can stab somebody to try get a new rep. If he wins the knife fight & isn't killed outright, the person he kills has loved ones & family members who will become enraged at this, and the violence will continue.

What happened to Chris happened to 200 people today if you go by Alberto Gonzales' DOJ. If you go by HRW it happened to more than 400 people. This does not include juveniles in programs like Nihilanthic posts.

This is every day, every state. There are no exceptions. Going by HRW's numbers it's one Chris every four minutes.

You could be the next Chris, no matter how white you are- no matter how rich your family is. The Machine cares not. It must feed and It will feed.

And the Machine will never be satisfied. "

There's more where this came from. the system is fucked and the systems functionairies are complicit. You are not helping anyone, you are not rehabilitating anyone, you are ruining people's lives. Mostly people who pretty much never had a chance in this fucked up thing we're calling society.

Once you introduce a profit motive in incarceration there is no reason to reduce crime.

Whoa I have a blog

2010-01-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot about this blog for a while. I think I'll be making a return soon and start writing new posts. I may take a different approach and write about things that I like instead of things that make me insanely angry. I stopped following news and politics for a couple days and read comic books instead and I felt much happier. I doubt I could make myself totally disconnected from world events but a slight reduction goes a long way towards happiness.

I wasn't going to make this a real post but hey why not. I was just watching a 7 part thing on youtube which was an interview with charles manson done by Geraldo way back in the day. I'm not a big fan of people who glorify murderers just to be edgy so I never really payed any attention to charles manson. I probably know less about him than your average person just due to the fact that I find murder to be really off putting (in real life) and because he committed his crimes way before I was born. Just from cultural osmosis I was always under the impression that he himself murdered some people but from what I just read he was convicted of conspiracy to murder and due to how our laws are, if you conspire then you also get the guilt of the actual act. That really changes things in my opinion. He kept claiming in the interview that he hadn't murdered anyone. That's true I guess and it makes a lot of what he says make a little more sense.
I'm sure he comes off as crazy to most people, but the way he talks sounds very similar to people I've known in the past and I can kind of follow his thought process. I'm sure being at all sympathetic to manson is not fashionable these days but I don't really care. I don't mean sympathy as in i feel sorry for him i mean it in the way that i sort of understand what he's talking about. The way he talks reminds me of how you talk when you're tripping on mushrooms or acid. I don't know if that adds to my ability to follow what he's saying, but if you can sort through it, he makes a lot of good points that offer an interesting reflection of our culture and society. I'm sure i'm not breaking any new ground with all of this but hey this is my first exposure to any of it. here's a link to part 1 of 7 of the video I'm reffering to.

I posted an angry rant on a message board

2009-12-31T18:21:00.000-08:00

I thought it was good enough to just repost here because it's just a river of fury with a usefull message.
here it is:

I read that Just with vegetables we produce enough calories to feed the entire world. This is not counting, beef, chicken, fish, and other such things. The main thing crippling our planet is logistics. we ship things all over the place back and forth for no reason other than cheapness. we'll let entire countries starve even though they can grow enough food to have bountiful substance and substantial raw materials for trade (looking at Africa).

It makes me so mad that I can't form my argument in the very coherent terms. all I have to say is Fuck trucking, fuck shipping, fuck "free trade", Fuck these bullshit fertilizers making insane yield crops that have even less nutrient content than their fore bearers, fuck the population increase made possible by ammonium nitrate fertilizers, fuck the erosion of topsoil turning our once lush land into desert, Fuck monsanto and the innumerable amount of bullshit that goes along with that, Fuck the destruction of the family farm, fuck the loss of social networks that connected us to the food we eat so that there was a semblance of trust between the customer and food provider, ESPECIALLY fuck the total annihilation of plant species diversity which was one of the most efficient protections against harmful pathogens, Fuck the use of slave labor to harvest these monoculture crops, Fuck the top 10 percent of farms generate one-third of total industry revenue and fuck who owns them (not families for a clue), Fuck the farming lobby, Fuck it being illegal for farmers to keep and store their OWN fucking seeds to use for the next season instead of buying GMO seeds from MONSANTO, Fuck the blacklisting of small family farmers from buying new farm equipment because they saved seeds, fuck the fact that seeds that fell off of transport trucks blew into independant farmers crops and mingled causing them to test positive for monsantos patented GMOs which in turn forced the farmers into legal battles they couldn't afford or settling out of court in a manner that sends them into death spirals. Fuck people bitching about Welfare cheats when the biggest recipient of totally unneeded welfare are corporations

Oh while I'm at it, Fuck bill gates and Fuck his foundation for working hand in hand with monsanto to patent life at the Gene level and even further if possible. Rather than pour its enourmous wealth into efficacious methods of relief for the global south the foundation seeks to make the most expensive and top heavy projects in order to nearly single handedly drive the market in the patenting of life. As a non profit organization (which has been under question itself)
matter of fact here's a little wikipedia excerpt
quote:
The foundation invests the assets that it has not yet distributed, with the exclusive goal of maximizing the return on investment. As a result, its investments include companies that have been criticized for worsening poverty in the same developing countries where the Foundation is attempting to relieve poverty. These include companies that pollute heavily and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing world.[50] In response to press criticism, the foundation announced in 2007 a review of its investments to assess social responsibility.[51] It subsequently cancelled the review and stood by its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices.

God damnit my phone rang and it was a good friend and now i'm not all pissed so my rant is over. I'm not ranting against the OP, the topic just set me off.

I'm back.

2009-12-31T15:39:00.001-08:00

What does it mean to be "back". Especially on the internet. well for me it means i'm typing again and occasionally checking and responding to social networking sites and visiting real people once in a while.

The reason I wasn't back was because I was in a bad spot as far as socializing goes. I was in the midst of learning tons and tons of stuff (some of which made me very bitter with the world for a while) then I got past that and developed a much more well rounded outlook. Life is still far from perfect but I'm sure we could all say that. I still spend a lot of time chronicling the ills of the world but not out of some kind of self destructive anger but maybe so I can show people where we are as a species and see if it resonates with them at all and if it does maybe they can do the same thing as me and eventually people will be just that much more concious of the state of the world and not be so complacent about this horrible slide into shitdom.

I read a pretty cool article on Daily KOS called NO ONE IS GOING TO SAVE YOU FOOLS and it was written by a total prick who had a lot of good advice (along with some shitty advice but we should all be able to sort that out by now i hope) heck why don't I post it instead of talking about it

Let me find the link...ah

here we go

dopeness

2009-10-29T20:44:00.001-07:00

This is rad as hell

I find this pretty damn interesting.

2009-10-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I was indulging myself and reading up on a bunch of conspiracies on the internet. There was a message board post on SA about conspiracies that ended up being true and that lead to a bunch of fun links and wild stuff. I don't put a lot of stock in most conspiracy theories but I have always enjoyed reading about them and kind of daydreaming some whatif scenarios. One of the things i ended up reading was this site about all the weird and suspicious tie ins involving rich Jewish dudes in high places. There's quite a lot of speculation in the report/article/blog/whatever it is, but there are also many completely verifiable things that were interesting. I could type pages on it just like the original guy did but i'll just link the site and embed the video here that was really cool. It's a foxnews (of all places) report about Israelis caught spying on the US. It's a little old i think, which may explain why it's not horrible, but anyway here it is, they report YOU DECIDE :)

FOX News - 911 The Israeli Spy Scandal
by chipmuck

oh and

here's the blog

that I referred to in the first place (second place?)

You Can't Touch Mormon Jesus

2009-10-18T12:18:00.001-07:00

Stewert is great as usual

2009-10-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

a bunch of republican senators voting in support of gang rape? impossible?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Rape-Nuts

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Shout out to erin

2009-10-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

<a href="http://thehappyhollows.bandcamp.com/album/spells">Faces by The Happy Hollows</a>

Official-Cage-I Never Knew You-video

2009-10-06T15:26:00.001-07:00

hell yeah! stalking

America is a Fascist Police state in Utero

2009-08-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

I am going to post a link to a video of police going beyond their rights and doing things you might think only could happen in fucking russia under stalin. if you can finish this video please post a comment to this entry. and tell me which one hurt your heart the most. WARNING this shit is nearly impossible to finish without killing a cop from anger. also while watching remember that America has more people in prison than any other industrialized nation on earth. something like 1%. 1 out of 100 people are in jail. and tons of that is for bullshit reasons like failing to show ID then resisting arrest because you are getting arrested because you ddint have an id on you. FUCK SAjlkajs dl
:SA DLA
anyway the link: (you have no balls if you don't watch this.)
The Largest Street Gang in America

This country is unsaveable. There is one political party. The Corpratist party. I believe it was Mussolini who said that fascism is just Nationalism and Corporatism working together and as far as I'm concerned that's exactly what we have going on. I'm worried that the thrashing death throws of our country as it loses its super power status will be more damaging than the holocaust. it may not be as focused, but think about it in terms of a giant thrashing about while laying on a village not caring what is destroyed during his wallow of pain.

One of the biggest charges we level at up and coming dictatorships is that they have DUBULA EMMM DEEES. well guess what, we have shit tons more than anyone else on earth. And someone on SA wisely said that america would rather reduce the earth to a smoldering cinder before giving up its hegemony. so incase my message is not clear

AMERICA IS EVIL. It's Goals are EVIL, The pressure it puts on it's own people as well as sovereign nations is EVIL. If there was a benevolent God he would SMITE the SHIT out of this nation. and not because of abortion, or homosexuals or whatever other bullshit eveangelicals can dream up. but for all the fucking ignored parts of the bible they claim to believe in. Christianity should be a movement of paupers traveling from town to town having sold all of their worldly possessions so they might feed and help the poor and down trodden. not to lobby against healthcare and yell at townhalls.

The only salvation i see for this country is a horrible epidemic disease that whipes out 90 percent of our population and competely takes us out of the world stage. to the point where we'll be relying on the kindness of the EU and australia to help us stay alive.

We are so passed political reconciliation it is not even slightly humorous. First past the post voting and our primary system are what they french call FUCKED. The only partially legit politicicans we have in this cesspool of a country are Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, and I'll let Senetor Whitehouse slide. The rest of them need to have an inglorious basterds ending.

From now on I'm going to spend less time talking about politics unless something funny or egregious comes up. keep in mind that the bar for egregious is now near the fucking moon. anyway thanks to all 2-5 of my readers, and keep a cyanide tablet handy incase shit goes haywire.

I'm glad I have no children

2009-08-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

I just found out that this feeling I've had lately (and have now) actually has a single word representing it in German. It's called Weltschmerz. I'll paste some of the wikipedia article about it.

"The modern meaning of Weltschmerz in the German language is the psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when realizing that someone's own weaknesses are caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and (physical and social) circumstances. Weltschmerz in this meaning can cause depression, resignation and escapism, and can become a mental problem (compare to Hikikomori)"

"It is also used to denote the feeling of sadness when thinking about the evils of the world"

I don't know if this happens to everyone (well I doubt it does or else people would have had lengthy conversations with me about it by now) but when I read about some well researched and horribly sad thing occurring now in our world I put myself there mentally and try to think about how it would feel to be the victim of whatever monumental injustice is at hand. It gets to a point where I have to consciously stop reading for a few hours or else I get a supreme feeling of hopelessness because there are people all over the place who need all manner of help and other people are actively trying to stop the relief and want to grind down those who can't fight back.

There are so many struggles going on that I can barely prioritize which is the most pressing. What cause do you take up? There are gender struggles, class struggles, race struggles, civil rights and civil liberties being impinged or taken outright, there is terrible bloodshed in Darfur, Rwanda, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and numerous others. it's overwhelming. I've lost track of even how much I was going to attempt to list.

I also read today that, in America, the 400 richest people, (now think about that, I'm pretty sure my senior class in high school had more members than 400) have more wealth than the bottom 1.5 million. We somehow think our society is egalitarian when we have the income disparity of a third world banana republic. we are entering into a severe class struggle due to horrible economic circumstances and half our population is ready to take up arms in order to keep themselves from getting free healthcare. Our nation is psychotic. Most of them never think to challenge the millionaires spewing propaganda at them every day. Someone on the internet today asked what it would take for Americans to finally get their heads out of their asses and make meaningful reform to make society better for everyone. One answer that interested me was that we would have to have a famine first. Our population would need to feel the effects of real hunger far up the class ladder to where no one could be insulated from the hardship. Then it would be easy to see the wealthy still protected and fed and finally focus some anger there where it belongs.

This post today may be disjointed and badly written but I just don't feel right. I've got that weltschmertz

Side note that I've been thinking on but haven't posted

2009-07-30T22:38:00.000-07:00

Obama has really been fucking up lately. Like serious stuff. Not the main media hype over the health care reform. His health plan was a step in the right direction but it was far from being anything close to what we need. Every member of congress who is currently on any committee that has any sway on what will be in the final bill has recently received shitloads of money from Pharmacutical companies so we are FUCKED. our Democrats (who are honestly a corpratist party now, not progressive. minus bernie sanders, senator whitehouse, and kucinich.

What I'm getting at is something weird is going on with obama and I'm fairly certain he must have had to make some dark deals with the real power players in washington to get the support of all those superdelegates and now he's paying the piper.

The stuff that I'm most angry about is the continuation of many Bush era policies about indefinate detention, going back on his word about closing guantanamo bay, and moving the afghan war into pakistan (which guess what, has a very important Oil pipeline running through it). He also has not come forward and ended the militaries Don't ask don't tell policy which keeps open gays out of service. I saw a figure that showed the military has spent 95 million dollars retraining new soldiers because of the ones they discharged due to this bill.

There's many more things I'm upset with and I've written several letters to the white house and to various senators about my concerns but it really doesnt matter. the only letters they care about are on Goldman Sachs letterhead. I'm extremely frustrated and I have some ideas brewing in my head about what I want to do in the nearish future. If it starts seeming feasible I may post a detailed explanation of what I want to do.

Well part of my motivation for writing all of this is to show that I'm not an apologist for the democratic party or president obama. My loyalty lies in progressive causes not corprate handouts and collusive backroom deals that fuck over the public. Though I hate what conservatism has become more than I hate lukewarm democrats. They have turned into a lunatic fringe incapable of simple thought, and genuine discussion. They are playing politics like it's gradeschool recess. so fuck them.

It has been a while since I've updated.

2009-07-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

I'm not exacty sure where to start. This entry will be a little more personal than previous ones. Not because I ran out of horrific things occuring in the world to keep you updated on (for example Joe Arpaio's county developed a Thing called a Taser Array. What it is is a huge wall of taster guns mounted together. supposedly they are supposed to be shot 1 row at a time to hit a group of people. and then the next row shoots the nexts group after the first falls, but as we all know Law Efrocment assholes will unleash a wall of pure pain on a single guy hitting prongs into his face, neck, chest, legs, maybe arms, and he'll probably die. We've already had several deaths from tasers in the normal line of duty. One guy actually burst into flames belive it or not).

This post is actually about a random thing I wrote over AIM to my friend who was not responding so he was either on the toilet or playing a game. The thing I wrote is kinda cool. not purfect, but pretty cool for stream of conciousness. by adrians request here it is:

yourfearisgreat AWAKEN C'THULU REY'LETH REY'LETH. AWAKEN SHUB NIGGURATH THE GOAT WITH A THOUSAND YOUNG. COME FORTH AND CLAIM THIS INTERNET AND UNLEASH YOUR UNHOLY MAJESTY
yourfearisgreat: A dark mucous with a tint of green began seeping through the crevasses in the stone wall of the dungeon, While the world may be moments from it's ultimate terror being unleashed, ironically, you, yes you, are mayhaps the safest of the race of men, Due to your foolish crimes of seeking to know the unknowable, you have been confined to this wretched dank pit, but insobeing, you are the least likely to be on the minds of any destructive cosmic horrors which shall be tonights entertainment.
yourfearisgreat: Your vantage point is poor, being 3 walls and iron bars, but you notice that you can feel some fluctuation in the feel of earths...lifeforce? A stone felt like it had settled in your stomach when you were able to figure out that only the death of hundreds of millions could affect one, base as yourself. The sensitve ones on the surface must be in living hell to see feel of that death
yourfearisgreat: why, you wonder, do the Cosmic deities care so little about human life? they need no reason or encouragement to kill on a whim. I heard of a man brave enough to ask the Dread C'thulhu that very question. Our Dread friend answered him psychicly so as not to overwhelm his auditory system. He said "Life is the only thing there is. Life is Sacred. If you have no life in you, then the world has nothing for you. Humans, sadly are a short sighted and evil lot so we do them the ultimate favor of showing them their errors through killing them.
yourfearisgreat: The experience of dying and then being confronted with the afterlife usually affects even the cold hearted deeply. Though it's not for you to know or I to tell, but Death is the beginning. your blink of time on earth is totally inadeqaute to figure out the proper way to live and to experience all that life offers. Once killed, time stops pressing so hard on the being. they find they can move backward, forward, and even sideways through time. then The One God (not from any of your earth centric books sorry) reviews your time on earth with you. this is your chance to explain missunderstandings or appologize for regrets. Once you have been permeated (each cell of your body fused with our mystic power) you can then start to build your real self. no more kids, mortgage, bills, traffic, you live in a paradise (reflected from your dreams) and spend the days speaking with dead philosophers, authors, scientists, or atheletes if you like.
yourfearisgreat: it's best to think of your earth life (Which was sooo fucking important right) as a sandbox for you to learn to use basic mental faculties. many get carried away and think that life is what life is about, even worse some never even think about any of these concepts. they just live and pretend their out of touch jaded attitude is cool. the greeks got it near the beginning of history that "The unexamined life is not worth living". you might as well have been a roach
yourfearisgreat: Enough explaining from me. Humans are very low on the need to know list. i only talked to you because i'm tickled that your unimportance put you in a singularly safe and funny position
yourfearisgreat: the world right now is being ravaged by age old horrors and specters from realms not of this reality. the flying semi-corporeal alien dragon covered in green flames, headless horseman with heads of pikes, wagon trains in the roads, their wheels shod in teeth and fangs so as to make a menacing clickity clack. horrible skeletons ravage almost everywhere, with their meat in various stages of continuity. Horrible mangy dogs ridden by impish goblins who shoot poison arrows at passersby.
yourfearisgreat: and let's not forget the big guys. sometimes you need to terrorize and lay waste to huge buildings and vehicles. luckily we have the Balrog demon and the ever faithful Bahamut. Tidal waves of molten lead splash down into stadiums and other huge gatherings. Instantly burning everyone to the bone before contact even occurs. Worse still, when it cools, the skeletons are preserved in a horrifying scene from some satanic play
yourfearisgreat: There is no hope, no escape, only the revelry that we cosmic entities enjoy. And who should stand against us I say. None. No man, beast, demon, "god", idol, Military, no wizards spells, no shamans rituals and charms. Pure death and fear. the essence of all things.
yourfearisgreat: well except for you my dungeon kept friend. you missed all the horrors of this reality, so perhaps count that as a blessing. what happens with you now is beyond me. The door was never locked, so i assumed you were staying of free will. that struck me as so uncharacteristically human i actually earned a modicum of respect for your forthought
yourfearisgreat: i can make a proposal for you if you like. I can slay you now, painlessly and start you on your journey to become your real self in the afterlife. you're way ahead of the game just knowing that much. or you can be a cowering dog who pisses himself in the face of a challenge
yourfearisgreat: The man lay himself on a flat marble table and the horrifying monster set to his macabre work. one small thing though, he lied about the lack of pain. He planned to keep him alive while pulling out each capilary and vein one by one. that kind of pain is trancendental. the mind grows beyond its physical self and is prepared for a life of amazing possibilities and catastrophic calamities.
yourfearisgreat: the end i guess

As I chronicle the ills of the world

2009-07-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

Since I seem to fall into a neverending cycle of reading up on social issues and then getting so mad at fucked up people that the pit of my stomach feels like it's on fire, I figured I'd keep the bandwagon going after that Robert Mcnamara post.This next guy I've known about for a long time. He's been doing his villainy for some time and for some reason he occasionally has public support (republicans?). Without further adieu I present

Sherrif Joe Arpaio

This guy is basically the most corrupt (I hope) law enforcement official outside of television. He's been raining (and reigning) terror on Maricopa County, Arizona. For some odd reason this guy has yet to be scrutinized in the media (this article is prob ably the biggest thing about him in popular media) and he's also escaped Internal Affairs and Federal agencies. The ammount of horrible stuff I've read about this guy is so massive and angering that I can't bring myself to summarize it all nice for you. But I will give you a few snippets that typify the kind of behavior this guy is responsible for. He's one person I would push a kill button on if I had one. Anyway here's some morsels:

"The family of another man killed in the restraint chair got $8.25 million in a pre-trial settlement. (This deal was reached after the discovery of a surveillance video that showed fourteen guards beating, shocking, and suffocating the prisoner, and after the sheriff's office was accused of discarding evidence, including the crushed larynx of the deceased.)

"...Deborah Braillard passed away January 25th, 2005, after being arrested for alleged probation violations. ... When she was booked into jail on January 2nd, Deborah and her family were concerned for her safety. Because she was a diabetic, she required frequent insulin injections. However, because of her prior conviction and jail stay, jail medical personnel knew about her condition. Nurses were present in her cell on January 3rd and on the 4th, but they did not examine her or administer insulin." [courtesy of sherrif joe]

While making this post I found a website dedicated to overthrowing this sack of bugs. It has a nice archive of why this guy sucks if you need more convincing or more outrage. right here

An American Patriot aka War Criminal

2009-07-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

If you get anything out of this at all, let it be that you have watched Fog of War it's there for free in that link

As most people know, recently, Robert McNamara died at the age of 92 or 93, i forget. Now I, like most sane people, said well good riddance to that sack of shit. But then I ventured onto the internet and found people actually defending him. Saying things like "we need a modern day McNamara to get things sorted out". Let's see how he sorts things out. oh by ruining an entire generations fertility.

This guy was a fucking human monster. He was the Architect of the Vietnam War. You know, that one horrible fucking atrocity that we should never even have been involved with. one of the worst things about this guy was that since he was pretty smart he thought he was fucking Solomon and never thought twice about anything he decided. One of those being the idea to use AGENT ORANGE,

which he knew in advance was harmful to humans (a fucking understatement). It's primary purpose was to destroy all the plants in an area so that no one can hide there. Nowadays we call that chemical warfare and invade countries based on that.

People give the reply, "well he felt bad about it in his later years". A human is not capable of feeling enough guilt over the amount of destruction and horrific slaughter that he was directly responsible for. I'm just gonna lay out a couple of things in picture form that are his fault. And I'd like to remind my American readers that all the people in these pictures are humans like you even though they look a bit off. They'll never get a WoW account or have a blog because of this stuff, anyway here ya go.

I'd like to take this moment to add that Napalm (jellied gasoline basically, which sticks to you and doesnt stop burning. you could jump in a lake and the napalm would burn you to death.) and Cluster Bombs are horrendous weapons. They are indiscriminant and terrible.

So hoooray McNamara, Conservative Icon, Military Genius, and fine Patriot. He embodies the very essence of America. Because as a nation; we at our core, are a maniacle, wife beating, oil-drunk, myopic, self congratulator who cannot internalize a thing we call "the human cost". To top it all off The Omnipotent Creator of the Universe (we're on a first name basis with him so lets shorten it to God or Yahweh) has smiled on us and endorses everything you just saw in this post. Ah nothing like a glass of Hubris in the morning.

If you get anything out of this at all, let it be that you have watched Fog of War it's there for free in that link.

and here's a boat shooting napalm into riverside villages and people:

Ah nothing like approaching fincancial ruin

2009-07-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

it's a shame they don't have something like this around here that i could move to if everything went to shit

A new rule.

2009-07-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to resolve to attempt putting a cool picture with every post I make. Sometimes it will be topical and other times just plain cool looking. so here you go selfish internet denizen.

Temporary Change to layout so my pics dont get cut off in the middle

2009-07-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

For this breif moment in time i needed a wider template. so sue me. It's not as classy, but does it suck? lemme get some feedback.

Since I'm really beside myself with dissapointment on how Obamas DoJ is handling things...

2009-07-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

This subject came up really really early in his presidency when his legal team decided to stick with the bush era stances on a bunch of pending cases for people being illegally detained by us. Knowing that my representatives are human I was able to overcome my idealistic optimism to write them a scathing letter letting them know that there are a lot of really liberal people who did a lot of the grassroot support to get him elected who are really not being heard.

We felt it was a given that some of the first things on the chopping block would be some of the crap bushes department of justice was trying to cram through. But as i once read somewhere, "once a government gets a power, seldom does it ever relinquish it". So bush made the executive a near king and now obama is feeling out his job and I imagine it's pretty complicated. There's all the promises to the people (not that high on the list), there's all the horrible secrets of america that you get to find out about as part of the job. I almost think that exposure alone is enough to cause sever mental problems. Like when i had a hard time sleeping after watching this asian movie called red flowers or something like that where it seemed like a low budget snuff film. and it was so convincing the fbi had to go investigate it. well i didn't have the luxury of knowing it was fake until months after seeing it. It shook my brain and really warped my outlook on humanity. so the vault of horrendous shit that America holds must really fuck with you. For instance we got a few leaked photos of horrifying torture shit, and bloody floors, and reports of guys waterboarded over 80 times, sexual humiliations, and that's the stuff the public is vaguely aware of. the shit they put under lock and key must be on par with the republican underage boytoy prostitution ring for congress.

I would almost say i'd sacrifice the entire country and have our whole system fall, if it meant full access to all the information that's been hidden from us. Keep in mind my stake in society is almost non existant. ah shit, this was supposed to be a short little sentence before i posted some pictures from video games and stuff that make me happy. It's all on fliker which is not an ideal image host imo. but if you click the image and then click the "all sizes" or whatever you can eventually get to the larger version of the picture which is what i wish they'd start with. for petes sake donchaknow. well i'll attempt it anyway

i'm not really slick with this html anymore so bare with me

easistest thing would be to follow my photostream on flikr (several pages of gameish images that i like)

then I'll post some samples here.

Oh How True it is.

2009-07-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

If you ever want some good and entertaining news coverage check out Huffington Post. They did an article on a Yale study that showed that the more you present a conservative with information contrary to a mistaken belief the harder they cling to the belief. They are basically unteachable. You can see this ridiculousness all the time. Scientists tell us we should take some measures to prevent future problems from climate change. Liberals say ok lets get to work. Conservatives flip out and claim every fool thing they can think of. There is no climate change! well MAYBE but it's not US! but it's too EXPENSIVE (yeah only poor people will die so no biggie). you know what's too expensive? Our "defense" budget. They should really be honest and change the defense department to it's old name of The Department of War.

Anyway enough of my bellyaching, read this freaking rad article i was talking about!

Thanks for the contribution steve

2009-07-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

My adled friend came across a good link that fits with most of my posting themes. it's about how crisis works in favor of the GOP (for people who somehow missed what this acronym is it's "Grand Old Party". sounds like old white men jerking each other off? well you're right. I wonder how many years your party has to be around before you can start calling yourself Grand and Old. With their hubris I could see them starting off with this for their inception. anyhow here's the link

I love Alice

2009-06-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

As some of you may be aware I really really enjoy dark and/or twisted takes on classic fairy tales. Most of all Alice. American Mcgee's Alice video game was pretty cool but I wish there were more content and a robust explorable world instead of a linear progression. Anyway all that aside, Tim Burton is doing an Alice movie and I think it looks rad and has some of my favorite actors.

Anyhow, you internet folks may already have been privvy to all this info but I am compelled to post about it since I want tons more stuff like this to be made. (assuming it's good). These pictures here are pretty much all the exposure I'm going to avail myself of until the movie is done because i like going in Tabula Rasa.

Fox News gets okay to misinform public, court ruling

2009-06-26T14:17:00.001-07:00

Fox News gets okay to misinform public, court ruling |
Media Reform | CeaseSPIN.org

haha what the hell. how can anyone watch fox news and seriously defend anything they say after this. the pretense of truth is even gone now. they can legally lie and they battled for that right in court. freaking amazing.

This is why we shouldn't torture people

2009-06-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

excerpt: "An al-Qaeda associate captured by the CIA and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques said his jailers later told him they had mistakenly thought he was the No. 3 man in the organization's hierarchy and a partner of Osama bin Laden, according to newly released excerpts from a 2007 hearing.

"They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter,' " said Abu Zubaida, speaking in broken English, according to the new transcript of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President George W. Bush described Abu Zubaida in 2002 as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations." Intelligence, military and law enforcement sources told The Washington Post this year that officials later concluded he was a Pakistan-based "fixer" for radical Islamist ideologues, but not a formal member of al-Qaeda, much less one of its leaders.

Abu Zubaida, a nom de guerre for Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, told the 2007 panel of military officers at the detention facility in Cuba that "doctors told me that I nearly died four times" and that he endured "months of suffering and torture" on the false premise that he was an al-Qaeda leader.

Abu Zubaida, 38, was subjected 83 times to waterboarding, a technique that leads victims to believe they are drowning and that has been widely condemned as torture. The Palestinian was held at a secret CIA facility after his capture in Pakistan in March 2002."

article

Pastor Drake Prays For Obama's Death.

2009-06-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

In a stunning display of piety and and submission to God's will, this pastor is on the radio saying that he's praying for the death of the president. Now that takes some courage doesn't it folks. We should all show our support and pray for the death of anyone we can think of. heh and we called Islam violent.

Link

Sigh...

2009-06-07T23:36:00.000-07:00

No big post here, I just found out that Banks are allowed to go shopping for who regulates them, then the banks themselves pay the regulators. They have no federal budget. That means there is a conflict of interests here. If banks start failing or get shut down under a regulator they will lose money and potential customers (for being too tough). This is what allowed AIG financial products division to go so long without anyone killing the subprimes and morgtage backed security sales.

We let them pick their own police basically. And I heard on the radio that they can't do a congressional investigation because it would be all for show since all the senators are in the pockets of all the companies. Only a 9-11 Commission-style, private investigation would even have a chance of uncovering anything. and even then, prosecution is going to have to be done by someone.

Let's stick with our theme of just ending America. I'll brush up on my español i don't care.

Forget my last entry and just watch this youtube

2009-06-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

Our society is shit and not worth saving.

We fucking climbed out of the primordial soup to become this. I think we can mark off earth as "experiment: failed".

people are pretending to be upset on tv because we have a leader that the world likes and might apologize for the assfucking we've given everyone of them. And republicans eat up this tough guy nonsense. That's fine for covering your insecurities in high school but not when you're a large country. gah

Freaking TARP fund-recieving banks spent 114m on lobbying Congress

2009-06-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well I'm angry again. First I was angry because I was reading a thread that explained that some banks were refusing to sell off their toxic assests to the government for a fair price. This was supposed to be the crown jewel of the plan. But banks realized that if they have to sell these assests then they have to asses what's in them and how bad they actually are. What does that matter? Well if a house in a neighborhood is one of the bad loans then all the other houses in the neighborhood go down in value. that means that there could be a cascade of "good borrowers"'s investments will start to decline and everything turns to shit. The banks seem to think the right idea is to just pretend everything is fine. Their suggestion was that the government pay way more than the fair price they were offered. so to recap, the government is buying piles of shit for the banks, and the banks want more money for shit. So that was the initial anger thing. Now I see that they are using TARP money on fucking lobbyists. fuck lobbyists.sahds;lkajndlsna sh'gkldhaoryhg;kjvB

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02/tarp-recipients-paid-out-114-m.html

For the two or three peeps that read this:

2009-06-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

I got a lot of writing done on the book you probably heard me mention i'm trying to write. this attempt may never make it as an actual book but it's introducing me to writing for an audience and also lets me see what my writing style really looks like. The cool part has been reading over everything i wrote like 3 days after and doing corrections. At the time i'm writing i think everything is perfect then when im correcting it i think all my corrections are the best choices. It's like i'm grading another kids paper in college and i'm like pshhh look at this loser using "due to the fact that" instead of "because" he's not payed by the letter, get that shit outta here! oh wait that was mine. My only consoling answer to this process is I'm always better in the future.
Ok here's one time where your comments might slightly count. the way my writing process is going is i think about a character or a scene that might happen in the book world and just start writing. later i will edit the hell out of it and make it a coherent narative ( hopely). I'd say over half this project will be scrap, but I hate to see it wasted like that. So i figure that since i have a Blog, if you (adrian) and whoever else stumbled here by accident could read like mini portions of a chapter or an idea or something and put some feedback. they say to avoid that kind of thing before you're done or else you wont finish but i'm not worried really.
The main challenge will be putting my notepad scribbles into computer text. so if you want em then lemme know

I'm furious with such boiling ager that I can barely contain it.

2009-06-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Apparently some of the worst shitheads in congress Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman put put together a bill that almost feels like it was tailored to infuriate every right thinking person with any sense of justice. first i will paste the text of the bill which is very legalese-ish. then a summary.

quote:

(b) Definitions- In this section:

(1) COVERED RECORD- The term ‘covered record’ means any record--

(A) that is a photograph that was taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States; and

(B) for which a certification by the Secretary of Defense under subsection (c) is in effect.

(2) PHOTOGRAPH- The term ‘photograph’ encompasses all photographic images, whether originals or copies, including still photographs, negatives, digital images, films, video tapes, and motion pictures.

(c) Certification-

(1) IN GENERAL- For any photograph described under subsection (b)(1)(A), the Secretary of Defense shall certify, if the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, determines that the disclosure of that photograph would endanger--

(A) citizens of the United States; or

(B) members of the Armed Forces or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States.

(2) CERTIFICATION EXPIRATION- A certification submitted under paragraph (1) and a renewal of a certification submitted under paragraph (3) shall expire 3 years after the date on which the certification or renewal, as the case may be, is submitted to the President.

(3) CERTIFICATION RENEWAL- The Secretary of Defense may submit to the President--

(A) a renewal of a certification in accordance with paragraph (1) at any time; and

(B) more than 1 renewal of a certification.

(4) CERTIFICATION RENEWAL- A timely notice of the Secretary’s certification shall be provided to Congress.

(d) Nondisclosure of Detainee Records- A covered record shall not be subject to--

(1) disclosure undersection 552 of title 5, United States Code (commonly referred to as the Freedom of Information Act); or

(2) disclosure under any proceeding under that section.

(e) Nothing in this section shall be construed to preclude the voluntary disclosure of a covered record.
(f) Effective Date- This section shall take effect on the date of enactment of this Act and apply to any photograph created before, on, or after that date that is a covered record.

===============================

hmm what does this mean exactly? summarized pretty well by glen greenwald.(i think that's who):

"The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 -- that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States." As long as the Defense Secretary certifies -- with no review possible -- that disclosure would "endanger" American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week."

FOIA is the Freedom of Information Act incase you didnt know. it's one of the few laws that actually protects the citizenry

Talk-Show Host Mancow Waterboarded: Says It

2009-06-01T11:05:00.001-07:00

Talk-Show Host Mancow Waterboarded: Says It’s ‘Absolutely Torture’

This guy lasts 6 seconds. The avergage was supposed to be 14 or so. haha.

READ THIS YOU TORTURE DEFENDING SCUMSHITS

2009-05-28T01:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”

The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.

Louis C.K. slays me.

2009-05-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Louis CK is hilarious and I just stumbled on some newish material he did. here's a couple samples

1.)

2.)

NPRs' This American Life is fantastic

2009-05-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

Your probably aware that this radio program exists but you may not realize how freaking awesome it is and that you can listen to any episode they'vc done since 1995 for free online. The way they do it is that you can stream a show for free or get the mp3 for 95 cents. Each episode is free for one week (as an mp3) after it's released.
The eps run for about an hour a peice and are divided into 2-3 segments covering various topics or different aspects of one theme. This is one of the best uses of a free hour you can find. You could pick a topic that sounds interesting or just pick one at random. I have yet to hear one that wasn't fascinating. Things i don't even care about much come across as really freaking interesting.
Right now I'm on a torrent that has every episode from 1995-2007. Stoked.

The thing that got me to post about this show is seeing an article talking about the body count in Iraq. TAS has a great ep about this very topic from 2005. It interviews the guy who did the Lancet study for Johns Hopkins University, one of the Iraq war planners, and a Captain serving in Iraq.
Here's a link

I'm diggin the song on this cartoon

2009-05-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

These guys should be on adult swim

2009-05-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

Ok so these dudes put out 6 youtube videos based on the hit sitcom Home Improvement. If you were a fan of the show and like david lynch shortfilms then this should be perfect entertainment. Be sure to give them as many stars as you think they deserve.

Episode 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aTc0EW3khM

Episode 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJubMzkGBH0
Episode 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2LifzSYF6E
Episode 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maYAcPmOCks
Episode 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Na0tbb6kX4
Episode 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umxhDsWAtZA

H. Con. Res. 121:Encouraging the President to designate 2010 as "The National Year of the Bible"

2009-05-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

In a long line of stupid bills here's another example of republicans getting down to business. Apparently they forgot that the government is not supposed to endorse any religion at all. I would love to see how they feel about my idea for a Resolution Encouraging the President to Designtate 2011 as "The National Year of The Satanic Bible". Hell lets do every religious text we can find. "National year of The Gnostic Gospels".

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hc111-121

Some Good Pop Music...that's right i said it

2009-04-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

Lilly allen. I'm not sure how popular she is around here, but she's a uk musician who makes really cool satirical and scathing pop. She puts across a lot of social awareness vibes in really short punchy lines. She seems to have a lot to say about modern bourgoise society and admits her part in it and wonders what a person is supposed to do about it, when things are rigged from all angles to exploite others.
and anyone who has a song about Bush titled "Fuck You" is ok with me.

here's her current single The Fear.

Major defeat for Bush/Obama position on secrecy

2009-04-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

This issue was one of the few misteps that Obama has made, but it's kinda big and since i'm not a brainwashed obamanite like the right likes to pretend we are, I wrote an angry letter to the white house critizing this very thing.

what it is: Basically the Department of Justic (DOJ) under the bush admin had used some bullshit "state secrets" pass to get out of responsibility for all kinds of shady shit. well the obama doj decided to keep the bush position for a recent court case reviewing it. good news for us is that the courts struck that shit down. booya.

here's a link to a much better written article. (better than my blog i mean).
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/28/secrecy/index.html

And if you didn't know Salon is one of the few decent places to find good articles and essays on current topics. The Atlantic is another. They aren't on target 100% of the time but even if you dissagree the points are usually well reasoned at least. which is more than you can expect from cnn, nbc, or fox

Resolution opposing the Hate America anti-Christian Open Borders cabal

2009-04-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

Remember when i said that stupid bills get put forward all the time and usually get killed on the floor before getting to the house? Well this is one of those examples. The funny part is that this was narrowly defeated and almost made it through for a vote. Apparently the measure was introduced late in the convention after about one-third of delegates had gone home.

Summing up his final arguments one of the bills proponents said "If aliens are granted amnesty, they will vote Democrat and it will be the end of the Republican Party,". well I'd have to agree and i can't say I have a problem with it.

here's a link:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705299752/Godless-cabal-resolution-fails.html

A Daily Show Episode.

2009-04-25T21:46:00.001-07:00

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=225122

pretty amusing dailyshow episode. it's a full episode but you can find clip versions on the site too.

RNC resolution: rename Democratic Party to "Democrat Socialist Party"

2009-04-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

Let's watch the descent into madness

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-party/michael-steele-under-pressure-to-call-dems-socialists/

They are growing crazier by the day

2009-04-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go "nuke" if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.

King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should "shut down [legislative] activity across the board" if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court.

"We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war," he told POLITICO.

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

So they are threatening to shut down the legislative process (more so than usual) if bush-era people are held accountable for torture. nice. Incase anyone isn't aware this is a response to Obama releasing a few pages of the Torture Memos. The hilarious part about all that is their argument used to defend themselves is that torture was good and gets results. So apparently they think our values are worth sending people to die over and simultaniously abandoning them. Not that we have any actual values, but we can't even claim them any more.

24edr89

2009-04-22T16:02:00.001-07:00

24edr89, originally uploaded by Liberal Medium.

You might not realize this

2009-04-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

But when you hear about minority parties in congress threatening or performing a fillabuster that they don't actually do them anymore. they have what's called a procedural fillabuster where the congresspeople agree that they'd rather not sit around through a boring fillabuster and just pretend one happened. yeah. that's right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillabuster#Procedural_filibuster

I'm scared

2009-04-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

Facebook grows too fast. a couple people appear on your friends list then everyone you ever met just explodes onto the page. I dont know if i like that. i'll keep the twitter and the blog but facebook is a bit much. I'll give it a week and see how I feel then.

Flikr can eat shit

2009-04-19T10:10:00.000-07:00

resizing my photos and making me delete my post. grrr

I get all my ideas when im away from the computer

2009-04-19T07:41:00.000-07:00

So that really sets this whole thing up to be problematic. I just woke up so maybe later I'll have something.

Let's break our brains! Click the image if the side is cut off.

2009-04-18T09:04:00.001-07:00

ATT00028, originally uploaded by Liberal Medium.

Do as this picture commands and realize how pathetic the human brain is. None of that hoity toity, each person is a miracle and so on. On the off chance you can actually do this successfully keep it to yourself ok. ;-p

Grand Opening...ok not grand per se.

2009-04-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Well guys I've done it. I fought the internet and the internet won. I am simultaniously starting a facebook, blog, flikr page, and a Twitter. I decided I'd rather not be a luddite and ignore the new ways of the web just because they look different than when i was on 28.8 modems. So here you go. I will be posting whatever seems worth discussing. As a friend so aptly pointed out, I already do all this stuff in person, why not put it up so you only have to tell a story once and everyone can see it?

I really find it hard to believe anyone will give half a shit about what a random person like me cares to write about. then again I've read obscure stuff from people i don't know for no reasons.

We'll see. That's basically what all those letters up there meant.