"99%" certain THIS is a new Ministry song. (small update)

So I was laughably stupid last time I posted something like this.

*shrugs*

Ministry has a single out off of their upcoming album, the song is called "99%"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY50tO3AUgA

It's good, not great.  If I was an optimist I'd say that if this is the low-water mark for the new album things are going to be amazing.


(update) Listening to it a few more times, I'm actually liking the song more.  The lyrics, as far as protest anthems are concerned, aren't very good.  Other than that I'm liking the stylistic change-up since the last few albums.  It reminds me of the more laid-back tracks off of The Last Sucker, such as the titular track, except that it lacks any real variance in tempo or intensity, though 99% has far more interesting guitar/percussion/synth/etc overall.

Bleh, it's hard to analyze a single Ministry song.  Ministry's songs have never been very good, that's why its one of those bands where people talk about it by the album.

So I guess the bottom line is: I like this song, and am feeling optimistic about the album now.

AHA!!! I found something I agree with Scalia and Thomas on.

Talking to a conservative the other day they mentioned the "Kelo v. City of New London" Supreme Court case.

(warning: wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

Essentially the court ruled 5-4 that the government may transfer property, including private property, to a private entity if it theoretically will serve a 'public purpose'.

Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas were the four dissenters who were on the correct side of the issue.

So there.  Proof that Scalia and Thomas aren't 100% authoritarian hacks.

Merry [expletive]mas!!!

I was given the best Christmas ornament ever this year.
(click image for full size)

*laughter*

Smart Hyena! Already trying her first cup of coffee.

Heya

Two hyenas moving in to "cuddle" Sweet Baby Jesus.

^_^

I promise to eventually go back to writing my own content.

In the mean time....

Since winning the Oscar, Reznor has had a flurry of offers; but he's wary about becoming a full-time movie composer. "If every director was as smart and challenging as David Fincher, OK, that's a discussion. But they're not." Either way, he's not short of work. How to Destroy Angels, his new band with Maandig and Ross, release their debut album next year. He has also been approached to direct his first movie, and is developing a 10-part HBO mini-series very loosely inspired by his 2007 album Year Zero, a dystopian protest record – although he's having problems finding the right screenwriter."I chose not to write it myself because I don't know how to do that. But now I'm thinking I should have." He shrugs happily. "Somebody's got to do it, right? How hard can it be?"

same link as above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/dec/21/trent-reznor-dragon-tattoo-soundtrack

Goodbye Hitchens.

Christopher Hitchens is dead btw.  He was one of the people who got me interested in politics and social issues, and its rather sad to hear that news.

That said, I'll hand the eulogy over to Alex Pareene now...

The late Christopher Hitchens had the professional contrarian’s fixation on attacking sacred cows, and rather soon after his cancer diagnosis, he became one himself. I think he would’ve been disgusted to see too much worshipful treacle being written about him upon his untimely death, so let’s remember that in addition to being a zingy writer and masterful debater, he was also a bellicose warmongering misogynist. 

.....

 And so we had the world’s self-appointed supreme defender of Orwell’s legacy happily joining an extended misinformation campaign designed to sell an incompetent right-wing government’s war of choice. The man who carefully laid out the case for arresting Henry Kissinger for war crimes was now palling around with Paul fucking Wolfowitz.

(update) Ana Marie Cox wrote an interesting, and much more friendly, post also.

Most hideous, dishonest attack ad ever.

lol update: A friend just asked why I don't think this is actually funny, which is a major fail on my part since I do.

This is total bullshit;

“We’ve faced many challenges over the years, and each and every time we’ve discovered that courage is the answer. Hyenas don’t understand that. They back down from fights. They play dead. We need to set an example for other animals, and high-strung scavengers aren’t the way to go. Have the courage to stand against the cowardly hyena.”
Paid for by a lion

This next one is subtler, but is also rife with anti-hyaenidaeism (emphasis added);

“Mongooses have consistently betrayed the trust of other animals: for example, the recent hydroelectric power station that displaced hundreds of birds and fish had the backing of more than half of all mongooses. Plus, they giggle when they mate. Is that dignified? They say that a mongoose is not closely related to a weasel, but actions say otherwise.”
Paid for by a snake

If you truly must see the rest for yourself, you can find the other attack ads here: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/when-animals-run-attack-ads

(minor edits for formatting)

On the other hand I'd like to hear more of these arguments.

Different article on Salon (guess what website I'm reading this morning!) by Justin Elliot, titled "Apocalypse Newt"

I agree with the general consensus that Gingrich is a total freak and an utter fraud.  However there are certain things I agree with him on, to a limited extent.  Permanent moon colonies, preparing our cities and national infrastructure for nuclear attacks, combating climate change, generally keeping in mind that our species is tiny and insignificant in the universe and is only one asteroid away from extinction; those are all things that are worth keeping in mind when thinking about global policies.

It is the narrowed minded focus and alarmist attitude on specific issues (moon mining, EMP bombs) at the exclusion of truly immediate problems (climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity) where Newt crosses the line to becoming laughable, to say nothing of his delusions of 'stealth jihad'.

I've seen this argument many times before.

Article on Salon by Andrew Leonard titled "The Costs of a port shutdown"

The problem however, with attempting to target the 1 percent with a port shutdown is that the 1 percent are the best situated to ride out any extended shutdown. There’s no way to avoid it. Shutting down “Wall Street on the Waterfront” would have some serious collateral damage. The immediate impact of any port stoppage would be felt by the workers who transport the goods from ports to their final destinations, the retail outlets where those goods are sold, the workers at those outlets, and of course, anyone involved directly in the export trade. California, a state that still sports an unemployment rate above 11 percent would be particularly devastated by a port shutdown that lasted any meaningful amount of time. Goldman Sachs would hardly notice.

It's not about targeting the "1 percent".  It's about shocking the foundations of the economic system as a whole.

Besides, "You can't do this because it'll hurt the little guys the most!" is the argument that always gets thrown around whenever anyone tries to disrupt the status quo.

What's with all the scams?

Looking at traffic to my blog it seems that half the people who show up are either looking for pictures of Chell, from the Portal games, or are being directed here somehow by scam "get rich quick" websites.

I understand the first part, but wtf is with the scam sites?

*facepalm* stupidity about Ministry on my part

So Ministry is returning, but I was wrong about 'Rehab' being a new song being worked on.

Here's the full version of Rehab from their album "Undercover" from the beginning of the year.

http://www.myspace.com/ministrymusic/music/songs/rehab-79886606

Live from DC

I've been watching this livestream for a while now, good first-person view of Occupy DC.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/occupywashdc

Nothing going on in Madison, WI lately.  Everyone is obsessed with the recall of Scott Walker, as if putting a Democrat in charge is going to change anything.

Update: looks like the link doesn't go to anything now.....

It is required that you read this.

Glenn Greenwald wrote an excellent piece recently.  More importantly though is that he linked to an essay titled "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by a man named Richard Hofstadter that was originally published in 1964.

Go read it.

http://neuralgourmet.com/2008/05/09/paranoidstyle/

Fuckers (updated with names... again)

Sent my sister a text message about this:

The Senate is set to vote this week on a Pentagon spending bill that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — anywhere in the world — without charge or trial. The measure would effectively extend the definition of what is considered the military’s "battlefield" to anywhere in the world, even within the United States.

She texted back a one-word response, "Fuckers"

That pretty much sums it up.

Update 1: Here are the lists of senators who voted to keep the indefinite detention in the National Defense Authorization Act; or rather the senators who voted "nay" on an amendment to take the indefinite detention of US citizens out of the bill.

Democrats: http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/sublist/9543?party=Democrat&vote=Nay

Republicans: http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/sublist/9543?party=Republican&vote=Nay

And if you scroll down the full list you'll see the lovely Joe Lieberman voting Nay like a good little crony.

Both senators from my home state of Wisconsin, Herb Kohl (D) and Ron Johnson (R) voted to Nay.  I can't say I'm surprised, Wisconsin senators tend to have a flair for the occasional authoritarian freak-out.

I'm not going to waste much time on this tripe, except to link to the ACLU response to the issue.  In fact, I'll even post the quote here, free of charge just for you!

UPDATE I: Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.But you don’t have to believe us. Instead, read what one of the bill’s sponsors,Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor: “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”
There you have it — indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial. And the Senate is likely to vote on it Monday or Tuesday.

Update 2: Ok, so maybe Senator Kohl isn't entirely bad.

David Brooks considers it vanity to be outraged over the rape of a child.

There is more to the article but I think that the end portion sums up all of the key points.

People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don’t. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do. As Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel write in their book, “Blind Spots,” “When it comes time to make a decision, our thoughts are dominated by thoughts of how we want to behave; thoughts of how we should behave disappear.” 

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside. These vocabularies made people aware of how their weaknesses manifested themselves and how to exercise discipline over them. These systems gave people categories with which to process savagery and scripts to follow when they confronted it. They helped people make moral judgments and hold people responsible amidst our frailties. 

But we’re not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness. So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it — like the culture of college football, or some other favorite bogey. People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again. 

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?” 

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

 Did you catch it?  David Brooks believes the problem is that we look at the problems of The System rather than taking Individual Responsibility.  And the reason for this is that we live in a societal system that celebrates our own wonderfulness, rather than reinforcing the idea that we are all sinful, and so we look to systems in society to find the problem.

Yeah.  This guy is a fucking moron.

Ignite the very air: Playlist for the fall.

Jackbooted oppression got you down?  Here are my musical picks for the uprising.

(Yeah yeah yeah, fuck Myspace.)

Wormz - by Red Harvest. [Industrialized Thrash Metal] "Chase the bastard, bring him down, bury the fucker underground."  Dissent will not be tolerated, as the treatment of Bradley Manning and the OWS protesters has made more than clear.

Symbol of Decay - by Red Harvest. [Post-Industrial Electronica(?)] Sweeping melancholy inspired by the death and decay of a once thriving industrial city.

Smash the Control Machine - by Otep. [Nu Metal (wait! It's actually good music!)] "Then they outsourced my job and gave a raise to my boss.  You bailed out your banks and billed me for the loss..."

Just One Fix - by Ministry. [Industrial Metal] "Like if I boarded a train, trying to take in another station.  Join us and the choice will be made, unless we kill the lies as a nation."

Salem - by Paint it Black. [Hardcore] "my Intelligent Design? No Submission!"

Reject All American - by Bikini Kill. [Riot Ggrrllll]

Helped bury a cat today

Well, it was actually two cats.  One had been cremated years ago and we took the opportunity to bury him with the other kitty.

They were both great cats, neither was mine but it's sad to see them go.

Somewhere I wrote a post where I mentioned that a cat was being annoying by rubbing itself all over my computer screen, that was one of the ones we buried today.  Annoying little kitty who will be missed :')

Ok, so...

If I was right-wing this would probably look really bad.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The "hand to hand combat" part... umm yeah not cool man. Not cool. I know that was figurative, but still.

edit: I mean, hand to hand combat is literally taking place in Oakland right now.  In Ohio the NAACP did good work in the recent vote, but no combat was involved... or maybe I'm just tired and feeling judgmental O.o?

fall...

I was staying with some family this weekend.  Overall things were going well but I started to feel overwhelmed and left early to drive 3 hours back home.  There wasn't anything good on the radio so I put on a Throbbing Gristle album (never a good sign).

A large part of why I left was because I simply cannot stand the person my father has become.  I terrifies me that somebody so intelligent and that I've always felt so much respect for can now so rabidly subscribe to every single thing Glenn Beck says.  My father is convinced that the left-wing islamofascists are about to rise up and drench the streets in blood, and he says (essentially) that he is worried because he thinks I'm too naive to stay out of it.

In one of my university classes we spent a few hours discussing the Spanish Civil War last week.  My professor mentioned the painting Autumnal Cannibalism by Salvador Dali.  I've had that image burned into my brain ever since.  I can't stop thinking about that war, the so-called Red and White Terrors.

I decided to get in contact with one of the local Socialist (gasp/shock/horror) groups.  I gave my phone number to a very attractive female (too old to be a 'girl', still feels uncomfortable calling someone my age a 'woman') and mentally I was thinking something along the lines of "is this how it begins?"

In retrospect I find it disturbing how that question had nothing to do with the immediate social interaction.  There was nothing in my mind along the lines of, "Yay!  The Cute Girl wants to talk to me again!"  No matter how post-feminist (left-wing feminazi islamofascist?) I try to be that's usually how I would have responded to the situation, even though she was only getting my number so we could coordinate schedules to set up meetings when people didn't have classes.

Instead I just had that painting stuck in my head alongside my father's lunatic ravings, which he shares with all the other Fox News Faithful.  Listening to Throbbing Gristle I remember that there are few things more horrifying than my own species.

I'm terrified of the future.  Sometimes I just hope that I'm insane.

Progressing Away From the Constituion

Was talking with my father about politics.  He said something about how Progressives want to get rid of all private property.  I asked him what he thinks a Progressive is.

He responded "Progressives are people who want to progress away from the Constitution."

How the fuck am I supposed to have a rational conversation with somebody who refuses to consider any other possible explanation of what I believe?  It doesn't matter what I say or how clearly I try to explain the error, my dad is convinced that I'm someone who wants "to progress away from the Constitution".

fuckity fuck fuck

gggggrrrrrrrr this did quite a bit to dampen my good mood.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/uk-military-iran-attack-nuclear

copy&pasted:

Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.
The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

 It's a good thing we didn't foment the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 and install a brutal dictatorship, and then fight kicking and screaming when the Iranians rose up and overthrew our chosen regime only to install their own brutal theocracy that hates us more than the government we initially overthrew.  Because then this whole ordeal would seem rather preposterous.

Life feels... good

The whole "Occupy Wall Street" phenomenon has me feeling great.

EVE Online, friends, and my classes are devouring nearly all my time.

Scratched out some time over the weekend to replay some of Legend of Mana for the first time in a decade; that game holds up very well :)

that's all for now...

Glad

I am glad that Gilad is free.  I also have a lot of respect for Israel and the IDF.

Rachel Abrams and all the other Zionists........... no so much.  If I despised every member of the IDF or Hamas because of the atrocities committed by those organizations then I would also have to hold in contempt every member of my own nation's military.

blah blah blah.

The bottom line is that Israel is an advanced nation with cutting edge military hardware and training backed by some of the most powerful political and economic institutions the world has ever seen.  The Palestinians have some outdated rifles and rockets.

I sense a slight imbalance in this conflict.  And my sympathies generally don't go to Goliath.

That said.... just..... what the fuck?

Really.  Just, what the fuck?

The only people I feel bad for are the civilians on both sides.  Which is fucked up since this is fundamentally a conflict over who has the right to exist on that land.

Not that I'd ever compare Zionists to Nazis....

(Edit: Called her Rachel Malkin at first by accident) 
I support Israel because the Palestinians are genocidal maniacs.  And Rachel Abrams has finally found a solution to the 'Palestinian Problem'.

He’s free and he’s home in the bosom of his family and his country.
Celebrate, Israel, with all the joyous gratitude that fills your hearts, as we all do along with you.
Then round up his captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women—those who aren’t strapping bombs to their own devils’ spawn and sending them out to meet their seventy-two virgins by taking the lives of the school-bus-riding, heart-drawing, Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others—and their offspring—those who haven’t already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god—as shields, hiding behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into your prisons, where they can bide until they’re traded by the thousands for another child of Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose.

Fuck Israel.  Fuck the IDF.  Fuck Zionism.

“populist and anti-market economy political forces”

Go read this.  It's about the UN forces in Haiti, and also touches upon the US governments involvement.

short section copy and pasted;

The 2004 Security Council resolution establishing MINUSTAH called for it to ensure a “secure and stable environment,” reconstruct Haiti’s police force; engage in a comprehensive Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program; organize elections; and protect human rights.
But the 1,918 secret US State Department Haiti cables released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks describe an extraordinary litany of failures and the political polarization of the mission, the third-largest UN military force anywhere in the world.
In one “astonishing” case, according to the cables, UN troops fired 28,000 rounds in just one month in Cité Soleil, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince known for resisting the UN occupation and the February 2004 coup that ousted Aristide.
“Civilian casualties [from UN forays] in Cité Soleil…[rose] from 100 wounded in October [2005] to between 170 and 205 in December [2005],” wrote then Chargé d’Affaires Timothy M. Carney in a secret January 19, 2006, cable. “Half of these are women and children. Assertions that all were used as human shields strain credulity.”
Just six months prior, acting under intense US and Haitian elite pressure, 1,440 UN troops sealed off the pro-Aristide slum, firing 22,000 rounds and causing dozens of casualties in just one seven-hour night-time raid on July 6. UN troops continued their attacks throughout the year, regularly firing 2,000 rounds a day, one UN official told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Now, one of the key aggravating issues sparking resistance to an extension of MINUSTAH’s mission is the raging cholera epidemic that has killed more than 6,200 people and infected some 440,000 Haitians. Several scientific studies tie the outbreak of the South Asian cholera strain to Nepalese troops stationed in the center of Haiti. But the UN leadership has tried to deny that charge, which surfaced almost simultaneously with the disease last October. “It’s really unfair to accuse the UN for bringing cholera into Haiti,” said MINUSTAH chief Edmond Mulet at the time. Still, the UN and international organizations have not brought the epidemic under control.
............. 

US Ambassador Janet Sanderson insisted in an Oct. 1, 2008 cable that MINUSTAH has been “an indispensable tool in realizing core USG [US Government] policy interests in Haiti.” The UN is establishing “domestic security and political stability” there, she wrote, all necessary to prevent the resurgence of “populist and anti-market economy political forces” and an “exodus of seaborne migrants.”

Ministry in Rehab (Updated Nov 6)

So Ministry in returning, and already has a short preview clip of a new song named "Rehab" posted.


Sounds promising.  America desperately needs an Obama-era update to The Last Sucker.


This laughter will give you nightmares.


Update: I was wrong, their cover of Rehab has been out for nearly a year.

I'm afraid of Americans

It's like we're going for the full set of Middle East quagmires.

I'm afraid of Americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help it
I'm afraid I can't
I'm afraid of Americans


(ok... so the song doesn't quite fit.... w/e)

To the Farlands!

Go watch these videos.  Copy/pasted from farlandsorbust.com;

Helloooo! My name is Kurt and I have a Minecraft Let's Play series on YouTube where, since March 2011, I have been traveling on an expedition to reach the fabled Far Lands, documenting every step of the way.
And now, I'm doing it for the Child's Play charity!

If you haven't played Minecraft..... well shame on you.

I just like the videos, the charity part is a nice extra ^^

Anwar on terrorism

Just gonna leave this here....

In which I reveal that I'm a vile theocrat....

Update 2: meh, I deleted the first update.

Mormons are not christians.  They just aren't.  Get over it.  Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Jon Stewart, most Mormons, etc are incorrect.

I don't see how anyone can read the Book of Mormon (the religious text) and say that it is a form of Christianity by any traditionally accepted understanding of the word from the last several centuries.  Beyond a doubt there are a great number of similarities, more so than even between Christianity and Islam (which also uses many of the 'biblical' texts), but the mormon-exclusive teachings are such a radical departure from the general christian theology that it is absurd to say the are the same religion.  They are both Abrahamic faiths.  They both worship Christ as the Savior.  But the differences are even more extreme than those between the major Christian schisms such as Protestantism and Catholicism.

None of this is to say that I think Mormonism is somehow less valid or is undeserving of the same dignified and respectful consideration as Christianity.

I'm an antitheist.

Fuck all religion.

Really though it's depressing that the "are Mormons christians?" issue is such a major one in the US right now.  It shouldn't even fucking matter.

Oh id, what have you done to yourself?

Rage is out now.  As expected it seems to have turned out thoroughly "meh".

I wonder how many people back in 1996 honestly had any idea that the day would come that the only reason to stay interested in id would be the prospect that Doom 4 might be better than Doom 3.

And cellphone games.

Wow.

Now if you excuse me I'm going to go play Dark Souls.

Update: I really enjoyed Doom 3 and think it's a bit unfair how much that game has come to be despised.  Still, Doom 3 was dated as soon as it hit store shelves.

Clutter

Few items on my "list to blog about" that I want to get out of the way.

• Congrats to the people of Libya, and good luck.  (Oh, and sorry about my government fucking you over so many times in the past!  Oops......)
• I wish I could be at the "Occupy Wall Street" protests.  I'm finally back to taking college classes (after dropping out for a semester) and I live in Wisconsin... good thing we have Scott Walker and the Fitzgeralds, so I shouldn't have much trouble getting into trouble once I get settled in with classes ;)
• Dark Souls.  ^_^   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93LFz_j5fQA
• Ummm... too tired... might update this again later.... probably not if history is any guide...

"hyenas can tell the difference between individual voices"

Awesome.

Copy + Pasted:

When researchers played recordings of potential intruders, the hyenas’ reaction depended on how many voices they heard compared to how many fellow pack members surrounded them. Groups of three or more hyenas were far more likely to approach the source of sound than pairs or individuals.

I thoroughly approve!

Somebody (you?) just stumbled onto this blog by searching for "homeworld 2 concept art".

I agree, this blog needs much more Homeworld :)

omgwtf TERRORISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somebody please tell the government to fuck off and wait until there actually is something to talk about before trying to scare the shit out of us.

Now that's out of the way: sorry I haven't posted much lately.  Just started classes again, so things are a bit crazy atm.  Overall life is good though :)

Random Review: "Kairos" by Sepultura

When I first heard Sepultura's newest album I didn't care for it at all.  I especially didn't like their cover of Ministry's Just One Fix, a personal favorite of mine.  The album kept popping up in my brain though and over time I've actually come to enjoy it very much.  It's a very old-school style of death metal, executed so perfectly that it feels eerily out of place among Sepultura's typically more progressive fare.  The album's cover art perfectly represents this with an image of a woman flipping an hourglass as her flesh dissolves into sand and bone.

Sepultura has undeniably suffered since the departure of Max Calavera, to the point that it's very cliched of me to even be mentioning it.  Kairos is the long overdue proof that they no longer need him.  Kairos, with its fascinating and novel reinterpretation of classic death metal, is Sepultura's finest work since their own classic, Roots.


And really, their cover of Just One Fix is perfect.


From the titular song Kairos:

never lost sight of my fate

Many tried to block my ways but persistence kept me going on
Now we trespass the line of time
Going back but I´m right here, now and then, all done


Kairos


Wake the dream and face the facts
Bridge the gap between the gaps
In every blast that starts your mind
You are there and only there you are


Kairos


The lines are crossed I´m way ahead
Just need to balance the razor´s edge
Nothing can stop us right now
Cause it was built from what we gave. That´s right!

Seems (Un)reasonable

I've never been off of the North American continent.  Still, this article at Salon.com seems to be the most lucid and reasonable assessment of the riots in the UK that I've read so far.

The underlying causes of the rioting are difficult to say with certainty but one key fact must be considered: youth unemployment.   

The rioters were overwhelmingly teenagers and kids in their 20s. About 20 percent of 16-24 year olds in Britain are unemployed. That figure is much, much higher on council estates -- the British term for housing projects. (You can leave school at the age of 16 in this country). Unemployment statistics in Britain are sadly vague, but a reasonable estimate of youth unemployment just in Hackney is 33 percent. (Those attending college or performing any form of unpaid apprentice work are considered to be employed.) There don't seem to be any statistics for youth unemployment on council estates -- as I live in the neighborhood I would say well above 60 or 70 percent is a good guess.   

.......

When there are that many young men with nothing to do and no money to spend, it doesn't take much to set off violence. The immediate flash point -- in this case the death of Mark Duggan -- is quickly forgotten. A group hysteria takes hold.

....... 

What happens after the rioting subsides is difficult to predict -- entry level jobs are in short supply these days -- and as the government's austerity measures begin to bite here, it's not likely to get better any time soon.

Large numbers of people with nothing to do and nothing invested in the society around them.  How could that possibly go wrong?

The real mystery is, "where are the Punks right now?"  British punks are constantly playing songs about riots, I wonder how many of them are actually out in the streets?

I am outraged, OUTRAGED, at this polling corruption!!!!

No, I'm not talking about anything related to the recall elections today in WI.  I'm talking about 1up.com's homepage poll today.

Which cancelled game would you most like to see revived?


Megaman Legends - 33.76%
Shenmue III - 24.91%
Starcraft Ghost  - 20.64 %
Starfox 2 - 17.51%
Sam & Max: Freelance Police - 3.18%


WTF?!?!?!?  How is Starfox 2 not winning?  This is a TRAVESTY of EPIC PROPORTIONS!

I demand that the people on the internet correct their worldviews!!!!

(Incoherent Ramblings about) Norwegian Terrorism

When I heard about the recent shooting/bombing in Norway, my first reaction was not "MUSLIMS!!!"

It was something along the lines of "That's awful" followed quickly by "Oh fuck, please don't be a Black Metal band."

I generally love black metal music, though I find the superstitious underpinnings annoying and have always been troubled by the violence associated with its early years.  And even today racism, misogyny and homophobia often ruin what would otherwise be good music.

It bothers me very much that so many people seem to fetishize the church burnings and murders.  Those actions were disgraceful and unjustified acts of terrorism.

I don't know how the man responsible for the recent shootings felt about black metal, or if he was in any way associated with it.  It seems very clear though that he was motivated by the same type of xenophobic bullshit that was the excuse for the arsons in the early 90s.  The main difference between motivation is that the black metal groups saw the Christians as the outsiders and Anders Breivik was afraid of Muslims.

I don't know where I'm going with this post or what I'm really trying to say.

And he signs his name with a capital 'B'.....

I pushed the button and elected him to office and a
He pushed the button and he dropped the bomb
You pushed the button and could watch it on the television
Those motherfuckers didn't last too long


I'm sick of hearing about the "have's" and "have not's"
Have some personal accountability
The biggest problem with the way that we've been doing things is
The more we let you have the less that I'll be keeping for me


Well I used to stand for something
Now I'm on my hands and knees
Trading in my god for this one
And he signs his name with a capital G


Don't give a shit about the temperature in Guatemala
Don't really see what all the fuss is about
Ain't gonna worry about no future generations and a
And I'm sure somebody's gonna figure it out


Don't try to tell me that some power can corrupt a person
You haven't had enough to know what its like
You're only angry 'cause you wish you were in my position
Now nod your head because you know that I'm right... alright!


Well I used to stand for something
But forgot what that could be
There's a lot of me inside you
Maybe you're afraid to see


Well I used to stand for something
Now I'm on my hands and knees
Trading in my god for this one
And he signs his name with a capital G


Those are the lyrics to the Nine Inch Nails song Capital G.

I'm really starting to feel that way about Barack Obama.

A Few Complaints About 'Duke Nukem Forever'

First: read this post at Socimages.

Copy and pasted from that site:

Just to tally up, we have:

1. Fetishizing and infantilizing women by putting them in outfits associated with children.

1. Referring to their breasts as “bazookas,”  both objectifying women and equating  their bodies with a military weapon.

1. A lesbian encounter presented as titillation for the male viewer.

1. Watching women engage in sexual activity with one another, and even threatening women with weaponry to continue engaging in sexual activity with one another, is your reward. You deserve it – you deserve to be sexually gratified.

People learn by watching. This can be good and bad. It can make us more accepting of others’ opinions and outlooks, and it can also desensitize and normalize harmful opinions and behaviors. In regards to Duke, the latter is where the risk lies — the more one sees images like those presented by Duke Nukem, the more likely they are to be seen as what is acceptable and usual. Normalizing harmful, degrading, and insulting stereotypes of and behavior toward women seems like a high price to pay for a video game’s success.

That's the true problem with DNF, and is what makes it such a revolting game.

All of that has been said elsewhere at great length and nuance though, so I want to gripe about some other aspects.

The audio design in the game is awful.  Nearly everything in the game sounds like placeholder material.  Duke's voice-actor sounds like a bad imitator of the original character, the music is boring, the weapon effects are underwhelming, etc.  To quote Yahtzee, "If I didn't know the history of this game I would say it seems rushed."

All of that is better than the gameplay though.  What made DN 3d fun was how it seamlessly blended together insane numbers of possible actions.  Jetpacks, shrink rays, missile launchers and convoluted level designs meant that there always were more ways to beat a level or kill your deathmatch foes than pedestrian games like Gears of War could ever dream of.  DNF trades all of that in for the agonizing boredom of lame scripted sequences and hallway crawls littered with uninteresting set-pieces.

And for all of its boasting about 'interaction' and 'being politically incorrect' you can't even smoke the cigarettes from vending machines.  Bioshock let you do that.  WTF?

Bringing a dumbass to a knife fight.

Over at the RedState site there's a post titled 'The No Social Security Payments Myth'.

Here's a choice quote:

The fact is that absent a debt ceiling the US can, indefinitely, pay principal and interest on our debt — thereby avoiding default; obligations under Social Security and Medicare; and active duty military salaries. It can do this and still have $40 billion per month to play with. 

Really?  That sounds like a good idea to you?

The post's author then asserts that, "If Social Security checks don’t go out it will be because Obama has decided it is to his political advantage to hurt as many Americans as possible."

That simply doesn't make any sense.  I was going to write more but decided that sums it up.  That simply doesn't make any sense.  I compare this to bringing a dumbass to a knife fight because you can win a knife fight, or prevent the debt ceiling from being raised, using a dumbass.  He's still a moron and he still is wrong.

I'm shocked! Shocked to discover that Wired.com would collude with the military intelligence industrial complex!

Not really.

I feel...... accidentally deceptive o.O?

Looking over my page view traffic from the last couple months I've seen that nearly all of you are coming to this blog through image searches and clicking on pictures of Chell's (of Portal fame) long fall boots, or by searching for what song is playing in certain episodes of Jon Benjamin Has a Van.

*evil laughter*

Hope you enjoy the blog even if it's not what you were looking for.

The Children of Reagan

There's an article titled 'What is a "constitutional conservative" anyway?' over at Salon.com right now.

Here's my favorite quote from it:

Taking office in 1980 amid rising gas prices, a stagnant economy, and high unemployment, Ronald Reagan argued that government was not the solution to the nation’s problems, but rather it was the problem. Yet as Berkowitz has written, Reagan’s rhetoric deploring "unnecessary and excessive growth of government" implicitly conceded that there could be necessary and appropriate growth, and he in fact allowed taxes to rise and government spending to grow above inflation without sacrificing his principles.

Reagan's rhetoric didn't implicitly make an argument for growing government in any fashion.  To walk away from his speeches with that type of interpretation requires the same type of rhetorical hair-splitting employed by biblical apologists.


I'm grateful that Reagan did compromise on his professed principles.  The problem with the current crop of conservatives is that they take Reagan at his word and actually believe what he was saying.

Bungie Aerospace: Fuck-Yeah!

I'm not even disappointed that it turned out not to be Bungie's next game.

Because not having Heels would be silly. (EVE Online)

I setup a trial account for EVE Online; the new 'Incarna' version of the game features a character creator that is actually very impressive.  I ended up spending about an hour seeing what it was capable of; it took about that time for me to notice that female characters are required to wear High Heels.

Don't know why I'm surprised.

For what it's worth most of the footwear does seem pretty stylish; I just wish my corporate jackboot had the option to wear actual boots.

Tried making a male character but had trouble finding the 'not a steroid-riddled muscular freak' slider.

I'm nitpicking though; so far it's a pretty impressive game.

*facepalm*

I literally just caught myself praying.  It was intense; massive adrenaline spike and suddenly I'm staring at the ceiling mouthing the words, "Please god don't let this get totally fucked up."

It's amazing the kind of superstitious bs you'll resort to when you're terrified your computer will crash and destroy hours of hard work.

Something I Agree On With My Republican Relatives (Cigarettes, of course!)

The FDA's new anit-smoking measures are total bullshit.  Places such as the UK reduced the amount of smoking without resorting to this kind of moralistic propaganda.

I want America to start winding down the Drug War; this is just another escalation.

Fuck.

Last chance to evacuate the earth....(unfinished/part one)

I think the the concept of the objective 'perfect' is psychological nonsense.  It's a shared delusion born from shortcuts in logic that our brains are hardwired to take.  My best evidence for this is that the godhead of most monotheist religions is synonymous with perfection; by necessity then all descriptions of god are so arbitrary that they are completely laughable or so vapid that they are nauseatingly meaningless.

WARNING: Much bullshit pseudoscientific numerological 'philosophy' is about to follow.

Perfection is a completely subjective and arbitrary state.  You can say that the number '3' is the perfect example of 3, but 3 still is not in any objective way Perfect.  Worse is the fact that '11' is a far more perfect way to represent the third numerical integer in a binary numbering system.

You can say that the Universe is perfect, except that reduces the word down to being meaningless again.  Perfect compared to what?  As soon as you introduce an alternative to the universe the term perfection becomes objectively meaningless again since your assuming it means 'the universe as it exists'; which is, again, an arbitrary judgement.

Nonetheless 'perfection' is an undeniably useful construct.

There is an objective reality, or at least that's the basic assumption that all of my thoughts operate upon.  It is value judgements that are all subjective; there is no fundamental basis for any fixed absolute morality to be found anywhere in nature.  A person can say, "X is supremely good" and can give numerous well-argued reasons for why X should be considered good, but X is still merely an opinion.

So-called 'traumatic insemination' may sound like something incredibly evil, but if our species (or some splinter of it) evolved along that path then it would simply be the way things are.

Nonetheless I have to say that would be, and this is the technical term, totally fucking atrocious.

I'm quite possibly not going to vote for Obama.

I understand that a Republican president would be awful; I most certainly am not voting for any republicans.

It has, however, often been noted that democrats simply aren't worried about their liberal and progressive base.  Maybe it's time to start playing some brinksmanship.  In a perfect world I could never, in good conscience, vote for Obama again.  The thought of being held hostage to the Democratic party because "We're not as scary as the Republicans!"(tm) is repulsive.  So, for president at least, I'm going to vote for a third party or even not vote for anyone.  For as long as the Democrats can take our votes for granted they will never give a fuck about actually doing anything we want them to.  At this point I'm willing to risk another four years of a Republican executive if it means there's a chance that the Dems will be brought back in line, even if only for a while.


Maybe.  I'm probably chicken out and vote Obama anyways.


The Republicans are terrifying.


********

Incidentally I have have found my holy twin.  Obviously I am the evil one.

OMG OMG OMG OMG Red Harvest (Just discovered music streaming on MySpace)

RED HARVEST ON MYSPACE!!!!!!!!

Ok so I'm probably far behind the times, but I never go on MySpace.

Sick Transit Gloria Mundi
-Served as the inspiration for the name of this blog.  Excellent album, especially the tracks AEP, Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, and Dead Men Don't Rape (GGFX Cover).

A Greater Darkness
- I wrote a review.  Now go listen.  And love ^_^

Jon Benjamin Has a Van and it got a song stuck in my head o.O

I have Border Wars by Sepultura stuck in my because of last night's premiere episode.

Now you know.  That info will cost you $5.  Sorry, no checks.  I only except cash or credit.

Just to lighten the mood: Pictures of adorable killing machines

I love hyenas ^_^

pictures are from http://animalphotos.info/a/topics/animals/mammals/hyenas/

The urge to ruin things.

A few days ago I had a falling out with a friend.  It was pretty surreal; a friend from high school who I used to be really close to hasn't bothered putting any effort into staying in contact so I said some sarcastic things while text-chatting in Steam and my friend freaked out and now I doubt we'll ever have any contact again.

If that turns out to be the case I'm really not sure what will have changed in my life.  The friend obviously hadn't seen anything wrong with the way things were, but I'd been feeling abandoned and hurt for over a year.  My friend would promise to call back or to be online to play a game or to give me feedback on something I'd written and then never would.  Then my friend became outraged that I'd feel that I was constantly being told to fuck-off and accused me of being petty about not getting to play Borderlands.

So my (former?) friend is likely upset to a certain degree; I don't really feel anything.  I initiated the conversation and purposely said antagonistic things because I was upset but now I just feel numb about everything.  My life has not changed at all; perhaps my friend went from the illusion that we were still close friends to thinking that I'm a petty attention whore, but for me all that's happened is that I now have one less person who will occasionally be telling me "yeah, we're still friends" while never bothering to once give me a call or a game invite or even really respond to my attempts to communicate for over a year.

The only problem is that I know that I can be very petty.  And I know that there really wasn't any reason to ruin what little friendship remained.  I had just gotten so frustrated with the facade that I impulsively struck out by expressing my anger even though I knew it wouldn't help anything and would only make things worse.  And then it's not even cathartic and doesn't feel good or bad.  I just move on with one less friend (maybe two, actually) and then... nothing really.

That's the only disappointing part.  If I'd had a falling out with this person a year or two ago it would have been devastating.  Now I wish I felt something about it other than the disappointment that I don't really feel anything.  And then that's the part that makes me angry again.  I wanted this falling out to be something dramatic/cataclysmic and instead it was just some stupid chat messages.  I spend all that time being polite and saying "no problem, I understand" when people tell me off or rant for hours about how evil socialism is or tell me how sad they are they can't spend any time with me and it kills me and then I don't even get to feel anything when I destroy those relationships.

Usually I'll eventually get back in touch (they never take the initiative anyways) and apologize (I haven't done anything to wrong them) and make nice (eventually the thought that someone is unhappy with me drives me insane and I desperately want their approval) and then everything goes on like nothing at all happened.

Sometimes I just fucking hate everyone.

Speaking of disturbing fetus-rights issues; gender imbalance in developing world.

Read this.

Illegal imprisonment of a fetus

I was talking with a nurse who works in a prison and quipped that imprisoning pregnant women seems to be a violation of the fetus's constitutional rights if you're assuming a fetus is a person.

Turns out that in 1989 a woman named Lovetta Farrar had the same idea.  She brought two lawsuits in Missouri on the subject; one saying that the imprisonment of the fetus violates its 13th amendment rights, the other suit was asking for improved prenatal care because the fetus was endangered.


I haven't been able to find any other information on the subject or about how her lawsuits played out.

Dark Paganism? Check. 95% of Population 'Disappeared'? In Progress.

The only objective, empirical statement which can be made of the arts is this: music sucked before industrialization.

Which leaves me confused as to what is really being said in this video.

The two conservative scholars assert that environmentalists want the world to move to a dark paganism, which is fine since I  greatly enjoy black metal.  Where they lose me is with their assertion that we also want to go back to a pre-industrial society.  That seems to be simply ludicrous; see my above statement about industrialization.

I'm confused now.  Certainly they can't be dumb enough as to think I'd want to give up everything that has been learned from the geniuses who formed the core of the initial industrial movements.

And besides, what does environmentalism have to do with musical taste anyways?

*cough* if you're completely bewildered, go watch the video *cough*

Is it weird that I play Tau because they're space communists?

Don't know why, but that question has been on my mind all day.  I'm not even sure why it bothers me.  It just.... does.

I've never been very involved with the table top aspects of Warhammer 40k simply because of the prohibitively high entry cost.  The Dawn of War series of video games has gotten me hooked to the lore though; I'm thinking about setting up a Tau table top army when life settles down a bit and I get my finances in order, which won't be until well within the next school year.

Probably something that relies heavily on human auxiliaries and Tau armored assets such as battlesuits and (especially) gunships.

Now you know.  You can thank me later.

The 'Self-Evident' truth isn't. (plus a random Nietzsche quote)

I get a cheap sexual thrill out of quoting Nietzsche as if his writings are religious texts.  With that in mind....

Aphorism 331 in Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human reads:

Indication of alienation.  The clearest sign that two hold alienated views is that each says ironic things to the other, but neither of the two feels the other's irony.

I think that part of the 'problem' that I ran into in the obscenely drawn-out thread on Socimages about Chell's high heels is that my point of view on the issue was so completely alien to the other expressed views that nobody was communicating their full thoughts, assuming that the other person would already be familiar with their fundamental assumptions.

It was a fun but ultimately pointless argument.

I remain convinced: Portal's Chell is wearing heels.

[04/27/2012 note: I wasn't expecting anyone to ever read this post and was sloppy when I wrote it.  It has since become the most read thing on my blog (awkward) and so I  going to be revising/updating this post in the near future.]

I love the Sociological Images blog.  It's one of the blogs that inspired me to start blogging too; not that I have any (admitted :P ) pretensions to being as excellent a blogger as the Socimages team.

In a post about a news report about the bullying the player is subjected to in the game, I commented that I'm disapointed by Valve's (The original Portal was made by a small team that was absorbed into Valve early into the game's development) decision to have Chell wear what I consider to be high-tech desexualized high heels.

My comment (a reply to another person's):

“That is, she avoided most of the problematic tropes female characters get saddled with.”

And yet they found a way to put her in heels the entire game; certainly in a de-sexualized way (they save her from breaking her legs when she falls from large heights) but I still found it disappointing that she *had* to be wearing lady-shoes just because she’s female.

I had thought that what I was talking about was completely self-evident.  Apparently I'm completely wrong, which is fine.

My reasoning is that her long-fall boots look like high heels, Valve obviously put a lot of thought into different ways to make her footwear similar to high heels, that referencing the real world prosthetics that inspired aspects of the boots design only reinforces my points because those prosthetics serve to mimic the function of running normally i.e. not with a person's heels propped up.

The discussion has been dragged out to a surprising length, though I think it can be condenced down to two posts.

A user named 'Cee' posted

So, you’re suggesting that real, useful designs should be banned because they happen to resemble historically gendered objects?

Yeah, that’s not sexist.

My response

WOW. I’m not saying it should be banned. I’m saying that since they’ve taken the fictional liberties of introducing trans-dimensional intergalactic warfare (Portal is explicitly part of the Half Life universe) and since they did such a good job avoiding or even head-on addressing most of the sexist tropes in video games; I find it disappointing that they went with that design, especially since if you look at the ‘real, useful design’ that was linked to above you’ll notice that it mimics the effect of running in regular shoes.

I’ll concede the point if they have Gordon Freeman running around with his heels propped up like that in the next game.

Not all of the opposing views were as nonsensical as Cee's; it you're interested you should definitely go read the entire discussion.  I do want to address another inane ad hominid (here, it would only be a distraction there) though.

I posted a link to a character study with four different versions of Chell (already linked to above).  In my initial post I stated that they are in a 'fashion-model' pose; very stupid of me.  I'll maintain that's an obviously feminine pose; I have no problem with that and I later clarified that "On second thought: ‘fashion-model’ is an overstatement since posing that way simply allows for more details to be seen."


After which JDP responded

In game, you can only see yourself in passing and at an oblique through portals. It’s not like you spend the whole game staring at your character’s butt like you do in many RPGs or third-person shooters. So you’re nitpicking about aspects of character design you literally never see.

I guess the bad guys make an issue about it. Like GLaDOS’s patently absurd statement about medical degrees in fashion from France.

Simply moronic.  It's not 'nitpicking' to discuss what is easily one of the most instantly noticeable features of a character, especially if its also what has become the one that is the most iconic after her gender (and the fact that she's an impressively non-stereotyped female player-character).  Valve did an entire teaser-trailer about the boots.


More importantly it's the hypocrisy that is the reason I'm disappointed.  GLaDOS does make a "patently absurd statement about medical degrees in fashion from France" and it's equally absurd that Chell couldn't have regular footing in her boots.


I love BloodRayne and Mortal Kombat (the newest MK is sssoooooo fun!) and am willing to roll my eyes at the hyper-heteronormative sexualization of the characters (male and female) because the games gleefully wallow in it and avoid all self-hypocrisy; I described MK as 'bloody sexy fun' in a post on Wired and I stand by that statement.


To summarize: I find it disappointing that, since they did such a good job avoiding or even head-on addressing most of the sexist tropes in video games, they went with this particular design; especially since if you look at the ‘real, useful design’ that was linked to above you’ll notice that it mimics the effect of running in regular shoes.


For the record: Portal and Portal 2 are amazing games that need to be played, and I think the way they portray Chell is brilliant.  I'm just a bit disappointed by the footwear.


Trivial Update: Oh, in general I have no problem with ad hominids, vitriol, and childish name-calling; all things I regularly employ.  The very first response (not reposted here, btw) to my original post, for example, is perfectly reasonable in tone and content.
/thought_policing

What the...

I woke up this morning and my dog was holding a potato three inches away from my face.  o.O

This raises many serious philosophical questions.

Pleasant update to the 'Profit From Suffering' post

I sent messages to the stock-photo websites that were selling images of piles of human skulls from the 'Killing Fields' in Cambodia.  The one I sent to stockpodium.com read:

You sell images of piles of skulls from the Khmer Rogue's killing fields in Cambodia. Making a profit off of that type of atrocity using images of the victims is very distasteful.

I just received this email back from one of their reps:

Dear Kafes,

I just found a few such images and removed them. Please verify if you still find such images on the site.

Actually we resell images from another image agency and their images are automatically forwarded to our collection.

The part with the profit is similar to how a photographer taking pictures of victims of a murder or of war will get paid by the press agency, and the press agency itself will get some money.

It's a kind of job and who do it get rewarded.

Anyway, please accept our apologies, while still keeping in mind that these images are part of history and having them somehow increase awareness of what has happened.

For example we here in Bulgaria also have the Batak massacre and don't feel like knowing about it is something bad.

Best regards,

[redacted]

I feel very pleasantly surprised that they actually took my message seriously; perhaps I'm getting a little to jumpy to assume the worst about people lately o.O?

I'm going to send a short email back thanking them.  I also want to say that I agree that it's certainly not something bad for people to know about.  My only problem was that the images were simply close-up shots of piles of skulls with almost zero context; selling images of the memorials or of historical photos I don't have a problem with.

Anyways, I have a lot of respect for the way they responded and definitely want to thank them for taking it seriously.