Friday, October 30, 2009

Jon Stewart interviewed Mustafa Barghouti and Anna Baltzer on Wednesday about Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Daily Show endured its first heckler in thirteen years, when someone shouted "Liar!" at one point as Barghouti (the Palestinian) was speaking. Stewart did what Stewart does and just rolled with it, asking how they can remain hopeful when people like that don't even want to begin the conversation. It's a fantastic discussion, and really worth the watch.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Anna Baltzer & Mustafa Barghouti Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorHealth Care Crisis


The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Anna Baltzer & Mustafa Barghouti Extended Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorHealth Care Crisis

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Story, with higher resolution image



United in what appears to be deep and profound grief, a phalanx of more than a dozen chimpanzees stood in silence watching from behind the wire of their enclosure as the body of one of their own was wheeled past.

This extraordinary scene took place recently at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon, West Africa.

When a chimp called Dorothy, who was in her late 40s, died of heart failure, her fellow apes seemed to be stricken by sorrow.

As they wrapped their arms around each other in a gesture of solidarity, Dorothy's female keeper gently settled her into the wheelbarrow which carried her to her final resting place - not before giving this much-loved inhabitant of the centre a final affectionate stroke on the forehead.


Additionally,



You can only understand love and morality if you understand the Bible though.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

SPACE PEW PEW PEW

If you haven't heard, the space shuttle is going to be retired next year, after 30 years of service.


In its place, we'll be getting the Ares I.


Today, Ares got her cherry popped -- and that bitch needed a cigarette afterward. Yes, the very first test flight was successful. Like sex.



God damn, look at that slick motherfucker.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who feel like the space program is a waste of money. We've all met them from time to time. Their only argument seems to be that we should devote all that money towards the problems here on earth, when they don't realize that A) Earth will always have problems, and simply throwing wads of cash at them rarely ever works, and B) that's still no excuse to put all exploration and scientific research to a halt. And out of all the astronomically wasteful shit our government does, why do they have to pick on NASA? NASA gets shit for funding anyway.

The fact is that space is our future. I don't want to sound like some idealistic Captain Picard, but seriously, who can honestly deny it? Ideas like mining asteroids for minerals, terraforming and colonizing other planets, or orbiting solar panels around the sun to harness its energy even further are not kooky sci-fi theories. It's all possible -- certainly not within our lifetimes, but perhaps in our grandchildrens', or maybe even some of it in our childrens'. All we're lacking is motivation.

Right now, Mars is basically NASA's only goal. We want to send people there. That infamous "bombing" of the moon a couple weeks ago? Even that ties into Mars. We were seeing exactly how much water the Moon has on it, and if there's enough, we might eventually build a moon base that can sustain itself. That moon base will be used as the launch pad to Mars. To get to Mars, we would need all the fuel we can get, and since the vast majority of fuel is used up during takeoff, it's only logical to take off from the moon's much weaker gravity field.

In Michigan this summer, Logan had his friend from NASA come talk to us for a couple hours. This guy's designing the Mars Science Laboratory - basically a fucking tank... of SCIENCE. A science tank... IN SPAAAAAACE. PEW PEW PEW LASERS.


That box sticking out on top of the totem pole in the center? Yeah, that's a fucking laser. It's going to blast rocks and analyze the shit that's inside. From 7 meters away. And I made the tank comparison before, but did I mention that this thing is literally going to have the amount of torque of an actual tank? NASA's a little sick of getting their shit stuck in craters. This thing is a fucking beast... of SCIENCE PEW PEW.



I asked this guy how far we were off from an actual manned space flight to Mars. He said that there are just way too many factors which are always changing, and there's really no telling. Technologically though, there's nothing stopping us. We have the technologically to do it right now. It just depends on our willpower. He said that with the government's history of blowing these things aside, he's basically just given up hope of us going there in the foreseeable future. But there's a rise in corporate interests and / or really fucking rich people who are getting extremely excited over Mars and space in general, and he said that these guys are probably going to pave the way eventually since they're tired of seeing the government sit on its ass. One might see the word "corporate" and instantly cringe, but trust me, this is a very good thing. Columbus sailed for India for corporate interests.

He gave us two reasons why we need to go to Mars, and they were really fucking good reasons.

1) It's only logical to have more than one home base. If some catastrophic disaster wipes out everything on earth, the human race will still survive elsewhere.

2) Colonizing Mars will bring social upheaval. The colonists in the Americas felt disengaged with their motherland because they were on the other side of the planet. They didn't like a bunch of strangers telling them how to live their lives, and so they put their foot down once they got sick of Europe's shit. The American Revolution essentially created a domino effect in the western world. Europe saw how awesome we were, and so they eventually changed more along our ideals (or, the Enlightenment's ideals in general). At the moment, our industrialized world is almost in the exact same state Europe was when Columbus sailed - corrupt, lazy, indifferent, etc. We need something big to happen to shake us into our wits. A Mars mission could very well unify the human race.


Tuesday, October 27, 2009

i liek vidgams

I've kind of fallen out of love with video games recently, and that thought is the most depressing thing I can possibly imagine. I honestly cannot remember a time when I was not playing them. That Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt combo cartridge was the beginning of my life. I've simply been too busy with school, and I haven't had time to do anything for actual enjoyment. God damn it, I don't want to fucking grow up.

This post will be dedicated to all the favorite moments in gaming of my entire life, in the hope that it will inspire me to play some fucking video games again.

Pigskin 621 AD


Before there was NFL Blitz, before there was NBA Jam, there was Pigskin 621 A.D. It was amazing. I never even knew what I was doing, I just moved in the direction I was supposed to and pushed random buttons hoping that would score me some points.

Do you have any fucking idea how long it took me to find out what this game was called? I wasted an entire hour of my life rummaging through google trying to find the name of this again. You want to know how forgotten this masterpiece is? The only video on youtube is a shitty “Let's Play” where a guy plays it and gives commentary. It barely has over 200 views.



Road Rash 3


After Mario Kart 64, I'm pretty sure Road Rash 3 is my favorite racing game of all time. It shouldn't even be considered a racing game anymore. All you did was ride in a straight line at 200 mph and try to whack other riders off their bikes with your chains and clubs. You also had to outrun the cops, and you had to knock them off too. It was so fucking amazing, and just typing this is making me want to play it again.

I think this was the very first game I played where you were able to buy upgraded equipment (i.e., new motorcycles). I'm pretty sure Road Rash wasn't the first game that did this. I know Mega Man did it, and I think maybe Metroid and maybe one of the Zeldas, but I never played any of those when I was younger. This was the very first time I was exposed to it, and it turned me into a fucking zombie.



Doom


The very first shooter I ever played. It was pretty much the first shooter anyone played, unless you had Wolfenstein, which I didn't. I bought this on Xbox Live a long time ago, and I still play it occasionally. It was the very first game that genuinely scared me shitless. Those god damn piggies. Charging you and shit. Fuck. I would never get on it without the codes. They're still engraved into my head to this very day. IDKFA is weapons and ammo. IDDQD if god mode. I didn't even look those up.

And to think that parents are getting angry over Grand Theft Auto. I played Doom when I was fucking ten. It's good for you. And the nightmares weren't even all that bad.



Beating Turtles in Time without Game Genie


Just thinking about the number of hours Chris and I put into this game gives me the chills. There is absolutely nothing more magnificent than dodging charging dinosaurs while beating the shit out of foot soldiers. Nothing. We'd always put in the Game Genie and use the infinite lives code. But one time, we didn't have the Game Genie with us, and we managed to beat it without using it. It was one of the greatest moments of my life.

MY TOES MY TOES PIZZA TIME



Being a total dick in Mass Effect


Mass Effect to me is tied with Fallout 3 for the greatest RPG ever made. Based on the decisions you make and dialogues you choose, you are either a saint, or a fucking lunatic. There's no middle ground. And it is fun as hell being a fucking lunatic.

Skip to 2:25 for the goods.



Taking down a Super Behemoth in Fallout 3


Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic universe. Nuclear war has destroyed all civilization, and what few survivors remain are forced to band together into little villages for protection against the dreaded wasteland and the dangers in it. If you have never played Fallout, and if you do not know what a Behemoth is, I won't spoil it for you. Watch, and weep.



The Bank Heist Mission in Grand Theft Auto 4


Grand Theft Auto gets a bad wrap. It's the only game grandma has ever heard of because the news decides it's a good idea to report on things it doesn't understand. It's not just violence and sex. There is a story, and there is drama. At times, you're forced to make extremely tough, emotionally draining decisions. It's a Quentin Tarantino movie. It is the greatest game I have ever played. It's probably the closest to art video games can ever get. GTA4's bank robber mission was one of the most downright badass moments of my entire gaming career. Here it is, in full.



Sunday, October 25, 2009

Sunday Youtube Post

Just got back from Nashville and I almost forgot about this, so





Sunday, October 18, 2009

Sunday Youtube Post

Friday, October 16, 2009

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

There is no space law

On Friday, NASA sent a probe plummeting to the moon's surface in an attempt to find water. My friend Tyler and I have found a facebook group called DON'T BOMB THE MOON. When I first encountered the group, I assumed it was filled by people who were simply ignorant. Once they'd discover what the mission was really all about, how the moon wasn't really "bombed", how we're looking for water, how the moon wasn't damaged in any way, etc., etc., they'd be all "oooooh okay" and go along their merry little way.

I was wrong. These people are fucking nuts. Did you know that this experiment disrupted the cosmic order, and Mother Gaia is uber pissed at us? Tyler and I are notable for helping take down Rod Blagojevich's Facebook page after he tried to sell Barack Obama's senate seat. However, this group is a tougher nut to crack, because these dumbshits are convinced they're not doing anything wrong. Here's our progress report so far. My brother has gotten in on it too. When reading these, start at the bottom of each image and go to the top, because that's how things on walls are posted. We've been doing this since Thursday.












http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/arguing-from-ignorance/
























And then I uploaded this picture to the group yesterday.

Fightin' the good fight

It's still a long ways off, but at the moment, the frontrunners for the 2012 Republican candidacy for president are Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, and Mike Huckabee. What do they all have in common?


None of them "believe in" evolution. I'm guessing they also don't believe in vaccination or refrigerated food.

Seriously. This is the best the republicans can do right now. Barack Obama won because George Bush was too much of a lunatic. So what do they do? They shove forward more lunatics. They're just so goddamn out of touch. It's embarrassing to watch.

I mentioned to my dad a while ago that Mike Huckabee doesn't acknowledge evolution. Being a lifelong republican himself, he brushed it off and said it didn't matter, it wasn't an issue that was important. I let it drop from there, because you'll get more things done arguing with a rock than you will having a political discussion with my dad. Whether or not someone accepts evolution is an extremely important thing to me. If someone is a creationist, I judge him. It shows an unjustified and vehement distrust of science - and in 2009, science is what our world is. Like what Neil DeGrasse Tyson said in that video I posted not too long ago, if one is not scientifically literate, the lens in which he views the world is different. In that world, facts are "only an opinion." That person refuses to seek out the very knowledge that makes our universe so beautiful. He is knowingly limiting himself and his potential for self-fulfillment, and that is not a person whose opinion I can greatly respect.



"If I'm put on the spot, do I believe that it's basically just sort of an accident that this happened, this wonderful creation of ours? Or do I believe there was a creator behind it? Look, I'm going to go on the side that there's a creator behind it."

Either deny evolution, or you hate God. You can't have both. Bible.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Sunday Youtube Post

Stewart and Colbert are some of the only people in media who bother interviewing people deserving to be interviewed. I don't care what anyone says - I'm extremely hopeful for my generation if this is the stuff we like to watch.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
William Kamkwamba
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorRon Paul Interview


The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Arne Duncan
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorMichael Moore

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Quick - What things do these three congressmen all have in common?

Sheldon Whitehouse




Alan Grayson




Al Franken




Answer

1) They are all serving their first terms.
2) They take no shit.

Notice how all these so-called "Blue Dog Democrats" - the democrats who oppose health care reform - have been in Washington for decades? Notice how they were the same democrats with no fucking backbones during the Clinton years, and went right along with the republicans' deregulation which caused the current economic crisis? Notice how Barack Obama was a newcomer to Washington as well? Just thought I'd point all of this out.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Sunday Youtube Post

Saturday, October 3, 2009

oh god giant block of text big words

Have you ever wondered about the differences in brain activity between religious people and non-religious people? Well, thanks to the wonders of the internet... YOU HAVE AN ANSWER!!!!

Here's an experiment I found, led by America's less pissy and cooler version of Richard Dawkins - Sam Harris. This focuses on the differences between religious people and nonbelievers, in how they evaluate the truthiness of statements.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure signal changes in the brains of thirty subjects—fifteen committed Christians and fifteen nonbelievers—as they evaluated the truth and falsity of religious and nonreligious propositions. For each trial either a religious statement (e.g., “Jesus Christ really performed the miracles attributed to him in the Bible”) or a nonreligious statement (e.g., “Alexander the Great was a very famous military leader”) appeared, and participants pressed a button to indicate whether the statement was true or false. Our stimuli were designed to produce roughly equal numbers of believed and disbelieved trials in each category.
And here's the kicker:
Our study was designed to produce high concordance on nonreligious stimuli (e.g., “Eagles really exist”) and high discordance on religious stimuli (e.g., “Angels really exist”). The fact that we found essentially the same signal maps for belief minus disbelief in both groups, on both categories of content, argues strongly for the content-independence of belief and disbelief as cognitive processes. Despite the fact that religious believers and nonbelievers accepted and rejected diametrically opposite statements in half of our experimental trials, the same neural systems were engaged in both groups throughout. This would seem to rule out the possibility that these results could be explained by any property of the stimuli apart from their being deemed “true” or “false” by the subjects in our study.
In other words - facts and beliefs are processed in the exact same way. From the brain's point of view, religious belief and empirical data are the same.

Then it's no wonder there's such a divide in this country in the reason-versus-faith debate. Each side believes with complete certainty in its own truths, and each side believes that the other's truth claims are ludicrous.

Additionally, Harris noted that the pleasure centers in the brain lit up when atheists disagreed with a Christian claim, and when Christians affirmed one -- meaning we enjoy the fight.

I really want to see the brain activity of Glenn Beck when he's claiming atheism is directly responsible for all evil. I'd bet anything they're the same ones that light up at the peak of orgasm.



HEY EVERYONE, LET'S GRAB THE TORCHES AND YELL AT SOMETHING WE DON'T UNDERSTAND

Friday, October 2, 2009

"How about this for the headline - Rio Gets Olympics."

"Are you retarded? That'll never do. Barack Obama is a poopy head. There. Much better. Oh, and put in a picture of Jesus getting struck by lightning, because Barack Obama hates Jesus."


Additionally, the cover to Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue has been released.


Here's an excerpt:
Corporate media. You betchya. Washington elitists. Maverick. I have a vagina. Wink.


This could spark a revolution. God help us if any of her supporters learn how to read.
heeeeeeeeeeeeee

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Where the Riled Things Are
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorRon Paul Interview