The Node

Busy this week so far

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 19:42:54 GMT

Though it should be covered due to the four stories posted on Sunday. I've been working on my uncle's truck to get the clutch fixed, which is done but now I have to stick the drive shaft back into the transmission. Comical momentary thought, ever notice in the movies when they cut someone's brake line for their car it's a rubber hose? Brake lines are metal tubes, not hoses, and there's four of them. You'd think someone would speak up and say "Uh director dude, that's not the brake line," but I guess not. Just goes to show how few Hollywood writers have actually worked on their car, fucking pussies.

Ever wonder?

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 21:30:26 GMT

Ever wonder when you hear the evangelicals speaking from their pulpits they almost always quote the Old Testament? Here's why:

Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Can't really spread a message of hate with Christians running around thinking "If this person were Jesus, how would I treat him" now can you? So here's what you should do if these assholes are out protesting at a gay person's funeral or some other dispicable act holding up their signs which say "God hates fags," copy and pasted the following into your word processor and then print it out. After you print it out, go down to the protest site and just read it, or memorize it, or make your own variation.

Hi guys, I'd like to chat with you for a second. I want to read a passage from the Bible if that's ok with you. From the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-46.

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
------------------------

Now guys, I ask you one simple question, is this how you would treat Jesus? Would you be out picketing him with signs that read "God hates you?" Would you be at the foot of the cross with signs that say "He's burning in hell?" Are these things you would do to Christ? If not, well, too late, you just did.

I'd do this myself but I live in a pretty liberal town so it's difficult to find that kind of stupidity here. I also don't ask you to do this for me, but for the families of the people these assholes hurt by staging their protests. Remember, they have a right to spew whatever bullshit they want, but you also have the right to talk back, make use of it and shut them up with their own beliefs. Oh and take a Bible with you just in case they think you're lying.

New Tag = New Type of Entry

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 15:25:31 GMT

I'm adding a new tag to cover a new section I want to add. It has to do with last night's MMOG post, game ideas. I've been designing video games since Mortal Kombat originally came out. My friend Adrian and I completely designed a new Mortal Kombat entry, we had new characters, new moves, new fatalities, the whole works. We even wrote a letter to Sega who told us to get in contact with Midway who we then sent our rough draft. We never got a letter back from Midway, but it was nice getting one from Sega at least. It actually started before that with something completely unrelated. When I was six we moved to Knoxville and had to go apartment hunting. Each place gave you this little pamphlet which had an image of the layout of the apartment, I loved these things for some reason and ended up designing house and apartment floor plans.

So I'll be posting some game ideas from time to time, mostly for me so I have a place to keep them, but I'll also post them in hope that someone in the industry will find them and actually use them. I don't care about royalties, I just want to see them come to life so I can play them.

New tag = "game design"

Original eh?

On the topic of Massively Multiplayer Online Games

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 02:17:17 GMT

This is a great write up of a recent games conference for MMOGs, specifically the last panel which was more like a rant. The moderator of the rant, Gordon Walton, had this to say about balance in MMOGs, “This whole balance thing is a retarded idea. Balance is a theory. There’s fun in the imbalance quite often. There’s gameplay and fun in the inbalance.” This is such a true statement it's not even funny, I know of one MMO which became shitty at launch because of last minute balances that fucked up alot of fun that was had in beta.

The MMO I'm refering to is the only MMO I've ever played, Planetside. Planetside had an ingenius idea, an MMO First Person Shooter with some RPG elements thrown in. In beta it was awesome, the weapons were huge and powerful and you killed a shitload of people. You had to team up in squads just so you could find a ride to the battle, atleast at first until you could get your own ride. Due to this battles were huge and by huge I mean thousands of people in one battle alone. Imagine that, imagine Unreal Tournament with thousands of people, half of them defending a fort, the other half laying siege. The most exhilerating thing was getting into the dropship and dropping inside a base right on top of it with your squad and being completely surrounded blowing people away on the drop down. It was straight out of Starship Troopers and you could play for hours.

Then they fucked it up by listening to the whiners. The whiners complained the shotgun was too powerful at close range, HELLO IT'S A FUCKING SHOTGUN, so they nerfed it and made it pretty much useless. Then the whiners complained about one of the battlesuits being too powerful because it mowed down infantry too well with it's dual cycling chain guns, do I even need to comment on how stupid that is to whine about not being able to stand up to a mech with dual chain guns completely alone? Imagine if the Taliban came to the US to complain to our military, "Hey, you guys have certain weapons one of our guys can't face off equally against, nerf them please." I blame the stupid RPG players who were expecting more dice rolling. Then they destroyed the whole squad feeling, one of the great things about the game was that you had to meet people so you could be of use and get to the fight, like in a real military but oh no, this wasn't good for the loners, no they had to ruin it by bitching and convincing the devs to keep a sky launch function which allowed them to drop from base to anywhere on the planet. Hey again, you want a quick fight and don't want to have to travel to a fight and get your team strategy together, great, go play fucking Unreal Tournament.

Ultimately I stopped playing after a few months, the changes were too many and too shitty. They started out with the best aspects of an FPS and an RPG and within three months flipped it and adopted the worst aspects. So here are the truths I've noticed that you need to make a great and fun MMOFPS.

First up, all weapons will be as powerful as they should be. If there's a battle suit with two chainguns it had better act like it and it had better take an entire squad to take it down, not one fucker with a few grenades. Likewise, a shotgun should be great for close range action, and by great I mean if I shoot you in the fucking head with one shot from it, you're fucking dead, end of story. Instead of making completely balanced weapons, make imbalanced weapons and imbalanced combat areas! Make weapons like they are in the real world, each one is better for a specific purpose! The battle field shotgun was designed for trench warfare, you make it across, jump in the German trench, and start unloading in a very narrow area getting maximum kill effect, that is how it should be! Likewise that shotgun should be practically worthless in an open field because you're picked off by the guy with an assault rifle before you can get close enough to use it. That is how you balance weapons, you give them a purpose. Yes I know some people just love a particular type of gun, but make them deal with it or specialize in the area where their gun is most effective.

Second, no ring of fucking fire! Yes I know that's supposed to give weaker players, in other words RPG players, a chance but how can they get better if they're coddled? If my reticule is center on a dude I don't want to see my bullets fly past him entirely, period. I had better miss my shot because my mouse slipped. Now a reticule that gets larger because it's simulating kickback, that's fine, I have no problem with that, that's legit and forces people to fire in bursts rather than full auto like the real world, something like in the Battlefield games. However again, that doesn't mean my first shot should miss entirely due to a ring of fire. If you're going to be an MMOFPS, then be an MMOFPS, let the RPG kiddies get used to it or quit, we don't need them.

Third, make squad combat necessary. If the weapons are done right this shouldn't be much of an issue because going off on your own would quickly become a suicide mission unless you're doing some deep in enemy territory type shit, as it should be. There's no such thing as Rambo in real life, it's cool for a stand alone FPS, but in an MMO that's supposed to simulate huge battles across a huge planet, Rambo just doesn't cut it, sorry. Now if dude wants to get his own vehicle and drive off on his own, fine, who cares, but don't facilitate him by giving him a way to jump right into combat. I say this because it becomes almost impossible to get a squad together when there's no one in base because they've all just teleported to battle. Also vehicles become practically useless except for the heavy battle vehicles. Support vehicles get left in the dust though, this shouldn't be the case! Remember that awesome tactic I mentioned about Planetside where you'd drop into a base from the air? The only people you saw using it by the time the first expansion came out were vets from the beta who were still around because all the n00bs just warped straight to the fight. Remember this, squad tactics make cool tactics, zerging is not cool.

Fourth, there has to be an end game. Yeah slugging it out day after day is fun... for awhile. Then it just becomes old because it doesn't serve a purpose. Thus you have one server which is strictly for continually slugging it out, all the rest have an end game. Using Planetside as an example, you have a set time when you start the next game, say 8PM EST, the game keeps going until one side remains and has taken over the entire planet. Once this happens the game resets and will be a slug it out server until the next time 8PM EST comes around and it resets starting the game over. At the end of the month you have a score card which announces which team won the most revolutions in the month, thus giving them another end game/purpose. Same thing for the year. You also give the winning side a bonus, like a new weapon, character class, vehicle, what have you. Not something that's completely uber but something that's worth fighting for. This also creates a cool way of introducing new content to keep the game fresh. Just keep it in mind, gamers are normal people, they like to fight, if there's a reason to fight, give them one.

Fifth, if you add new areas in an expansion, give them a purpose. Yes, people who have the expansion are going to have an advantage, all the more reason for those who don't have it to get it! Planetside's first expansion introduced caves that had pretty much no purpose so hardly anyone got the expansion, don't make this same mistake! There needs to be a tactical reason for the new areas and a purpose to the end game, otherwise they go unused! The expansion for Planetside had one great quality and that was the Flail, an artillery vehicle which could shoot huge shells from far off and kill lots of people who were clumped together, as artillery should, but then, like the other weapons, they nerfed it and killed any reason to go down into the caves.

So in closing what you need is realism, strategy, and a point, these three things make an MMOFPS fun, if you have the opposite, fantasy, zerging, and pointless, you get an annoying game which becomes boring quickly. Also don't misunderstand what I mean by realism, fantasy is ok when you're dealing with the story and such but it should also be realistic, read the first point to see what I mean. Hopefully someone will see this and make it a reality, Planetside would've been awesome had they followed these three truths. *crosses fingers*

New name, new look, same great flavor!

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 16:31:35 GMT

If you came here expecting "Sengoku Jidai" you're no doubt wondering if you're in the same place. Well you are. I'm in the midst of a bunch of personal changes and thought I'd redesign the ole blog as well. The dark green was getting depressing, so much so I loathed stopping by to update it, funny how colors can do that. Anywho some updates.

My uncle, Conceptual Guerilla, is relaunching his site with a new format and he's hired alot of his forum visitors to be authors for it, including me, though I still have no clue what I'm going to talk about. The guys on his forums are extremely smart and know alot, and they each have different interests so every section should be well written and well researched, which is good for his site but for me, ehhh not so much. I'm more of a "do it all" person, which means I have a good basic knowledge on most subjects and can tell you how they all interconnect and work together but I'm no expert when it comes to individual topics. I also like writing on what I see, and that's usually how people behave and how things interconnect. I'm good with systems (thus the new blog subtitle!) so I don't know how I can work that in for CG's site, any suggestions?

On the personal front, I had the conversation I've been waiting to have with the ole man for years, and I'm extremely satisfied. The most important thing was that he admitted he was a fuck up and that I had it hard. The next important thing was finally seeing how much he really doesn't know about me, it was like taking a weight off my shoulders because I no longer feel his gaze on me, it's like he's looking at someone else entirely. It's amazing how that one little feeling fucked with me for over 20 years and I won't say I'm completely better, but my dealings with people in the real world are less stressful and I feel more confident now. I no longer mumble my words when speaking to someone.

Another thing, this is going to sound funny coming from me for those of you who know me, but how you present yourself really does affect how you feel about yourself. I used to have my hair down to the middle of my back but I got it cut short recently so, one, my hair on top would fill out, and two, I can spike it up once it gets longer and fuller. The long hair just had to go, it was no longer a symbol of rebellion but a symbol of depression and not caring enough about myself, the thinning on top didn't help any either.

So big changes all around and I'm still working at it. I've got a number of political/cultural pieces I've been working on for the past two months but haven't finished which I'll probably finish and put up here some time soon. Though I'll probably release one per day.

Without further adieu, welcome to The Node!

I Fucking Told Y'all

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 13:43:33 GMT

What have I been saying for the past 9 months? I've been saying the left needs to get over it's anti-Christ attitude and start pointing out the hypocrisy in the right's policy which they claim to be "Christian" if we want to win over the majority of people in this country. I've been saying that we will continue to lose as long as we're seen as the anti-Christs.

I was right.

Poll: Fewer See Dems As Religion-Friendly

By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer

August 30,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Democrats' efforts to improve their image with religious voters after the 2004 presidential election appear to be getting off to a bumpy start.

Fewer people see Democrats as friendly to religion now than felt that way a year ago, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

That number has dropped from 40 percent in August 2004 who thought the Democrats were friendly to religion to 29 percent now.

"The change is seen across all groups," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center, which conducted the poll for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

After Democrats fared poorly with religious voters in the 2004 election, the Democratic National Committee initiated numerous efforts to strengthen its standing with religious voters.

The DNC hired someone to coordinate religious outreach, encouraged state parties to work more closely with the religious community, and had Chairman Howard Dean meet with clergy and others in the religious community during his travels around the country.

"We're at the beginning," said Democratic spokeswoman Karen Finney, who said religious voters share many of the values of the Democratic Party. "But we know we need to do a better job of talking about our values in a way that people see we share their values."

More than half of those polled, 55 percent, said the Republican Party is friendly to religion.

A majority of political independents, 54 percent, said religious conservatives have too much influence over the GOP. Fewer than half of independents said those who are not religious have too much impact on the Democratic Party.

The poll of 2,000 adults was conducted July 7-17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

So now that we have 71% of the country, which is dangerously close to the number of Christians in this country (78%), that believe we're hostile to their religious beliefs do you feel empowered? Are you fucking people trying to lose? What exactly do you hope to accomplish by attacking people's religious beliefs? Ask yourselves these questions and get back to those of us who want to show how hypocritical it is for someone to be a Christian and a Republican when you're ready to really take the fight to the fundamentalists.

Cartoon of the Day: Apathy

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 02:04:31 GMT

http://www.thirdframestudios.com/adgame/stripgen/view.php?id=22499

This comic strip generator is great.

I'm so tired

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 04:09:59 GMT

I'm tired of war
I'm tired of peace
I'm tired of hypocrisy
I'm tired of clarity
I'm tired of fear
I'm tired of courage
I'm tired of doubt
I'm tired of hope
I'm tired of narcissism
I'm tired of selflessness
I'm tired of lies
I'm tired of truth
I'm tired of hate
I'm tired of love
I'm tired of poverty
I'm tired of wealth
I'm tired of evil
I'm tired of good
I'm tired of ignorance
I'm tired of enlightenment
I'm tired of extremitiy
I'm tired of balance

I'm tired of not being able to say what I feel all in the name of "respect." I'm tired of people who preach free speech only to turn around and stop you from saying what you want to say because it's "rude." I'm tired of people who preach nothing but personal responsibility as if the person doing the damage has no responsibility for the damage they have done. I'm tired of people who preach the opposite and expect the government to do everything for them and protect them from everything. I'm tired of liberals and I'm tired of conservatives. I'm tired of greens and libertarians and independents and communists and anarchists and fascists. I'm tired of fundamentalists, be they Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, or atheist. I'm tired of overly macho straight men and flamboyant gay men/women. I'm tired of preps and goths. I'm tired of trying to impress people. I'm tired of expectation. I'm so FUCKING tired of it all. I'm tired of being angry at stupidity and hypocrisy. I'm tired of pitying the disadvantaged. I'm tired of hating the super wealthy. I'm tired of having my hopes lifted only to be broken. I'm tired of my heart breaking.

The world is one big hypocrisy, the only peace, the only thing that makes sense, the only thing that won't make you rip your hair out is fantasy. The hope that there's something better out there, that eventually all of the confusion, all of the conflict will at some point end. This is the fantasy, this is the thing we all delude ourselves with. Whether you believe it can be found in the afterlife or some future generation of the world, we all believe in this fantasy. We believe it to deal with our own mortality, to believe that our life is not a waste, to believe that we are nothing more than a passing fart on the threads of time. We have very little time and we spend most of it making other people miserable to help alleviate our own pains of knowing that one day we will be dead and that's it.

My uncle likes pointing out a little seemingly contradictory part in the Bible to make Christians spin their wheels. He says "What does God say to Eve about the tree of knowledge? He says not to eat from it or she will surely die. Now what does Satan/the serpent say? He says she will gain the knowledge of good and evil and become more like God. Eve didn't die did she, so who told the truth?" My uncle says this is a contradiction, and at first you'd think so but now I don't agree, I think both God and Satan are right. We did gain the knowledge of good and evil, and this knowledge has killed us. Not physically but spiritually, it has poisoned our souls, it has made us hollow shells of vileness. You either ignore it living in the fantasy of there being something better out there or you deal with it head on and let it drive you insane, either way your soul is dead. Fucked if you do, fucked if you don't.

This is the curse that our deities and nature have bestowed on us, as well as our gift. We are able to see the beauty of the mundane, we are able to appreciate it now more fully because of our short lives, but we choose not to. We choose not to love and to be rational, we choose to fight, to always struggle, to keep our fantasy of the "perfect world" instead of enjoying the world we live in now.

I'm tired of fantasy, it only brings about destruction.

The Left Needs to Put a Leash on the Secularists

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 11:53:02 GMT

I read this article on Salon.com awhile ago entitled "Getting Religion" and had kicked it around in my head for a couple of days but soon forgot about it. Since I woke up early this morning I decided to snoop around Salon and remembered the article so I decided to see if there were any letters in response. Sure enough there were, and, thankfully, most of them were against the opinion of the author, save one. Since it's a little late to send a letter to the editor in response to this article I'll just comment on it here, I need an entry for today anyway. So consider this also...

A Letter to the Editor of Salon.com in Response to Francess Kissling's "Getting Religion"

Unlike many of my fellow secularists I am not spiritually bankrupt. While the closest thing to my spiritual beliefs is Buddhism I make no claim on a particular religion, some say I'm an atheist, others an agnostic, and the ignorant claim I'm a right wing Christian covert operative. The latter are the people who are most damaging for the left, as are many other secularists who can't speak of Christianity without becoming egomaniacally elitist that they're some how better than Christians because they don't believe in an invisible man. How would I know? I was one of them.

While I'm still a secularist who believes in the seperation of church and state, over time I've learned that religion has it's place in politics to appeal to people's better nature, as well as their most vile, but the good usually wins out, when it can be heard. The problem is the left refuses to allow the good to be heard. Case in point in response to a female senator's proclamation "What I want to do is get on the floor of the Senate and ask, 'What would Jesus do about the budget? What would Jesus do about poor children? What would Jesus do about healthcare?'" Francess said "What I wanted to respond was that the floor of the U.S. Senate is not the place to invoke Jesus Christ." Her excuse for this is because she doesn't want to offend the Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists, the atheists, etc. Francess, let me give you some advice, stop worrying about who will be offended, infact, most people don't like political correctness and hate being talked down to and treated as if they're weak. That's what's most condescending for most people.

However Francess you do have a point, but at the sametime you don't. There's a mighty big difference between "What Would Jesus Do" and "Jesus Says To Do", one does not demand that Jesus be listened to and the other does. There's a big difference there. The Senator in question could just as easily add Buddha, Muhammed, Yahweh, etc in place of Jesus or right alongside him, but you ignore this point because "the hair on your neck stood up." Shall I tell you why? Because people like you don't have a problem with every religion, only Christianity. You won't find many "atheists" who will denounce the faiths of Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, Jews, etc, but they're on Christians like white on rice. "Atheist" or "secularist" is not a proper name for those of you with this problem, "Anti-Christian" is far more fitting, and you make the rest of us look bad.

Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr was alive today and said what he said back in the 50s and 60s, y'all would shit a brick and try to silence him. "No we wouldn't!" The fuck you wouldn't, because there are many of us who say similar things to MLK that you fuckers sneer down at. I've seen Christian Progressives degraded and insulted simply because they're Christian and don't agree with the methods of the Anti-Christians. I've seen secularists who say that we should be understanding of the Christians and use their own beliefs to further our cause get personally attacked by the Anti-Christians. And for what reason? Prejudice and bigotry, reactionary forces created in response to reactionary forces, and the rest of us get caught in the middle.

Are there radical evangelicals who pay lip-service to the Christian belief and are total assholes? Yes there are, but they're a minority, so why is the secular left taking the position of lumping all Christians into the same boat? We're supposed to be the side of understanding but in the case of Christianity we attack it, ignorantly, and wonder why we do so bad at the polls. When is the left going to realize that we are in Christ's image, that every core belief we hold is spawned from our progressive fore fathers who held similar beliefs to Christ? Beliefs like every man's relationship with God is his own and only he can decide what that relationship is, beliefs like "let Ceasar's be Ceasar's and God's be God's" (thus the first seperation of church and state spoken by Christ), beliefs like helping the poor, the sick, the homeless, the weak, where do you think all that shit came from? It came from religion, and not just Christianity, but most religions.

I've been called an enemy of the left because I have no qualms with pointing out the hypocrisy of my fellow leftists, particulary the anti-Christians. They say I must be a right wing operative because I "attack" my allies, apparently they don't see the hypocrisy in the fact that they continually attack and degrade Christian Progressives and the most influential progressive of his day, Jesus Christ. If my sin is defending progressives from bigots in progressive clothing, if this makes me a traitor to the left, I gladly await my stay in hell.

I'd rather be a traitor to this facade than an enabler.

Prison's a Breeze

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:46:14 GMT

Ya know, a couple years ago you could have heard me saying "The prison system is too soft, we're paying shitloads of tax money to allow these people to eat regularly, sleep, and watch TV all day." However, now that I have an uncle in the prison system and I got a taste of what it's like in there having visited him this past weekend, I have to say, I was wrong... partly.

To be sure, I still say we have far too many people in the prison system, we have the highest percentage of people in prison in the entire world, including China which is supposed to be a more fascist state than the US. Most people in prison are there due to drug related charges, of course that wouldn't be so if drugs were legalized and the government stopped telling us what we can and can't do with our own bodies. When the prisons get full do they release some people with these bullshit charges? Nah, they just build more prisons! There's alot of money to be made off the prison system so it profits alot of people for there to be alot of people in jail, but I digress, that's not the injustice I want to focus on today.

"The prison system is too soft" is not an uncommon argument to hear from hardliners on the right, and some on the left, but ya know, it's bullshit. My uncle is currently in minimum security, remember that because you have to keep in perspective that everything I'm about to say goes on in the supposedly less restrictive level of the prison system. When I arrive at the prison (which only deals with medium security and below) I immediately notice the ten foot or so fence with rows of razor wire on the entire fence, on the bottom it's more like a triangle with three rows on the bottom level, two rows on the next level up, and then evens out at one row per level all the way to the top. It's pretty clear you are not getting anywhere near that fence, and that's if you get over the inner fence which has razor wire on the top third or so of the fence. I later learned that in the eight foot gap between the two fences there's a truck which routinely makes it rounds and sensors buried in the ground. So no digging out and no climbing the fence, you're in there.

I finish my smoke and walk into the prison once the family infront of me walks out and the guard waves me in. I have to empty my pockets and walk through a metal detector. I tell the guy my uncle's name and give my name because you have to be approved to see him before you even go to the prison which took over 3 months to get done. Everything clears so the guy starts inspecting my stuff and tells me I can't take my Zippo in and I'll have to leave it there. I asked him if the unopen pack of smokes is alright and he says yeah and everything else is cool too. Then he takes me into a room, shuts the door, and frisks me, but he could've strip searched me if he wanted to (it's on the form you fill out for visitation rights that they hold the option to). I'm clean so he leads me back out to the lobby where they take my picture for future reference. Then, and this shocked the hell out of me, they have a hand-scanner for taking your hand print. I had to stick my hand in the scanner three times for a proper reading and then I was given a little card with my visitor pin number (more on this later). OK all of the preliminary stuff done so this young black girl, had to be my age, escorts me through a number of secured doors which we have to be buzzed through one at a time. Then she leads me through this picnic area outside and into the prison wing which is a long straight tube with all of the prison dorms attached to either side but the visiting room is right in the front so we didn't see any of the dorms.

Once in the visiting room they have all these shitty folding tables and uncomfortable chairs set up. The girl I'm with hands a guard in there a piece of paper with my pic and my uncle's pic and the guard tells me to sit at this small table against the wall looking out the window (not much of a view, but better than staring at the wall). This whole process has taken about 15 minutes. I wait for about 30 minutes until my uncle comes in, apparently he was taking a nap so it took him a little while to get up there. It's been over four months since I last saw him and almost two years since we had any physical contact or something not between us with someone listening in so I hug him and we sit down. First I ask for and get the truth about the night he was arrested, which I don't want to get into at this point in time, then I ask him what's it like in the clink. Now understand in all of his letters he's told us how professional everything is and stuff that just sounded a little too easy, well that all went out the window. He said to read his letters and ad "not" infront of all the shit like that.

He says that you catch alot of humiliation and degradation the first few months or so you're in there because the guards don't know you and don't know if you're going to cause any trouble so any chance they get to put a boot in your ass they take it. If you're anything less than polite they'll give you shit. To illustrate what I mean, when we went out for a smoke break once my uncle took a drink outside with him when he wasn't allowed to, the cop called his name and nodded his head back towards the door, my uncle said "Yes sir, sorry sir" and took the drink back inside. Later he told me "Now imagine if I had said no to that guard. First he would insist that I take it back inside and if I still said no he would've beaten me over the head with his baton, then they'd throw me in the box (commonly known as the "hole") for awhile, and give me a year or more of close management." Close management is solitary confinement. All that over a fucking drink. Oh yeah and get this, you'll get six months in the box for horse playing, you only get three months for fighting. So I asked him more, "well other than that what's it like in the dorm?"

There are many dorms going off the long tube which I mentioned before, his is a smaller dorm that holds about 60 people and they all sleep on bunks that have lockers for their stuff. There's no air conditioning. Imagine that, being in a cement box in the south during the middle of summer with no air conditioning. Now also imagine 60 other hot and smelly sweaty guys in there with you, the funk is unimaginable. So what about TV? It's useless, they have the sound jacked all the way up to the point that you can't hear anything even when you're right underneath it. Not to mention the bass is so loud that you feel it through out your entire body and you never get used to it so the TV becomes a tool of psychological torture rather than a break from the situation you're in. You are constantly reminded where you are at all times and you're broken down until there's no hope left in you whatsoever and it's exactly the same every fucking day, what we call "Groundhog's Day." Also remember that this is minimum security prison.

I've never seen a man so happy to have an ultra light menthol cigarette and air conditioning in my life, you know it's bad when you see a man's eyes light up as if he were entering heaven over things we take for granted.

We talked for over four hours when they yelled that it was time to wrap it up. They seperated us into two lines, visitors and prisoners, but before my uncle got in line I asked him "So was it better than Groundhog's Day?" Again his eyes lit up and he gave a simple "yeah" that was heart breaking. I gave him one final wave while they escorted us out back to the door we came in from. Each visitor had to enter their visitor pin number and then place their hand in the scanner for ID verification before they were buzzed through. Once through I picked up my license and went outside to wait for my ride.

Anyone who wants to say that the death penalty is necessary to punish someone is full of shit. I'd like to see them last a month in prison and come back out saying the death penalty is still necessary. However, I also see now why alot of ex-cons are not reformed like they're supposed to be. Prison is a place to learn how to be a hardass with discipline, it's boot camp for criminals and is even refered to as "camp" by many. How can we expect them to come back into society and be decent citizens when we're giving them the training to be better criminals and teaching them that with certain amounts of power you can get away with anything?

Dedicated to both my uncles, the one who's confined to this world and the one who's not.

"We get four kids a day calling in contemplating suicide."

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:49:51 GMT

I expect alot of my readers aren't heavily into the politics side of gaming like I am but if you've been reading my blog lately you at least know about the Hot Coffee "controversy." Well for the past couple of weeks there's been another, smaller, controversy over another Rockstar game entitled "Bully." Naturally the name alone has anti-bully groups all in an uproar saying it promotes bullying and all of that reactionary bullshit, but here's the thing, the game's not even out yet! In fact all of the information anyone has on it so far are press releases from Rockstar which paint an image vastly different than what these anti-bully groups are espousing. In "Bully" you are not the bully, in fact, you're the opposite, you're the kid being picked on and your job is to get even. That sounds like every picked on kid's wet dream to me.

The most vocal group so far has been the charity Bullying Online which is like a support line for kids who need someone to talk to about being bullied which is fine and all but this group shouldn't exist. Their whole platform is based on the extermination of bullying, good luck guys, you might get it out of schools but those kids are going to be in for a real surprise when they get into the real world and find a boss who simply doesn't like them or an apartment manager or a neighbor or a whole slew of people who just want to make their lives difficult. Now I'm not saying this makes bullying alright, I'm saying it's simply a fact of life and it's never going to change. The percieved strong pick on the percieved weak to keep the weak under control, that's just how it is. The only way you can break the mold is by standing up to those harassing you, bullies do not mix it up with the strong, that's why they're bullies.

Out of all the reasons I've contemplated suicide, being picked on has never been one of them. One reason being that I'll put up with alot and blow alot of shit off, the second reason is that once you cross that line which gets me interested I'll make it known real quick that you don't want to fuck with me. To give an example, the first year I was part of the Academic Decathlon my team mates would give me abunch of shit about my smoking, at first it wasn't any different than any other bullshit I caught from other non-smokers but then they also started jabbing at my race (I was the only white kid in the class). For awhile it was just little jabs here, little jabs there, typical friends poking fun at each other type shit but then it became an every day thing and it just became old and offensive. The final straw was coming in late one day to find a big black ink spot on the floor near the trash can where the teacher had dropped the printer cartridge, that had nothing to do with me and wasn't offensive. Although not a minute after walking through the door and noticing the spot I also noticed that everyone, including the teacher, had these big shit eating grins on their faces when they looked at me, naturally I was like "What the fuck are you smiling about." Apparently one of my teammates had made the comment "Oh look, Toshiro sneezed there", that was it, and the girl sitting across from me who was laughing with the rest of the class, noticing my disgust for the comment, said "Oh cmon it's just a joke." My response? "Yeah, it's also the type of shit which causes things like Columbine to happen." Boom, the room went immediately silent with the exception of the girl across from me going pale white saying "That's not funny man."

My teacher whipped me from the room and started laying into me about how he could have me expelled for a comment like that. I shrugged and said "Hey, I put up with racism and cracks about my smoking every fucking day and never say a word, and now you're here telling me I could be expelled for stating a simple fact?" My teacher wasn't stupid though, he knew what I was doing with that "simple fact," I was making a threat without actually making a threat, but it worked, they cooled down on the racist jokes and the comments about my smoking. The point being, if you don't make it clear that there are consequences to the bully's actions, they'll continue to bully you. Running away, ignoring it, or snitching to the teacher only make it worse, the latter could find your ass severly beaten somewhere where the school has no jurisdiction. I don't know what it's like in other parts of the world but I'm sure it's not that different from the schools here.

Hell, our politicians are the same way. Do you really think Dubya and the other scumfucks could get away with even a quarter of the shit that they do if gun sales suddenly went up and the general populace rattled their sabres from time to time? Fuck no. There are a little over a million people serving in the military around the world, there are over 270 million Americans, if just one percent, 2.7 million, of Americans rattled their sabres, politicians would be scared shitless. The last thing they want is a mob of nearly three million people well armed and looking for blood. Watch how quickly we get things like national health care and a minimum living wage. All of that "We have to worry about the shareholders" bullshit will fly out the fucking window. Cozing up to lunatic fringe groups like the Religious Right, out the fucking window. Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the lying snakes who plague "political" TV, out the fucking window, infact they'll jump out. These people are cowards and the moment you illustrate that their harassment has gone too far their tune will change mighty quick.

People, you can not run from bullies, you can only face them and deal with them. The question is, when is enough enough?

Kids are smart little bastards

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 07:07:45 GMT

Don't know how many of you remember March 24, 1998 or it's relevance but it was the day of one of the worst school shootings in the late 90s with a kill count of five and eleven injured. Columbine wouldn't come for another full year. As reported by GamePolitics, Mitchell Johnson, the oldest of the two shooters (at the ripe old age of 13 at the time) is being released on Thursday now that he's reached the age of 21, alot of people are bothered by this, and surprisingly so am I. It's not really the fact that they shot up their school that bothers me, I mean if it were the Columbine two I wouldn't be so concerned, but this kid, he's a killer.

I remember when this shooting took place, I too was 13 at the time, and the reason I remember it is due to how smart these two's plan was. They didn't just go to school and start randomly shooting at people like the Columbine two, no these two actually used what could be called a "smart tactic." Now before you get all ruffled up I'm not saying what they did was smart, I'm saying how they did it was. Here's what they did, they set their position up right infront of one of the school doors, right where they knew people would come out during a fire alarm, they or a third party pulled the fire alarm to the school and when the people came walking out they open fired. It was like a conveyor belt just feeding them victims while they shot 27 rounds into the door way until the people in the back got wise and started running back into the building. Before it was all over they killed one teacher, four of their female peers, and wounded eleven others.

Wow. Seriously, wow. They used a tactic which would allow maximum damage with the guns that they had and their ability to fire them, I don't care what anyone says, that's fucking smart, and dangerous. This fucking smart kid is now going to be released within four days, is he truly cured? Has spending seven years in a juvenile prison really done what it's supposed to? The state of Arkansas could be releasing a smart, efficient, and now more mature killer, I hope I'm wrong.

Something more frightening than Hot Coffee

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 09:26:23 GMT

Through out the past month or so there's been a huge uproar over the mini-sex game which can be unlocked in GTA San Andreas by a simple mod which edits the censor code. People were throwing a fit as if God were ready to come down and smite us bringing with him the end of days. The mainstream news media naturally blew up the situation and made it worse than it was. The original sex minigame put in by Rockstar wasn't completed, as can be witnessed by the fact that both CJ and his girlfriends were fully clothed during these moments. It was like watching an episode of the OC but less annoying and more clothes. This isn't the clip the media showed though, the clip they showed was of CJ fully clothed whilst his girlfriend Denise was butt-ass naked, which was not a feature of Rockstar's original game. In fact if you read the version release notes of the Hot Coffee the second or third version release added nudity to the scene. So what's Rockstar guilty of? Scenes of two fully clothed people simulating sex, I've seen hotter shit on FOX.

Groups like the Peaceholics, an illogical and ignorant but well meaning non-profit group in Washington D.C., say Rockstar is guilty of inciting kids into a life of crime and they use the fact that car jackings and insurance premiums have risen in their city. I guess they never considered the fact that people are getting poorer under this administration and have to resort to crime to eat. Either way they say Rockstar, the gaming industry in general, is turning their children into professional criminals. This is nothing new, every time some new media comes out the ignorant get their panties all in a wad and blame the entertainment industry. They've bitched about music since the early 20th century, then it was movies, then it was more music,then comics, then it was TV, music again, and now video games. They all say the samething, such and such is making my kids deviants. Here's a thought, maybe your kid was a deviant to begin with.

One of the big talking points amongst pro-game industry enthusiasts is "Why are these people in the minority then? Why are the vast majority of gamers not going out and committing these crimes?" I can tell you why. There's a difference between having the means to do something and having the will to do it. The means is easy, for example if I wanted to make a bomb and start terrorizing my city I could use household chemicals to do the job, but why don't I? Because I don't have the will to. Likewise, after I've played GTA or Half-Life or Manhunt for a little while I do not have the will to go out and do what I saw in those games. So here's the scary thing, why do these minority of kids have the will to do these things? This is the question no one's asking. Why do these kids go out and jack cars and beat up people when the majority of their fellow gamers don't have the same will to do so? This tells me there's something wrong with the kid before they played the game, not after.

This is a dangerous line of questioning in the political world and, and I REALLY hate to say this but, George W Bush has been the only person to have the balls to say what the real issue is, lack of parenting. Now "lack of parenting" is a very broad term, it not only covers things like abuse and blatant neglect but it also covers inadvertant neglect, like the parent(s) who simply don't have the time to be parents because they're having to work long hours just to keep their heads above water. This is how it's dangerous politically unless you're very careful with how you word it. There are bad parents out there, but there are also parents who mean well but can't catch a break and it's not fair to them to be lumped in with the genuinely bad parents. Sadly this is what happens and when something bad like the shootings in Alabama (see GamePolitics or my Friends section) happens the fingers are naturally pointed at the parents asking them why they didn't have more control over their kids. Instead of responding with "Well what the fuck do you expect, we're working our asses off just to get food on the table and keep a roof over our heads" they respond with shifting the blame to some easily demonized source, in this case it's GTA and other video games (Note, this is not the case with the current trial in Alabama, the father of the teen was abusive).

So how do we solve this problem? Well for one you're never going to get rid of bad parents, they're out there and there's nothing anyone can do about it so to worry about them beyond arresting them for child abuse is pointless. Bad parents are being dealt with the only they can be. However, in the case of well meaning parents it's all about politics. Demand of your representatives that every person in the country have healthcare. Demand that they put a stop to our high paying jobs being sent overseas. Demand that they increase funding into alternative fuel sources and get us off expensive gas (which will not only lower traveling expenses but also the cost of foods and other goods). Demand that they overturn the Bush taxcuts which put the tax burden on the backs of the middle class. Demand that they overturn the recent bit of legislation which doesn't allow people to declare bankruptcy on their credit card debts. Demand that they instate a minimum living wage. Demand that they make the wealthiest people in the country pay their fair share instead of making the poor and middle class pay it for them.

Demand that they give the working and middle classes room to breathe and the ability to prosper, demand the American Dream back!

Jack Thompson is a liar and a pussy.

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 10:53:21 GMT

Anyone who frequents GameSpot for gaming news knows that they have a (mostly) weekly editorial called "Rumor Control." Like the name says it deals with rumors in regards to the game industry. Today's was interesting, to say the least, when I read Rumor 2, supplied below.

"RUMOR #2: The FBI is investigating death threats e-mailed to Florida attorney and feisty game industry critic Jack Thompson.

Source: E-mails threatening great bodily harm forwarded to this and other publications by the attorney himself, as well as a Thompson-penned plea to Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman (sent to their offices and media outlets, including GameSpot) wherein Thompson asks for "help your respective offices could give me in persuading the FBI to act in response to these threats."

The official story: "People are threatening to kill me." And: "The FBI is all over these." --Jack Thompson. "No comment." --FBI spokesperson, North Miami Beach Division.

What we heard: Among the dozens (and dozens) of unsolicited e-mails this Web site has received from attorney Jack Thompson over the past weeks, a handful were singular in nature: they included e-mails purportedly sent to Thompson which contained threats on his life. By anyone's standard, the e-mails sounded dastardly, indeed. One read: "For being a total f***ing ***hole. I think video games or [sic] freaking awesome, and they are my entire life, and for you to insult them, is like telling me my life is totally worthless. For this, sir, I AM GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!!!" [Expletives masked by asterisks.--ed.] Another forwarded to GameSpot from Thompson read: "this is not spam, its [sic] my right as a citizen to send you thousands upon thousands of emails saying the same thing until you die painfully from gun shot wounds." And a third: "Everyone thinks you are insane, hence the name 'Wacko Jacko', which makes you the equivalent of a molester. Therefore you are gay. I hate you, and the world would be a better place if you were brutally murdered." We gasped along with Thompson. When we alerted Thompson that we intended to seek out additional details and verification of his claims from the FBI itself--as to the status of such an investigation and progress being made (the FBI employs trained media specialists for such purposes), Thompson replied with some urgency: "Are you, crazy? ... People are threatening to kill me. Either report what I have said, having been provided the emails, or stop bothering me."

Bogus or not bogus?: With members of the Bar (aka lawyers) compelled to tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth, and an FBI agent who doesn’t overtly deny that an investigation is underway, likely not bogus."

Before I get into their determining of how bogus this story is, lets go over some things. First for those of you who don't know who Jack Thompson is, he's a republican dipshit lawyer down here in Florida (Miami) leading the crusade against video games. He's popular at the moment due to his criticisms, and lies, of the GTA franchise. The guy's a fucking sociopathic liar, it's been reported by numerous gamers who have contacted Jack that his response was short and crude, one being "All gamers should be exterminated." No joke. Now mind you I'm talking about people who have sent Jack very professional emails with no swearing and no personal attacks which certainly deserves more than "You should be exterminated." Just my opinion of course but imagine if you sent your congressman a well written polite letter and you got back "Fuck off you fucking idiot, we'll do what we want," you'd be pretty pissed off. Well actually, they do that anyway they've just mastered the art of auto-response and tickling you while they rape you in the ass but I digress, most people in the professional world act, you know, professional. The fact that Hillary Clinton and other politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are getting involved with this clown is not too astonishing what with wanting to appeal to the "moral heartland" and all (I guess appealing to the spirits of the fore fathers never crosses their minds) is still disgusting none the less.

With that out of the way let's talk about GameSpot's rumor call. "With members of the Bar (aka lawyers) compelled to tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth," I don't know where these guys have been but trusting a lawyer's word is like trusting Satan that he'll get you into Heaven. I mean, lawyers lie for a fucking living, their job is to either put someone in prison or keep their ass out of prison by any means necessary within the court room. Fudge some truth here, have some evidence dismissed there, it's all about getting the jury to see their version of events. That's their job, so, unlike GameSpot, I'm not taking this guy's word based on the fact that he's a lawyer. Oh yeah and there are very few, and I mean very few, lawyers who work for justice. Those lawyers you'll find in non-profit practices who work pro bono or have worked in the State Defense Attorney for years, but guys like Jack with their own practice, it's all about the money. I mean he's a proclaimed lifelong Republican sticking his nose in the ass of the most evil liberal of all (according to the Right) Hillary Clinton. This guy is far from what I would consider a reliable source as far as truth is concerned.

Now look at these emails he was supposedly sent: "For being a total f***ing ***hole. I think video games or [sic] freaking awesome, and they are my entire life, and for you to insult them, is like telling me my life is totally worthless. For this, sir, I AM GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!!!" [Expletives masked by asterisks.--ed.]

Not only does it sound like a Jack Thompson speech, it's also laughably stereotypical. I mean, come on, seriously, this guy's trying to make a career out of making gamers look like unstable addicts and he just happens to get an email supporting his beliefs? Yeah, right, and Adolf really wasn't a bad guy. Next!

"this is not spam, its [sic] my right as a citizen to send you thousands upon thousands of emails saying the same thing until you die painfully from gun shot wounds."

I find this one to be pretty laughable too but I noticed something here, Jack's a shitty lawyer. Now the first "letter" is clearly a direct death threat but this one, show me where the person said "I will kill you" or any variation. It's not there! The person says "until you die painfully from gun shot wounds," that's not a threat! According to the law that is not a threat due to the ambiguity of the language. No wonder you're trying for a political career Jack, you suck in the court room. Next!

"Everyone thinks you are insane, hence the name 'Wacko Jacko', which makes you the equivalent of a molester. Therefore you are gay. I hate you, and the world would be a better place if you were brutally murdered."

This one could be real, infact, it probably is, but again you'll notice there's no death threat. The person says the world would be a better place if Jack were brutally murdered but he never says he is the one that will murder him. Come on Jack, you supposedly know the law, this is Semantics 101!

So what's Jack's response after GameSpot says they want to confirm his allegations? "Are you, crazy? ... People are threatening to kill me. Either report what I have said, having been provided the emails, or stop bothering me." Stop bothering him? Hey dipshit, you emailed them first buddy. This line also stinks of "I'm lying and I don't want you to confirm it." It's pretty clear to me this bullshit is nothing more than a stunt for Jack to further demonize gamers and the game industry.

To GameSpot's credit they did call this one correctly, the rumor was "The FBI is investigating death threats" which is more than likely true, sadly.

So bogus or not bogus?: FBI investigating death threats, not bogus. Jack Thompson's life being in danger, bogus, but knowing Jack's paranoia that all gamers are killers he probably believes it to be not bogus. Gamers sending hollow death threats, probably not bogus knowing the mentality of certain gamers. This being a PR stunt for Jack Thompson, not bogus.

A new friend, sorta

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 09:19:45 GMT

I added another blog to my friends list, this one being by Dennis McCauley who runs GamePolitics. If you have any interest in video/computer games and the political culture surrounding them, Dennis' blog is what you need to read. Top-of-the-shelf reporting by an actual reporter! Hey, who knew that good reporters still existed? Dennis has been a long time video game columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Check it out.

In other news, LiveJournal needs to add a "hungover" emoticon.

What is "Respect?"

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 05:31:02 GMT

It's not uncommon for me to hear from others "You need to be more respectful," and usually I can't see where I've been disrespectful and it's dawned on me why that is. People don't know what the fuck "respect" is. So what exactly is respect? Well the best way to explain it is with the ugly baby analogy, that being if a friend of your's has an ugly baby you don't go "Damn, that's one fuckin' ugly baby," instead you bite your tongue, nod, and smile when your friend's speaking baby talk repeating how "kewwwwwt" the kid is with the occassional "yeah" thrown in for good measure. That's respect because it's something they can't control and saying their kid's ugly serves no other purpose but to hurt their feelings. This isn't how most people think of or use respect though. In reality most people use respect as a form of control, especially when you say something about their behavior which they take offense to. If someone's being a hypocrite and you say as much that's not disrespect, that's called criticism. If someone's lying and you say as much, that's not disrespect, again it's criticism.

Too often people use respect as a means to shield themselves from criticism. Look at Bush and his cronies, whenever there's some negative report against them they come out swinging claiming how disrespectful and tasteless the report is. This same behavior can be found in the left too, Democratic Underground has become infamous for banning anyone who doesn't agree with them completely and justifying it as banning "disrespectful members" or "trolls." Same too for a number of other liberal forums as well as conservative forums (I've been banned from Sean Hannity's forums for simply disagreeing). So why do people do this? It's to continually justify beliefs and behavior which those who disagree with them would conflict with continually. It's about power and living in a fantasy world where you're always right and you have your little squad who comes in and backs you up whenever some n00b with a difference of opinion puts you in your place. If you can't beat the n00b down, well you can just ban him.

The funny thing is that when you get these people in a corner who start demanding respect (rather your loyalty not to criticize them) they are the first to start throwing around childish name calling, or, my favorite, they start claiming that you're immature. Again they say these things because they know most people will clam up because god forbid they look immature and disrespectful, that would be a travesty, especially if they're an egotistical morally elitist liberal. People like me on the other hand don't give a fuck. Yeah ok according to you I'm disrespectul and immature, great, that still doesn't mean you're not a hypocrite, a liar, and an idiot to boot. But hey guess what, instead of getting pissed off at someone's criticism of you why don't you, you know, stop being a hypocrite, a liar, and an idiot? Instead of living in your fantasy world why don't you join the rest of us in reality and pull your head from your ass?

They won't though, not unless they're violently shaken out of it. They're like crack addicts, they're addicted to the fantasy world that they live in, that fantasy for most people is that they are morally superior to others. Show them their white pale lips or the tracks in their arms though and they go into a fit of denial, just like an addict. You need to wake up people, the fantasy land you live in of being in control and superior is destroying your lives, either through your inability to effectively fight those in the higher echelons of society who abuse this addiction or through your farcical idea that you are one of the higher echelons when you're not. You are no better than me, I am no better than you, and at the end of the fucking day we all end up in the same fucking place, six feet under. Deal with it and get over your bullshit notions of "respect."

Was out having more fun

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 03:51:29 GMT

Yup, three weeks of entertaining company.... thank fucking god it's over. I'm so tired I could sleep for another three weeks. Carting my 15 year old cousin around to different clothing stores with her boyfriend was boring and obnoxious to say the least. Not to mention the little fit they threw because we didn't go see "Hustle and Flow" (we saw Land of the Dead instead, did I mention I'm a big living dead fan?).

Anywho, I have a topic in mind but this Valerian herb is kicking my ass and making me tired so I'm just making this a checking in post.

Been Out Having Fun

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 21:43:47 GMT

A cousin's been in town for the past week so naturally we've been going to the beach, the springs, water parks, and all that fun aquatic shit to do in Florida. I'm tired as dog shit and my eyes are Satan red from all of the chlorine and salt they've been exposed to, it's making checking out the hot lifeguards difficult. Oh well, it's at least given me an idea for a summer job next year if the military option doesn't work out.

On a similar topic, college students, by default, should have their licenses ripped up. I'm driving back from the water park today (got my license recently) and I'm not but a few blocks away from home, the SUV infront of me is being slow as shit and I can't see it's brake lights so I decide to change lanes to get around this bitch. We're coming up on an intersection and I look over my shoulder to see if my blind spot is cleared when next thing I know my uncle in the passenger seat yells "WATCH OUT!" I look back ahead and slam on my breaks to find the SUV infront of me just stopped in the middle of the intersection making a left hand turn.

Now normally, that's no big deal, but dick didn't have his fucking blinker on, at all! Not before I turned my head to check my blind spot and not after I slammed on the breaks, and you couldn't see his brake lights for shit because of the glare from the sun due to some dumb ass engineer who put the brake lights way up on the middle of the SUV. So I had no indication this asshat was slowing down, or stopping for that matter, to make a turn and came just inches from slamming into her. Naturally the bitch in the SUV was some young blonde bimbo from the university yacking away on her fucking cell phone, none the wiser that she just almost lost the rear of her status symbol car. Thank god the Lincoln has good brakes.

When we have computer driven cars I'll be happy. Wicked fast speeds, no accidents, no traffic, and dumb ass blonde cunts can yack away on their fucking cell phones without being a threat to society.

Reactionary Atheists

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 04:05:11 GMT

I've questioned the existence of God for as long as I can remember. I can remember my Catholic grandmother taking me to church one Sunday around the age of four or six and thinking "This is a load of crap." From then on I've always questioned the existence of the Christian God and still have yet to be convinced that he exists. As I've mentioned before I've been punished in school for not having the faith so I'm no stranger to the tyranny of Christianity and religion in general. I've spent many years arguing with Christians about their faith and was online arguing with hundreds of Christians before most people knew about the internet or cared about it. In that time I've helped establish arguments against Christianity and was involved with those others whose arguments have been picked up by the mainstream of atheists. We were the pioneers of the atheist online world, and we could kick alot of Christian ass, however we could never get them to vote left.

Nowadays I see atheists twice my age who log on and tout those arguments, however, they're not only touting a bastardized version of our arguments which just makes us veteran atheist online activists shake our heads, but they've also failed to realize what we realized in our political struggles. That being the Bible is the best resource against the Christian Right because their actions so conflict with the beliefs they supposedly hold dear. Try and get a Christian to say Jesus or God is wrong, they will never say it! No right wing pundit will ever say it either, the current generation of atheists fails to realize this. Why?

If you had checked the CIA's World Fact Book a few years ago before Dubya's first term you would see that only 2% of the country labeled themselves as atheists, since 2002 though that number has shot up to a whopping 10%. I was shocked to see this and only recently have I realized why that is. They're reacting to the sudden Christian fundamentalism that has saturated the government. They have no interest in knowledge or truth, they just don't want to be like those fundamentalist Christians. Here's the funny thing, by becoming the opposite extreme they become almost identical to those fundamentalist Christians. They refuse to listen to any position which is not exactly like their's, if you're a Christian, well you MUST be a right winger. Question their arguments against Christianity, well you MUST be a right winger. They just fail to realize that, you know, it's been the Christian Left which has spearheaded all of the progressive movements in the United States.

Yeah hear that you assholes? You haven't done shit! You're still not doing anything that's good for the left. Not only are you marginalizing Christians who are on our side, you're also marginalizing Christians who would be on our side if not for the anti-Christian image you're painting for the left. Now why is that? I know, do you? It's due to you fuck's acting EXACTLY like the Christian Right. You harass people for not believing in exactly what you do, you refuse to hear people out with opposing points of view, and then you label them whatever the popular forum demon is. Then on top of it you attack Christ when he fucking agrees with us! Then when someone suggests to you to read the religious texts of a certain belief you act like they're trying to convert you, which isn't always the case, especially when it's a fellow atheist. They're trying to give you the ammo and the means which work best against and convinces the Christians to convert to the left, it's called knowing your enemy, try reading a little Sun Tzu at some point. I mean you're intellectuals and all so Sun Tzu shouldn't be too far outside of your grasp, right?

95 THESES ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 14:32:41 GMT

Something a friend sent me, enjoy.

95 THESES ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed on the internet, under the presidency of the Peter Ludlow. Anyone wishing to debate with us, may do so by e-mail at ludlow@umich.edu.

In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said "love thy neighbor", willed that believers should show *compassion* toward others.

2. This word cannot be understood to mean mere lip service ("I love them, but I hate their sin"), but genuine concern for the welfare of others.

3. Yet the Religious Right has forsaken compassion for a doctrine of institutionalized hatred and violence.

4. Specifically, the Religious Right has taken the Word of God and wrapped it in the flag of Right Wing Politics, replacing God's message of redemption for the entire world with a narrow message endorsing right wing American politics.

5. Item: the Religious Right has neglected the teachings of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, where He instructs that we are to show compassion for the poor.

6. In place of God's words, the Religious Right has substituted a right wing political doctrine in which the poor have only themselves and their alleged laziness and moral weakness to blame.

7. For example, the Religious Right has rejected the needs of poor children of unwed mothers.

8. The Religious Right has rejected the cries for help from the children of impoverished families in the inner cities.

9. The Religious Right, has advocated fewer resources for the elderly poor and for the millions of children now living in poverty.

10. In place of giving to the poor, the Religious Right has advocated political doctrines specifically designed so that
individuals may acquire vast sums of money.

11. The Religious Right has thus seized on a contemporary economic ideology as an excuse to ignore the teachings of Jesus.

12. Item: the Religious Right has ignored God's injunction that we are to be caretakers for the Earth.

13. In place of God's injunction, the Religious Right has advocated policies in which the natural resources of God's creation are stripped from the earth and given to wealthy corporations without replacement.

14. In place of God's injunction that we are to be caretakers for the creatures of His creation, they have advocated policies through which these creatures may be extinguished forever.

15. The Religious Right has rejected laws designed to protect God's creation from pollution, claiming the "rights" of property owners are to be paramount.

16. In each case they have ignored the message of the Bible that this is God's creation, and they have substituted a doctrine in which God's creation may be partitioned and sold to the highest bidder.

17. Again, God's message has been cast aside for a message that supports a narrow economic message with its roots in right wing American politics.

18. Item: the Religious Right has neglected the teachings of Jesus that "he who is without sin should cast the first stone."

19. In place of God's words, the Religious Right has substituted a doctrine in which perceived sinners are to be persecuted.

20. Gays, for example, are persecuted because of their alleged sins. In some cases, leaders of the Religious Right have encouraged acts of physical violence against gays.

21. While the Religious Right has been eager to persecute others for their alleged sins, they have been blind to their own.

22. While the Bible counsels that a rich man can no more enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, many in the Religious Right have celebrated the acquisition of wealth.

23. While the Bible enjoins us against pride, the Religious Right appears to be flush with pride in it's holier than thou stance.

24. While the Bible asks that we be slow to anger, the Religious Right is quick to anger -- indeed it appears to revel in anger and in fanning the flames of anger in others.

25. While the Bible counsels that we are not to be "revilers," key members of the religious right have consistently and aggressively reviled their political enemies as well as those who are perceived to be sinners.

26. It seems then, that the Religious Right picks its sins selectively, ignoring the clear Biblical message against avarice, pride, and anger, and emphasizing selected “sins” that have little to no Biblical basis.

27. Item: While the Bible counsels that we are not to bear false witness, the Religious Right has engaged in smear campaigns against numerous political foes, often telling outright lies about “liberal” political leaders.

28. Worse yet, these smear campaigns have often been carried out in the house of God, sometimes in the form of inserts in church bulletins, and sometimes directly from the pulpit.

29. But the Religious Right has not merely spread its lies within the Church; they have done so outside the Church as well.

30. The Religious Right has used its financial resources not to spread the word of God, but to spread lies in the populace.

31. Item: Religious Right has failed to see that God's call to help our neighbors also extends to our international neighbors.

32. International aggression is not a Christian doctrine.

33. Where the Bible calls us to be peacemakers, the Religious Right claims that we have no business trying to bring peace to troubled areas but rather counsels that we should use military might to secure our business interests.

34. Where the Bible, through the story of the good Samaritan, instructs that we are to help our international neighbors -- indeed, even our enemies -- the Religious Right counsels "America First".

35. But "America First" cannot be a true Christian Doctrine.

36. The Bible gives no special status to political entities like the United States of America, and any suggestion to the contrary is to simply lie about the content of the Bible.

37. God does not bless nation states, and if He did, He surely would not bless them for practicing international internal intolerance, and propping up corrupt kingdoms and military juntas that traffic in institutionalized poverty and violence.

38. Item: the Religious Right has claimed that abortion is immoral, yet there is no Biblical basis for this claim

39. Rather, the doctrine appears to be driven by a medieval philosophy of the person, which they have imported into their theology.

40. Why has medieval philosophy taken precedence over the Scriptures? Perhaps the Religious Right never took the Scriptures very seriously in the first place.

41. This is highlighted by the frightening extremes to which they have taken this political dogma.

42. Victims of rape and incest are not to be allowed abortions. What could the Biblical basis of this possibly be?

43. Even when the mother's life is in danger, they would reject the possibility of abortion. Thus once again God's message of love and redemption is tarnished by advocates of a political doctrine of hatred and cruelty.

44. More troubling than their anti-abortion doctrine, however, is the tone with which that doctrine is advanced.

45. Here they use they weapon of hatred, encouraging the harassment of women, the bombing of clinics, and in some cases the taking of human life.

46. Their rejoinder that abortion is the taking of a human life has no basis in Biblical authority.

47. Their anti-abortion campaign is merely a political campaign dressed in the clothing of religion.

48. Item: The Religious Right has failed to distinguish its political message from what is left of its genuine religious message, leading Christians to conflate the two.

49. The Religious Right has engaged in a form of idolatry -- idolatry of certain patriotic symbols.

50. They have wrapped the Bible in the American flag. Indeed, one can find Bibles that contain documents such as the United States Constitution and pictures of the presidents.

51. Such Bibles arguably defile the word of God.

52. The American flag is not a symbol to be worshipped; yet the Religious Right has argued that it should be a crime to "desecrate" the flag. But what religious basis is there for such advocacy?

53. What basis is there for putting the American flag in the front of a church, next to the altar and the cross?

54. There can be no Biblical basis for placing such symbols in the house of God, nor for the undue reverence paid to them.

55. The Religious Right has failed to grasp the full power of God, supposing that spiritual growth for Christians can only come in the wake of political change in the United States.

56. On the contrary, God is perfectly capable of creating spiritual revival without the help of the Republican Party, and certainly without the help of an organizations that espouse doctrines that are antithetical to the teaching of God
at almost every turn.

57. Item: the Religious Right has preyed on people's fears -- their fear of crime, of other races, of the future, of the unknown.

58. Rather than say "fear not, for God is with us," they have used fear to sow the seeds of hatred and violence.

59. They have led their congregations to fear people of other races.

60. They have led their congregations to fear people of other sexual orientations.

61. They have led their congregations to fear our own judicial system.

62. They have led their congregations to fear the teachings of science.

63. They have led their congregations to fear anyone and anything different from their narrow conception of what they consider to be normal.

64. Worse, they have fanned this fear into hatred, encouraging their congregations to despise those who are different.

65. Item: The Religious Right has paid lipservice to the moral development of children, yet their doctrines are antithetical to the interests of children.

66. They appear to believe that moral development can be accomplished solely through discipline and censorship --
censorship of thought-provoking materials and censorship of the findings of science.

67. Yet, as a group, the members of the Religious Right have failed miserably as parents.

68. Jesus said, "suffer the children come unto me," yet members of the Religious Right have physically and psychologically abused their children.

69. They have advocated corporeal punishment, and have carried out acts of indoctrination on their children which, truth be known, are as severe as those of any fringe religious cult.

70. They have made children to be ashamed of and hate their bodies, when they should be proud that those bodies are the temples of God.

71. They have lied to children about the nature of God's creation, teaching them to ignore the great beauty God has revealed through the biological sciences.

72. In place of that beauty, they have taught their children a theory in which God's revelation through nature is ignored, and an ugly doctrine of fiat creation is espoused.

73. They have taught their children to be intolerant of others, to be hateful of gays and persons of color.

74. They have failed to instruct their children in God's message of love and redemption and have substituted for it a message of exclusion, suspicion, and contempt.

75. They have failed to raise their children according to the teachings of the Bible.

76. They have utterly failed as parents, yet they presume to dictate how we should raise our own children.

77. Item: The Religious Right, caught up in its hypocritical attacks on others has utterly ignored the solteriolocial aspects of Christianity.

78. Gone is the message that Jesus dies on the cross to save us from our sins.

79. Gone is the message of salvation, of hope and redemption.

80. In effect, the one core fact of Christianity, it's very reason for being, has been lost in the Religious Right's orgy of hatred and accusation.

81. How many souls will be lost because of their campaign of hatred?

82. At what price do these political triumphs come? Are they really worth the loss of the core message of Christianity?

83. Item: the Religious Right pays lip service to the authority of the Word of God, yet that Word plays little role in the treating of the Religious Right.

84. In place of the message of God's Grace and our redemption, they have substituted a purely political doctrine with no grounding in the Scriptures.

85. Rare are the references to passages of the Bible in the sermons of the Religious Right.

86. Those references that survive, are taken out of context and are merely used to justify preestablished political doctrines.

87. For example, there is no Biblical support for their views on abortion.

88. There is no Biblical support for their right wing economic theories.

89. There is no Biblical support for their campaign of abuse against their own children.

90. There is no Biblical support for their "America First" doctrines.

91. There is no Biblical support for their treatment of persons of color.

92. There is no Biblical support for their treatment of homosexuals.

93. In conclusion: the Religious Right has desecrated the house of God, taking a place of worship and treating it as a soap box in the service or the Right Wing of the Republican Party.

94. The Religious Right has likewise desecrated the Word of God, attributing to the Bible doctrines that are hateful, cruel, and entirely antithetical to the actual contents of the Bible.

95. Christians are to be exhorted to speak out against the Religious Right, as it is a vile heretical movement, wholly outside the teachings of the Word of God.

----------------------Redistribute Freely--------------------------------

The Way of the Sheep Reloaded

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:14:42 GMT

Here are a few "attacks" of faux shepherd dogs which make them stand out.

Respect

They love talking about respect but don't let that fool you! What they mean by respect is appealing to their ego and making them happy. Just like in the 47 Ronin, Lord Asano's crime is not that he's wrong, it's that he refuses to bribe officials and ultimately attacks the most wicked of these officials Lord Kira for demanding that he pay his just dues with substantial bribes. Someone who's truly without ego and a free thinker has no qualms with someone being straight forward, call him an idiot and it matters not to him, if it's justified he can see it, if it's not then he knows that person's clueless. They also demand respect for their accolades, you will commonly hear among them "I'm older and thus wiser than you" or "I've got a college degree" or "I've retired young" as if any of that shit matters about the substance of their argument when it doesn't. Point of fact it's nothing more than a last resort for a bad argument, they can't beat your argument so they try to pull rank and discredit you not by logic or facts but by your accolades or lack there of. There was a judge in North Carolina who once said "You're obviously not that good of a lawyer if I have to look at a piece of paper on your wall that says you're a lawyer." The same applies for "smart" people, if you need to see a piece of paper that says someone's smart, they're not, it just means they shelled out the cash and time for a piece of paper that says they're smart. Case in point, Dubya's got a piece of paper from Yale, think he's smart? Don't misunderestimate him now.

"You're a disruption!"

There are few cases when this is ok, specifically when someone has infiltrated a private group which has an express purpose and the infiltrator keeps them from being able to do their work. That's a legitimate case for calling someone a disruption and being angry about it. Most cases aren't like this though, usually it's someone who comes into a group and doesn't tow the standard line of thought. Remember, sheep hate confrontation and having to actually think, they just like bahing to and fawning over themselves, anyone who disrupts this is evil and must be killed. They'll tolerate it for awhile but ask too many questions, challenge too many ideas and they'll turn in a second to rip your nose off. This has happened before in America on a large scale. "Hey what if our capitalist system is flawed?" "What are you, a commie?" Nowadays though it's, if you're a left winger, "What are you, a right wing operative?" Yes, I'm a right wing operative because I don't agree with you completely or see a problem with your suggestion, you got me, way to go, because a right winger wouldn't be smart enough to meld in among us without questioning some things, wrong! Any smart operative will get in and then take everything to the extreme to make the rest of the flock look like radical kooks. A wolf in sheep's clothing doesn't let you know he's a wolf by biting you while you're looking at him.

Black and White Straw-Men

First, read this. Sheep love straw-men, straw-men allow sheep to work within the frames that they understand. Don't agree with the way they treat Christians, hey you must be a Christian too so they're going to try and debunk Christianity now and claim they know more than you, because hey, you're a Christian, even though you know you're not and have said as much. Or say you're pro-military, well that MUST mean you agree with the Iraq war, I mean how can you be pro-military and not agree with all wars all the time? You're either with them or against them, and nothing in between!

Ego

Oh how they love talking about ego, remember these are the same people who want you to respect their accolades and age, yet they love making the claim that someone's behavior is based completely on ego. Someone get us a medium, like John Edwards, so we can talk to Freud and ease his spirit, he's gotta be tired doing so many laps in his grave. If there was ever a case of projection, this is it. They'll say with a straight face "Well why are you defending yourself then if not because of ego?" Uhh because it's wrong and you're misrepresenting my positions? Did that ever cross your mind prick? I don't really care if I'm legitimately wrong about something, and I'll admit to it, but don't misrepresent me and expect me to just sit back and take it. It's funny because no doubt someone will read this and say "Yeah but that's ego" and then turn around and whine about Karl Rove saying all liberals wanted to give therapy to the terrorists after 9/11. It's not ego, it's correcting a bald faced lie.

So how'd you do? Do you use all of those tactics or just some of them? Well don't fret if you do, because you can always, you know, STOP.

The Way of the Sheep

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 09:26:54 GMT

It's been said that you're not supposed to criticize your allies, the right wingers have said it many times in their attacks against France and Germany for not going along with the US in the Iraq quagmire. The conservatives proceeded to give us ideas like "Freedom Fries," "Old Europe," and sending the Statue of Liberty back to the French due to this. The message they want to send being "Don't question us, just do as we say, and ignore anything we do wrong." Or how about something more recent, like Amnesty International finding that the US government has a number of human rights violations going on at Gitmo? The government and right wing response being "How dare you, you're hurting America by pointing this out!" You'll hear liberals applaud France, Germany, other countries, and international organizations for standing up to the US, and I agree with them, but what happens when you flip it on these so called liberals? "Don't question us, agree with us completely, and ignore anything we do wrong, why fight with your allies?" You know what, fuck that.

There's one thing I really dislike, and that's being a hypocrite, I go out of my way to not be one and I thought all leftists strove for the same thing. Jesus Christ was I naive. You see, up until recently I've always hung out on forums where it's been mostly rabid conservatives who I could argue with or moderate forums with every day people who have just a slight interest in politics (i.e. the people the left should be targeting), with one exception, my uncle's forums. On CG's forums we have a band of people interested in discussing the issues and dealing with the nuts and bolts of the country, and if it's your only dose of the left wing you don't appreciate just how abnormal it is from the rest of the left wing... Until you step outside into "leftist" forums.

I've been avoiding places like Democratic Underground and other left leaning forums simply because when I took a look when they first came onto the scene I didn't see a need to post. You see, I'm not a cheerleader, I don't back pat, and I don't reiterate what someone else has said so there's usually not a reason to post on said forums. There's only really been one person I've given a pat on the back for a job well done and that's PeaceTakesCourage, a 14-year old girl with a great sense on setting a mood through music and visuals, check out her flash animations at some point, they're haunting. She has a great talent and I encourage her and her mother to look into film school (they have them for high school students) as she could be a great asset to the left. Anywho, praise and agreement can be dangerous things when that's all you're exposed to in your online microcosm, they inflate egos making people easier to piss off simply through disagreement, they take it personal and believe you're attacking them.

In other words, too much exposure to praise and agreement can create a hive mind mentality within a group, and, just like with bees, if something's amiss in the hive it must be found and dealt with either through assimilation or destruction. Think of the Borg on Star Trek, they kill what won't join the Collective and assimilate what will, getting rid of all individuality and free thought which comes with it, i.e. sheep. Sheep in the back of the flock will follow the rest of the flock right off a cliff so they simply won't be alone. Most people are sheep, doesn't matter if they're left wing or right wing, they're reactionary sheep.

On the flip side there are also shepherd dogs who tell the flock of sheep what to do, some times they bark and some times they take nips at the sheeps' feet to get them to move. The dogs are the leaders of the flock, and they don't care what the sheep think about them just as long as the sheep do as they say, the problem with shepherd dogs though is if you have a bad one they'll lead the flock right off a cliff (Dubya and right wing pundits anyone?). In this case shepherds will shoot the dog in question so it can't hurt his sheep and hurt his profits any longer (big business? Watch out Dubya). Good shepherd dogs though will get the sheep to do what they need to do efficiently and keep the sheep alive and happy (FDR?).

Now here's the problem with the liberal flock, they think they're shepherd dogs, they even wear little doggy outfits and yip rather than bah, but the one thing they can't hide is their mentality. "Hey look out, you're heading for a cliff you fools!" "No we're not! And don't call us fools, we're just like y---AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Too late. If you're truly a shepherd dog you don't have qualms about disrupting the flock from time to time because some times you have to to stop them from running off a cliff. It's easy to spot a faux dog, they usually hate individuality and the disruption of the flock mentality. If you happen to be an honest straight forward individual who disrupts the flock, the rams come out and start head butting you, if that doesn't work they get the shepherd to deal with you.

So who are the most effective shepherd dogs? The same people who everyone bitches about, politicians. They're manipulative and have to be, they know honesty doesn't work because if you're honest the flock will get pissed off with you. Why do the elites think so little of the common man, because the common man's an idiot who likes being lied to and having his ego stroked. He doesn't mind either that you have a knife right below his throat, just keep telling him how nice and cute and smart he is. By the time he realizes he's in danger his throat has already been slit from ear to ear and no matter how much he clings to his neck the blood won't stop and he's dead in a matter of seconds. A dog though, will see the door to the slaughterhouse and start fighting no matter what the shepherd says.

So what are you, sheep or dog?

Oh one more thing, just because you lock horns with a different flock of sheep from time to time doesn't mean you're not a sheep, you're just a different type arguing over who's coat is cuter, horns bigger, and hooves cleaner.

"Leftists" Vs "Liberals"

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 02:59:41 GMT

So in light of my last entry I've been talking to a number of progressives about this phenomenon. I've been trying for the past week to find the proper words for it and one of the people who I was discussing this with put it perfectly. I'm going to blatantly copy what The Bionic Cowlick said and post it here.

""Progressives" are divided in many ways, but, generally, there are two main camps that I consider important: the leftists, and the liberals, because, as I have mentioned many times before, the two are not the same.

"Again, in general, leftists are concerned about the nuts and bolts of society: the economy, foreign policy, and so on; they tend to be more "realistic." Liberals on the other hand are often preoccupied with moral issues; to them, everything tends to boil down to an ambiguous "because it's not right"; the number one liberal social edict is: "Be Nice." Liberals tend to think that if everyone is "nice" to each other, then everything will be alright, and they seem to harbor the idea that 6+ billion people being "nice" to one another is a possibility; all they have to do, they say, is "believe." And that is no wonder, because liberals are superstitious. Do a survey of the "be nice" tribe and you are likely to find an inordinate number of people who speak in terms of reaching "a higher consciousness," englightenment, satori, etc.; animal rights activists; Wikkers (or whatever the fuck the name is); boob-tube addicts that are loyal fans of whatever the popular thing-of-the moment is in mainstream media culture; and, in general, people who have a standard, predictable personality, who are incapable of thinking for themselves, and who follow a formula for no matter what they do.

"When these people get on boards, they recognize one another from the identical scripts that each is following: I say this, you answer this, I respond this, and, see, we're nice to one another and we're friends; why can't everybody be enlightened like us? Once their tentacles have felt one another out and they are satisfied that they, indeed, are the same infection in a different body, they hook up and proceed to either infect everybody else, or, if they meet resistence, to destroy what is not like them, what is--original. They have no clue that this is true about them, that this is their most salient characteristic, but what they are is Fascists: They spread like the plague and kill everything that is different. They eat truckloads and shit truckloads for this sole purpose: to spread and make the world uniform. They fear what is not the same. In the Church that Mykeru is a member of, they are referred to as the "pinks."

"Therein lies the story of what is happening to Mykeru. He did something that didn't follow the script, something that wasn't "nice," and he had to be destroyed. Naturally, Mykeru is trying to defend himself. Surrounded on all sides by the same pulsating amoeba with different heads, he is shutting down the communication channels that have allowed the disease access. Defence by itself won't help, however. What needs to be carried out is a coordinated offence. Offence because, left to him or herself, the infected personality will continue to repeat the same behavior over and over again. Coordinated because the infected personality needs people around him or her to affirm one and the same thing before he or she will do anything; an idea by itself and based on its own merits means nothing to the infected; only social pressure and the fear of being alone can motivate them."

Beautifully put and I completely agree. So the question for those of you on the left is, are you a "leftist" or a "liberal"?

Bionic can be found here.

Mykeru can be found here. Take the time to read his dealings with "Ben Burch", "MMTF", and "POAC".

Beware! Right Wing Operatives at Work!

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 05:39:33 GMT

For the past month I've seen a surge of kookiness from "leftists." From proposing that we go out there and tout the theories of 9/11 to claiming a fellow leftist's a right winger simply because he doesn't agree with their methods of debate. Now the other funny thing is that they all share two things in common, they make leftists look irrational and they're the first to claim someone's a right wing operative. I've been called alot of things but a couple of days ago for the first time in my life I was called a "Right Wing Christian on a mission." My jaw literally dropped and my eyes popped out of my head like an episode of Looney Toons when I read that... Then I started laughing hysterically. I immediately ran over and posted this "leftist's" comment on a number of the forums I visit for the pleasure of all the right wingers I've debated and ridiculed through out the years. Here's a few of those comments:

"Is this kid serious? If Toshiro is right wing conservative, then what the fuck does that make me?"

"congratulations Toshiro, we welcome you... took you long enough"

"i dont agree with anything Toshiro says......but i do give respect for being, by far, the most intelligent and well written poster this site has. i wouldnt be pretentious enough to tell you who you are Toshiro. you make your points and back them all up. you dont pretend or pull punches. i cant undertand that persons thinking in placing his own label on you. weird. now, if that sounds like sucking up....WRONG!"

All three of those comments are from conservatives, the liberal responses were just as shocked as me, some of them mocking this "leftist."

"He has a point. Obviously he should be able to tell you what you REALLY believe instead of letting you decide."

So now you're probably asking why did he call me a right wing Christian, right? He didn't like the fact that I was defending the Christian faith and Christians who choose to believe in God and the afterlife. That's my crime. Telling him to back off on ridiculing them for their religious beliefs is the evil I've done to be labeled a right wing Christian. Naturally he says "I don't care about their religious beliefs" but then he turns around and says the equivelant of "You're all morons for believing in an afterlife!!!" Oh but how did I meet this jerk off in the first place? My friends showed me to two forums where he posts, the second one I was showed because they were ridiculing and calling a progressive friend of mine a right winger because he's also a Christian. Obviously there's no such thing as a "Progressive Christian." Forget the fact that ALL of the civil liberties battles in this country were STARTED and FOUGHT by the CHRISTIAN LEFT. That's not to say the Christian Left is flawless (their silence on the rights for homosexuals is disturbing and hypocritical), however this asshole acts like the Secularists have moved this country forward all by themselves and all Christians are right wing goombas. Oh and as for defending the Bible and suggesting we use Jesus' message like Martin Luther King Jr. did? That's herecy because the Bible's all lies!!! The message Christ gives? LIES!!! Why? BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE IT DIDN'T KNOW JESUS!!!

Who cares? Honestly, who gives a fuck if it were written by King James himself? The things which Jesus Christ says in the Bible coincide with Progressive ideals almost entirely, hell Christ was a Communist for fuck's sake. So why are we, as leftists spending so much time ridiculing Jesus? Alot of leftists now refering to him as "Jebus" borrowed from an episode of the Simpsons. You know, Jesus is our best ally against the fundamentalists and leftists are routinely kicking him in the balls with irrelevant bullshit. You will NEVER hear a leftist attack Christ's message, infact ask them directly "If Christianity is based on lies does that mean the words of Christ, the morals he preaches, are all lies? Does that mean you don't believe in helping out your fellow man and treating him as you would treat yourself?" The response you'll get will be silence, they'll dodge it, because they know they agree with it, and yet they're still out there trying to disprove the Bible and kick Christ in the balls. This behavior tells me the person in question with this behavior and form of argument is one of two things, they're either one ignorant liberal who needs to actually read the Bible and start using it against the fundamentalists (How does denying healthcare to the poorest Americans coincide with Christ saying to heal the sick?), or they're a right wing operative.

I don't say that lightly because I really don't want to start being all paranoid in regards to who we can trust and who we can't but ya know, lately I've been running into leftists who make arguments and say things which just make them look like they're full of irrational hatred. However, that could be it too, these people could be the left's response to the Reactionary Right, the Reactionary Left. In which case, y'all need to take a deep breath and calm the fuck down, just because someone is not ridiculing Christians, anti-gun, or anti-military doesn't make them a right wing Christian.

Reasons Why I'm a Right Wing Christian According to a Left Wing Nut Fuck:

1. I'm pro-military, which according to LWNF means I'm also pro-Iraq War (not true).
2. He has seen posts of mine on other forums that were pro-Bush (I'm still waiting for his evidence of this, the only thing I agree with Bush somewhat on is the Gun issue).
3. I defend the Christian faith which according to LWNF means I'm a Christian (I'm not, if anything I'm a Buddhist).

Drum roll for the 4th and most important reason please.

4. I question him and his stances on certain issues! "DON'T QUESTION ME!!! TROLL!!!"*

*Not an actual quote, paraphrased from his arguments.

I need a woman

Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:29:23 GMT

After my last article's first paragraph I've been told I need a girlfriend... fast. Any takers? Any ladies between 20-40 have a shot. Oh and being a liberal helps.