Goodbye

Hey guys, I'm really happy with all the support I've gotten so quickly, but honestly I'm finding this kinda tedious and boring, so this will be my last post. Since I'm not into it, you should redirect your attention elsewhere. Thought I'd give a friendly wave!

Happy blogging!

Smithsonian Christmas Exhibit

The Smithsonian opened an interesting Christmas season art exhibit on Oct. 30 which will run through February 13.

The exhibit features images such as an ant-covered Jesus, male brothers kissing, male genitalia, men in chains, and Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts.

According to the plaque at the entrance to the exhibit, "These themes, historic and artistic, come together in 'Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,' the first major exhibition to examine the influence of gay and lesbian artists in creating modern American portraiture. Hide/Seek' chronicles how, as outsiders, gay and lesbian artists occupied a position that turned to their advantage, making essential contributions to both the art of portraiture and to the creation of modern American culture."

Nothing says Christmas quite like gay and lesbian artists. And brothers kissing.

Now, I'm all for gay/lesbian rights, 100%. But really? This is what they choose as an exhibit for the Christmas season? Pornography? In fact, they fact that it is gay or was created by gay artists has nothing to do with it. I don't want to see eroticism and a naked Ellen DeGeneres at Christmas. What the hell were they thinking?

Read the full article here:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/smithsonian-christmas-season-exhibit-fea

Thanksgiving Break

Hey everyone, taking a short break from posting for Thanksgiving break. I'll have a new post up on Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Al Gore Charges $100,000 per Speech

Hey, he's a busy man. He might as well make a few bucks while preaching upon his life's work, right?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/al-gore-100000-man

What a dick.

Shameless Counter-Suing

So, a motorist hit a kid who was riding his bike near his house, killing him. The parents sued and won around $15,000 in damages. According to the prosecutors, the driver in question was doing 83 in a 45mph zone AND recklessly passing another car when he hit the young man. In all fairness, $15,000 is pretty conservative - they could have drove him into the ground. In addition, the man is going to prison for 10 years as this is the cherry on top of several drunk driving convictions. You'd think this sad story would end there, right?

Nope.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLk4dFEMQUjI2-XKYd4IzMQ3lV1A?docId=f256dd857e7d460fb3437a211b93e305

The now-prisoner David Weaving is counter-suing the parents of 'contributory negligence' because they allowed their son to ride his bike in the street without a helmet.

What an enormous dick.

This is what really gets me, though:

"The Kenneys say Weaving's license should have been permanently revoked in 1999 under state law because of the multiple convictions. They're seeking permission from the state claims commissioner to sue the Department of Motor Vehicles and its commissioner, Robert Ward.

"The department has acknowledged it made a mistake in not revoking Weaving's license and said it has taken steps to prevent similar problems."

If the government had done its job in the first place, this man wouldn't have been on the road in the first place. And you know what their response is to this fact being point out to them? They acknowledged they made a mistake and have taken steps to prevent similar problems. What a gigantic, steaming load of elephant crap that is. How many times have you heard a government agency say "Our mistake. We've taken steps to correct the issue" ? It's just enough impersonal ambiguity to make me want to smash some heads in at their office. They didn't even have enough time to write a personal apology.

Dicks... dicks everywhere.

Consumer Drive

And in an all new display of mediocrity, a family set up camp in front of a Best Buy on Wednesday, 9 days before Black Friday.

http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/story.aspx?storyid=157294&catid=250

Oh, what a wonderful consumer-based society we have when people are so desperate for electronics deals that they camp in front of a store for over a week. Seriously, what the shit? What about family? What about Thanksgiving? Sure, they're taking shifts, but is it really worth that much to you? Who cares?

I, for one, will never go shopping on Black Friday. I've had the misfortune of working retail on a Black Friday and it is chaos. I don't recommend it.

Councilman Calls Cops on Bake Sale

You won't believe this:

*link broken, my bad* Don't worry, the story is still good:

Two boys decided to set up a baked-goods stand in their local park. Their dream? Save up money for several years buy a restaurant. I can't think of a more wholesome, heart-warming example of young entrepreneurship. The first day, they even made $130, enough to buy a cart and add water and Gatorade to their stand! Great work kids!

Oh, wait. The government has to come and screw it all up now, doesn't it?

A city councilman noticed the two boys and called the cops after realizing they didn't have a permit, sending them home in tears, worrying about their criminal records. It costs $150-350 for every two hours of use for a commercial stand in the park. God forbid two boys try and make some spending money.

Absolutely unbelievable. Yet another great example of people trying to make something of themselves only to be slapped down by a bureaucratic government full of pompous asses.

Like, It's the World's Youngest Fashion Designer, Like, Yeah

I think my ears are screaming in pain. Just watch the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TRVOFEsoWk&feature=player_embedded

For more on how people in the fashion world are actually taking this girl seriously, see:

http://blahbethany.com/2010/11/13/this-little-girl-has-been-watching-too-much-bravo/

Failure is not an Option... Literally

Oh boy. Read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/13/AR2010111304100.html?hpid=newswell

"The dreaded F has been all but banished from the grade books.

The report cards that arrived home late last week showed few failing grades but instead marks of "I" for incomplete, indicating that students still owe their teachers essential work. They will get Fs only if they fail to complete assignments and learn the content in the months to come."

You have got to be kidding me. Well, they'll still get Fs if they don't complete that work at some point, but still. Basically, a kid fails the test/assignment, and he gets an "I" because he "still owes the teacher work". Well, damn, I wish my college worked like that.

You know, the basic premise here is understandable. This is a school with a lot of failing kids, and they are trying to come up with some option that pads the very hard and very common fall into mediocrity.

Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work like this. If you fail a test in college, you fail, period. There's no make-up. Professors don't make special exceptions for you, and in all likelihood, they don't particularly care about you at all. If you mess up at work you're warned, and if you do it again you're fired and replaced by someone who can do the job competently.

"Oh, that's all right Bill. We'll dock your pay by half, and then when you finish the job in a month we'll give you it all then." No.

While on a moral level I agree with the teachers here, in this case, they are wrong. I'd love to make someone's life easier just as much as the next guy, but in this case, they aren't helping their students - they're crippling them.

Rich Students Riot Over Tuition Increases

Oh, the hypocrisy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1329510/Poor-Disadvantaged-Pull--The-rich-rioting-students.html

Recently in the UK, student tuition has increased due to government cutbacks in education. Now, this, of course, made many students very unhappy. Such as the ones that already have plenty of money.

Frankly I think the article itself is up for debate; sure, they profile a few students, but there were 52,000 people there. It's a stretch to claim the crowd was mainly middle-high income or that they were even lead by such people.

What really has me up in arms is that the students were chanting "fairness" and demanding an opportunity for the future, which is fine... while storming a building, tearing down walls, doors, and wrecking equipment, which is not fine.

What a bunch of idiots. There's a reason politicians don't listen to students very much: they don't vote and they act impulsively. Students, and young people in general, talk a big game, but when election time rolls around they tend to sit on their ass and not get out the vote, resulting in their disproportionately small influence on politics. They also tend to be quick to violence, resulting in universal public denunciation which quickly kills the cause of what might have been a legitimate protest.

It's a sad world we live in.

Pseudoephedrine and Methamphetamine

Main source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-11-14-pseudoephedrine-meth_N.htm

"Through the end of September, Kentucky authorities discovered 810 meth labs throughout the state, compared with 741 for all of 2009, according to Kentucky State Police statistics."

What the hell? 810? Up from 741? People in Kentucky sure love meth. What the hell is going on down there? I guess they got tired of hunting squirrels and decided to do some drugs, m'kay?

Anyone from Kentucky care to explain this?

In other news, kids, if you're going to do drugs, do something that won't completely screw you over right off the bat like weed or alcohol. Meth is for losers and is one of the most dangerously addictive drugs out there. You want a stimulant, drink a soda.

Full-Body Airport Scanners

Apparently, in an all new violation of privacy and human rights, airports are beginning to incorporate full-body scanners. Remember that scene from Total Recall?

Source for these comments comes from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/12/travel.screening/index.html?hpt=T1

Personally, I could care less. So the guard gets to see my naked X-ray for a moment or so. Big deal. He's a professional, he's going to be watching people in and out of the thing all day, every day. When that happens, you start to not give a shit. Sure, he might perk up every now and then for a well-endowed woman, but its not like anything is going to happen. I mean, is this really a huge violation of our rights? Everyone gets the same treatment. It doesn't particularly hurt you in any way.

Not according to this:

"

"While the meeting with Secretary Napolitano was informative, it was not entirely reassuring," the U.S. Travel Association said in a statement.

"We certainly understand the challenges that DHS confronts, but the question remains, 'where do we draw the line'? Our country desperately needs a long-term vision for aviation security screening, rather than an endless reaction to yesterday's threat," the statement said. "At the same time, fundamental American values must be protected.'"

Fundamental American values? Are we suddenly losing all of our freedom because of full-body scans? What sci-fi movie doesn't have a full-body scanner these days? It's not a violation of human rights, it's the technology of the future.

We all secretly know why some people are against the body scans. They are self-conscious about certain anatomic features. I suppose that has something to do with me not caring as much... if you know what I mean.

Porn on the Internet

You know, I've always really wondered - exactly how much of the internet is porn? An interesting take on this question can be found here, which I located with a quick google search:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2618/how-much-of-all-internet-traffic-is-pornography

The problem with this article is that it doesn't give a definitive answer, although it does raise some interesting points about actually trying to quantify internet traffic in a particular subject area. Luckily, the second google result had the answers I was seeking.

http://io9.com/5566761/37-of-the-internet-is-porn

According to this article, 37% of all internet traffic is porn, as reported by Optenet, a company which designs and sells censorship programs for schools to keep all the kiddies off of ugly sites such as wikipedia and youtube while they are using the school library computers. Anyone with half a brain can get around that by using a proxy... it's entertaining how kids can simply weave around the pathetic technological walls the old generation tries to throw up. But I digress.

37%! That's quite a bit, and somewhere in the expected range. More than one third of the internet is porn. You heard it here first. And we can pretty much assume that porn dominates the runner-up interests in terms of traffic by quite a bit.

Facts like these really do put a fist to the face of society's moral watchdogs. The greatest, biggest, most sophisticated thing that we have and arguably the greatest invention of all time... is dedicated, in large part, to fulfilling out most basic desires.

Food for thought.

The First Post

Hi! It's weird to write a first post for a blog I've just made... but I guess the best thing I can do is to sum up what it's all about!

Every day, and let's not beat around the bush, really, really stupid stuff happens. Political bigwigs make fools of themselves. People belligerently shout racist comments without thinking. Someone shouts "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. Aside from all this, other, more serious problems are occurring: economic issues, trade problems, violations of privacy. And you know what? If we didn't take everything so seriously, I'd bet you half of these problems would disappear.

It's important to laugh at things, to laugh at problems, and sometimes, to laugh at ourselves. This blog will report the news with a twist - a twist of satire, sarcasm, or otherwise harshly berating the latest public failure. Be it the latest celebrity mishap or public scandal, my scathing words will be there to give you a chuckle or a least a smile.

Look forward to my first real post later!