Holding Human Brains In My Hands

A couple days ago, we went to the Bodies exhibition. Waves of awe and shock and wonder passed over me.

We are lucky and privileged to live here and now. For the vast majority of history, to learn so much about human anatomy up close you'd have to commit a crime. But here we are, in an age and culture where we can pop down to a museum and see the intricate majesty of the human form, in all it's glorious layers. It was breathtaking.

Trolling for God - well, for Grades anyway

Here's a new wrinkle. Apparently, Trolling for McCain wasn't enough, nor was Trolling for the good ol' fashioned reason of "I'm just a jerk and it amuses me". No, apparently, it's now considered acceptable at certain schools to make Trolling a mandatory part of a class.

Here's an excerpt from a professor's syllabus at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a class called "Intelligent Design and Unintelligent Evolution"

AP410 This is the undegrad [sic] course. You have three things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 40% of your grade); (2) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 40% of your grade); (3) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).

Emphasis mine.

So remember, the next time you want to unload on some dunderhead who's violently arguing nonsense on your favorite forum or blog - they might not genuinely want to ruin your day by crapping in your stream, they may just have to post it so they can get an "A" at divinity school.

Question on my mind: Does "A" stand for "Astroturf", or just "Asshole"?

Top 10 Puppets of Advertising

What could be warmer and fuzzier than puppets?

Go check out the Top 10 puppets in advertising. To note, they are primarily advertising to so-called adults.

Worst bailout proposal yet

As bad as the idea of giving more money to corporate robber barons is, there's still the possibility for these bailouts to get even worse.

"As recently as last week, Democrats in Congress were discussing the wrinkles of a proposed bailout for struggling newspapers like the Times.
...

Business Week suggested wiping out newspapers' debt or subsidizing news digitization through a government-run purchasing program backed by Amazon's Kindle."

As if the major media weren't already a tool of the power elite, now we're talking about having the government pay off their debts. You think maybe they'd be unlikely to ever criticize said government again? Why not establish a new cabinet-level position called the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, while we're at it?

Never mind, I should quit my bitching. I'm 8 years late and several trillion dollars short. The major media is already beholden to the evil secret masters of the corporate state. More bribes from (or for) the power structure won't have an impact on their non-existent journalistic integrity. Instead, it's obvious that there's only one real problem with this plan, or at least only one real problem that John Q. Public will give a rat's ass about:

"But really, would you want to be forced into buying a Kindle just so a poorly managed daily paper on the other side of the country can continue to pay it's gossip columnist and Ann Coulter's syndication fee? I don't."

Perish the thought. That would be a real freakin' tragedy.

I'm not to worried about it, though. The Federal Government couldn't manage to get the majority of us to redeem coupons for free converter boxes on our all-important television sets by the time the first deadline for that came and went. How the hell does anyone think they can motivate us to all buy some kinda fancified readin' doohickey?


(quotes from Raw)

Fears for the future (updated)

I fear McCain will "win" the election. I expect to hear reports of the highest voter turn-out ever. We'll be told that Palin invigorated the right wing religious base, and that they turned out in record numbers. We'll also be told that whites who supported Obama in public, voted for McCain in their "moment of truth" alone in the polling booth. (I'm certainly not the first to say this, the idea was put in my head by NYU media professor Mark Crispin Miller.)

The truth will be that McCain-Palin lost, but people in high places rigged the election for them, as the did for Bush in y2k and '04. The results will look close enough (52% to 48% or so*) that we'll all kind of accept it, even though we really should know better. We'll be so sick of campaigning by then, that no one will wants to fight on and dig up the dirt. The "fact" that 52%* of Americans are motivated by race or religion will make us unwilling to talk politics amongst strangers for a while, so we won't be as likely to notice the fallacy of it. That's how it happened in 2004 [again, see Miller who presents intriguing evidence to support his claims].

By way of treachery McCain will be end up in office. Once there, he will further deregulate for his corporate masters. Bush will pardon himself on the way out the door, along with pardons for those same corporate masters, just to be safe.

If the Repubs steal the election, race relations will be set back by decades, there may even be rioting. Eventually things will "calm down", but the major parties will use Obama's "failure" as "evidence" to avoid running any non-whites for major office for a while. In the same way that the Dukakis-Ferraro failure kept women out of consideration until Hillary. (Palin was never considered, by the way. The FBI has admitted to not conducting the customary background check until after she was publicly announced, indicating that McCain, in his haste, sidestepped at least one of the traditional steps of the vetting process. She wasn't in the running, until 72 hours before being picked, when McCain was told his two top choices, Leiberman and Ridge would lead to a divided RNC over the abortion issue.) These will all be mistakes and self-serving excuses, but they'll feed it to us.

It's even possible McCain will end up suffering "health issues" either real, or faked, as MacGuire proposed to do to FDR (see my recent Smedley Butler post), and have to step down. At this point, Palin (who thinks Alaska will be God's holy redoubt when the Apocalypse comes) would assume the command of the US, and appoint a new Vice President without the vote of the US public. If it happened shortly after McCain was sworn in, the public would buy the notion that Palin wasn't ready to lead the country (she's not) and might be willing to sit by while all kinds of craziness went down since we were "in a crisis". Palin could be easily replaced by a General Secretary, to borrow yet another page from the Business Plot.

At that point, it'll be too late to fix the problem via anything short of storming the Bastille.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope my paranoia isn't justified. I want to believe that our nation is not too far gone, that there's still time to fix things, and that we have a shot at non-violent reform in our lifetime. I want to believe we can succeed via movements like the National Initiative for Democracy and Change Congress and just six dollars dot org. I think we can, I think we can, I think we can...

*:EDIT/Addendum: The 52%/48% split I was mentioning was intended to represent electoral college votes. Popular vote this year (after election fraud) will probably be something more like 44%/43%/4%/3%/3%/3%. Prior to, or in the miraculous absence of voter fraud, it'll be more like 30%/46%/10%/7%/4%/3%. I suspect the reality will involve the highest levels of 3rd party voting since Ross Perot, and not counting him the highest since Teddy Roosevelt.

Forbes Crosby IS Alejandro Fuentes Bergström

So I googled my own name, and instead some random film starring Forbes Crosby came up:
I didn't know he'd been in anything other than the Clone movies.



EDIT: The above video is not worth watching. At least not if you only speak English. Just wanted to make that clear, so nobody foolishly spends 9 minutes watching a monkey puppet speak in another language because they thought I was recommending it. It's just an inside joke, and a weak one at that. Smile, pretend you get it, and move on. Thank you.

The Pitch for The Lesser Of Two Evils

I've got a new idea for a series. It's a little bit West Wing, a little bit The Prisoner, and a touch of Lovecraft. For the moment I'll call it "The Lesser Of Two Evils". I'll make it open-source as well (like The Gods Of Troy), in case any Hollywood producers stumble across this blog. All I ask for is acknowledgement in the credits. Here's the concept in a nutshell:

1st Season: A young idealistic person runs for the big office and against all odds becomes President of the United States. The season starts with the last couple hurdles of his campaign, and he's sworn in mid-season. We see him fight the good fight, a rockin' first 100 days in office. But eventually, he gets worn down and loses his defiant rebel spark. Not just the result of washington politics as usual, but for more sinister reasons. Much like Twin Peaks, the story starts out looking like a mundane drama but eventually pans open to reveal terrible inhuman monstrosities. Lovecraftian demons inhabit the hallowed halls of congress and the white house, and he must battle for the fate of his very soul, as evil can be so seductive. He lies (to congress!), he cheats, he bombs random nations, he sins terribly because the ends justifies the means, or so he tells himself. Plans even cross his desk to fake a terrorist attack upon the US to justify declaring martial law. The last episode of the season ends with him realizing his many mistakes and atoning by sacrificing himself to prevent the veil between worlds ripping open and unleashing the hordes of hell upon a largely unsuspecting populace. He dies a true hero.

2nd Season: Much to the viewer's surprise, we open to a shot of the President who gave his life in the previous season. He's much older now, wiser, more weathered. Somehow he survived his ordeal, and the world doesn't know how close it came to destruction. He's no longer in office. Instead, a close friend and confidant, perhaps his best friend, or even his wife, is running for office, and he's stumping for them on the campaign trail. We expect a similar set-up, as the first episode of the season parallels that of the first of the previous season. But instead, the campaign section just drags on. It never transitions to the white house - this season takes a noneuclidean path, as the same footage gets used again and again with only minor variation. It's like a timeloop has swallowed reality. Eventually, near the end of the Season, we learn it's not really the President we loved from Season One. It's not really the First Lady who stood by his side regardless of the supernatural entities that threatened him, nor the drastic measures he took to fight them. Both have been replaced by bloodthirsty Simulacra, horrible soul-less false-humans, designed to distract and divert the nation from the coming apocalypse. They've been completely co-opted by the very forces they tried to battle in Season 1. This season has no hero, and the ending is just a bitter tragedy.

Problem is, I'm not sure whether this plays better as horror-fiction, or just a documentary.

Payor of Muppets

I should start by apologizing for linking to a story from Fox News. That said, I was surprised the article has very little noticable bias. I imagine that's just 'cause the folks at Fox weren't sure what party the Puppet belongs to.

Me, I got lots of bias. I'm a bigot. I don't think puppets should be able to be mayor. I don't even think puppets should be allowed to vote. You know why? 'Cause I don't even think puppets are real people. That's right. You heard it right here, my friends. Pure anti-puppet biggotry. Freakin' puppets! And you should be biased ag'in 'em too. Think about it. I ain't never seen a twilight zone with a puppet in it that ended well. Take that to (your little wooden, cotton, polyfibre or felt) heart.

DULUTH, Minn. — Duluth residents appear to have another choice in the upcoming mayoral race — if they're willing to vote for a 30-year-old blue felt puppet.

Mr. Nice is the creation of brothers Jim and Allen Richardson, who wrote a commentary book called "Gonzo Science."

The puppet will hold a campaign rally Saturday at Washington Galleries in Duluth.

The Richardsons say they decided to enter Mr. Nice in the race even though they aren't thrilled about participating in the arena of "politics as usual."

The event will feature a puppet debate along with an art show. And, Jim Richardson says, Mr. Nice will give "the speech of his life."

The human candidates in Duluth's mayoral race are City Councilor Don Ness and Charlie Bell, who was the runner-up in the mayor's race four years ago.

I guess they figure "If pro-wrestler could be governor in MN, then why not a puppet for Mayor?"

Vote Jake. Or don't. It won't hurt his feelings either way.