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Life imitates The Onion.
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Apr. 17th, 2008 @ 03:55 pm
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Courtesy of Warren Ellis:
For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse
Art major Aliza Shvarts ’08 wants to make a statement.
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
Truly, we are living in strange days. Though it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was a hoax, even that would still be horrific yet hysterically absurd. Ultimately, though, It affects my opinion on abortion not at all. What is that opinion, you may ask? Why, my opinion is that, as a male, my opinion doesn't really count. Abortion is an issue that affects women much more than it does men, to the point that any opinion that a guy might have is pretty much irrelevant. If I _had_ an opinion, it would be that the issue should be decided by the votes of biological females, and biological females _only_. Ideally, it would be all those who are between puberty and menopause, and not otherwise of impaired fertility, i.e., having already been sterilized, because they're the only ones who would be immediately affected. But realistically, that would be way too difficult to enforce, not to mention intrusive, and the whole under-age voter thing would be a deal breaker. Still, that's a matter for other heads than mine to work out, since, as I've already mentioned, it's none of my business. And if you're not a biological female, it's none of yours either.
Edit: The more I think about this, the more certain I am it's a hoax. Barring a comprehensive doctor's exam and DNA testing of the "miscarriages", I'm going to assume that the artist in question has simply found a creative use for menstrual blood, and a credulous audience to outrage.
Further Edit: I was right. Still, kind of disappointing that they didn't stretch the joke out a bit longer, they could have gotten days of headline news coverage out of this, making the eventual punchline that much sweeter.
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Oh noes!
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Apr. 8th, 2008 @ 08:03 pm
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Behold the sheer mind-rending terror that is The Atheist Apocalypse!
edit: More web comics: The Smashing Adventures of the Bottomleys, Mangled Stare, Looking for Group, Backward Compatible. Other linky things: 17 month old toddler can read, The truth behind 1980s video games revealed, Is society ready for a pregnant husband?, "Civil forfeiture" really &*$%ing sucks, Gygax inspired motivational posters, In Regard to Surviving in a World With James Caan, Tin Can Optimus Prime, and finally, just for giggles, a really cool pirate wench corset
Also, Just a random thought: If you allow a friend to address you as "Asshole", does that mean you forfeit any right to complain if anyone else in the whole world does too? 'Cuz that's the exact same logic that "But black people call each other 'nigger', so why can't I?" type idiots use.
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Apparently, today is "Blog Against Torture Day"
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Mar. 28th, 2008 @ 08:51 pm
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It seems silly that we even need such a day, but, whatever.
So, torture is bad, see? It's completely ineffective as a means of intelligence gathering, since the victim will say whatever he thinks the torturer wants to hear, and that torturer will have no way of knowing weather the information gathered is accurate. Even in the much ballyhooed "ticking bomb" scenario, your much likelier to get inaccurate information which will result in you wasting manpower running after non-existent threats, while the real bomb continues ticking.
On the other hand, torture can be very effective as a means of ensuring compliance to authority by spreading fear. So if you think the US is really made safer by the rest of the world thinking of us as evil Ogres who rape babies while their parents are forced to watch, then I guess torture could be said to "work" after all.:-P
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This ship...
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Mar. 2nd, 2008 @ 08:48 am
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... Is going to have the most motivated, hard-core crew EVER:
Ship built with WTC steel christened. The USS New York, an amphibious assault ship built with scrap steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center, was christened Saturday as a source of strength and inspiration for the nation.
Other news: This is both fucked-up as Hell, and perversely awesome: A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.
This, on the other hand, is just fucked up: Judge jailed for refusing to sit in court with crucifix. An Italian judge was sentenced to a year in prison for refusing to sit in a courtroom with a crucifix on the wall, his lawyer said. Sad that stupidity like this should take place, but at least it's not happening _here_...
While I find the whole concept of "aristocracy" deeply abhorrent, even I have to admit that Prince Harry's one of the "good ones".
Random thoughts: I wonder how long it will be before the purveyers of the "Black Confederates" meme notice that Nazi Germany's military had a small number of ethnically "Jewish" soldiers in their ranks, and therefore conclude that the Nazi's weren't really anti-semitic?
Also, peoples should read Ctrl+Alt+Del, Divalicious, and Sketchies.
update I am a bad boyfriend, as I did not credit the wonderful and awesometastic ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nanimo for Ctrl+Alt+Del. Forgive, Mistress! Forgive! (sob)
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Man who keyed car gets day in court; so do Marines Jay Grodner, the Chicago lawyer who keyed a Marine's car in anger because the car had military plates and a Marine insignia, finally got his day in court last week.
Grodner pleaded guilty in a Chicago courtroom packed with former Marines. Some had Marine pins on their coats, or baseball jackets with the Marine insignia. They didn't yell or call him names. They came to support Marine Sgt. Michael McNulty, whose car Grodner defaced in December, but who couldn't attend because he's preparing for his second tour in Iraq.
Now, I mock and scorn Jarheads as much as the next Grunt, but it warms my soul that this weasel lawyer got a nice dose of public humiliation to go with his slap on the wrist. Still, this part of the article bugs me: Judge O'Malley has also traveled, but in his youth. He was a police officer on the West Side during the riots before law school. And before that, he performed another public service. Judge O'Malley served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1961-1964.
He probably should have recused himself. If the jackass vandal in question has gonads of greater than microscopic size, he could have plausibly claimed that the judge's past service made impartiality impossible. Still, some justice was done.
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| » The presidential Candidaates revealed. |
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Well of _course_ they're all nothing but thinly veiled Star Wars characters. What did you expect?
Jan. 10th, 2008 @ 10:34 am
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| » A Cunning Plan that Cannot Fail! |
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I've been thinking about the whole illegal immigration thing. Now, as anyone with an ounce of gray matter realizes, the root cause of the problem is not desperate third-world peasants who want to come here to work, but the shiftless corporate criminals who hire them. So, my proposed solution is twofold: First, anyone found to have knowingly hired an illegal immigrant automatically loses their citizenship (after a fair trial of course) and gets shipped to Mexico themselves, and gets fined, well, every piece of property they own. The second part is the fun one, though: The first illegal immigrant to narc on a given employer, will automatically _get_ citizenship, and a goodly portion of said corporate criminal's stuff. I predict that within a week, the demand for illegal workers will dry up, at which point, lacking any other employment options, the illegals will all go away of their own accord. Sure, this may seem harsh and arbitrary, but is it really any more draconian that the plans the right-wingers rant about all the time?
Dec. 20th, 2007 @ 10:30 am
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| » Time to get on another NSA watchlist... |
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You know what would be funny? If one or more of the pro-torture politicians/Faux News talking heads/wingnut bloggers out there got themselves kidnapped and tortured "Interrogated in an enhanced manner" into confessing that they, personally, were not only Al Qa'ida operatives, but Blood-Drinking Satanists, Illuminati spies, and Reptoids. The recorded bogus confessions could then be posted on youtube, and/or broadcast on national TV. Understand that I'm not actually _suggesting_ that anyone do this. It would be horribly illegal, after all. But it would also be freakin' HILARIOUS, and it just might serve to convince a few of the obsessive "24" viewers out there that torture is not, in fact, a reliable source of intelligence. Of course, the rest will immediately start blathering about "Scalo-Fascists".
Dec. 9th, 2007 @ 11:16 am
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| » So, Congress is gonna condemn Faux News now, right? |
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Fox News' attack on the honor and integrity of our war generals... And the text of the article -- by Fox News Contributor and frequent O'Reilly guest David Hunt -- is even more Despicable, as it repeatedly attacks the honor and integrity of members of the United States Armed Forces in one smearing paragraph after the next, beginning with this first sentence:
Our generals are betraying our soldiers . . . again.
Quiet, crickets, how can I hear the thunderous sound of outrage with you chirping like that?
Oct. 1st, 2007 @ 03:08 pm
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| » Rush Limbaugh: Gutless shitbag, or just completely clueless? |
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That was a trick question. The real answer is "All of the above, and much, much more". It's probably a good thing that he dodged the draft; Otherwise, his spinelessness would have gotten people killed directly when he inevitably panicked under fire. Fucking weasel.
Sep. 30th, 2007 @ 08:15 am
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| » Good to know our cities have solved every other more pressing problem. |
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Courtesy of filkertom:
Cities cracking down on saggy pants
RENTON, N.J. - It's a fashion that started in prison, and now the saggy pants craze has come full circle — low-slung street strutting in some cities may soon mean run-ins with the law, including a stint in jail.
Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places. At the extreme end, wearing pants low enough to show boxers or bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 fine. A crackdown also is being pushed in Atlanta. And in Trenton, getting caught with your pants down may soon result in not only a fine, but a city worker assessing where your life is headed.
Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that juvenile delinquents _are_ more likely to wear these idiotic fashions. How, exactly, is preventing them from wearing size-70 pants with no belts going to prevent them from being juvenile delinquents in the first place? Surely, all these laws will accomplish is make it harder to identify the little hooligans? Furthermore, the pants in question make it more difficult for the thugs to run from the police, thereby making them less EFFECTIVE criminals. Shouldn't we be encouraging this?
It reminds me of the story I read about the British politician who wanted to ban cell phone cameras because they were associated with "happy slapping". As far as I'm concerned, it's a GOOD THING when petty criminals record evidence that can be used against them.
Sep. 18th, 2007 @ 04:26 pm
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| » I thought water only burned in New Jersey. |
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Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water.
ERIE, Pa. - An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.
John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
Excellent, we finally have a suitable deterrent against the Squid Invaders.
In other news, Shrubya Snubs War Widow, Trans-Simianism debunked, and Anarchy Explained. I'm also adding a link to Chugworth Academy, the strip is currently on hiatus, but you can start reading the archives here. Also, can anyone recommend a good, cheap, preferably free photo-editing program?
Sep. 15th, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
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| » Last post on the Virginia Tech Psycho. |
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I mean it too. First, listening to the jackasses voice, it's pretty clear he has a moderate speak impairment. While it _would_ be caused by any number of things, it sounds a lot like the typical "can't hear how his own voice sounds" accent of a hearing impaired person. So I wonder, if it turns out he _was_ hearing impaired, you think that the Deaf community will be scape-goated? Just a thought.
Second, armed students, or any other bystanders, would not necessarily have been able to stop him. While I disagree with bradhicks unequivocal assertion that it absolutely wouldn't have helped, I think he has several good points right here. He neglects to address the whole "deterrance" argument, though, but that's OK, because deterrence DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER when you're dealing with someone who _wants_ to die. If enough students and faculty had guns to make him seriously reconsider his plan, he would have just sniped from a rooftop instead, and could easily have killed just as many people.
Now, personally I support concealed carry, but it's not a damned panacea. All else being equal, more guns in the hands of college students _will_ result in more accidental shootings, and more impulsive 'crimes of passion'. If you go to the absolute extreme of _requiring_ everyone carry a gun, you would probably have 32 accidental deaths every freaking year on a campus that size. Obviously, like anything else in society, there has to be a balance. While I personally think it would be beneficial to tip that balance further towards responsible citizens being able to carry, how about us gun-lovers _not_ insult people's intelligence by pretending there won't ever be any negative consequences to this trade-off?
Also, what is it with "freedom loving Americans" insisting that we'd be better off if we just institutionalized all the "crazies"? Oh, sure, this particular crazy should have been, but what about all those thousands of maladjusted loners who _won't_ ever commit any crimes? In order to be sure of getting all the future shooters, you'd have to preemptively imprison countless creepy innocents. How is that just? Again, there has to be a balance, and this one I _don't_ favor changing too much. Obviously, we need more treatment options for mentally ill people who _want_ help, but no one should be forcibly treated unless they are a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to others, which, sadly, this one wasn't clear enough to justify.
Finally, despite what certain right-wing jackals loudly proclaim, there were heroes on that day. Teachers and students alike tried to stand up to their murderer. They died just the same. That's what happens when unarmed people go up against someone who is armed. That's why their courage deserves our recognition, and to HELL with the scum who denigrate it.
Apr. 22nd, 2007 @ 12:26 am
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| » So... |
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It seems the psycho of the week was a legal immigrant from South Korea, from a Christian family background, and he referenced "Dying like Jesus" in his suicide note. Our course of action is clear, then: We must halt all immigration by Koreans, and scrutinize every Christian in the country before _they_ commit mass murder too.
What's that, you say? There is no evidence whatsoever that his ethnicity or religion played any part in this? In the absence of such evidence, it is the height of stupidity and dishonesty to suggest there is? Why, you're absolutely right.
Apr. 18th, 2007 @ 08:08 pm
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| » A new Hindenberg, narrowly averted |
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Via ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) weirdnews:
"Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation. Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. "
While this would have been the Mother of All Darwin Awards, it would also put the general public off of hydrogen fuel technologies for another 7 decades. So on the whole, it's probably a slight positive that this self-immolation didn't occur...
On a serious note, if this sort of accident is even possible at all, then Ford is guilty of severe negligence, and the company richly deserves any lawsuits they get if they _don't_ fix the design flaw immediately. So, I'm kinda skeptical of this article, and fully expect to see a Snopes rebuttal within a few days.
Update: Whaddayaknow, it _was_ a joke that got taken at face value after all. The news media who reported it as fact have all retracted it, not that that will stop them from jumping the gun or anything. Now, all of the bloggers who spread the story should do so too. I mena, I like slamming Bush as much as the next godless lib'rul, but fair's fair. There's no justice in taunting him for something that he didn't actually do; It's not as if there's any shortage of _true_ stories to mock him for.
Apr. 9th, 2007 @ 11:38 am
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| » Blah. |
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As I inch further and further into decrepitude and senility, I find myself seriously considering the virtues of sterilization. It seems increasingly unlikely that I'll ever actually get married, leaving the only possibility of reproduction being a drunken tryst, and that would just be plain irresponsible. I have enough relatives that most of my genes have already been passed on, and if I ever _do_ get hitched, there's always adoption.
Anyway, here's linky things: Marvel at The School Prayer Riots, thrill to Bootleg Jack Chick Theater, be amazed that Abstinance-only doesn't work, Be electrified at the Secret Wars Re-enactment Society, goggle your eyes at Transformers Cosplay, and faint with glee while watching Transformers Movie Trailers. Man, if this movie somehow _doesn't_ rule, there'll be hell to pay, by Primus!
Edit: More linky things, this time permanent ones. Read the blogs Pam's House Blend and Pandagon, then look at the pretty pictures in Candi and Home on the Strange.
Mar. 31st, 2007 @ 12:50 am
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| » Lesbians kicked out of restaurant... |
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... For "Inappropriate kissing". Certain apologists have, predictably, claimed that this is in NO WAY analogous to a restaurant refusing to serve black customers*, since those oversexed homos could act straight for a few hours if they really wanted to. I suppose there is a certain logic to that. I've been told by deaf people that before the Americans with Disabilities Act, it was perfectly legal for restaurants to kick them out because their signing "disturbed the other customers". I'm sure the apologists would defend the restaurants in those cases too, since it wasn't their deafness that got them discriminated against, it was their 'behavior'.
*But is PERFECTLY analogous to a restaurant refusing to serve mixed-race couples. Then again, the freepers probably have a problem with that too.
Mar. 19th, 2007 @ 03:57 am
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