Category: Politics

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News Politics

Perspective

This morning, as I sat down to my computer with my cup of coffee (my morning ritual, as I shake off the slumber) and loaded up my daily nerd news sites it dawned on me that today is the fateful September 11th. If this seems strange to you, that I didn't think about it well in advance (seeings how I have one of them new-fangled calendars), keep in mind that a) my brain brain is pretty focused on friends and family and daily life so dates (even seasons) pass by and I don't notice, and b) I don't pay attention to regular news outlets (because frankly, they're too depressing and spew fear as if it were free beer at a brewfest) so it sort of 'crept up on me'.

However, rather than dwell on the usual news, I found an article on Wired News that I found very interesting given the way the news (and US Government) paints things… a chart (playing on the US Government's color-coded alert system) that takes mortality data over an 11 year period on the various dangers that confront US citizens. The chart (to the left) reveals that we are 10x more likely to die from an accidental drowning than in a terrorist attack, and more than 80x more likely to die by driving off of the road (the chart doesn't specifically break down whether these are due to drunk driving or sleepiness, but either way). Pretty interesting, and definately something that may help keep perspective on things. 

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Entertainment Humor News Politics Television

Stephen Colbert, special report

This past Saturday night C-Span aired the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, a fancy gala that included the President himself. The final speaker for the night was Steven Colbert, of the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report.

Mr. Colbert roasts the President, the media, and everyone between. It is quite entertaining to see Colbert standing face to face with Bush, using his ‘right wing’ pundit persona to slam Bush and his approval ratings, the war in Iraq, etc. You can see it in three parts on YouTube (link is to the first part, the other two are listed on the right of the YouTube page). Enjoy!

Categories
Humor Politics Science

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

noodledoodlewall.jpgCame across a funny site via a Wired News article that is a stab at those folks who push for teaching intelligent design in public school science classes. It’s about a new ‘scientific theory’ known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the author of this ‘theory’ sent an open letter to the same public schools that implemented intelligent design into their classes, demanding that the FSM theory was just as valid and should be included in their curriculum. The whole thing is great satire, and people all over are getting into it (check out the photos of people ‘spreading the word’)

The funny part here, is that the kinds of logic the Church of the FSM use is the same that the pro-intelligent design folks use. Odd, un-connected pseudo-scientific claims that they use as proof of their theory.

One of the amusing ‘facts’ on the Church of the FSM website is the graph labeled ‘Global Average Temperature Vs. Number of Pirates’. It shows an inverse relationship between the number of pirates and global temperature, specifically, that while the number of pirates has decreased, the global temperature has increased. So, in order to stop global warming, we need more pirates! Yarrrr!

In the Wired News interview with Bobby Henderson, the creator of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Mr. Henderson writes "Our theory is as much science — in fact much more so — than what the ID (intelligent design) guys are proposing. And, if you are going to redefine science to include supernatural explanations, you have to allow them all. To include intelligent design in a science classroom you have to first expand the definition of science to include supernatural explanations, rather than only natural ones, as it is now."

Amen brother! Praise be His Noodly Appendage!

Mr. Henderson is in the process of writing a FSM ‘bible’, and all proceeds from the sales of this and of the t-shirts, mugs, and other items on his website will go to building a PIRATE SHIP! With it, he will travel and ‘evangelize’ about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 🙂 Funny stuff.

Categories
Humor News Politics

Addicted to the Net?

It seems that in Finland people who are placed in the compulsory military service can get sent home for a few years if diagnosed to have ‘internet addiction’. The diagnosis seems to fall on those young men who before being conscripted (drafted) didn’t have much real world social lives, but were quiet types who would stay up all night playing online games and chatting with ‘virtual friends’, and then were suddenly yanked away from that life and forced into a real world they weren’t prepared for (hmm, sounds like me, hehe).

They get a few years to go home and ‘grow up’ but have to come back and finish their service.

Man, if only I could use that excuse to get me out of things, like, oh I dunno, being an adult and having a job. “I’m sorry, I just can’t take all this, I’m addicted to the internet… can I go home now?” 🙂

Read it for yourself here.

-r-

Categories
Politics

Feel free to protest, in this cage.

just read something I found a bit disturbing on wired.com… the protesters that are expected to show up for the Democratic National Convention this week are free to protest, so long as they do it from inside a rather scary ‘cage-like’ structure more than 2 blocks away.

Read wired.com article here

it’s unbelievable really, to look at the photos here… THIS is the kind of thing I would have expected to see in some other country non-free (Soviet Russia perhaps?) but not here in the US. It’s a bit creepy really. “yeah, go ahead, you’re ‘free’ to protest, but you have to do it way over there, behind a razor-wire covered wall, with surveillance cameras watching your every move… go right ahead!”

Hooray Secret Service and Boston Police!

-r-