Global Warming? Not According to the Ice!

Posted by Cephus as Politics

When you talk to most global warming aficionados, one thing they always point to is the decreasing level of polar ice as evidence that, yes, the world is doomed. Unfortunately for them, ice levels for the year of 2008 are absolutely identical, according to studies, as they were in 1979. Even after trending lower through most of the year, the ice levels rapidly recovered late in the year, in fact, they were the fastest rate of recovery on record from September-December.

I’m sure we all remember the dire predictions that the polar ice caps would melt entirely, some claimed as early as 2008 and we’d all be left standing on chairs with the rising tidewaters lapping around our ankles. Yet last year, lower polar temperatures and weaker winds than expected have led to a vastly increased ice cap coverage and we may see even stronger increases in years to come.

Who knows, we might even get the liberals to admit that the polar bear isn’t endangered, in fact, according to every metric, it’s numbers are likewise increasing. But no, that would go against Al Gore and his doom and gloom predictions and we can’t have that, can we?

I’m all in favor of sensible environmental efforts, but the loony liberals have come up with some of the most asinine ideas under the sun. Carbon credits? Buying someone else’s savings so you can be wasteful? Are you out of your minds? Or posing naked on a glacier is supposed to make anyone care? It made me cringe.

It seems there isn’t anything they won’t blame on global warming either. A bridge collapses, they blame 90-degree temperatures. 90-degrees? That’s a NICE SUMMER DAY! Steel melts at 1370 degrees F but these morons want us to believe that a warm day, maybe a degree or two hotter than the “norm” is making bridges fall down? These fools are daft.

The thing these people fail to recognize is that the planet goes through changes and it adapts. The planet has made it through a collision with another planet, through a 25-million year deep freeze, through  half a million years of extreme volcanic activity, it’s been pummeled with asteroids and it’s survived.  Compared to the worst catastrophes in history, where global warming really took off and caused major problems, our carbon dioxide output is barely a blip on the radar. There’s no need to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off, be sensible and it won’t be a big deal.

But no, they’d rather pretend like it’s the end of the world. Let’s be honest, it’s not the end of the world, the planet is going to be fine no matter what we do to it. We might not survive, but isn’t that natural selection? We may kill ourselves off, the planet will move on and in another couple of million years, some other species will take over and may actually learn a lesson from our extinction. Wouldn’t that be an interesting idea?

Now I Know Why I Can’t Sleep!

Posted by Cephus as Uncategorized

After watching this video, I think I know why I can never get a good night’s sleep, I blame my wife’s Siamese.

Tom Cruise: Not That Bright

Posted by Cephus as Other Religions

Recent news out of New Delhi, India, Tom Cruise has announced that Scientology was responsible for curing him of dyslexia.

“I asked myself if I was normal or an idiot. I would try to concentrate but I felt anxiety, frustration, boredom. When I graduated from high school in 1980 I was functionally illiterate,” he told XL Semanal, the weekly magazine supplement of daily Spanish newspaper ABC. “Nobody gave me a solution and I wanted to know why the system had failed. Finally, as an adult I learned to read perfectly through the method of [Scientology's late founder] L. Ron Hubbard.”

Cruise has drawn serious criticism from the International Dyslexia Association for making that claim, a claim which, as far as anyone can tell, is utterly bogus. The problem from where I’m sitting is that Tom Cruise was already an established movie star starting in 1981 and even the earliest he can stretch his connection to Scientology is 1986. For someone who was “functionally illiterate” and suffering from a condition that left it difficult to read scripts and speak lines, that’s a bit hard to swallow.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Cruise has pretended that Scientology can cure physical ailments. He criticized Brooke Shields’ use of medications for depression, reflecting Scientology’s fierce opposition to all things psychiatric. She responded “His comments are dangerous. He should stick to saving the world from aliens.” This reflects the bizarre belief, a teaching revealed at OTIII, that all of our problems are caused by mental implants we received from space aliens millions of years ago.

Let’s not forget that pretty much nobody credible worldwide takes Scientology seriously. Justice Anderson of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia, is quoted as saying: “Scientology is evil; its techniques are evil; its practice is a serious threat to the community, medically, morally, and socially; and its adherents are sadly deluded and often mentally ill… (Scientology is) the world’s largest organization of unqualified persons engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as mental therapy.”

We don’t have to look far to find examples of Cruise and his Scientology-inspired insanity, he pretends to be a poster child for Dianetics, but instead, let’s be honest, he’s a laughing stock and makes this Hubbardian nonsense look stupid.

Not that it needed much help in that regard.

Atheism Owes You Nothing

Posted by Cephus as Atheism

This video makes a great point, one that I keep having to point out to theists who want to know what atheism gives me. Why should atheism give me anything, it’s simply the state of having no belief in god(s), it doesn’t offer anything else, nor should it.

However, while not strictly atheism, but the mindset that brings atheism about, certainly does provide me a lot. It provides an impetus to accept reality as it comes and to search out the facts regardless of their potential emotional impact. It leads me to be careful about what I permit into my head and belief system and to do my best to keep the facts and nothing but the facts foremost in my consideration.

That’s what the larger context surrounding atheism provides to me. What does it give to you?

Can’t Be Late to Church!

Posted by Cephus as Education, Religion

Ed Wynn Rivera, a severely mentally disabled New York man, was trapped aboard a school bus for more than 17 hours on one of the coldest days of the year, abandoned there by bus supervisor Linda Hockaday because she was late for church. She was well aware that he was there, she was just hoping another of the bus workers would notice him and take care of him.

We can’t have her being late for church now, can we?

Rivera, who is 22, but has the mental capacity of a toddler, spent New Year’s Eve, where temperatures plunged to 15 degrees, strapped into his seat. Police attempted to search the bus depot but missed Rivera’s bus, which was parked behind a fence.

“I’m furious,” said Khrystine Rivera, the fuming sister. “Something needs to happen. This is sheer stupidity.”

When Ed was finally found, he was suffering from hypothermia and will spend at least 48 hours in the hospital for observation, but is otherwise unharmed. He’s upset that he missed New Year’s Eve sitting on a bus and his family is going to re-celebrate the New Year especially for him.

Hockaday was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and will be, I assume, relieved of her job, as she should be. Anyone who puts a church service above the wellbeing of a human being deserves to be shot. That kind of thing is simply unforgiveable.

Even though Rivera wasn’t seriously injured, it’s just this kind of religious stupidity that belongs in the Religious Horror Show. Religion makes people stupid, this is just our first example for the New Year.

Bless Me Pita Jesus!

Posted by Cephus as Religion, Uncategorized

Hey, we haven’t had enough silly crap on toast lately, it’s time for another entry. This time, we have Jesus making an appearance in New Zealand on a piece of pita bread. If you act fast, you can own this crispy savior! Like so many of these holy yummy relics, it’s up for auction on New Zealand’s TradeMe.

The current owner, name unknown, says that the pita bread he was cooking fell apart in the oven and one piece, pictured at the left, looked amazingly like Jesus. “I was tempted to eat it but for some reason I didn’t,” the seller says in their auction listing.

That brings up an interesting question though. You always hear thousands of Catholics lining up to see stains on walls, mold in bathrooms and crap on bread because they’re miracles, why do these things keep ending up on eBay?

This isn’t the first time a miraculous appearance has ended up on TradeMe though, last year, a pebble with the image of the Virgin Mary. The seller wanted $50,000 for the rock, but legitimate high bids came up far short so the seller withdrew the auction.

I guess it’s only a miracle when it’s worth a lot.

All Commercials Should Be Like This

Posted by Cephus as TV/Movies

I just saw this commercial for Evil Dead: The Musical and thought it was hilarious.  I know it’s hard to see, especially if you’re outside the Toronto area or somewhere else that’s got the live show going.  I managed to get a copy of the DVD and think it’s a wonderful show if you’re a fan of the original Evil Dead movies, stage comedy musicals, or both.

Does Anyone Really Care about the New Year?

Posted by Cephus as Uncategorized

Seriously, how many people actually give a damn that yesterday was 2008 and today is 2009?  I mean, last night my wife and I were watching the last episode of Top Gear’s series 12, the race across Vietnam, we noticed what time it was about 11:50, called the kids, everyone had a glass of sparkling apple cider, said a quiet “yay” at midnight and went back to what we were doing.  That was it, and that’s all we ever do, it’s not a big deal, the only good thing about New Years is we get an extra day off work.  That’s all that’s worth celebrating.

I guess because we don’t drink or party, it’s not a big deal.  I can’t think of the last time I went to a New Year’s party, it’s been close to 25 years now and they’re no fun because everyone is getting drunk and acting like a moron.  It’s not an occasion to socialize either, in fact we all went out to dinner with friends just Tuesday night so there’s no real need to get out with all the drunk drivers again the next day.

In fact, I can find no qualitative difference between Wednesday and Thursday at all.  The world doesn’t change, gravity doesn’t reverse, it’s just an arbitrary point in time that has no real meaning.  The next date that will actually matter, it seems, is in 20 days when we throw that asshat George W. Bush out of the White House forever.  That’s a date worth celebrating.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend my extra day off work relaxing quietly at home, not really noticing any difference between yesterday and today.  I’ll pick and choose my milestones to celebrate and “National Buy a New Calendar Day” isn’t one worth paying attention to.

Yaoi Freaks

Posted by Cephus as Comics/Manga

There’s a movement afoot in the anime and manga community that, well, is really starting to piss me off. Not because it exists, there are a lot of really bizarre sexual fetishes out there and so long as people keep them in the privacy of their own bedroom, I couldn’t care less. The problem is that these morons can’t keep them private, they have to spread them all over the place and seriously, it’s making the manga marketplace look like a haven for freaks and losers. The problem is yaoi and I’m fed up with it.

Let’s be perfectly honest about this, the only real reason, whether they’re willing to admit it or not, that you find girls drooling over drawn gay sex, is the same reason you get so many immature boys drooling over lesbian porn. Both have some deep dark fantasy that they can somehow “convert” these two gay people and have a threesome, but more to the core of the issue, they feel safer dealing with a situation where they have no same-sex competition for the prize. They don’t want to worry about the possibility of the gay-turned-straight guys suddenly finding another girl more attractive and interesting than you. It’s incredibly shallow and immature, which is exactly what most yaoi fans are.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing in particular against porn, although I will admit that a lot of porn fans have a very unhealthy obsession with it. I don’t even have anything against gay porn, why shouldn’t anyone have material to look at regardless of their particular inclinations? However, you have to remember that even in Japan, the vast majority of yaoi manga is intended for pathetic loser girls who want to dream they could get a man, just as lesbian porn is intended for pathetic loser guys who couldn’t get laid on a bet.

What originally brought this up is the October issue of Otaku U.S.A. They have manga reviews in the back and one of the selections is titled “Fall 2008 Yaoi Selections” The reviews are written by someone named Leia Weathington who, after reading her reviews, seems to be an incredibly screwed up individual. Leia’s description of why she likes yaoi, at the beginning of her first review, pretty much sums it up:

What do girls like to see in their BL (Boys Love) titles? Let’s make a list, shall we? How about school boys, cute younger brother complexes, sex, sex in a shower, sex in public, semes dressed like the vampire Lestat, resistant-yet-begging-for-it ukes, and teacher/student romances? Is there anything missing? How about the love that dare not speak its name, tentacle rape?

Sorry Leia, but you are one seriously fucked up bitch. Beyond an immature fixation on sex, are you aware that half of the things you mentioned are patently illegal? You mention incest, underage sex, rape and adult sex with a minor, not to mention tentacle rape, which probably would fall into the realm of bestiality, depending on where the tentacle came from.

Heck, even my wife, who is an online manga reviewer and editor-in-chief of Comics Village, read the passage that said “The art is fairly standard bishonen fare, but Shinba really shines when depicting Fujimaru’s anthropomorphic, chibi penis” and said “That’s why yaoi sucks.”

And I agree. But that’s not the only reason yaoi sucks, it’s because it gives the emotionally immature a way to get off without actually having to grow the hell up. Frankly, Leia and her ilk can all take a flying leap off the tallest building around, I doubt the world would miss them.

As I’ve already said, my wife does manga reviews and as such, a lot of companies send her review copies of things they hope she’ll read and like. There is one company, who will go unnamed, who keeps sending her manga, including a good deal of yaoi, even though she’s told them not to. In fact, it’s become such a problem that she’s told them to stop sending her anything at all as the porn is becoming the majority of their offerings. Of course, they completely ignored her and continue to send a couple of packages a month, at their own expense, which is fine with me if they want to waste their own money, and I’ve come up with some interesting ways to dispose of the unwanted garbage beyond simply dumping it into the recycling bin and putting it out with the trash. At first, most of my woodworking tools got a good workout. I’ve sliced yaoi manga into wafer-thin slices, I’ve used a pneumatic roofing nailer to combine several manga into large, inseparable blocks, I’ve carved complex patterns into them with my scrollsaw, it’s been a great deal of fun rendering this garbage unreadable. I must admit that the last time however, I was lazy and simply doused a pile of them in gasoline and tossed a match on them, which went up with a satisfying “woof”, producing a pile of nice white ash.  It’s certainly not censorship, as I expect people to accuse me of, I don’t care if they sell their wares to willing buyers, I just don’t choose to have them ship their filth to my home.

You might ask yourself why I bother and why I care about it. I don’t. If you want to read it, go for it. Have fun. I support your right to read what you wish, but that doesn’t eliminate my right to tell you that you’re a sick fucktard who needs a life. Who knows, maybe you might actually get laid. Or is that dangerous, you might pass on your damaged, yaoi-loving genes.

Posse Comitatus My Ass

Posted by Cephus as Politics, Uncategorized

This will probably piss off my libertarian readers, but I generally don’t mind police sobriety checkpoints, at least within reason. If it keeps a single drunk driver off the streets, I have no problem spending a minute or two of my time slowing down so the police can look in the window, hand me a pamphlet and send me on my way. It’s not terribly intrusive and so long as I don’t have to get out of my car (unless I smell of alcohol of course), it’s not a big deal. Yes, it’s not strictly legal for them to do so, but I can handle it.

However, right now there’s a series of checkpoints going on in California that outrightly violate the laws of the United States, and those I do have a problem with, simply because of the people taking part in them. According to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the United States military is prohibited from acting against the citizenry, except in times of civil unrest. Unfortunately, right now we have the Marines, in association with local police and sheriff departments, taking part in these checkpoints and it’s not just “sniff and wave-through” stuff anymore.

According to a December 10, 2008 press release by the Sheriff’s department, there was one such checkpoint scheduled on the 12th, but there are certainly more. It’s being played off as a “training exercise” by the Marines, but training for what? Something they’re not legally allowed to do in the first place?

This might not be so troubling except for the recent revelation that the United States is now considering our borders to extend for a 100-mile zone inside the continental United States. That means that if you live within that 100-mile zone, you can be pulled over at any time and asked to prove your citizenship and right to be in the country, they can ask you to open your trunk and examine your car to make sure, ostensibly, that you’re not smuggling illegal aliens.

Now I’m all for stopping the illegal alien onslaught, but you don’t do that by illegally stopping and searching legitimate citizens and they’re counting on the fact that most people don’t know it’s illegal to get away with it. These searches fall under the “illegal search and seizure” laws and are blatantly illegal.

It’s one thing to stop someone whom you have legal cause to suspect of a crime, it’s quite another to pull over random citizens and make them produce papers. There is absolutely no legal requirement whatsoever for you to prove you’re a citizen because some goober with a badge asks you to. They cannot search your vehicle without cause, all they can do is ask your cooperation and if you refuse to give it, if they are not going to arrest you, then they must send you on your way.

This is a very troubling turn of events, one that we must all call the Department of Homeland Security and demand stops immediately.

Department of Homeland Security Comment Line: 202-282-8495