The Pre-Game Show

America feels happier this year (well, except for some people *roll eyes*). Heres some stuff you would have learned in school if you were paying attention.

Abbey quotes
A restored letter
The Thoreau Reader

I don't listen to much music anymore because most of it's crap, but here are some songs I reccomend. I guarantee you will find something you like. Go get something to ingest; you might be here a while. Sorry you gotta cut and paste, but there were too many to embed them all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMsJi9WzhX8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Roq9S8-UVTs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWRfBZY-ng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3BFOcjAtI0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmM15bY6fsM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKEZoY-TMG4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_htqDCP-s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkRbthnW3sY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZarcTTRUHoU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv5XtChhzZA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnsRoaKNqnc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGaIaSJa630

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS0iwib14vA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Dg3QMfWgQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoqVxjBvZAs

The following is an actual message I recieved on my Youtube channel from a religious person who is apparently upset that I am an Atheist.

"Die painfully okay? Prefearbly by getting crushed to death in a
garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a
pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach
sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped
out of their sockets. Fucking bitch


I would love to kick you hard in the face, breaking it. Then I'd cut
your stomach open with a chainsaw, exposing your intestines. Then I'd
cut your windpipe in two with a boxcutter. Then I'd tie you to the
back of a pickup truck, and drag you, until your useless fucking
corpse was torn to a million fucking useless, bloody, and gory pieces.

Hopefully you'll get what's coming to you. Fucking bitch




I really hope that you get curb-stomped. It'd be hilarious to see you
begging for help, and then someone stomps on the back of your head,
leaving you to die in horrible, agonizing pain. *beep*"

I sent him a friend invite and gave him my address and told him how much I look forward to meeting him. What would Jesus do?

I'm terribly sorry I got to the stop sign at the same time as you. If you were there one second earlier, it would have been your turn, but by a cruel twist of fate I was on your right. I know it must have seemed so unfair to you that I got to go first even though your vehicle is more expensive than mine. I hope it didn't interupt your important phone call.  P.S.  You got served by a car thats older than your mother and still gets better gas mileage than your Stupid Useless Vehicle.

Seriously if this isn't un-American, then I must be missing something. Not only did Chuck Norris pick a lame martial art that was a Korean copy of a Japanese copy of an Okinawan style that was itself a copy of a Chinese peasants style, he also picked the lamest political philosophy ever. I mean, if they think secession is patriotic, then maybe we should just let them leave. They need us more than we need them, thats for sure. And just how far would Texas get without the rest of the states? They would come crying back in no time, begging to be forgiven, just like the whiny little babies they are. English does not have a word to describe how utterly disgusted this kind of inflammatory rhetoric is making me. 

 I don't know what to do about this increasing unhinged-ness from the right, but I think I know the cause. You see, most republicans are out of touch with reality. That's not just a cliche; if the only place you get your news is from Fox or World Nut Daily, and you never encounter poor people in your day-to-day activities, it's easy to believe that America is some sort of Leave It To Beaver rerun. 

Did you ever get cut off by an ass-hole in an SUV who can't be bothered to use a turn signal? It's a symptom of the same illness. He really didn't notice you, anymore than he noticed the homeless guy with the crayon scribbled sign that was standing in the street. To him, his phone call really was more important than other peoples safety. It's called Cognitive Dissonance; it's why they think that the way to fight Islamist extremism is to become a Christianist extremist. It's why NRA members can think free guns would be good but free health care would be bad. It's why they get mad when you tell them that Benedict Arnold was a conservative and Jesus was a liberal. These things challenge their subjective image of reality.

I don't think there is anything you or I can do help this generation other than to keep blogging and voting, but hopefully these virulent Memes will die out of their own accord like a virus that kills its host too quickly. Then one day we can teach our boys that being a man doesn't depend on subduing things and teach our girls that being a woman doesn't depend on popping out babies.

I stumbled across a news item that I would have thought would have garnered a bit more attention from the fear-mongering corporate media. In December of 2007 a woman from Colorado was diagnosed with Marburg hemorrhagic fever. It's called a Filovirus, like Ebola, and can be spread by contact with the bodily fluids of infected people. It's so bad it's considered a potential bio-weapon. It's icky; I'm glad no-one else caught it.

For some reason she had to go to Uganda.  She was probably one of those wacky missionaries sent there to tell the natives how praying works better than condoms. Either that or she's the trophy wife* of an overpaid Bankster who only went there as a status symbol. She was probably a blonde, too, because she had to go in the python cave where the bats that are the most likely vector of Marburg live. Now I wouldn't mind going to Africa myself, but if I do, I'm not going into a python cave. I'm sure it's not called the python cave because of all the cuddly bunnies running around. She's lucky all she got was Marburg.  Wouldn't it be ironic if she was an anti-vaxer?

But that's not the point; The point is that it took the CDC over a year to confirm that it was in fact Marburg.  After suffering through the anti-science administration we've had for the last eight years, I'm not surprised. At least now we have a President that knows that Science is important.  Let's just hope he doesn't cave in to the religious wing-nuts (cave, get it?).

At least there are still people who take their science seriously out in the field. Some would say that it was a miracle that no-one else was infected, but lets give credit where it's due. Marburg is pretty nasty and it wasn't prayer that stopped a potential "hot zone".  It was the brave doctors and nurses and lab techs at Lutheran Medical Center and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment who worked with the CDC to minimize the risks to anyone who may  have come into contact with the patient. They are unsung heroes. I also heard a rumor that there was some old guy dressed in black who was mumbling over some beads, but he didn't do anything usefull.

Unfortunately the United States isn't the clear leader in high-tech research it once was. I blame that luddite, Ronald Reagan and all the gullible lemmings who followed him over the cliff of voodoo economics. Stealing our thunder, the Human Virology Department of the Ecoles normales supérieures in Lyons, France are at the forefront of research into Filoviruses. A team lead by Prof V Volchkov are figuring out what makes this stuff tick. They clone the virus from cDNA and then engineer mutations in it's genome. Different mutations affect different proteins and this way they will find out the role of specific proteins in pathogenicity of the virus. Once the replication of the virus and the synthesis of proteins is understood, vaccines and therapeutic tools against Filoviruses can be developed. Or they could just go to church and listen to some charlatan tell them how the god of Bronze Age goat-herders is still somehow relevant and how Jesus wants tax cuts for the wealthy. 

*don't get mad at me for using a misogynistic stereotype. Do something to change it.

Why am I posting an episode of Star Trek in Honor of Darwins Birthday? I guess you'll have to watch it to find out. The episode doesn't allow embedding, so click through and find part one.This one of he best episodes, not just of Voyager, but in all of the Roddenberry universe.

Many people think I'm a liberal just because I'm not a conservative. Things are rarely so black and white. The truth of the matter is that there are issues upon which I do have somewhat conservative views. The fact that I've never voted for a member of the Giant Oil Party has more to do with the fact of thier inherant dishonesty and corruption more than some rigid adherance to a particular world view. Call me a liberal if you want; I won't feel insulted. Nor should anyone else. Somehow the corporate propaganda machine of this country has turned this unthreatening word into an epithet. Rail against it all you want, it won't change the fact that the United States was founded as a liberal democracy. Of course I now expect ad hominem attacks from people who have no position from which to debate. I believe subconsciously the conservatives know they are wrong, but they can't bear the thought of being wrong. Rather than debating in a civilized manner, the only thing they can do is insult people. If they could step back for moment and take look at objective reality, they would neccesarily agree that they have been wrong all along. They can't do this because they are scared. This is the fundamental difference between conservatives and rational people. The world, by neccesity, is changing and the conservatives don't like it one bit. It terrifies them that the comfort they so enjoy may in fact be a fleeting thing that they didn't deserve in the first place. For a good portion of the twentieth century there were nuclear missiles pointed at our major cities, but now they want everybody to be so scared of some arabs hiding in caves that we will gladly give up our rights as Americans. They can't stand on thier own two feet and say why they believe what they believe. All they can do is parrot what some stupid pundit says and then pat each other on the back for it. If someone should point out a flaw in their reasoning they cry "Your attacking me!" Poor widdle neo-cons. It's not enough that they now control most of the media, they need constant reinforcement to sustain the hypocrisy. Youtube has atheists on it so they make Godtube. Wikipedia can be edited by anybody, so they create Conservapedia. They protest the fictional movie The DaVinci Code, but they flock to The Passion even though it totally perverts the message of Jesus. Now the boring idiot Ben Stien's new movie, Expelled, is coming out because they can't admit they lost the battle against scientific progress one hundred fifty years ago. Science is fine when it makes labor saving devices or weapons, but look out if it dares to challenge long-held superstitions.
My point is that conservatives are really just big sissies. Liberals are mostly nice guys, but the bullies see this as a weakness to be exploited. Stop being nice to these jerks; they do not deserve it. I know some of them might be your friends, but try a simple expirement. Ask your conservative friend how he can believe in an invisible man in the sky for which there is no evidence, but he can't believe in climate change when even the oil companies won't deny it. I guarantee his first response will be an insult or personal attack. Brush that aside, and press the issue. His next response will be dissembling or obfuscation. Don't give up. Shortly he will be cowering in the corner sucking his thumb and saying "I thought you were my friend." It may seem unkind but maybe this way you can actually get through to them. We've tried everything else. I know it's a cliche but it's true; they can dish it out, but they can't take it.

In an attempt to save face after her humiliating defeat by Lenny from Laverne and Shirley on the game show Jeopardy, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings appeared today on the popular NPR news quiz Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. A regular feature of the show has celebraties call in and answer questions to win a prize for a listener. The long time Bush-crony, who has turned a blind eye to corruption and conflicts of interest in the student loan industry, was playing for Air Force Major Bob Munsen, currently stationed in Iraq. Luckily the godless liberals on the show cared enough about our troops to bend the rules a tad, and after some prompting and hints, Miss Spellings was finally able to answer two of the three questions. I hope Major Munsen enjoys Carl Kasell's voice on his home answering machine. It's too bad he didn't win enough to afford to send his kids to the same private school that Secretary Spellings sends hers to.

After haranguing PBS CEO Pat Mitchell over the Buster the Bunny scandal until she had to resign, it's a wonder that NPR didn't tell the humorless hypocrite to take a flying leap. But then she holds the future of funding for the least biased radio network in the country in her grubby little texan claws, doesn't she?

More games than you'll ever need here--
experimental gameplay
French guy making a Diode/Transistor by hand
Poor mans Katamari
This game appears to be an ad for the band that does the music. I paricularly like the song on level 3 (of course thats only because I didn't get to 4 yet). This new genre of "Steam-punk" is the only exciting thing in music right now. It started out from sci-fi novels, but now includes everything from music to sculpture. Another band that has it's shit together is Abney Park.

Be prepared to waste some time with this game

So we all heard about the guy that got killed by the tiger, right? The family wants answers. Do you suppose they really want answers, or do they just want to find out if they have grounds to sue? If you tease a tiger, you might deserve it. I'm sorry, but I don't have much pity for the human race. Back in the Pleistocene, humans wiped out the megafauna. We never got a chance to scientifically describe the habits and ecology of the large mammals. That was the opening shot of the sixth great extinction event. I can forgive the ignorant Cro-Magnon; they didn't know any better. Closer to our time, humans finished off that giant pigeon relative, the Dodo. I guess I can forgive them too. They were only marginally more informed than their cave dwelling ancestors, but I would still like to go back in time and chastise them a bit. I look back in anger and disbelief at the extiction of the Passenger Pigeon. I hang my head in shame at we've done to Hawaii. The theme here that as we grow more knowledgable as a race we have less of an excuse to allow this sort of thing to happen. In my own life-time, I wept when I learned of the extinction of the Chinese River Dolphin, and curse the greed which keeps the majority of people in the world poor, thus offering them no choices other than "it was me or him."
These days there is a lot of complacency; people have cell-phones and SUVs so when greedy feudalists spout anti-science non-sense, thats exactly what we want to hear. "Oh, it's not our fault," we say, "Extinction is part of the natural process. So go ahead and fill your tank and turn that rain forest into tooth-picks. Besides, Jesus will be back soon and make everything all better."
Do me a favor and please pull your head out of your ass right now. I'm not gonna tell you about the Eskimos that had to invent a new word because they had never seen Robins before. I could mention hurricanes in Sweden(look it up). I could tell you that malaria will make it to Chicago before the killer bees will, but I won't. Im' not a scientist so why sould you listen to me. I will just tell you what I know for a fact.
I heard a frog yesterday... In Gary,Indiana... The day after Christmas.
As angry as you must certainly be able to tell that I am, your grandchildren will be even angrier at YOU! Maybe you don't care a whit about a stupid fish in some far-off lake, but surely you must care about what kind of legacy you are leaving your kids. I chose not to have kids because I could see what kind of world is coming. If I'm getting through to you, you might be thinking the same thing right now. War for oil? Give me a break. Wait until it's war for water. You think the fifty states can stay together through that? That'll make the south rise again, for sure. Shit, California will pray for an earthquake just take their minds off it.