ZMG's 100th Post: Stealing Christmas from the Christians

Well its that time of year again when the theists come out of the woodwork to proclaim that this month is only for Christians and followers of the one true faith. Whackjobs like Dildo O'Reilly have already claimed that saying Happy Holidays takes the season away from Christians. Shmucker Carlson also blabs on his blog that the fact that rational people fear a day that celebrates those individuals who couldn't validate their supernatural beliefs to save their lives somehow validates the notion that religious faith is alive and well. Don't know what Crayon Coulter is saying these days.. don't care. I only save my rage for those who are actually some kind of threat. As soon as her beauty fades, or conservative programs stop showing leggy photos of her instead of ever actually trying to validate a single thing she says (not like they can validate anything they say either), people will stop listening to her as they did that other Dr Laura Whatever-her-name-was who had her show yanked quicker than the Chevy Chase Show.

So many people to despise for being so stupid, so little time.

Well it seems to me that the ultra-whackjob conservatives don't want to share this time of the year with other religions because it appears to be taking religion away from those who want to believe in their faith. Well ok, but if that's the stance the religious rejects are going to take, then let's be fair about it.

Here are some of the major traditions of Christmas and their origins:

• Christmas Trees are derivative of Saturnalia (Ancient Rome) or many other Winter Solstice festivities as celebrated by polytheistic pagans long before jesus.
• Mistletoe was part of druidic worship because it was looked upon as promise of the return of spring.
• Yule Logs were burned as part of an ancient pagan festival known as Yuletide.
• December 25th was a date used by Persians to celebrate the birth of their sun god, Mithras until the Pope in 320 AD decided to officially declare (translation: Stop worshipping your sun god you pagans!) that it was to be the day to recognize the birth of jesus.
  
• Gift giving, while attributed to St Nicholas, was also a tradition during Saturnalia.
  

So, the way I see it. If the truly devout Christians don't want to share this time of the year with other faiths, then I see no reason for them to be allowed to have these traditions as well since they came from other religions.

After all, you God Warriors can't have it both ways.

Dildo O'Reilly and the Turner Diaries

It took me five minutes of watching Dildo O'Reilly trying to attack his critics to make me realize what he really is. He's nothing really special. Dildo is nothing more than a televised version of William Pierce.

William Pierce is the whackjob who wrote The Turner Diaries and like Dildo O'Reilly, Pierce believes in the ideals of the people he supports. The ultra-whackjob conservatives. Now this is the part that trips most people up. Like Dildo O'Reilly, Pierce made sure that while he would openly support the people and the positions, he made sure he would never openly support the extreme actions these people would take.. unless, of course, they got away with it. To Pierce, The Turner Diaries was just "a fictional work and not an actual plan to take seriously" in public.. while the Nazi flag waves in the background. Then Timothy McVeigh put the book into action in Oklahoma City. You'll notice that at no time William Pierce stood up and said.. "No, you took my writings in completely the wrong context!"

The same theme applies to what Dildo O'Reilly does. This guy sits down and supports no one but conservative people and takes conservative positions on several hot topics that would take only the more ultra-conservative actions to achieve. But when people call him on supporting the actions required to move America towards his ultra-conservative positions, Dildo O'Reilly gets to throw his hands up, act shocked and say "I never said THAT" or "I'm not in support of THAT kind of government action" and then he goes back to blasting liberals for not speaking the truth as only he sees it.

So there you have it. Dildo O'Reilly is nothing more than a little bitch instigator just like William Pierce. He does nothing but talk big, try to get others to take the criminal actions for him and then gets to stay behind the scenes while others have to take the responsibilities. Its really quite pathetic.

More From the Unintelligently Designed Creationists

Well in the past few months we've had two Creationism/Evolution trials of which only one was victorious in kicking Intelligent Design square in the god bags. Honestly, I never expected Kansas to vote in favor of Evolution. No chance in hell, pardon the pun, those ass-backward hicks were going to actually choose a scientific theory with decades of empirical evidence to support it over a theological notion of pure fantasy with no evidence to show for it.

You'd think in 2000 years someone would have been able to produce something of scientific merit to support their religious hogwash.

But Kansas did have something good come out of its plunge back into the dark ages. Since Creationism was being let back into schools, one professor - with a doctorate in theology from Harvard, no less - Paul Mirecki decided to teach a course in debunking Creationism. Unfortunately, it seems that the pressure from student opposition got the better of him as he fired emails at students in a religious group that his course would have been a slap "in their big fat face." He was forced to apologize to these fundie cretins and for his troubles, he was beaten with a metal object yesterday morning by two chickenshit hicks who obviously loved the teachings of jesus so much they had to resort to a lynching when they couldn't validate their own beliefs. Get well soon, Paul. You are a Real American Hero.

Side Note: After Professor Mirecki was forced into apologizing for his email, Kansas State Senator, and all around waste of life, Kay O'Connor stated that she was happy that the University cancelled his class and how critical she was about his hatefulness towards Christianity. We have yet to hear from this dried-up prune over the hateful actions that caused Professor Mirecki's injuries.

The other trial occurred in Pennsylvania and this time the Mind triumphed over the Spirit. But before it did, another professor, Scott Minnich, took the stand in defense of Intelligent Design. Scott Minnich is a genetic microbiologist who, in the same craptacular path of Behe, somehow got it into his head that Creationism was somehow a valid default if he could just show that Evolution was wrong. And like Behe, his plan of attack was to find something science couldn't explain yet and say "Eureka! I can't explain this, therefore God must have done it! I'm a Genius!"

So this whackjob gets on stage and blabs about how Intelligent Design is based on science and that "scientists" who stumble along the same path as he does are so horribly mistreated by the scientific community because they are the minority. Side Note: Don't you just love the way these Christian whackjobs pull out the racial abuse card whenever they are shunned for not being able to validate their notions. So being a man of science and finding out this whackjob does indeed have some rather impressive credentials in his background, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and I wrote him the following letter to request information that he surely must have had to show scientific support for Intelligent Design.

Scott Minnich,

Today you claimed, on the stand, that Intelligent Design was based in science and that whoever the "creator" was, was based on individual philosophy. While it is a popular opinion among creationists, I am curious to know how you defend that this notion holds water in regards to scientific responsibility.

You have done extensive and impressive research in the field of microbiology along the same deductive reasoning of Behe, but I am curious how you can suggest that even if Darwin and evolution are found to be, at the least, incomplete, that your notions of intelligent design are somehow valid or even accurate by default?

It seems to me that your notion of intelligent design is not based on science, but rather what appears to be, at the most, a lack of science. These concepts are not the same thing, Scott. Without direct validation for your notions rather than attempts to indirectly invalidate current, more supported, scientific theories, I can not see how you can expect anyone to see your notions as valid.

The Constitution gives everyone the right to believe in whatever we want to, Scott. A citizen in this country can believe in God, Allah, Shiva, Zeus or even purple leprechauns underneath the bed. Nothing however, gives anyone the right to automatically claim validity for anything that they may want to believe in. Tell me Scott, how can you believe that to assume otherwise is anything but just plain irresponsible?

But perhaps you have something to show us we have yet to see. Without showing evidence of how current theories are possibly incorrect, can your research DIRECTLY show evidence, outside of your personal religious faith, of a supreme maker of life? Do you have methods to produce this evidence? Do you have a controllable way of measuring this evidence? Can you reproduce this evidence in a controlled environment? Do you have the method for which to compare your findings?

I'm sure that if you were to produce something tangible that your notion of a "supreme entity" exists and that it indeed did create life as we know it today, that the scientific community would be more than happy to give you the credit you deserve for your work. If not, I have a suggestion for a scientific methodology that may help you out.

1. Study paranormal activities.
2. Find out if these entities are indeed the remnants of living people (aka souls).
3. Inquire as to the nature of the philosophies held by them.
4. Request an audience with their top official.
5. Ask the top official if your notions are correct.

Granted, my methodology may be in the minority of what is scientifically acceptable, but I am sure you can relate to that.

I hope that you will see that showing direct evidence of your theories is much more useful than assuming your notions, seemingly based in a lack of science, are correct simply by default. I wish you the best of luck with either your or my methodology. I hope you that you will find the results that you require for validation.

With best regards,
Xxxxx

PS. I am forwarding a copy of this letter to the dean of your University and to the chair of the Tenure committee. I have heard that you have found yourself in a spot of hot water concerning your teaching methods. Perhaps by answering my questions, you can also relieve any fears they may have about your teaching abilities. Good luck, Scott. I'm rooting for you.

I have yet to hear back from Mr Minnich with the evidence I requested. I guess Schrodinger's Cat must have his tongue.

As a result of these trials, I am personally putting a 2000 soul bounty on every creationist's head to any deity or devil that smites them. Any deity or demon taking up this offer must show conclusive evidence that they were directly responsible for the "act of god" involved. An additional 500 souls will be handed over for video evidence of the creationist in eternal torment.

Madison Police are Great at Giving Blowjobs

One of the things that kept me from caring about posting these past months is that my '87 Dodge Caravan finally died on me. It was the transmission. Not worth replacing on a van that old. But it got about 276 thousand miles on it before it finally croaked. Not too shabby for a domestic.

Anyways, I lost my copy of the damn title and had to get it replaced before I could sign it over to the garage as salvage. Ok. I go to the DMV on a very extended lunch and take care of it. Fine. No problem. That night, I go to the auto repair place that's holding my deader than shit car and I basically go through whatever's left inside with two garbage bags (one for keeping, one for junking). I walk in and sign over the title with the salvage box checked to the auto garage. Fine. No problem.

I wish.

Turns out one of the assholes in the garage turned around and "sold" my car to a third party unknown to me and proceeded to get an abandoned vehicle ticket for a vehicle that is somehow still in my name. Turns out I had to tell the cops that this transaction had taken place. What esoteric bullshit is this? So now I have to clear a $110 ticket for a car that is no longer mine and that I couldn't have driven anywhere because the transmission was so royally screwed up. I found out that the garage sold my car with one phone call. You'd think the brainiacs in the police department would actually try and rub their collective heads together and maybe a few sparks of intelligence would have saved me all this trouble. Alas, these cops aren't working from a pre-written script like the boys in Law & Order.

And the police wonder why no one respects the badge anymore.

ZMG's Review of The Brothers Grimm

There are odd movies and there are odd movies. This movie got about a 6.5 on my wtf-meter. But not entirely because it was a good sense of oddity either.

No, this movie was a few too many stumbles from a good odd movie. The film was too silly to be a good horror film, too bland (even by british standards) to be a comedy and too weird to be a good action film.

The film starts out as two brothers who apparently still work together even though one of them was directly responsible for their sister's death when they were younger as they scam a town into believing there is a witch flying around and haunting its people. The scam works and yet somehow the French government still finds out and they are arrested within 12 hours. And you thought Amber alerts were effective.

The French then blackmail the Brothers Grimm into finding out what is going on in a small town where children have been going missing for some time. Apparently, the French are running low on guards as they can't seem to send any of their own troops to head up the investigation outside of a sadistic torturer (the only source of humor in the film) and a couple of useless soldiers whose sole purpose is to be eaten by the trees. After they arrive in the town the plot moves along jerkily as the nerdy Grimm brother (Heath Ledger) acts like a witless Agent Mulder and pushes the plot along after its become obvious to the audience. The other Grimm brother (Matt Damon) acts like a tough ladies-man who only uses his skills for fighting to beat up on his wimpy brother and a failed attempt at bravery in the last 5 minutes of the film. The brothers then try to get a grasp on the weird world of wonder unfolding right beyond the edge of the trees as a vain and seemingly immortal Queen attempts to regain her beauty lost for 500 years. In her defense, the Queen has its army of writhing carnivorous trees with a taste for French cuisine, black crows and a transforming wolf/hunter with a few mystical trinkets of his own.. which he doesn't seem to mind leaving behind if it happens to help the plot stumble along. Eventually the queen is defeated and everyone is saved, including one guy that gets stabbed in the chest twice and falls out of a 50 ft tower. Yeah.. getting stabbed in the chest twice was all a spell... sure.

There are only two really good scenes in the film. They both deal with the abduction of little girls from the town, one involving a horse that spits out a spiderweb which it then sucks back in with a girl tangled within the web and the other involves a mud creature that absorbs the child's eyes and mouth before absorbing the rest of the girl into its belly and running off. It was these two scenes that make the movie worth seeing. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie wasn't nearly as inventive.

Highlights of the film:

• One carnivorous horse
• One child eating mud creature
• One shredded kitten
• One transforming wolf with a boomerang axe
  

Now, usually I just rant about what a crapfest a movie is before I pass judgement. This time I want to do more than piss on this film because I think it could have been done so much better.

This is how I would have made this film. I would have the Brothers Grimm roaming the countryside as a pair of 18th century Ghostbusters. The studious Grimm brother would be a researcher and armed with several knick-knacks and inventions to ward off evil. The tough Grimm brother would act as a mercenary, shooting first and asking questions later. The movie would start out as a child is sucked into the forest by yet another inventive and bizarre trap set by the wicked Queen. Afterwards, the Brother's Grimm would be seen slaying a giant that has been having his minion sell beans to hapless country folk who wind up getting kidnapped by fast-growing beanstalks with venus-flytrap like bean pods are taken up to the giant's home in the sky and are eventually harvested and eaten by the cannibalistic giant. After slaying the giant, the two would be requested by the French government to look into the strange disappearances of the children of a small town. The French, looking to steal the brother's glory, sends a sadistic soldier of its own. The plot evolves as at least 6 more bizarre kidnappings occur, the Brothers Grimm study the local folklore and try to defend the townsfolk from the enchanted dangers within the forest. Eventually, the Brothers find out what the Queen is up to and that the French are looking to assassinate the Brothers. The Brothers then trick the French sadist into bringing a French garrison to attack the forest and take the brunt of the Queen's wrath as the Brothers sneak past the army, deal with the huntsman and put an end to the Queen's diabolical plan to gain eternal youth. The movie ends as the ravens pick up and fly off with the pieces of the shattered Queen and the possibility of a sequel is born.

Final Grade: D
Final Note: Wait for it to come out on DVD and then flip a coin.

NOW Blue Steps up to Replace Red

Lions Gate Entertainment has declared that it will start the next technology revolution to Blu-ray DVDs next year.

For those of you who don't know, Blu-Ray DVDs use a blue laser instead of a red laser and since the wavelength for blue lasers is much shorter than the wavelength for red lasers, you can save more data on a Blu-Ray DVD. With a little marketing luck, Blu-Rays are looking to replace the standard DVDs just as DVDs replaced VHS tapes and Laserdiscs.

Personally, I think its a load of crap. For one thing, they can already fit an entire movie on one red DVD and the extras they could potentially put on a Blu-Ray DVD aren't nearly enough to justify buying a whole new player and a whole new library of Blu-Ray DVDs. Second, a blue laser runs hotter than a red laser, so that might wear out a Blu-Ray DVD faster.

It might be worth it as a new way of storing data on a computer disc, but I can't see it replacing red DVDs for movies. So chances are, if Blu-ray machines can't even play red laser discs, I wont be buying into the next wave of home movie technology.

Its not like I have the time to watch the movies I currently have.

15 Things Conservatives Don't Understand

1. Abortion is not murder. A lump of cells and living tissue that cannot survive outside of a human being is not a human being. If I carve out a person’s lung from someone’s body, it is a living organism and it will die if it is not placed inside another human being. It has no rights of its own. It is only a possession of the person from which it was taken from.

2. God is not a default for lack of science. If science can neither explain it now nor in your lifetime, that does not mean any number of god-based propositions are correct by default.

3. “Protecting democracy” and “Defending American civil liberties” are not one-size-fits-all excuses for irresponsible military action. Outside of Afghanistan, not one US soldier, in the last 50 years has died protecting democracy or Defending American civil liberties.

4. Pointing fingers at previous political leaders that have gotten off for doing something wrong doesn’t excuse current political leaders from doing something worse.

5. No one has to disprove or show your propositions are false if you cannot produce evidence that they are true.

6. Children whose parents you kill now because you feel they are evil will neither share your sentiment today nor 20 years from now.

7. You have to hate the current status quo of something, at least a little bit, before you can justify changing it for the better.

8. The Constitution was written from the Deist perspective, not the Christian perspective. Even if the Constitution had been written by Christians in the past that only means that those people who wrote the Constitution were only as superstitious as Christians are now.

9. The Constitution may give you the right to believe anything you want to, but nothing gives you the right to use those beliefs as a substitute for fact or justification for an action without something more tangible to back it up.

10. The only people responsible for cleaning up an environmental mess are the people or the industry that makes the mess.

11. There is a significant difference between not supporting a country’s decision and selling the country out to its opponents.

12. Patriotism is not an excuse for white people on one side of an imaginary line to hate white people on the other side of the same imaginary line.

13. Neither the sum total of your finances nor your country’s current status in the global community has any bearing as to whether or not your social philosophies are correct.

14. It doesn't matter how many people agree with your philosophies if you can not defend them rationally and without something more tangible than religious faith.

15. Liberals don’t fear conservatives. Ever.

Damn Creationists Are At It Again

Led by that f*cking retard Bush, these damn creationists are trying to get Intelligent Design put into school systems. Bush is claiming that while school districts should make their own decisions, schools should teach religious based theories alongside evolution. What Bullshit!

There are a few things that all creationists fail to understand.

1. Even if Evolution is found to be false or even incomplete, that doen't mean Creationism, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity or any other "god" based theory is automatically true by default. They still need to show evidence that their propositions are valid.

2. Creationism, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, etc.. are not scientific theories. Scientific theories require that there be controllable methods of investigating, gathering, measuring, and comparing reproducible empirical data. Creationist propositions meet none of these qualifications outside of religious faith. Simply poking holes in existing scientific theories and saying "I wanna believe" is not enough to show validity. That is why it will NEVER be taught in any school that values the rational mind.

3. If science does not have an answer for something, that does not mean any "god" based theories are correct by default. It merely means that there is no scientific explanation yet. It is always far more responsible to say "I don't know" about something we don't know anything about than it is to assume some religious faith based proposition is the correct one.

The only real way that creationists could start to prove their propositions are valid - outside of their usual concentrating real hard, clicking their heels together three times and repeating "I DO believe in god. I DO believe in god. I do. I do. I DO believe in god" - is to show evidence of a conscious existence beyond death and then show evidence that these apparitions follow a christian/catholic/whatever political system. Only then do I feel that rational minds would be able to take them more seriously.

How Many Boy Scout Leaders Does it Take...

How many Boy Scout Leaders does it take to call off a Jamboree?

5.. *Bzzzt*..
make that 4.. *Bzzzt*..
make that 3.. *Bzzzt*..
2?.. *Bzzt*..
1?.. *Bzzt*..
Aw Crap

4 Electrocuted
300 suffering from heat exhaustion
and now 2 dead from lightning

CALL THE DAMN JAMBOREE OFF ALREADY BEFORE YOU LOSE ANYONE ELSE! Is it really that fucking difficult?

Freedom of Speech Vs Right to Bare Arms

Illinois just passed a new law that would keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and make it mandatory for gun shows to require background checks, keep those records for 10 years after the purchase and hand those records over to the police whenever they want to.

Naturally, the nutjobs in the NRA-ILA are calling this out as anti-gun legislation.

My question is why is it that when people write a book, or a novel or a paper on a subject, they want their name to be associated with the project under copyright laws, but the people who want guns don't want anyone to know they have them? If they want to actually make people believe that owning a gun is, by itself, not an illegal act, then why are they so afraid of having people know they own one?

My Form Letter Response to All Rejection Letters

Dear Asshole,

Thank you for overlooking me in such an efficient manner. I especially liked that you gave absolutely no reason as to why you have rejected me. Was it that I was over-qualified for a position that a trained monkey could have done or, for that matter, supervised? Or was it that you were too cheap to shill out enough dough to match my experience level? Perhaps you are just waiting around for that talentless bimbo with the giant knockers who can't even spell "experience" let alone gain any without kneepads on to apply.

Whatever the reason, thank you for your time in sending me this emotionless letter, you insensitive prick. Fuck you and I hope you get hit with a mack truck.

Take care,
The guy behind you with an axe

Beam Him Up, Scotty!

James Doohan has died today at the age of 85 from a combination of Alzheimers and pneumonia after getting the shit kicked out of him by Parkinson's.

Truly a man that suffered the ravages of time. Rest well and find peace.

MTV's The Real Wrong

I've been watching The Real World on MTV ever since Puck showed America his recipe for peanut butter ala snot ball. I gotta say I thought that was as digusting as it could get until this season.

They have this military nurse out in Austin this year and this little bimbo is so totally convinced that the war in Iraq is justified and to make matters worse she has this jarhead boyfriend telling her on the phone that she serves the armed forces in Iraq so that other Americans could have their right to speak their opinion. ***RETCH***

I have to say that I am a little amused whenever any military moron uses this excuse to justify any military action from the last 50 years when its obvious its such complete bullshit. Sometimes militray action is neccesary to protect American civil liberties. American terrorists during the American Revolution died to give me the right to speak my opinions. Americans died in Afghanistan as a neccesary military retaliation for the attacks on 9/11. NO ONE died in Iraq to protect or perserve ANY American's rights. NO ONE. Sorry to disappoint you veterans who thought you were serving America over there and it sucks that you deep-throated and swallowed this bullshit story so completely, but the fact remains that Saddam Hussein had NO connections to Al Qaeda in that they were two political factions, with very divergent political goals, in the same region of the world.

Yes, Saddam and Bin Laden met once, as political figures tend to do from time to time, but that means nothing. Reagan and Gorbachev met several times. That doesn't mean that Reagan was a communist.

Grow up, jarheads. Just because someone stuck a rifle in your hands and waved a flag in your face that doesn't mean you get to kill people without proper justification.

ZMG's Review of Fantastic Four

A lot of critics are comparing this movie with the excellent portrayal of Batman in Batman Begins. However, Fantastic Four has never been that dark a comic*, so the intense level of drama has never been there. So its not really that fair of a comparison. This movie could easily be regarded as a family movie.

This, unfortunately, means that the plotline would be too simple for anyone over the age of 8.

The characters are very simplistic - which is ok since, outside Chiklis, the actors can't act - and no one is that deep, including the film's biggest disappointment, Doctor Victor Von Doom. Arguably Marvel comic's greatest villain is flattened, in this film, into a very cookie cutter role with absolutely no menace in his voice at all. Listening to Doctor Doom plot was like listening to Mr Rogers talk about a bad day at the office. Also the character has been given some very similar background story elements as compared to the Green Goblin in the movie Spider-Man. In Spider-Man, the Green Goblin lives in a green-roofed mansion on top of a large skyscraper. In Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom also lives in a green-roofed mansion on top of a large skyscraper. In Spider-Man, the Green Goblin's alter-ego's company falters and his investors kick him out so the Green Goblin kills them. In Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom's company falters and his investors pull out so Doctor Doom kills the leader of them. Both villains try to make a partnership with their respective adversaries before trying to kill them. Both villains approach their adversaries with a 'sadistic choice' that will ultimately define their true path and destiny as heroes.

The other problem, as I've mentioned before, is the plotline is very, very simple. Doctor Doom's ulitmate plan doesn't get much deeper than 'get them' and feels like it comes from a half hour saturday morning cartoon show. The science involved in Doctor Doom's attack on the Fantastic Four and vice versa is elementary at best and apparently neither Doctor Doom nor Mr Fantastic are intelligent enough to come up with anything better in a crisis. The final resolution is so simple that it doesn't even qualify as deus ex machina.

There are also a couple of medium-sized plotholes in the movie. The first one deals with Ben Grimm's second transformation into the Thing. In the storyline, Mr Fantastic creates a machine that can reverse and apparently un-reverse the process of the gaining fantastic powers by bathing people in energies similar to the cosmic storm. But in order for it to work, he needs more power than he is able to generate himself. Doctor Doom comes in and is able to give the machine power through his own energy and the Thing is transformed back into Ben Grimm. The plothole occurs when Ben Grimm decides to go back and is somehow able to transform back without the aid of Doctor Doom's added power boost. The second plothole is at the end, Doctor Doom is apparently able to be picked up and transported back to Latveria without any kind of red tape involved. A minor plot hole, but enough of one to make me scratch my head.

Highlights of the film:

• Jessica Alba in a skin tight outfit
• Jessica Alba in her bra and panties
• An army of robo-bimbos with about as much acting talent as any other actor in the film surrounding Johnny Storm at all times to help the male members of the audience forget how much Chris Evans can't act.

Final Grade: C- Dropped from a C for using the Wilhelm scream twice.

*The only time Fantastic Four was a decent dark comic was when Marvel Mangaverse came out and Reed Richards was portrayed as a chauvinistic, sexaholic scientist who only used his ability in the sack and to increase the number of neural connections in his brain when boosts of raw intelligence were needed while the other three members' abilities were augmented so they could each control a 100' humanoid version of themselves. Jonatha Storm piloted a giant being of fire, Sioux Storm piloted a giant being of invisible force, and Benjamin piloted a giant being of rock, metal and assorted pieces of rubble.

The Wrath of Hurricane Dennis???

Its no wonder why no one cares about the imminent danger this tropical death cloud is posing to the United States with a name like Hurricane Dennis. Hurricane Dennis sounds like the name of a Monty Python sketch.

I've got a solution for this. I think the government should rent out Hurricane names to comic book companies. Think about it. With the amount of money people spend on comic book movies, good or bad, I know people would pay more attention to storms if they had more recognizable villianous names like Hurricane Doom or Hurricane Luthor. This would also create a much needed economic shot in the arm for the comics industry.

As for the London bombing. I am not going to speculate one way or the other until I hear evidence that this was an Al Qaeda bombing. Who knows? It could have been some punk kid enacting a scene out of some ultra-violent video game.

Has anyone else noticed that no one blames the violent tendencies of Al Qaeda terrorists on video games or movies? Maybe its because the conservatives are too busy trying to rationalize their own violent tendencies right now.

I also wonder if the word "WAR" had originally been 15 letters long and had more than three syllables if the reactionary conservative idiots in this country would be so quick to start or support one.

Kentucky Fried Commandments

I'm feeling much better now. Not just because another Ten Commandments monument was removed but that helps too.

I don't get why these people insist that we are living in a christian society. We really aren't.

Our government is based more off the Roman style of representative government. Political satirists back then even likened George Washington to a Roman Emperor. I believe there is even a statue of him in a toga somewhere. Regardless, as I remember it, the Roman Catholic church didn't appear in Ancient Rome until after the lead in the water pipes was making people nuts.

Then there are the Ten Commandments. What Christians believe gives them a cornered market in the ethics trade. The basis of law in American society. What incredible bullshit!

First of all, only three of the ten commandments are actual laws. Those being:

• Thou shalt not steal
• Thou shalt not kill
• Thou shalt not commit adultery

Of those three, Adultery is only officially illegal in 26 out of the 50 states, and even then, most of the Adultery laws in these states haven't been enforced since 1945.

The other two aren't even original Christian ideals. People have been placing value upon and disregarding other people's lives and property LONG before the christian god was dreamt up by slaves looking for a political voice in Egypt.

As I said before, I just don't get where these religious nutjobs get off saying the USA is a christian society.

ZMG's Guide to Online Dating

I've never been big on the bar scenes and I'm not huge on chance encounters, so I find myself applying to online dating services a lot. I find there is a lot more potential in these sites as it removes the physical aspect and gets down to what is really going to make the difference in a long term relationship: communication. Granted, the physical is important, but only so much so that you dont have to hold back last night's dinner every time you wake up next to this person.

Communication is essential in any relationship. You need to be able to express yourself effectively and efficiently in a variety of ways. This includes visual and vocal, verbal and non-verbal, physical, emotional, and yes, even sexual communication. In a way, sexual communication is just as important as expressing yourself physically or emotionally as it is a crossroads of the physical and the emotional. Communication also means listening effectively as well. In order to listen effectively, you need to incorporate all of your senses: hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell. Most importantly of all, when its time to listen, STFU and pay attention! If you care about the person you are communicating with, you will pay attention. Otherwise you are just wasting the individual's time and energy.

The nice thing about online relationships is that, since the physical is not as big a part of it, it is much easier to form an intellectual and emotional bond with the other individual. The problems lie completely within the anonymity of the medium in which you are communicating within. I'm not talking about the possiblity that the person you are talking to on the other side of the computer screen may be a serial killer. Personally, I feel if you are going to be worried about that on a regular basis, then you need to get offline because you are never going to meet anyone you meet online and you are just wasting people's time. I am talking about the fact that anonymity removes inhibition and you are more likely going to be yourself online. If you are dishonest, you are going to lie about your physical attributes. If you are honest, any relationship-based fights are going to be more intense and more likely to end in heartbreak. If you are inarticulate or lacking in the communication department, you are going to have problems understanding what people are telling you and they will have problems understanding you. If you are shallow, greedy, ignorant or rude, it will become apparent to everyone around you. Every ugly part of your personality will shine through whether you want to admit it exists or not.

So what can you do about it? The best thing you can do when confronted with your own inner ugliness is to face it, overcome it, learn from it and try to be a better person. Otherwise, you're just going to keep making the same mistakes over and over again and you will never find happiness. No one wants to be with someone who is ugly on the inside, no matter how cute they may appear on the outside.

So what if you aren't ugly on the inside and you dont want to deal with people who are ugly on the inside. How can you protect yourself? Well, all you can do is be careful, be honest and learn from past experiences. But for those of you who aren't as experienced as I am, allow me to list a few of the red flags I've accumulated over the years...

• Old photos, no photos, limited physical description on the profile: As I said before, the physical is only so important just so that you don't have to hold your dinner back when you wake up next to them. But the physical is important and everyone has the right to be attracted to that which they are attracted to. People withholding this information are usually insecure about what they look like and so should you. I assume fat until proven fit.
• Photos with obvious multiple persons cropped out with no explanation in the title: This is more of a cautionary flag, but it could mean they are stepping out on a significant other.
  
• Number of kids matched with no income: Husband just walked out and has no other means to support themselves other than to latch onto some online sucker.
• Looking for a generous person: This person either has no income or they think they entitled to a higher class of living and expects you to provide it.
  
• Describes self as a Realist: This is just an all-purpose excuse for people to exhibit anti-social behavior and be rude.
  
• Pornographic photos: The person on the other end is usually a spam artist looking for email addresses.
  
• From Russia, Ghana or Nigeria: Various scam artists. Don't even bother. They have seperate agencies for mail-order brides. But, even then you need to be watchful.
  
• Married, looking for discretion without explanation or lists unidentified marital status in profile: I've played the third wheel before. Very emotionally unfulfilling. Not recommended. Plus trust will always be a worry.
• One word answers to questions: Usually means the person has a hard time expressing themselves because they don't know who they are yet.
  
• Too much "l33t" speak and "2" many internet shortcuts: Indicates intellectual laziness and immaturity.
  
• "My god comes first" or seeking a god-fearing individual: A jesus-freak. Can not understand why their last relationships don't think going to church or praying for hours on end isn't considered a good time. Needs one of these badly.

Faux News Hiding Behind the Troops Again

Why is it that the Republicans and Republican broadcast propaganda (read Fox News) constantly try to circumvent any and all claims made towards the lack of planning in the Iraq War, the Downing Street Memo and Guantanamo Bay by claiming that any attacks made on Republican policies are an attack on the US troops?

I've said this before. The US troops have no say as to whether or not they are stationed in the middle of a bogus war. They have no voice in the matter that Mad King George has never had an exit plan for Iraq. The moment a US citizen puts his or her name on the recruitment form, that person loses all choice and becomes a US resource to live and die at the politics of whatever politician is in charge.

But apparently, if we were to believe everything Faux News barfed up, the choices made by conservative politicians and conservative propaganda makers are secretly based on what the US troops want. Well if that was true, why aren't they getting better armor and more pay or, at the very least, a light at the end of the tunnel?

The only truth here is that Republicans will never own up to their own fuck-ups as long as Democrats expect them to do the right thing.

Liberals of this country strive for social excellence. The Conservatives strive for stagnation.

ZMG's Review of Batman Begins

This is an excellent movie, folks. It is an intelligent look at the experiences and the decisions made that turned Bruce Wayne from an angry teen into the Dark Knight of Gotham City. This movie is also better than the last three Batman movies put together. True, it uses two villains... which, in my opinion, is one of the main reasons why the Batman franchise sucked so badly after Tim Burton's masterpiece in 1989, but the storyline is actually intelligent enough to make sense of why these two villains would be working together.

There were a couple of minor plot holes, however. One, there is a scene where Batman is hanging from a high-rise train by a cable attached to the train. This train is also passing through several support towers where the train tracks are surrounded on all sides (left, right, top, bottom) by steel girders and other gothic support structures. The point is, if the cable was attached to the train and the train passed through one of these support towers, the cable hanging down would have been pulled up through the tower and Batman would have been crushed between the tower and the train. The second problem was Dr. Jonathan Crane's defeat at the hands of Rachel Dawes - Katie Holmes' character for those of you who also felt she added little to the storyline as well. This woman, after getting hit by a massive dose of the panic toxin, as was evidenced by her vision of the fire-breathing horse, was able to hit Scarecrow in the face with a tazer blast when before she could barely move on her own. I can toss aside the latter problem because she may still have had some of the anti-toxin swimming around in her system, but it still bugged me a little.

Katie Holmes' character offered nothing to the storyline except the standard "one movie only" love interest who finds out Batman's secret identity but will vanish without a trace by the beginning of the next film. Alas Katie Holmes didn't offer anything more to the role than the two girls who "went swimming" did to their respective roles.

One thing I will point out that I enjoyed is that the fight scenes are pushed to the background by dressing the villains in black as well as the Batman. This creates a visual confusion when the close combat fight scenes are occurring and pushes the audience to focus more on the storyline beyond the fight sequences. I mean, after all, we already know Batman is going to win the fight, so there's little point in overdramatizing what would otherwise be referred to as a power ranger fight sequence.

Highlights of the film

• A hell of a lot of action. Warning: The action may be too much for those who suffer motion sickness. Seriously, if you can't handle moving camera shots, stay at home.
  
• A dynamite Scarecrow played by Cillian Murphy
• Even though we know Bruce Wayne's parents die, and this movie is about the traumatic effects of that event, they do a good job of not hovering around that single boring event.
• A kick ass batmobile that the Hummer 2 only wishes it was.
  
• A fantastic first go at being Batman straight out of Alien.
• An extensive training montage that allowed people to experience what Bruce Wayne learned while training with Ra's Al Ghul.
• No supervillain coming up with instant schematics to the batmobile.
• No destroying the big green blender machine and having everything return to normal.
• No stealing supervillain demises from cartoon episodes dealing with the same villains.
  
• No retarded versions of highly intelligent comic book villains.
• No awkward supervillain team-ups regardless of how well the roles were cast.
• No hack ex-costume designer/directors lousing up the screen with rubber butt shots.
• No blacklight effects.
• No whiny, little bitch sidekicks
  

Will there be a new series of Batman movies based on this new spin on the urban mythology? I don't know. If they do, I hope they take a clue from the Spider-Man series and keep it one villain per movie. You'd think the studios would have wanted to have made more money by spreading the villains out among several movies and potentially having a better product.

Final Grade: A
A definite improvement over the last three in the series.

A Breath of Polluted Air from Oxygen Network

This weekend is Father's Day weekend and if my sore, aching body allows me, I intend to show repect to my father by taking him to go see Batman Begins this afternoon. Unfortunately, there are some corporations that do not share the same respect male parental figures as I do.

Take Oxygen Network's line up this weekend, for example:

Saturday, June 18th @ 5:30 pm: Baby Boom: The story of a single mother making it on her own in Vermont.

Saturday, June 18th @ 8:00 pm: Hope Floats: A woman jilted on live television by her husband and the father of her child goes back home. Replayed @ 10 pm and again on June 19th @ 8:00 pm.

Sunday, June 19th @ 2:00 pm: Cherry: A woman jilted at the altar swears off men until she wants a baby at which time she decides to treat potential fathers like shake-n-bake pans by putting an ad out in the paper.

Sunday, June 19th @ 4:00 pm: Woman on Top: A controlling woman leaves her husband to find happiness on her own in the cooking business.

So this is it? This is the best of what this company has to offer for Father's day? Pretty trashy, if you ask me.

No More Burning American Flags

Well the Bush Klan is trying to get a law passed so that the American Flag cannot be desecrated by protestors anymore.

Fine, since it will be illegal to burn the Stars and Stripes, the officially recognized symbol of the United States, then it should be perfectly legal to burn the Stars and Bars.

Light 'em up boys. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

NOT GUILTY!?!?!?!?!!!

Holy Murphy McJesus!!!

They found that lunatic Jackson not guilty on all charges. I thought for sure he was going to prison.
Well I guess the lesson from all this is: if you're going to commit a crime, make sure the only people who know about it have crappy records and are thus completely untrustworthy.

Its worked for all the little gray aliens that snactch rednecks for all their anal probing experiments.

Democracy, My Black Ass!!.. Part 2

Democracy in Africa.. Democracy in Africa. I couldn't help notice how many times Bush used the word Democracy in his speech today after meeting with five of Africa's leaders. I also noticed that he stated that America was doing its part to bring DEMOCRACY to Africa.

Y'know, I have to give Bush a little credit for trying to reach out to Democrats, but its obvious he's doing it with the least amount of effort possible. First, he tried redefining Iraq's Theocratic government as a Democracy when it isn't. You can shave a dog, paint it orange and call it a traffic cone until you're blue in the face, but it ain't going to magically transform into a traffic cone. Second, Africa does not need America's help in establishing Democratic Parties.

In alphabetical order:

Botswana: President Festus G. MOGAE is already a member of the Botswana Democratic Party

Ghana: The government in Ghana is already a Constitutional Democracy

Mozambique: The main political pressure groups are Institute for Peace and Democracy; Etica; Movement for Peace and Citizenship; Mozambican League of Human Rights; and Human Rights and Development

Namibia: The recognized political parties are as follows: The Congress of Democrats; the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance of Namibia; the Monitor Action Group; the South West Africa People's Organization; and the United Democratic Front

Niger: the current political parties of this region are the Alliance for Democracy and Progress; the Democratic Rally of the People-Jama'a; the Democratic and Social Convention-Rahama; the National Movement for a Developing Society-Nassara; the Nigerien Alliance for Democracy and Social Progress; the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism-Tarayya; the Party for Socialism and Democracy in Niger; the Rally for Social Democracy; and the Union of Democratic Patriots and Progressives

Sorry Charlie. You can't claim a victory by bringing and ensuring Democracy in these nations when there already is Democracy there.

Rhyming Orange

I have all these signs that are purple
They all are push but once were pull
I bought these rings made of silver
For my girl whom I would kill fer
The clouds during a sunset shined a bright orange
I must now remember to oil that rusty door hinge

That wasn't so tough.

Proud to Hate America

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Writing Computer Viruses: Not Free Speech

Today I found this article at Yahoo news about some losers who find it necessary to show to the world just how much sex they're not getting on a daily basis by hacking and destroying other people's computers... just because they can.

Personally, I relate these people to the perverts in Europe who will whip out their dicks and rub them up against other people in crowded areas... just because they can. Both of these people commit detestable and morally vulgar acts upon random strangers just to get their jollies. Its disgusting. And quite frankly, creating a piece of destructive computer code is no more free speech than communicating your deepest desires to some stranger through phallic contact.

A blurb of speech or a written text or a painting is an inert object. When you pick up a pencil and write 'Oh Captain, My Captain' on a piece of 20# white Xerox paper, you can set it on the table and it will not do anything. It is only through the interpretations and actions of others who later pick it up, look at it and assign a meaning to it and act accordingly does it have a life of its own. In addition, in a free society, we have the right to not look at any piece of text we do not wish to. We can simply walk away from that inert object and do something else and we can only do something about it after someone else has interpreted it and acted accordingly by that piece of text.

Computer code, on the other hand, does not follow this pattern. Once a piece of code is entered into a computer, it has a purpose, an action and a life of its own and can activate itself without the knowledge of another person in its blast radius. A computer virus is a malignant piece of self-activating code that goes through and performs destructive and malicious acts without needing anyone or allowing anyone the conscious choice to pick it up and assign a meaning to it. As such, a hacker can not claim that a virus is free speech any more than a bomb maker could claim that the individual parts and pieces of his explosive device are pieces of sculpture.

Terror Level Alert: Remember Me?

Remember this old system? This is the rainbow colored system that Republicans used during the election last year to scare morons into submission whenever Mad King George started to slip in the polls. Another absurd allegation, I'm sure.

Well now its been dusted off and according to Faux News it has been raised to Elevated in the first time in about nine months. Conveniently, this elevation comes right after a Democrat called the system useless and poorly defined. What an amazing coincidence.

Why is it that the conscum of this country expect the rational minds to just accept everything as they accept their political and religious philosophies - without question?

Attn: Mad King George the Brainless

George W. Bu**sh**, you retarded dumbfuck. Just when I thought you couldn't get any stupider, you pull something out of your ass that would make Dan Quayle blush out of embarassment.

"The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation." -Yahoo News

You said this today in retalliation to those claims made against you about the Guantanamo Bay detention area being a modern day gulag.

Well guess what, dipshit? The allegation that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destrcution was also an absurd allegation that was investigated in a highly transparent and suspicious manner. You've no business claiming allegations made against your policies are absurd when you can't even justify your own actions that started this mess.

Sit down and take your damn medicine, you retarded asshole. You're no president of mine.

Memorial Day Not-So-Standard Blog Entry

Now your typical blogger is gonna sit up today, put on their red, white and blue pajammas and go on and on and on about what Memorial Day means and how everyone should kiss a man's ass just because they served in the military. Personally, I feel its a bunch of shit.

Today is one of three days we set aside to honor people who have died for other people's political systems. The other two are Veteran's Day and Armed Forces Day. These days are set aside by the government so that the retail stores can offer minor sales while corporate America somehow gets the recognition and the day off. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of televised parades and ceremonies put on to try and convince the people that soldiers are here to protect your freedoms and if it weren't for them being here at this exact moment, the ENEMY will attack you in your sleep, rape your wife and murder your children, eat your dog and if you live in a red state, take your guns away. Well, sorry Charlie. No one is coming to get you in your sleep. Chances are, you're not important enough. Besides, Al Qaeda already got what it wanted from us.

I know what you're thinking. The military is protecting us as they are currently taking out "Major Al-Qaeda Operatives" as we speak. Well what the hell does that mean? As if it takes a major college degree to tell religious zealots where to point their guns. This is no victory. This is a spin job to make the more patriotic imbeciles feel like the brains behind the armed forces aren't stroking out.

Its all crap people. The government doesn't give a rat's ass about our soldiers. Once a man puts his John Hancock on the slip of paper, after being ruthlessly lied to by his recruiter, that person loses all identity and becomes a national resource to be used or abused by the whim of some snivelling politician who has absolutely no reason to make good on the promises made by said recruiter. In fact, the politician has more to gain if a soldier does not make it back from his tour of duty alive. Then the solider has made the ultimate sacrifice for the poitician's politics and they have a shiny new footnote to add on their next re-election speech. Let's face it, its a lot easier on the taxpayers too if a soldier dies since its a lot cheaper for the government to chisel a soldier's name on a slab of granite than it is to pay for their medical bills should they come home in a semi-salvageable state.

So with deepest regret, I cannot make the standard "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" speech today because I choose not to honor those who serve the Armed forces. Instead, I choose to pity them.

At the very least we don't have to exchange cards with family members we don't see that often - with good reason - expressing forced and predetermined emotional states.

Democracy, My Black Ass!!

I am getting sick and tired of hearing about the Bush Klan talking about Democracy in Iraq. Democracy in Iraq. Bullshit. This is not a democracy, people. They're only labelling it as a democracy to keep Democrats from wanting certain members of the Mad King George and the Bush Klan in prison for this fiasco. Because if they do pursue this, the Republicans get to label the Democrats as being against Democracy.

But I can understand why its fooling people. It basically stems from a general confusion theists have concerning the difference between rational political philosophies and personal religious philosophies. They are both philosophies. They both have their own definitions of good and evil. The difference lies in that religious philosophies, especially those in the middle east, deal with supernatural boogeymen, who these people believe influence their daily lives. Republicans have the same issues and from their actions, its pretty obvious they dont know the difference either. Regardless, the fact remains that the only political philosophies in Iraq are based in religious philosophies.

This means that this government in Iraq is not a Democracy. Its a Theocracy. As such it is only a matter of time before it falls apart due to religious conflict - the only thing the middle east is known for these days.

Today's Hypocrisy and Defamation

I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1799

The Dehumanization of Job Hunting

I hate looking for jobs. I hate it. I hate the whole lousy repulsive retarded process with every fiber of my being.

I HAAAAAAAATE IT!

I mean, could there possibly be a more dehumanizing ego-driven process in today's civilized society? Think about it. First you read the ad which usually reads like a requistion form for a piece of furniture. The applicant must be 3 ft wide, 5 ft long, 4 ft high with four drawers on each side, ivory handles and a secret compartment for holding pens and assorted stress toys. Then comes the writing of the cover letter, or as I like to call it, the formal request to take a turn at sucking the CEO's dick. Then you update your resume which explans to the CEO in which positions you want to be placed in before, while and after sucking his dick. The resume also has a list of all the dicks you've sucked previously which in turn will tease the CEO into thinking you suck dick well. So you put the formal dick sucking request and the sick sucking positions and the list of dicks you've sucked previously and send it in a freshly licked envelope to the corporate offices of Sukma D, Inc. 954 Shlong Ave Hardwood, CA nine-oh-too-up-yours.

You would think that a man getting a formal request to suck his dick would be impressed enough to open and read your request first hand. Nooooo. You don't deserve that honor yet. First your dick sucking request must go to the head of dick sucking resources. This person with years of experience in placing the proper dick suckers in the proper dick sucking positions will decide if your request for dick sucking is worthy of an interview to see how well you can suck dick.

So you get an interview, not with the head dick, but with a lesser dick, who may have been a dick sucking pee-on like you at one time. This is when you get to show off how well you can suck dick. I dare say that at this time you will need to suck dick harder and better than you will while you are sucking your CEO's dick. Can't suck dick great all the time you know. Gotta pace yourself. Now if the process so far hasn't dehumanized you enough, the next question this fuckface asks will drop your ass down a few notches guaranteed...

"Why do you want to work for this company?"

What kind of egomaniacal asshole asks this kind of question? Imagine, to not be satisfied enough with your corporate success with your penthouse style offices, your rave reviews from your stockholders, or even the personalized monogrammed napkins in the corporate lunchroom that you have to ask some no name fresh out of college to stroke your own ego??? Now, of course the honest answer to this would be...

"Because I don't want to starve to death while huddled under a blanket made of newpapers under a bridge, you corporate dipshit."

But you can't say that. It ruins the mood of the whole dick sucking experience. So you take a deep breath, swallow hard and pretend that you would actually enjoy sucking this and every other dick your CEO wants your to suck for the rest of your life even if you got a chance later on down the road to never have to suck dick again. Afterwards you have to send the coporation a thank you note for giving you the time to come in and suck their dicks.

I know. The whole process leaves a bad taste in my mouth too.

So then you finally get the job. Then the real dehumanizing begins. Then you are compressed and filed away. You are turned into a social security number, an address, a corporate ID, a telephone number, a fax number, a pager number, an office number, a floor number. You are reduced from a living breathing human being into an extended number, filed neatly away behind four pseudo cubicle walls with only a glory hole so that you can suck the dick of anyone who happens to walk by. And you will stay that way for the rest of your life unless you get lucky and someone feels you need to file you away in larger place where you get a couple of your digits changed and you get to suck bigger dicks through a bigger glory hole and then maybe get your own dick sucked once in a while. Yuck.

Stick that in your graduation speech and smoke it.

ZMG's Review of a Dynamite Wedding Reception

Wow, what a bash. Makes me wish my aunt had given birth to triplets. That side of the family knows how to throw a party.

I have twin cousins. Cousin A got married last year to a real sparkplug. Cousin B, who got married this past Saturday - to a truly kind and giving woman - was the best man at cousin A's wedding. During cousin A's wedding, cousin B fainted about 2 minutes before they asked for the ring. So, naturally, the running gag this past weekend was whether or not cousin B was going to make it all the way through. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as beastly hot as it was then and the ceremony wasn't nearly as long so he made through with relative ease.

The ceremony was held in a huge church with corinthian columns and the requisite stain glass windows. There was also a baptismal fountain that looked like a marble hot tub right in the middle of the aisle so that made a few people chuckle. There was also this huge metal abstract sculpture hanging over the middle of the church. It was a large crown of thorns thaty looked like oversized barbed wire with a slanted stake and a withered jesus hanging in the middle of the whole mess. It expressed pain and anguish. Perfect for the beginning of a marriage.

And the ceremony went on without a hitch. My father, for some reason, thought I was going to stand up and start attacking the catholic religion right there in the middle of the vows - go figure. The priest did his basic salesman spiel. God made this union possible. God made their love possible. God made them friends. God was even there they were conceived in their respective wombs... Y'know something? God's a pervert. The priest even said there is proof that God exists because of my cousin and his wife to be was sitting there. Well, yes they were sitting there, but that hardly means there was supernatural boogeyman in the bedrooms with each parents as they were bumping their respective uglies some 29 years ago. Then he said something that really made me laugh on the inside. He said that they had to work out their problems and arguements on their own as they arise... and I was sitting there, thinking to myself.. well where the hell is God going to be then? He was there for the conception, the friendship, the love, the commitment, the vows.. but apparently he's out to lunch once the warranty comes into question? Wow. Thats just too funny.

After the ceremony we went to the Pfister hotel, which is your basic overpriced, overdone place with nothing special when it comes to the basic service your every day roadside motel gives for one-fourth of the nightly rate. Seriously, I could have gotten a more comfortable night's sleep on a table saw than that crummy fold out. Ugh.

The reception was fantastic however. Great band. Great music. Good food (my steak had a little too much gristle for it to be considered great). Soda, beer and wine were free but the mixed drinks were costly. Where does any bar get the nerve to charge $9 for a White Russian that poorly mixed, I will never know. Applebee's does a better job for half the price. I even got out onto the dance floor a few times. Hey, at least I dance with some rhythm and am not a total embarassment to my race. Cousin B dances like he learned how from Popular Mechanics. My brother, on the other hand, is getting heavily smashed and looks more and more like John Travolta every moment he's out on the floor. I don't tell him though, he's already got a huge ego as is. The bride is very very kind to me and tried to hook me up with a couple of her hottie friends who, naturally, want nothing to do with me. Which is, quite honestly, fine with me. If they are so insecure about what people look like on the outside, I can't imagine the kind of quality parenting these people could provide should they ever have a child that doesn't look like a movie star. So, in my opinion, a relationship with one of these girls would be laughable at best.

The best part of the evening came after the band stopped playing. Now, my brother has a little ritual that extends from the weddings he attended where one of his hockey team buddies was getting hitched. He and his buddies would gather around and sing The Gambler a cappella. So after the band stops playing, on center stage, there is my brother, cousins A and B, and myself, stomping the stage in rhythm - which could give out at any time - as we are singing out The Gambler as well as any four drunken fools could to the entire wedding party. It was fantastic.

Great party.

The Jennifer Wilbanks Scandal

SCANDAL!! SCANDAL!! SCANDAL!!

Bullshit. This woman has done nothing wrong. All she did was leave town for the few days and not tell anyone. And unless someone forgot to tell me that we are living in 1950's Soviet Union, I still believe that's acceptable behavior for anyone over the age of 18. The same thing goes for that college student, Audrey Seiler, who pulled the same thing one year ago. They are after all adults. They are of legal age. They have the right to travel to anywhere they want to go, at any time without reporting their movements to local or national authorities.

Was it rude for her to run out on her fiancee? Oh hell yes. Should he ask for the ring back? Probably. Should the Georgia state police demand $60,000 back for a unnecessary search? OH HELL NO! If we need to pay the police directly every time one of their investigations goes sour and they take a shot to their pride, then we might as well privatize police forces now and be done with it. Heaven forbid that I should be out getting groceries and not tell anyone. I wouldn't want to have to pay the police $20,000 because they couldn't figure out I had to go to the next town over to buy a gallon of milk.

If the police want their money back, they should be looking to get it from the media who overdramatize this crap on a daily basis in the constant hope that they will uncover the next SHOCKING SCANDAL THAT WILL GRIP THE NATION!!!

With the media overdramatizing everything, is it anyone wonder why Delay is still in office?

ZMG's Review of Sin City

First let me apologize to my faithful readers for my absense. My world it pretty hectic now that I'm trying to finish everything up for my Capstone.. but I do get a chance to get away from everything now and then. Like I did when I went to see Sin City this past weekend.

In a word: Wow.

I can now see why Frank Miller finally allowed someone to make this into a movie. This was an awesome display of what Hollywood is capable of if they set their minds to it. It was truly one of the best movies I've seen in a while. It THIS kind of movie that gives comic book writers the mainstream respect they deserve when they come up with a great comic book. Hopefully the other studios will pay attention and grow up a little before they try to pump out another Son of the Mask out of their collective asses.

Honestly, if you were to rate all action movies based on four categories -- gratuitous sex, gratuitous violence, writing, and special effects -- Sin City raises the bar in all four categories. It is not for the weak of heart even though all the blood in the film is a bright white instead of red. The artistic feeling throughout the film is truly magnificent. It shows only what it need to show and shows color only when there needs to be color. The stories are grim and intertwined on a very minimal level. The heroes find victory on levels they can accept even though they can't always achieve a complete victory and the battles they fight blur the lines between sinner and saint moreso than any other movie has.

Highlights of the film include:

• Lots of beautiful naked women
• Lots of great violence from well developed characters
• A hilarious scene involving a human shish-ka-bob
  
• A nice conversation-with-a-dead-body scene directed by Quentin Tarantino
• One manual castration
  
• One serious psycho that would give Hannibal Lecter a run for his money
• One human pez dispenser
  

Final Grade: A-

This is a movie worth seeing once or twice.

On Disease, Dying and Death

Well the Pope is dead. Now if only the religion went with him. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll promote Cardinal Law to the position and everyone will realize how truly fucked up the whole supernatural political system is.

Actually with The Pope and Terri Schiavo dead, I've been forced to consider the ravages of age. I mean, why aren't there any good diseases or good effects of getting older? Why is it that diseases and age only serve to debilitate and disable.

I think we should try and create a disease that helps people lose weight or maybe an airborne bacteria that allows people to have the potential to have more productive sexual experiences. Why is there no form of cancer that gives a person a six-pack of abdonimal muscles?

Just random thoughts for now.

Happy Dead Jew on a Stick Day

This title may seem a little anti-semite, but you gotta realize that as an atheist (180 proof) not only am I anti-Christ, I am also anti-jew, anti-muslim, anti-protestant, and definitely anti-psychopathic southern "whats-the-harm-of-keeping-Terri-Schiavo-alive-in-a-
tormented-vegetative-state-thats-a-constant-insult-to-the-
person-she-was-just-so-I-don't-have-to-be-insecure-about-
my-own-belief-structure" baptist. Basically while I live in America, I am against any deviation of the original Abrahamic supernatural political organization.. whatever the hell that may have been.

Actually Easter was taken from Oestre, the celtic/pagan holiday of fertility. To celebrate this day of sex, the ancient celtics used the two biggest symbols of fertility they could find. Those being the Egg and the Bunny. So that's where the commercialized crap comes from.

I do love those cadbury cream eggs though. Man, those things have to be on the top ten of the worst things you can ingest right up there with your basic greasy crab rangoon that you get at your local chinese buffet.

But in case you didn't get your cream egg today, I offer you these fantastic jokes about Big Pimp JC.

OH MY GOD THE QUARTERBACK IS TOAST!!

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided NOT to intervene with the Terri Schiavo case in either a display of pure American Justice or sheer political cowardice. Either way...

ITS OVER!!!

Terri Schiavo can die with a little dignity now! The theocracy has gotten its ass kicked and the Bush Klan has never looked more ethically retarded.

I would like to add one more thing if I may.. and I will. Its so nice to see that the religious conscum of this country feel their minds are of so little value that they would be of as much value to society as if they suddenly had no brain functions whatsoever.

Thank you for admitting this so freely in open forum. Our theories in your collective mental states have now been truly confirmed. You may return to your trailer parks now.

Two Down, One to Go

The 11th District federal court has denied Terri Schiavo's parent's appeal to have the feeding tube stuck back in her. This means that the religious psychopaths in this country who want to continue torturing this woman by keeping her in a vegetative state for the next 20-30 years are trying to appeal to the supreme court.

Meanwhile Jebediah Bu**sh** is trying to garner support for one last ditch effort to keep Terri in a constant state of nothingness. Personally I've had it with these psychopathic ultra-religious zealots telling us we do not have the right to choose our own fate, especially when these retarded conscum wont allow grants to fund stem cell research that could have saved her early on.

I mean seriously, do these reigious nut jobs actually think some desperate Christian magic trick is going to bring her back to life. Hate to break it to you conscum but God hasn't appeared before any courts to give her testimony recently so I highly doubt there will be any miracles happening any time soon and no amount of voluntary schizophrenia will change that.

If any of my fellow readers would like to assist in the matter, here is Jeb Bush's contact info:

Governor Jeb Bush
850 / 488-4441
850 / 487-0801 (fax)
Executive Office of the Governor
400 S. Monroe Street
The Capitol
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0001

Let 'em have it my faithful minions... all two of you.
Let's let Terri Schiavo die with the smallest amount of dignity she has left now that the Conscum administration has used her to fulfill their own theocratic needs.

Toby or Not Toby.. That is The Dinner

I came across this site a couple of months back when I was surfing for links and whatnot. Its about this guy who owns this adorable ball of fluff named Toby and his plans to eat him unless those opposed to eating bunnies raise $50,000 to prevent him from doing so. So far, he's raised a little over $19,000.

Dammit! Why didn't I think of this?

Naturally this guy is going all out with this plan. He's got the whole line of collectable souvenirs with all profits going to save the adorable bunny, Toby. He's got pictures of his cute widdle mug plastered all over his site. He even has a few recipes for how to prepare rabbit, with the word "rabbit" replaced with "Toby."

Toby's owner is also catching a little flack for this endeavor as well. His hate mail page are filled with threats and his FAQ page lists why this act isn't criminal. There is even a SaveTobySucks.com site offering to castrate Toby's owner if they can raise $30,000 (This is of course, assuming these sites aren't both operated by the same guy). Also PayPal has completely wimped out and cancelled his donation link. Not that surprising when you consider Paypal's record for not being the most scrupulous enterprise on the web. Godaddy.com, on the other hand, has shown remarkable yarbles in agreeing that SaveToby.com has so far done nothing fraudulent which would warrant a termination of their services. Usually, when faced with an onslaught of consumer hate mail over the most trivial crap, most corporations fold and will bend over for any customers they may not yet have.

Personally, I have better things to spend my money on than saving some cute widdle bunny. While I don't want to see this adorable critter chopped and stewed on low heat for 30-45 minutes while basting in a succulent sauce, its not like I don't enjoy the occaisional greasy cheeseburger from time to time so I really can't complain. If this guy wants to give his dinner a cute name and befriend it before eating it, thats his way. Its really no different than any restaurant that allows people to choose, from a tank, the lobster they are going to dine on.

I wonder if I would have had the stomach to eat that double pepperoni pizza tonight if it had a cute face looking up at me and a pet name. Oh well.

"I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?" - Capt. Vasili Borodin, The Hunt for Red October

Hopefully, the conscum in this country wont pass a law ordering Toby's feeding tube reinserted.

America's Fascination With Superheroes

Actually its quite simple why we flock to tales of men and women running rampant through our streets wearing spandex.

Basically it comes down to politics and power... although cleavage shots don't hurt.

In any organization or relationship where there is power to be had and one person who believes they want more, you are going to have politics. We witness and interact with politics every single day, and not neccesarily through the actions of liberals and conservatives on the television. When we go to the store, customer service representatives of that store will try to persuade the political power we have over our own money to spend it on an item within that store. When we drive down the street, we are in constant political negotiations with other drivers as we vie for lane position, velocity and right of way. When a person or organization has something that other people want, those other people will do anything including becoming and remaining dependent on that person or organization in order to get that valued commodity.

So what does this have to do with superheroes? Everything. A superhero has the innate ability to rise above the political structures of ordinary individuals. With colossal strength, a hero could break down barriers other people cannot. With incredible speed, a hero can run through, around and over obstacles quicker than other people can. With powers over the elements, a hero can create, mold or destroy without requiring approval of bureaucratic procedure. Every hero is his or her own political system outside the direct or indirect control of pre-existing political powers.

Take the movie Hulk for example. Here is a prime example of how superheroes are each their own political system. General "Thunderbolt" Ross is a military career officer. For his entire life he has been trained to control intelligence, military might and put a leash on anything that is not under control. Then there is the Hulk who is a massive icon of pure uncontrollable freedom. He represents individual strength, primal instinct and change. When General Ross takes on the Hulk, the Hulk represents everything that Ross was bred to control and yet cannot control because Ross can not accept the Hulk as his own political system.

This is why we flock to well-portrayed comic book movies and superheroes. We, as ordinary individuals feel compelled to break away from pre-existing political systems that tell us how to live our day to day lives and cling to the fantastic idea that we might become someone who has the power that others will go to instead of having to go to others ourselves. We envy these heroes for what they can do so easily and we want to be like them.

We can, however, become our own heroes. We can educate ourselves, we can learn how to do things, we can take control of our own lives and stop allowing other people decide what we can do with our own bodies and minds. We become heroes when we express ourselves. We become heroes when we allow ourselves to become more than we are told we are. We become heroes when we deny pre-existing organizations from telling us that we can not feel and be who we are within.

Never trust an organization that denies its people education, self-expression and the ability to do with our lives as we see fit.

Does Atheism Mean There is No Afterlife?

I'm not so sure about this one. Personally, I would like to exist in some form after death, but I'm not so sure if that's possible. I have no memory of myself existing before my birth so I really don't have anything to go off of.

Now death usually means the ending of all metabolic proceses and the general decay of your body as it exists in three dimensions. But, is that all we are? We also exist in a continual expansion of a fourth dimension we refer to as time. Time isn't like our first three dimensions where an object can remain motionless. Time is always pushing things forward or as far as our minds can currently perceive. Our perception of time is rather limited. We can remember things in the past as they used to be, we can plan for things in the future, but we never really have a grasp on it. Time also raises a few questions in terms of existence. Once an object is influence by time, does it only exist in the present? Does it no longer exist a second ago? Will it not be there in the future before we catch up to it?

So we know we exist in at least four dimensions. Three of which we usually have a good handle on. The fourth, not so much. But is that all? Depending on which physicist you talk to, there are maybe 2-3 other dimensions as well. Dimensions we can not perceive. So is it possible that some part of us exists in one of these hidden dimensions and will only be perceived after our present three dimensional bodes are destroyed? Possibly. I know I'd like to think so.

There are also those people who wander around looking for empirical evidence of an afterlife who we refer to as ghost hunters. This is a fascinating study of the possible continuation of conscious existence after death. I mean lets face it, if someone finds hardcore physical evidence of an existence after death, then one of the greatest fears of all time is history.

There is plenty of evidence and stories that tend to bring credit to this possibility. I've had friends tell me great ghost stories of phantom tanks and old statesmen who love to play jokes. But I have yet to hear or see any concrete evidence that any of these phenomena are in any way related to humans or something else entirely. Another possiblity is perhaps these are merely uncertainties in the fourth dimension that people refer to as "thin places". Or could it be that these really are the souls of dead people wandering around. However, that raises the question, does everyone have the ability to exist after death or is it a genetic fluke like being double jointed? Also does anything that gains consciousness also exist in this hidden dimension (i.e test tube babies or artificial intelligences)?

Honestly, I just don't know.. yet.

Its Been A While Since I've Blogged

I'm still alive, I just came across a very fucking scary revelation a few days ago about the fate of man and it just had me fucking scared shitless for the past few days.

I'm hoping its something I can get beyond. I don't like being this scared and for the first time, I'm not sure whether or not to push atheism anymore because I don't think it would be morally right for me to push others towards this possible realization either.

I wouldn't wish this concept to enter the mind of my worst enemy. Hell, I wouldn't wish it on Mad King George.

No one should have to wake up from one political nightmare to enter into a larger nightmare.

UPDATE: I'm feeling much better now. A few brainless idiots on the Yahoo message boards plus $50 worth of retail therapy will do wonders for the soulless.

ZMG's Review of Son of The Mask

Have you ever seen one of those trailers that is so obscenely stupid that you can't help but think that the movie must be terrible. This is one of those trailers.

I have not seen Son of The Mask nor do I have any intention of doing so.. in this life or any other. Not when it is so obvious from the trailer and the actions of New Line Cinema that this is one of the worst movies to ever hit the silver screen.

The comic book series "The Mask" was published by Dark Horse Comics. It was the story of this enchanted Mask of unknown origin that was fated to switch hands every so often and release all inhibitions of the one who wears it and gives that individual literally unlimited resources and the invincibility to do whatever they want. It acted as a "what if" as cartoon violence was brought into every day normal existence and what the repercussions of that violence would be to the people who wear the Mask and those that are victims of it. The only other constant in the series is Lt. Kellaway, an officer who knows what the Mask is and realizes that it should not be loose on the streets, per se. The tone of the comics are very dark and the humor is on the same level of that of The Joker from the Batman comics. It was never, in any way a kiddie comic.

Unfortunately, that's exactly the direction New Line Cinema took with this film. They threw away everything that made The Mask what is was and made it into a kiddie film with the same cutesy Jack Russell terrier from the first movie, a CGI dancing baby derivative of 2004's mega-flop Baby Geniuses 2, and an over-bloated effects budget ($100 million versus the original's $18 million). To latch onto the kiddie cartoon image even more, they named the main character after Tex Avery, the famous cartoonist. New Line Cinema even took the first Mask movie off the shelves at the video stores to keep people who hadn't seen it from finding out how horrible this movie is by comparison. A week before it was released, the New Line studio plants were already infiltrating IMDB and stuffing the ballot boxes with 10's and calling the film a "Masterpiece" and a "Fresh and original Piece".

Note to all studio plants: YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE!!!

The comic book industry is not a proud business. Writers and artists who work in comic books bend over backwards to please the whiniest fans who think just because they shell out $3 a month for a title, they should have an editorial say in what goes on in the comic book. The writers are rarely able to get away with any major plot shift because they are too scared of losing their audience. Superman is a prime example, in the past 15 years they have tried everything to revamp this character. They have married him to Lois Lane, they have killed him, they have turned him into a being of pure energy, they have split him into two separate beings. For good or bad, almost all of these plot lines were quickly removed within a year of their introduction. No real plot line behind any of the un-revamping, just *poof* and the storyline is back to the same old boring status quo. They even considered selectively wiping out everyone's memories so that Superman wouldn't be married to Lois Lane any more. Other examples include the death of Spider-man's first real love, Gwen Stacy. This happened back in the 70's, but if you go to the Spider-Man message boards on IMDB, many people still gripe and whine about it. Marvel is starting to grow up, however. They have eliminated the outdated comic's code (much to the ire of whiny parents who think the comics should remain as "good wholesome entertainment" with the horribly corny characters as they were back in the Adam West/Batman days) and have stopped printing fan mail. They still have a problem with keeping dead characters dead and Aunt May is still jokingly regarded as comic's most powerful character as she has survived nearly 50 strokes and fatal illnesses with no adverse side effects. The industry is not where it could be, but its getting better.

Comic book movies like Son of The Mask, Catwoman and Elektra don't help and neither do ill-informed movie reviewers who have no concept of background research and shrug movies like this as merely kiddie stuff. Its offensive to everyone who has ever worked in the comics industry, tried to create a quality product and get a little respect for their work and its offensive to those of us who already respect them.

So to the three morons who gave this movie a fresh review as listed on rottentomatoes.com, I would suggest that you each do a little background research before any of you post another bad movie review and try to tell people what a movie like this should be about. Its quite obvious from your individual reviews * * * that none of you have ever seen a Mask comic let alone have ever read one.

Final Grade: None. Movies like Son of the Mask, Catwoman and Elektra are a disgrace and should never have been made as they were. I only hope the Fantastic Four movie coming out this summer was made with a little more intelligence and respect for the original material.