Patch Adams was a real person.

I just watched the Latest Onion A.V. Club Inventory on Youtube and they pointed out Patch Adams was a real person. Surprisingly he seems to be a really great guy and a devoted political activist for Healthcare reform in the US.

Aliens tech is now real.

We have long known that monstrous parasitic alien lifeforms with acid for blood exist but now the other half of James Cameron's 1986 classic is starting to be realised. Helmet cams were used by US Special forces so Obama could watch, allegedly only until the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden started, yeah just like you told your mother you'd change the channel if the film got too violent or rude.

To be fair I don't think helmet cams themselves are too new, I'm pretty sure they were proposed for British Police a few years ago but it all went quiet, the coppers are fine with CCTV but something that records their own actions on duty is somehow much less worthy in their view. But the way the system of transmitting via WiFi back to a helicopter (much like the APC in Aliens) and then up to a satellite and command is really close to how the film portrayed it.

Tune in next time for more trenchant examinations of how I think something in real life is similar to a film!

Emmanuel Goldstein is dead.

So Bin Laden is apparently dead. The vast majority of the media is going to take this story at face value so while they may be right to do so I'm going to look at the holes and questionable details in all this. To defend myself from the fact at least some of what I say here will look very silly in the coming months I will state this is my initial reaction to the news.

Firstly for several years the only evidence we've had that Bin Laden was alive was the odd taped audio message. Then after he was killed instead of recovering the body to put on show or at the very least have some nominally independent autopsy done his body is dumped at sea. We're almost certainly going to get pictures of the body released but creating photos of the body of someone who hardly anyone has seen for years is pretty doable for the US. More to the point if they had recovered the body so as to dump it at sea why not just hold on to it?

Secondly the timing is odd while it certainly wont hurt Obama in 2012 the election is a year and a half away, plenty of time for the right to trash and undermine the achievement or just plain focus on something else as the elation at Bin Laden's death fades away. On the other hand domestic dissent is growing, the Ryan plan is mobilising boomers' inherent selfishness and protests against austerity are ongoing across the US, most notably in Wisconsin. Now while this unrest was focused on the GOP business interests may well no want any dissent blossoming and so had a wonderfully patriotic distraction occuring. Heck protesters could be dismissed as anti-American for daring to protest at this time of national triumph.

Also a more outlandish point but one I feel worth making, we've had two big patriotic distractions that bolster the status quo and conservative entrenched interests in just a couple of days, first the Royal Wedding and now this. If one did want to distract against something pretty big happening that would upset people those would be pretty solid ways of doing it.

Thirdly this gives carte blanche for further incursions by NATO forces into Pakistan. Obama pointedly commented the attack on the compound was solely a US operation. Worse this compound was near a major Pakistani training base and in an area popular with retired members of the Pakistani military. Pakistani opposition to NATO ground incursions and Air Raids which killed multiple civilians has reached a fever pitch so some kind of justification was needed. Further though Pakistan has been very naughty recently, having the gall do things like charge CIA operative Raymond Davis with murder just because he killed a few Pakistani citizens, heck they've been very naughty for a while what with them overthrowing US puppet General Musharraf (who now lives in Britain with UK tax payer funded protection) and trying to act as a sovereign nation, using democracy to select leaders who might not favour US interests.

With the nature of the killing of Bin Laden in central Pakistan, just miles from the capital Islamabad the US is going to pretty much have a free hand to pursue regime change back to a client dictator.

There are other issues at stake but for now thats what springs to mind, I'll probably try and expand on this later in the day.

Germany is pretty cool.

I mean how is this not badass?

Office Chair racing.

Irvin Kershner 1923 - 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R66FvPTj2Yw

Leslie Nielsen 1926 - 2010

Obama clarifies his position on Turkey.

Giant Bomb's finest hour.

You might not like computer games, you might not like Giant Bomb. This is irrelevant, this video is so awesome it wont matter. You have to watch it:

Men Against Pornography

Ok, we've been here before, another article pointing out the range of deeply questionable aspects of pornography and specifically focusing on male feminist objections and reservations about the sex industry. However a couple of things that hadn't occured to me before needs highlighting:

Kimmel remains open-minded about pornography – what's needed is a much broader conversation about it, he says – but the picture he paints in Guyland is nonetheless troubling. "Pornotopia is the place where [young men] can get even," he writes, "where women get what they 'deserve' and the guys never have to be tested, or face rejection. And so the pornographic universe becomes a place of homosocial solace, a refuge from the harsh reality of a more gender equitable world than has ever existed. It's about anger at the loss of privilege – and an effort to restore men's unchallenged authority. And, it turns out, that anger is worse among younger men."

Which is, in hindsight really obvious but for some reason just hadn't clicked. Privilege is hella addictive and as women slowly gain more rights young men who exist in a culture largely shaped by total male dominance are feeling deeply short changed by the deficit between the extremely easy and privileged life society leads them to expect and the merely quite easy and privileged life they receive. They're angry and want to see those awful bitches punished.

Secondly:

The anti-sexist educator and activist Jackson Katz, author of the 2006 book The Macho Paradox, suggests the porn industry has an obvious interest in undermining intimacy between men and women – if couples were to find sexual fulfillment together, the market would plummet. And this opposition to intimacy, says Jensen, helps explain why porn has become so cruel, degrading and humiliating – why, to quote Martin Amis, it has become "a parody of love" addressing itself "to love's opposites, which are hate and death".

Which pretty mind blowing and hard to deny. Pornographers do not want their audience to be happy or content in any way or they'll stop buying. So as with all Patriarchy while women suffer most men suffer too with the exception of the tiny elite who actually benefit from the deeply unfair system we exist in.

Does this mean pornography in all cases is unacceptable? Maybe I'm not sure but as long as porn exists both in the mainstream and and unquestioned and simultaneously a "dirty" but glamorised production process that not nearly enough attention is paid to and not enough scepticism is used against it will have no hope to be anything other than a bad thing.

Then again in a world where chocolate is made from cocoa picked by child slaves and fashionable clothes are made in 3rd world sweatshops focusing on the negative aspects of one specific capitalist product is probably myopic. Pornography is a deeply unpleasant business but it is a business and not that different from many others in its' methods.

The commoditising of dissent.

This is a funny quick look about a new skateboarding game:


But it is also a good insight into how youthful rebellion has been completely taken over and made into a product. Mostly because this game doesn't do it particularly well but still it really is noteworthy how "youth culture" has made questioning the status quo and how society into a deeply conformist and profitable venture for "the man". Channel what you can't prevent I suppose.

Banksy status: Still owning.

He was invited to do an intro for the simpsons and its really good. Somewhat surprising they aired it but it is all free advertising even if it is controversy. Google around a bit and you can find people defending the conditions depicted in the video, what a wonderful world.

Pretty good news RealID didn't come in really.

So yeah I play computer games, you know this but people who don't know me that well don't know this because computer gaming is a mark of shame to some extent. Now while I would say some of people's dislike for gamers is a problem on their part there is good reason not to hold the hobby in high esteem.

RealID was Blizzard's (maker of the ever popular World of Warcraft) bully idea to make WoW and their other games more like Facebook. For a range of reasons users reacted very strongly against the plan and Blizzard backed down from the plan albeit without acknowledging any of the actual concerns of their customers. Instead they chose to pat themselves on the back for listening to the community. But anyway corporations exist to be hypocritical and evil so this isn't news.

However Kieron Gillen in his final Sunday Papers for RPS (he will be missed) linked a good example of why gaming isn't as culturally acceptable as some people would like and also just how horrible RealID would've been for women (and likely minorities, homosexuals and anyone else prejudiced people might not like).

Starcraft II is another game made by Blizzard and it widely agreed to be a very good game. It came out twelve years after Starcraft and to live up to the massive expectations highlights Blizzard's talent for game development. So with the myth that the majority of computer games players are teenage males is being dispelled one would expect women to play such a popular game. One of the biggest Starcraft fansites, team liquid however did not share this view.

A week The Hathor Legacy did a post about a woman posting on the team liquid forums wanting advice on how to set up an all female clan (a group of people who compete against other clans for prestige and sometimes in proper competitions). The response was the depressingly common mix of sexual harassment and the whining of privileged white males because there is one little thing their privilege doesn't allow them to do. The kicker was though that a moderator of the forum came out in support for the sexists and admonished the woman. However a second post shows the staff of team liquid trying to entrap and then intimidate the author of the original post. Calling people out on their prejudices just isn't right and deserving of retaliation apparently.

The Hathor Legacy posts explain things far better than I could but I do want to repeat their assertions about RealID. This level of harassment was directed towards a woman for volunteering she was female. If every woman (and other potential targets for the unpleasant types the internet abounds with)'s name was out there for easy datamining, harassment and stalking it would've been terribly unpleasant and struck the acceptance of gaming a near deadly blow. Now the death of gaming thing might seem a little selfish, a little myopic but this potential death blow wouldn't be delivered by a hostile act but by the general population of male gamers being given enough power to show the world what they're actually like. The views and culture of gaming is rotten and needs to be seriously addressed by everyone who considers themselves a gamer.

The onion is supposed to be satire damnit

May death come swiftly to his enemies.

Red Ken has been selected again by the Labour Party to be their candidate for London Mayor where he will take on the utterly worthless sack of shit posh boy Boris Johnson. I'm no nationalist but it still is embarrassing as heck to live in a country whose capital and largest metropolitan area is governed by him. Seriously the reason Johnson is known to most people is because he consistently makes a tit of himself on have I got news for you:


Now this is almost certainly an act, fake affability to appeal to the voters but the depressing fact is that it worked. After eight years as mayor doing what certainly seemed to be a good job, introducing landmark schemes such as a the congestion charge Red Ken was ousted by Johnson, the silly man off the telly.

I hope to goodness Livingstone wins this time around or I might have to seriously re-evaluate my position on vanguardism.

There is something mucky about Katy Perry.

I dunno specifically what it is about Katy Perry that seems so dirty (and not in a good way) to me, we live in an age of porno-chic but she bothers me in a way even pornstars don't. Maybe it is the sheer crassness of the commercialisation of her sexuality or maybe it is the hollowness of her faux naivety but since seeing the video of California Girls seeing her has made me uncomfortable. Now the producers of Sesame Street have cut her appearance on the show. With good cause I think, I mean yeah objectification of women is everywhere but if there can be one island safe from it, one place where it is unacceptable for starlets to dress up as whores for their appearances then goddamn Sesame Street should be it.

Maybe I'm turning into a prude but Perry specifically is getting to me.

Ok free climbings is bad but what about free running?

look forward to a link from jonny explaining how I inadvertently endorsed neo-nazism with this video.

A cool mashup by RX2008

THe Jibblies, now I have them.

Time, now in an adult format

(yes I know this is old)

What idiots thought about Election

John Dolan, acknowledged by people who know a lot better than me to be perhaps the greatest writer of his generation, lets us enjoy a little schadenfreud thanks to Amazon user reviews. He also liked The Big Lewbowski so take that haters.