In some circles, Walter Palmer is the most despised man on the planet today. What a horrible guy, to shoot a lion for money. He must have cut a deal with Satan. And he’s just a dentist from Minnesota, so it’ll be very easy for the Internets mob to destroy him.
But I have just one questions for the haters:
Do you know who Robert Mugabe is and what he’s done to Zimbabwe?
If the answer is no?
Please, shut your mouth.
by far, so very far, not the worst thing to happen to Zimbabwe today
The Washington press pool struggled to rearrange schedules as the Obama administration announced without notice that the President will now also visit Libya’s famed Kaf Ajnoun or Mountain of Ghosts. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained the move as, “An appropriate means to wrap up our trip in keeping with the President’s theme of meeting with horrible human beings.”
The concluding visit to one of Satan’s known earthly dwellings will follow Obama’s forthcoming sit downs with famed war criminal Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya and Hailemariam “The Street Sweeper” Desalegn in Ethiopia. In Addis Ababa, Obama is also scheduled to address the African Union.
Although the AU is said to be interested in rescheduling the speech’s start time due to an imminent AU vote to unanimously ratify the title of “Imperial Majesty for Life” to Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza, a move supported by America’s State Department. The AU is also set to reconfirm its annual stipend to Omar al-Bashir’s private aircraft corporation Speedy provided its “no notice use for all” clause remains intact.
While at Kaf Ajnoun, Obama will spend time at such key sites as The Road to Hell and The Devil’s Hill. Said Earnest, “Since he came to Washington, the President has learned the diplomatic dark arts like the best of them. He figures it’s time he paid his due respect to those who have enabled the ghoulish powers he now possesses. In fact, I’m told the State Department Bureau of African Affairs insisted on this stopover.”
Earnest also mentioned several other critical American goals during the trip including talks to get more of Angola’s oil than China, additional tank, tear gas, & piano wire sales to Egypt, and the forthcoming pool renovation contract by Halliburton of a mysteriously unknown but supposedly important villa in South Africa.
When asked by reporters if Obama worried about potential human rights protestors during his speech in Addis Ababa, Earnest wryly chuckled, “You ah, you don’t really understand how things work here, do you?”
Arcturus News Muster – 23 July 2015
I’ve believed for years that the Internet of Things is ultimately going to be known as one of our culture’s greatest mistakes. We’re restructuring all the building blocks of our society on an Internet with security rules built on quicksand. If every business can lose your credit card number in eight seconds, what chance does every other company have at keeping things safe once they’re online?
And much of the Internet of Things is so unnecessary. What possible reason is there to hook up my fridge to the Internet? Oh, so the power company can better manage the grid at peak hours? I swear, if I hooked up my fridge and they turned it off, and I got home and my beer was warm? I’d burn down the power company.
And so to the surprise of nobody who understands how the Internet is structured, a bunch of dudes have figured out how to hack your car. Not the fancy new wired self-driving cars, but your normal everyday average current automobile. They discovered they can literally turn your steering wheel and send you to Valhalla via the express lane.
The BBC has a good brief summary, but the Washington Post gets into the all too predictable horrifying details.
Unless we’re prepared to restructure the base rules of the Internet, then the Internet of Things is a danger because everything is completely vulnerable. Yeah, I know, quite the stretch for some. But it’s all doom mongering from lunatic blog authors, until somebody dies in their car via a hack. Or somebody hijacks a drone and rams an airliner. I don’t have to go through this again do I?
Because of this, I contend your own self-driving car is never going to happen. Not because the technology can’t be done, but because there’s no way they can make it secure. And if your car ever does become self-driving it’ll be because somebody hacked your car and you’re in trouble. Break the window and dive out, while you can.
our future awaits
It’s been 70 years since Imperial Japan walked itself into a bar room brawl it couldn’t win. And everybody remains chasing ghosts. China and South Korea still won’t talk to Japan on a reasonable level, in large part because Shinzo Abe can’t choose to spend some of his off time playing Pachinko instead of crawling around Yasukuni.
And today’s Diet debate has brought to a head the obscure local concepts of collective-self-defense, constitutionalism, pacifism, and so on. It’s all part of Abe’s effort to make Japan a “normal nation” again. For the majority of the Japanese people who want no part of this, it’s about defending 70 years of prosperity and not pointlessly starting vicious bar room brawls.
It’s the push and pull of a culture struggling with the reality of an increasingly withdrawn America. Poland, Saudi Arabia, and Japan are all starting to realize they have to do more themselves. The difference is none of these other countries have the historical baggage Japan does. A significant portion of Japan’s population quite literally despise their own history. All you have to do is carefully watch two or three old Japanese golden-age movies to figure this out.
I could talk about this defense / historical discussion for four hours, but honestly, I can’t get past the idea that Japan is debating the wrong issue. The future of Japan is not going to be about collective-self-defense, constitutionalism, pacifism, and so on. The future of Japan is demographics.
By 2050 Japan’s population will have declined by 1/3. Nearly one out of every two Japanese will be over the age of 65. No country on Earth has ever gone through such a transition before. It’ll literally reshape Japan as we know it.
How will this change society? The culture? The people? And most importantly, how will Japan pay for all of this?
They should be talking about this in the Diet, in yakatori houses, Pachinko parlors, and on street corners. But the best they can seem to manage is the occasional dialogue on how many Philippine nurses are allowed in to work in nursing homes.
I don’t have an answer for this problem. At this point nobody does. But China is not Japan’s biggest threat. Nor is Japan’s history the biggest concern that should drive the future. Demographics is going to determine Japan’s path. Until Abe, the Diet, and the country tackle this, everything else is a sideshow.
wrong topic
At the conclusion of fifteen straight hours of an overall “baffling ordeal” the entire newsroom of the Daily Planet struggled to write a single coherent article on the recent Iranian nuclear deal. Arguments among staff primarily centered on the similarity of speeches made by the planet’s leadership to words they already said six months ago. “We spent about seven hours investigating the possibility that the space time continuum had ruptured and we were both late for Christmas, and all humanity was doomed to a vicious black hold related death,” stated deputy editor Brace Winslow, “but after consulting the Pluto robot folks at Johns Hopkins we’ve ruled out that possibility. Which was fortunate, because I hadn’t had the chance to buy a damn thing for my future ex-wife.”
After a sleepless night, several pizza runs, and six discarded bottles of various alcoholic beverages the grizzled reporters settled upon the theory that the President, Republicans, Iranians, Israelis, and Euro-trash politicians all wrote their speeches six months ago and simply read them upon the agreement’s approval. “What we’ve yet to figure out is how they could write these speeches and then just read them,” remarked Winslow, “it’s almost like nobody has read the agreement before speaking.”
Yet the undaunted newsroom decided to determine the root cause of this discrepancy. “No responsible leader would just spout their own canned talking points without actually reading a critical document. So our conclusion is all the world’s leaders knew what the exact agreement would be when they wrote their speeches back in December. Because they could see through time. So we’re going back to Hopkins to figure out how this was done. The Iranian deal’s pretty huge; but think of it, our leaders can literally travel through time. We could go back and shoot Hitler! What a scoop.”
Arcturus News Muster – 15 July 2015
Apparently an 89 year old stroke victim who can’t see or hear can consent to having their name attached to a book sold worldwide. Who knew? Money! There’s been a lot of confusion on how this book came about, with widely varying stories on what’s happened. So let me break it down in all its horror so you’ll believe me when I say do not read or buy this book.
– Harper Lee did not read or edit this book in draft or final form. Whether she actually wrote any of this five decades ago is irrelevant. The author reserves the right to approve their work prior to publication. That’s why they’re the freaking author.
– Lee made herself clear on many, many occasions that she’d never publish again. Seeing as how she’s not said one word about this book (probably because she can’t) it’s quite clear she didn’t consent and/or change her mind. Thus, it’s not her book.
– Tonja Carter (Bob Ewell) says she miraculously found the manuscript, but only after Alice Lee died. Like our good old friend Bob, it’s quite clear she’s lying. And like our good old friend Bob, she’s getting away with it in open view of everybody on the planet. Money!
So basically what’s happened is Carter and the goons at HarperCollins have decided to mortgage the good name of Harper Lee and her characters for all time in order to make money. All without getting Lee’s permission. Even though it’s her name on the front of the book.
The HarperCollins folks should be ashamed, truly disgusted with their actions. But I suppose they won’t remember that when they step up to buy their third boat.
Seriously, do not read or buy this book.
– Royal monarch visits his childhood home regularly
– Connoisseur of insanely beautiful women
– Able to converse in half-a-dozen languages
– Hooligan of mediocre EPL team
– Frequent French casino patron
– Mythically talented actor
– Drinking buddy of Peter O’Toole
– Accomplished bridge player
– Called a swanky hotel one of his homes
– Human in greatest movie entrance of all time
I don’t always applaud legends. But when I do, I prefer Omar Sharif.
RIP my friends.
Great news! Your team just won. It’s a moment to celebrate glorious victory on the soccer / football field / pitch. You have many choices available on how you’ll enjoy this wonderful moment:
a) Drink lots of beer with family and friends in an unbridled moment of enjoyable life
b) Calmly read a book with your mate, pausing repeatedly to contemplate how lucky you were to get to see your team win
c) Viciously parse random social media comments and shout loudly about how outraged you are that somebody wrote something that bothers you
Yeah, I know! I’d choose (a) or (b) too, and, oh, what, [unintelligible muttering] I’ve chosen (c)? When? [unintelligible muttering] But I did (a) and (b) last night. Doesn’t that count? [shakes head] [unintelligible muttering] Oh.
Once upon a time social justice warriors and the news media had pretty awesome causes to get behind. You could go to Alabama and do battle against goons who’d turn fire hoses onto people based upon the color of their skin. Or you could go to Nazi Germany and work against those guys who were too focused on mathematics and spreadsheets to realize what horrible fucking people they were.
You can do these things today too. For instance, you could go to Lebanon and deliberately cover the mass human misery and help millions in desperate need of support. Or you could go to Baltimore and cover the grinding day-to-day (not a single brief week) of how hard it is to live in America’s urban wastelands.
But why do any of this hard stuff when you can spend your time parsing somebody’s tweet and get mad at its content. After all, solving ISIS or urban America is awfully hard. Eh, whatever, let’s do nothing of actual value. Let’s sit behind a desk and trash free speech. It’s much easier that way.
I, of course, do this too. But the difference between me and somebody who works for the BBC or Washington Post is I don’t get paid for this. Plus, they’re on the nagging side. And I’m on the anti-nagging side. I want people to be free to say whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. Their ilk literally wants to control human thought.
Two lunatic events to this end:
The Washington Post thinks this tweet is the most offensive thing England has done since the vicious firebombing of Dresden #BomberHarris #toosoon:
“Our #Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title – heroes: …”
Activist, journalist, and stormy-cloud-frowny-face-man Ishaan Tharoor, who used to be a senior editor at Time and a Yale man (must be a coincidence) called this a “sexist tweet”.
But what if I alter this tweet a little and make it say this:
“Our #Lions go back to being fathers, partners and sons today, but they have taken on another title – heroes: …”
To which my point is: What’s the fucking problem?
Is it illegal for us to refer to these female humans for what they are? I’m pretty sure every female player on the England team is somebody’s daughter. Quite a few of them are mothers too. Maybe we need to sanitize this speech to the point it sounds like a faceless machine wrote it.
After all, isn’t the term “lionesses” sexist too? Doesn’t that imply that female athletes can’t be male lions? Isn’t the fact that we say a female human can’t be a male lion the most offensive English anti-feminist thing since King Arthur beat (alleged) his wife over an (alleged) adulterous act? The BBC doesn’t seem to think so (surprisingly). The term’s plastered all over their website.
Whatever, I got my Guests to write this very, very professional tweet:
“Our #humans go back to being humans, workers and oxygen consumers today, but they have taken on another title – winners of the game: …”
See how much safer and kinder this tweet is. If only all our speech sounded this way. Then nobody would ever say anything valuable or fun ever again. Think of how awesome that world would be.
Next up is the BBC who (not surprisingly) raises the issue of how many low-class-haters took to the airwaves to use the term Pearl Harbor in conjunction with the Japanese loss.
Apparently, poking fun at history is horribly offensive and juvenile. What kind of insensitive pig would do something like that? Well, me. This is what I posted prior to the game’s start on an unrelated social media platform:
“On July 5th, 1942 USS Growler torpedoed IJNS Arare and two other destroyers off Kiska or 2,527 miles from today’s stadium. Here’s hoping for an anniversary repeat. #theystartedit #toosoon”
But what if I alter this tweet a little and make it say this:
“On August 8th, 1942 Admiral Mikawa’s forces torpedoed and sank four Allied crusiers off Guadalcanal or 6,140 miles from today’s stadium. Here’s hoping for an anniversary repeat. #longlance #youstarteditoilembargo #toosoon”
To which my point is: What’s the fucking problem?
If we as a human race cannot laugh and tell jokes (even offensive jokes) about the most horrible war in human history, we’ll rapidly discover that humor no longer exists and we’re just a bunch of boring losers.
Somebody needs to get Tharoor and the BBC a bunch of beers and watch them drink until they calm down. Then they can just simply celebrate victory with the rest of us. They should try it now and again. They’d sleep better at night.
Normally I wouldn’t care, except that Tharoor and the BBC are powerful enough that people who actually matter are going to listen to them and further do what they can to control our speech.
It’s going to get to the point that anybody, anywhere is going to be afraid to tweet or say like, things, or anything at all, because they’ll be too afraid that what they say is offensive to somebody, somewhere, over something.
And what we can / cannot say will be dictated to us by an elite BBC woman and super-elite Yale man; upon pain of outrage and social ostracism. I fear this world. For when it arrives, it’s going to be a freaking miserable nightmare.
As an example, I almost, almost didn’t post my Kiska thing because I thought it’d offend people or folks would think it too juvenile. But I did it anyway. I’m glad I did.
The Arcturus Project’s Weekly (Not Weekly) Stormy Cloud Award goes to His Ivy League Eminence Ishaan Tharoor. Smart Yale man you might be, but wise you are not. Do you get it? I did a thing there.
The Arcturus Project 