The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-giraldi/the-violent-radicalizatio_b_74091.html?view=screen

The view that 9/11 has "changed everything" is unfortunately all too true. It has unleashed American paranoia, institutionalized mistrust of foreigners, and created a fantasy universe in which a US beset by enemies must do anything and everything to counter the alien threat. If it were a sane world, it would be difficult to imagine why anyone would believe that a Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is even necessary. The United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in strengthening law enforcement and intelligence capabilities against terrorists and has every tool imaginable to investigate and make arrests. It has created a whole new bloated and dysfunctional branch of government in the Department of Homeland Security. What is not needed is groups of congressionally empowered vigilantes roaming the country at will looking for "homegrown terrorism."

An Open Letter To Roger Ebert

I am responding to your response regarding your stance on videogames and art. Frankly I will try to be as civil as possible, but for starters I have to say I was staggered when I heard you considered them "inherently inferior to film and literature."

My guess is that what you are missing is a real immersion into the subject matter at hand. I believe you think all videogames are like the movies adapted from them. This is not true in any sense. Sadly most video game adaptations are only made due to the fact that the video game made huge sales. It is in no way related to the depth, imagery, or even storyline of the videogame.

What you fail to see is that there are many games out there with beautiful storylines, beautiful musical scores, and the work and detail that these computer scientists spend countless hours trying to make everything seem interactive, real, and lifelike; to hear you not call it art is insulting.

You also say serious film and literature requires authorial control, I disagree, as well as do a lot of modern artists, such as Chin Chih Yang who believe whether something is “art” depends on only the artist and the audience. I also find your argument perplexing since movies and comic books today still struggle with conservative artists and critics and are dismissed as just a past time rather than a “serious medium of art”.

If you believe that we, the videogame playing audience, fail to cite any real game worthy of comparison to the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists, and composers. I will be happy to assist you and name a few, but I am sure a lot of people have emailed before me, and probably have already named countless great games. So in my opinion, I will believe you will still stand by your opinion, even if you were to decide to play any of these games. I am sure you would still stand by your opinion.

One game that comes to mind that combines an excellent musical score, amazing storyline, and for its time, had redone the role playing game in terms of game play and graphics is Final Fantasy VII. The musical score was done by the famous Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu. And the game was done by Squaresoft. Another game that comes to mind is Starcraft, done by Blizzard entertainment. This game is a Real Time Strategy game which players build and control armies and pit them against an enemy force. The artwork in this game was beautiful yet it wasn’t even in three dimensions. The Story had a compelling Plot and memorable characters, each unit you had in play had wonderful comedic lines that were filled with wit. Other games with higher literary focus are Star Control II and Planescape Torment. I also would recommend the game ICO where the atmosphere and environment are as much a character as everyone else. I find this game to be on par with any “serious” art film.

I don’t believe you have heard of any of these games, and I don’t blame you, a lot of videogames in general have been deluged with an endless parade of movie-tie-ins and flashy sequels that favor graphics over game play or storyline. But I believe that is the same thing for the movie industry. Or do you honestly believe SWAT and Transformers to be works of art?

To Crystal...

WHERE'S MY FRICKIN' KOALA BEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I miss you guys.

See y'all in three weeks! I'll be down on Dec. 22nd thru Jan. 6th, so look me up.

AAA

I'm gonna waste my time on this, but I found some interesting info that I thought some of you might find pretty cool. So please bare with me. Okay, if any of you follow gaming news which i'm sure none of you don't (Save for probably neto), you might have heard the term "AAA game" being tossed around a few times. What is a AAA game? Assasin's creed is considered a AAA game, as is Halo. My most qualified guess is that the term "AAA" was invented by producers and/or publishers. Its the equivalent of Super-MEGA-sized burger meals or XXX porn movies. More is more and bigger is better. Its that simple. Though I am still positive that the first real XXX games will end up being AAA games as well. But thank God I am not the only one speculating about this.

Basically "AAA" refers to very large and expensive production titles, which include a highly productive PR/marketing apparatus. Several companies are now referring to their titles as having "AAA" potential, which is basically just to hype it up. In my opinion "AAA" is only something which makes sense after release, reviews and sales records. Or maybe it would be more easy to say that the definition of "AAA" is something that has sold at least a million copies? I don't know.

I found this insightful article from 1998 that dwelled into the subject matter a bit as well.

"...Presently, you have basically three types of games: AAA, A, and B games.

AAA game means games that have almost unlimited budgets and are media events. Blizzard is the AAA game company these days. They won’t release anything that doesnt fall under AAA.

They killed Warcraft Adventures not because it was a bad game but because it would have been only an "A" rated game. AAA, A, and B level games have nothing to do with how good the game is. If I wrote the worlds greatest space invaders clone today and even if it had great graphics, great sound, and was totally rock solid, it would still be a B class game. Only a handful of games each year make it out as AAA because the bar is so high to be a AAA game. It costs millions of dollars to create a AAA game. My personal favorite game, Total Annihilation, barely makes it out as a AAA game because it didnt have full motion video through out, the units didnt talk. Its a AAA game still but just barely. So even the best and funnest games may not be AAA games. Starcraft is a great example of a AAA game and Ill use it because its also an excellent game.

Games like Entrepreneur, Panzer General and Warlords III would be great examples of A games. They may be as fun or even funner than AAA games but dont have the budgets behind them of a Starcraft. No full motion video between every level, they are about the game, not the game and experience.

Deer Hunter is a great example of a B class game in quality. Cheap to make. And where Deer Hunter changed the world was in discovering that a B level game can now make as much money, if not more than a AAA game. And believe me, the game designers of AAA game companies are probably sweating a bit about Deer Hunter. Because corporations are about profit and if they can make more money cranking out B titles they will. But that’s for another discussion entirely.

Historically, AAA, A, and B games represented how much money youd put in and get back. A AAA game may cost a ton to create but they bring back the big bucks. They are the games of the year, they are the 2 million plus unit sellers. Myst, Dialbo, and Starcraft, these are AAA games..."

saben que me caga?++::...

la gente gorda y fofa que respira ogetemente al lado tuyo. suenense la nariz pinches gordos fofos. me caga escuchar su puta nariz chillar o sus putos suspiros profundos al tratar de empujar la grasa fuera de sus pulmones. ponganse a cagar, ojetes.
cheers

the saviour of the Terminator series is...

They must have one hell of a script because this man is nothing but quality.

Desert Bus for Hope...

Pay attention because there are several elements to this post. Most of you know Penn & Teller the magicians/debunkers. These guys are funny magicians who also like to call things bullshit. They created a game for the Sega CD called Smoke & Mirrors which was a collection of mini-games. The most famous of these mini-games was called Desert Bus. According to them all the normal videogames don't really reflect real life. So they created a simulator for something you are more likely to find yourself doing. Driving a bus from Tucson, AZ to Las Vegas, NV. It is as boring as it sound and it is in real time. It is just you driving a bus for the 8 hours it takes to get to Las Vegas (or from Las Vegas to Tucson if you complete are driving back) to get the one point that earns you.

Here is a video of people playing the game.


Yep that is a bug on the windshield.

Also you may have heard about Child's Play:


The charity created by the guys who write Penny Arcade to have gamers show their support of gaming by donating toys and videogames to Children's Hospitals.

What do the two have to do with each other?

Well the crew of Loading Ready Run, an internet sketch comedy group is playing Desert Bus for 90+ hours for this charity. They set up the site http://www.desertbus.org and put the challenge out. They would be playing the game for donations. The more people donated the longer they would be playing the game. They have now raised over $6000 and have committed to play this game over 90 hours. And they have setup webcams for us to watch them do this.

BusCam


DriverCam


Anyway I think this is very cool of them and I have already kicked in a couple of bucks.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY

Happy Thanksgiving guys

To all my friends who i cannot see during my favorite holiday.

Have a Great one i miss you guys.

To all my friends i will see during my favorite Holiday.

Wanna get fucked up??

To all my non -friends who decide to read this.

Well have a good Turkey day. Dont choke on something.

To George Bush,

Eat Milk

To ........

F' You

GTG BYE

Controversial Issue Number 64, videogames (see what i did there?!)

Sometime in the near( or far) future I plan on buying a next-gen console. My problem, and a huge problem at that is that I still cannot decide what console to obtain. The PS3 is completely out of the question due to the overall douchebagerry that comes with it. People who bought it are douchebags (exceptions are joey and carl), people who designed it are douche bags, and people who even support blu-ray are douchebags. Fuck you Disney. So basically my conflict is between the Xbox 360 and the Wii. I love both systems equally, but for entirely different reasons...well not really...they both just have really awesome games. Another thing is that both have serious flaws.

Let us begin:

The wii has a lot of things going for it, I mean, Super Mario Galaxy has come out and has been revered as one of the best games of the year. We also have Resident Evil 4 which has been rereleased (hehe, rere) on the Wii, paper mario, Metroid prime 3 corruption, Zack and Wiki, Medal of honor: Heroes 2, and countless virtual console games.

Guitar Hero III has also come out for the Wii but that has also come out for the Xbox.

Now, the Xbox has a lot of things going for it too, most notably, one game, which stands above all others right now, Assasins Creed. I've been following this game's progress since it was first moved from the PS3. It also helped that they put that slutty Jade Raymond ho to be the spokeswoman for the game.



This game looks so fucking amazing, the things you could do on this game look fucking amazing, the world looks fucking awesome, and the fact that you can interact with almost all of it is amazing. The Xbox also has a lot of games going for it as well. Such as the Orange Box, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Eternal Sonata. Also if any of you fuckers mention Halo 3 I will personally go to your apartment and rip off your larynx. I fucking hate Halo.

Anyway, both the Wii and the 360 have serious flaws, as mentioned.

The Xbox has some weird thing going on with its graphics. I don't know if I need to buy the Xbox 360 Elite which costs 500 dollars to get good graphics, or do I get good graphics with the core system that is worth 250? Another thing is all or most of the games for the 360 are a bunch of FPS's and crappy EA sports games. First of all I haaate FPSs on console. I haven't played many FPS on a console in a while, but generally, when I do, its still the same experience. The controls suck, the movement is boring and slow, and its generally a shitty experience that I don't want to play. Also, a lot of the great games for the xbox are pretty much better games for the PC, bioshock, Orange Box, Call of Duty, can be played on the PC and I don't have to worry about the shitty FPS on Console experience.

My problem with Wii is its games. A lot of third party developers claim to be excited about the wii, yet, none of the games that have come out for it, save a substantial first party games, are that good. A lot of them are either gimicky or a bunch of minigames. Granted some of the minigame...er..games are alright and pretty damn fun. They can get tired and boring afterwards. I need something i can enjoy and can continue to enjoy, not something that only speaks to the "casual gamer" or whateverthefuck.

Anyway, someone help me choose what to get, because I can't decide.

I Called It, Gene Simmons Really Is A Giant Douche...

I once saw a story about how Gene Simmons makes shitload of money by putting the KISS name on everything (from Cradles to Coffins). And I thought to myself "Gene Simmons is a douche!" Its nice to know that Gene Simmons continues to prove me right. This is what he said recently.

"The record industry doesn't have a f*cking clue how to make money. It's only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there's no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning."

These are people who are fans of his and he is talking about taking their houses away. Pretty big talk from a guy who hasn't released a good album since the late 70s.

Obama comes in and steals my heart away....again

Barack Obama's campaign has now released a relatively comprehensive and extremely ambitious technology document (PDF) that lays out a whole slew of general and specific proposals for doing everything from reforming the patent system to implementing a national broadband policy. In releasing this "technology and innovation plan," Obama is the first major presidential candidate on either ticket to release a technology policy document that's this comprehensive—some of the proposals here have been pitched by Edwards and others, but Obama is the first to put them all in one place.

The document begins with a set of policy goals that pretty well sum up the major areas that the proposals address:

Ensure the full and free exchange of information among Americans through an open
Internet and diverse media outlets.

Create a transparent and connected democracy.

Encourage the deployment of a modern communications infrastructure.

Employ technology and innovation to solve our nation's most pressing problems,
including reducing the costs of health care, encouraging the development of new clean energy sources, and improving public safety.

Improve America’s competitiveness.

Las Pelotas del Dragon...

Meet Goku...




Thats the guy thats been cast in the live action version of Dragonball due to be released August 15th according to USA Today. I wasn't a big Dragonball watcher back in the day (I was more of a Caballeros del Zodiaco fan) but I'm pretty sure that Goku did not resemble a douchebag as much as this guy does. I may be wrong.

Anyway he will be facing off against this guy playing Piccolo...



That's James Marsters who played Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. And I gotta say if you imagine him green and with antennae he does kind of resemble Piccolo.

By the way, I just want to go on record right now saying that a live action Dragonball has got to be the worst idea of all time and I predict it will not be successful.

Basic Stupidity

I think this should be in the dictionary right next to the word stupid.... BTW the people sitting in the chairs are from the audience who are competing for 200 dllrs...

The manliest sport you will ever see

I don't know if I've posted this before. But oh well. here's a nice video of Aussie Rules football. All it is is pretty much Knees and elbows to the face. Oh and there seems to be a ball involved too.

Bullshit

ok so i haven't posted in a while but this was too good to pass up. I know most of you are onion readers but just in case this one slipped by you guys here you go...

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Spanish For Everyone: This game was developed by Crackheads

At first, Spanish for Everyone looks like a beneficial game everyone in the family would love. That's what I thought of anyway when I found the above video. Instead, what I ended up watching is just sort of insane. The plot starts off with Shawn playing his Nintendo DS when Miguel, a seemingly random kid, comes up to Shawn and asks if he can play with his DS. As soon as Miguel starts to play, Miguel's father rolls up in a limo (that has the engine of a race car from the sounds of it) and tells Miguel to get in. In Miguel's haste, he forgets to give Shawn his DS back. Before Shawn can get it back, the car speeds off with two cop cars chasing the limo. Yes, I'm dead serious.

If that's not enough, his auntie comes up shortly after and offers to take Shawn across the boarder. First off, the two seemingly barely know each other as shown by the dialog exchange. What's worse is that the auntie takes the kid across the boarder to Mexico (where she just assumes Miguel and his father go to) without asking Shawn's parent's permission. AND SHE'S DRIVING IN THE WRONG SIDE OF THE CAR! MEXICO ISN'T CONNECTED RIGHT NEXT TO ENGLAND!

two more videos that were uploaded today on YouTube, which you can check out after Oh, and they're way worse then the intro video.
In the second video, the auntie abandons the kid to go on his own. Before the boy can finish protesting his abandonment, his auntie tells the kid to get into the back of a truck that has a bull with giant horns in it. The bull, unsurprisingly talks and helps Shawn out by teaching him more Spanish. Of course, the game is nucking futs and as you find out in the next video, the bull thinks it's prophet (from the Gods ... you know, like the Jesus).



Now you're in a ghost town and some guy named Tio is standing next to his Jeep and calls Shawn over. Everything about Tio screams pedophile but Shawn lets Tio take him for a ride anyway. We also learn that Miguel's father is the only man that can afford a limousine in the entire town. The rest of the dialog really goes down the shitter from here and really hurts my head just thinking about making sense of any of this. All in all, this game looks like absolute crap especially for it's $30 price point.



Basically I believe If I even play this game my Spanish will actually get worse.

But man do these videos fucking rock.

Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media

It would surprise few people, conservative or progressive, to learn that coverage of the intersection of religion and politics tends to oversimplify both. If this oversimplification occurred to the benefit or detriment of neither side of the political divide, then the weaknesses in coverage of religion would be of only academic interest. But as this study documents, coverage of religion not only overrepresents some voices and underrepresents others, it does so in a way that is consistently advantageous to conservatives.

As in many areas, the decisions journalists make when deciding which voices to include in their stories have serious consequences. What is the picture of religious opinion? Who is a religious leader? Whose views represent important groups of believers? Every time a journalist writes a story, he or she answers these questions by deciding whom to quote and how to characterize their views.

Religion is often depicted in the news media as a politically divisive force, with two sides roughly paralleling the broader political divide: On one side are cultural conservatives who ground their political values in religious beliefs; and on the other side are secular liberals, who have opted out of debates that center on religion-based values. The truth, however is far different: close to 90 percent of Americans today self-identify as religious, while only 22 percent belong to traditionalist sects.[i] Yet in the cultural war depicted by news media as existing across religious lines, centrist and progressive voices are marginalized or absent altogether.

In order to begin to assess how the news media paint the picture of religion in America today, this study measured the extent to which religious leaders, both conservative and progressive, are quoted, mentioned, and interviewed in the news media.

Among the study's key findings:

* Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.

* On television news -- the three major television networks, the three major cable news channels, and PBS -- conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.

* In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.

Despite the fact most religious Americans are moderate or progressive, in the news media it is overwhelmingly conservative leaders who are presented as the voice of religion. This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts.

Hit the link to read more

I know we have some "possible republicans" on here

But please, for the love of cheeses and all that is safe and secure in this World, don't vote for Rudy Giuliani in this next election.

Jesus' General

I saw George Carlin last night....

on TV; and it inspired me to post another list. This time its a little funnier, its my list of my favorite George Carlin Quotes.

Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.

You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans.

Reminds me of something my third-grade teacher said to us. She said, “You show me a tropical fruit and I’ll show you a cocksucker from Guatemala.”

Have you noticed that most of the women who are against abortion are women you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place? There’s such balance in nature.

Catholic — which I was until I reached the age of reason.

If the Cincinnati Reds were really the first major league baseball team, who did they play?

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

There You have it folks, those are my favorite George Carlin quotes. If you want post your favorite. or you can talk about the ones I posted. I don't care. I'm too busy thinking about...

The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”

xkcd

This is a web comic I frequent that I think everyone should as well.

INDECISION


GETTING OUT OF HAND

My list of unethical lying douchenozzles

here is an abridged not to detailed list of people who i consider dishonest douchebags.

Glenn Beck- Earlier in his show, he blamed the new GI Joe movie as "indoctrinating our kids" to hate america. He also said that things like the Cross should be hailed as a symbol as america. What an asshole

Mancow- God the things this douche says, he actually called for an assasination of Ahmadinejad, sure I don't like the Iranian president but what an idiotic thing to say of magnificnet proportions. First of all Mandouche, Comparing Hitler, Castro, and Mahmoud is IMPOSSIBLE. Hitler killed 6 million jews, Castro, saved his country even in an embargo from the US, mahmoud, DOES NOT HAVE WMD's, and wants Nuclear power.

Rush Limbaugh- Its fucking Rush Limbaugh, enough said.

Tucker Carlson- he's only slightly douchey, he claims to be a libertarian but defends the republicans and the religious right at every turn.

Ann Coulter- Ann Coulter hates the jews, wants to "perfect them". She doesn't believe in the freedom of religion, in fact, she's in the pocket of the evangelicals. she's a cunt.

Sean Hannity- Every time someone from the democratic party does something slightly "unpatriotic" to his standards hannity makes such a big deal about it his patriotism boner lasts for more than 72 hours. This Halliburton lap-dog, spends his whole time trying to bring down the democratic party by calling them names and using made up "evidence" that has been either disproved or just doesn't exist.

Bill O'Reilly- God knows this man never shuts up. He's always pulling shit out of his ass, he thinks the harry potter books are indoctrinating our kids towards "tolerance of homosexuals". He's a racist and a bigot.

Fox noise Channel- When they don't have their mouth around Bush's penis, they're making shit up like "Did the terrorists cause the fires in california?" Yes you dumbasses, terrorist are also behind Katrina, and the Tornadoes in Kansas. Run for your lives! Terrorists have superpowers!

One thing PC Users can do that Mac users can't...

Ever notice how most Mac users are skinny? It's because of all the calories they burn because they can't shut the fuck up about how great their Macs are. What is it about Apple that makes its users unable to shut their mouths? Everywhere I go, there's another asshole with a Mac preaching about how much better Macs are than PCs. They regurgitate lines directly from Apple's marketing campaign, like "it just works." I have the following rebuttals to this argument:

1. If everything on a Mac just works, then why does a website called "Mac fix it" exist, assholes? Here are a few choice topics on macfixitforums.com:

-Login window stuck!
-lower caSe "S" key not working!!
-Menu bar keeps flashing
-I can't drag and drop!

Waaaah, boo hoo! I can't drag and drop! Dumbass. Looks like your Macs aren't perfect after all, which leads me to my second point:

2. Fuck you.

I don't know why Mac users get so defensive when you call them idiots. I mean, Apple is a company that has built its entire user base around the fact that its users can't do simple things like turn their computers on. Hell, most Mac users can't even talk without using their hands, which ranks their intelligence somewhere between a simian and hog shit:

Stupid user base aside, I will never own a Mac. It's not so much that I'm a PC loyalist. I'm not. It's that I'm not stylish enough to own one. Most iPod commercials feature guys with long hair, chicks roller skating, and guys wearing fedoras. I have weight issues, and I buy most of my jeans from a grocery store. I feel like in order to have a Mac, I need to be:

# An artist.
# In a band.
# Unemployed.

After the recent Apple conference, Mac fans were elated. One person was quoted as saying "I've had a Macintosh now for a total of 35 days, and I'm really excited to be part of the Mac community." Part of the Mac community? It's a computer, not a social movement, asshole! I feel like Apple is not just selling computers, they're selling a way of life, and I'm not ready to be that heavily invested in a product that inspires such douchiness.