"Every day can't be a holiday. Who the hell is paying for this damn meat?"

It's currently 95 degrees Fahrenheit in Baton Rouge, LA.

 

This video clarifies her prayer. Is it also a form of prayer? Is the talk-into-webcam-about-problems genre popular on Youtube a form of prayer, or is it satire?

The Onion Kills it Again - Self Driving Cars

Google's Self-Driving Robot Cars Are Ruining My Commute

My hometown, Mountain View, Calif., has become the unofficial capital of the robotic car revolution. Each day, I seem to run into one, two, or three self-driving Google (GOOG) cars. They’re on my freeways; they’re in my neighborhood; they’re taking my shortcuts. One time, five of the self-driving cars gathered at a gas station equidistant from my house and Google headquarters. It felt a bit like the robots had taken ownership of my watering hole. People, likely well-paid engineers, had to fill up the cars as if they were fleshy lackeys. The rest of us waited for the robots to get full and head off to wherever it is robots go.

I'm not even going to keep posting here. Why bother when The Onion keeps slaying it? They got the satire game on lock.

Is "Accidental Racist" purposely embarrassing?

I saw this video on my primary connection to non-hip-hop music, Dan Brooks's Combat Blog. That he would take interest in it suggest it is not satire, but watch this thing.


I so badly want to imagine this will heal the wounds of racism. Somewhere deep inside me there still is a person inspired by the facile idealism of movies like Braveheart and Crash. I think they seem "real" or "authentic" because they show the protagonists suffer greatly, which satisfies the viewer that this is a serious look at serious problems. In actuality the movies white wash reality to provide something inspiring, much as magicians misdirect while their assistants slip out of hand bindings. Overcoming obstacles in real life is much more nuanced, long-term, and messy.

But LL Cool Jay will forget 200 years of enslavement if you'll let him wear a gold chain. A premise so laughable it is actually offensive to my well-educated outlook. I hope that outlook is wrong and this collaboration between Brad Paisley and Some Black Guy helps bridge a gap in the Skynard fans out there, to the idea that maybe what they do can qualify as "racist" even if only accidentally; that a Confederate flag, while a positive symbol of Southern independence and Skynard fandom, can simultaneously be a symbol of hate or rejection, and that the decision to wear one must be made with that tradeoff in mind; To an imagined future where both Pants Saggin' and White Men can maintain their individual senses of identity but allow for mutual respect and compassion.

For all the hilarious reason that's not what "Accidental Racist" will achieve, see S.Colbert's inspired jam, Oopsie Daisy Homophobe:

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Sheesh, "Accidental Racist" is bad. So bad both blacks and whites of disparate backgrounds can come together, and not sing along to it's childish lyrics and plodding pace. Oh well, two points for intention--assuming that intention wasn't satire.

After Dentist Videos: Micro-genre alert

The long tail of the internet has yielded access to an assortment of strange behaviors. To label any one of those temporary internet trends a micro-genre is probably careless, but I'm doing it.

The original after dentist video, as far as I'm aware, is David After Dentist. It documents a 7 year old tripping balls on the painkillers used to remove one of his teeth, to widespread youtube acclaim. As the video description, presumably written by the father though written at a 7 year old reading level: "He is very smart and always has something interesting to say about many different issues. His philosophical reaction to the medication didnt really suprise us." Welp, over 100 million viewers—roughly the population of Mexico—has found it rather novel.

It's been remixed and the parents have routinely gotten him fucked up again to try and cash in on easy views. With such popularity, should it be any surprise that there's a horde of imitators? Probably not. The question that concerns us, and them, is how does one stand out in a crowded field of imitators?

The following video suggests the answer is "over the top."

I ask, is this girl really concerned about the moral consequences of her dental surgery while stoned off her gourd? Or is she, in fact, making commentary on the after dentist micro-genre which has, in her view, gone a little extra-gourdal? Before answering, open the video in youtube and gaze at the suggested videos. Having a firm grasp on the edges of this micro-genre is important.

The account has one upload, which suggests inauthenticity. It reminds me of ol' cindymomof6 the fake profile of a professional producer who created a couple controversial videos, the best of which is an elementary school rendition of Scarface. Rather than introduce said video as something creative he participated in, he created a fake account and posed as a mom, which helped the video to trend. People have a notably different reaction to media based on its source. When people saw a "mother" uploading a video of a play they thought real, they loudly reacted. You can still see echos of that identity-declaring behavior in the comments on the Cindymomof6 profile. Even after the rouse has been exposed, people still feel a desire to share: "Great job teaching your kids about cocaine and murder at such a young age." Of course, such a comment is stupid, because the video is not real. But it's justified, insofar as that viewer thought it is real and yet doesn't know any better.

As always, the quest for authenticity is quixotic. We shouldn't care whether a video is real or not. What's really real? In what sense is a Scarface play performed by children for a youtube video less real than if it performed by children in a public school? In both instances actual kids are being taught about cocaine and murder. What difference should it make that one of those situations has the saction of a producer and volunteers, and the other has the saction of teachers and volunteers? I contend this imagined distance between the two instances makes a mountain of difference to the viewer, but a molehill difference of objective substance.

Back to our sad, tooth-murdering girl. How would fake outrage while drugged be any less real than real outrage while drugged? Or another way, how would fake outrage while not drugged vs. real outrage while not drugged? In each of these permutations a video is being served up for viewing, and we probably need to start there before trying to take away meaning reacting. In other words, if we jump right in to reacting and skip the semiological meaning of an after dentist video, we are participating and actively abeting its purpose. We instead should look inwardly to determine the meaning of our would-be reaction, lest we forget 1) the system appropriates symbols for us to react to, outside the actual substance of those symbols, and 2)we don't want to look stupid if it is satire. Is it satire?

Putting Solar Panels on a Grass Hut

Distributed clean energy, such as this solar PV system being installed in Ethiopia, can reduce the need for kerosene lamps and provide energy access in remote areas (Source: Flickr user Bread for the World).

This image is taken from a Re-Volt blog post, the criticism arm of the world-renknown development thinktank World Watch. Re-Volt describes its mission as seeking to cause a revolution in the development and aid policy conversation.

The development community fails to appreciate the dangers inherent in unstructured aid and the wide array of institutional dependencies it creates. Despite an abundance of research data, [international development organizations] have failed to steer the world from a point of action to the point of understanding. It is now clear that the creation of stable institutions, new modes of development, and a new sustainable aid economy requires a true revolution.

I'm a big fan of World Watch, and have a few friends in international development who would agree, putting solar panels on a grass hut is a daft proposal. Theory suggests that investment into basic infrastructure (water, electricity, safe transit, access to medical care, etc.) is the most cost effective way to transform lives and create a foundation on which a society can exit poverty. However in practice, thousand dollar pv panels tend to weigh more than some grass roofs can support. The tensile strength of inch-diameter support beams and long twigs fluxuates depending on local environmental conditions, but are are frequently substandard in areas where houses are made out of nearby biomass.

NRA Cannot Into Logic

This next video comes to us from the No-Fucking-Way file. Then again, pretty much everything comes from that file. This kind of inexplicable video is why we need the file in the first place.


I refuse to believe that someone made this video without a sense of irony or satire. This is a cruel mockery of gun activists, implying that their brains are made of kevlar and simple anti-Obama associations control their belief system. The liberal who created it thought it would be appropriate to denigrate the NRA with its authorship, as if the entire organization is filled with idiots incapable of thought. I mean, if this is not satire, then what would satire of a gun-thumping idiot look like?

D.Brooks has done an excellent job of detailing the ways in which it fails the sanity test.

The central contention of this advertisement reads like a multiple choice question on a test about logical fallacies. Besides refusing to assign Secret Service protection to your children, here are some other ways in which President Obama is a hypocrite:
1. Obama tells his children he loves them. When was the last time he said he loved you?
2. Obama’s children get to wrestle with him on the couch, but if you wrestle the president, a guy in sunglasses will break your arm.
3. Malia Obama gets to have cute cornrows, but when you got cornrows, you looked stupid.

When viewing this, it looks 70% likely to be from Onion News. When tracing the uploading user's account and reading press reports in third party news media, however, it looks to be real. This is really an NRA video that was a)thought up b)created and c)published. Somewhere along those steps it a determination that this video achieves something. And the line of thinking is is so eldritch as to baffle me.

How. The. Fuck is anyone with a brain supposed to think that Obama, the President of the United States of America, is being elitist by having armed protection for his family. Presidental security and armed guards in schools are not parallel issues. In fact, they're so perpendicular that only intersect one place in our known universe: this video. And at that point is a singularity of a)stupidity so dense it sucks the light out of my soul or b)cynicism so great it sucks the light out of my soul.

Local Oregon Sheriff Sees Judge Dredd, Becomes The Law

Reeling both from the enormous unfulfilled demand for lawyers in the U.S. and a recent viewing of Judge Dredd, Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller has taken to interpreting Supreme Court decisions himself. In a letter inexplicably written to Vice President Biden, the law enforcement official warned he would not enforce future laws and executive orders that he, by law, as a law enforcement official, would be legally required to enforce.

“In the wake of the recent criminal events, politicians are attempting to exploit the deaths of innocent victims by advocating for laws that would prevent honest, law-abiding Americans from possessing certain firearms,” Mueller noted in the letter, evoking the long and storied commitment to the presumption of innocence by police forces across America. Troubled by the continued exploitation of recent tragedies, Mueller mailed his letter to local sheriff departments and newspapers.

Discussing his duty to citizens of Linn County and the Constitution, he said they “Have entrusted me with a noble cause: to keep them and their families safe. My deputies and I take that responsibility very seriously and like you, have sworn to support the Constitution of the United States.” Although surveys suggest swearing to support the Constitution is at an all time low, a recent Pew Center survey notes public oaths to the Constitution are on the rise among political interest groups and individuals who have never read it.

Mueller said neither he nor his deputies will enforce any regulation enacted by Congress or by executive order of the president that offends the constitutional rights of Linn County residents. Although regulations are enacted by executive agencies and statutes are enacted by Congress, Mueller is correct that Linn County residents have constitutional rights. Whether the Constitution he has sworn to uphold entrusts the protection of those rights to the local sheriff or the court system is a legal grey area.

Initially the Constitution was heralded for its bold separation of powers. Its strict boundaries between those who interpret the law and those who enforce it have fallen by the wayside in recent years, however, owing to the law's excessive red tape and a lack of qualified legal personal to practice it. Combining the interpretive responsibilities of the judiciary and the enforcement activities of the executive branch in a single judge/executioner is increasingly favored by legal scholars and proponents of small government.

Mueller wrote, “It is the position of this sheriff that I refuse to participate, or stand idly by, while my citizens are turned into criminals due to the unconstitutional actions of misguided politicians.”

Mueller says his misguided political action is constitutional, based on a 1997 Supreme Court decision which neither the Gazette Times nor Mueller elected to specify. He is believed to be referring to Printz v. United States, a case in which the Rehnquist court continued its unique mission to scale back the Federal powers. In the split decision, five justices stipulated that Congress may not require state officials to be agents of federal enforcement. Almost as many justices held the opposite view that Congress could require it, like it had been, for over a hundred years in landmark cases like McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), and Gitlow v. New York (1925).

The consequences of the Prinz indecision promised to be far-reaching, overturning years basic high school curriculum. “I spent my whole weekend memorizing terms like 'necessary and proper,' the 'elastic clause' and the 14th amendment. For the Supreme Court to come along and erase all that established law really bugs me,” said Samantha Pennington, an 11th grader at a Chicago area high school at the time of the decision. “Do those justices even read the law? Why do I have to study this stuff if they don't?” The practicable effects of the decision were negligible, however, as most state officials were happy to implement the sensible background checks mandated by federal law, and very few saw their job as to actively endanger the public.

Ultimately, Prinz opinion may be moot as it speaks solely to statutory requirements from Congress and says nothing about executive orders issued by the President. Of the 30 gun and safety proposals made by by President Obama yesterday, 17 of them are executive orders to which the Prinz precedent would not apply. At the time of press Mueller could not be reached to comment on whether he his legal staff had prepared briefs on the issue.

Following the overwhelming support for the Mueller letter from obsessive Ron Paul supporters on social networks like Facebook, a local teachers union has decided not to teach curriculum they do not agree with. “We only have so many hours in the day. Every hour we spend on difficult subjects like STIs or evolution is an hour we don't spend on Huck Finn,” said a spokesman for the Eugene Education Association, a 4J school district teacher's union. “Some of us really love Huck Finn. And Kids love the n-word,” he added, “Choosing topics we're eager to teach is part of our duty as teachers.”

This grassroots trend is finding support all the way at the national level. Congressional Republicans have rededicated themselves to their of duty preventing the lawmaking body from making laws. In a speech at a recent GOP fundraiser House Speaker John Boehner said, “We were elected by the citizens of our district for a noble cause: to keep them and their families safe. We take that responsibility seriously, and are looking forward to the upcoming debt ceiling negotiations as a chance to do so.” Regarding the potential violation of constitutional rights in Obama's gun and safety proposals, Republican spokesman Michael Steel gave a terse statement to reporters: "House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations, and,” pausing briefly to unclench his fists and jaw, “if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that."

Whether his inaction garners action or not, Sheriff Mueller expects fireworks on Facebook to continue to fly over over his widely publicized, yet completely apolitical stand. He has been elected sheriff of Linn County twice, and is not trying to get his name out there at all. “It's just about The Law. I am The Law.”

Who here likes Westboro Baptist?

Let us take as an initial supposition that the population of those who agree with the Westboro Baptist Church, the group who grabs headlines every quarter by conducting the laziest protests imaginable, literally writing "God Hates Fags" on a sign and yelling, is zero. While satirists may appreciate the lampooning of organized Christianity or America, and journalists may appreciate having something to cover—and individuals certainly appreciate having something in the media to define their identities in opposition to—no measurable quantity exists who agree with both the ideology and the tactics of the church. If this is true, then even members of the church do not, and we are faced with a puzzle. Why do they do it?

Before we can answer that question, we must first holy shit, I hate these fuckers. Look at those signs! “Pray for more dead soldiers.” “Thank God for 9/11.” “You're going to hell.” This is unfucking acceptable. Funerals for soldiers, 9/11, and my right to think I'm going to Heaven are all sacred. Is this legal? How can this be legal? I'm having to ignore them and I can't, it's taking all my energy giving them as much attention as possible. Hold on, I'm going to post a link to coverage of their opinions on my facebook, reddit, imgur, twitter, etc. Maybe then they'll switch tactics aarrrrg I can't even think straight. Why doesn't someone do something about them?

Well, there was that law that got passed by Congress in 2012. The Honoring America's Veterans Act restricted funeral-related access for protests, a direct response to Westboro and only Westboro. But getting statutory language through Congress in 2012, a miracle on par with transubstantiation, is insufficient. These Westboro Baptist Church shenanigans are still popping up on my facebook, reddit, imgur, and twitter feeds. What else can we do to target this one specific group?

But the quarter-million signature effort to recognize Westboro as a hate group is also getting a boost from two other petitions calling for the congregation's tax-exempt status to be revoked. Both of those have also crossed the 25,000 signature threshold needed to prompt a response from the administration. -source-

Gogogadget unwieldy machinery of democratic governance! Lets break the law to target a specific group. It's definitely in my best interest if government can act more capriciously. While this insufferable commitment to justice and fairness goes on there are people planning to commit harm with signs. I don't want my children to grow up in a world where the Westboro Baptist Church can express itself publicly, even if preventing that means leaving the world in a smoldering political ruin. Tolerance has limits, you know. That limit is where your voice meets my ears.

This said, we return to the original supposition, in which Westboro Baptist Church either exists solely in our heads, or as a minority. A powerless minority, whose protests are so insubstantive they only reach us through the concerted effort of their opposition. Only because their signs and shouting are made “news” do they even exist to us. Because they pose no real threat to our way of life, any action we take against them can be nothing more than a misguided waste of time, and through the strictures of law, possibly something much more harmful. I think once online petitions become an occasional means to have tax statuses modified we might wish we could go back to when the only thing Westboro achieved was grabbing a headline.

"Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend someone." - Brad Thor

"Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection." - Neal Boortz

"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me." - Martin Niemöller

There's more than one way to be "educated."

Made my own spoken word. Please supply your own sweeping musical score to accompany your reading.

I had a little trouble in writing this rebuttal. I was confused when David Beckham was held up as an example of something higher. Adidas shoes and FIFA balls...is it satire? Are we to include athletics within our educational horizon? Is footballing a path to transcending the system's oppression?

Our society is built on pipes pumping water, electricity and information into the walls of our buildings and shipping calories to places where we can pick them up with minimal labor. That leisure enables man to poeticize or philosophize or just feel awesome. I feel like paying no honor to those who, through ignorance or choice, serve this system, is a bit solipsistic.

But that's okay, the system will pay them. And our poet will give voice to the Zuckenbergs of the world, the people who go on red and stop on green and help us achieve this make-believe of thinkin' outside the "box." It's a comforting thought. That building someone else's dream to help yourself is a paradox. But it's not. That's a trick. The leisure afforded the poet is what helps create the Matrix. When I hear "redefine education" in this spoken word I don't see a road around my "mental suppression," I feel like a bird. I see how I'm in a cage, surrounded by wire, and how each one of them is a poet trying to make me feel inspired.

"No rational person could ever possibly believe that there is any tension between 'mainstream' and 'alternative' culture. Cultural rebellion is not a threat to the system--it is the system." -Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter, two PhDs, teaching at university.

If you seek to undermine education (in some small, reasonable way), you need institutional power, because otherwise you're just a derivative of this guy, down to the fonts and camera angles. And if you have that power, and can change system, prepare to have it assimilate your view point and teach it within. That's what the academy does, it co-ops whatever is persuasive, and through the strictures of "school" makes that idea invasive. I agree, the implementation of school by small minds is abrasive, but if you can make it through to the other side, you can actually change the system.

Raul Lezgo Gomez: Yup dats me still DBZ lol

This image is a powerful and concise depiction of the impact of consumption of entertainment on our childhood psyches, specifically, the way we handicap little girls with pernicious stories which portray them as passive actors with no interior life and meanwhile allow boys to remain developmentally stunted all the way into adulthood.

It found me on Facebook via a group called "Nerds do it better." Well, that changes the meaning. I guess lifetime Dragon Ball Z (DBZ) cartoon watching is better than even brief Twilight watching.

What's it called when someone tries to say one thing, and says something else altogether? When someone tries to celebrate something as cool, and instead celebrates something totally fucked up? When they promote a particular understanding of reality, and expose their blindness to particulars of reality? Is it satire?

Voluntary work stressed at University of Bahrain

“Voluntary work can be conducted in all fields and this can contribute to the society’s development,” he said. He added that volunteers felt the taste of giving and communication with other fellow citizens. Abbas, then, listened to the students' suggestions and thoughts about voluntary work."

Personally, I prefer non-compulsory work, but then again, I love the taste of giving. I also noticed that all the women in that photo are wearing black while the men, in the minority, sport a little more diversity. They're getting college educations and wear burkas—that isn't surprising—but they're all uniform, save their colorful lanyards. And that room looks as inviting as an abraded womb. I've excerpted this part of a press release/blog post from the University of Bahrian webpage because I found this photo more compelling than any that might go along with the real subject of this post.

Andrew W.K. & U.S. Department Of State: Entertainer Named Cultural Ambassador To The Middle East
This link, which I assumed would take me to the Onion, goes to a post on Huffington Post, announcing "Andrew has been invited by the State Department to travel to the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain and share his music and partying with the people there. Andrew will begin his journey the first week of December, 2012 and will visit elementary schools, the University of Bahrain, music venues, and more, all while promoting partying and world peace." Andrew W.K. is this guy:



At first I was shocked, then I realized I was staring at the Huffington Post. HuffPo is hardly authoritative. In fact, it seems to be little more than a link aggregator at this point. Demonstrating its deep committment to quality, The first link in the Huff post looks like this:

In bizarre news of the day, the U.S. Department of State of has named Andrew W.K. the Cultural Ambassador to the Middle East.

Referencing the Department of State, in fact, linking directly over its name, would suggest the link goes to something authoritative about the Department of State, or at worst, a link to http://www.state.gov/. Inexplicably, it goes to an almost identical post on Pitchfork.com, a website about music and not the State Department or cultural ambassadorships.

Would the U.S. really send a post-career hairy rocker to another country as a cultural ambassador? Especially a country in the Middle East? While it behooves me to mention that Bahrain is the most liberal country there, doing so feels kind of like mentioning I was oldest person in my kindergarten class--it's not untrue, but might help us miss the truth. Don't we have gatekeepers in the Department of State whose job it is to keep people like Andrew W.K. away from cameras? Perhaps an entire office tasked with selecting around real American culture while projecting it abroad? I'm fully aware businesses will thrust their cultural products anywhere someone will take them (I once had a Tibetan tell me about his favorite Martin Lawrence movies for an hour), but I assume cabinet level departments do not typically lend their stately imprimatur to:



What the hell though, that video makes me smile my ass off. Still, determined to discover if HuffPo and Co. were trying co-opt Onion copy as a means to greater page views, I went to Andrew W.Ks website. Though the most likely source of any satire shenanigans, it also was probably the most likely place to find it important to provide evidence of official collaboration. The opening line of this post had some important nuances.

The US Department of State in partnership with the US Embassy in Manama, Bahrain, has invited Andrew to visit the Middle East to promote partying and positive power. In the tradition of the American Jazz Ambassadors who traveled the world in the mid 20th century as examples of American culture and spirit,

It's a partnership with Department of State, not a request by Hilary Clinton. The embassy in Manama probably has substantial leeway in directing its own programs, and while partners, could be pulling the cart on this decision. Moreover, Andrew W.K. isn't coming so much as a consultant on head thrashing and partying as he is a musician. Oh, well that makes more sense. He's a muscian who isn't so popular he's appearing at halftime shows but isn't so underground he's never been on MTV. Also, he's not a pop star whose tits contribute to album sales, or a rap star whose message rarely intersect with family values. By the way, if you google for "lil wayne," the related searches are: lil wayne quotes, lil wayne smoking, lil wayne album, lil wayne haircut, lil wayne jail, lil wayne shot. With that in mind, its harder not to support Andrew W.K. representing the U.S..

The problem is, there's no other evidence on Andrew W.K.'s site that this invitation is for real. Nor is there on the State Department webpage, the U.S.-Bahrainian embassy, or even on the page of University of Bahrain, where he is supposedly performing. Granted, there's almost nothing on the University of Bahrain's English webpage, not even a working link to the site map.

At the moment, there's no evidence Andrew W.K. is really going to Bahrain as a cultural ambassador. Perhaps within the week or the first week of December after he arrives. But after learning more about the nature of his "appointment," it's not as big a deal as suggested by the HuffPo headline that's making everyone ask, is it satire? (Andrew W.K. as a cultural ambassador, not Huffington Post as a news site)

Time to tell any Democrats you know to fuck off and die

Eric Dondero, a Libertarian Republican you have no reason to know exists, is trying to get your attention. He has a message about the election results he wants to share with you. The message is simple, ostensibly for easy communication and not because a more nuanced outlook is outside his capability.

"I am going to un-friend every single individual on Facebook who voted for Obama, or I even suspect may have Democrat leanings. I will do the same in person. All family and friends, even close family and friends, who I know to be Democrats are hereby dead to me. I vow never to speak to them again for the rest of my life, or have any communications with them. They are in short, the enemies of liberty. They deserve nothing less than hatred and utter contempt.

I strongly urge all other libertarians to do the same. Are you married to someone who voted for Obama, have a girlfriend who voted 'O'. Divorce them. Break up with them without haste. Vow not to attend family functions, Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas for example, if there will be any family members in attendance who are Democrats." -source-

Eric Dondero can pull off this extreme protest because he has no girlfriend, wife, family, or facebook friends, having reduced them all to charcoal outlines on the walls around his compound with his brilliant ideological purity. He cannot control the rays of his righteous zeal anymore than Cyclops can control his optic blast without a ruby-quartz lens. Nor should he have to. This democratic republic was founded on, and achieved greatness, as consequence of its refusal to tolerate differences of opinion. Our forefathers, oppressed by the universal tolerance in England and impoverished by the prices in the marketplace of ideas, left to form a more perfect union. A union of one. One people, united by sameness, led by the self-evident truth that debate is a waste and governance is easy. Individuals who disagreed back then were denied the right to exercise free speech, and individuals who disagree now deserve to have their bodies vaporized by blasts of the Truth from Eric Dondero's mouth. Or, he suggests, "you could take a crap on their lawn," anyway.

Eric Dondero unironically advocates boycotting participation in civil society by utilizing the same political tool wielded by Gandhi, the 1960's civil rights movement, and Occupy. He views new ideas as a threat and hopes to pressure those who entertain them to abandon that fool's errand. He is counting on intellectual poverty being more attractive than never receiving another one of his forwarded emails again. His boycott puts a price on your Democratic intransigence; that price is that he will never again swoop down onto your facebook wall and make a careful comparison between the United States and Nazi Germany.

If you are willing to break the chain anchoring you to Obama's throne, Eric Dondero will forgive you, anoint you with oil, and then rise up on wings of glory, to resume his stoney perch atop liberty's tabernacle and keep a vigilant lookout for our future.

"There were UNITED NATIONS POLL WATCHERS at our polling places yesterday. If that isn't proof enough how far we've gone towards the dark side of international socialism, I don't know what is."

But if you don't, prepare to be proven a hater by the hater-prover.

If we don't acknowledge that most Americans are now liberty-haters we will never, ever progress as a movement. We have to look in the mirror now, and fess up. Most Americans are fascists, socialists, communists, and at the least welfare moocherists.

But if he's harsh, he's not unfair. His criticism extends to all haters of liberty, even those closely associated with the GOP.

What I fuckin' hate are all these pussy conservatives like Sean Hannity now saying, "Aww, it ain't that bad. We will bounce back... American will turn to the right again... It's just one bad election." Bull-fucking-shit! America died yesterday. It's over. There's no coming back. 236 years of history gone in one single day and night. SPARE ME YOU'RE FUCKING GOOD TIDINGS YOU CONSERVATIVES. This is a castrophe for libertarians and conservatives. The worst of our lifetimes. The Nazis and Communists have just seized control of the United States of America, and you fuckers are trying to convince me it ain't that bad!

We have to consider the possibility, however, that Eric Dondero is wrong about some things.

I say we've got two to three years left before they start rounding up dissenters and sending us off to Nazi-style concentration camps. I've got a little more time, cause I live in Texas.

And if he's wrong, perhaps very, very wrong, we have to wonder whether anyone has alerted him to this fact.

John Denver said... You do realize that real communists and socialists laugh at you people when you talk about America being taken over by communists, right?

Eric Dondero said... John, no sir. I will not be a "decent human being," from here on out. As I say in the post, it's pure unadulterated hatred for everybody and anybody I know or ever run into who is a Democrat. I will spit on the ground in front of them. I will shun them. I will badmouth them. I will cuss their very existence. Republicans, Libertarian Party people, Conservatives, other Rightists, even some moderates, are my friends. Democrats are now my enemy til the day I die.

It seems that his position operates not on a level of policy or basic connections between words and their meanings, but on a sort of philosophical plane. Eric Dondero seems to forgo knowledge in favor of Cartesian skepticism: I am partisan, therefore I am. If I am, then I exist. If I exist then what I think is True. If I can't comprehend an idea, then it is false.

In a black and white dichotomy, extreme libertarianism is actually a sensible position. The problem is, there's no reason to think Eric Dondero is being serious.

Not sure Obama is a communist or socialist. In my eyes he's more like a Nazi. One look at his pals in the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, is all you need to know on that.

There are no connections between the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas, and Nazis. Eric Dondero is just sayin' stuff. The question is what he gets out of being a sort of Godwin's 8-ball. Is it simple entertainment, or does he have artistic intent? Is Eric Dondero trying to challenge his reader's assumptions by saying the most insane things he can come up with? Is he trying to disparage Libertarian Republicans by posing as one of them? Is he trying to drive page views, which I and many others are happily sending him in exchange for the chance to react to something unabigously ridiculous? If we criticize Eric Dondero for his facile ideology and insane presentation, are we just sublimating our own compulsion for black-and-white beliefs? Is Eric Dondero an excuse to act like Eric Dondero? Is it satire?

Avant-Garde Frog Fractions

If you went to school anytime in the late 80's to early 90's, you probably participated in the heralded age of "edutainment."  The age where computer software would combine entertainment with education and capture young minds, laying the crooked areas straight and the rough places plain.  The power of interactive experiences would transform the educational setting, helping to turn repetitive tasks into games and facilitate exploration of complex subjects at the speed of the student.  Instead, we got Math Munchers.

The revolution will not be televised.

But a new generation of post-modern students requires a new generation of educational software. For that we have the multi-genre title, Frog Fractions.  Spanning fractions, interactive fiction, and text adventure, it explores the philosophy of educational software, as well as boxing, and like any good sci-fi, humanity itself. This game shines a light into your soul.  But is it satire? 

Hot Cheetos and Takis

The first thing you'll notice is that this video is visually and aurally authentic.  The corner store location provides the urban backdrop for shaky cam cuts of the crew while the beat, I dunno, sounds like it came out of a machine that makes beats for popular BET artists. The second thing you'll notice is that street fashion evidentially doesn't change between ages ten to thirty. So it looks real.   But as we must always ask of reality, "really?"

It's kids, doing rap.  Rappin' 'bout snacks as they are want to do, specifically by brand name.  As evinced by multiple locations, post-editing, and cornucopia of snacks, this is video was not paid for by the screen talent.  It likely was paid for by someone who saw it as an investment.  And who stands the most to gain from some talented kids showcasing their products?

Hot Cheetos
Takis
Lemonade Brisk
Elmo
Orange Fanta
Fritos
Skittles
Starburst
Doritos

I've taken the pleasure of tracking these products up the company chain, to see which, if any are competitors.  Fritos, Doritos, and Cheetos are all created by Frito-Lay.  Frito-Lay is owned by PepsiCo.

Brisk tea is a Lipton co-creation with PepsiCo, but Lipton is owned by Unilever.  I think if you buy a Brisk tea PepsiCo makes the profit, but if you buy a box of Lipton tea Unilever does.

Takis are evidently corn flour fried rolls made in Mexico and distributed in the US.  They are the beloved and palatable creation of Grupo Bimbo.  As they say, "This industrialization of Mexico’s gastronomy has been characteristic of Grupo Biimbo." 

Fanta is a Coke brand.

Skittles and Starburst are a Wrigley brand, and Wrigley is a subsidiary for Mars.

Elmo is a Sesame Street character, which is intellectual property owned by Disney.

Now that I've sat through 10 minutes of website flash intros for our mutual edification, back to the mission at hand.  All these products are mentioned in the lyrics, but they aren't all brands from the same company.  A company attempting to use online conversations to virally market has probably learned by 2012 that you can't control the conversation completely, so perhaps this mix of brands demonstrates a savvy to not to transparently exclude the competitor; they're mostly Pepsi brands.  But still, it's less than half the same company, so we can probably rule out that this is corporate marketing.

That's not to say it's not marketing though.  Many companies, Doritos for instance, offer contests for user-submitted content which advertise their product.  We may recall a particularly egregious example from a couple years ago, the awful Four Loko song which thematically matched Four Loko's awfulness by infusing insipid choreography with faux hoodery.  It's not hard to imagine Hot Cheetos and Takis was made to submit for a prize.

But Hot Cheetos and Takis is not shitty like the Four Loko song.  It's well done.  Make no mistake, it's disturbing--like, I want at least 4 bars addressing childhood obesity or diabetes--but a well made package musically and visually.  The question is who paid the production team?  It might perfectly capture the expression of childhood as one writer has said, but Ben 10 and Fizzy Fee didn't rent professional grade cameras or pay for studio time with their allowance. If we take them at their words, they spend their money exclusvely on snacks and nobody can stop them. One's mom even hit the ATM because she know he need them. Who would enlist a crew of corn-addicted tweens to write an anthem to snacks?

According to this Is It Satire?-spoiling expose at Grantland, the kids are part of a Beats and Rhymes afterschool program. They are part of a young rap group (collective?) called YN Rich Kids, which with different members than those neccesarily featured in the video, have produced eight albums. So to answer the question, who pays? If it's an after school program, probably a combination of the state and the parents. Meaning, 1) this video could become part of a political squabble in the near future as conservatives ask “should public funds be going to the black arts?” (or Joe Biden, accidentally) and 2) this is the St. Paul, Minnesota version of Rebecca Black's Friday, where the indulgent parental vanity is replaced by youthful exuberance.

The video is H-O-T like a bag of some hot Cheetos,
Lets hope the inevitable PepsiCo co-optation is mutually beneficial/

Shit is fucked up and bullshit

Shit is fucked up and bullshit (SIFUB).  Is it satire?

The Karl Marx MasterCard Is Here

The German bank Sparkasse Chemnitz recently launched a Karl Marx credit card. The bank let people vote online for 10 different images, and Marx was the "very clear winner," beating out a palace, a castle and a racetrack, among others. Reuters has more on the story.

NPR's Planet Money Blog has already grabbed the torch from Sparkasse Chemnitz's hilarious customers and started soliciting taglines for this mashup of anti-capitalist and capitalist symbolism. Here are my favorites:

Michael Benveniste (MichaelBenveniste) wrote:
Capital is Dead Labor. Irony is Priceless.

Tim Myers (Mr. Zurkon) wrote:
Control the means of consumption.

Gin Phillips (Ginbug) wrote:
Capitalism: It misses the Marx.

J Sno (Anarchaosmos) wrote:
Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point, however, is to charge it!

Adam Saunderson (666Larry666) wrote:
Because we all deserve some credit.

David Kemp raised a good question:
Do payments with this card become personal debt, or the people's?

My personal submission is:
Classy.


What does it mean that Sparkasse Chemnitz's customers resoundingly choose such an ironic image for the new credit card? Is it simple kicks and giggles, or a more profound statement about Marxism and the role of credit in contemporary capitalism? Is it satire? I feel like the intentionality required for satire precludes it from arising in a crowdsourced vote. As opposed to a team where the members know each other and are organized to work toward the same end, the members of a group cannot all have the same points to make about a subject. However, a group can think it's pretty funny to put Marx on a credit card. The standard for funny is easier to satisfy than for satire. Like irony, satire has a number of elements interacting together, only one of which is humor (the others being critique, concealment, and imitation). Whenever there is satire there must be humor, but where there is humor, satire is only a possibility.

"Throw stuff off a cliff" - DOE

Satire?blog limps into and out of the month of May with the following embed and analysis. This is from the U.S. Department of Energy's new advertising campaign. They're trying to encourage energy efficiency. They do so by depicting a couple throwing energy-intensive manufactured goods off a cliff: a plasma TV, a bike, a gas grill. The explicit message is "when you don't save energy, you're throwing money away." And the subtext obvious point is mo' money, mo' stuff. I'm reminded of the words of Christopher Wallace, the street sage and hip hop artist known to the public as the Notorious BIG. The memorable hook to his 1995 verse on Get Money is "fuck bitches, get money," a timeless refrain also preserved in the memepheme (a blend of meme and morpheme I just invented [explainabrag]) here: I'm reminded because the DOE advertisement is so plainly saying "Fuck Energy. Get Toys." Are they unaware that the rebound effect of this suggested increased consumption would outmatch the energy conserved? Are we to take a plasma TV, constructed from minerals mined around the world, shipped together for manufacture in Asia, and sailed across the ocean to San Fransisco, as a reasonable exchange for equivalent dollar savings in turned off lightbulbs? Or should we take this as the sense of humor DOE is so well known for?

Golden Corral v. Whites: Separate but Cheaper

Golden Corral would like you to believe that black people will jump out of a moving car for a buffet. Meanwhile their pretentious white "friends" are oblivious to the siren song of unlimited mash potatoes. Before you yell "das racist!" consider the following: the black people are given seats at the rear of the vehicle, not being asked to stand. They are well dressed, indicating respect for the ceremonious 10$ entree. Most affirming of all, they will brave any hardship, whether pavement or heart disease, to ensure a financially prudent date night. There's nothing racist about whites and blacks eating at separate restaurants as long as one of them is cheaper.

Wait, it's totally racist, without any commentary on that racism. And it is deliberate.
You can imagine the director asking the black male to slouch more in his seat. It's impossible to imagine this kind of advertisement being storyboarded without someone's 2012 racial consciousness piping up. Is it satire, or should we conclude that this actually fits the expectations of Golden Corral's black guests?

Pat Robertson Says Marijuana Use Should be Legal

I couldn't help but google the signs of the apocalypse after reading Robertson's statements regarding marijuana. I wasn't fully aware how much my own morality is based on not being like people like Pat Robertson. Thankfully Robertson has never been more than a sideshow, so his endorsement does not singularly change my stance on marijuana.

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about. They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another."

The opinion of a man who explains earthquakes not with geology, but theology, specifically made up theology, is not one which carries much sway. That's why the following statement about marijuana is so problematic.

“It’s completely out of control,” Mr. Robertson said. “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all.”

Like me and all sensible pragmatists, Robertson has just assessed the cost-benefit of the war on drugs and found it did not pass the test. And as all sensible pragmatists would also advise, never sign a deal with the devil. That rarely works out.

Robertson even employs a facile comparison, “If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal?” This kind of reasoning is great for moral consistency, since it discourages treating one behavior as different from an identical behavior. Marijuana and alcohol are both recreational drugs the Bible does not forbid. Jesus even turned water into wine, “I don’t think he was a teetotaler. The key is moderation, Robertson believes, “When I was in college, I hit [da booze] pretty hard, but that was before Christ."

This kind of reasoning also is terrible for moral consistency, because it provides us no means to reject behaviors which are similar, in this case heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy. Those are also recreational drugs. If we use them in moderation, why should they be illegal? Along the same lines, why shouldn't homosexuals be able to marry? We let heterosexuals marry. Jesus was for love, he wasn't about keeping people apart. “If you follow the teaching of Christ, you know that Christ is a compassionate man,” Robertson said. Either these things should be legal, or alcohol-marijuana is a false moral equivalency.

This mixing and matching between pragmatism, false equivalency, and his typical black-and-white moral condemnation raises the question, is it satire? Is Robertson simply lending his imprimatur to a liberal issue in order to scare moderates like me away? I'd almost prefer to live in a world where one percent of the population is in jail for drug offenses than one where I agree with Pat Robertson. As a career pariah, he must know his opinion negatively correlates with everyone outside his insular base. Perhaps Pat Robertson's metawareness has finally reached the point in his later years that he's willing to wield his brand as a weapon. Either that, or, Pat Robertson actually thinks marijuana use should be legal.

Glitterbombing Rick Santorum

A bunch of bigoted one percenters hired some unemployed 20-somethings to glitterbomb Rick Santorum. And they threw the glitter at him, and no one much cared.

Stupid-ass embedding disabled by request.
http://youtu.be/D4eTuOJhWS8

After landing most of the glitter harmlessly on the ground near Santorum, the protesters revealed their motivation for such enormous symbolic act: they yelled "You hate gays!" at Rick Santorum, one of the less fruitful protest tactics I've seen. The only way it makes sense is if Santorum rushes to defend himself, which is 1)unlikely, since your critique does not come from a position of influence or thoughtfulness and, 2)not even damning were he to decide to. It's like they wanted to provide Santorum the opportunity to reiterate his position on family values.

If that weren't enough to raise suspicion of whether this is actually satire, as they are escorted away the protesters inexplicably begin shouting "occupy!" This fourth-wall breaking is only useful when making a comment on the art, otherwise it's just a disruption. No real occupy protester would be so dumb as to associate their cause with half-assed glitterbombing. Occupy stands for much larger, egalitarian issues and seeks to achieve a real change in democracy. Nice try bigoted one percenters, but no one with half a brain believes that was a real protest.

On the other hand, it is possible some real protesters just punked themselves by valuing zeal more than intelligence, and enthusiasm more than planning. Demonstrating solidarity as you voluntarily leave could be a means to save face at what would embarrass 99% of people. Is it satire?