[thanks to Mujtahid JB; i'm retarded and don't know how to post this as you - Dor]
You've all heard me rant about God knows what for Lord knows how long, but these commercials are getting offensive. I only see these commercials because of Sunday and Monday night football. If it wasn't for RedZone (commercial free football on Sunday afternoon) I would probably have cerebral spinal fluid leaking out of my nose.
The first group of commercials that bother me are the "Santa Suggestion" commercials. These feature some inept person who is baffled by the gift giving process and needs a fictional creation to get their loved one some crap they do not need. Santa is a marketing tool used on children. I get that. Using Santa to tell some dumbass that he needs to go to Zales, Kay's or some other shitty jewelry shop because she wants some crap necklace is insulting. Santa's most retarded elf could design better jewelry. This target audience should not be allowed anywhere near a mall.
The next group of commercials that grind my gears (wait for it) are these moronic car commercials (there it is). Santa does not drive a Benz, let alone a little red convertible one. He is not a trophy wife or a skinny, effeminate Asian guy. My parents would never drive off in my car because it is so much better and cooler than their car, no matter what I got. They would criticize me for having mailed them a key in advance so that they could drive off with the car behind my back. Actually, they would criticize me for just about anything. Then mom would make me cocoa and it'd be okay. The other bizzare car commercial features attractive women buying some d-bag lounging around her house a Lexus. I would like to know where these women hang out and explain to them that I'd be perfectly happy to quit my job, work out every day, and lounge around in a turtle neck. In the land of 5 o'clock shadows I make women walk funny and there isn't much I wouldn't do for a Lexus.
And who are the idiots who approve commercials with elves? Is there a secret underground society of little people who come out just for the holidays to milk this for all it's worth? Singing elves terrify me and I congratulate T-Mobile on helping me better visualize what hell will be like.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Fatwa #30 Enough with the Angus Beef
The whole point of Angus beef in the beginning was that grass fed Black Angus was pretty tasty.
Once you decide to call your convenience store hot dogs "Angus hot dogs" you have debased the meaning beyond all recognition. This was inevitable once McDonald's started its Angus burgers.
Allow me to begin the Hereford backlash. In the interests of making sure that we don't eliminate other breeds of cattle in favor of an Angus monoculture (I'm looking at you, bananana and potato growers) I will hereby encourage a boycott of anything labelled Angus until the current craze recedes into the dustbin of fad and fashion. An exception can be made for grass fed beef that happens to be of the black angus breed. But otherwise, it's time to eat anything other than the Angus for a while to assure the continuation of other beef cattle breeds.
For my part, I will encourage the consuming of stringy Longhorn cattle.
Once you decide to call your convenience store hot dogs "Angus hot dogs" you have debased the meaning beyond all recognition. This was inevitable once McDonald's started its Angus burgers.
Allow me to begin the Hereford backlash. In the interests of making sure that we don't eliminate other breeds of cattle in favor of an Angus monoculture (I'm looking at you, bananana and potato growers) I will hereby encourage a boycott of anything labelled Angus until the current craze recedes into the dustbin of fad and fashion. An exception can be made for grass fed beef that happens to be of the black angus breed. But otherwise, it's time to eat anything other than the Angus for a while to assure the continuation of other beef cattle breeds.
For my part, I will encourage the consuming of stringy Longhorn cattle.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Fatwa #29 An Appeal to Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz al Saud
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
To Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz al Saud,
Some believe that there is a special hell reserved for hypocrites and liars. If so, most of humanity will no doubt deserve to end up there. It will be of no small comfort to the rest of us that you will be there with us.
This week you told the government of Syria to "stop the killing machine and the bloodshed before it is too late." I wonder if that is what you told your friend Sheikh Dickwad ibn Cowpatty of Bahrain when you sent in your own troops to help in the killing in Manama? Did you think I didn't notice? Did you think I didn't remember? No doubt the people of Hama and Homs and Deraa don't care who gets killed anywhere else and no doubt the people in Washington and Paris and London don't remember (or don't care to remember) what you and your friend were up to a few months ago. But did you think I wouldn't remember? Even if I was the last person on the earth to remember or care I would be comforted by the fact there is a judge eternal who forgets nothing.
Or when you said "stop the killing machine" did you really mean to say "conclude your killing" the way you and your little friend "concluded" the killing in Bahrain once you had done enough to put a lid on the mess? Is that what you meant, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz? You can be honest with me because I can handle honesty. Ruling a country is a dirty business. I understand you have to spend much of your time lying and spreading half-truths and diplomatic doubletalk.
But did you think you had any moral authority left to tell anyone to stop killing people?
DID YOU REALLY THINK I WAS DUMB ENOUGH TO NOT NOTICE YOUR HYPOCRISY OR CRAVEN ENOUGH TO KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT WHILE YOU SPOUTED SUCH NONSENSE?
Nations are inconsistent. People are hypocrites and inconsistent in their application of ideals. I do not expect much from kings and princes and emirs and presidents and ministers and bureacrats and technocrats. "Statesmen" spend much of their time lying and doubledealing. "Statesmen" can order killing with one side of their mouth while accusing others of being butchers with the other. States are dirty messy things and "statesmen" have to make dirty messy decisions full of contradictions and lies. Maybe if I was in your place I'd make some of the same choices. Maybe I wouldn't. Like I said, I don't expect much of kings. It's a dirty business, even for the best of them.
But from a Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, I expect more. You shouldn't call yourself that if you can't be the person that title entails. You can't help your friend murder someone and judge someone else for murder and call yourself a Custodian. The world could do without custodians like that.
I have said all this to you, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, because you need to hear it. And because others are silent or ignorant. You are playing a dangerous game, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, not because it is not prudent diplomatically, but because you have put your very soul in peril.
I am not the judge you need to worry about, nor will you find your judge in the foreign press or in the UN or Washington, London, Paris, Moscow, or even Cairo. Your judge is the one who will judge us all. And it doesn't take much more than a scratch beneath the surface to see that the killing machine you point at is only a mirror of your own machine. You should be careful with these little lies and hypocrisies, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz. I may be the only person left on this earth to notice them or to care about them. But the Lord of Creation sees everything and remembers everything. Tread lightly, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, because one day you may have to eat all your lies written in fire on burning coals, because statesmen are judged in this world in one way, and in the next world according, perhaps to a different standard.
Repent now and beg for mercy like the rest of us. Give up your pride and your power today, because they will mean nothing to you when your time here is done and you stand before God like the rest of us. I know what I have to answer for when that time comes. DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO ANSWER FOR?
I have tried to counsel you "before it is too late." I hope for your sake you will take this to heart.
Sincerely,
Seyed Mohammad ibn Abolhassan ibn Mohammad Mahdi ibn Seyed Ismail
To Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz al Saud,
Some believe that there is a special hell reserved for hypocrites and liars. If so, most of humanity will no doubt deserve to end up there. It will be of no small comfort to the rest of us that you will be there with us.
This week you told the government of Syria to "stop the killing machine and the bloodshed before it is too late." I wonder if that is what you told your friend Sheikh Dickwad ibn Cowpatty of Bahrain when you sent in your own troops to help in the killing in Manama? Did you think I didn't notice? Did you think I didn't remember? No doubt the people of Hama and Homs and Deraa don't care who gets killed anywhere else and no doubt the people in Washington and Paris and London don't remember (or don't care to remember) what you and your friend were up to a few months ago. But did you think I wouldn't remember? Even if I was the last person on the earth to remember or care I would be comforted by the fact there is a judge eternal who forgets nothing.
Or when you said "stop the killing machine" did you really mean to say "conclude your killing" the way you and your little friend "concluded" the killing in Bahrain once you had done enough to put a lid on the mess? Is that what you meant, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz? You can be honest with me because I can handle honesty. Ruling a country is a dirty business. I understand you have to spend much of your time lying and spreading half-truths and diplomatic doubletalk.
But did you think you had any moral authority left to tell anyone to stop killing people?
DID YOU REALLY THINK I WAS DUMB ENOUGH TO NOT NOTICE YOUR HYPOCRISY OR CRAVEN ENOUGH TO KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT WHILE YOU SPOUTED SUCH NONSENSE?
Nations are inconsistent. People are hypocrites and inconsistent in their application of ideals. I do not expect much from kings and princes and emirs and presidents and ministers and bureacrats and technocrats. "Statesmen" spend much of their time lying and doubledealing. "Statesmen" can order killing with one side of their mouth while accusing others of being butchers with the other. States are dirty messy things and "statesmen" have to make dirty messy decisions full of contradictions and lies. Maybe if I was in your place I'd make some of the same choices. Maybe I wouldn't. Like I said, I don't expect much of kings. It's a dirty business, even for the best of them.
But from a Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, I expect more. You shouldn't call yourself that if you can't be the person that title entails. You can't help your friend murder someone and judge someone else for murder and call yourself a Custodian. The world could do without custodians like that.
I have said all this to you, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, because you need to hear it. And because others are silent or ignorant. You are playing a dangerous game, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, not because it is not prudent diplomatically, but because you have put your very soul in peril.
I am not the judge you need to worry about, nor will you find your judge in the foreign press or in the UN or Washington, London, Paris, Moscow, or even Cairo. Your judge is the one who will judge us all. And it doesn't take much more than a scratch beneath the surface to see that the killing machine you point at is only a mirror of your own machine. You should be careful with these little lies and hypocrisies, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz. I may be the only person left on this earth to notice them or to care about them. But the Lord of Creation sees everything and remembers everything. Tread lightly, Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz, because one day you may have to eat all your lies written in fire on burning coals, because statesmen are judged in this world in one way, and in the next world according, perhaps to a different standard.
Repent now and beg for mercy like the rest of us. Give up your pride and your power today, because they will mean nothing to you when your time here is done and you stand before God like the rest of us. I know what I have to answer for when that time comes. DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO ANSWER FOR?
I have tried to counsel you "before it is too late." I hope for your sake you will take this to heart.
Sincerely,
Seyed Mohammad ibn Abolhassan ibn Mohammad Mahdi ibn Seyed Ismail
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Fatwa #28 An Appeal to Jimmy Wales
Dear Jimmy Wales,
Stop asking for money for wikipedia. Any more money to support your operation will only be supporting the continuing rule of your wikinazi clique of wikistupid wikieditors who target everything for deletion except the asinine things that should be deleted.
Here's an idea, Jimmy. You go out and get a real job flipping burgers at the Burger Hut and then contribute some more of your own money to keep the operation going. Encourage your other pale male wikijerkoff editors to get out of that basement in Amsterdam and clean toilets for a living and contribute to the upkeep also. Maybe then they'll have something better to do than to sit around all day and fuss with wikipedia and leave it open for the rest of us to contribute something without your wikidiots constantly mobbing it with their inconsistent rules and wikidickish attitude.
I'll say it again, Mr. Wales. Tell your wikicrew to go out in the non-wiki world and get real jobs and stop begging the rest of us for money.
As for everyone else, I encourage you to save the money you would have thought about spending on wikipedia and do something else with it. Give it to a complete stranger on the street and say "Have a nice day." That would be a better form of charity than to give money to support the Jimmy Wales wikinerds. Let them seek their funding from the corporations that pay people to do friendly edits that the independent mook can never fix because the wikifascists are too busy probing for the notability of the corrections. Notabilize THIS.
Stop asking for money for wikipedia. Any more money to support your operation will only be supporting the continuing rule of your wikinazi clique of wikistupid wikieditors who target everything for deletion except the asinine things that should be deleted.
Here's an idea, Jimmy. You go out and get a real job flipping burgers at the Burger Hut and then contribute some more of your own money to keep the operation going. Encourage your other pale male wikijerkoff editors to get out of that basement in Amsterdam and clean toilets for a living and contribute to the upkeep also. Maybe then they'll have something better to do than to sit around all day and fuss with wikipedia and leave it open for the rest of us to contribute something without your wikidiots constantly mobbing it with their inconsistent rules and wikidickish attitude.
I'll say it again, Mr. Wales. Tell your wikicrew to go out in the non-wiki world and get real jobs and stop begging the rest of us for money.
As for everyone else, I encourage you to save the money you would have thought about spending on wikipedia and do something else with it. Give it to a complete stranger on the street and say "Have a nice day." That would be a better form of charity than to give money to support the Jimmy Wales wikinerds. Let them seek their funding from the corporations that pay people to do friendly edits that the independent mook can never fix because the wikifascists are too busy probing for the notability of the corrections. Notabilize THIS.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Fatwa #27 on wikicocksuckingpedia
you heard me, you little weasels.
wikipedia ruling on Martin Luther's 95 Theses: "Please consult WP:Vandalism for guidelines on vandalism and unauthorized editing. Also please note that the door of the church is not an appropriate place to post User Comments."
wikipedia ruling on Declaration of Independence: "Statements such as 'He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country,' and 'He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us' must be adequately sourced according to WP:Verifiability. Colonial pamphlets are not reliable verification, nor is holding something to be 'self-evident.' Examples of good verification are Times of London, the Tribune of London, and Foul Ol' Ron, also of London."
wikipedia ruling on Martin Luther's 95 Theses: "Please consult WP:Vandalism for guidelines on vandalism and unauthorized editing. Also please note that the door of the church is not an appropriate place to post User Comments."
wikipedia ruling on Declaration of Independence: "Statements such as 'He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country,' and 'He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us' must be adequately sourced according to WP:Verifiability. Colonial pamphlets are not reliable verification, nor is holding something to be 'self-evident.' Examples of good verification are Times of London, the Tribune of London, and Foul Ol' Ron, also of London."
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Fatwa #26 Pro Umpire
A friend of mine was complaining again about the lack of replay and challenges in baseball.
He thinks the fact that people can now clearly see on television what the umpire can't see on the field is unfair and that it will drive people away from baseball.
I think that adding a replay or a challenge to an already leisurely paced/glacially paced game would kill it dead.
I also think that if baseball is to serve a useful social function then we must retain the tradition of the umpire making the call, even if it is patently obvious to others with technological hindsight that the umpire was wrong.
Why?
Because this is how we learn about the nature of the judiciary in a democracy.
A baseball heading toward the plate isn't ever objectively a strike or a ball. It is only a strike or a ball after the umpire declares it to be one or the other.
You may be able to see it better, but it is the umpire who creates the reality of the situation even if it seems to the whole world to be unfair.
You can already see the comparison to jury trials. Juries are not measures of objective reality. They make a decision, one which the whole rest of the world unfettered by blinkers and rules of evidence, can possibly see as patently wrong. But that's not how the system works.
And where do we teach our kids about this? Not in football where every play now comes with a flag, a coach's challenge and a battery of lawyers threatening to sue the other side and who drop the case in return for a settlement of 5 yards and a loss of down.
Not in basketball or soccer where as far as I can tell penalties are awarded for acting ability alone.
No, we teach our kids about the judiciary in baseball. It is in baseball that we learn that laws are not perfect, that they are administered not by omniscient, omnipotent beings, but by men, sometimes flawed, often short sighted, sometimes blind as a bat. Human beings. That is what baseball teaches us. That the administration of law is never perfect, that we are ultimately limited by our inability to see and know all and that the res publica, the common wealth, the good of the public, is ultimately served by our acknowledgment that nothing is ever perfect, that sometimes the best we can do is to watch a replay later that night, admit that the ump couldn't see it that way from the perspective of the ground, and try again some other day.
Why is this a good thing?
Because the opposite of that, the belief that there is such a thing as perfect human judgment is dangerously arrogant. The belief that mankind, with the help of technology can render perfect judgment on something as arbitrary as baseball is dangerous, because ultimately the very notion of a ball or a strike is not a divine revelation, but something that is always up for interpretation by an umpire. And the belief that you can measure that with a robot in the sky...well, at that point why bother playing the game at all? Why not just let robots play against each other with robots officiating? That way everything can be just perfect.
And you can take that perfect world, wrap it up in spandex put it on a bicycle and let it take up a lane of traffic on I-10 on a Wednesday afternoon at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
He thinks the fact that people can now clearly see on television what the umpire can't see on the field is unfair and that it will drive people away from baseball.
I think that adding a replay or a challenge to an already leisurely paced/glacially paced game would kill it dead.
I also think that if baseball is to serve a useful social function then we must retain the tradition of the umpire making the call, even if it is patently obvious to others with technological hindsight that the umpire was wrong.
Why?
Because this is how we learn about the nature of the judiciary in a democracy.
A baseball heading toward the plate isn't ever objectively a strike or a ball. It is only a strike or a ball after the umpire declares it to be one or the other.
You may be able to see it better, but it is the umpire who creates the reality of the situation even if it seems to the whole world to be unfair.
You can already see the comparison to jury trials. Juries are not measures of objective reality. They make a decision, one which the whole rest of the world unfettered by blinkers and rules of evidence, can possibly see as patently wrong. But that's not how the system works.
And where do we teach our kids about this? Not in football where every play now comes with a flag, a coach's challenge and a battery of lawyers threatening to sue the other side and who drop the case in return for a settlement of 5 yards and a loss of down.
Not in basketball or soccer where as far as I can tell penalties are awarded for acting ability alone.
No, we teach our kids about the judiciary in baseball. It is in baseball that we learn that laws are not perfect, that they are administered not by omniscient, omnipotent beings, but by men, sometimes flawed, often short sighted, sometimes blind as a bat. Human beings. That is what baseball teaches us. That the administration of law is never perfect, that we are ultimately limited by our inability to see and know all and that the res publica, the common wealth, the good of the public, is ultimately served by our acknowledgment that nothing is ever perfect, that sometimes the best we can do is to watch a replay later that night, admit that the ump couldn't see it that way from the perspective of the ground, and try again some other day.
Why is this a good thing?
Because the opposite of that, the belief that there is such a thing as perfect human judgment is dangerously arrogant. The belief that mankind, with the help of technology can render perfect judgment on something as arbitrary as baseball is dangerous, because ultimately the very notion of a ball or a strike is not a divine revelation, but something that is always up for interpretation by an umpire. And the belief that you can measure that with a robot in the sky...well, at that point why bother playing the game at all? Why not just let robots play against each other with robots officiating? That way everything can be just perfect.
And you can take that perfect world, wrap it up in spandex put it on a bicycle and let it take up a lane of traffic on I-10 on a Wednesday afternoon at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
Fatwa #25 Recreational Bicycling
It's a work day and it's around 10am or 4pm and if you're in full spandex and bicycle helmet regalia going for a recreational bit of exercise and I can only wonder WHY YOU AREN'T AT WORK, YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING LEECH ON SOCIETY! That's right, it would be one thing if I thought you were getting on that bike to go get some groceries or were headed to work on that thing. But you're clearly not going to a place so much as enjoying yourself on a bicycle and TAKING UP A LANE OF AUTO TRAFFIC IN THE PROCESS, and before you get environmentalist on my ass let me remind you that you and your bike are getting in the way of people who are coming and going to and from real jobs that don't come with time off to go riding around you and your friends in a pack like it's the TOUR DE TEJAS. You know where you can stick that bicycle. And because this is the hill country I'm going to apportion some of the blame for you and your "recreation" to that ONE-BALLED CHEATING JACKHOLE Lance Armstrong, though the real blame goes to you for wanting to be as cool as the ONE-BALLED CHEATING JACKHOLE who gave Sheryl Crow cancer. (While it hasn't been proven that he gave Sheryl Crow cancer it also hasn't been definitively ruled out.)
So, here's the thing, recreational biker. How about you put a basket on that bike and use it for a real purpose instead of using your $300,000 SUV to haul your bike around to cool places where you want to bike DURING THE WORK WEEK? Why don't you put away the spandex and get off the INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM so those of us who need to drive to get to work don't have to dodge you and your whole pack of friends?
You know where you can stick that bicycle and that helmet if you don't get off the rural routes and the highways and the access roads. Recreational equestrian riders, you are officially given a pass, because you are taking care of a fine and noble creature and if you want to clop along I-10 on a Tuesday morning you are more than welcome to do it. Bicyclists, you are not welcome. Either get enough money to get a horse, or put away the spandex and get to work.
So, here's the thing, recreational biker. How about you put a basket on that bike and use it for a real purpose instead of using your $300,000 SUV to haul your bike around to cool places where you want to bike DURING THE WORK WEEK? Why don't you put away the spandex and get off the INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM so those of us who need to drive to get to work don't have to dodge you and your whole pack of friends?
You know where you can stick that bicycle and that helmet if you don't get off the rural routes and the highways and the access roads. Recreational equestrian riders, you are officially given a pass, because you are taking care of a fine and noble creature and if you want to clop along I-10 on a Tuesday morning you are more than welcome to do it. Bicyclists, you are not welcome. Either get enough money to get a horse, or put away the spandex and get to work.
Fatwa #24 for the Priceline Negotiatah!
while your hardworking muftis have oodles more to say about patents and copyright, i want to put these issues aside for the short term whilst we cogitate a bit. and i think it's fitting that we end (for now) with an affirmative fatwa.
in an earlier fatwa, i mentioned an ongoing segment about truly awesome ideas that couldn't get made in today's intellectual property environment, called
Great Ideas You'll Never Get to See, or, Thanks, Sonny Bono!
imagine that a mysterious bomb malfunctions, causing every character William Shatner has ever played to enter our reality in pursuit of the real William Shatner. imagine that they are joined by a lunatic quasi-religious sect of Bruce Campbell fans, called Campbellians, who cut off their own right hands in devotion, and hope to kill Shatner for their own nefarious ends. imagine that during the story, Shatner gets punched in the face by t.j. hooker, and that the cartoon kirk from the animated star trek series makes an appearance during which his companions discover that he is literally two-dimensional and can't be seen from the side.
but wait!
destiny, she is kind to this one.
this story exists!
"Shatnerquake," self-published by Jeff Burk,
can be purchased here:
http://www.amazon.com/Shatnerquake-Jeff-Burk/dp/1933929820
note that before and after the story, the author thanks his muse (Denny Crane!) and begs that his muse not sue him. which is a charming, if lamentable, approach to the current lay of the land.
i call it the Radiohead approach: like Amp Live, you do an end run around the faceless megacorp opposing your use of material, by appealing directly to the authors of said material.
i urge you to buy and consume this delicious fruit of a possible future in which intellectual property laws make some kind of sense.
we can make that future happen!
Big Deal, tell 'em how.
in an earlier fatwa, i mentioned an ongoing segment about truly awesome ideas that couldn't get made in today's intellectual property environment, called
Great Ideas You'll Never Get to See, or, Thanks, Sonny Bono!
imagine that a mysterious bomb malfunctions, causing every character William Shatner has ever played to enter our reality in pursuit of the real William Shatner. imagine that they are joined by a lunatic quasi-religious sect of Bruce Campbell fans, called Campbellians, who cut off their own right hands in devotion, and hope to kill Shatner for their own nefarious ends. imagine that during the story, Shatner gets punched in the face by t.j. hooker, and that the cartoon kirk from the animated star trek series makes an appearance during which his companions discover that he is literally two-dimensional and can't be seen from the side.
but wait!
destiny, she is kind to this one.
this story exists!
"Shatnerquake," self-published by Jeff Burk,
can be purchased here:
http://www.amazon.com/Shatnerquake-Jeff-Burk/dp/1933929820
note that before and after the story, the author thanks his muse (Denny Crane!) and begs that his muse not sue him. which is a charming, if lamentable, approach to the current lay of the land.
i call it the Radiohead approach: like Amp Live, you do an end run around the faceless megacorp opposing your use of material, by appealing directly to the authors of said material.
i urge you to buy and consume this delicious fruit of a possible future in which intellectual property laws make some kind of sense.
we can make that future happen!
Big Deal, tell 'em how.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Fatwa #23 Happy Birthday to Me
In pursuing this line of judgments about intellectual property I am going to make a ruling about the "Birthday song."
Nobody should have to pay anyone for singing that song any more under any circumstances.
No matter the venue. Even if it is for profit. I don't see how anyone could profit from it, but I think if they do, then nobody should have the right to demand a cut from that profit anymore.
Once upon a time this argument was presented as a matter of a couple of greedy old ladies who held the copyright on the song. This was a useful outdated myth and it even made its way into an episode of Sports Night where a sports anchor cost his network thousands of dollars by singing Happy Birthday to him on the air.
But the old greedy bats have been dead for a while now. A long time. I doubt whether any more money will give them the leisure (now that they're dead) to come up with another song or contribution to our culture. Because they're dead. Their estate doesn't contribute anything to our culture. And it doesn't even matter, because the copyright for the birthday tune is now held by Warner. That's right. A huge corporation is cashing in on the the "artistic contribution" of a pair of old bats who may not have had much of a right to slap down the copyright they way they did to begin with.
What does this mean?
The Warner corporation subsidiary which holds these rights should immediately relinquish them to the public domain. The Birthday song is no longer a part of a living creative system, it is an excuse for intellectual property intimidation and robbery. It is an excuse for a racket, for legal bullying by legal pirates, who have letters of marque issued to them by their corporate intellectual property holders.
The Birthday song should be in the public domain. The argument that taking it away from the copyright holder would force artists and creators into starvation is fatuous. It is plainly false. This song is better off in the public domain where it can live in peace alongside Camptown Races and My Old Kentucky Home.
Nobody should have to pay anyone for singing that song any more under any circumstances.
No matter the venue. Even if it is for profit. I don't see how anyone could profit from it, but I think if they do, then nobody should have the right to demand a cut from that profit anymore.
Once upon a time this argument was presented as a matter of a couple of greedy old ladies who held the copyright on the song. This was a useful outdated myth and it even made its way into an episode of Sports Night where a sports anchor cost his network thousands of dollars by singing Happy Birthday to him on the air.
But the old greedy bats have been dead for a while now. A long time. I doubt whether any more money will give them the leisure (now that they're dead) to come up with another song or contribution to our culture. Because they're dead. Their estate doesn't contribute anything to our culture. And it doesn't even matter, because the copyright for the birthday tune is now held by Warner. That's right. A huge corporation is cashing in on the the "artistic contribution" of a pair of old bats who may not have had much of a right to slap down the copyright they way they did to begin with.
What does this mean?
The Warner corporation subsidiary which holds these rights should immediately relinquish them to the public domain. The Birthday song is no longer a part of a living creative system, it is an excuse for intellectual property intimidation and robbery. It is an excuse for a racket, for legal bullying by legal pirates, who have letters of marque issued to them by their corporate intellectual property holders.
The Birthday song should be in the public domain. The argument that taking it away from the copyright holder would force artists and creators into starvation is fatuous. It is plainly false. This song is better off in the public domain where it can live in peace alongside Camptown Races and My Old Kentucky Home.
Fatwa #22 Trademark This! (Insert Public Domain Rude Gesture Here.)
Today Kim Kardashian sued Old Navy for using someone in their ads who looks like Kim Kardashian.
I don't really care about this case in particular, but it is symptomatic of the larger problem of trademark law gone too far. Cases like this are the intellectual property equivalent of Somali pirates boarding ships demanding ransoms. They are the sort of thing that beg for genuine tort overhaul, but that is a fatwa for another day.
For today, let's concentrate on this: Trademark controls have to be trimmed back, pruned back or just plain cut to the bone so the holders of trademarks will no longer find it in their interests to run around the intellectual property neighborhood demanding protection money. If someone in a film is holding a can of Coca-Cola, they shouldn't have to ask for permission from Coke to use that image. If the corporation didn't want its logo to be seen publicly wihout their permission why did they put it on the side of a common item available for sale. It's not like it's a secret that it's a can of Coke. Blurring the image isn't going to make me think it's not a can of Coke. Taping it up on the side or putting a fake label on it (Cake Cola anyone?) is sometimes funny until you realize that the reason for the subterfuge is that a corporate owner is holding the world hostage. This trademark enforcement piracy has also been extended to documentaries and at this rate we will eventually find ourselves being sued for making home movies without blurring out advertisements and logos we recorded without permission.
This is a racket, nothing more, nothing less. Our aspirational culture keeps it going because all of us dream of the day we can sue someone for looking like us in the hope that the poor schmucks will be willing to settle to get us off their backs. That is the same as boarding an oil tanker in the Red Sea in the hope of getting a payout for not scuttling their ship.
Isn't there a need for some trademark protection? Sure. Nobody should have the right to sell a can of dog poop with the logo for Coca-Cola without the express permission of the Coca-Cola corporation. Nobody should be able to massacre the inhabitants of a small town and leave a Pizza Hut flag flying to implicate Pizza Hut in the killings. But if some poor schlemiel in Toledo wants to open up a place called Pizza Hat, then Pizza Hut should have to suck it up and take it like a man. (After all, if corporations claim to be just like individual people for the sake of arguments, then they should man-up and stop suing people like rat pansies.)
And if you want to sell a delicious soft drink in a red can called Caca Ole, then you should have that right. And nobody should have the legal right to demand protection money from you for coming close to their trademark.
For those of you about to quibble about the law.
I don't care what the law currently says or how it has been interpreted to this date.
They are wrong. This fatwa is a declaration of just how wrong those interpretations have been and an exhortation to those who have it in their power to make a difference that trademark law must be changed or reinterpreted in line with this fatwa. No more trademark enforcers running around threatening to break the legs of free speech (insert less ridiculous analogy here).
Viva Pizza Hat and Caca Ole and Tennessee Fried Chicken and Boing Rubber Aircraft and Ex-On Oil.
I don't really care about this case in particular, but it is symptomatic of the larger problem of trademark law gone too far. Cases like this are the intellectual property equivalent of Somali pirates boarding ships demanding ransoms. They are the sort of thing that beg for genuine tort overhaul, but that is a fatwa for another day.
For today, let's concentrate on this: Trademark controls have to be trimmed back, pruned back or just plain cut to the bone so the holders of trademarks will no longer find it in their interests to run around the intellectual property neighborhood demanding protection money. If someone in a film is holding a can of Coca-Cola, they shouldn't have to ask for permission from Coke to use that image. If the corporation didn't want its logo to be seen publicly wihout their permission why did they put it on the side of a common item available for sale. It's not like it's a secret that it's a can of Coke. Blurring the image isn't going to make me think it's not a can of Coke. Taping it up on the side or putting a fake label on it (Cake Cola anyone?) is sometimes funny until you realize that the reason for the subterfuge is that a corporate owner is holding the world hostage. This trademark enforcement piracy has also been extended to documentaries and at this rate we will eventually find ourselves being sued for making home movies without blurring out advertisements and logos we recorded without permission.
This is a racket, nothing more, nothing less. Our aspirational culture keeps it going because all of us dream of the day we can sue someone for looking like us in the hope that the poor schmucks will be willing to settle to get us off their backs. That is the same as boarding an oil tanker in the Red Sea in the hope of getting a payout for not scuttling their ship.
Isn't there a need for some trademark protection? Sure. Nobody should have the right to sell a can of dog poop with the logo for Coca-Cola without the express permission of the Coca-Cola corporation. Nobody should be able to massacre the inhabitants of a small town and leave a Pizza Hut flag flying to implicate Pizza Hut in the killings. But if some poor schlemiel in Toledo wants to open up a place called Pizza Hat, then Pizza Hut should have to suck it up and take it like a man. (After all, if corporations claim to be just like individual people for the sake of arguments, then they should man-up and stop suing people like rat pansies.)
And if you want to sell a delicious soft drink in a red can called Caca Ole, then you should have that right. And nobody should have the legal right to demand protection money from you for coming close to their trademark.
For those of you about to quibble about the law.
I don't care what the law currently says or how it has been interpreted to this date.
They are wrong. This fatwa is a declaration of just how wrong those interpretations have been and an exhortation to those who have it in their power to make a difference that trademark law must be changed or reinterpreted in line with this fatwa. No more trademark enforcers running around threatening to break the legs of free speech (insert less ridiculous analogy here).
Viva Pizza Hat and Caca Ole and Tennessee Fried Chicken and Boing Rubber Aircraft and Ex-On Oil.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Fatwa #21: For Intellectual Property Eminent Domain
we're gonna be talking about this one more than a little, and Mujtahid WMR and i have been chewing on this subject for years, so this fatwa will have some elisions and shorthand. to make it clearer, i will say that the subject is the Happy Birthday Problem: how even humming this tune on film, radio, or tv, or even a sufficiently public space, means i'm supposed to send a check to fucking warner brothers. and it's not like they give a cut to the two women who wrote happy birthday; they've been dead a long time.
if you'd like more background on this, i can recommend two great films: Steal This Film, about the founding and growth of the infamous site thepiratebay.org, and Rip: a Remix Manifesto, a movie about (in part) why Girl Talk would have to pay over $4 million an album to "legitimately" use all the samples he uses....and why plants, animals, and sometimes even your cells can be patented and owned by a company whose basic business model could be most accurately described as intellectual property squatting.
anyway, Mujtahid WMR had an idea, years ago, that i at first scoffed at as mere sarcasm, but that, like the idea virus it is, grew and grew until it found it's vector: me talking to you about it. sorry for that, but at least this one is free. here it is: if these companies are going to demand money for 75 years after the death of an author (even if that author has long since been cut out of the process), if their sole intention is to sit on their "properties" until you stumble across the wrong mental domain and have to pay a toll, then the inevitable effect is going to be an intellectual climate increasingly strewn with untouchable wreckage. too expensive to refurbish, too broken-down to be worth the trouble.
and the only way around it, as well as the only way to sell any reform to the idiots who think the words "idea economy" make any sense, is eminent domain. it works the same way it does for actual real estate. you're boppin' along, and you notice a property that is blighted: it hasn't been maintained or used for anything productive, and its' poor state has a deleterious effect on neighboring properties. so you petition for, and are given, eminent domain: the right to take that property and use it for something useful, in exchange for "fair market value." and not the fair market value that says five seconds of christina aguilera is worth $100K, but the fair market value "conservatives" in texas spend on a house they grab for 1/3 of what you could actually get on the market.
conservatives could be led here, for the same reason whores like rick perry have thrown their arms around physical eminent domain: because at some level they realize their politics amounts to abstract philosophy without a toolkit, and they're willing to accept tools that are at odds with that philosophy as long as they can use them to maintain power. and liberals, whatever and whoever they are now, love an idea that sticks it to the man...provided we can pry their hands out of what Mujtahid JB called the "soiled lacy white panties" that are hollywood.
but here's another issue: this idea is kind of smartass, in that it shouldn't really be necessary at all. because ideas aren't really like real estate after all. that is a bad analogy. land does not have to enter my brain to become valuable to anyone, for one thing. the whole concept is absurd. but if we cannot change that fundamental, and fundamentally wrong, approach to intellectual property, then IP eminent domain is a reasonable temporary work-around.
in the longer term, some alternatives might be (stay with me here, these are fuzzy, hippyesque terms, but useful) the "copyleft" movement, creative commons licenses, modified open-source agreements with permissible profit avenues spelled out explicitly...really, the suggestions already out there are numerous, inventive, and invigorating. check 'em out.
in the meantime, in response to those asinine psa-style ads during movie previews (the ones where cameramen and key grips are pimped as proxy for the huge companies that profit from owning nearly everything in your head, wringing their calloused hands about how they'll afford dental care and mortgages), we might also discuss another brilliant idea from M. WMR:
Great Ideas You'll Never Get to See, or, Thanks, Sonny Bono!
you could have cameramen and costumers talking about all the work they'll never get, the projects they'll never get to hone chops on, because of bullshit copyright laws.
i'll start us off with an example, again from M. WMR: All-Star Miami Crime, a show that mixes together every crime show ever set in Miami into one story. miami vice, burn notice, all of it. we get to see how the guy in csi: miami is an incompetent boob who never even noticed Dexter running around in his own back yard. or maybe he's just overworked, what with all the forensic work he has to do every time michael weston and Sam Axe get done blowing shit up.
does that sound like a cool idea to you?
well too bad. it'll never fucking happen.
can you imagine how thrilled all the actors on those shows would be at the prospect of all those additional fans, syndication fees, what have you? how thrilled Bruce Campbell would be?
well too fucking bad for them, too.
please, let's discuss. just because i'm an asshole don't mean it won't be both fun and interesting, to talk about.
if you'd like more background on this, i can recommend two great films: Steal This Film, about the founding and growth of the infamous site thepiratebay.org, and Rip: a Remix Manifesto, a movie about (in part) why Girl Talk would have to pay over $4 million an album to "legitimately" use all the samples he uses....and why plants, animals, and sometimes even your cells can be patented and owned by a company whose basic business model could be most accurately described as intellectual property squatting.
anyway, Mujtahid WMR had an idea, years ago, that i at first scoffed at as mere sarcasm, but that, like the idea virus it is, grew and grew until it found it's vector: me talking to you about it. sorry for that, but at least this one is free. here it is: if these companies are going to demand money for 75 years after the death of an author (even if that author has long since been cut out of the process), if their sole intention is to sit on their "properties" until you stumble across the wrong mental domain and have to pay a toll, then the inevitable effect is going to be an intellectual climate increasingly strewn with untouchable wreckage. too expensive to refurbish, too broken-down to be worth the trouble.
and the only way around it, as well as the only way to sell any reform to the idiots who think the words "idea economy" make any sense, is eminent domain. it works the same way it does for actual real estate. you're boppin' along, and you notice a property that is blighted: it hasn't been maintained or used for anything productive, and its' poor state has a deleterious effect on neighboring properties. so you petition for, and are given, eminent domain: the right to take that property and use it for something useful, in exchange for "fair market value." and not the fair market value that says five seconds of christina aguilera is worth $100K, but the fair market value "conservatives" in texas spend on a house they grab for 1/3 of what you could actually get on the market.
conservatives could be led here, for the same reason whores like rick perry have thrown their arms around physical eminent domain: because at some level they realize their politics amounts to abstract philosophy without a toolkit, and they're willing to accept tools that are at odds with that philosophy as long as they can use them to maintain power. and liberals, whatever and whoever they are now, love an idea that sticks it to the man...provided we can pry their hands out of what Mujtahid JB called the "soiled lacy white panties" that are hollywood.
but here's another issue: this idea is kind of smartass, in that it shouldn't really be necessary at all. because ideas aren't really like real estate after all. that is a bad analogy. land does not have to enter my brain to become valuable to anyone, for one thing. the whole concept is absurd. but if we cannot change that fundamental, and fundamentally wrong, approach to intellectual property, then IP eminent domain is a reasonable temporary work-around.
in the longer term, some alternatives might be (stay with me here, these are fuzzy, hippyesque terms, but useful) the "copyleft" movement, creative commons licenses, modified open-source agreements with permissible profit avenues spelled out explicitly...really, the suggestions already out there are numerous, inventive, and invigorating. check 'em out.
in the meantime, in response to those asinine psa-style ads during movie previews (the ones where cameramen and key grips are pimped as proxy for the huge companies that profit from owning nearly everything in your head, wringing their calloused hands about how they'll afford dental care and mortgages), we might also discuss another brilliant idea from M. WMR:
Great Ideas You'll Never Get to See, or, Thanks, Sonny Bono!
you could have cameramen and costumers talking about all the work they'll never get, the projects they'll never get to hone chops on, because of bullshit copyright laws.
i'll start us off with an example, again from M. WMR: All-Star Miami Crime, a show that mixes together every crime show ever set in Miami into one story. miami vice, burn notice, all of it. we get to see how the guy in csi: miami is an incompetent boob who never even noticed Dexter running around in his own back yard. or maybe he's just overworked, what with all the forensic work he has to do every time michael weston and Sam Axe get done blowing shit up.
does that sound like a cool idea to you?
well too bad. it'll never fucking happen.
can you imagine how thrilled all the actors on those shows would be at the prospect of all those additional fans, syndication fees, what have you? how thrilled Bruce Campbell would be?
well too fucking bad for them, too.
please, let's discuss. just because i'm an asshole don't mean it won't be both fun and interesting, to talk about.
Emotional Hangover Fatwa #20 For My Friends
....lord knows how i still have any at all, much less two. stay with me a little longer; i can be better.
meantime, hey: i'm an asshole, but i'm your asshole.
and let's face it: maybe blogging is a consumption of mental real estate, but so is all the shit already discussed here. what right does dorito's or "extreme antiquing" have to consume actual physical space in my neurons? you are right to be irked by all of this, because the answer is obviously, none whatsoever. in fact, i'll reiterate what i've said for years: every time an ad jingle or sitcom teaser or catchphrase enters your head without your permission, using up real storage space and vital neurotransmitters (some of the body's most expensive chemicals to manufacture), they owe you rent. i'll say it again: GEICO OWES YOU RENT.
this is getting into another topic, but it's still relevant to my apology because it is, in short, part of why i was wrong, why talking about this stuff is not totally useless. first step, diagnosis: our mental environment is now almost entirely owned. maybe this was always true to some extent, but quantitative differences can become qualitative, and we now live in an economy built on the idea that, like public school students watching "channel 1," we should sit in our seats and consume what's on the screen, be sent to the principal's office if we try to remix the pizza hut ads or turn off the tv.
but i digress: bless my friends, that i have any at all. you are magnificent, noble sunsabitches. let's face it: you've kinda had to be, all these years.
and regarding the mental real estate issue, on to #21.
meantime, hey: i'm an asshole, but i'm your asshole.
and let's face it: maybe blogging is a consumption of mental real estate, but so is all the shit already discussed here. what right does dorito's or "extreme antiquing" have to consume actual physical space in my neurons? you are right to be irked by all of this, because the answer is obviously, none whatsoever. in fact, i'll reiterate what i've said for years: every time an ad jingle or sitcom teaser or catchphrase enters your head without your permission, using up real storage space and vital neurotransmitters (some of the body's most expensive chemicals to manufacture), they owe you rent. i'll say it again: GEICO OWES YOU RENT.
this is getting into another topic, but it's still relevant to my apology because it is, in short, part of why i was wrong, why talking about this stuff is not totally useless. first step, diagnosis: our mental environment is now almost entirely owned. maybe this was always true to some extent, but quantitative differences can become qualitative, and we now live in an economy built on the idea that, like public school students watching "channel 1," we should sit in our seats and consume what's on the screen, be sent to the principal's office if we try to remix the pizza hut ads or turn off the tv.
but i digress: bless my friends, that i have any at all. you are magnificent, noble sunsabitches. let's face it: you've kinda had to be, all these years.
and regarding the mental real estate issue, on to #21.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Fatwa #19 Against This Blog
"but i hate blogs! i never read them! it's like carefully reading everything in the bathroom stall: it only makes sense if you've got a lot of shit to unload, and even then you certainly shouldn't be asking other people to join you."
(yeah, sorry about that. thanks for joining!)
"no but i really think we should start one called dueling fatwas."
"yeah, alright, fuggit."
i mean, lookit this shit: oh no, a substandard actor has been cast in big roles and made a bad movie! oh no, my dorito's bag has something affected and silly written on it! (any more behind the curve on that one and you have to start saying "what's the deal with that?" at the end of your sentences. you saw harold & kumar, right?) oh my goodness, sitcoms in the 60s were kind of sexist! fucking shocker. [gasp!] the daily show is sorta bland; that's sticking it to the man.
blogging in general and this blog especially are a modern device whereby you are encouraged to fritter away precious time and mind space that might otherwise be used productively; the end result is an intellectual eunuch who has actively participated in his own castration. all this shit-churning saecular nonsense; fuck it! and fuck you fucking fuckers for reading it. go tweet about your favorite facefuck game or something.
shame on you.
(yeah, sorry about that. thanks for joining!)
"no but i really think we should start one called dueling fatwas."
"yeah, alright, fuggit."
i mean, lookit this shit: oh no, a substandard actor has been cast in big roles and made a bad movie! oh no, my dorito's bag has something affected and silly written on it! (any more behind the curve on that one and you have to start saying "what's the deal with that?" at the end of your sentences. you saw harold & kumar, right?) oh my goodness, sitcoms in the 60s were kind of sexist! fucking shocker. [gasp!] the daily show is sorta bland; that's sticking it to the man.
blogging in general and this blog especially are a modern device whereby you are encouraged to fritter away precious time and mind space that might otherwise be used productively; the end result is an intellectual eunuch who has actively participated in his own castration. all this shit-churning saecular nonsense; fuck it! and fuck you fucking fuckers for reading it. go tweet about your favorite facefuck game or something.
shame on you.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Fatwa #18 Extreme
Enough with the "extreme" business. Extreme Couponing should be an indicator that this word has gone too far. How about Extreme Cancellation of Shows That Use the Word Extreme.
Extreme Sports? They're not really extreme unless people actually die. Extreme Couponing? Same thing. If you don't understand what the word extreme means, then maybe you need to watch Extreme Vocabulary on the Extreme Language Arts Channel.
Extreme Sports? They're not really extreme unless people actually die. Extreme Couponing? Same thing. If you don't understand what the word extreme means, then maybe you need to watch Extreme Vocabulary on the Extreme Language Arts Channel.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Guest Fatwa #16: More on Sunni LaBeouf
today's guest fatwa is a follow-up to fatwa #12, courtesy of our friend Mujtahid JB. preceding it in italics is the news item that prompted the ruling.
Harrison Ford has branded his Indiana Jones co-star Shia LaBeouf an "idiot" for publicly slamming the latest film in the franchise.
The pair worked together on 2008's Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, the follow-up to the adventurer's third outing in 1989.
The blockbuster was a box office hit, grossing nearly $800 million worldwide, but it received mixed reviews from critics and fans.
And following its release, LaBeouf admitted he was disappointed with the revival, insisting he had "dropped the ball" and let devotees down.
Last year, he said, "I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished... You can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on (director) Steven (Spielberg). But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it..."
And LaBeouf even claimed Ford agreed with him, adding, "We (Ford and LaBeouf) had major discussions. He wasn't happy with it either."
But now Ford has spoken out about the remarks, calling his co-star a "f**king idiot" for turning against the movie.
He tells Details magazine, "I think he was a f**king idiot. As an actor, I think it's my obligation to support the film without making a complete a** of myself. Shia is ambitious, attentive, and talented - and he's learning how to deal with a situation which is very unique and difficult."
You know, I don't even know where to begin with these assholes. Shia is a moron who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. He's worse than shit, he's a skid mark across the soiled lacy white panties that is Hollywood. Here's a few little facts courtesy of IMDB:
1. His French-Cajun father, Jeffrey LaBeouf, was a clown from San Francisco who spent time in France studying commedia dell'arte.
2. As a child, he and his parents would dress up like clowns and sell hot dogs in the park across the street from their apartment.
3. His brilliant opinion on "talent": "Talent is funny, I've always looked at talent like what the hell does talent really mean? Talent is to actors what luck is to card players. It's not really anything, it's just a fictitious word that people have created and labeled things. Talent is like you know I never really believed in talent, I believed in drive and determination and preparation but talent is sort of like luck. I wouldn't want to think of myself as talented it doesn't seem like there's any validity in that. I like to think of myself as an ordinary man with extra ordinary determination. That's it".
Yes, that's right. Soak that one in deep and cherish it. How deranged do you have to be to say shit like that?
I am a whore...I get paid by the hour to perform a task/provide a service for a client with what God, genetics, parenting and 25 years of private education gave me. I don't always like it but for the most part I love it so I bend over backwards because shit costs money. This fucking bimbo is too stupid and spineless to be a whore. He's an ass flavored never-ending gobstopper for people's eyes and ears to chew on until they can stomach no more. I have to wonder if Speilberg thought "Wow, someone less talented than my current wife !" and decided to run with it...oh, wait, talent doesn't exist. It's like luck. Talent is a fucking fiction. Talent is make believe and has nothing to do with acting skill. I would love to see this little bastard take a crack at Mamet on Broadway.
What disgusts me most about all this is that next to this moron Megan Fox is looking like she has some fucking integrity.
Harrison Ford? This is why some celebrities should die young. If he'd OD'ed or hit a mountain in his plane right after Blade Runner he would have been Heath Ledger before Heath Ledger. He could have gotten an Oscar for Empire and been left as an ice cube, no Ewok hump-fest for Han. But no, some people don't burn the candle at both ends. They just grow old and suck hard.
Harrison Ford has branded his Indiana Jones co-star Shia LaBeouf an "idiot" for publicly slamming the latest film in the franchise.
The pair worked together on 2008's Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, the follow-up to the adventurer's third outing in 1989.
The blockbuster was a box office hit, grossing nearly $800 million worldwide, but it received mixed reviews from critics and fans.
And following its release, LaBeouf admitted he was disappointed with the revival, insisting he had "dropped the ball" and let devotees down.
Last year, he said, "I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished... You can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on (director) Steven (Spielberg). But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it..."
And LaBeouf even claimed Ford agreed with him, adding, "We (Ford and LaBeouf) had major discussions. He wasn't happy with it either."
But now Ford has spoken out about the remarks, calling his co-star a "f**king idiot" for turning against the movie.
He tells Details magazine, "I think he was a f**king idiot. As an actor, I think it's my obligation to support the film without making a complete a** of myself. Shia is ambitious, attentive, and talented - and he's learning how to deal with a situation which is very unique and difficult."
You know, I don't even know where to begin with these assholes. Shia is a moron who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. He's worse than shit, he's a skid mark across the soiled lacy white panties that is Hollywood. Here's a few little facts courtesy of IMDB:
1. His French-Cajun father, Jeffrey LaBeouf, was a clown from San Francisco who spent time in France studying commedia dell'arte.
2. As a child, he and his parents would dress up like clowns and sell hot dogs in the park across the street from their apartment.
3. His brilliant opinion on "talent": "Talent is funny, I've always looked at talent like what the hell does talent really mean? Talent is to actors what luck is to card players. It's not really anything, it's just a fictitious word that people have created and labeled things. Talent is like you know I never really believed in talent, I believed in drive and determination and preparation but talent is sort of like luck. I wouldn't want to think of myself as talented it doesn't seem like there's any validity in that. I like to think of myself as an ordinary man with extra ordinary determination. That's it".
Yes, that's right. Soak that one in deep and cherish it. How deranged do you have to be to say shit like that?
I am a whore...I get paid by the hour to perform a task/provide a service for a client with what God, genetics, parenting and 25 years of private education gave me. I don't always like it but for the most part I love it so I bend over backwards because shit costs money. This fucking bimbo is too stupid and spineless to be a whore. He's an ass flavored never-ending gobstopper for people's eyes and ears to chew on until they can stomach no more. I have to wonder if Speilberg thought "Wow, someone less talented than my current wife !" and decided to run with it...oh, wait, talent doesn't exist. It's like luck. Talent is a fucking fiction. Talent is make believe and has nothing to do with acting skill. I would love to see this little bastard take a crack at Mamet on Broadway.
What disgusts me most about all this is that next to this moron Megan Fox is looking like she has some fucking integrity.
Harrison Ford? This is why some celebrities should die young. If he'd OD'ed or hit a mountain in his plane right after Blade Runner he would have been Heath Ledger before Heath Ledger. He could have gotten an Oscar for Empire and been left as an ice cube, no Ewok hump-fest for Han. But no, some people don't burn the candle at both ends. They just grow old and suck hard.
I need a fucking cigarette.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Fatwa #15 Room Temperature
Wherever you are and whoever you are stop saying "room temperature" as if that means anything.
There are places, such as here in Texas, where in the absence of air conditioning "room temperature" would resemble the temperature inside a convection oven. Contrarily, I have lived in places where you can leave a popsicle sitting on a counter overnight and wake up to a delightful frozen treat for breakfast. Room temperature means nothing. Just come up with a decent temperature range to describe what you need to describe and be done with it.
There are places, such as here in Texas, where in the absence of air conditioning "room temperature" would resemble the temperature inside a convection oven. Contrarily, I have lived in places where you can leave a popsicle sitting on a counter overnight and wake up to a delightful frozen treat for breakfast. Room temperature means nothing. Just come up with a decent temperature range to describe what you need to describe and be done with it.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Fatwa #14 Ranch is for Losers
McDonald's, in a move presumably designed to get hipsters interested in them again, has decided to introduce a new line-up of sauces for those wretched McNuggets.
Honestly, this wouldn't matter to me. Introduce all the new sauces you want, start making the McNuggets out of horsemeat, I don't really care. But did they really have to get rid of the Hot Mustard sauce? Was that seventh sauce really going to drive them bankrupt? Did they really need Ranch? Ranch is a salad dressing. The only reason it can be tolerated with buffalo wings is because just asking for stick of butter to go with them seems excessive (and maybe a bit too obvious.)
Here's the deal. I would on occasion get a package of McNuggets and suffer through them in order to get an extra package of Hot Mustard for my stockpile. You know what goes really well with that Hot Mustard sauce? The nuggets from Chick Fil A.
Well, truth be told I don't really need that sauce to enjoy a treat from Chick Fil A. It was just a little bonus taste.
As for the new sauces from McDonald's: I hereby declare them boycotted until they either bring back the Hot Mustard or someone else gets wise and picks up the sauce slack. I have consumed my last crappy McNugget and so should you.
Honestly, this wouldn't matter to me. Introduce all the new sauces you want, start making the McNuggets out of horsemeat, I don't really care. But did they really have to get rid of the Hot Mustard sauce? Was that seventh sauce really going to drive them bankrupt? Did they really need Ranch? Ranch is a salad dressing. The only reason it can be tolerated with buffalo wings is because just asking for stick of butter to go with them seems excessive (and maybe a bit too obvious.)
Here's the deal. I would on occasion get a package of McNuggets and suffer through them in order to get an extra package of Hot Mustard for my stockpile. You know what goes really well with that Hot Mustard sauce? The nuggets from Chick Fil A.
Well, truth be told I don't really need that sauce to enjoy a treat from Chick Fil A. It was just a little bonus taste.
As for the new sauces from McDonald's: I hereby declare them boycotted until they either bring back the Hot Mustard or someone else gets wise and picks up the sauce slack. I have consumed my last crappy McNugget and so should you.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Guest Fatwa #13 on the Children of Anansi
thanks to Mufti Big E for today's fatwa:
I declare Fatwa against all arachnids for being too numerous of leg. Anything with that many appendages just really has to go. Fatwa against spiders for forcing involuntary "girl" noises out of me when I see them unexpectedly. Fatwa against spiders for biting my face and making me look like I have a brutal boyfriend (actually sometimes that gets me free shit so maybe we let that slide but moving on). Fatwa against spiders for being of various kinds, to where I have to start googling to figure out exactly what I'm dealing with each time I'm done squeaking. (Is this one going to run uncannily fast? Hide eerily well? Jump right at my face? bite peter parker? ) Fatwa for making ME the default exterminator in every shared household I've had because I'M the one that hates them enough to DO something about them. (Why won't those other bitches get off their asses and destroy the damned things when they see them?)
Secondarily, I declare Fatwa against all the assholes that love our arachnid buddies and want to cup them in their tender hands and walk them outside each time one is found in the home. Give me a break. Most of these people aren't even vegetarian. Or superstitious. It's showmanship and fuck that.
I declare Fatwa against all arachnids for being too numerous of leg. Anything with that many appendages just really has to go. Fatwa against spiders for forcing involuntary "girl" noises out of me when I see them unexpectedly. Fatwa against spiders for biting my face and making me look like I have a brutal boyfriend (actually sometimes that gets me free shit so maybe we let that slide but moving on). Fatwa against spiders for being of various kinds, to where I have to start googling to figure out exactly what I'm dealing with each time I'm done squeaking. (Is this one going to run uncannily fast? Hide eerily well? Jump right at my face? bite peter parker? ) Fatwa for making ME the default exterminator in every shared household I've had because I'M the one that hates them enough to DO something about them. (Why won't those other bitches get off their asses and destroy the damned things when they see them?)
Secondarily, I declare Fatwa against all the assholes that love our arachnid buddies and want to cup them in their tender hands and walk them outside each time one is found in the home. Give me a break. Most of these people aren't even vegetarian. Or superstitious. It's showmanship and fuck that.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Fatwa #12 Pro Megan Fox
This fatwa is specifically addressed to anyone who is thinking of seeing the upcoming Transformers "movie." Don't. If you want to see blurry mechanical things just wave a clock in front of your face for a while.
The other reason to avoid this "film" is because of the singular smear campaign mounted by the producers of this piece of garbage against Megan Fox simply because she compared Michael Bay to Napoleon...and also to Hitler, but I suspect you could have also compared him to any of a number of other controlling personalities in charge of large projects but with juvenile sensibilities. You know, someone like Michael Bay. The point is he and his minions have decided to use their promotional time to pile on and insult someone who wasn't entirely happy with her experience as a pointless meat prop for a piece of crap film. This would not normally require any sort of ruling of this sort, but the ultimate line was from the "star" of these "films" Shia LaBeouf who has said that Megan Fox was "sh-t talking our captain." See, you had me until you called him your CAPTAIN. If Michael Bay is your captain, then you are on the wrong ship to begin with. You're on a U-Boat from hell. U-SUCK. Mr. LaBeouf, not content with stinking up the screen as Mutt Williams in that horrid piece of mentally challenged filth Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, is now following marching orders from his "captain" to pour on the insults in the direction of Megan Fox. If all you're going to do is pledge blind obedience to the master of your paycheck, then do us all the favor of changing your name to Sunni LaBeouf you mindless yes-man robot. From now on I'm telling people that it was Ben Savage in Constantine and not you.
Ms. Fox can no doubt handle herself with some degree of dignity, while her whiny ex-boss claims that the great Spielberg himself ordered/suggested that he fire her. Is it bad for business if your employees go public with what a jerk you are? Sure. But it should be worse for business if you don't have the dignity to let it go once it's done and you've moved on instead of choosing to promote your new turd with a barrage of character assasination that seems so suspiciously orchestrated that it is...well, like some sort of fascist/communist coup attempt.
Yeah. Go back to your captain and tell him I said that.
And for the rest of you. If you find yourself for whatever point of curiosity wanting to go see Transformers please do so only after buying a ticket for another film. Any other film. Even if it has Jennifer Aniston in it.
The other reason to avoid this "film" is because of the singular smear campaign mounted by the producers of this piece of garbage against Megan Fox simply because she compared Michael Bay to Napoleon...and also to Hitler, but I suspect you could have also compared him to any of a number of other controlling personalities in charge of large projects but with juvenile sensibilities. You know, someone like Michael Bay. The point is he and his minions have decided to use their promotional time to pile on and insult someone who wasn't entirely happy with her experience as a pointless meat prop for a piece of crap film. This would not normally require any sort of ruling of this sort, but the ultimate line was from the "star" of these "films" Shia LaBeouf who has said that Megan Fox was "sh-t talking our captain." See, you had me until you called him your CAPTAIN. If Michael Bay is your captain, then you are on the wrong ship to begin with. You're on a U-Boat from hell. U-SUCK. Mr. LaBeouf, not content with stinking up the screen as Mutt Williams in that horrid piece of mentally challenged filth Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, is now following marching orders from his "captain" to pour on the insults in the direction of Megan Fox. If all you're going to do is pledge blind obedience to the master of your paycheck, then do us all the favor of changing your name to Sunni LaBeouf you mindless yes-man robot. From now on I'm telling people that it was Ben Savage in Constantine and not you.
Ms. Fox can no doubt handle herself with some degree of dignity, while her whiny ex-boss claims that the great Spielberg himself ordered/suggested that he fire her. Is it bad for business if your employees go public with what a jerk you are? Sure. But it should be worse for business if you don't have the dignity to let it go once it's done and you've moved on instead of choosing to promote your new turd with a barrage of character assasination that seems so suspiciously orchestrated that it is...well, like some sort of fascist/communist coup attempt.
Yeah. Go back to your captain and tell him I said that.
And for the rest of you. If you find yourself for whatever point of curiosity wanting to go see Transformers please do so only after buying a ticket for another film. Any other film. Even if it has Jennifer Aniston in it.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Breezy Summer Fatwa #11 for the Jaws of Shai Hulud
i must affirm as the Tleilaxu do: the sun is not my God.
i can say "God," but that is not my god.
like "sun," it is only a word.
it's necessary for me to remind myself, because where Mufti Dor llives in the american southwest, The Sun is a merciless bastard who winnows out the weak and corrupt. harrows my soul and makes me stronger, purging toxins and confusion in its' fiery maw.
satan's balls, it's hot out there lately.
years ago i was living in austin, driving around in an accura with no a.c.
this commercial for sol cerveza kept coming on the radio:
"Hi, it's me, El Sol" said a mexican-accented voice, as rivers of stinging sweat coursed my face, leaving a salt-crystal tide line like i was a fucking rocky beach in greece; "hi," El Sol would say...
"hot out heere, eesn't it?"
yes, you cruel bastard, it is. the jaws of Shai Hulud are upon me. i will perish or be reforged.
but, it is only the mouth, not Shai Hulud Himself, and we do not worship but show respect with its' true name:
Jaws of Shai Hulud, Mouth of Judgement!
bilal al-kaifa!
phew!
Mufti Dor's gonna go lie down for a...maybe some gatorade...
beware the Jaws of Shai Hulud!
long live the fedaykin!
past 10, His breath still warms the air...
sorry, feeling a little...
[Mufti Dor passes out]
i can say "God," but that is not my god.
like "sun," it is only a word.
it's necessary for me to remind myself, because where Mufti Dor llives in the american southwest, The Sun is a merciless bastard who winnows out the weak and corrupt. harrows my soul and makes me stronger, purging toxins and confusion in its' fiery maw.
satan's balls, it's hot out there lately.
years ago i was living in austin, driving around in an accura with no a.c.
this commercial for sol cerveza kept coming on the radio:
"Hi, it's me, El Sol" said a mexican-accented voice, as rivers of stinging sweat coursed my face, leaving a salt-crystal tide line like i was a fucking rocky beach in greece; "hi," El Sol would say...
"hot out heere, eesn't it?"
yes, you cruel bastard, it is. the jaws of Shai Hulud are upon me. i will perish or be reforged.
but, it is only the mouth, not Shai Hulud Himself, and we do not worship but show respect with its' true name:
Jaws of Shai Hulud, Mouth of Judgement!
bilal al-kaifa!
phew!
Mufti Dor's gonna go lie down for a...maybe some gatorade...
beware the Jaws of Shai Hulud!
long live the fedaykin!
past 10, His breath still warms the air...
sorry, feeling a little...
[Mufti Dor passes out]
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Fatwa #10 BC, BS, Whatever...
Consider this a sidenote to Fatwa #9
On the question of calendars:
BCE is stupid.
CE is even more stupid.
It pains me to side with the kind of rank ignorant "politically incorrect" people who rise up against BCE and CE in favor of BC and AD, because I do not share their regressive reasons for disliking the neo-terminology that much of academia has attempted to pass off as being more equitable to people who are not Christians.
The fact that it has sparked a backlash from people who are obsessed with seeing themselves as oppressed despite their longstanding dominance does not change the essential problem with the new formulation. If you really think about it, the notion of referring to the obviously Christian BC/AD dating system as a "Common Era" is more patently offensive to non-Christians, because it essentially cements the idea of Christian cultural dominance by referring to the Christian dating system as being "common" to all cultures. It's a good thing the regressive movements of Christian thought haven't quite understood this otherwise they might really get on board the whole foisting the "common era" on everyone. Instead, they are obsessed with making sure they retain the "year of our lord" and "before Christ".
On the other hand, they are quite right in retaining the old terminology because at least it's honest about what it is. If I started trying to convince people that we should use hijri dates and just call it "the common era" I would hope for a similar coalition of diametric opposites would align to consign such terminology to the dustbin. You should call a thing what it is instead of trying to disguise it as something it isn't.
There is no such meat as "long pork" and there is no such thing as a "common era". Many graves can attest to the fact that people on every side of this issue deny the very notion of a common era. And it seems also illogical for the idea of a "common era" to emanate from quarters that use the new terminology on the behalf of diversity. Isn't it more sensitive to cultural diversity to acknowledge that different cultures use different calendars?
Ah, but I can already hear Mufti Dor berating me for exercising this kind of "politically incorrect" polemic, and I will admit that it is with extreme distaste that I pick up this cudgel because I know where it's been and what else it's used for as Fatwa #9 clearly demonstrates. So, I will leave it at this: I may dislike the people who share my opinion on this, but I believe there are sound logical reasons why BCE and CE should be dispensed with in favor of the more traditional BC and AD designations. Of course, for those of us who also use the Jewish, AHL and AHS calendars it means very little to have to call it BC or AD. It is just another dating system that we have to keep track of.
On that note, I believe the heat of Thermidor is already approaching and I must draw the shades.
On the question of calendars:
BCE is stupid.
CE is even more stupid.
It pains me to side with the kind of rank ignorant "politically incorrect" people who rise up against BCE and CE in favor of BC and AD, because I do not share their regressive reasons for disliking the neo-terminology that much of academia has attempted to pass off as being more equitable to people who are not Christians.
The fact that it has sparked a backlash from people who are obsessed with seeing themselves as oppressed despite their longstanding dominance does not change the essential problem with the new formulation. If you really think about it, the notion of referring to the obviously Christian BC/AD dating system as a "Common Era" is more patently offensive to non-Christians, because it essentially cements the idea of Christian cultural dominance by referring to the Christian dating system as being "common" to all cultures. It's a good thing the regressive movements of Christian thought haven't quite understood this otherwise they might really get on board the whole foisting the "common era" on everyone. Instead, they are obsessed with making sure they retain the "year of our lord" and "before Christ".
On the other hand, they are quite right in retaining the old terminology because at least it's honest about what it is. If I started trying to convince people that we should use hijri dates and just call it "the common era" I would hope for a similar coalition of diametric opposites would align to consign such terminology to the dustbin. You should call a thing what it is instead of trying to disguise it as something it isn't.
There is no such meat as "long pork" and there is no such thing as a "common era". Many graves can attest to the fact that people on every side of this issue deny the very notion of a common era. And it seems also illogical for the idea of a "common era" to emanate from quarters that use the new terminology on the behalf of diversity. Isn't it more sensitive to cultural diversity to acknowledge that different cultures use different calendars?
Ah, but I can already hear Mufti Dor berating me for exercising this kind of "politically incorrect" polemic, and I will admit that it is with extreme distaste that I pick up this cudgel because I know where it's been and what else it's used for as Fatwa #9 clearly demonstrates. So, I will leave it at this: I may dislike the people who share my opinion on this, but I believe there are sound logical reasons why BCE and CE should be dispensed with in favor of the more traditional BC and AD designations. Of course, for those of us who also use the Jewish, AHL and AHS calendars it means very little to have to call it BC or AD. It is just another dating system that we have to keep track of.
On that note, I believe the heat of Thermidor is already approaching and I must draw the shades.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Fatwa #9 on the Politically Incorrect
in a way, this post is a necro, past its' date, in that people don't use the terms "P.C." or "un-P.C." that much anymore. they are, however, embedded in the language now, and have had ripple effects that need addressing. and, in places like missouri and alabama, you'll still hear them tossed around quite a bit. but more on that later.
a long time ago, shortly after your intrepid Mufti had graduated high school, either time or newsweek had a cover story with the headline "Political Correctness." i'd never seen any of what they described firsthand, but i came to know it later: professors who mangled grammar suggesting we use "they" instead of "him" or her," excessive militant insistence on "C.E." instead of "A.D. ," and many things much sillier still.
so the fuck what?
Mufti WMR has some reservations about my position here, for good reason: he spent a lot longer in the ivory tower - still works there occasionally - and saw far greater depths of stupid than i was ever privy to. if he is feeling kind, perhaps Mufti WMR might post an attachment with his groundbreaking study in institutional circle-jerking entitled "What is Cultural Studies?"
but again, so the fuck what. as irritating as they are, the tyrants of the sociology and english and cultural anthropology departments never wielded that much power, and it was always a little suspicious to me how the people complaining loudest about political correctness seemed the least likely to have much contact with those departments....rednecks, for example. they love to complain about this stuff. especially if they've had daughters, and the daughters have reached primary launch stage for rebellion. you remember a lot of future teabaggers in your freshman religious studies class, do ya? not so many, but their sons and daughters abound.
when i was taking cognitive psych i don't remember a lot of part-time septic techs having a problem with the pronouns. and you know what? i don't doubt rednecks can and do succeed in academia...i just don't believe that by the time they do, they care anymore about that idiot dedicating his life to proving Lincoln was gay. it's just trivial, and they have shit to get done.
nearly two decades after i first heard the term "Poltically Incorrect", it is now worn as a badge of honor by everyone who uses it. whatever excesses i saw, no one ever asked me to be MORE politically correct. always less. and what do they mean by that?
ruder.
more dickish. an asshole. every ignorant loss mechanism with the power of speech has boldly told at least one person exactly what a giant prick he is with a sentence that started "Maybe it's politically incorrect, but..."
that's a great phrase, isn't it? when you hear it - and i bet you have, reader - does it precede a thoughtful debunking of long-cherished bromides and empty rhetoric, followed by useful observations and analysis? or is it more like the experience i've had (more than once, now!), where
"maybe it's politically incorrect, but..."
preceded something like "...but that nigger president is trying to sell us to china ?"
i now believe that no one but an asshole ever complained about this toothless problem, and that the term "politically incorrect" was coined by people who were trying to make us use more syllables than "dick" when describing them, on the theory we'd give up and go watch leno.
well, maybe it's politically incorrect of me, but these chaw-chomping inbred bible-thumping functionally illiterate angry okies can tongue-swab my balls. i'm sorry they were raised wrong, but not so damn sorry i'm gonna keep nodding or smiling when they fantasize about some old jewish medieval lit professor threatening their way of life. with what, the turkey sandwich in his briefcase?
it's not about their way of life, anyway. for the people who are really worked up about all that which is p.c., what it's really about is how clueless and stunned they were when those daughters i mentioned asked them "what's wrong with being gay?" or "why do you act that way around mexicans ?"
i suppose if he wants to, i'd give my colleague a pass. if Mufti WMR wants to complain about political correctness, he gets to, because as a student in multiple graduate programs, it AFFECTED HIM PERSONALLY. everyone else can shut up. it doesn't concern you.
and i don't wanna hear any of that "you didn't stop them when they came for the gays or the gypsies" shit, either. people who whine about the p.c. code ARE THE ONES GOING AFTER THE GAYS AND GYPSIES. that right there should tell you everything you need to know about the phrase...basically, it's the dressed-up, five-dolla version of phrases like "reverse racism."
anyway, i'm willing to put myself on the line here: if the Bolivian Interdisciplinary Cultural Composition Department and Hacky Sack League shows up at your house with the long knives, i'll defend you.
i'm pretty sure i can take them. i mean, half of them are obviously stoned.
in the meantime, do not use this term, or tolerate its' use. the people who call themselves politically incorrect are really just assholes. it's a shorter word, and it explains the smell.
a long time ago, shortly after your intrepid Mufti had graduated high school, either time or newsweek had a cover story with the headline "Political Correctness." i'd never seen any of what they described firsthand, but i came to know it later: professors who mangled grammar suggesting we use "they" instead of "him" or her," excessive militant insistence on "C.E." instead of "A.D. ," and many things much sillier still.
so the fuck what?
Mufti WMR has some reservations about my position here, for good reason: he spent a lot longer in the ivory tower - still works there occasionally - and saw far greater depths of stupid than i was ever privy to. if he is feeling kind, perhaps Mufti WMR might post an attachment with his groundbreaking study in institutional circle-jerking entitled "What is Cultural Studies?"
but again, so the fuck what. as irritating as they are, the tyrants of the sociology and english and cultural anthropology departments never wielded that much power, and it was always a little suspicious to me how the people complaining loudest about political correctness seemed the least likely to have much contact with those departments....rednecks, for example. they love to complain about this stuff. especially if they've had daughters, and the daughters have reached primary launch stage for rebellion. you remember a lot of future teabaggers in your freshman religious studies class, do ya? not so many, but their sons and daughters abound.
when i was taking cognitive psych i don't remember a lot of part-time septic techs having a problem with the pronouns. and you know what? i don't doubt rednecks can and do succeed in academia...i just don't believe that by the time they do, they care anymore about that idiot dedicating his life to proving Lincoln was gay. it's just trivial, and they have shit to get done.
nearly two decades after i first heard the term "Poltically Incorrect", it is now worn as a badge of honor by everyone who uses it. whatever excesses i saw, no one ever asked me to be MORE politically correct. always less. and what do they mean by that?
ruder.
more dickish. an asshole. every ignorant loss mechanism with the power of speech has boldly told at least one person exactly what a giant prick he is with a sentence that started "Maybe it's politically incorrect, but..."
that's a great phrase, isn't it? when you hear it - and i bet you have, reader - does it precede a thoughtful debunking of long-cherished bromides and empty rhetoric, followed by useful observations and analysis? or is it more like the experience i've had (more than once, now!), where
"maybe it's politically incorrect, but..."
preceded something like "...but that nigger president is trying to sell us to china ?"
i now believe that no one but an asshole ever complained about this toothless problem, and that the term "politically incorrect" was coined by people who were trying to make us use more syllables than "dick" when describing them, on the theory we'd give up and go watch leno.
well, maybe it's politically incorrect of me, but these chaw-chomping inbred bible-thumping functionally illiterate angry okies can tongue-swab my balls. i'm sorry they were raised wrong, but not so damn sorry i'm gonna keep nodding or smiling when they fantasize about some old jewish medieval lit professor threatening their way of life. with what, the turkey sandwich in his briefcase?
it's not about their way of life, anyway. for the people who are really worked up about all that which is p.c., what it's really about is how clueless and stunned they were when those daughters i mentioned asked them "what's wrong with being gay?" or "why do you act that way around mexicans ?"
i suppose if he wants to, i'd give my colleague a pass. if Mufti WMR wants to complain about political correctness, he gets to, because as a student in multiple graduate programs, it AFFECTED HIM PERSONALLY. everyone else can shut up. it doesn't concern you.
and i don't wanna hear any of that "you didn't stop them when they came for the gays or the gypsies" shit, either. people who whine about the p.c. code ARE THE ONES GOING AFTER THE GAYS AND GYPSIES. that right there should tell you everything you need to know about the phrase...basically, it's the dressed-up, five-dolla version of phrases like "reverse racism."
anyway, i'm willing to put myself on the line here: if the Bolivian Interdisciplinary Cultural Composition Department and Hacky Sack League shows up at your house with the long knives, i'll defend you.
i'm pretty sure i can take them. i mean, half of them are obviously stoned.
in the meantime, do not use this term, or tolerate its' use. the people who call themselves politically incorrect are really just assholes. it's a shorter word, and it explains the smell.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Fatwa #8 Toddlers and Tiaras
I'm trying to watch an episode of White Collar and it keeps getting interrupted by promos for something called Toddlers and Tiaras on TLC. I made the mistake of being in a room where someone was watching Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood or some such thing which featured a whole segment about this show. Do I really have to say this? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
While I deplore the notion of judging something without reading it or based on scanty evidence I also don't actually need to see www.sorority-slut-snuff-porn.com to deliver an opinion against it.
And so, when it comes to this "show" all I can say is that while I have no knowledge of the judgment awaiting the perpretrators of this hate crime against civilization in the next world, but in this world I urge everyone to shun these monstrosities.
While I deplore the notion of judging something without reading it or based on scanty evidence I also don't actually need to see www.sorority-slut-snuff-porn.com to deliver an opinion against it.
And so, when it comes to this "show" all I can say is that while I have no knowledge of the judgment awaiting the perpretrators of this hate crime against civilization in the next world, but in this world I urge everyone to shun these monstrosities.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Fatwa #7 Rare Steaks Are A Symbol of the Decline of Civilization
The first thing that primitive humankind did with fire was use it to cook meat.
They didn't sear it briefly to preserve the juices and then eat it mostly raw.
They likely charred that meat so badly that the first few times they were eating bison flavored coal.
Animals that eat raw meat live shorter lives than animals that cook their meat. They also have really bad breath compared to the pleasant mesquite aroma that comes from eating meat that has been properly cooked.
The rare steak is a fraud perpretrated on consumers by lazy cooks who are too afraid to meet the challenge of the medium well steak, which is to say a perfectly cooked cut of meat--one that is still juicy but not uncooked. It is difficult to achieve a perfect medium well without some degree of luck. For this reason, a truly generous consumer will be forgiving of a medium well steak if it errs slightly in one direction or another, because either way a good faith effort has been made and thus there is never a need to send it back. But a rare steak? If you want to eat uncooked meat you shouldn't have to pay someone to lightly grill it for you. You can do that on the manifold of your car out in the parking lot for a few seconds if that's what you want.
Rare? They should call it COMMON, because uncooked is a more common state for meat than cooked properly and because uncooked meat is the kind that any large carnivore could eat directly on the hoof from a wildebeest that isn't even fully dead yet.
Eating uncooked meat and pretending that it's the right way to do it is like crapping in your lawn and saying that it's the natural way. It's uncivilized and that word should still mean something to people.
They didn't sear it briefly to preserve the juices and then eat it mostly raw.
They likely charred that meat so badly that the first few times they were eating bison flavored coal.
Animals that eat raw meat live shorter lives than animals that cook their meat. They also have really bad breath compared to the pleasant mesquite aroma that comes from eating meat that has been properly cooked.
The rare steak is a fraud perpretrated on consumers by lazy cooks who are too afraid to meet the challenge of the medium well steak, which is to say a perfectly cooked cut of meat--one that is still juicy but not uncooked. It is difficult to achieve a perfect medium well without some degree of luck. For this reason, a truly generous consumer will be forgiving of a medium well steak if it errs slightly in one direction or another, because either way a good faith effort has been made and thus there is never a need to send it back. But a rare steak? If you want to eat uncooked meat you shouldn't have to pay someone to lightly grill it for you. You can do that on the manifold of your car out in the parking lot for a few seconds if that's what you want.
Rare? They should call it COMMON, because uncooked is a more common state for meat than cooked properly and because uncooked meat is the kind that any large carnivore could eat directly on the hoof from a wildebeest that isn't even fully dead yet.
Eating uncooked meat and pretending that it's the right way to do it is like crapping in your lawn and saying that it's the natural way. It's uncivilized and that word should still mean something to people.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Fatwa #6 on Fatwa #5
yeah...sorry about that last fatwa.
i was up all night, hanging out with carnies and snorting non-dairy creamer...&#*@, man. don't know what i was thinking.
you have a right to expect a certain gravitas and dignity from your Mufti, and, um...
well, again, sorry.
'm goin' back to bed.
[hacking cough]
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Fatwa #5 on Ya Ugly Fat Mama
you heard me. fatwa!
why? 'cause ya mama so fat her ass ain't got a crack, 'sgot a fault line.
geologists call it the "stankduction zone."
mary's anus trench.
ya mama so ugly when she was born, the doctor slapped ya grandmama.
and then shot himself.
wassup?
what, you got a problem with this fatwa? well why don't you do somethin'?
huh? huh?
yeah, i thought not.
Mufti Dor out.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Fatwa #4 on Munich and Appeasement
People should stop mentioning Munich or "appeasement" every time a new conflict rolls around as if that should automatically end any argument.
The reason you need to stop is because appeasement didn't start with Munich.
APPEASEMENT STARTED AT MADRID. Did you hear that, you stupid sheep? MADRID. SPAIN. I'm putting it in all caps so you bleating morons can begin to understand.
APPEASEMENT BEGAN WHEN THE FREE WORLD STOOD BY AND LET HITLER AND MUSSOLINI SEND "VOLUNTEERS" IN "VOLUNTEER" STUKAS AND MESSERSCHMITTS TO BOMB SPAIN.
Why did the free world do that? Because Spanish Fascists (and by extension their Italian and German sponsors) were less scary to us than Spanish Communists (and by extension their Soviet Russian sponsors.)
Why did the free world believe that? Because politics and national interests are a dirty business and full of inconsistencies.
IF WE HAD STOOD UP TO FASCISM IN SPAIN THERE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN A NEED FOR MUNICH.
But then we wouldn't have had the satisfaction of watching the Nazis and Communists butcher each other on the Eastern front for four years grinding the strength out of each other.
Like I said, it's a dirty business.
WE DIDN'T FIGHT A WAR AGAINST FASCISM, WE JUST FOUGHT THE FASCISTS WHO MADE THE MISTAKE OF PICKING A FIGHT WITH US.
If the "Greatest Generation" had grasped this lesson at any point in the course of their lives we could have made a lot of smarter choices afterward, but instead they just learned to say "Munich" and "appeasement" as if they knew a damned thing about what they were talking about.
If they thought about it for a second they might even think that appeasement started in Ethiopia, where the "free world" decided to stand aside as a tin pot with a funny hat shot his way into the last unclaimed corner of colonized Africa. And guess why the free world decided to let Ethiopia take it? Because being a global power is a dirty business. Because in 1936 letting other Africans watch Ethiopians fight for their independence seemed like a dangerous idea, sort of like communism in Spain.
Diplomacy is a dirty business. Don't try talking about it unless you understand it. And don't use words like "Munich" and "appeasement" as if you really mean them, because nobody who actually has to run a country has the luxury of believing in nonsense like that. Time for the rest of you to get a little brighter, too. Stop repeating stupid slogans. I will no longer appease you people by letting you mention Munich and appeasement. I'm taking my stand here with this fatwa.
The reason you need to stop is because appeasement didn't start with Munich.
APPEASEMENT STARTED AT MADRID. Did you hear that, you stupid sheep? MADRID. SPAIN. I'm putting it in all caps so you bleating morons can begin to understand.
APPEASEMENT BEGAN WHEN THE FREE WORLD STOOD BY AND LET HITLER AND MUSSOLINI SEND "VOLUNTEERS" IN "VOLUNTEER" STUKAS AND MESSERSCHMITTS TO BOMB SPAIN.
Why did the free world do that? Because Spanish Fascists (and by extension their Italian and German sponsors) were less scary to us than Spanish Communists (and by extension their Soviet Russian sponsors.)
Why did the free world believe that? Because politics and national interests are a dirty business and full of inconsistencies.
IF WE HAD STOOD UP TO FASCISM IN SPAIN THERE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN A NEED FOR MUNICH.
But then we wouldn't have had the satisfaction of watching the Nazis and Communists butcher each other on the Eastern front for four years grinding the strength out of each other.
Like I said, it's a dirty business.
WE DIDN'T FIGHT A WAR AGAINST FASCISM, WE JUST FOUGHT THE FASCISTS WHO MADE THE MISTAKE OF PICKING A FIGHT WITH US.
If the "Greatest Generation" had grasped this lesson at any point in the course of their lives we could have made a lot of smarter choices afterward, but instead they just learned to say "Munich" and "appeasement" as if they knew a damned thing about what they were talking about.
If they thought about it for a second they might even think that appeasement started in Ethiopia, where the "free world" decided to stand aside as a tin pot with a funny hat shot his way into the last unclaimed corner of colonized Africa. And guess why the free world decided to let Ethiopia take it? Because being a global power is a dirty business. Because in 1936 letting other Africans watch Ethiopians fight for their independence seemed like a dangerous idea, sort of like communism in Spain.
Diplomacy is a dirty business. Don't try talking about it unless you understand it. And don't use words like "Munich" and "appeasement" as if you really mean them, because nobody who actually has to run a country has the luxury of believing in nonsense like that. Time for the rest of you to get a little brighter, too. Stop repeating stupid slogans. I will no longer appease you people by letting you mention Munich and appeasement. I'm taking my stand here with this fatwa.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Fatwa #3 on Jon Stewart and the Idolatrous Daily Show
my qualifications as mufti: i was a devoted Daily Show follower from the den of our house senior year. ah, the smarm, the bite, the snarling snit of a show not afraid you might miss the joke. a towering parody of a thing that, when the show started, still existed: american journalism. and how was such a perfect thing crafted? by making us, the somnambulant public, the butt of the joke. to this end, the writer/producer of the show employed the douchiest wannabe-class-president windbag she could find: craig killborn. he gave a pitch-perfect performance as a vapid news reader oblivious to the irony coming out of his own mouth, only a slight exaggeration of the talking heads already dominating the trade. he gave this performance not because he was a talented comedian, like jon stewart, but because he really was such a douche: before coming to the daily show, he was a sportscaster in san antonio.
Mufti WMR and i once had the pleasure of seeing the funniest play ever put on a stage. it was called "The Amateurs," and was about a cast of minimally talented, very amateur actors at a community college putting on a play. in a masterstroke of casting, the actors playing these parts were actually chosen from such a community college. in a further masterstroke, so were the director, scene designer, and stage builders. to give an example: one scene called for an actor to soliloquize while looking out a window, so the set builders actually constructed a frame version of said window in the direction he was to speechify...middle of downstage, right in front of the audience. they actually built the fourth wall! get it? because they're amateurs! the act was so complete that, even today, neither Mufti WMR or myself is completely sure if we were watching a work of genius, or just the happy accident of a bunch of amateurs putting on "The Amateurs." or if the distinction is even meaningful.
in terms of its' sense of humor, this was the Daily Show. but killborn, being a douche, left to host the super-late-late-i-hope-conan-gets-bumped-up-so-i-can-have-his-slot show, and the daily show replaced him with a far more talented comedian: jon stewart. that's why it's called "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." he wanted you to know he wasn't just going to plug himself in where killborn had been. "5 questions" was phased out, "moment of zen" became less funny, and the show began to lose its' sting.
to be clear, i am not arguing that killborn was more talented or brighter, at all. he wasn't. but the show was funnier then, because it didn't care if you laughed. that's something comedians care about. the daily show then was more like that "Abortionplex" article in the Onion, that got forwarded all over the internet by idiots who believed there really was an abortion megaplex with multiple theatre screens, a latte bar, and sushi. that sort of absurdity is half the fun of a joke like that. it still happens occasionally with the daily show, that a joke gets mistaken for a real news item, but less than it used to...and even that seems mostly to do with the chinese press' longstanding problem obtaining weapons-grade ironium.
as mufti, it is my duty to safeguard the growth and spiritual well-being of the people (you idiots) in my care. in the old days, the Daily Show was a vicious, snarky show where guests would actually beg to be treated nicely...and get denied, every time. like the Onion, it was so sharp it made you cry. which, if you are going to make jokes about the corporate sellout of our democracy or the hijacking of our foreign policy or the wholesale abandonment of the rule of law, is the appropriate reaction. you should laugh, and then cry...and then be really, really, angry.
but stewart waters down that anger. he mugs, he does impressions, he tells a few nun jokes. worse, he makes phony comparisons between corporate whores and psycopaths and the spineless so-called "liberals" supposedly guilty of equal, but diametrically opposed, craziness. they aren't, of course. it's just that introducing the idea that one, pretty-well-defined, group is consistently fucking people over might kill the mood, create some moments of awkward tension between the laughs. pretending there's some kind of balance involved is good for the act.
however much we like jon stewart, however gifted he is, the appropriate reaction is not, "oooh, burn! i'd love to see what glenn beck thinks of THAT! hah!" the appropriate reaction involves a fair amount of anger that is NOT diluted at all by our enjoyment of the joke. sometimes, we do indeed need to laugh, or we'll be overwhelmed. but, if you don't have to choose between them, you should do both. laugh and cry. and then get angry, and then do something. as your Mufti, it is my duty to remind you that if you don't, you're not laughing at the joke.
you are the joke.
fatwa against the daily show with jon stewart. bring back the Daily Show.
Mufti WMR and i once had the pleasure of seeing the funniest play ever put on a stage. it was called "The Amateurs," and was about a cast of minimally talented, very amateur actors at a community college putting on a play. in a masterstroke of casting, the actors playing these parts were actually chosen from such a community college. in a further masterstroke, so were the director, scene designer, and stage builders. to give an example: one scene called for an actor to soliloquize while looking out a window, so the set builders actually constructed a frame version of said window in the direction he was to speechify...middle of downstage, right in front of the audience. they actually built the fourth wall! get it? because they're amateurs! the act was so complete that, even today, neither Mufti WMR or myself is completely sure if we were watching a work of genius, or just the happy accident of a bunch of amateurs putting on "The Amateurs." or if the distinction is even meaningful.
in terms of its' sense of humor, this was the Daily Show. but killborn, being a douche, left to host the super-late-late-i-hope-conan-gets-bumped-up-so-i-can-have-his-slot show, and the daily show replaced him with a far more talented comedian: jon stewart. that's why it's called "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." he wanted you to know he wasn't just going to plug himself in where killborn had been. "5 questions" was phased out, "moment of zen" became less funny, and the show began to lose its' sting.
to be clear, i am not arguing that killborn was more talented or brighter, at all. he wasn't. but the show was funnier then, because it didn't care if you laughed. that's something comedians care about. the daily show then was more like that "Abortionplex" article in the Onion, that got forwarded all over the internet by idiots who believed there really was an abortion megaplex with multiple theatre screens, a latte bar, and sushi. that sort of absurdity is half the fun of a joke like that. it still happens occasionally with the daily show, that a joke gets mistaken for a real news item, but less than it used to...and even that seems mostly to do with the chinese press' longstanding problem obtaining weapons-grade ironium.
as mufti, it is my duty to safeguard the growth and spiritual well-being of the people (you idiots) in my care. in the old days, the Daily Show was a vicious, snarky show where guests would actually beg to be treated nicely...and get denied, every time. like the Onion, it was so sharp it made you cry. which, if you are going to make jokes about the corporate sellout of our democracy or the hijacking of our foreign policy or the wholesale abandonment of the rule of law, is the appropriate reaction. you should laugh, and then cry...and then be really, really, angry.
but stewart waters down that anger. he mugs, he does impressions, he tells a few nun jokes. worse, he makes phony comparisons between corporate whores and psycopaths and the spineless so-called "liberals" supposedly guilty of equal, but diametrically opposed, craziness. they aren't, of course. it's just that introducing the idea that one, pretty-well-defined, group is consistently fucking people over might kill the mood, create some moments of awkward tension between the laughs. pretending there's some kind of balance involved is good for the act.
however much we like jon stewart, however gifted he is, the appropriate reaction is not, "oooh, burn! i'd love to see what glenn beck thinks of THAT! hah!" the appropriate reaction involves a fair amount of anger that is NOT diluted at all by our enjoyment of the joke. sometimes, we do indeed need to laugh, or we'll be overwhelmed. but, if you don't have to choose between them, you should do both. laugh and cry. and then get angry, and then do something. as your Mufti, it is my duty to remind you that if you don't, you're not laughing at the joke.
you are the joke.
fatwa against the daily show with jon stewart. bring back the Daily Show.
Fatwa #2 on Hipster Food Adjectives
"Mouth-feel" is not a word. Stop using it. The word you're looking for is "texture." It's a good word. Use it. Better yet, nobody needs to hear anyone describing the texture of cheese. If you want to let me taste the cheese, I will figure that out. Otherwise, I don't care what the texture of the cheese is.
All wine tastes like grapes. If you think it smells like strawberries, then you either have never smelled a strawberry or you don't know what grapes smell like. Strawberries never smell like grapes and you will note that nobody pays over thirty dollars for a bottle of anything made out of strawberries to describe how it smells like something other than strawberries because that would be so incredibly stupid that even imbecile hipsters haven't started doing that. Wine tastes like fermented grapes. The alcohol is numbing your taste buds and causing the wiring in there to go a little haywire sending mixed signals to your brain such as "this grape juice tastes like nuts and berries" and "that person over there looks much prettier now than fifteen minutes ago" or "Will Ferrell is funny." The texture of wine is liquid. It has no "mouth-feel."
It is the opinion of this jurist that while freedom of speech is paramount in keeping free will and expression (which is necessary for true faith) it is preferable to dispense with such hipster food adjective language. While this fatwa does not ban the use of such language, the world would be a better place without it and as such I will issue a strong rebuke to discourage the use of it.
All wine tastes like grapes. If you think it smells like strawberries, then you either have never smelled a strawberry or you don't know what grapes smell like. Strawberries never smell like grapes and you will note that nobody pays over thirty dollars for a bottle of anything made out of strawberries to describe how it smells like something other than strawberries because that would be so incredibly stupid that even imbecile hipsters haven't started doing that. Wine tastes like fermented grapes. The alcohol is numbing your taste buds and causing the wiring in there to go a little haywire sending mixed signals to your brain such as "this grape juice tastes like nuts and berries" and "that person over there looks much prettier now than fifteen minutes ago" or "Will Ferrell is funny." The texture of wine is liquid. It has no "mouth-feel."
It is the opinion of this jurist that while freedom of speech is paramount in keeping free will and expression (which is necessary for true faith) it is preferable to dispense with such hipster food adjective language. While this fatwa does not ban the use of such language, the world would be a better place without it and as such I will issue a strong rebuke to discourage the use of it.
Fatwa #1 on Homo Sapiens Sapiens
we had a good run, came up with incandescent bulbs and internal combustion engines and vibrating condoms, but it's time. yes, michael caine, some people just wanna light a match and watch the world burn...and some people wanna mouth moral platitudes while we continue stacking up humanity on top of itself like the porn pyramid at abu ghraib.
that's just not gonna cut it. and it's no use trying to simply reduce our numbers, since any selective culling amounts to genocide, and that's a hate crime. well, i'm no bigot; i brought enough for everyone.
in the interest of full disclosure: yes, i do believe i will be able to survive on the fragmented chunk of our demolished earth as it spins away from the orbital ecliptic into space...with a little help from my friends. my meaty, nutritious friends. but even if i don't, the thing still needs doin'.
it's a bypass. gotta build bypasses. anyway, through the use of a quantum tunneling field-directed magic 8 ball, i know who's going to be replacing us.
and trust me, hyperintelligent badgers don't share.
that's just not gonna cut it. and it's no use trying to simply reduce our numbers, since any selective culling amounts to genocide, and that's a hate crime. well, i'm no bigot; i brought enough for everyone.
in the interest of full disclosure: yes, i do believe i will be able to survive on the fragmented chunk of our demolished earth as it spins away from the orbital ecliptic into space...with a little help from my friends. my meaty, nutritious friends. but even if i don't, the thing still needs doin'.
it's a bypass. gotta build bypasses. anyway, through the use of a quantum tunneling field-directed magic 8 ball, i know who's going to be replacing us.
and trust me, hyperintelligent badgers don't share.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)