This is Why We Can't Get Things Done in the USA: DEA Admin Plays Dumb

Honest Trailers: World War Z

Spoilers if you haven't seen it. Hilarious either way. And too, too true.

Jeff Foxworthy and The Lord

It was a lazy Saturday and damn it if I didn't stumble upon Jeff Foxworthy's new gig.


(click to embiggen)

I guess he just couldn't hack it with the 5th graders?

And yes, I watched some of it and, yes, it was as awkward as you can imagine.

Or maybe you can't. Here's a promo video.



I know; you're excited. They're doing re-runs now, but it's coming back for season 3 in March. Squee!

How We Should Name Hurricanes

Brilliant

That Other Blog and My Daughter Almost Dying

I'm sorry that I've let this go. It will come back in the next few weeks.

I don't know if you've seen my newest blog about my separation, but I ask you to check out my latest post at least. It's scary but with a hopeful ending, and the most important thing that has happened to me in the last few years.

Politics and van murals will resume next week.

Thanks.

Tea Party - American Taliban (The Newsroom Clip)

Worth every second because it's so concise.

APEX: Next Big Thing in Tech (Onion, NSFW language)

New Wearable Computer Also Sucks Your Dick

New Yorker's DOMA cover :)

Divorcing Kindly

Hey, if anyone wants to follow along with my personal reflections and whining while I go through this marriage break, I went ahead and started Divorcing Kindly in attempt to purge. I'm hoping it'll let me flush out the in-process stuff - and get me back to blogging some of the better CFC content I've been ignoring for the last few months.

It's in progress and will get prettier, but I just started tonight.

Thanks for sticking. Hopefully I'll be around a bit more :)

Little Inferno - Existential Game Review

I play many games online. Some are trite, some are engaging. This one made me reflect upon my life.

If you play games and would like to experience this yourself, please stop reading now and go to the website and rock through the few hours yourself. You'll thank me for it.

If you're reading but planning on playing, I'll try not to spoil anything, but have to convey my reaction, so no promises.

Little Inferno is basically you burning stuff. It's you buying things from catalogs and burning them. All of them. Everything.

It's billed in-game as an entertainment center. Here's a promo video you see a little ways in:



Did I mention it's crazy?


So you're burning things, all the things, and communicate via letter with a mystery friend while working through your catalogs and figuring out burning combos that get you stamps that can make catalog items show up more quickly. At heart, a beautiful puzzle game that will obsess you, take control of you, and drive you to the end - which is only a few hours.

But in this process of you burning things, you hear from you mysterious friend, you get weather updates, and promotional mail items from the creator of your Little Inferno. And then, while burning everything in sight, things get complicated, even sad, but you keep burning and buying, burning and buying.


And then I get all introspective about it.

This game isn't nuts at all. It's fun, but it's a commentary on commercialism and how playing games eats your time. You're buying and buying and burning and burning. You buy a doll and burn it and get more money back than you paid for it. Your purchasing power is increased by waste, by destroying what you just purchased. And then you purchase more.

And what the fuck are you doing? You're buying items, waiting for them to show up, and putting them in the fire. Because all you can do is burn. You burn or stop the game. And by burning you feed into the game's narrative of accepting your need to burn because that's what Little Inferno expects from you, but you learn that burning will bring some minor interaction as well.

You have a few little interactions, and they become so deep in their brevity that you might laugh them off, dismiss them, but at one point you will be struck, and I'll just say I was fighting tears about a piece of mail that I had no choice but to toss into the fireplace.

And then the end. Like I said, I won't spoil it, but it speaks in a very meta way to you disengaging from what you're doing and rethinking what the hell you just spent the last few hours doing.


I will play it again. I will enjoy it - and almost-weep - again. And I'll think again what the hell I was doing playing it in the first place.

There's a whole world out there.

Sorry - Life is Hard

Another sorry from me about my life.

Marriage end is being filed in the next weeks, I'm moving out in 2, and everything else just piles up. I'm trying to hold it together, get things changed over, and keeping sane.

I've not had time to even update my own journal, let alone this blog, or start the "Divorce" blog I've been considering.

In all my free time, right?

That's all I got. I have a review of a neat game for tomorrow. But that's it for now.

I'm working on it. Thanks for reading.

Gov. Kasich Insurance Pout Party

So I run a small business, just me and one other, and I don't have the resources larger companies do and as I'm soon to be single, I thought I'd check out what's going on with the Ohio Insurance Exchange.

I mean, I don't keep directly up to date on exactly what days what portions of the ACA are being implemented, so I thought I'd check it out. Here's the page. You don't have to visit it because it's useless. It's basically a government page, paid for by my tax dollars, saying Obamacare is terrible and we're not doing an exchange and the US government can just do it because Boo Obama and Boo Healthcare and why's everyone so mean?

Literally useless.

So I contacted the email address on the page and wrote the following note:

Hello,

It's difficult writing this email because I don't want to offend anyone who did not compose or direct the construction of the exchange page. This is directed at those people.

As a small business owner, I was looking to find out what opportunities might be emerging in Ohio for obtaining insurance due to the ACA. Visiting http://www.ohioexchange.ohio.gov/Pages/default.aspx and the linked pages, I was literally looking for information on where "individuals and small business owners in every state can purchase qualified coverage."

But there was no actual information about what was happening, when it was happening, and when I, as a two-person business, might be able to even begin researching my health care coverage options. What I found instead was a thinly-veiled whine-fest that amounted to "Obama is mean and we're not gonna play."

If Gov. Kasich wants to be a petulant brat about the ACA passing, let him do it in the corner, in private. This is an issue that affects real people in real ways and pouting obstruction on an Ohio government "information" page is doing no one any good or service.

By providing vague, formless information on the web page, Gov. Kasich is not slowing or stopping the ACA, but proving that a partisan grudge is more important than the people and businesses of the state of Ohio, and by demonstration is unfit to lead our great state.

And yes, I pasted the meme into the email as well.


Imagine if some brilliant new tech was invented that gave everyone - despite socioeconomic status - the ability to connect to the internet and be a part of a global community. Imagine it was relegated to the States as to how to offer access to this new technology and you hear stories from Oregon or California or Colorado like "OMG Awesome Tech!!!!" and you finally decide to dig in and see what it's all about and look at your Ohio page for the New Tech information and all the page says is "The president and the internets are stupid. That is all."

That's how I feel.

And Ohio's not the only one. There are many of us in this basket of borderline or blue at the presidential election, but locally gerrymandered into a minority in our state. It's downright scary at times, but this time it's just the governor being a whiny, weak, sad man.

Supercut of Riker (ST:TNG) Cowboy-ing Up to the Table?

Between Two Ferns/The Lonely Island - Zach Galifianakis & Spring Break Anthem

Obama Hates Jesus and Wants to End Homeschooling!

If you want the whole misleading story, feel free to visit this story, but my synopsis is probably more entertaining.

So there's this German family and they're super-duper-über-Christian and because those public schools in Germany are Christ-free zones (and teach "witchcraft and graphic sex education" - seriously, that's a quote from the article), they want to maintain full control of everything their kids see, hear, and learn. Shhh...back to your cocoon.

But Germany's all "Nein!" - which is something Hitler probably said at one point - and will be persecuted because they're Christians. What? Oh, sorry. I meant they would be prosecuted because home schooling is not recognized as a reason to keep your kids out of school. In Germany, they call that truancy. Here: freedom!, there: totally freaking illegal. Seriously, like jail, fines, and even losing your kids.

So Quotable!

“There were stories where [school children] were encouraged to ask the devil for help instead of God and actually the devil would help (in the story),” Uwe said.

“When we found out what’s in the textbooks, it’s exactly the opposite from what the Bible tells us and teaches us, and we wanted to protect [our children],” his wife Hannelore added.

So they get over here to the good ol' USA because Oh, the humanity! and a federal judge who was apparently drunk at the time looked at their request for asylum and said "Oh yeah, totally. Jeebus! 'Murica!!" That was five years ago.

Well, someone in Obama's administration decided to review some of those items and was like "WTF?" and now the case is under review. Why? Because if a family wants to home school in a foreign country and can't, just because we do it here does NOT mean they are under persecution because they can't. They live in a different country, they are not in harm's way at home, and you can't come to America and claim asylum because you don't live in America! They need to return, suck it up, review their hyperbolic bullshit, and be proper guides and parents when they're not at school.

What does that mean to right-wing Christians? Christianity is under attack! What does that mean to home-schooling parents in America? Well, nothing until the right-wing Christians declared "Imagine: Homeschooling is under attack! And ignore that 'imagine' bit!"

Oh, and don't forget that this happened not because a ruling was under review but because EVERYONE knew this was happening and was totally totally down with the happening and cool with letting the Germans hang in the US here - but then Evil Obama got wind of Unnecessary Freedom and knew it was his duty to crush both religious freedom and home schooling with a single swift blow with his giant Muslim hammer, Mjöl-jihad!

Which makes me wonder, with the answer clear in my head: What story would be hearing if this German family were Muslim? Well, we would've known five years ago, because as soon as Obama took office, Glenn Beck's goons would've picked up on it and declared "Obama Illegally Giving Sanctuary to Muslim Culture and Radical Thought!"

All I have to say to all the propaganda and bullshit machines on the right:

Conspiracy Lives: Boston Bombing

Little while back I made mention of those conspiracy theory nutjobs who said Sandy Hook was a hoax, an act, that no one was hurt, that it was a show (some say "exercise" accidentally reported as real, some say staged by the government as a "false flag" to raise to take down the Second Amendment).

Just a quick reminder that the depravity and insanity of us humans continues: there are people out there calling Boston the same thing.



Again, not linking because that would give them credit. People can be assholes.

In Short: Our Boston Week...

Today was a good day.
Both primary suspects have been stopped for their "alleged" role in the Marathon Bombings, robbery, killing, city shutdown. There is little doubt they planned and carried out this horrific act.

Today was a bad day.
All I see online is "of course they were Muslims!" and "Haha, the libtards thought they were Tea Party/Christians!" All I see online is how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be tortured, dragged through glass, waterboarded, ...killed as soon as he can stand. I see on TV shouts of "USA! USA!" for the arrest of an American citizen.

We pull together. We celebrate success.

For those politicizing it and lauding torture: Stahp! You are making us ugly.

e-Card on Voting Republican

Imagine, An Emotional Dump

(This is an emotional dump and catch-up to the divorce posts, so feel free to skip.)

Imagine, for a moment, that you daughter has just turned seventeen. Imagine she took and passed her test and has been a licensed driver for about a week when you buy her a brand new used car the day before Easter. (It'd been planned for a while; she got a job at the local amusement park for the summer.) Best parent in the world. And the very next day, in a sudden bottleneck on the highway, in something you could not have possibly avoided, you crash into that new car of hers while she is driving, rendering both un-drive-able. (We are both okay.)

And the following day you get the sore throat intro to the worst cold you've had in years.

And the following day you find out two of your credit card numbers were stolen - probably in-person where you used it - and your personal and business accounts have been frozen.

Imagine also that your 11-year marriage (that has been decided it was moving towards dissolution of marriage about two years ago) was finally coming to a head and since you couldn't hold onto the house solo, you're going to be the one moving out. Oh, and your spouse started kinda dating some guy a couple weeks ago - and thinks that's an okay thing.

So right now, imagine you're looking at apartments because you're moving out of a 6-year home and 11-year marriage in less than 90 days, trying to consider all the pieces that go with moving, with filing with the court, with becoming alone (and learning how to love yourself) again (if you ever knew), how 11 years of marriage will split in bills and books and insurance and furniture and your daughter's time, stemming a rising tide of depression, holding a job, sorting out how you're going to pay for anything, pushing due diligence in research for the purchase of your new used car which NEEDS to happen in the next week - all while closing off the anger of your spouse dating and blowing lung cookies out your nose while attending rehearsals for the local play you're headlining in a month.

Sometimes we have black clouds. This has been my last two weeks.


Sorry, but I warned you it was a dump.

Thomas Jefferson on Changing Times

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

- Jefferson to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816

Liberty and Justice - For ALL

The Right to Marry: Prop 8 & DOMA

(sidenote: you hashtag FB and I'll pull your nosehairs)

I'm getting a little oversaturated with this week's SCOTUS questioning of California's Prop 8 and DOMA. The reason is that, for me, it's very cut and dry: every consenting adult should have the right to marry another consenting adult despite the sex of that person. Anything less is bigotry and discrimination, caused by ignorance and fear, and justified by hiding behind the shield of "freedom" or religion.

Some of the awful defenses we've all heard too much of:

The Bible!
Seriously? We're still doing this? There is NO sacred tradition of marriage in the Bible. Women are property; Solomon had 700 wives, etc. And even if there was a single, unified message of the Biblical definition of marriage?




It's Sacred!
Shut up. If it were so sacred you'd be fighting to ban divorce as vehemently as you are fighting same-sex marriage.


The Tradition!
There is no solid tradition in marriage. If anything, the definition of marriage has always been mutable. From the Bible to every period in history from women being solid property to being decidedly subservient to the development of a very equal marriage and now we've finally developed enough as a society to be okay with a man marrying another man. The people claiming tradition are the same ones calling for a return to the "idyllic" lives everyone lived in the 1950's.


It's Unnatural!
If we're looking to nature for examples to forge a definition of marriage, that's kind of a wide spectrum out of which monogamy is actually out of the norm. Females with competing mates and multiple partners? Check. Homosexual relationships? Check. Bang whoever's around for procreation? Check.

What else is unnatural? Polyester, cable TV, and corrective lenses. Ironically, some of the clergy preaching about unnatural acts are the purveyors of one of the few "relationship" statuses that does NOT exist in the natural world: celibacy.


The Natural Order!
This one is similar to the one above, but generally eschews any religious backing to specifically state that marriage is a natural institution for the sole purpose of procreation. This, of course, is absurd, and would limit marriage to two members of the opposite sex who are provably fertile and potentially void every marriage after menopause or male sterility.


Fine, I'll Marry My Dog!
This is the most ignorant. This is about two consenting adults being denied a right specifically because of their sex and sexual orientation. This does not open the door to polygamy or bestiality or the normalization of pedophilia. You will never be able to marry your dog, no matter how much you enjoy the way it licks the peanut butter off your privates.


Christians will be Persecuted! / Christianity will be Illegal!
Fox News: Stahp.
Christianity is a huge majority and every version of every equal rights bill that has been introduced includes provisions for religious institutions to be exempt from a mandate to perform a marriage. Anyone you hear this from is either purposefully spreading fear or parroting someone who does.


What is not being clearly stated (or purposefully lost in the chatter) is that this is not a religious issue; it's an equal rights issue. If I need to get a marriage license, I go to the county, not a church. If I want to get married, nothing requires me to have it done by a priest; just someone the state deems qualified to sign the county-issued piece of paper. There doesn't even have to be a ceremony! As a non-denominational, licensed minister, I can meet a couple at Starbucks, sign their paper, and as soon as the Secretary of State receives it, they're officially married.

And because this is a civil institution and a civil definition of marriage, it is also a civil right. No matter how ignorant or scared or bigoted or religious a person is, every single argument against marriage being offered to two consenting adults of the same sex.

I Love You Roomba Cat

How Disney Stories Ended (awesome video)

Amazing singing / editing / creative talent and worth every second. :)

Wealth Distribution: Ouch

It's going to hurt. But you need to watch.

Beauty & Glamour

Thirty seconds of awesome. Weirdest thing you'll see today. Happy Friday!

Keep Calm and ...WTF?

Okay, folks. I'm gonna get a little sanctimonious on y'all's asses, get a little political on something that means very little here in the US of A - in Murica - except to a little subpopulation I like to refer to as "The Irish."

I saw this piece of shit online and got way more upset about it than I should have:



Really?

We're taking the "Keep Calm and Carry On" BRITISH maxim logo and giving it and IRISH twist? The British, who still occupy Northern Ireland? While Scotland and Wales are entertaining independence, the Queen's English still have their wee dicks stuck in the northern six counties of the Republic of Ireland? Combining the Crown of the UK with the drunken shamrock farce of Eire? As a man who won't drink a lick of Bushmill's*, this is a motherfucking bloody outrage! Margaret Thatcher is a cunt!


[Disclaimer: this is a farce. I find it ironic and unfortunate but am not really worked up, in case you didn't catch the clues.

Also: *Bushmill's is considered an Irish Whiskey, but because it is produced in Northern Ireland, I have met a few die-hard Irish that would rather drink a gallon of piss than a bottle made in, promoted by, and sending taxes to England.

Also: Margaret Thatcher was a cunt. And I have a photoshop image I shamefully created on request involving MT and rope and nipples that I will post a link to in the comments if requested.]

Conspiracy! Sandy Hook, Bullets, and Collapsing America

I'll weigh in on Sandy Hook and gun control in the coming weeks as I get my feet wet again, but I wanted to point out a couple insane conspiracy theories going around. And these aren't just "Holy hell check out this dark, scary corner of the internets," but things I have heard discussed by callers on mainstream, right-wing radio shows (as per usual, the hosts don't disavow the nuttery, they goad them on and ask why mainstream media isn't picking up on this) and people on my Facebook stream.

*shiver*

Sandy Hook

You know the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting never happened, right? It was just an exercise. No one is dead: no teachers, no children. No parents are truly grieving because it's all an act.

See, Obama had to push his radical gun-control agenda through as the first step to confiscating all guns and turning America into a police state. But he knew no one would have that, so he staged a school shooting targeting young children. The stories? The police? The deaths? The emotion? The sentiment? All fake. Because Obama is Hitler.

I am not linking anything here because no one involved deserves a link. But if you want to be terrified by humanity, a quick Google search will lead you to that place. And here's something that showed up on my FB feed today to rustle your jimmies:




Bullet Buyin'

The US Government is buying up all the bullets. Like all of them. Like billions of bullets so even if you hide your guns Obama wants to make sure you can't shoot 'em. Even the IRS is gettin' bullets. OMG!

Obviously, there are no real reports backing this but you can find it all over. Of course, the government buys a great deal of bullets; most of its offices have enforcement arms and then we have that whole military thing. The other side, of course, is that there are less bullets available currently because ...the nutters are drinking the NRA Kool-Aid and snatching up stockpiles because they think Obama wants your guns!

Conspiracy theorists are so meta.


Miscellaneous Nuts

Again, sorry for making you search (if you're that interested in the horror), but I refuse to give any of these goons links (which gives them search engine juice). Frighteningly, it's not hard to find.

• Not just Obama, but the UN is going to send troops into the US in order to confiscate all our guns.
• The Obama administration is currently, secretly building concentration camps in which to imprison Americans in the coming police state
• There is an actual group called Friends of Hamas and Chuck Hagel is in bed with them. (This one has been loudly and repeatedly debunked, but the right keeps on beating the drum of lies)
• Sekrit Moslom Kenyan Obama is going to change the constitution in order to begin his tyrannical reign with a third presidential term

Really, there is no end to the crazy. The Sandy Hook stuff creeps me the hell out, but conservatives are so whacked out about our black president, they just don't know how to attack any more. And for a lovely overview, Mother Jones put together this Obama Conspiracy Theory infographic. And that deserves some linking.

Any crazy crazy stuff you guys hear lately?

Day of Resistance is Tomorrow *facepalm*

So because Obama is singlehandedly dismantling the 2nd Amendment and looking forward to his time using his Kenya Powers to fly around America and take all the guns from all the people, tomorrow is the DAY OF RESISTANCE! From their website:

On January 16, 2013, President Barack Obama issued 23 executive actions against your 2nd amendment Constitutional right to bear arms. He did this without the consent of Congress which in itself, violates the foundation of the Constitution and the co-equal branches of government.

In response to these unconstitutional actions by the President, on .223, February 23, 2013 the American people will stand together in defiance to protect the right that protects ALL of our rights, the 2nd Amendment! They will organize locally so that they may band together neighbor to neighbor and reassert their community's right to determine their own destiny! Join today by selecting an option below.

I'm not going to address the stupid behind the fear behind the executive orders (none of which have been taken, just suggested) and their unconstitutionality (they're put forth in a way that the constitution does not forbid and every president uses them).

*sigh*

So take a look at the official rally list and see if you need to stay indoors tomorrow. The official Gun Appreciation Day ended in seven or so hospital visits from accidentally discharged firearms. I'm guessing this will be much, much worse.

PS4 Announcement Synopsis (parody)

Even if you're not into video games, this is pretty funny and certainly worth the watch.

Jesus Christ is My Nigga

I know you're craving misguided youth outlook programs on the YouTubes. Well, here's, well ...just watch it. It's wonderfully terrible.

In Brief: The 2nd Amendment

Why do most conservatives you hear raging against gun control only ever refer to the name of the amendment?

Because if they had to quote it directly, they would have to acknowledge two rather difficult words:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Inconvenient, that is.

And while I have your attention, Thom Hartmann's piece on the Second Amendment and how it was partially constructed to preserve slavery is a must-read for anyone remotely interested in the gun debate.

Cincinnati's Brian Thomas: Head-Exploding Ignorance

Our local AM morning talk show (before you get to Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity and Levin) here in Cincinnati is hosted by Brian Thomas on WKRC 550. Now, Brian is the sort of person you'd expect on a station like this: fiercely conservative spin-master of talking points of both sides while conveying an "aw, shucks" everyman reasonability.

However, this morning Brian went so far off the rails that I need to relay this tale. He had a caller this morning who didn't say much more than "Keep pointing out the socialism in the State of the Union" because she even has Christian friends who didn't think there was anything wrong with it and there are too many "stupid people."

And at this point, Brian went off on a self-described "tear." He said that Obama shouldn't be offering to help the needy or teach poor kids to read because that "is a theocracy" and by usurping good deeds, Obama - in his theocracy - is robbing Christians of the benefit they get from doing those good deeds, robbing them of the "feel good" aspect of helping others.

WTF?

Somehow Brian has missed some very basic ideas here:

• Christianity is not about fretting over your reward. If you're doing that, you're doing it wrong.
• Christianity is not about fretting over how many "feel good"s you get today. If it is, you're doing it wrong.
• Helping others in need is a good thing in any context; Christians don't own that.
• Helping others in need at a governmental level is NOT a theocracy.
• I can't buy wine on Sunday at my local UDF? That's theocratic.
• Legislating the "sanctity" of marriage? That's theocratic.
• Legislating creationism into the science classroom? That's theocratic.
• Legislating reproductive rights based not on science but a blurb in a 2000 year old book? That's theocratic.

I understand Brian is doing his best to tow the party line and turn anything Obama says - even if it were to be wonderful or beautiful or in lock-step with the Republican party - into dogmatic feces, but this morning's theocratic socialistic mind vomit was beyond the pale.

Brian: I know that 90% of listeners this morning sat back and just accepted that brief bit of babble into their subconscious mind, but if you don't mind the gibberish, you're stirring up a heaping helping of simmering mind melt out in your audience.

The Best 2 Superbowl Commercials

Here's my favorites. Pulled some tears, each one.

Brotherhood


God Made a Farmer



Oh, and yeah, I'm back.