Orthodox Jewish Youths, The New Testament, Fire

In case you were wondering what the love we pour out to Israel has wrought, from the International Herald Tribune:

Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.

Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.

After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it.

The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue, he said.

Just in case you were under the impression that Islam was the only religion that wasn't on the table with Christianity.

McCain as The Christ Figure

From ajc:

Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.

"John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either."

Everhart was praising McCain for never denouncing the United States while he was being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

"I'm not trying to compare John McCain to Jesus Christ, I'm looking at the pain that was there," she said.

He's no Billy Budd (full Melville text). That's for sure.

Damn the Vegan Terrorists!

Some BoingBoing love:

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

I would bet a great deal of money - by my standards - that we don't have FBI sidling up to any prude, impressionable, socially-awkward college students to infiltrate the bible-thumping nutters who plan to fall into the category of DNC protesters just in case they might be homegrown terrorists.

Media bias rolls back and forth depending on the time, cause, and source, but I think more dangerous - and, really, terrifying - is a governmental bias that always predetermines who "The Bad Guys" are. And when Bush and Cheney are the moral and political measuring stick of what constitutes "The Good Guys," then, yes: that is true, real horror.

Fake TV

Basically, LEDs make burglars think you're watching TV during every second of darkness. It's fucking brilliant.

FakeTV via DVICE

Ricky's Wisdom Today - 5/21/08

When we fall on the ground it hurts us, but we also need to rely on the ground to get back up.

     -Kathleen McDonald, How to Meditate

Obama and the Masses

When I found this picture of Obama speaking to folks in Portland, Oregon, it said 65,000 attended. Now I'm hearing from grumpy-angst Lynn Samuels that it was 85,000.

Impressive.

Even more impressive: just before Obama spoke, The Decemberists gave a free concert.

Those lucky, lucky bastards.

Stop Uwe Boll

For those of you who are not familiar with the travesty that is Uwe Boll, it is safe to say that he has horrified gamers and moviegoers alike by turning successful video games - namely House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Bloodrayne - into horrible, embarrassing movies. How bad? All three of the aforementioned movies are on the IMDB Bottom 100, more than any other director in the world.

We, the undersigned, respectfully ask that Uwe Boll give proper weight to the wishes of the video game community, the horror community, and the film going community in general and stop directing, producing, or taking any part in the creation of feature films. His distasteful handling of the subject matter and lack of acknowledgement of his failures simply cannot be abided any longer.

Mr. Boll has repeatedly shown a complete lack of comprehension regarding the videogames he has dragged, kicking and screaming, to the silver screen and his ham-fisted approach to horror has soiled future possibilities for anyone else who may attempt to bring videogames to film.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Visit the website. Sign the petition. Stop Uwe Boll.

U.S. Armed Forces = God's Army?

The Real News Network has been doing some great work providing the public with information you can't get anywhere else. This story is about the separation of church and state and how the evangelical movement in the U.S. Military is raping that dry.

Warning: this will make you angry.

California Overturns Bigotry

In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in striking down the ban.

This is exactly what the right wing calls "activist" judiciary, but in reality is what us educated folks call "checks and balances." Even if you vote on limiting the rights of certain individuals, our constitution - and judges serving true - will not stand for ignorance.

It's not a be-all, end-all, but a happy step in the right direction for human rights.

Now, if we could get someone to not just decriminalize but fully legalize marijuana, we'd be kicking some ass. Unfortunately, our government, in sanctimonious bullshittery (similar to "protecting marriage"), ignores all scientific data in order to spend billions in tax dollars as opposed to legalizing and accepting tax monies.

URGENT! Orphan Works Act of 2008

'Girl Sketching' - Sir Henry Raeburn (1756 - 1823)

If you're aware of current copyright law, you know that as soon as you create something - written piece, sketch, composition, sculpture, anything creative - it is immediately copyrighted. This copyright is good for your lifetime + 70 years. The Orphan Works Act will destroy this structure.

From Drawn! Blog:

This new Orphan Works legislation proposes a change in U.S. copyright that would (indirectly) require artists, illustrators, photographers, and any creative individual to actively maintain and defend their copyright by registering each and every work with privatized registrars. Failure to do so would leave everything you’ve ever created as an artist up for grabs by anyone who wanted to copy, reproduce, create derivative works of, or flat out steal your work since the act defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, U.S. and foreign, regardless of age.

Main points based on research and interviews:

• This piece of legislation was written under the guidance of Peter Jaszi, a deconstructionist who believes all creativity is - and should legally be - communal


• This specifically affects pictorial, graphic, and sculpture works


• Nothing you have ever created or will create will be protected, even if you've already copyrighted it


• The only way to protect your works will be to pay a fee to Commercial Registries


• Commercial Registries do not currently exist


• Congressional representatives state that Commercial Registries will be created by the private sector - without regulation, oversight, or standardization


• It is your responsibility to monitor any infringement and your burden of proof should you discover such - your legal financial burden as well

There is terrible, terrible money here, and the reversal of logic running against international law is terrifying and mind-boggling. Basically, nothing created will be protected. And once these political asshats get a taste, how long before you think they'll generalize it to anything written or filmed (although filmed probably falls under "pictorial").

This is a horror and a fucking travesty. Listen to this interview with Illustrator Brad Holland for a more thorough and chilling view of exactly what this legislation means. Check out S.2913: Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 and H.R.5889: Orphan Works Act of 2008.

Got that? Good. Now contact your congressional representatives. Now. Use these templates to automatically send emails or find and write your rep through the government site. The Illustrators' Partnership of America has plenty more information.

This is frightening. Act now.

Real American Heroes: G.I. Joe

These images are all over the internets about the upcoming G.I. Joe movie and I'm probably a few days late on it, I'm giddy like I'm 9 again and here it is (images raped from JoBlo.com):


Destro - Brilliant actor, but I want some metal face.


Hawk - Dennis Quaid is on the look.


Scarlett - Impressive, but I'm missing on that yellow suit and grey turtleneck. Sorry, we treasure our childhood fantasies.


The Baroness - I'd like three slices of smokin' evil please - oh, it's already here! Mmmm...


Storm Shadow - Bad ass and sword brothers with...


Snake Eyes - Helicopter blades, blind ninja, tragedy, strength, beauty. Raw awesome.

Honestly, I want to see Shipwreck. Was always partial to him from the amnesia 2-parter "It's Always Sunny in Springfield."

"Frogs in winter!"

No, you can't take the kid out of the dork or the dork out of the kid. Damn you if you tried.

UPDATE: IMDB Page. The Rock as Shipwreck? Really? Where's Flint? Lady Jaye? Spirit? Snow Job? Xomat and Tomax? The Dreadnoks? I guess you can't have it all.

But no Lady Jaye?

How about a G.I. Joe website for you to waste half your day reminiscing about episodes? I'm done. Hit the Roll Call and Character Pages to dig deep.

Digg & Stumble - Good Times

You may just realize that I've now added a couple little buttons at the bottom of each post. You will now see representatives from:

Digg:



and StumbleUpon:



Down at the bottom, next to the Comments link, you can now click and share your favorite Ricky Shambles posts with other users of Digg and StumbleUpon.

Don't have a Digg login? Don't have a StumbleUpon login? Why not? Don't you love freedom and Jesus and fuzzy kittens?

Well?

Get on the stick!

Speed Racer, Christina Ricci

Christina Ricci is in Speed Racer, and I will be seeing the movie solely for that fact.

Yum.

Cum and Cat Piss: Spring in Bloom!

How's you're Spring coming? My olfactory senses have been pummeled by the usual strange and suddenly new scents of the blooming flora of lovely Cincinnati, Ohio.

The first scent I'd like to talk about began affecting me sometime between 12 and 14, when I realized exactly what I was smelling. This is the Bradford Pear tree:



The Bradford Pear tree, when in bloom, smells like semen. That's right: cum. I don't know what else to say about it, really; if you've smelled it, you know it.

More importantly, the past week or two I've been haunted by a new blooming smell here in the Miami River Valley: cat pee. Something that is blooming around here smells like feline urine.

The weird thing? I'm one of very few people who can smell it. The wife, the daughter, and even the visiting in-laws think I'm losing my mind. But I've found some vague evidence that I'm not. Specifically, a report by a mother that talks about how her daughter cannot be in the same room with Paperwhites because they smell like cat urine.



It's my best lead yet, thought I have yet to track them down in the neighborhood.

Anyone else aware of a flowering plant that smells like cat urine that not everyone can smell?

UPDATE: Cat pee smell is juniper. Hurting for the next month or two.

Name 'n' Date - Jimmy 1973

Wow, I'm predictable. Last time it was Jimmy 1972 and before I looked back to see what I did last time, I've all of names and time in the world and I chose the same name a year later.

To recap: I type a name and a year into Google Image Search and see what comes up, what inspires me. No Photoshop this time, but I think it's still a worth a look. Captions always encouraged.


Bunk 10 is Not Gay


We'll Have Chicken on Sunday
(Note: Someone in this picture was named Toehead. Seriously.)


"I totally won the shit out of that."

Achtung! Compulsory Patriotism! I Said Now!

A couple of kids in a "small-town" Jr. High were suspended for not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance. I remember this thing, I think maybe in Jr. High, that they taught: the Constitution. I may be wrong, but it gave us the freedom to speak, even if the Podunk Jr. High says "yous gotta" in the student handbook.

This compulsory idol worship is absurd in that it is part of the reason Brits fled England for a savage wilderness, part of the reason our Founding Fathers started a war against their own governing body. The flag is a fabric representation of all of our freedoms, including the freedom to see it as a piece of fabric.

You do not need to pray to Jesus in church on Sunday morning to believe in God and you certainly do not have to pray to a flag to believe in America.

The Terrifying and Awesome Bridge

From DVICE:

How brave are you? Because from the looks of it, the Sky Bridge in Langkawi, Malaysia will require some guts to gross. That's because this majestic cable-stayed bridge is supported by only one support column as it wraps its way around a mountain a whopping 2,250 feet above sea level.

Base jumping, anyone?

Ooh, and a video:

Nuns Get None in Indiana

The US Supreme Court said that it was legal to demand picture IDs from voters. Now, a gaggle of nuns have been turned away from the polls. Why? Because they are old and don't have drivers licenses. So they cast a provisional vote. Generally, it's about minorities and the elderly and the poor. Now it's about nuns. Good thing the Government hates Catholics too.

Unless you're Bill Donahue. Then you get your own glory hole.

weffriddles

When I first ran across these yummy, yummy web-based riddles, it was the end of 2006 and they only existed through the second Batch. Now they're up to Batch 6.

Here's the idea: it's like a scavenger hunt completely encompassed in your browser. You will have to dig into some code, some properties, enter things into the address bar, and probably visit the forums for clues to progress from level to level.

It's fucking brilliant. Enjoy.

The Great Dictator

Here's some YouTube Chaplin love for all of us: