Vote For the Crazy Ones, They're Good At It

I like how all the Republican candidates* (or at least the ones that people care about) mostly have the same opinions on most of the important issues, so they're just resorting to trying to convince the voting populace that the other guy is a massive tool. Luckily, this has been pretty easy for them, because they're all massive tools. Sure, you get the occasional whack-job like Bachmann, who has completely retarded opinions, but we don't really consider those people serious candidates, do we? No, Bachmann is sort of like a defanged, declawed tiger wearing a top hat. Should be a threat, wants to be taken seriously as a threat, but just comes of as pathetically hilarious.

It doesn't help that most of them are terrible people. I love how they're all constantly trying to set themselves up as the "loveable everyman". You know, the kinda guy you'd totally want to go bowling and burn down a strip joint with.** Mitt Romney is especially bad with this. And yep, they're all millionaires. Okay, maybe not, but several of them are. And you know what? They don't give a damn about you and your middle class problems. I have no problem with rich people running for the presidency, but stop pretending you're just like the people you plan to spend the next few years dicking over. The Whig Party already did that back in the 19th century and it...wait yeah, it actually totally worked then.

My biggest fear, really, is that all the self-professed liberals will look at this mass of idiots and think "Oh yeah, they don't stand a chance. Obama's got this one for sure. We don't even need to bother voting." And then they won't. And then President Bachmann. THINK ABOUT TIT.

*Damn, been really political lately, haven't I? I hate myself for that. Must be something in the air.
**This is what other people do for fun, right? It's not just my friends?

Also Ty is Incredibly Obnoxious

I can't decide whether or not I like Extreme Makeover.* Well actually, not really. I HATE the show, but that's because it's a reality show, and reality shows make me want to vomit. What I REALLY can't decide is whether or not I support their endeavors regardless of that fact. On the one hand, helping people is good. That's something I think we can agree on, right? On the other hand, they do it in an incredibly corporate-whorish** way. Product placement, all that garbage. So that's a negative. On the other other hand, they're STILL helping people, and you need money to do that. The end result is positive, even if they had to sell-out a bit to get there. So that would make it a force for good, right?

But then I hit a bit of a snag. Okay, so we have this team of architects, engineers, construction workers, etc. who have the manpower and the resources to build an entire house in a week. Or at least, they claim it's a week, that might in fact be a complete lie. Now, the problem with this is, I feel like this amount of charity is sort of wasted. Sure, occasionally they'll have an episode where they help people who are truly, truly screwed (hurricane victims, people who got totally dicked by a lawsuit and ended up living in a shoebox, etc.) But most of the time, it's people who really aren't in THAT bad of a place. They're boned, sure, but not in a "one sprained ankle away from starvation" sort of way. And that bugs me.

I've been to New Orleans guys. Let me tell you something: It still sucks over there. There's still hurricane damage everywhere. These people could make an episode based in New Orleans every week for the next five years, and they'd still have a long way to go. And when things are like that, it's hard to take the "Our daughter is a midget, please help us" episodes*** seriously.

*You all KNOW I mean the "Home Edition" one. The original incarnation lasted like, two seasons? And the relationship between the two was kind of a stretch at best in the first place. Christ, why do I know that?
**Really spellcheck? "Whorish" is a word? Hot damn.
***No seriously, this happened. Everything else in their life was perfectly middle class. Some people don't even have houses. Just sayin'.

SPAAAAAAAACE

So apparently we've already sent out a probe that's going to Pluto, and it'll be there by 2015. Now that's cool and all, but also sort of sad. I mean, I'm sure there's all sorts of interesting scientific work, but we're all thinking the same thing. "There won't be any aliens on PLUTO. Silly scientists." See, because as far as I'm concerned, every single experiment and mission from any space program is just one piece of the larger goal of finding intelligent life on other planets. Or, screw it, unintelligent life. If we find a whole bunch of tapeworms living on some distant planet, awesome. That's exciting. We've proved aliens exist. That'd be enough for me. Then we can begin performing all sorts of terrifying experiments on the earthworms, because puny earth laws will no longer apply to us.

Not that we really need the proof. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It would take an incredible amount of willful ignorance to convince yourself that we are completely alone in the universe. Come on guys. INFINITE universe*. Infinite. Infinite numbers of planets. That's just...it's...goddammit. I hate it when the only real argument is "There just IS, okay?", because it's really sort of hard to argue for or against.

Speaking of which, I haven't checked, do young earth creationists believe that the universe is infinite? Or, failing that, at least in other galaxies and stuff? You know, because it seems like it would go against a lot of "literal truth" Biblical interpretations, and this is something we have definite proof of. Then again, these are the people who believe dinosaur bones were planted by Satan so I suppose anything is possible.

*Sort of. Kind of. They haven't actually conclusively proved it, but the official stance from astronomers seems to be that there is a finite density, but you could never actually reach the "edge" of the universe, which is close enough for me.

There Are No Appropriate Puns

Nothing interesting for me today? No? Great, let's harp on conservatives again.

I've already gone over the whole "If conservatives want a smaller government, why are they so into controlling our lives?" thing before, probably more than once. But something that's been particularly bugging me lately is the conservative stance on abortion. Yeah, we could go on for a long, long time about how stupid this debate is, and I know you all are just shocked, SHOCKED that I'm pro-choice,* but there's one thing in particular that's been bugging the hell out of me lately. Namely, how can you be "pro-life" while simultaneously decrying gun control and SUPPORTING THE DEATH PENALTY? Come on guys, at least be consistent. If the ultra-conservatives want to be the one "Kill things if necessary" side of every debate, they should be going all the way!

I thought you guys were supposed to be hardcore! You know, killing the gays and whatnot. Okay how about this: People like the Westboro Baptist Church are pro-life, and they want to kill homosexuals, right? Or at least, they wish they were all dead. Okay, so let's say there's a fetus that a woman wants to get aborted, and through magic future space technology, they know the kid's going to be gay. Somehow. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Would they want to abort the fetus? That'd be a hard sell, I think. The point I'm trying to make is the Westboro Baptist Church are bastards.

Pretending to be serious for a moment, this is probably one of those things that people are going to be arguing over for far, far into the foreseeable future. I mean, gay marriage legalization is basically inevitable, and I think someday people will agree that maybe we should get in on that free healthcare party, but abortions are going to be hard to get passed. At least as long as all the doctors keep getting assassinated. That's a great way to show that your side is the sane side guys.

*Calling your movement the "pro-life" movement is such a dick move. The implication that the opposite side is made up of people who hate life is so prevalent it hurts.

Side Effects Included Free of Charge

I like all of the medical commercials that advertise really gross health-related products, so they just have to dance around the issue for a minute of air time. Like how all those commercials for tampons and pads can't actually say "THIS IS A THING FOR MENSTRUATION. IF YOU ARE A WOMAN YOU SHOULD BUY THIS BECAUSE PERIODS." Because I'm pretty sure that would break at least seven FCC codes. And they never show blood on the pads, do they? No, it's always that mysterious blue liquid. Ladies, I am not a doctor, because that would be the most ludicrously atrocious idea ever formed by any human beings, but I am reasonably certain that if there is a fluorescent blue liquid coming out of you, something has gone horribly wrong. Nobody should be leaking out Oxi-Clean.

Another good one is Preparation H. No sane advertiser is going to come out and say "THIS IS A BUTT CREAM. YOU PUT IT ON YOUR BUTT." for fear of getting arrested. So all the Preparation H commercials just show people sitting on mildly uncomfortable things (lawnmowers, cheap lawnchairs, iron maidens, etc.), then complaining about it, then deciding to use Preparation H. Apparently, the advertisers are under the assumption that you already know what Preparation H does, so you don't have to have it explained to you. If that's the case, why do they need to advertise at all?

And then of course you get the opposite of this. Everyone once in a while you totally blindsided by a commercial that just comes out and says "HEY, DO YOU HAVE HERPES? THAT SUCKS. BUY HERPESAID. IT WILL KILL YOUR HERPES." I appreciate that. I like the thought that there are apparently some people in the advertising world who have completely lost their will to live and just want to see what they get away with now. At least until they figure out a way to reanimate Billy Mays's corpse.

But First an Important Message From Your Friends At Heinz

So, it kinda sucks that pretty much every video-sharing site is putting 30-second ads in front of their videos now. Not supremely terrible, but annoying. It seemed like a year ago, it was only a few of them. Then a few months ago, YouTube started doing it, and now it seems like everyone does. Sure, banner ads and pop-ups are annoying, but they're nothing a little pop-up blocker and some browser plug-ins can't fix. These before-video commercials though? No way to get rid of those, as far as I can tell. The most annoying thing about them is that some sites only run like five, so you're going to be seeing the same ones over and over and over again if you frequent the website. I know this is the sort of thing that we're just going to have to accept as the norm now that the Internet is becoming an increasingly massive figure in modern life, but that doesn't mean we can't bitch about it.

What I find especially hilarious are those ones on YouTube that are like two minutes long, but they let you skip right past them after five seconds have passed. Most of them haven't even said the product name by that point, and you'll never know either, because you're most likely not going to sit through an entire ad when you can just skip the damn thing. What sense does that make? I'm not complaining, I suppose, because I can just click right past them, but it seems like a massive waste of everyone's time. Apparently, YouTube told some advertising that they could have either a 30-second spot or a 2-minute spot, but people could skip them in five seconds if they took the two minutes. And advertisers, not being real people, but in fact evil aliens, assumed that people would watch the whole thing anyway. That's fascinating.

Oh well, at least it's not as bad as TV. Yet. Luckily, TV is probably going to keel over and die soon. Netflix is a much better way to watch production-quality entertainment, and the Internet is a much faster tool for spreading information. Screw TV.

Deep Thought

You know what's fun? Dissecting blatantly rhetorical Zen riddles in an unnecessarily complicated manner. So let's do that.

Is the glass half full, or half empty? Well, that really would depend wouldn't it? Is the glass be filled up, or emptied out. If it's being filled up, then it's half full. If you're draining it, it's half empty. That seems pretty straightforward, right? Unless this is some kind of space-time glass that has constantly existed since the beginning of the universe, and has therefore never been filled OR emptied. And why is this always used to see if someone is an optimist or a pessimist? The riddle doesn't really say what the glass is full of, does it? I mean, a glass half-full of water is sort of a neutral thing, I guess. But a glass half-full of cyanide? Bad thing. Unless the cyanide is being used in, I dunno, a mixture that cures cancer or something. Really, this is a question that is not even close to specific enough.

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is an inherently stupid question. It's really more "What the hell do you consider one hand clapping to be?" Is it slapping your fingers against the inside of your palm? Because that sort of makes a sound. A little one. Is it flailing one of your hands around like a complete spaz, pretending that the other hand is there? Because in that case, it's the sound of air pockets and all that nonsense. Again, not specific enough. We have no idea what you want from us, theoretical question asker!

And of course, if a tree falls in the forest, it does make a sound. Or rather, it makes a vibration. Which is a sound. Although it will only actually become a sound when it's interpreted by an ear. So yes and no. Also, why is it always trees falling in forests? Forests are pretty crowded. They're very rarely completely devoid of life. And it's not like trees falling over is the only thing makes a sound in the universe. Broaden your horizons a bit. And hey, what if the tree was in space? No sound there, right? No oxygen. But trees can't grow in space, you insipid clod. Now get back to work.