Thursday, September 19, 2013

Reformation

Heya Kids!

In the bleary-eyed wake of the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, rather than allow myself to drift off into a drooling brain-dead state of zombification from too many hours of high-velocity police chases through the streets of Los Santos, I have decided to make an effort to revive these pages. Keep my brain moving. Help to make myself feel a little better about the countless hours I'm sure to be wasting in the coming weeks and months in the pixelated gangster's paradise from the great people at Rockstar North.

So, I'm back bitches. Let's see how long The Ride lasts this time 'round.

And in the vein of new beginnings, of fresh outlooks, of silver linings - here is a delightful rag from the pages of The New York Times

Pope Bluntly Faults Church’s Focus on Gays and Abortion

Hot damn, how's that for refreshing?

In the first lengthy interview of his papacy, Pope Francis has expressed some very interesting opinions - though to be fair, they are only fresh and engaging when considering the source. In an effort to stage a departure from the church's history of moral discrimination and indoctrination, Pope Francis has taken a stance regarding acceptance and love for your fellow man that can only be described as...well, Christian. What a novel concept!

In a move that has caused waves of discontent to ripple through the lower offices of the church hierarchy, Francis has abandoned the hateful and discriminatory rhetoric that has been the root of centuries of subjugation and violence from the hands of the church in favor of a paradigm that, if you read The Book, much more closely follows the teachings of every hooker's best friend - Jesus Christ.

In a very progressive move for the head office of the Catholic Church, Francis was quoted as saying the following:
It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time...The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

We have to find a new balance

Of course, as we all know, there is no time quite like the beginning of one's tenure in office to make outlandish claims that you have no intention of delivering on - just look at El Presidente. But still, I retain a spattering of naive hope for this. With attendance crashing and members of the flock fleeing the church in droves that can only compare to the locusts of Egypt, Francis is right about one thing - a new balance must be found if the Catholic Church is to have any hope of lasting another century - let alone another millenia. And while I know many would like to see the institution torn apart, brick by blood-soaked brick, I must admit it would be nice to see an abandonment of all the hypocrisy from an organization that professes to be founded on love and universal acceptance.

But with all things, only time will tell - eh, friends?

And with that long-winded ramble about nothing, here's a little something to bring a chuckle your way:



Three Monkeys Say: Critical thinking, kids. It's your friend

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Blood in the Water

Top o' the morning to ye, dear friends!

Ah, how I have missed you. Yes, you. The unwashed sloven fellow with the cereal milk dripping out of your beard at 2 in the afternoon. How have you been, and where have all of the good drugs gone?

Well, here's hoping today's triumphant return to these pages catches you before your seafood luncheon. The Ride is Back, bitches. Hold On.

From The New York Times: Japanese Nuclear Plant May have been Leaking for Two Years

Now, there really is only one appropriate response to an article like this one, and that is to violently spray coffee all over your computer monitor while gargling and sputtering out a choked gut laugh. And then, to sit back and marvel at the collection of sentences that apparently justifiably sit under the heading of "plant MAY have been leaking." Such as an indirect quote from the head of the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority which reads "the evidence was overwhelming."

Of course, it is hard to get too upset at these poor fools. The task they are facing is the definition of Herculean. You are talking about shutting off a miniature sun which is burning radioactive death and leaking it into the oceans, a miniature sun who's first ignition was only slowed and tempered by the extreme Catch-22 circumstance of having enough ocean water close at hand to dump hundreds of thousands of gallons on it to try and cool the meltdown, all while knowing that you are dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of ocean water onto a nuclear site and dumping it BACK out to sea. Bang up start to operations, truly.

Sorry kids, the sad fact of the matter is that these toys do not come with an off switch. Once they're on, they're on for generations. And if you lose control of the beast, you're talking about turning everything for miles into a cancerous wasteland. And while the Japanese are doing everything in their power to stem the flow of leaking radiation into the local groundwater and out to the oceans, the sad truth is they're coming to the table woefully ill-equipped. And if you need any proof to that statement, the defeat conveyed in the last line of this article in describing efforts to contain the leaks is staggering:

We don’t truly know whether that will work, Mr. Tanaka said. Of course, we’d hope to eliminate all leaks, but in this situation, all we can hope for is to minimize the impact on the environment. If you have any better ideas, we’d like to know.

Operators are standing by. Give us a call if you've got any ideas, because we've got no fucking clue on this end.



Three Monkeys Say: Don't call it a come back, bitch