Ready. Set. RIOT!!!

My Review of The Venture Bros. Embroidered Patches Set Number 2

2010-11-16T10:01:00.001-06:00

Continue blanketing your life in obscure, visual references to geek culture by purchasing and immediately applying this second set of official, embroidered Venture Bros. Patches. Dipping even further into the show's universe of affiliations and organizations, this set offers you four new flavor...

Smaller than one would hope

By The Reverend from Austin, Texas on 11/16/2010

Pros: Durable, Fun, Entertaining

Cons: TOO SMALL

Best Uses: Skinny Girl's Jacket, Rockabilly Hat Frontpiece

Describe Yourself: Eccentric Iconoclast

Was this a gift?: No

They're great patches, with good designs, but they are only about 75% of the size they should be. If one is familiar with common military and corporate patches, these will disappoint with their meager size.

(legalese)

8 facts about cats and their habits

2010-02-27T07:44:00.000-06:00

8 facts about cats and their habits
1. Every day grand master cat comes down his old oak stairs with a pot of gravy in one hand and a copy of the bible in the other. He likes to see which is heaviest.
2. Cats are notorious for their affinity with drugs. They like to use needles because it makes them look thinner and more catlike.
3. Hop into a waste paper market with your cat and notice the pronounced shuddering effect.
4. Cats are well known masters of bad puns. "Meow, meow meow". Hah ha ha! That’s such a SHOCKINGLY bad pun.
5. Pursued in the mist by panthers? Dress only in orange! Panthers can't see orange!
6. Wild cats are different from house cats. Talk about them in your sleep and wild cats explode out of there boxes.
7. Indie rock band Slow Fluttering Jesus once used a cat in their stage act but found it ultimately impractical. "It just gets all stringy the more you bounce and warp it". "And the bloody creosote stinks too".
8. Cats drink milk.
9. I'm bored with this. It's just a lot of nonsense that doesn't mean anything.

8 facts about the evil of sexism

2010-02-25T07:42:00.001-06:00

8 facts about the evil of sexism
1. Sexism is caused by men’s desire to have cute pony tails and sing with high voices.
2. Only men can be sexist. Women just can't because of their genetic code and stuff.
3. One form of sexism is when a man says to a woman that what she is doing is "really cool". In "man language" (which women can learn to speak if they try. See more about this later) this means "I want to fuck all of your holes until they are raw, you worthless animal".
4. Sexism is funded by a large multinational conglomerate. If you want to pursue sexism as a hobby or a lifestyle choice then they will happily give you a grant to help your efforts. Their slogan is: "Men are cool. Yeah!"
5. The least well known act of sexism is the snort. Snort at anything and you are being "technically sexist" i.e. you may not actually hate women or see women as being any less entitled to basic human rights than men but snorting is just sexist and that's that.
6. Questioning definitions of sexism is, in itself, sexist. Because, of course, women define the meaning of the term "sexism" and if you disagree with a woman you are clearly sexist
7. Wearing a dress does not make you a woman.
8. The most sexist joke in the world: Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: 4. One to screw it in, one to write a hundred page dissertation about how the bulb is violating the socket, one to secretly wish to be the bulb and one to secretly wish to be the socket. Second most sexist joke in the world: Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: THATS NOT FUNNY.

8 ways to halt the evil of sexism

2010-02-24T07:40:00.001-06:00

8 ways to halt the evil of sexism
1. a:Cut off your penis. b:Take a photo of your excised member. c:Rent a large number of billboards. d:Place the photo on your billboards with the caption "NAUGHTY".(Note: this only works if you are a man).
2. Float past peoples windows with a big speaker device screaming "PATRIARCHISM IS BAD. YOU MUST RESIST THE TIDE OF GENDER FACISM. STOP IT NOW. DO WHAT WE TELL YOU."
3. Learn about your manly needs and why they are disgusting. Then accept that your manly needs are unnecessary and must be repressed. And remember: you DO have manly needs whether you think so or not.
4. Do not watch films that might effect your views in such a way that you start to have "unacceptable" ideas. Particularly things that might lead you to question feminist ideas. This is the road to being a rapist.
5. Support mandatory sterilization for rapists. Also design a cool French revolution style guillotine to perform the deed.
6. If you are an architect it is your responsibility to make sure that you don't impose an ugly phallus on the landscape. All buildings should be breast shaped and it is your duty to make sure that no more imposingly sexual buildings are built. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
7. Live in a fantasy world where nothing bad ever happens.
8. Don't finger your genitalia in public. It's like you're raping a woman’s thoughts and forcing her to imagine you rubbing baby oil over your long hard manly penis. Forcing that sort of thought on women is rape.

8 reasons to completely coat yourself in a thick layer of plastic

2010-02-22T07:39:00.000-06:00

8 reasons to completely coat yourself in a thick layer of plastic
1. Brrrrr! It's cold outside! Must have insulation.
2. Makes you look sexee!
3. Not being able to breath makes you beautiful.
4. Somebody who writes words in a magazine that features attractive people wearing clothes that they're trying to sell you says that it's "cool and completely in line with this years look".
5. Ants cannot invade your various orifices.
6. You can dunk yourself in water without getting wet.
7. Being confined might give you a sexual thrill.
8. If you don't have skin you need something to keep the elements out and keep the blood and stuff in!

8 facts about paper folding

2010-02-21T07:38:00.000-06:00

8 facts about paper folding
1. "Folding" paper is when you take a piece of paper and sort of push it around so that it gets flatter.
2. Make a folded paper dream out of brand new love plants.
3. There must be a way to fold paper so that it changes color and texture too.
4. 18 tons a day. That's how much paper is inserted into the anus's of pigs for a funny joke before being lit.
5. You can make so many things by folding paper! Try making history!
6. If you get to the pearly gates...tell them I sent you.
7. In here? On the right? That's where you keep your supply of paper? But...it's too hot, the paper will wilt and dry away to nothing!
8. Wet paper can be folded and molded too!

8 translations of "manspeak"

2010-02-18T07:36:00.000-06:00

8 translations of "manspeak"
1. "Hey, that's a nice dress you're wearing" : "That dress looks flimsy enough for me to tear it off and rub myself against your naked slut body".
2. "I don't like clams" : "Our relationship is over bitch".
3. "I was talking to X at work today..." (where X=female associate) : "X is a really horny slut and I want to have her more and more every time I stare at her breasts".
4. "Uh huh": "I'm not listening to you because you bore the hell out of me".
5. "I drove here today" : "i have a big lump on my back that I want you to taste".
6. "DO you have to look at John that way?" : "I want to film you doing foul and deviant things with John and show the tapes to all my friends".
7. Anything at all : something about sex probably. That’s what men are like isn't it? They just think with their fat cocks all the time.
8. "I think our relationship is over" : "Look I can do a handstand!".

8 reasons why you should email me

2010-02-15T07:33:00.001-06:00

8 reasons why you should email me
1. Sending email makes your genitals larger or smaller depending on what you want.
2. Pie tastes better after you've talked to me.
3. I am very nice.
4. You should give your sig file a workout. It will rot if you don't.
5. Typing is also good exercise.
6. Sitting is good or your stomach.
7. Because I am sad and lonely and like to get email.
8. If I don't get anybody telling me how great I am I might start doing other things.

8 great new names for adult education shows

2010-02-12T07:32:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for adult education shows
1. Learn!
2. Thickboy!
3. The application of quadratic equations in chemistry in the 18th century because we know all about that. We still live with our parents but we know everything about that. Sob.
4. Arts for ignoramuses
5. Can't read? Then you're a fucker!
6. Pay attention you ignorant freak
7. Transvestitsm: well, are you?
8. Talk about your problem hair

8 great new names for kids non-animation shows

2010-02-10T07:31:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for kids non-animation shows
1. You're young. You're stupid.
2. Animal slaughter
3. 2+2=something you don't know
4. Cool it up
5. Dawson's girlfriend's gash
6. Art assault.
7. Filler
8. Filler 2: "because your not worth programming for"

8 great new names for Kids Animation shows

2010-02-04T08:30:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for Kids Animation shows
1. Buy this stuff please
2. Buy this stuff now please
3. Buy this stuff now
4. Go on. Give us your cash
5. We know you're easily manipulated. Ha. Ha. Ha.
6. Wow these toys look cool!
7. It may be plastic but it won't break!
8. Battle of the toy manufacturers

8 facts about sleeping on the floor

2010-02-01T09:46:00.000-06:00

8 facts about sleeping on the floor
1. You get rats in your hair. They gnaw at your head. Good job it's only made of wood!
2. Sometimes you will be mistaken for carpet. To avoid this try very hard not to look exactly like a carpet. And try to to waft your carpety scent over people either.
3. The rats are a recurring theme in many peoples carpet dreams.
4. Hard floors are better for you. They make you look sexy.
5. Token gestures of defiance, such as raised fists and aligning your bags with the rising sun, will not be tolerated.
6. The word to use when trying to sleep is "moose". It sounds good and encourages delusions of softer, fleecier things.
7. If you sleep face down with your mouth open you may learn more than you had anticipated about the things your friends spill. Like pizza.
8. Mostly flummoxed? Then try carrying a soft rabbit with you to use as a pillow. Attach it the floor with glue (which is a more practical solution than nailing) and you have a fluffy bed.

8 great new names for Sit Coms

2010-02-01T09:29:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for Sit Coms
1. Fuck, where did you come from?
2. Father John Paul II
3. "Chalk" my arse. Okay I will!
4. I'm living with a gay man. I must be funny!
5. Living in sin
6. Sabrina: the teenage watch
7. Talking balls? Why yes they are!
8. Baddiel and Skinner's "Wank in a Football Tits"

8 great new names for Sci Fi dramas

2010-01-27T04:27:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for Sci Fi dramas
1. Space device x2001
2. Star Star
3. Far trek
4. Boob trek
5. Trek trek trekity trek
6. Archard van Splutens
7. Midnight vulture
8. Mars doesn't give a shit about us

8 great new names for news shows

2010-01-23T07:25:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for news shows
1. News nuttery
2. Weekly wank
3. Daily dose
4. Idiotic illiteration
5. Here's Kirsty!
6. The day.
7. Newsgrill
8. The nude news. With Kirsty!

8 great new names for factual shows

2010-01-22T10:25:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for factual shows
1. Embarrassing diseases are cool
2. Toasted genitalia
3. History splash!
4. Tony's "the history of hair loss"
5. History fetish
6. Art: The dawn of shit
7. Art: The dawn of dawn
8. Shit Review

8 great new names for sports shows

2010-01-18T07:24:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for sports shows
1. Kick!
2. Punch!
3. Slap!
4. Football love
5. Sports quiz! With desperation!
6. What a load of Rugby
7. Shouting people
8. Horse shooting

8 great new names for TV drama

2010-01-13T23:31:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for TV drama
1. Murder squad..again!
2. Sex and murder squad
3. Blue sex squad
4. Love under the tanker
5. I'm Ray, I eat babies
6. The thing about murder
7. Murder me, I'm a wanker
8. Just crime

8 great new names for soap operas

2010-01-12T23:30:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for soap operas
1. The Dulls
2. Suicide lane
3. Lesbian exploitation extravaganza
4. We're rich. Your poor. Ha ha ha!
5. Gritty shitty
6. We're cheap Australians!
7. Tedious bullshit Street
8. Divorce

8 great new names for game shows

2010-01-11T16:28:00.000-06:00

8 great new names for game shows
1. Piercings. Mmm!
2. The millennium wheel of fortune
3. Ready steady fat
4. Lestor Piggot's Blankety blank!
5. Bruces "the sexy game"
6. Les Dennis's "The Ironic talent show"
7. Bruces "Fuck me now and I'll make you a star"
8. Pointless exercise in ego massage with Jim Davidson

8 facts about the geese that invade Poland

2010-01-09T16:27:00.000-06:00

8 facts about the geese that invade Poland
1. They come every year around noon.
2. They march. Not quack.
3. If you hold a goose up to the light it's feathery majesty will be exposed to you.
4. They are intent on the land.
5. No one even suspects their true motivation. Slithering.
6. while in poland the geese make use of the surrounding facilities. If you know what I "mean".
7. They are special geese. So special that they can walk on 2 legs like humans!
8. they may be smart but they're not so smart that they figure everything out.

8 facts about running a brothel

2010-01-07T19:26:00.000-06:00

8 facts about running a brothel
1. You have to keep a large supply of pigs. Never run out.
2. Your girls should have breasts. Two each is preferable.
3. The dandelions on your back will never grow if you don't stop rubbing them with fly corpses.
4. Make sure you know who strips bark.
5. Tie a load of tripe to a tree. It will ensure your prosperous continuation by exuding pheromones.
6. The best Police officers have shinny truncheons. They only bat the furniture though!
7. Taken aside by you. Then taken on down.
8. Make people do what you want by employing a large force of security guards but make sure that no one notices by keeping them in a big pot in the kitchen.

8 facts about massage

2010-01-01T11:24:00.000-06:00

8 facts about massage
1. If you touch someone for money you are evil.
2. Slap. Pop. Crack. This is the essence of massage.
3. Never confuse your friends with your hands. You might try and rub someone with a companion!
4. The stringy backed type enjoys paste more than unction.
5. The smoother the surface, the less resistance to your spite.
6. Calmly do it. Calmly...THEN STRIKE!
7. Pubic massage is a whole separate issue.
8. In Rome they scrape. Here, you should wash

8 facts about waddling

2009-12-30T17:18:00.000-06:00

8 facts about waddling
1. Ducks do because they know you are watching. Your sight turns there waist to jelly.
2. Fatness makes a man waddle.
3. It's just such a hip new look! Like cheese strings or something!
4. Wear baggier trousers, Frank!
5. You generate more energy if you waddle. Just tie your head to the generator
6. Forward speed reduced. Lateral enjoyment maximized!
7. Intoxicated people who also waddle tend to smack their heads against walls.
8. Never waddle in court. Judges will think you are a duck (see #1).

8 abstract sexual practices

2009-12-23T15:15:00.000-06:00

8 abstract sexual practices
1. Dropping leaves on park benches.
2. Whistling on the bus.
3. Riding a bike to work.
4. Listening to the sound of salt pots clacking on tables in McDonalds.
5. Throwing coits.
6. Writing notes to your boss about the supply of paperclips.
7. Sitting in a car waiting for the traffic lights to change.

8 relatively unusual deviant sexual practices

2009-12-18T23:21:00.000-06:00

8 relatively unusual deviant sexual practices
1. Going into toilets and disguising your mouth as a toilet bowl so that strangers shit in it.
2. Supergluing your nipples to the back of a bus.
3. Playing nude hopscotch in school playgrounds.
4. Secretly coating your body in brylcream and cling film under your clothes before going badger baiting.
5. Making "love" to shop store dummies in the middle of Debenhams.
6. Having your genitals pierced and linked to your dogs genital piercings.
7. Inserting beetles into the anus of your sleeping flatmates.
8. Taking your girlfriends soiled underpants and paying a prostitute to smell them.

8 DOs and DON'Ts about collecting sweat

2009-12-13T23:20:00.000-06:00

8 DOs and DON'Ts about collecting sweat
1. DO take off your hat. The sweat might well kill germs but it also fries your scalp.
2. DO ensure collection of underarm deposits for scientific usage.
3. DO carry home your friends in a bag. They are so embarrassed.
4. DO show your friends your collection.
5. DON'T hog the vials. You'll get your turn.
6. DON'T leave the sweat out in the sun. Why? Because...sweat sweats too!
7. DON'T read too much into your results. They may be slanted by growths.
8. DON'T press your lips against the soothing machine. Corrupted!

8 cool new drugs

2009-12-08T23:19:00.000-06:00

8 cool new drugs
1. Swipe : Turns your eyes bright orange and makes it easier for you to find a Taxi.
2. Grainy : Causes your body to erupt in a series of bright tattoos made up of euphemisms for masturbation.
3. Nautilus : Lets you grow a shell and swim in molten cheese.
4. Body slop : Makes all carnivals look like a parade of meat wagons.
5. Flimsey : Has no effect. Just sounds cool.
6. Mouse chaser : Causes you do die immediately from anal cancer.
7. Flak : Makes everything taste like cough syrup but smell like grass in the summer.
8. Moisture : Hallucinogen. Makes you think you're "wicked".

8 great clothing items

2009-12-03T23:17:00.001-06:00

8 great clothing items
1. Skimp : Sort of hat that you wear without any other clothes. Like a bikini but disguises your ugly face.
2. Fully : Wrist device that conveys your belief in "the now of wrists".
3. Messadage : An amazing cross between camping equipment and clothes! A pair of trousers...with a stove!
4. Wampum : All the fun of the fair in a towel that you wear all day!
5. Coalhouse : Flirty tops are out! Wear this lump of plastic!
6. Stylio : It's Spanish! It's made out of the corpses of bulls! "Stylio" indeed.
7. Carnarf : Talk to your friends and they will all tell you about how they "know people who talk with god". Here’s how!
8. Felchering : A sort of special funnel you attach to a gusset. Comes in male and female versions.

8 new magic tricks

2009-11-27T23:16:00.001-06:00

8 new magic tricks
1. The slow marshal : Shouts "I want a big piece of crab from the audience" and then shoots himself, magically not getting any blood on the audience
2. The lippy baboon : His assistant is forced into a cage and shouted at. She magically gets the audience to kill the magician who then, rather than letting her out, stand around the cage and make loud sex noises.
3. Coddled dopey : Card trick. The desperate magician takes the cards and eats them. Then keeps everyone a prisoner for a day and shits out the card that the audience member picked.
4. The snarl : The magician employs a gang of surly midgets to stare at the audience.
5. Freedom from Alaska : He takes off in a plane and then lands stating "the gift of flight!"
6. Snip snip snip : The magician runs up and down shouting anti Japanese profanities with the letter "s" added to the beginning without getting killed
7. Soiled but yes : A lady magician shows the audience her breasts and then proceeds to have sex with her male assistant. The audience return 9 months later to witness "the miracle of birth".
8. Themsup : Magicians from all over the country gather in a small field and just stand there. Everyone loves it. Magically.

8 facts about dancing

2009-11-21T19:14:00.001-06:00

8 facts about dancing
1. Move back. Move forward. This is the essence of dance.
2. Shaking can be dangerous to surrounding pots. Wrap them careful with butter smeared paper.
3. Lasciviousness is often encouraged by agreeing to dance with a member of the opposite sex. Remember to wear good strong pants and glue them around the edges. Use strong adhesive. Don't worry about your skin.
4. Monkeys dance better with electrodes on their heads.
5. Body extremities can be jarred and knocked out of kilter. Sit down.
6. People who dance are hateful towards those that don't, but they are always "hipper". So try and follow their lead and fit in!
7. Can't get a partner to dance with? You smell. Wash.
8. Blood flows into your legs while dancing so try cutting them off and shaking them. And it looks cool too!

8 facts about the French

2009-11-19T15:13:00.001-06:00

8 facts about the French
1. They all live in nice houses on rivers.
2. You'll never see them eating anything made out of blood.
3. Chain them to a railing and they scream.
4. Ruffle a French persons hair and they go all droopy and weird. Why?
5. It's as though if you take them away from washing they want to even more.
6. Mine a huge resource of guile in some parts of the world by talking to French people. Big noses see everything!
7. Cats are eaten in France.
8. The French refer to themselves as "Mr Pantaloon".

8 facts about mice and their pro-communist habits

2009-11-10T15:15:00.000-06:00

8 facts about mice and their pro-communist habits
1. They gather under floorboards, marshaling troops.
2. Hear them skitter and skatter! It's a sound like tree bark rubbed hard against the spine!
3. Is it too much to ask for them to stop staring at me? Beady black little eyes make me wince.
4. Stamp them out. Use big hard, boots and crush them. No videos, just bloody soles.
5. They eat cheese. Collectives favor cheese for "ease of rationing".
6. They leave small, brown suicide pills wherever they roam.
7. They run up trouserlegs to collectivise underpants.
8. Lick a mouse and start cough, cough, coughing! Lick off their nasty fur and you will find them defenseless.

8 ways to procure assistance

2009-11-08T09:59:00.000-06:00

8 ways to procure assistance
1. Make sure they can see that you have an ass. Some people don't have them and are unpopular
2. Take a big piece of card with "tree" written on it with you to the train station. Hold it out in front of you. Hopefully you will be approached by a tree at some point. Trees aren't much help though.
3. Stand on the side of the road and rub your legs with salt. As people approach, intent on the salt, suggest that they do some "stuff" for you. have it to hand. and beware the many salt fixated elephants.
4. Just sit still. Just stay there and sit still. Just be thankful for the beauty of telepathy.
5. Find a police officer and show them your bruises. as they start to take an interest kidnap them in some way.
6. Pills help to take away the pain.
7. Find a big hat to stand under. Hold it. Above your head.
8. Mine a profitable streak of sanity with the help of others.

8 facts about subliminal messages

2009-11-03T09:43:00.001-06:00

8 facts about subliminal messages
1. You might think that your life is over when you can't perceive the gate.
2. I will find you somewhere to live.
3. If you give up on heartache you'll be so much better off.
4. Take yourself to me. It may be your only chance.
5. Get the contents of all friends houses and take them to a charity shop.
6. And when the lord gave your cat to Jesus it was only a joke.
7. So you don't really want that money then?
8. Show the word that you're upside down now.

8 facts about war

2009-10-30T05:42:00.000-05:00

8 facts about war
1. When lots of people are fighting most grownups call it "war".
2. Fighting is bad. You must not fight.
3. If you are a girl and someone you like is a boy you are bad. You must go to war with them.
4. You owe it to your forefathers (and mothers!) to fight in bad big war.
5. Tanks are big and made out of fabric. It's like a big pair of trousers that shoots people.
6. Thrust your nonsense into this vice! Lets tickle it with force!
7. Deserts are a good place for war! Lots of sand, so if you fall over...no hurts!
8. Some people die.

8 facts about telephones

2009-10-25T09:41:00.000-05:00

8 facts about telephones
1. Listen...there is the sound. It's cows, isn't it?
2. You can't hear people even if you listen closely. It's all just a wall of horrible static made by everyone in the world rubbing against each other.
3. You can use telephones for many things. Like frightening stupid animals!
4. Shaped like the end of the world, placed in a barrel.
5. Toasted phones are probably eaten by some foreigners
6. I don't eat phones. I have them near me. As temptation. But I don't touch them.
7. The numbers on phones are all fake. they don't mean what you think.
8. Portable phone = death by greasing with hogfat.

8 facts about scraping yourself

2009-10-22T07:38:00.000-05:00

8 facts about scraping yourself
1. It looks great when you shine lights on it.
2. They can't take you to prison if you don't have any skin.
3. Your skin is soft and delicate. Even the hardest of rabble rousers only requires mild abrasion to cause injury.
4. Oh. Oh god. The..the cheesegrater. It's so beautiful!
5. When your friends take you bowling, always slip when you let go of the ball.
6. Be careful when telling your friends about your hobby. "Nasty gash" isn't just a phrase used to describe skin injuries. It's also used in farming!
7. The best way to avoid being a victim of armed robbery is to strap a huge light to your head.
8. Never forget that blood is the best friend ever.

8 facts about vacations abroad

2009-10-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

8 facts about vacations abroad
1. Those wacky foreign people! They'll do anything for a laugh! Like smack you in the mouth, you drunken whore.
2. Other nations use languages other than English. Cower in fear as you listen to the tongue of the devil in the mouths of these people.
3. Always take plenty of things that you can use for barter. While they may accept daughters you should make sure that she's not ugly and doesn't grunt like a pig. Try to think of something that your foreign pals might actually want!
4. Foreign food is sometimes thought of as "muck". It's actually "suck". Some idiot just translated it incorrectly. Doh!
5. Skiing is for wimps and pansies. Thus, it is great! Wimps and pansies are cool too!
6. Some holidays involve running through foreign woods with a mask over your head but no other clothes. You scream because the men are stabbing at you. They could probably catch you any time they wanted to.
7. Sun is cool. If you could just get closer to it your tan would be even better. Thus: wear no clothes and stand on top of the tallest building you can see. Wave your arms about to swim in the suns gorgeous, tanning, sexual rays. Mmmm!
8. Drugs can be found at many modern resorts. Just check your brochure for details! What? You don't...have a brochure? GET THE FUCK OFF MY BEACH TOWEL AND TAKE YOUR STUPID FRIENDS WITH YOU.

8 DOs and DON'Ts about banging on drums

2009-10-15T23:12:00.000-05:00

8 DOs and DON'Ts about banging on drums
1. DO get a drum that's bigger than you but smaller than your fat older brother "Ted".
2. DO listen to the sound. They make a lovely sort of ringing. A bit like bells actually.
3. DO use sticks to get a woody sound then use your fists to get a sort of fleshy sound and use a live gazelle for a scampering and falling over sound.
4. DO stay inside. It rains outside and you might drown. If you press your nose and mouth against the pavement that is!
5. DON'T oppress your neighbors by noisily defecating on their pets, children or flowers.
6. DON'T get your hand stuck in the top of the drum after experimenting with knife based drumming techniques.
7. DON'T paint your drum with psychedelic-stylee colors and pretend it's, like, totally cosmic, man. Really. It's just a happening thing! Oooh rub it over my tongue, feels like cold wet moss!
8. DON'T decide that your drums are stupid and stop playing. Keep playing and everything will work out! You will be employed and happy. Your spouse may also be happy. Your closest associates will seek you out for your sage advice. And your parents will die happily in their sleep. Ah, THE END!

8 facts about automobiles

2009-10-14T09:34:00.000-05:00

8 facts about automobiles
1. They are like cars, only automatic.
2. They have wheels that sit on the road. When you talk to the wheels they get excited and start to revolve.
3. You can't really steer an automobile. You just have to hope that it goes near the place that you buried the bodies.
4. The windows are made out of sugar. Go on! Lick them! Like in Willy Wonka! But watch out. Willy won't like it if you lick all the way through and ruin his laughter device.
5. To mend an automobile requires years of experience and an affinity for grease and bad smells.
6. Take your happy pills children. Uncle Santa will be here with the new automobile soon! Then we'll be able to take you to the shops and you can pick whatever cool thing you want! And we can drive to school instead of you walking in the rain! Everything will be wonderful! What’s that? Toby, take that sawdust treat out of your mouth and speak clearly. Oh. It's only a toy automobile.
7. Sit still. Don't panic. If you panic the automobile will sense your distrust and just whisk you all over the shop.
8. You can't shut those doors unless you use real force.

8 facts about trains

2009-10-13T06:37:00.001-05:00

8 facts about trains
1. When a train enters a big tunnel everyone gets excited. I don't know why though. They all sit around me with a thrilled look on their faces, as though something great is happening but I just don't get it.
2. Trains are long things that carry people. Sometimes you might know those people but mostly you don't.
3. The arctic circle would be a stupid place to put a train.
4. Would you melt if you were put in a furnace?
5. They make a clacking noise.
6. Like a floating palace. Oooh.
7. Trains run on "tracks". They go so fast that they make your heart beat like a drum.
8. When they stop you have to get out. This can lead to disappointment if the place where you disembark does not live up to your mental image of it.

8 facts about planes

2009-10-07T09:30:00.000-05:00

8 facts about planes
1. A plane is a broad area of land that can fly through the air with the greatest of ease.
2. Many mammals such as buffalo graze on the plane. They sit in their seats and watch the movie then they hunker down and chew on the grass.
3. Broad monsters with snarls made of teeth stalk the aisles of the plane looking for gazelles and stuff to eat. They usually settle for the vodka and chopsticks
4. Babies cry on planes because of the air pressure. They're not unhappy or anything.
5. The pilot of the plane (technically called "Andrew") sings a little song to himself. It keeps its mind occupied.
6. Over there are the drinks. Here are the shrinks. Then you'll see the sphinx.
7. You can walk all the way across a plane without seeing another human being but beware the alarming crosswinds.
8. Towels should be available to anyone who washes in a watering hole.

8 ways to confuse children

2009-10-02T11:15:00.001-05:00

8 ways to confuse children
1. Tell them that their parents have gone abroad without them. Works best if you are their parents.
2. Walk in from work wearing a Santa Claus outfit in the middle of July. Tell them that you've had a hard day at work so they can't have any presents
3. When they ask for new clothes insist that you don't know what clothes are.
4. Smear yourself in faecal matter. Then walk into their birthday party and declare "Hi, I'm Shitstorm the clown!" "Who wants to see a special trick with a nitting needle and a trouser snake?"
5. Wake them up early by shouting at them and shriek about how they have got to go to school in France.
6. Repeatedly refer to the car as their "other mother".
7. Point at random people and say "look, that man's face looks stupid, go and tell him". When the well trained child refuses insist that they do it "or else". When they come back after doing the deed tell them that they are evil. Repeat.
8. Pretend that kittens are actually camels. Tell your children that you were riding one "only five minutes ago".

8 joyfully abstract ways to kill people

2009-09-24T09:25:00.001-05:00

8 joyfully abstract ways to kill people
1. Taking them to some fields.
2. Slowly. Slowly now. That’s it. Just get the bag out of the bin. SLAM!
3. Showing them a road somewhere.
4. Sealing them in a room with lots of food and water and air for a day.
5. Feeding them to a cow.
6. Making them smell a flower.
7. Loading them into a baggage handling experiment.
8. Caressing their well formed thighs.

8 cool subliminal messages to put into films, newspapers and books

2009-09-18T12:50:00.001-05:00

8 cool subliminal messages to put into films, newspapers and books
1. The best way to get home from work is out of a nearby window. The higher you are the faster you get home!
2. When you are sitting on the toilet, placing your gum in your navel will seem not only natural and obvious, but pleasurable.
3. The threat of communism is everywhere. Look in every boat you see because there is bound to be communism in it.
4. People you see who are wearing hats will smell of flowers. Oh they smell so nice! Tell them.
5. Sit in the street. Sit in the street. Sit in the street.
6. Cars are giant monsters. Cars are giant monsters. Cars are giant monsters.
7. You will think that every object you see that is longer than it is wide looks like milk.
8. Everyone likes to be spit on! When you spit on people you will be aware of how much they enjoy it and how much they want you to spit on them even more. It will make you happy to spit on them.

8 facts about smothering

2009-09-16T07:33:00.000-05:00

8 facts about smothering
1. They don't have tanks that you can hide in you know.
2. Take a blanket with you for your own use. Others have germs!
3. Manifestations of the need to breath are hallucinations.
4. Flow over the edges when you are told to.
5. Got pockets? Use 'em!
6. They can't arrest you if you don't have a face. And that's a legal certainty.
7. Are you hiding right now? Come out, but keep it on your face!
8. Breathing is for wimps and fairies.

8 facts about standing in a garden

2009-09-12T11:31:00.001-05:00

8 facts about standing in a garden
1. Watch out! Falling Elephants!
2. The grass is colored green. Stare at it. Oooh, pretty patterns!
3. Never remove light bulbs that you can't actually see.
4. Weeds? Everywhere aren't they? Hack at them with the nearest available utensil. But beware: your feet aren't weeds.
5. If you plant some things, they will grow. Other things might grow. Some things will not. Geese will grow, but only when small. Don't bury them completely either.
6. If you can't stand the smell of sewage from your neighbors garden, just ask them to wash there spouse. The lovely person won't object!
7. Greenhouse. Slithering snakes live in them. You'll get bitten by one and die if you even stand in the doorframe.
8. Flimsy clothes are great for gardens. They reflect the inherent slutyness of nature.

iT'S BEEN A LONG TIME

2009-09-09T14:54:00.003-05:00

Man I really have neglected this blog. Facebook is to blame I'm sure. Maybe just the fact that nobody really reads blogs anymore that arent fully fledged websites in their own right contributed. I dont want ads or videos or similar bullshit on my blog. Just links to insanity on the web and a soapbox for my rants. I think I'll change the name from Emmett Otter's Jugband Holocaust either back to Atomic Monkey Apocalypse or Ready, Set, RIOT!!!

Yeah, that sounds good.

If I ever have a daughter...

2008-07-14T11:38:00.003-05:00

I am going to name her Velouria. It's originally inspired by the Pixie's song; but also by Valoria, Titania and Gloriana who are, (in my own head,) the three apsects of the immortal faerie queen wife of Oberon the King of faeries. (this tri-dentity is of my own creation with no mythical basis, perhaps it's insprired by Michael Moorcock's eternal champion I guess, and his multiple aspects, I don't know)

Gloriana was the queen of one of Moorcock's wierd psuedo-romantic novels he wrote in the eighties. But I imagine her as a towering effulgent angel-like, painfully beautiful wamon. Titania was made famous by Shakespear in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Valoria is an aspect that seemed logical to me as a representation of feminie valor in adversity.

As for Velouria I like it's reference to the cheap, glitter-rock fabric velour, which is just fake velvet. It suggests a kind of "Velvet Goldmine" rhinestone fabulosity in my mind that I like the spirit of. Especially for any daughter of mine.

OUTLANDISH CLAIMS MADE BY AND ABOUT ME

2008-03-04T15:58:00.004-06:00

I counted to infinity - twice.

Leading hand sanitizers claim they can kill 99.9 percent of germs. I can kill 100 percent of whatever the hell I want.

My calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd; no one fools Eric Willman.

My tears cure cancer. Too bad I never cry.

I can speak braille.

I put the "laughter" in "manslaughter".

On a high school math test, I put down "Violence" as every one of the answers. I got an A+ on the test because I solve all my problems with Violence.

I can do a wheelie on a unicycle.

I once won a game of Connect Four in 3 moves.

I can delete the Recycling Bin.

I was originally cast as the main character in 24, but was replaced by the producers when I managed to kill every terrorist and save the day in 12 minutes and 37 seconds.

I do not hunt because the word hunting implies the possibility of failure. I go killing.

If it looks like chicken, tastes like chicken, and feels like chicken but Eric Willman says its beef, then it's fucking beef.

Giraffes were created when I uppercutted a horse.

My dog is trained to pick up his own poop because I will not take shit from anyone.

If you play Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" backwards, you will hear me having sex with your mom.

I can kill two stones with one bird.

Eric Willman sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Eric roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

I am always on top during sex because I never fuck up.

Ghosts are actually caused by me killing people faster than Death can process them.

The best part of waking up is not Folgers in your cup, but knowing that I didn't kill you in your sleep.

Eric Willman never retreats, he just attacks in the opposite direction.

I was once charged with three attempted murders in Boulder County, but the Judge quickly dropped the charges because I do not "attempt" murder.

I can strangle you with a cordless phone.

The reason newborn babies cry is because they know they have just entered a world with Eric Willman.

I have to maintain a concealed weapon license in all 50 states in order to legally wear pants.

Eric Willman once punched a man in the soul.

I like to knit sweaters in my free time. And by "knit", I mean "kick", and by "sweaters", I mean "babies".

Mr. T once defeated me in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. In retaliation, I invented racism.

I once had a heart attack; my heart lost.

It is considered a great accomplishment to go down Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. I can go up Niagara Falls in a cardboard box.

The only time I was wrong was when I thought I had made a mistake.

Rosa Parks refused to get out of her seat because she was saving it for Eric Willman.

A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Eric Willman and that you will be handicapped if you park there.

I don’t need a miracle in order to split the ocean. I just walk in and the water gets the fuck out of the way.

The chief export of Eric Willman is pain.

People think Billy Joel is an alcoholic and wrecks lots of cars. In reality, Eric Willman keeps kicking Billy's ass because Eric is the Piano Man and he started the fire.

The last digit of pi is Eric Willman. He is the end of all things.

I once bowled a 300. Without a ball. I wasn't even in a bowling alley.

Eric Willman can create a rock so heavy that even he can't lift it. And then he lifts it anyways, just to show you who the fuck Eric Willman is.

The quickest way to a man's heart is with Eric Willman's fist.

Pinatas were made in an attempt to get Eric Willman to stop kicking the people of Mexico. Sadly this backfired, as all it has resulted in is Eric Willman now looking for candy after he kicks his victims.

Eric Willman does not know where you live, but he knows where you will die.

If you can see Eric Willman, he can see you. If you can't see Eric Willman you may be only seconds away from death.

Eric Willman cannot predict the future; the future just better fucking do what Eric Willman says.

The saddest moment for a child is not when he learns Santa Claus isn't real, it's when he learns Eric Willman is.

I used to beat the shit out of my shadow because it was following to close. It now stands a safe 30 feet behind me.

Bullets dodge Eric Willman.

Most men are okay with their wives fantasizing about Eric Willman during sex, because they are doing the same thing.

We all know the magic word is please. As in the sentence, "Please don't kill me." Too bad I don’t believe in magic.

Awww Yeah!

2007-09-30T18:21:00.000-05:00

And another, more substantive Declaration

2007-08-29T18:19:00.000-05:00

We the People of these 50 States have patiently suffered mounting government outrages against us – lies, corruption, legal plunder and terror. We have waited in despair for reforms and redress, but the outrages have only gotten worse. We can now wait no longer. The fundamental rights of "We the People" must be restored now. Government's role must be limited to protection of our lives, liberty and property. When government ceases to be our protector and instead becomes our master, it becomes an abomination. These are the crimes of the modern American State against its citizens:
They have "erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat our their Substance." The IRS, Justice Department, police, State and local revenue authorities and a multitude of other government agencies have engaged in an escalating orgy of terror, legalized looting and wholesale seizure of private property to feed the appetite of arrogant and rapacious bureaucracies.
They have multiplied laws and regulations beyond reason or humanity, subverting both the words and intent of our Constitution and Bill of Rights to the point where there is not a single American who could not be arrested, imprisoned and impoverished for violating one of the millions of arbitrary and incomprehensible government laws and edicts now in force.
They have instituted oppressive and destructive taxes; stolen over half of our incomes year after year; compelled us to testify against ourselves by filling out endless compulsory reports; made us into unpaid government spies and tax collectors; and destroyed our peace, security, and freedom in order to finance their oppressive bureaucracies, failed social programs, and wars of aggression.
They have seized control of our economy and have dictated and controlled every aspect of how our businesses must be operated. They have issued edict upon edict, issued regulation on top of regulation, instituted fine after fine, treated us as common criminals, imprisoned us, and seized our property.
They have destroyed our financial security. They have debauched the currency, substituting worthless paper for gold and silver. They have clandestinely seized our banking system – inflating currency and credit and looting the real wealth of the people.
They have burdened us with enormous waste and government debt which have brought our nation to the brink of bankruptcy. They have destroyed jobs and stifled private initiative with suffocating regulations and oppressive bureaucracies.
They have subverted the electoral process through unjust and exclusionary ballot access and campaign finance laws. Vast sums of tax-extorted monies have been used to create a Congressional Monopoly and an Imperial Presidency which have crushed dissent and excluded any serious challenge to their power.
They have hobbled and corrupted our system of justice by creating endless numbers of technical crimes against the State, and crimes without victims – making vices into crimes, dissent into treason, and sensuality into perversion. They have seized billions of dollars worth of property without due process of law, imprisoned countless thousands without indictment or trial, and have made equal justice under law impossible by manipulating courts and juries, terrorizing our attorneys and seizing their fees.
They have kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies. In direct violation of the Constitution, US troops have repeatedly invaded and reduced foreign countries to ruin without declaration of war by Congress. They have used force to compel our children to fight and die in foreign wars far removed from their homes. In the name of the War on Drugs they have declared open war on the people of the United States, invading farm and field, village and home, and spreading terror across the land.
They have perverted our relations with other nations, using their power to support foreign despotisms. They have bribed other nations with foreign aid, restricted foreign trade, and exported massive quantities of weapons of death and destruction - fomenting discord, repression and war throughout the world.
In the name of "peacekeeping" and assisting other nations, they have illegally waged war on many nations and innocent peoples, committing mass murder in the name of peace, making the US hated throughout the world, and US citizens the victims and targets of terrorism.
We submit that the government of the United States of America has abrogated its sacred covenant to protect the life, liberty and property of the people of this nation so that now, with the collapse of major foreign threats, our own government has emerged as the greatest menace to freedom, prosperity and peace, both here and throughout the world.
We further submit that we, the people, have all but lost control of our political institutions and that government has ceased to be our servant, and has become instead a terrible and tyrannical master. To restore the freedom, peace and prosperity of the people, we therefore demand:
That the protections of individual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights be strictly enforced. That all laws be abolished which restrict freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and enterprise; the right to keep and bear arms and the right to own and dispose of property. That henceforth political leaders, legislators or judges violating their oaths to defend the Constitution and Bill of Rights be tried for treason.
That Citizen Grand Juries not under the control of government-appointed judges or prosecutors be convened in each State with the power to indict government officials and employees who violate the rights of any citizen, and that all officials and employees so indicted be promptly brought to trial.
That a "Citizen Veto" be created at federal, state and local levels, whereby all citizens can veto any new legislation – including revenue acts. We also call for the establishment of a universal Citizen Power of Recall so that unscrupulous politicians may be removed from power by citizen initiative.
That the Income Tax and the IRS be abolished and that all persons jailed for tax evasion be freed.
That sufficient government property be sold to retire the national debt. That all government agencies which are not clearly engaged in the protection of life, liberty and property of the individual be disbanded.
That the Federal Reserve, FDIC, FSLIC and currency laws be abolished, and that banking and insurance systems be left to the private sector in order to restore security to our banking system
That all laws creating government monopolies in education, medicine, utilities, mail delivery and other public services be abolished.
That State and Economy be separated, and that federal control of interstate commerce be confined to prohibition of tariffs and trade restrictions between States. That freedom of association be restored to enterprise, including freedom to hire, fire, contract and negotiate; that all capitalist acts between consenting adults be legalized.
That all restrictions upon foreign trade be abolished, including tariffs, quotas, import duties, license fees, content laws, and "dumping" laws.
That all federal laws restricting gun ownership be abolished, and that a trained, well-armed citizenry be encouraged, as a defense against domestic criminals, foreign aggression and domestic tyranny.
That due process of law and the presumption of innocence be restored. That RICO statutes and other laws enabling the government to confiscate property without the owners being convicted of any crime be abolished. That the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, preserving the right to trial by jury in civil disputes be strengthened to include disputes between Citizens and the State.
That all Civil Forfeiture laws, and other laws holding "property" hostage for crimes, shall be immediately and completely abolished, and that henceforth no citizen shall be deprived of any property (except as punishment for a real crime against persons or property) of which they have been convicted.
That all jury members be explicitly informed of their right to judge the law as well as the facts in every court case, and to acquit if they find the law improper or unjust.
That Sovereign Immunity, which makes government officers and agents immune from prosecution for their crimes, be abolished. That presumption in trials in favor of government officials, police officers and other agents of the State be ended. That government officials and agents, and citizens be treated as equal before the law in all cases, both criminal and civil.
That all victimless crime laws be abolished, including laws restricting the sale or possession of pornography and controlled substances. That the War on Drugs be ended, Drug Peace be declared, and all persons imprisoned for victimless crimes be immediately freed and their records cleared.
That immigration laws and the INS be abolished. Henceforth the only persons restricted from immigrating to the United States shall be known criminals or those carrying easily-communicable diseases. That imprisoned illegal aliens be freed.
That the function of the military be confined to defense of the territory of the United States, and that all US troops be removed from foreign countries. That henceforth, the sole purpose of the military shall be protection of the lives and property of US citizens at home.
We seek to create an America in which the freedom and sovereignty of the people are restored; in which the functions of government are limited to protecting life, liberty and property; and in which each and every individual is again the master of his or her own destiny.
We support this Declaration in the certainty that our rights are inalienable and innate and not subject to the whims of government; that the only rights which we will ultimately retain, are those which we are willing to defend; and that rapid, yet peaceful, reform is now America's only alternative to tyranny and mounting social violence.
To create a new dawn of liberty for America and to secure a rebirth of liberty, justice, peace, and prosperity for all, we mutually pledge each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. We seek and will settle for nothing less than freedom in our time.

A New Declaration of Independence

2007-08-28T18:17:00.000-05:00

A New Declaration of Independence
by Emma Goldman

When, in the course of human development, existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave, rob, and oppress mankind, the people have the eternal right to rebel against, and overthrow, these institutions.

The mere fact that these forces--inimical to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--are legalized by statute laws, sanctified by divine rights, and enforced by political power, in no way justifies their continued existence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all human beings, irrespective of race, color, or sex, are born with the equal right to share at the table of life; that to secure this right, there must be established among men economic, social, and political freedom; we hold further that government exists but to maintain special privilege and property rights; that it coerces man into submission and therefore robs him of dignity, self-respect, and life.

The history of the American kings of capital and authority is the history of repeated crimes, injustice, oppression, outrage, and abuse, all aiming at the suppression of individual liberties and the exploitation of the people. A vast country, rich enough to supply all her children with all possible comforts, and insure well-being to all, is in the hands of a few, while the nameless millions are at the mercy of ruthless wealth gatherers, unscrupulous lawmakers, and corrupt politicians. Sturdy sons of America are forced to tramp the country in a fruitless search for bread, and many of her daughters are driven into the street, while thousands of tender children are daily sacrificed on the altar of Mammon. The reign of these kings is holding mankind in slavery, perpetuating poverty and disease, maintaining crime and corruption; it is fettering the spirit of liberty, throttling the voice of justice, and degrading and oppressing humanity. It is engaged in continual war and slaughter, devastating the country and destroying the best and finest qualities of man; it nurtures superstition and ignorance, sows prejudice and strife, and turns the human family into a camp of Ishmaelites.

We, therefore, the liberty-loving men and women, realizing the great injustice and brutality of this state of affairs, earnestly and boldly do hereby declare, That each and every individual is and ought to be free to own himself and to enjoy the full fruit of his labor; that man is absolved from all allegiance to the kings of authority and capital; that he has, by the very fact of his being, free access to the land and all means of production, and entire liberty of disposing of the fruits of his efforts; that each and every individual has the unquestionable and unabridgeable right of free and voluntary association with other equally sovereign individuals for economic, political, social, and all other purposes, and that to achieve this end man must emancipate himself from the sacredness of property, the respect for man-made law, the fear of the Church, the cowardice of public opinion, the stupid arrogance of national, racial, religious, and sex superiority, and from the narrow puritanical conception of human life. And for the support of this Declaration, and with a firm reliance on the harmonious blending of man's social and individual tendencies, the lovers of liberty joyfully consecrate their uncompromising devotion, their energy and intelligence, their solidarity and their lives.

[Published in Mother Earth, Vol. IV, no. 5, July 1909.]

Wrestling fan insanity

2007-08-19T18:07:00.000-05:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cZ2aX-Lgh6M

Was I the last person to see the crying wrestling fan???!!! If you haven't seen it yet, prepare to be stupified.

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

2007-08-07T18:07:00.000-05:00

From: http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com

A WHISTLEBLOWER'S ACCOUNT

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, blew the whistle in the `80s on government activities withheld from the public. Her inside knowledge will help you protect your children from controversial methods and programs. In this book you will discover:
-how good teachers across America have been forced to use controversial, non-academic me
-how "school choice" is being used to further dangerous reform goals, and how home schooling and private education are especially vulnerable.
-how workforce training (school-to-work) is an essential part of an overall plan for a global economy, and how this plan will shortcircuit your child's future career plans and opportunities.
-how the international, national, regional, state and local agendas for education reform are all interconnected and have been for decades.

A CHRONOLOGICAL PAPER TRAIL

the deliberate dumbing down of america is a chronological history of the past 100+ years of education reform. Each chapter takes a period of history and recounts the significant events, including important geopolitical and societal contextual information. Citations from government plans, policy documents, and key writings by leading reformers record the rise of the modern education reform movement. Americans of all ages will welcome this riveting expose of what really happened to what was once the finest education system in the world.

Readers will appreciate the user-friendliness of this chronological history designed for the average reader not just the academician. This book will be used by citizens at public hearings, board meetings, or for easy presentation to elected officials.

Publication of the deliberate dumbing down of america is certain to add fuel to the fire in this nation's phonics wars. Iserbyt provides documentation that Direct Instruction, the latest education reform fad in the classroom, is being institutionalized under the guise of "traditional" phonics thanks to the passage of the unconstitutional Reading Excellence Act of 1998.

PREFACE

Coexistence on this tightly knit earth should be viewed as an existence not only without wars...but also without [the government] telling us how to live, what to say, what to think, what to know, and what not to know. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from a speech given September 11, 1973.

For over a twenty-five-year period the research used in this chronology has been collected from many sources: the United States Department of Education; international agencies; state agencies; the media; concerned educators; parents; legislators, and talented researchers with whom I have worked for at least twenty-five years. In the process of gathering this information two beliefs that most Americans hold in common became clear:

1) If a child can read, write and compute at a reasonably proficient level, he will be able to do just about anything he wishes, enabling him to control his destiny to the extent that God allows (remain free).

2) Providing such basic educational proficiencies is not and should not be an expensive proposition.

Since most Americans believe the second premise-that providing basic educational proficiencies is not and should not be an expensive proposition-it becomes obvious that it is only a radical agenda, the purpose of which is to change values and attitudes (brainwash), that is the costly agenda. In other words, brainwashing by our schools and universities is what is bankrupting our nation and our children's minds.

In 1997 there were 46.4 million public school students. During 1993-1994 (the latest years the statistics were available) the average per pupil expenditure was $6,330.00 in 1996 constant dollars. Multiply the number of students by the per pupil expenditure (using old-fashioned mathematical procedures) for a total K-12 budget per year of $293.7 billion dollars. If one adds the cost of higher education to this figure, one arrives at a total budget per year of over half a trillion dollars. The sorry result of such an incredibly large expenditure-the performance of American students-is discussed on page 12 of Pursuing Excellence-A Study of U.S. Twelfth Grade Mathematics and Science Achievement in International Context: Initial Findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study [TIMMS], a report from the U.S. Department of Education (NCES 98-049). Pursuing Excellence reads:

Achievement of Students, Key Points: U. S. twelfth graders scored below the international average and among the lowest of the 21 TIMSS nations in both mathematics and science general knowledge in the final year of secondary school. (p. 24)

Obviously, something is terribly wrong when a $6,330 per pupil expenditure produces such pathetic results. This writer has visited private schools which charge $1,000-per-year in tuition which enjoy superior academic results. Parents of home-schooled children spend a maximum of $1,000-per-year and usually have similar excellent results.

There are many talented and respected researchers and activists who have carefully documented the "weird" activities which have taken place "in the name of education." Any opposition to change agent activities in local schools has invariably been met with cries of "Prove your case, document your statements," etc. "Resisters"-usually parents-have been called every name in the book. Parents have been told for over thirty years, "You're the only parent who has ever complained." The media has been convinced to join in the attack upon common sense views, effectively discrediting the perspective of well-informed citizens. Documentation, when presented, has been ignored and called incomplete. The classic response by the education establishment has been, "You're taking that out of context!"-even when presented with an entire book which uses their own words to detail exactly what the "resisters" are claiming to be true.

The desire by "resisters" to prove their case has been so strong that they have continued to amass-over a thirty- to fifty-year period-what must surely amount to tons of materials containing irrefutable proof, in the education change agents' own words, of deliberate, malicious intent to achieve behavioral changes in students/parents/society which have nothing to do with commonly understood educational objectives. Upon delivery of such proof, "resisters" are consistently met with the "shoot the messenger" stonewalling response by teachers, school boards, superintendents, state and local officials, as well as the supposedly objective institutions of academia and the press.

This resister's book, or collection of research in book form, was put together primarily to satisfy my own need to see the various components which led to the dumbing down of the United States of America assembled in chronological order-in writing. Even I, who had observed these weird activities taking place at all levels of government, was reluctant to accept a malicious intent behind each individual, chronological activity or innovation, unless I could connect it with other, similar activities taking place at other times. This book, which makes such connections, has provided for me a much-needed sense of closure.

the deliberate dumbing down of america is also a book for my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I want them to know that there were thousands of Americans who may not have died or been shot at in overseas wars, but were shot at in small-town 'wars' at school board meetings, at state legislative hearings on education, and, most importantly, in the media. I want my progeny to know that whatever intellectual and spiritual freedoms to which they may still lay claim were fought for-are a result of-the courageous work of incredible people who dared to tell the truth against all odds.

I want them to know that there will always be hope for freedom if they follow in these people's footsteps; if they cherish the concept of 'free will'; if they believe that human beings are special, not animals, and that they have intellects, souls, and consciences. I want them to know that if the government schools are allowed to teach children K-12 using Pavlovian/Skinnerian animal training methods-which provide tangible rewards only for correct answers-there can be no freedom.

Why? People 'trained'-not educated-by such educational techniques will be fearful of taking principled, sometimes controversial, stands when called for because these people will have been programmed to speak up only if a positive reward or response is forthcoming. The price of freedom has often been paid with pain and loneliness.

In 1971 when I returned to the United States after living in the West Indies for three years, I was shocked to find public education had become a warm, fuzzy, soft, mushy, touchy-feely experience, where its purpose had become socialization, not learning. From that time on, and with the advantage of having two young sons in the public schools, I became involved as a member of a philosophy committee for a school, as an elected school board member, as co-founder of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM), and finally as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education during President Ronald Reagan's first term of office. OERI was, and is, the office from which all the controversial national and international educational restructuring has emanated.

Those ten years (1971-1981) changed my life. As an American who had spent many years working abroad, I had experienced traveling in and living in socialist countries. When I returned to the United States I realized that America's transition from a sovereign constitutional republic to a socialist democracy would not come about through warfare (bullets and tanks) but through the implementation and installation of the "system" in all areas of government-federal, state and local. The brainwashing for acceptance of the "system's" control would take place in the school-through indoctrination and the use of behavior modification, which comes under so many labels, the most recent labels being Outcome-Based Education, Skinnerian Mastery Learning or Direct Instruction. In the seventies I and many others waged the war against values clarification, which was later renamed "critical thinking," which regardless of the label-and there are bound to be many more labels on the horizon-is nothing but pure, unadulterated destruction of absolute values of right and wrong upon which stable and free societies depend and upon which our nation was founded.

In 1973 I started this long journey into becoming a "resister," placing the first incriminating piece of paper in my "education" files. That first piece of paper was a purple ditto sheet entitled "All About Me," next to which was a smiley face. It was an open-ended questionnaire beginning with: "My name is _______________." My son brought it home from public school in fourth grade. The questions were highly personal; so much so that they encouraged my son to lie, since he didn't want to "spill the beans" about his mother, father and brother. The purpose of such a questionnaire was to find out the student's state of mind, how he felt, what he liked and disliked, and what his values were. With this knowledge it would be easier for the government school to modify his values and behavior at will-without, of course, the student's knowledge or parents' consent.

That was just the beginning. There was more to come: the new social studies textbook World of Mankind. Published by Follett, this book instructed the teacher how to instill humanistic (no right/no wrong) values in the K-3 students. At the text's suggestion they were encouraged to take little tots for walks in town during which he/she would point out big and small houses, asking the little tots who they thought lived in the houses. Poor or Rich? "What do you think they eat in the big house?...in the little house?" When I complained about this non-educational activity at a school board meeting I was dismissed as a censor and the press did its usual hatchet job on me as a misguided parent. A friend of mine-a very bright gal who had also lived abroad for years-told me that she had overheard discussion of me at the local co-op. The word was out in town that I was a "kook." That was not a "positive response/reward" for my taking what I believed to be a principled position. Since I had not been "trained" I was just mad!

Next stop on the road to becoming a "resister" was to become a member of the school philosophy committee. Our Harvard-educated, professional change agent superintendent gave all of the committee members a copy of "The Philosophy of Education" (1975 version) from the Montgomery County schools in Maryland, hoping to influence whatever recommendations we would make. (For those who like to eat dessert before soup, turn to page ____ and read the entry under 1946 concerning "Community-Centered Schools: The Blueprint for Education in Montgomery County, Maryland." This document was in fact the "Blueprint" for the nation's schools.) When asked to write a paper expressing our views on the goals of education, I wrote that, amongst other goals, I felt the schools should strive to instill "sound morals and values in the students." The superintendent and a few teachers on the committee zeroed in on me, asking "What's the definition of 'sound' and whose values?"

After two failed attempts to get elected to the school board, I finally succeeded in 1976 on the third try. The votes were counted three times, even though I had won by a very healthy margin!

My experience on the school board taught me that when it comes to modern education, "the end justifies the means." Our change agent superintendent was more at home with a lie than he was with the truth. Whatever good I accomplished while on the school board-stopping the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System [PPBS] now known as Total Quality Management [TQM] or Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures/Generally Accepted Federal Funding Reporting [GAAP/GAFFR], getting values clarification banned by the board, and demanding five [yes, 5!] minutes of grammar per day, etc.-was tossed out two weeks after I left office.

Another milestone on my journey was an in-service training session entitled "Innovations in Education." A retired teacher, who understood what was happening in education, paid for me to attend. This training program developed by Professor Ronald Havelock of the University of Michigan and funded by the United States Office of Education taught teachers and administrators how to "sneak in" controversial methods of teaching and "innovative" programs. These controversial, "innovative" programs included health education, sex education, drug and alcohol education, death education, critical thinking education, etc. Since then I have always found it interesting that the controversial school programs are the only ones that have the word "education" attached to them! I don't recall-until recently-"math ed.," "reading ed.," "history ed.," or "science ed." A good rule of thumb for teachers, parents and school board members interested in academics and traditional values is to question any subject that has the word "education" attached to it.

This in-service training literally "blew my mind." I have never recovered from it. The presenter (change agent) taught us how to "manipulate" the taxpayers/parents into accepting controversial programs. He explained how to identify the "resisters" in the community and how to get around their resistance. He instructed us in how to go to the highly respected members of the community-those with the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, Junior League, Little League, YMCA, Historical Society, etc.-to manipulate them into supporting the controversial/non-academic programs and into bad-mouthing the resisters. Advice was also given as to how to get the media to support these programs.

I left-with my very valuable textbook, Innovations in Education: A Change Agent's Guide, under my arm-feeling very sick to my stomach and in complete denial over that in which I had been involved. This was not the nation in which I grew up; something seriously disturbing had happened between 1953 when I left the United States and 1971 when I returned.

Orchestrated Consensus

In retrospect, I had just found out that the United States was engaged in war. People write important books about war: books documenting the battles fought, the names of the generals involved, the names of those who fired the first shot. This book is simply a history book about another kind of war: * one fought using psychological methods; * a one-hundred-year war; * a different, more deadly war than any in which our country has ever been involved; * a war about which the average American hasn't the foggiest idea.. The reason Americans do not understand this war is because it has been fought in secret-in the schools of our nation, using our children who are captive in classrooms. The wagers of this war are using very sophisticated and effective tools:

* Hegelian Dialectic (common ground, consensus and compromise) * Gradualism (two steps forward; one step backward) * Semantic deception (redefining terms to get agreement without understanding).

The Hegelian Dialectic4 is a process formulated by the German philosopher Fredrich Hegel (1770-1831) and used by Karl Marx's in codifying revolutionary Communism as dialectical materialism. This process can be illustrated as:

Synthesis (consensus)

Thesis Antithesis

The "Thesis" represents either an established practice or point of view which is pitted against the "Antithesis"-usually a crisis of opposition fabricated or created by change agents-causing the "Thesis" to compromise itself, incorporating some part of the "Antithesis" to produce the "Synthesis"-sometimes called consensus. This is the primary tool in the bag of tricks used by change agents who are trained to direct this process all over the country; much like the in-service training I received. A good example of this concept was voiced by T.H. Bell when he was Secretary of Education: "[We] need to create a crisis to get consensus in order to bring about change." (The reader might be reminded that it was under T.H. Bell's direction that the Department of Education implemented the changes "suggested" by A Nation at Risk-the alarm that was sounded in the early 1980's to announce the "crisis" in education.)

Since we have been, as a nation, so relentlessly exposed to this Hegelian dialectical process (which is essential to the smooth operation of the "system") under the guise of "reaching consensus" in our involvement in parent-teacher organizations, on school boards, in legislatures, and even in goal setting in community service organizations and groups-including our churches-I want to explain clearly how it works in a practical application. A good example with which most of us can identify involves property taxes for local schools. Let us consider an example from Michigan:

The internationalist change agents must abolish local control (the "Thesis") in order to restructure our schools from academics to global workforce training (the "Synthesis"). Funding of education with the property tax allows local control, but it also enables the change agents and teachers' unions to create higher and higher school budgets paid for with higher taxes, thus infuriating homeowners. Eventually, property owners accept the change agent's radical proposal (the "Anti- thesis") to reduce their property taxes by transferring education funding from the local property tax to the state income tax. Thus, the change agents accomplish their ultimate goal; the transfer of funding of education from the local level to the state level. When this transfer occurs it increases state/federal control and funding, leading to the federal/internationalist goal of implementing global workforce training through the schools (the "Synthesis").5

Regarding the power of gradualism, remember the story of the frog and how he didn't save himself because he didn't realize what was happening to him? He was thrown into cold water which, in turn, was gradually heated up until finally it reached the boiling point and he was dead. This is how "gradualism" works through a series of "created crises" which utilize Hegel's dialectical process, leading us to more radical change than we would ever otherwise accept.

In the instance of "semantic deception"-do you remember your kindly principal telling you that the new decision-making program would help your child make better decisions? What good parent wouldn't want his or her child to learn how to make "good" decisions? Did you know that the decision-making program is the same controversial values clarification program recently rejected by your school board against which you may have given repeated testimony? As I've said before, the wagers of this intellectual social war have employed very effective weapons to implement their changes.

This war has, in fact, become the war to end all wars. If citizens on this planet can be brainwashed or robotized, using dumbed-down Pavlovian/Skinnerian education, to accept what those in control want, there will be no more wars. If there are no rights or wrongs, there will be no one wanting to "right" a "wrong." Robots have no conscience. The only permissible conscience will be the United Nations or a global conscience. Whether an action is good or bad will be decided by a "Global Government's Global Conscience," as recommended by Dr. Brock Chisholm, Executive Secretary of the World Health Organization, Interim Commission, in 1947-and later in 1996 by current United States Secretary of State Madeline Albright. (See p. ___for quotes in entry under 1947.)

You may protest, "But, no one has died in this war." Is that the only criteria we have with which to measure whether war is war? The tragedy is that many Americans have died in other wars to protect the freedoms being taken away in this one. This war which produces the death of intellect and freedom is not waged by a foreign enemy but by the silent enemy in the ivory towers, in our own government, and in tax-exempt foundations-the enemy whose every move I have tried to document in this book, usually in his/her/its own words.

Ronald Havelock's change agent in-service training prepared me for what I would find in the U.S. Department of Education when I worked there from 1981-1982. The use of taxpayers' hard-earned money to fund Havelock's "Change Agent Manual" was only one out of hundreds of expensive U.S. Department of Education grants each year going everywhere, even overseas, to further the cause of internationalist "dumbing down" education (behavior modification) so necessary for the present introduction of global work force training. I was relieved of my duties after leaking an important technology grant (computer-assisted instruction proposal) to the press.

Much of this book contains quotes from government documents detailing the real purposes of American education: * to use the schools to change America from a free, individual nation to a socialist, global "state," just one of many socialist states which will be subservient to the United Nations Charter, not the United States Constitution; * to brainwash our children, starting at birth, to reject individualism in favor of collectivism; * to reject high academic standards in favor of OBE/ISO 1400/90006 egalitarianism; * to reject truth and absolutes in favor of tolerance, situational ethics and consensus; * to reject American values in favor of internationalist values (globalism); * to reject freedom to choose one's career in favor of the totalitarian K-12 school-to-work/OBE process, aptly named "limited learning for lifelong labor,"7 coordinated through United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Only when all children in public, private and home schools are robotized-and believe as one-will World Government be acceptable to citizens and able to be implemented without firing a shot. The attractive-sounding "choice" proposals will enable the globalist elite to achieve their goal: the robotization (brainwashing) of all Americans in order to gain their acceptance of lifelong education and workforce training-part of the world management system to achieve a new global feudalism.

The socialist/fascist global workforce training agenda is being implemented as I write this book. The report to the European Commission entitled "Transatlantic Co-operation in International Education: Projects of the Handswerkskammer Koblenz with Partners in the United States and in the European Union" by Karl-Jurgen Wilbert and Bernard Eckgold (May 1997) says in part:

In June, 1994, with the support of the Handswerkskamer Koblenz, an American-German vocational education conference took place...at the University of Texas at Austin. The vocational education researchers and economic specialists...were in agreement that an economic and employment policy is necessary where a systematic vocational training is as equally important as an academic education, as a "career pathway."...The first practical steps along these lines, which are also significant from the point of view of the educational policy, were made with the vocational training of American apprentices in skilled craft companies, in the area of the Koblenz chamber. [emphasis added]

Under section "e) Scientific Assistance for the Projects," one reads:

The international projects ought to be scientifically assisted and analyzed both for the feedback to the transatlantic dialogue on educa- tional policy, and also for the assessment and qualitative improvement of the cross-border vocational education projects. As a result it should be made possible on the German side to set up a connection to other projects of German-American cooperation in vocational training; e.g., of the federal institute for vocational training for the project in the U.S. state of Maine. On the USA side an interlinking with other initiatives for vocational training-for example, through the Center for the Study of Human Resources at the University of Texas, Austin-would be desirable.

This particular document discusses the history of apprenticeships-especially the role of medieval guilds-and attempts to make a case for nations which heretofore have cherished liberal economic ideas-i.e., individual economic freedom-to return to a system of cooperative economic solutions (the guild system used in the Middle Ages which accepted very young children from farms and cities and trained them in "necessary" skills). Another word for this is "serfdom." Had our elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels read this document, they could never have voted in favor of socialist/fascist legislation implementing workforce training to meet the needs of the global economy. Unless, of course, they happen to support such a totalitarian economic system. (This incredible document can be accessed at the following internet address: http://www.kwk-koblenz.de/ausland/trans-uk.doc )

Just as Barbara Tuchman or another historian would do in writing the history of the other kinds of wars, I have identified chronologically the major battles, players, dates and places. I know that researchers and writers with far more talent than I will feel that I have neglected some key events in this war. I stand guilty on all counts, even before their well-researched charges are submitted. Yes, much of importance has been left out, due to space limitations, but the overview of the battlefields and maneuvers will give the reader an opportunity to glimpse the immensity of this conflict.

In order to win a battle one must know who the "real" enemy is. Otherwise, one is shooting in the dark and often hitting those not the least bit responsible for the mayhem. This book, hopefully, identifies the "real" enemy and provides Americans involved in this war-be they plain, ordinary citizens, elected officials, or traditional teachers-with the ammunition to fight to obtain victory.

1 Noted Soviet dissident, slave labor camp intern, and author of The Gulag Archipelago and numerous other books.

2 Statistics taken from The Condition of Education, 1997, published by the National Center for Educational Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, NCES 97-388. Internet address: http://www.ed/gov/NCES.

3 OBE/ML/DI or outcomes-based education/mastery learning/direct instruction.

4Dean Gotcher, author of The Dialectic & Praxis: Diaprax and the End of the Ages and other materials dealing with dialectical consensus building and human relations training, has done some excellent work in this area of research. For more detailed information on this process, please write to Dean Gotcher of the Institution for Authority Research, 5436 S. Boston Pl., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74l05, or call (918) 742-3855.

5 See Appendix ___ for an article by Tim Clem which explains this process in much more detail.

6 ISO stands for International Standards of Operation for manufacturing (9000) and human resources (1400), coordinated through the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

7 "Privatization or Socialization" by C. Weatherly, 1994. Delivered as part of a speech to a group in Minnesota and later published in the Christian Conscience magazine (Vol. 1, No. 2: February 1995, pp. 29-30).

A Dumbed-Down Textbook Is "A Textbook for All Students"

2007-07-30T18:02:00.000-05:00

A Dumbed-Down Textbook Is
"A Textbook for All Students"

William J. Bennetta

James A. Michener is well known today as a prolific American novelist and essayist, but sixty years ago he spent some time working as a schoolbook editor. A short recollection of that experience appears in his book This Noble Land, which was issued in 1996 by Random House:

[I was working for] one of the premier New York publishing companies, Macmillan, where I helped produce textbooks in a variety of subjects for use in schools across the nation. While I was at Macmillan, a radical new discipline began to dominate the writing of schoolbooks. A highly regarded educator and psychologist, Edward Lee Thorndike, compiled a list of words and the frequencies with which they occurred in everyday American life: newspapers, popular books, advertisements, etc. From these basic data, he published a list, sharply restricted, which he said ought to determine whether a specific word should be used in writing for children. If, for example, the word take received his approval, use it in schoolbooks. If discredit did not appear on his list, don't use it, for to do so would make the books too difficult for children.

We editors worked under the tyranny of that list, and we even boasted in the promotional literature for our textbooks that they conformed to the Thorndike List. In my opinion, however, this was the beginning of the continuing process known as "dumbing down the curriculum." Before Thorndike I had helped publish a series of successful textbooks in which I had used a very wide vocabulary, but when I was restricted by Thorndike, what I had once helped write as a book suitable for students in the sixth grade gradually became a book intended for grades seven through eight. Texts originally for the middle grades began to be certified as being appropriate for high school students, and what used to be a high school text appeared as a college text. The entire educational process was watered down, level by level.

That endeavor has been continued, off and on, in the time since Michener toiled at Macmillan, and it recently has resurged with special virulence. Major schoolbook companies are making their books dumber than ever, because they perceive that there is a big, ready market for such products. The market is provided by schools where "education" consists chiefly of submerging students in feel-good pastimes, furnishing students with easy successes, and ensuring that even the laziest and the worst-prepared students will seem to be doing well.

Publishers usually avoid admitting to their complicity in such skulduggery, but a candid acknowledgment was offered last year by Glenn Gordon, a textbook salesman employed by Harcourt General Inc. (Harcourt General's textbook-publishing subsidiaries include Holt, Rinehart and Winston.) Speaking about today's schoolbooks, Gordon said this to a reporter for The Seattle Times:

Absolutely they've been dumbed down. I think what we've heard a lot of, throughout the country, is that there needed to be an image of American students doing well. In order for us to show them as being smarter, let's dummy down what we're teaching them. You'll appear to be smarter, even though you're not. [See "Textbooks Too Easy, Too Dull, Experts Say," by Nancy Montgomery, in The Seattle Times for 3 March 1996.]

In its heaviest and most pernicious form, the dumbing down of high-school books comprises four interlocking processes. The first is the elimination or dilapidation of concepts that may require a student to expend mental effort: Such concepts are excised entirely, or they are reduced to little heaps of factoids. Next comes the process that Michener saw sixty years ago and that is still going on -- the reduction and impoverishment of vocabulary. Then comes the ostensible simplification of style, effected partly through the suppression of compound or complex sentences. This process often requires that logical connections be destroyed for the sake of ensuring that sentences will be simple and short. Finally comes the replacement of written material by pictures -- pictures which, as often as not, are mere decorations.

Sometimes a dumbing-down operation is carried out gradually, over several successive versions of the book in question. Sometimes it is carried out abruptly, as in the recent case of Glencoe World Geography. (See the review in TTL for September-October 1996.) Either way, heavy dumbing down has the effect of turning high-school books into products which, if they have any value at all, may be appropriate for middle-school students.

Dumbing down is also obvious in some of the brand-new books that are being produced nowadays -- books that haven't existed in any earlier versions. A notable example here is Biology: A Community Context, a new, dumbed-down product issued by South-Western Educational Publishing (Cincinnati, Ohio). In my judgment, Biology: A Community Context has exceptional merit as a middle-school book and would be a fine choice for use in a middle-school life-science class. South-Western, however, is selling it as a high-school biology book. This strikes me as a sad joke.

South-Western is also promoting a pair of newly created books titled Science Probe I and Science Probe II, which allegedly represent a two-year course in "coordinated science" for high-school students. These books have been so grossly dumbed down that, in most respects, they are indistinguishable from books that the major publishers have been selling, during the past ten years or so, as middle-school texts. The Science Probe books are not even suitable for use in middle schools, however, because the "biology" that they provide has been purged of the principle of organic evolution, the central organizing principle of the biology of the 20th century. South-Western is evidently pandering to the creationists, and these dumbed-down Science Probe books have also been dumbed back -- back to the 1500s. No honest teacher would consider using them.

In the past few years, the demand for dumbed-down books has increased because many schools have abandoned the strategy of grouping students according to their abilities. Instead, these schools indiscriminately mix together, in the same courses and the same classrooms, students who vary widely in their talents, intellectual capacities, goals, and states of preparation. As far as I am aware, no one has been able to suggest that this practice serves any educational purpose (by which I mean a purpose that can pass the straight-face test). As far as I know, this fad is based entirely on a political construct which -- in the name of social equality -- prescribes that all students must be reduced to the level of the least able students, and that the brightest and best-prepared students should be hobbled and handicapped.

Be that as it may, this much is certain: When students who have vastly different capacities are randomly mixed together in the same classroom, the teacher must choose textbooks and other instructional materials that even the slowest and worst-prepared students may be able to use. This is impelling schoolbook-publishers to perform new feats of dumbing down and to produce books that plainly have been designed for dimwits. The books are quite unfit for use by capable students, and capable students are very badly served when they are made to use such books -- but never mind that. All that matters is that everybody is using the same book, so everybody is equal to everybody else.

Of course, schoolbook companies can't promote these books by saying outright that the books are aimed at backward students and dullards, so some companies have taken to using a code-phrase. The phrase is all students , as in "This is a book for all students." Knowing that all students means the least capable and worst-prepared students can be useful when one is talking with a schoolbook salesman or reading a publisher's promotional claims.

William J. Bennetta is a professional editor, a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, the president of The Textbook League, and the editor of The Textbook Letter. He writes frequently about the propagation of quackery, false "science" and false "history" in schoolbooks.

Types of Sex

2007-07-14T18:01:00.000-05:00

7 stages of sex

The 1st kind of sex is called: Smurf Sex.
This kind of sex happens when you first meet someone and you both have sex until you are blue in the face.

The 2nd kind of sex is called: Kitchen Sex.
This is when you have been with your partner for a short time and you are so horny you will have sex anywhere, even in the kitchen.

The 3rd kind of sex is called: Bedroom Sex.
This is when you have been with your partner for a long time your sex has become routine and you usually have sex only in your bedroom.

The 4th kind of sex is called: Hallway Sex.
This is when you have been with your partner for too long. When you pass each other in the hallway you both say "screw you."

The 5th kind of sex is called: Religious Sex.
Which means you get Nun in the morning, Nun in the Afternoon and Nun at night. (Very Popular)

The 6th kind of sex is called: Courtroom Sex.
This is when you cannot stand your wife any more. She takes you to court and screws you in front of everyone.

And last, but not least,

The 7th kind of sex is called: Social Security Sex.
You get a little each month. But not enough to live on.

RAY GUNS

2007-06-25T22:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.wetanz.com/holics/index.php?catid=4

Check it!!!

Generalization versus Specialization

2007-06-25T21:53:00.000-05:00

"A man should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
--Robert Heinlein

It seemed like a pretty sound opinion to me. It really stuck in my mind this morning. Reminds me of the early American pioneers or men of the Renaissance age. So then my biddy Chris says, "At this point in scientific proces, does it not seem rational to assume that, deep penetration into a subject area is only possible through specialization? Certainly all these fields of knowledge described are attainable by you and I, especially through transference of understanding; however a relevant question is, If we were to journey into each area, to what degree would our understanding of each delve? To reach new levels of proufoundity in modern science it seems that a high degree of specialization is necessary. Consider this: if a person has a certain amount of force to exert into learning and experimenting, will the force penetrate deeper into a singular field of study or multiple feilds? I would even speculate that through the process of specilization the breadth of knowledge available to an individual extends via transference. If a person understands minutae in one field, learning another feild to that degree could, in theory, become facile as the process becomes compartmentalization and identification rather than a paradigm shift."

Then Oboe says "It was very eloquently stated, and wrong. The sentiment is the same one that's gotten us into the super-advanced scientific state we are in today. Sadly, we lack the broad knowledge base to understand the ramifications of the "minutae" in our individual fields. Human nature is to be self-interested, it's a survival trait long developed. We aren't a hive creature that can trust to the others in our hive to look out for us as we do them. The ones who develope deep understanding of certain subjects want that knowledge rarefied and parceled out at the highest price. Which is quite understandable in a sense of self-preservation. Insure that the skill you have commands the highest price possible. I think Chris is certainly one of the more enlightened people I know, however, in this case his argument is just Utopian wishful thinking."

And then Chris had a couple more rambling points then...

i'm not arguing the necessity of ordered, societally ascendant specilization. i'm simply stating that to further aspects of the human existance to new frontiers and experiences, specilization is important and should not be cast aside. specializtion this is not a utopian ideal, it is a current reality.

generalists are excellent as the functioning body of society. they are not the group theorizing or pushing intellectual boundries; they are the individuals implimenting and fabricating the fruits of those ideas set in motion by the specialists. keep in mind, the argument is not desirious of keeping the man down, when a generalist has enough experience in an area, the potential exists for that individual to become a specailist and able to innovate.

if you do not think this is occuring, look at the current interntaional economic and intellectual system. the u.s. still maintains a stronghold on the worldwide university level academic system. yes it is weakening, however it is still at the top of the list. ideas flow from the specialists at the top of the system and filter to the generalists to be further developed and fabricated. where are these generalists? in other countries where education systems are lackluster and the main body of the population is unable to become specialists.

the current international system is standing proof that specialization is not only commonplace but the driving force of technology, medicine, exploration, mathematics, physics and philosophy. ergo: if you enjoy video games, drive a car, fly in a plane, are thankful for bars of xanax, look at pictures from the hubble, are amazed by string theory, or believe in evolution, at least consider that you would have none of those things without the body of knowledge produced by specialists.

yes it is about competition, but when was life not? arguing that a non-scientific state would not be rampant with problems sounds like avoiding reality and seeking the utopian ideal to me.

Waaaah...homina-homina-homina

2007-06-25T19:00:00.004-05:00

Ed norton, Ralph cramden...

Eddie Murphy

GONE for a LONG time

2007-06-23T00:17:00.000-05:00

Hey all. I got busy with life and work. Sorry northing's been happening here. I DID get a new AIM name: MrTyrrany. If you see me online, holla!

"FIDO"

2007-06-05T13:16:00.000-05:00

OH HOLY SHITE ON AN INEXPLICABLY HOVERING PLATTER CARVED ENTIRELY OUT OF MOTHER THERESAS ENORMOUS GALLSTONE! I can't wait to see this!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/fido/hd/

Does Frank Miller smoke Crystal Meth?...

2007-06-05T10:07:00.000-05:00

It would appear so...

http://www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbox7/

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

office Behavior

2007-05-22T22:02:00.000-05:00

You will LOVE this!!

http://www.vidmax.com/index.php/videos/view/1674

Nancy Grace

2007-05-09T03:47:00.000-05:00

Ha ha!!!

Well then,...here....

http://video.aol.com/video/nancy-grace-proves-her-last-name-is-meant-ironically/1912602

Gunpowder Tips

2007-05-03T21:46:00.000-05:00

The optimum proportions for gunpowder are: 74.64% saltpetre, 13.51% charcoal, and 11.85% sulfur (by weight). The current standard for black powder manufactured by pyrotechnicians today is 75% potassium nitrate, 15% softwood charcoal and 10% sulfur.

Potassium Nitrate *is* saltpetre (or as it's said in the states, saltpeter), I think the confusion is due to the fact that both sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate are both considered to be saltpeter. It has a lot to do with the cultivation but as easy way to consider it is that potassium nitrate is often refined from sodium nitrate.

Potassium nitrate is considered superior for guns due to faster burn rates, less smoke, and less crap left in the barrel.

Sulfer will be the hardest one. You either need to be located somewhere that used to have volcanic activity where you can mine it or locate a spring with high content level.
Saltpeter is easier. Best option is to locate a cave the has had bats for a long time, or worst case you have to make it from scratch which takes a lot of fecal matter, water, urine, and about 10 months. In either case you mix it with water and run it through ashes over fine grain cut boards. After it dries crystal particles will form on the boards. That's your saltpeter.
Cgarcoal is a no brainer, just use soft wood as hard wood has too much ash. Best method is to chop the wood into chunks and put 'em in a big bucket over a hardwood fire. When the heat from the hardwood fire causes the wood to smoke, light the chunks. Once it's going good, cover it and check back later.
All three parts need to be fine ground before combination. Then, you want to dampen them as you combine them. You can use water but urine is considered better because it forces more oxygen in. Once you have the damp mixture combined you want to force it through a sieve, it help makes sure the dried powder is evenly mixed.

Here's a detailed explanation of the saltpeter processing from caves I came across:
Carol A. Hill, one of the coordinators for the Saltpeter Research Group, describes the procedure that was used that day:

"Before the 187Os, caves were the primary source of nitrate used in the manufacture of gunpowder. Saltpeter mining was one of the first major industries of the new frontier, and one of the principle objectives of exploring new territory was to find saltpeter caves. Caves were mined by individuals and also commercially for national defense purposes during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. Many homesteaders in the Virginias, Kentucky, and Tennessee had their own individual saltpeter caves and from them would make their own gunpowder in home-constructed V-vats or 'hoppers.'

"Making a V-vat entailed using a peg-and-hole construction. The holes were made with a hand auger; the pegs by whittling down the end of a log with a hatchet and then by trimming with a knife . The frame was then pounded together with a wooden mallet . A froe was used to make the side boards. Bolts of wood that were straight-grained and well seasoned were the best for this purpose. The glut was used as a wedge to split the log base of the collecting trough. The trough was then hewn out with a foot adze and hatchet. After the hopper was constructed, twigs were laid in the bottom of the vat, and then wheat straw was laid on top of the twigs and along the side boards to help keep the vat from leaking.

"Cave dirt was tested for its nitrate potential by the following procedure: A footprint or mark was made in the dirt and left for twenty-four hours. If the print was scarcely visible by the next day, then the dirt was deemed high in niter. A mattock was used to break up the cave dirt, and a wooden saltpeter paddle was used for digging and scraping The dirt was removed from the cave in gunny sacks and poured on top of the twig and straw in the V-vat. Buckets of water were then poured over the saltpeter dirt to leach it of its nitrate or 'Mother liquor'. The mother liquor (also sometimes called 'beer' would run down the sides of the V-vat and into the split-log base and out into the collecting trough. A dipper gourd was often used to transfer the mother liquor into a container. This same liquor was poured again and again over the saltpeter dirt because releaching caused more nitrates to be dissolved. According to the old reports, releaching went on until the solution was of sufficient density to float an egg.

"The next step was to combine the mother liquor rich in calcium nitrate with wood ashes that contain high amounts of potassium hydroxide. The best woodashes for this purpose were made by burning hardwoods such as oak and hickory. The mother liquor was either poured directly over the woodashes or the woodashes were leached in barrels and the leachate directly combined with the mother liquor. Upon combination, a white haze could be seen , and this white precipitate (calcium hydroxide or 'curds' as it was called) would slowly sink to the bottom of the barrel. If the solution contained an excess of calcium nitrate, the product was termed 'in the grease.' An excess of woodashes produced a condition called 'in the ley.'

The wood ash leachate was poured into the mother liquor until the white curds could no longer be seen precipitating out of solution. The remaining solution thus contained the still soluble potassium nitrate. This solution was dipped out into an apple-butter kettle (or"evaporator'), and a fire started under the kettle. Turnip halves were then thrown into the boiling solution to help keep it from foaming and to take up the dirty brown color. Oxblood (or alum) was also added to the boiling liquid and caused the organic matter to rise to the top of the liquid and form a scum which, with continued boiling, was constantly ladled off. After a few hours of boiling, the hot liquor was poured through cheesecloth in order to filter out the remaining scum and organic material. Upon cooling, fine, bitter, needle-shaped crystals of niter (potassium nitrate) formed in the liquor. These crystals were then collected and dried. Potassium nitrate crystals were far superior to calcium or sodium-nitrate crystals because they are non-deliquescent (do not take up moisture from the air) and, hence, would not make the gunpowder wet and unusable. The nitrate crystals thus obtained had to be further refined and purified. This purification procedure was done either by the individual and homemade into gunpowder, or it was done after the saltpeter crystals were sent to a refinery where the final gunpowder was made."

Anyhow, hope that helps for when the evil wizards get you.

Wierd Aircraft

2007-04-30T15:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2022.html?theme=light

The writing on the wing looks very familiar to me,....Japanese????

Scottie ^_^

Here's another article with it appearing in a different locale....

http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1252&category=Environment

Scottie ^_^

How to play your own music on Guitar Hero

2007-04-28T21:42:00.000-05:00

So while the release of Guitar Hero 2 isn't news anymore, the ability to do custom songs definately is. The people at the Scorehero forums have figured out how to go around the system and code their own note charts and import mp3s to play along to. Think you wanna try? Look at this:

Step 4. Get an .mp3 of the song in question. If one is freely available, it may have been provided by the song creator, if not you will need to rip it from the CD or buy it from Itunes.

Step 5. Insert your GH2 disc into your DVD drive, copy the contents of the disc to a folder on your hard drive.

Step 6. Open Guitar Hero Explorer (Ghex), Go to file —> add archive and locate your MAIN_0.ARK file which is in the "GEN" folder you copied from the GH2 disc

If that looks exciting to you, go ahead. The prospect of playing Metalica and Bullet For My Valentine makes just about any metalhead wish they knew how to attack the technical knowhow required to get through the 8 programs and 12 steps to do your custom importing of data. Soooo, is it legal? Doesn't look like it, you need a "modified" PS2 to play these "backups". Video after the jump.

HOLY CRAP I nearly hurt myself laughing at these...

2007-04-27T21:54:00.000-05:00

I was braying through MOST of it...

Gross but FUNNY!!

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_steve_dont_eat_it.php

Tesla would be proud

2007-04-23T21:43:00.000-05:00

just watched a cool documentary on electric cars

check out this beast.

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1

Must-see music video

2007-03-27T19:11:00.000-05:00

I have just born witness to both the dorkiest and the coolest music video I have seen since Thriller. If you haven't seen the video for song Knights of Cydonia by the band Muse, then go check this out. It will sadden and titilate you at the same time. It is awesomely bad, or perhaps badly awesome! I can't decide.

you can see the directors cut here but it takes a while to download so it occasionally hangs while it loads but it IS the directors cut and once it's all downloaded it plays straight through without a hitch:
http://www.microcuts.net/misc/stream/koc.html

You can also see it all over YOUTUBE.

Check out the official website for the video here:
http://www.knightsofcydonia.com/
Yes, the freakin music video has it's own website!!!

Insect Sculpture

2007-03-12T19:20:00.000-05:00

look at this cool sculpture

http://www.jasonbaker.net/world/spain/bilbao-gug-spider.jpg

There's another one in Habana Vieja, Cuba. Put "bilbao spider" into google images for many more views.

Now HERE'S the picture to look at of it!
http://www.hotwells.freeserve.co.uk/Jpegs/spain/guggenheim_spider.jpg

there is a pretty good amount of insect sculptures of the NON-giant variety. Check these out:
http://www.beware-of-art.com/gallery/insects/
http://www.michaelturnerstudios.com/favourites/insects/
http://www.brucegray.com/htmlfolder/standingsculptures2.html
http://www.sanjuanartistcommunity.com/calohan/ - see the images in the column on the right
http://www.onedreamdesign.com/work.shtml - this is only one but it looks neat

Special delivery from Robot Chicken...

2007-03-12T18:12:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fckwyD6HqEs&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KbnIWF78-s&NR=1

SINFEST!

2007-03-08T19:18:00.000-06:00

A good web-comic you should know about

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2385

Super Deluxe makes me giggle....

2007-03-03T21:55:00.000-06:00

Yay!! I endorse!

http://www.superdeluxe.com/static/funny_lunch/

Another awesome video

2007-02-25T19:17:00.000-06:00

a guy at my work sent me another video which damaged my brain on a very similar level. I felt I had to share. Check this out:

http://youtube.com:80/watch?v=vSPvvVfcoAw

It's like a Indian michael jackson thriller video, and it's wrong in almost every way.

This shirt is awesome

2007-02-18T22:00:00.000-06:00

This shirt is awesome

http://paizo.com/store/apparel/tShirts/pegasusPublishing/v5748btpy7rol

save some money and buy it right from the source!
http://www.pegasuspublishing.com/xcart/product.php?productid=27188&cat=254&page=1

Movie Location Finder

2007-02-08T19:10:00.000-06:00

this site lets you put in a movie and see where it's filming locations were. I found it while I was trying ot discover where the house they shot the movie "The Haunting" was.

http://www.movie-locations.com/

it's pretty spiffy.

Dead Buddhist Monk Is Alive

2007-01-20T19:03:00.000-06:00

"Exhumation of the body of Hambo Lama Itigelov took place September 10 th, 2002 on the territory of cemetery near the city of Ulan Ude (Russian Federation). He died and was buried in 1927 and the exhumation was performed in presence of relatives, officials, and specialists".

http://www.bumbinorn.com/2007/02/22/hambo_lama_48654.html

Yuki and I got a new roommate

2007-01-16T21:59:00.000-06:00

Amy. Hairstylist and very slender person. She's very nice and now we get money every month for not going into an extra room we had in our house! FUCKING SWEET! Plus, she has totally brought back the use of the term douche-bag into my life. Yay!

betchslap.com

2007-01-16T21:27:00.000-06:00

Check it out, I saw this like, I don't know, a year ago or more, I meant to post it back then but veged. Enjoy the glory.

Click Here

GAIJIN SMASH!!!!!

2006-12-09T23:04:00.000-06:00

http://www.gaijinsmash.net/archives/gaijin_smash.phtml

This is quite sad, but still funny.

Three Facts

2006-12-09T23:02:00.000-06:00

1. Ninjas are mammals.
2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

intererestingly, the word "Ninja" in these three sentances can be replaced with "Eric's Dardunah Character" and the same would still be true!

Check This woodworking project out

2006-12-09T23:01:00.000-06:00

I want that to be MY open air crematorium when I kick off.

http://www.pranamaya.com/stooge/bm2k2/photos/temple_build_layout.html

In Honor of Banned Books Week, George bans books! - by Sue Willman

2006-12-09T22:53:00.000-06:00

Environmental Protection Agency Libraries <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Net-Gold/message/15100>

Bush Nixes Public Access to EPA Libraries!<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Net-Gold/message/15101>

And from the previous post, this link…
The Ministry of Truth
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-pope/the-ministry-of-truth-str_b_28031.html

and from that one, another headline…
Bush’s own church protests war
http://www.evangelicalright.com/2006/09/bushs_own_church_has_called_fo_1.html

Vader, fucking with the crew

2006-12-09T22:52:00.000-06:00

totally funny...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVPm2rIQO_c&NR

I saw this coming a mile away! - by Lee Lloyd

2006-12-09T22:48:00.000-06:00

I saw this coming a mile away!

http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1338

So, now that everyone has decided that CO2 is an evil pollutant that is killing all life on Earth through that horrific Global Warming®, they can start suing people! Today it is the car companies, but you know what REALLY produces a lot of CO2? People!

Hey, I have an idea, why don't we start suing, or better yet maybe even going to war with, countries that have too many people (in defense of the climate of precious Mother Earth of course). Or how about this, every country that has more people than trees, has to make sure they balance, either by planting more trees, or killing more people. I bet several African nations would have fun with that one! Oh, or how about this one, everyone who owns an SUV has to carry around a tree with them wherever they go. I mean, they hat all that storage space anyway.

Oh, you want to know another Greenhouse Gas©? Water vapor! We need to crack down on that too. Oh, we should sue companies that make humidifiers. Oh, and the water utilities too. Those evil bastards are spreading that dangerous Dihydrogen Monoxide all over the place.

I officially declare Global Warming® the doctrine of original sin for secular people! There is no other way I can account for the utter stupidity of calling one of the most basic elements necessary to life on this planet a pollutant.

Hate Week Revisited - by Lee Lloyd

2006-12-09T22:37:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to pass on another highly edited selection of passages from 1984. Once again, if you see the relevance of these passages, then so be it, if not, then so be it. These all happen to be from chapter 3 "war is peace" of Emmanuel Goldstein's book within 1984.

"The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of DOUBLETHINK, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living..."

"From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations./And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process--by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute--the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries."

But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction--indeed, in some sense was the destruction--of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which WEALTH, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while POWER remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its more advanced rivals..."

The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare."

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent..."

War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world.

All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith./

To this I would merely like to add that I think that either Democratic or Republican could easily be added to every mention of the word "party" in that text, and I would also like to point out that , unbelievably enough, the literacy rate in many parts of this country is now at the lowest point in the entire history of America! In fact, there are many states, which back when they used to be colonies, boasted near 90%
literacy rates, which are now doing good to have a 50% literacy rate.

Just some really depressing stuff to think about for your reading pleasure.

Hate Week - by Lee Lloyd

2006-12-09T22:35:00.000-06:00

It being the fifth anniversary of September 11th, and thus an official hate week if ever there was one (at least judging from what I see on the telescreen), I thought I'd just send out a few quotes from 1984 that struck me as relevant, for those of you who haven't read it in a while. Take it as you will. I obviously see some importance in the words, but you may not. These are just various snippets in the order that most struck my fancy.

The program of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies...

But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day, and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were — in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State.

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current,

if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there were still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason...

Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, or deep or complex sorrows.

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.

Springtime for Hitler

2006-12-09T22:34:00.000-06:00

A new eatery in Mumbai has been named after Adolf Hitler! While it sounds like something from a Mel Brooks film, no, this isn't the sequel to The Producers. And, if the very idea isn't baffling enough, how about this explanation from the owner:

"We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in
the way he was different." - Owner Punit Shablok

I Love Earth.~Eric

A BADASS game trailer

2006-12-09T22:32:00.000-06:00

Okay, This is just a little something incase you haven't seen this already. Many of you probably have. But if you haven't and you're going to play Dardunah, I would like to share it with you. This is something I consider totally inspirational and if it were only possible to substitute horrible giant insects for demons, a totally Dardunah tableau. This action inspired one of my greatest characters, Lord Aveta, a Panther Swordsman from Sustrüm. And let me tell you, friends and neighbors, he was GREAT! Anyway, check this out and maybe it will inspire you as it has inspired me:

http://www.fileplanet.com/136911/130000/fileinfo/Onimusha-3:-Demon-Siege-Intro-Movie

In case you'd like to download it:

http://www.gamershell.com/download_5134.shtml

Also available Here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=713

In case you haven't seen this

2006-12-09T22:28:00.000-06:00

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3299723250114224221&q=e3+trailer+2006

Just in case you haven't, it's the promo trailer for mark of chaos.

Worth watching, not so much for the game but for the pure holy ownage it features.

I GOTS A NEW JOB!!!

2006-08-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

I lost my dorky-ass gig at SUCKS-unoff on the 2nd, in case you hadn't heard. And promptly got a gig with harte-hanks on the 5th doing xbox tech support. Then got a better offer on the 10 from Stormwater Research Group and THAT'S where I reside. Dig it!
When it comes to job-searchin', the kid don't play! Y'all niggas what have been lookin' for work for four months and shit, y'all are gay. Git a job, nigga!

Letters from bad santa

2006-07-28T08:28:00.000-05:00

Oh this is good stuff here. Just look at all these wrong-ass toys! It's delightful! The rest of the site if fun too!

CLICK HERE

Star Wars in Iraq

2006-07-25T13:21:00.000-05:00

You ahve got to see this. We are using super-badass technology in secret in Iraq. Laser and/or Microwave weapons! See the aftermath of their effect. Hear eye-witness reports of the messed up corpses left behind! It's AWESOME and completely Terrifying.

Click Here

Can you guess which of the following are true and which are false?

2006-07-21T12:18:00.000-05:00

1. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
2. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button.
3. A pack-a-day smoker will lose approximately 2 teeth every 10 years.
4. People do not get sick from cold weather; it's from being indoors a lot more.
5. When you sneeze, all bodily functions stop,even your heart!
6. Only 7 per cent of the population are lefties.
7. Forty people are sent to the hospital for dog bites every minute.
8. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until they are 2-6 years old.
9. The average person over 50 years old will have spent almost 5 years waiting in lines.
10. The toothbrush was invented in 1498.
11. The average housefly lives for one month.
12. 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year.
13. A coat hanger is 44 inches long when straightened.
14. The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute.
15. Your feet are bigger in the afternoon than any other time of day.
16. Most of us have eaten a spider in our sleep.
17. The REAL reason ostriches stick their head in the sand is to search for water.
18. The only two animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads are the rabbit and the parrot.
19. John Travolta turned down the starring roles in "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Tootsie."
20. Michael Jackson owns the rights to the South Carolina State Anthem.
21. In most television commercials advertising milk,a mixture of white paint and a little thinner is used in place of th e milk.
22. Prince Charles and Prince William NEVER travel on the same airplane, just in case there is a crash.
23. The first Harley Davidson motorcycle, built in 1903, used a tomato can for a carburetor.
24. Most hospitals make money by selling the umbilical cords cut from women who give birth. They are used in vein transplant surgery.
25. Humphrey Bogart was related to Princess Diana. They were 7th cousins.
26. If coloring weren't added to Coca-Cola, it would be green.

Answers:
They are all true.

Recent Developments with Urban Delivery Vehicles

2006-07-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

Dudes! Check this out:

On June 21, 2006, EPA unveiled the world's first hydraulic hybrid delivery truck in Washington D.C. The EPA hybrid features a hydraulic drivetrain that replaces a conventional drivetrain and eliminates the need for a conventional transmission. By achieving 70 percent better fuel efficiency in urban driving and 40 percent lower CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, this vehicle demonstrates the highest-efficiency powertrain known. A fleet owner operating one of these high efficiency hydraulic vehicles would save up to 1,000 gallons of fuel each year. EPA estimates that over the lifespan of the vehicle the net savings based on lowered fuel consumption and lowered brake maintenance cost to be over $50,000.

Click Here

THINGS YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE TO BE A REPUBLICAN TODAY...

2006-07-17T11:36:00.000-05:00

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary.

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him,a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him,a good guy when Cheney did business with him,and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden"diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, buttrade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

The United States should get out of the United Nations, and ourhighest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions againstIraq.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, butproviding health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extra-marital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war inwhich thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you'rea Conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need ourprayers for your recovery.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

Here’s some fun news for us non-voting apathetic citizens, we're likely tobe stuck with more Republicans in '06 and '08.

FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS VOTE REPUBLICAN

A dark favor request

2006-07-17T11:34:00.000-05:00

Allright everybody, I am going to ask you all for a favor. On the upside it doesn't cost ANY money at all, nor any blood or sweat, so to speak. You will not have to leave the air-conditioning or indeed travel at all from the very chair you now sit in. But it will cost time. 15 to 30 minutes depending on how fast you read. The favor I ask is that you all read this webpage. The whole thing, not just the first 1-3 paragraphs. Now you're probably asking why I would beg this favor from you and fearing that it will be boring or whatever. It might. I won't lie to you. But what it will also be is a learning experience. I am firmly convinced that unless certain technologies come to pass, we will, in our own lifetimes, live in a world where riots and pandemic human suffering are daily news. I want the fact that I made you all read this today to be something that in the future you can allow you all to say, "Wow, Eric totally warned us that this was coming like 20 years ago!" That's all I ask. I want to be a confirmed and acknowledged doomsayer. That's it. I don't care if you don't even give a crap about what you are hopefully about to read. My point isn't to change anything or cause anything to happen other than the aforementioned nod to my knowing it was coing all along. I'm gleefully grim like that. It warms the cockles of my heart to think that I will have told you so. So please click on the link below and read the ENTIRE page.

http://www.hermes-press.com/water.htm