I learned many, many years ago that when a franchise movie is bad you need to just deal with it. It's one of the most difficult things a person has to do when dealing with the reality of an object they love failing them utterly.

So, yes.  The X-Files: I Want to Believe is bad.  Let's have a spoiler-filled look at how this happened.

I don't want to waste a ton of time reviewing the film... or telling you why it sucks.  Actually, the wonderful Alexandra DuPont of Ain't it Cool News does a GREAT job of telling you why this movie goes wrong.  Unless you see me directly contradict something from that review, consider it a great layout of my opinions (right down the comments about werewolves, Robert Patrick, and that God-forsaken last shot).

Six years ago the greatest television show ever went off the air.  Now, I feel perfectly justified saying that.  When it comes to television, there's some sorta crazy formula of quality balanced over quantity that allows you to be "the best".  The X-Files perfected that.  Don't tell me how awesome Firefly is.  It didn't even have a full season of episodes.  It never had to say, "how do we keep this fresh?"  That doesn't mean it isn't awesome.  It just means it can never be as awesome as The X-Files.  Did the show suffer some as it went on?  Yes.  The mythology episodes became very weak in the middle of the show. When I was younger, I thought the show died an awful death at the departure of Duchovny.  Upon re-viewing the show, this is not the case.  While it isn't as great as the heyday of seasons two through four, (where we truly trusted no one, locked our doors a little more securely and feared the impending alien invasion), it's much better than it is usually credited with being.  The reason we hated it then?  We were damn near told to.  Instead of handling Duchovny's wish to breathe (which, after eight years, wouldn't you want to "try something different?"), FOX TV constantly dicked with us.  "IS THIS THE WEEK MULDER RETURNS!?"  Now, I don't know if Chris Carter's "crap, my stars are leaving" plan of a revolving door Law & Order style cast would have worked, but I will say that Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish are both solid contributors to the show, and their presence is SEVERLY lacking in the movie.  No doubt 20th Century Fox said "replace those FBI agents with somebody hip... like AMANDA PEET".  *sigh*

But from the very beginning of the end, Duchovny and others said, "we're down for movies".  A whole lotta missteps later (including losing the outline to the super-secret script), and here we are. On the damned 100th anniversary of the FBI, the show that made the Bureau cool makes its big screen return.  Fight the Future (the 1998 film) is like a warm freakin' blanket to me.  No matter how many fine movies come out in the rest of my life, I'm comfortable saying it will always been in my top twenty-five.  So... how did we X-Philes come to the Alexandra DuPont camp on the sequel?

The Hollywood insider "Movieline International Report" said the following to theaters about what to expect this weekend: The popular TV series and highly successful 1998 theatrical release (10/11/98, $30 million opening, $83 million total) has generated interest with over 25 females who were fans of the TV series. Average or better business.
Now, aside from getting the release date of the first movie wrong (that was the DVD release, thank you), we setup that Hollywood intends for this to be a chick flick.  Now, many, many chicks watched The X-Files, but a cheap, $33 million (the reported budget for the movie) chick flick... no.  Not acceptable.

The movie starts right.  The music.  The scrolling "location" text in that bottom left corner.  The creepy vibe.  Sure, whatever the HELL happens with the arm and what-not at the film's outset isn't exactly the creepiest X-File we've ever seen, but it's an okay foundation.  Here we have the goodness.  Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz truly ask, "what has happened in the past six years?"  And their immediate answer is one of genius.  Scully is finally a doctor, at a Catholic hospital.  She works to save lives, but she is still reeling from the decision to give up her son for his protection.  Mulder has become a bearded hermit, living away from society and clipping out weird stories from newspapers.  He's a sad, sad man... a man who has had everything taken from him.  Both characters are vunerable, lost souls.  And then the FBI comes knocking, offering to drop (bogus) charges (and a sentancing to death) against Mulder if he'll help them find a lost FBI agent.  The PROMISE of this movie is amazing.  Taking a pair of shattered icons on a trip down memory lane.  And they do it SO right.  Mulder can't say no to helping find a missing person, because he owes it to his dead sister!  Scully misses her child, so she immediately hates our weirdo psychic pedophile priest!  Every. Single. Character. Decision. PERFECT.  As a matter of fact, the worst thing to occur in the first thirty minutes of the movie is a tarnishing of the classic Mark Snow musical theme to make the most wacked out George W. Bush joke ever.  I cannot understand this joke for the life of me, and it is NOT a way to reestablish something that IS truly iconic.

From this point on, the "how" of doom starts to become apparent.  The villians aren't creepy enough.  The drama is too soapy.  But mostly?  Chris Carter is the EXACT OPPOSITE of George Lucas.  Now, I know what you're thinking; "that's gotta be a good thing, right?"  Sadly, wrong.  You see, when George returned to Star Wars after hiatus, he said, "I know what's right.  Screw you all.  I am a god."  But Carter has been abused.  The man has barely worked in the past six years.  The end of his show is considered by many a huge failure (and if we're only talking about the HORRIBLE recap episode that is the two-hour finale, then they're right).  I get the feeling that Chris doesn't get his phone calls returned much anymore.  So, he listens to the haters.  "Stand alone episodes are better."  And he makes a stand alone movie.  He listens to the fans.  "Mulder and Scully are truly together."  He listens to the studio.  "Xzibit!"  He listens to everyone.  Because he WANTS it back.  He NEEDS it. 

But there's the problem.  Who are these twenty-five year old women seeing the movie?  They are X-PHILES.  They want to be screwed with!  They want to be shocked and scared!  AND THEY WANT TO BELIEVE!!  There's nobody seeing this movie who doesn't have a pre-formed opinion.  I've heard ten people declare proudly to me since this movie went into production that they had never watched an episode of the series.  They are not gonna see this movie, no matter how many times you tell them it stands alone.  Then there are the people who NEED CLOSURE.  People like me who pray at night that come December 22, 2012 (if you don't know what that date is, sorry) Mulder and Scully will save us from colonization.  And we're split.  We're never getting together.  Example: have you seen the trailer?  There's that shot of the priest on his knees, blood coming from his eyes.  Now, the shot has been darkened in the trailer so that the blood almost looks black.  Like... the black oil, a central part of X-Files mythology.  So, anyone with any background goes, "OH MAN, THE BLACK OIL, SWEET" and is being lied to.  But everyone else is like, "I thought you said stand alone?  WTF?"

And that's where we are.  You can't change that.  You have a fanbase.  I've spent a couple hundred dollars on DVDs.  I'll see any movie that's put out.  And you give me a movie where Skinner only shows up in the last ten minutes, and you replace a role that was probably written for Robert Patrick with Xzibit.  And you do this the week after The Dark Knight so that you get the toughest, highest-expecting critics and crowds possible.  Great freakin' work 20th Century Fox.  No, really.  You have one of the most loyal fanbases in television history... a fanbase that truly helped to shape the show, and you're worried about appealing to somebody else after nine years of faithful viewing?  *double sigh*

As the movie drags on (and it really does drag), you keep wishing for something, anything to happen, but it can't.  The studios don't want it to.  Also, while Carter is in many ways a genius, he is no spectacular director.  Give us back Rob Bowman in the director's chair, please.  We're subjected to so many things that just don't work as this film goes along.  We don't have the money for any action near the film's end, so there really isn't any.  They throw a weird attraction plot in with Amanda Peet that about drives me bonkers.  And while the initial concepts for the "scary" plot are good (both the spiritual and scientific elements) we have to pull them off with crap.  Scully wants to perform an expirimental stem cell procedure?  She has to LOOK IT UP ON GOOGLE.  And then the revealing moment for what the spooky plot is comes from her finding that all of what she found on Google didn't print.  The same lament could be put to the film's romantic plot.  The first moment they show the dynamic duo laying in bed got a gasp from the audience (although for the life of me, I can't figure out why... I mean, are there really people who didn't get the memo that they were sleeping together in the last three seasons?), but then after a decade and a half of working well together they get into an argument and talk like a spat is enough to break them up.  I mean, how I see it, these characters have caused so much pain and grief for each other over the years but gotten through it together that their relationship should be the most solid relationship in the history of cinema.  Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case.

This movie lacks triumph.  You wanna talk triumph?  Watch the end of Fight the Future where a simple TELEGRAM makes crowds cheer aloud as the film goes to credits.  When this movie was over, people didn't know what to do.  They were like, "um... it's over?  Really?  That's it?"  We've been told by this show time and time again to expect more.  And to not give us any indication as to the current outlook on the title's sake (the X-files), is a pretty bad plan as well.  Heck, Amanda Peet's dialog reminding us of how many WAY COOLER psychics we've seen over the years of the show doesn't help anything either.  There's so much "meh" at the end of this movie, it's hard to describe.  And the epic-bad final shot.  I don't know what the demographic that needs to see Mulder and Scully row off into the sunny world is... but fuck you, demographic.  I mean, seriously.  I want these characters to be happy as much as the next guy, but that's a load of crap.  THEY WAVED AT THE CAMERA.  Like some damned fan fiction joke. 

I think the most painful thing about this movie was how much I needed more.  If I thought "The Truth" (the series finale) was a bad ending to a masterpiece... I Want to Believe is a doggone AWFUL ending.  It does not address the items that need addressing.  There is no triumph.  There is no victory.  Heck, I'd even take despair!  But there's nothing.  "And... we went on vacation".  No.  Screw that. We need another movie.  We need to get some of the old writers involved.  And we need to push for something more.  The X-Files damn near FOUNDED the current era of good science fiction TV and movies.  And it should go out with a bang, not a whimper.

Hello! First of all, I am good. I leave Boston next week (kinda makes me sad), the area is nice. Well, I don't enjoy the taxes, and sometimes it feels like if the people here don't have a law to regulate something they get confused. Other than that, though, it's pretty spiffy.

After that it's back to the ATL for a few days, then to wichita for some wedding action! whoo!

I feel bad that all I do is post like.. politicy or debate-able type stuff. I'll correct this. BUT! Since Mike hasn't gotten off of his ass to do this himself (I prefer his rants about politics to mine. Perhaps he can add better comments or more links in the comments (HINT). Or just use some admin-fu and edit this thing himself.

To start, I think the biggest problem with the whole global warming debate is not that people have bad data from actual physical tests. I can't deny the actual, physical changes. However, it's the cause and effect relationship of the climate that I put into serious question.

A good example of this is in an excellent summary of the research being done, alongside a pretty good discussion of how conclusions about cause/effects are determined. (all links pop to new window)

Also, this link contains a story (and another link to a paper you should check out), the also questions the IPCC's modelling methods.

It's becoming clear that the cause/effect of greenhouse gasses and global warming are not correlated. Remember kids, correlation does not always imply causality, but non-correlation does imply non-causality.

So, what is the cause?

It appears the sun, a pretty big energy source, is probably to blame. Coincidentally, the sun is slowing down, and we are seeing the effects of that:

Now, what I'm not going to do is completely espouse the sun theory (although it seems pretty reliable). I feel more in line with that theory because the cause/effect matches up better. Because, even at face value, greenhouse gas theories are slightly flawed. The theory is based on how much energy the gasses trap... but they don't generally consider the source of the energy they are trapping!

I just want to avoid the bandwagon mistake that is probably going to cost us $$$ and do funny things to the economy. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for research into more efficient vehicles, better materials, cleaner burning engines, alternative fuels (removes dependence from foreign sources), etc. HOWEVER! I think that those efforts are valuable on their own merits. Efficient vehicles are generally driven by material science, both high temperature and high strength to weight alloys/composites. I think that money should go into that research, but not for flawed reasons.

So yeah, add links/data to whatever viewpoint you hold.

“Hell No: A look at why Hellboy II let me way down”

 

“Oh crap.” –Hellboy

 

When you go to a movie, you’re entering a conflict on defense.  A group of people is going to come in front of you and display something to you, and you react.  Now, there are different kinds of movies, and many different expectations.

 

“Hellboy II” has an interesting mess of expectations going for it.  It’s based on a brilliant and reliable comic book, but the first film was at best “loosely” based on the comics.  Instead, it took some of the look, characters, and ideas and threw them somewhere fully different.  Hellboy doesn’t hide from the public, he isn’t madly in love with Liz Sherman, and he’s a lot more… mature in many ways.  Now, about that first film, it’s a good movie.  It sure isn’t great, because it has one of the most anti-climatic third acts EVER.  The movie deflates, imploding upon itself in a painfully dull fashion.  Which is a shame, because most of the movie was interesting enough, and it really does have some great moments.  And those moments are very well visualized by Guillermo del Toro.  His name brings a lot of expectations with this new film.  You can’t help but bring expectations based off of “Blade II” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” to the film.

 

So, with the offensive line revealed, let’s be blunt: “Hellboy II” is overrated.

 

I do not, at all, understand this heaping of praise coming at this movie.  I keep hearing things about “Star Wars”, and I just want to say to everybody making that comparison, you can shut the hell up before I shove a proton torpedo up your rear.  About the only two things those two movies have in common is a lot of cool real-world effects and a scary lack of black people.  Yes, “Hellboy II” looks cool.  If you liked “Transformers”, you may like “Hellboy II”.  But, if you saw “Transformers” as the vapid piece of junk it was… well, let’s have a discussion. 

Here come the spoilers.

 

Half an hour into “Hellboy II”, I was pretty sure I was in for some suck.  This was for three reasons:

 

1) We had zero “development”.  None of the characters had looked at each other long enough to evoke anything more than a passing conversation.  And the reverse-development of Manning (Tambor) and Hellboy (Perlman) with their working relationship from the end of the last film was baffling.

 

2) There was a scene where people argued in front of a council.  Let me give anyone out there who wants to make a movie a tip-- council scenes are VERY HARD to pull off.  George Lucas can’t do it.  The Wachowski brothers can’t do it.  Peter Jackson did it ONCE, and that was because 50% of the people in his council have some pretty serious acting skills.  Anytime you stick a bunch of important, stuffy people in a room to have an argument, it usually launches into one guy giving a speech and getting pissy, and ends very blah.  Even though this council scene ended in a bloodbath, I was still not amused.

 

3) They had already told me, rather explicitly, how the movie was going to end.  Much, much more bitching on this point later.

 

So, half an hour in, I’m sitting there pulling a Hellboy.  “Oh crap.”  And watching this movie play out is a damned train wreck.  It’s like Del Toro made a list of stuff that has an interesting idea, and then made it boring and didn’t explore it.  Don’t get me wrong here and defend him on this by saying, “oh, that’s the point- to make these extraordinary things common”.  I’m gonna lay some money down that I’ve probably read more Hellboy than you, and I understand the way “absurd” works.  Demons lamenting that they’ve lost an acolyte to pancakes is awesome. 

( http://www.brandonbird.com/photos/pancakes.jpg ) Pancakes are normal things.  A demon eating them is funny.  But the real home run comes from the “oh no” factor of the other demons realizing that they have lost one of their crew because he ate pancakes.  The emotional pay-off’s.

 

The EXACT opposite of this scenario takes place in “Hellboy II”.  About fifteen minutes in we’re told Liz Sherman is pregnant.  This gives us a TON of potential for pay-off!  There’s the “you’re carrying the child of a demon” thing, the “how does this affect your relationship” thing, the “I’m a working woman, how will this affect me” thing… and what do we get instead?  For NINETY MINUTES we get this instead:

 

“Hey, HB, I need to tell you something.”

“Sure, Liz, what’s up?”

*explosion, distraction*

 

“Oh, Liz, did you have something to tell me?”

“Yea, I--"

*explosion, distraction*

 

Taking ninety minutes to tell the title character something I’ve been told in the audience… this is not a good plan.  And when they DO tell him, it doesn’t really DO anything.  It’s sloppy.  Just like Liz knowing at the very end of the movie that she’s having twins.  HOW DOES SHE KNOW THIS!?  There are loads of unresolved, unexplained bullshit-- all of it set to bad music.  The bad guy talks about uniting his elf people for war.  We see his elf people at the council of suck.  And then… no more elf people.  Apparently, this royal elf is basically the prince of a machine army and nobody else.  I don’t understand this.

 

There’s so much wrong with this movie.  I mean, sure, I laughed some.  And yes, it’s nice to see a movie do effects that aren’t all CGI.  But I can’t like it.  Maybe someday, somehow I’ll get dumber.  But for now I just can’t grasp what the hell Del Toro is thinking other than that he wanted to make puppets.  Some people are really harsh on “Blade II”, and I understand why.  It’s a little disjointed.  Something about it doesn’t quite flow right.  It needs a couple more character moments, a few more breathers, and needs to try a little bit less to be cool.  But ya know what?  The basic plot of that movie is a few small shifts away from identical to this… and it was far and away better.  Because we see Blade and his crew experience some stuff.  Feelings happen.  Choices are made.  As it stands, I'm not looking forward to "The Hobbit", but then again, I was only fully devoted to the first "Lord of the Rings" movie, and more dedicated to screaming in rage throughout the second film.

 

“Hellboy II” happens.  And it doesn’t make sense.  I don’t understand why the previously human-run BPRD sends in someone new from DC to command its main office who is definitely in the “freak” category.  I don’t understand how any of the relationship struggles “resolve”.  I really, really don’t understand what the hell ANYONE was thinking in dismissing Marco Beltrami and his brilliant, quirky theme from the last film for an unceasing assault of Danny Elfman giving us his very worst. 

 

But most of all, I do not understand the telegraphed pass.

 

There we are, the defense, the audience.  Maybe you don’t have all the expectations I do.  You haven’t seen this offense before, you don’t know its moves.  But within the movie itself we are told at the very beginning “there is an army, and you can challenge the leader of the army… hey, are you listening, Hellboy?”  Hey, did anyone notice the fact that the bad guy has a twin with a physical wounding bond?  So… like, if you hurt one, the other would go down!  So, we know what’s coming.  We know what the third act is.  And that’s fine.  That’s more than fine, that’s great.  Because at the end of the movie, you SHOULD know what has to happen.  John McClane is gonna have to blow up the bad guy.  Neo is gonna end up being the One.  The great movies know this.  But when you telegraph a pass, you HAVE to do one of two things:

 

1) Fake us out.

 

Or

 

2) Throw that pass while doing a backflip to a receiver who just barely gets their feet in-bounds before scoring. 

 

Don’t do these things, and your audience gets BORED.  I WANTED the movie to end.  I did NOT feel the need to keep sitting there.  As filmmakers you either have to hit us in a way we aren’t looking for, or you have to make what we knew was coming so out-of-this-world amazing that we want to hit the instant replay because it was just THAT GOOD.  Anyone out there remember that title game in football between Texas and USC?  And near the end, you see that Vince Young is gonna run the ball himself.  And you knew it was coming.  You knew he was gonna do it.  But the way, and the confidence, and the finesse is just so amazing that you wanna re-watch it.  Yea, Hellboy doesn’t end like that.

 

It just ends.

Ok, so I'm going to preface this post with the statement that I hate politics for the most part, and I find myself generally annoyed with the election in general, however, as an American I need to vote and participate.  That being said I also know that on this site I am EXTREMELY out numbered in terms of how I will end up voting in November, although I won't really be voting "for" anyone.  I will be voting AGAINST Obama, because I feel that he is against everything that America stands for and is built upon, and that he is a racist.  However, that unfortunately leaves me with John McCain or Ralph Nader...I think I'll just write in Charlie Daniels...but I digress.  I did decide however to look up some stuff so I can make an informed decision, and here are some of the things I came across. 

  About a year or so ago:
    1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
    2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
    3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
    1) Consumer confidence plummet
    2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon
    3) Unemployment is up 5%
    4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity valueevaporate (stock and mutual fund losses)
    5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars

America decided we were sick of the Republican Congress is 2006 and voted the other way, and we got some change I'd say.  Everyone blames Bush for all the problems in this country, but he can only work with what he's got.  However, I do think it's interesting how high gas prices are and that it's very convenient that Bush has all his money invested in oil, but anyway, the Congress has A LOT of say in things and has A LOT to do with our economy and how this country is run, so I personally don't put ALL the blame on Bush. Moving on now to taxes

 www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.HTML

Both Obama and Hitlery have stated that they will repeal all of Bush's tax cuts if they're elected.  I don't really like that, and people say that Bush's tax cuts are one of the main reasons we're in such enormous debt, I don't entirely agree with that, I think that the fact we're in a war that no one supports has more to do with it than that.  I also believe that Democrats know the economy a lot better and know how to manage money a lot better than Republicans, Roosevelt did a great job of pulling us out of the great depression after all.  So I don't really know a whole lot about that, but I did look up those differences, and I personally like the lower numbers and I think that tax increases aren't going to help pull us out of anything, if anything, they're going to make matters worse.  As for our spending defecit and how far in debt we are as a nation, I think these next stats are gonna piss yall off, cause I sure as hell know they piss me off, and I'm including the URL's to prove I'm not making it up.

1.  $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.  Verify at:   http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2.  $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and freeschool lunches for  Illegal aliens.
Verify at:  http://WWW.cis..org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

3.  $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.  Verify at:  http://WWW.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

4.  $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally.  Verify at:  http://transcriptsCNN.Com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML

5.  $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.  Verify at:  http://transcripts.CNN.Com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

6.  $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.  Verify at:  http://transcripts.CNN.Com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

7.  30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.  Verify at:  http://transcripts.CNN.Com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

8.  $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and social services by the American taxpayers.  Verify at:  http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9.  $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.  Verify at:  http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10.  The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens.  In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.  Verify at:  http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11.  During the year 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border including as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries.  Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U.S. from the Southern border.  Verify at:  Homeland Security Report:  http://www.house.gov/mccaul/pdf/Investigaions-Border-Report.pdf 

12.  The National Policy Institute, estimated that "the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of  between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."  Verify at:   http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13.  In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.  Verify at:  http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14.  "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States."  Verify at:  http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

 

The total cost is $338.3 BILLION A YEAR!!!!!

This is total BULLSHIT.  We spend that much money on people who don't deserve ANY of the rights that this great country gives.  This is one stance I am completely conservative on and am not willing to budge an inch on.  George "Open Borders" Bush failed MISERABLY in his presidency at securing our borders, and now we spend that much money on illegals.  I'm sorry, if you're in this country illegally than you should be treated as what you are a CRIMINAL.  You should be given no rights as an American would get, you should not be entitled to anything in this country, and if you are found you should be deported.  But as it is, we are spending 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS every year on these people.  The war in Iraq is why we're in debt, Bush's tax cuts are why we're in debt...BULLSHIT the money that those are costing us pales in comparison to what we spend on illegals.  Congress fails here too, they don't do anything to protect the border, hell they along with Bush incarcerate (sp?) 2 border gaurds for shooting a drug dealer who was trying to sneak across the border for the something like 8th time, they get jailed for doing their job!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!  REDICULOUS.  It's absolutely disgusting.  I don't care who wins the next election as long as it is not Obama, but whoever wins sure as hell better do something to change those costs, because that is absolutely rediculous.

"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world, 
I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." -- Barack Obama

Well I'm sorry to disappoint James, but there wasn't really much else to tell on the Iowa trip. I did learn that Ankit has absolutely no music ability or background, even the most basic songs from the 90's, he didn't know, I found that funny.

I had a family reunion today, my mom's side. I always find those funny. Not because her side of the family is filled with funny people, but because that even in a small family reunion (about 50 people), there is a serious class struggle.

Compare it to highschool. At one end of the gazeebo we were in, there was the uneducated, underpriveleged farmers, druggies, and alkies. In the middle were the people that started like that then actually did something with there lives, and last but not least there were the people that came from something and continued it or the select few that were real successes in life.

I really started to wonder what this meant for the midwest. This kind of situation is not new in any part of the world, but how much longer will it continue? The key to a good life is a good education, I believe that with all my heart. And with all the programs in place to help people get a free or almost free education ( I have yet to pay for a single credit hour, and I get loans for my books) Why do people resist to making their situation work for them?

Also, I got the invite to the wedding Mike, thanks for sending me one. I'm not sure what my plans are for a hotel room and what not, but I am RSVP'in, I will definitely be there. And I am going to be in Concordia, KS selling fireworks over the fourth, which means I will not be able to get a good nights sleep, eat a good meal, or even shower for almost three days, but it's good money, so wish me luck.

R. Kelly has been acquited of all child porn charges

 http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/13/rkelly.closings.ap/index.html

Ever since the Rodney King beatings, something has happened to America. Are we now afraid of doing the right thing because some assholes MIGHT be upset? In all fairness the police officers in the King beatings deserved to be punished, they used extremely excessive force. But it seems now to make up for it, we are letting other black people off the hook. Wouldn't that be reverse racism, being nice to the whole black community because of one incident?

It doesn't matter to me what your personal feelings are, he fucking did it, and they both know it. So now instead of a fair and balanced system, which in todays society is almost an oxymoron, we have to be overly nice and look the other way when Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, and O.J. decide to be dumb asses, or just do it on purpose cause they are mentally deranged.

Am I the only one EXTREMELY FUCKING PISSED!? 

When I’m at work, I’m forced to watch (on weekdays) the Weather Channel or CNN.  Most the time, I try to watch the Internets instead.  Wherever I look, I learn new things… not all of them intended.

 

5) “How to look for news”

CNN this morning was looking for ways to exploit and sensationalize the death of four young teenage boy scouts in Iowa.  As they found ways to go between panicky “how could this happen” and “tales of heroism” they found time to teach me “How to look for news.”  This consisted of a guy standing in front of a TV that showed an internet browser.  The guy then proceeded to tell me, the viewer, where there were internet sites that I could read that might tell me more about the news... the news I assume THEY were supposed be reporting.  “The Boy Scouts Website just has a little bit of information on it; look at this they don’t want you calling if you don’t have family there…”   COME ON!

 

4) YouTube is not an acceptable form of research. 

This one really grinds my damn gears.  Years ago, when someone of merit to society passed, somebody went to the vault and dug up old footage.  Impressive artifacts of someone… a true remembrance of them in their prime, and what their legacy meant.  Now what do we (the news) do?  Show streaming video.  Pixilated, craptastic streaming video.  And they don’t just do this for the dead.  They do it for stuff from other stations.  They do it when they’re too lazy to get rights.  “Courtesy of YouTube” my ass.  I go to YouTube because I don’t have access to the backlog of information you, the news media does, you lazy sluts.  And that’s what they are.  Lazy folks who are not sexually discerning.  Slutty, no?

 

3) Polls.

Today I saw a poll on who people thought was better on the economy: McCain or Obama.  While this is an interesting question, if we have to have this sort of polling for the next FIVE MONTHS, it’s gonna get old.  Fast.

 

2) Fox News DESTROYS MY SOUL.

Baby-Mama. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/11/fox-news-calls-michelle-o_n_106655.html

Ain’t nothin’ racist here.

Terrorist Fist-Jab:  http://mediamatters.org/items/200806060007

HOLY SMOKES!  I mean… REALLY!?  A damn fist-pound is a terrorist fist jab to be examined?!  I’ve been pounding fists since junior high!  If this display makes me a terrorist, watch out world.

 

1) MSNBC soothes me.

The other day as I watched Keith Olbermann’s latest “special comment” (see: “Edward R. Murrow wanna-be rant”… not that there’s anything wrong with that, and if you don’t know about that period in history see “Good Night and Good Luck” for an awesome take on it all) I asked myself, “How am I any better than a Faux News fascist who yanks it to Bill O’Riley?”  There I was, on my socially liberal channel, enjoying a good smack-down.  And then it dawned on me… I wasn’t afraid.  Keith Olbermann doesn’t want me to run someone out of the country.  He didn’t want me to be afraid of people who thought differently than me.  He didn’t want me to persecute.  Yes, he points a finger at who he thinks are the bad guys.  But he doesn’t tell them they hate America for disagreeing with him.  

I’ve recently had a lot of people in my circle enjoying MSNBC election night coverage and debates.  And I hear I’m not the only one: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117987208.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

Tom Brokaw drops by, Brian Williams, Tim Russert… heck, Chris Matthews is less of the “problem” he used to be back when Jon Stewart levied that oh-so-right criticism of the way he divided people previously.  I’m not gonna say MSNBC is perfect, but in a world where any news I have to watch has to be re-filtered through 10 other sources before I feel like I’ve made it close to anything resembling the truth… I feel like I can shave off a few filters at MSNBC.  I like this.  It feels more like the news.

 

**

Unrelated note: I don’t like Chris Cornell because he isn’t Zack de la Rocha.  Maybe I can forgive him since Rage is touring again.  My attendance to Lollapalooza can only help the healing.

It's a wonderful morning on the Interwebz today, and all is well. I hope all of you are enjoying the start of summer. Emily has just started full-time work and I'm putting in 40 a week doing research related things and getting ready for the class I teach next semester. Wedding planning is going, that's all I'll say on that.

This past week also saw the ending of my phone contract coming closer. I didn't want to wait, so seeing that I indeed had permission from the almighty phone company to upgrade my phone before the contract ran out, I decided to ditch my poor old Samsung flip phone of boringness. It had Tetris and a Jimi Hendrix ringtone, and that was about the best of it.

Now I have a sleek new shiny phone! It's a Palm Centro! This sucker's pretty fan-damn-tastic. It's still small, but it has a great visible shiny bright touchscreen. QWERTY layout on tiny buttons that I'm getting used to. I was surprised how not bad it is to type. It runs Palm OS, obviously, which I'm used to since the Palm IIIxe days. Ah... IR pool in geography. Those were the days. With the Centro I have fulfilled my tech desire for a few devices. One, I get a planner with all the calander/task/memo goodness. I get my silly tetris and solitaire games that I MUST have so that I can waste time when I need to. It has a music player so I don't have to go get a separate Mp3 player. The camera on it isn't something I had to have, but it's a feature, and following good engineering principles, you add more features till things break. MicroSD expandability is good, it has bluetooth but I can't seem to get my laptop to like it... something about making virtual serial ports isn't going so well. I don't need bluetooth to sync it, but c'mon, it's there, you gotta play with it. 

As far as smartphones go, this was my pick of the bunch. I could have gotten a blackberry, I guess, but the 8120 or 8130 just weren't my style. Although, they're still grabbing much more market share than the iPhone. I have no wi-fi, and I don't do e-mail checking, but at work I'm by my computer all the time anyway, so those aren't necessary. If I do need the internet, I just pay whatever the hell AT&T says I should pay. It's ready to do GPS once I buy a bluetooth GPS thingy. Which I might do much later when I have more money.

Now, onto a Top Five list, since I think this site needs more of them. 

Top Five Singers\Styles I Want to Sound Like:

1. Robert Plant: Aside from a kick-ass voice he has great screaming vocals. Go listen to the end of No Quarter or to Dazed and Confused, Whole Lotta Love, and especially Immigrant Song. 

2. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Great blues singing has been something I've always wanted to do. Texas Flood and Can't Stand the Weather are amazing. It's a kind of heartfelt and soulful vocals that lets you use any lyrics you want and still sound fantastic. Check out any ZZ Top blues song for this point proven. Also, go find Joe Bonamassa. 

3. Gordon Lightfoot: For all your ballad and folk song needs. Sundown is a personal favorite, and there's obviously The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Don Quixote. Cat Stevens and Simon & Garfunkle would work too. 

4. Chris Cornell\Maynard James Keenan: (Soundgarden & Audioslave \ Tool & A Perfect Circle) Hard rock, alternative metal, art rock, or whatever you want to call it. I enjoy it and am always singing along in the car to this stuff. 

5. Grace Slick: Gotta love Jefferson Airplane. She doesn't have some silly girl's pop singing voice like we always here. It's a hardened drug fueled power plant of vocals that just sounds amazing. Janis Joplin would work too. Hell, I could settle for Stevie Nicks.

Thoughts? Musings? Your own wacky top fives? I know Nolan's probably bursting with possible ones...

-Mike 

Okay, I hope mentioning WoW in the title of this post didn't scare too many people away, because it's actually (I think) going to be a pretty interesting read.

First off, you might be asking yourself, why the hell does Riley want to talk about World of Warcraft? I heard he hasn't even touched that game in like 3 or 4 months. Well, you'd be correct. But, the thing about WoW is that it's like a drug (more on that later) -- once you've used it for as long and as much as I did, it never completely leaves you. Seriously. I still get the occasional urge to fire up my client and log in just to start a "new toon" for "fun". It's scary.

Anyways, I didn't really want to just write this article about how addicting WoW is, although that's part of it. I just wanted to discuss hobbies in general. What makes one hobby "good" and another "bad"? Why do we have them in the first place?

Honestly, I don't know the answers to these questions, but I thought possibly comparing two of my hobbies (one most would consider "good", the other "bad") and seeing the similarities and differences in them would be a good place to start. So, submitted for your edification, golf vs. WoW. Let's start with the bad, first.

World of Warcraft

Pros:

• CHEAP: It only costs $15/month, guaranteed, whether you play it for 10 hours or 200 hours in that month. Granted, you can occasionaly get into buying gold, but that's rare and not remotely necessary.
• Social: You play with a lot of fun, great people. I think that's the reason that it really appeals to me -- I basically get to hang out with my friends, people I enjoy being around, for like 8 hours a day. And we get to do and accomplish things together. It's good times.
• Relatively high rate of success: Honestly, if you're willing to devote enough time to it, you're going to be successful at it. Even the "super tough" boss battles are really just a matter of practice, practice, practice -- even the worst guild on Earth will eventually master the end-game content giving enough time and perserverence.
• Easy to do: I can turn on WoW anytime I feel like it. I don't even have to leave the house.
• It's FUN!: I will give it this: WoW is a lot of fun. Especially for the first year or so that you play :). This is before doing the same end-game dungeons at level 70 over and over again, for literally the 30th time (that's twice a week every week for about 3 months), seriously. That's when it starts to get really, really old. Let me put it this way: for $15/month, you're getting a great deal. When you look at the sheer AMOUNT of content in WoW; I mean, you're talking leveling from 1 - 70, having something totally new to do, for about 400 - 600 hours of gameplay. That's amazing. And when you first hit level 70, you have about another 600 hours of stuff to do. But after that 1000 or so hours of original content, you start just doing the same crap over and over again.

Cons:

• HIGHLY ADDICTING: Seriously, it's like a drug. You tell yourself "I'm just going to play for a couple of hours today..." then the next thing you know you've just put in about 12 hours, it's 3 AM, and you're thinking how great it would be to call in sick to work tomorrow so you can play all day Friday and just turn it into a 4-day gaming weekend. I'm not kidding, this used to happen to me all the time.
• Time suck: I know this might seem redundant, but not only do you get addicted, but you can literally sink as much time as you want into it. You will never get physically exhausted from typing on a keyboard, unless you count lack of sleep. Some guy in South Korea actually died playing WoW, cause he didn't eat or sleep. Seriously. So, you can literally physically play WoW until you DIE.
• Anti-Social: While WoW may be social to the people you're playing with (and, truly, it is a very social game), take it from Ankit who spent a whole summer in the House of Orr while everyone there but him played WoW all summer -- if you're not playing WoW, people playing it don't socialize with you.
• You don't want to do anything else: see above. But, I'll just point out, WoW nearly killed Zook Mayhem.

Golf

Pros:

• Social: You may spend time practicing alone, but golf is a game that's inhernetly more fun to play in a group .
• It gets you outside: I'm not the biggest fan of the outdoors, but I do think everyone should get outside in the sun every now and again, and golf is a great way to do that in the summer (and who really wants to be out in the cold, anyways?)
• Not a time suck: You can't really go play golf 8 hours a day every day. I mean, not only would it get boring really fast, but on top of that I'm pretty sure unless you're Tiger Woods that's not physically possible. I consider myself to be playing golf "a lot" lately, and that entails hitting the actual course about 1 - 2 times a week (for about 2 - 4 hours at a time), and hitting the driving range 2 or 3 times a week as well (about 1 hour per outing). That means I play less golf in a whole week than I played WoW in ONE DAY.
• It's a physical workout: Golf may not look like the most physically demanding sport in the world, but walking 3,000 yards and swinging a club hundreds of times actually works you over pretty good, especially if you're used to spending all day in front of a computer like me'self.
• No end: You can't really completely master golf. Even Tiger Woods, considered by many to be the best golfer of the modern era, has his bad days (and streaks, like he's going through right now). There's always a newer, tougher course, or a few more strokes that can be shaved off your score. There's a lot more than 1000 hours in golf -- most folks play it their whole lives and never get it totally right. That could be a positive or a negative, I suppose, depending on your outlook on life :).

Cons:

• It's EXPENSIVE: I spend more money on one golf outing than I had to for an entire MONTH of WoW. When you factor in club purchases (so far totalling about $700 this year), it's WAY more expensive, by leaps and bounds. I will say, this is in my mind the biggest thing golf has going against it.
• Low rate of success: Let's face it, if any of us were good at golf, we'd be on the amateur PGA tour right now. You're trying to hit a tiny ball 300 - 500 yards into a hole that's about 6 inches in diameter. Not exactly something that would seem to be easy at first glance. Then, on top of that, they put in OBSTACLES like water and sand traps, and make the rough about 75 yards wide. Cruel bastards. So, golf can, at times, be very, very frustrating. And there's not exaclty a linear relationship between time spent practicing and success rate, like there is with WoW. I don't level up if I spend 4 hours at the driving range. Some days I might make real progress, others I feel I've lost my game entirely.
• Golf, too is pretty addicting. Not as much as WoW, but I do find myself sitting around wishing I could be playing golf, researching golf swing tips, watching viedos, etc.

So, what do these lists tell us? Well, we can see that the "bad" hobby is an addicting time-suck, that's pretty anti-social in the "real world", and has a tendency to interfere with other parts of one's daily life. The "good" hobby on the other hand is challenging, but expensive, and less time consuming. So, I would say the most obvious lesson to be learned here is that an ideal hobby should be something you enjoy doing, that you can improve at constantly, but that won't try to take over your entire life. It should be something that you can do when you have free time, but that won't try to take a mile when you give it an inch.

Of course, these "bad" hobbies aren't just WoW. Thats a good example because I know a lot of us have experience with it, either directly or second-hand, but really any hobby that becomes like a "second life" to you is just as bad. Being in a band, for example, can be a "bad" hobby if you never outgrow your dream of "making it big" and get a "real" job. Or Student Senate can become a bad hobby if you let it totally ruin your experience at KU (which it didn't for me, but I know for some folks it did just that).

Of course, that begs the question, can WoW be made into a "good hobby"? I would actually say "No." Mostly because, by it's very nature, WoW is too time consuming. Any avid WoW player will tell you that you can't just get on for an hour and get anything done, so the play sessions by their very nature end up being 4 hours+ long. The other problem is that although it's great WoW is a social game, that's also a lot of the reason it becomes such an overbearing force. While you're leveling, you end up having to block of large chunks of time because you want to quest and do dungeons with other players, and you don't really want to "abandon" them mid-event. You also end up trying to stay caught up in advancement with your friends. So, if one of you has a lot of time to play, everyone tries to match that playing time, even if it means putting off other things they should be doing. Then, it gets even worse when you reach the end-game. Most dungeons and guilds require 4 - 6 hour blocks of playing time 2 or 3 nights a week, bare minimum. With that time commitment already in place, you then spend even more time in preparation, plus doing other things you want to do in the game like PvP'ing. 

The only person I've ever seen play WoW without it taking over their life is Enoch Jennison. But, to be honest, Enoch also plays WoW more like a single player game with some fun chat built in. He's not concerned with keeping up with everyone else, doing too many group runs, and he's never done anything end-game. He just plays when he has time, lesiurely completing the quests and having a great time. Honestly, if I could be like that, I could get by with playing WoW "causally". Alas, for me, there's no such thing.

Well, I probably lost most everyon in there somewhere, but if you were a brave enough soul to make it all the way through, I'd love to hear some feedback on your thoughts, especially concerning what hobbies you have that you consider "good" or "bad", and why. 

This is more of a personal continuation on James's last post than an original thought of my own.

 

Guilt is a very powerful thing. It made us apologize for dropping 2 atomic bombs on Japan when in fact it saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of soldiers lives. It made me think twice about sleeping with this one girl who shall remain nameless in lieu of getting something that may require creams to get fixed. And it is guilt that drives middle to upper class white people to believe that buying carbon offsets  (PRINTED ON PAPER!) will do anything but increasing the demand for more carbon offsets. I think that the majority of this save the planet bullshit is nothing more than a scam, or the self involvement of people making a huge deal out of something that naturally happens in order to give themselves a sense of purpose.

THE PLANET ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE

we are.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

This is just one article that I found interesting. It offers another explanation, or probably more accurately, another source of "global warming" Because if you want to believe that human beings alone caused it, thats fine, but please, wear a hat made of tin-foil so that I know who you are and stay the fuck away from you.

I also wanted to know who came up with ethanol, or biodiesel, or whatever else they are working on, as being the savior of our oil fiasco. Any organic material that will be converted into fuel will require what? HARVESTING! and to harvest it you have to use? OIL!/The same fuel that you are trying to produce. And in doing so you are releasing more toxins into the air/ ground.

So these are some thoughts I have had recently:

1. WHY? why, I ask you, is it considered perfectly sanitary to wash your hands once done taking a dump... but ONLY after you have rubbed your hands all over your clothes to put them all on?

2. Why are there hate speech laws? What makes them constitutional? I was under the impression that given the first amendment I could say what I want. I realize the whole "don't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater" thing, but dammit if I want to yell fire in a crowded theater I should be able to.

Besides, who defines what 'hate' is? Some people have stated statistics about race and crime, but it's deemed 'hate speech'. I think if someone from the KKK goes "I hate black people" then yes, that's hate speech. If someone goes "50% of crimes are committed by young black males who constitute 15% of the population" (MADE UP NUMBERS) then that's definitely not hate speech, but there are examples where people say it is.

3. What ever happened to Smoove B?

4. The 'metro', a paper published and distributed for free along the subway in boston had a survey of 2 girls and a guy about what they thought the big summer blockbuster would be. The girls both said "sex and the city". The guy said "ironman". Wow.. they surveyed idiots. Sex and the city will blow. Ironman is already out. And why didn't the guy think of "Dark Knight"? I demand that his Y chromosome be removed forthwith.

5. I wish people would cite sources more. I'm tired of seeing articles (I'm picking on environmentalism right now, but this applies to everything) that tell me things but don't tell me where they got it. Example:

"If you don't eat a hamburger today you will save 3 tons of C02!"

Really? REALLY? Prove it! Prove to me that if I don't eat a hamburger the effect will be that direct. Show me that the shift in meat demand will have the direct affect of the cutting back of meat plants. Maybe it will lower price and then shift distribution other areas? I don't know that.. but neither do those people! Let's think holistically here!

Secondly, show me that if I cut meat demand such that meat packing plants get shut down that I can do something useful with the land. People don't think about that so much, but their is a reason feed lots are were they are. This is generally because the land isn't so good for crops. This is also the reason why you can't believe the statistics about the benefits of cutting meat production on the production of plants because the land isn't interchangeable. (I learned this during a talk with a friend who was affiliated with farming).

Also, laundry detergent! They are all like "performs better than the leading brand". Who are they to make such claims? Besides, if brand 'A' performs better than the leading brand 'B', wouldn't that make 'A' the leading brand? But an object cannot be better than itself, by definition. Therefore I win.

6. I saw organic, environmentally friendly yogurt in a non-recylable plastic tube in which the volume of material used in making the tube was a comparable percentage of volume of yogurt.

7. Apparently no matter how paranormal an adversary, doesn't matter if it came from hell, from another dimension, or is invulnerable; it can always be killed with a rocket launcher. This pleases me.

8. DARK KNIGHT THIS SUMMER AAAAAH SO AMPED!!

9. Saw a drunk hobo on a subway. It was 10 am. He was drunk on listerine. He also rambled about flyin F-16s in 'nam (hint, look up when F-16s were first made). Also, he wanted to fight me.

That's all for now. Hope your weeks are going well.

 

Well I have had a great two weeks let me tell ya. I first off have to say it was great seeing Riley again, he's becoming an online ghost, and I am ashamed at Ankit for bailing on the memorial day float trip. He was thinking about going but then turned chicken shit. Oh well it was definitely a blast and there should be some facebook pictures soon.

 Well damn, I thought that I was making this post with the intent of talking about something important, but I guess not.

Hey all,

Not much of a long post, but Ankit showed me something this weekend, and the amazingness of it is just starting to sink it, so I thought I would pass it along to everyone else. Apparently, NBC and Fox started their own website a while back called "Hulu" (http://www.hulu.com). Basically, you can watch full-length episodes of select shows (including everything from Firefly to The Office to Battlestar Galactica). Which is pretty awesome. Then, I found out they are also starting to feature full-length movies. Now, these aren't all that great, and a lot of them are old, but there are some intersting ones. Girl Next Door (Elisha Cuthbert is hawt); Ice Age; Dude, Where's My Car; 28 Days Later; Me, Myself, and Irene; Reqium For a Dream; even Monty Python's the Meaning of Life. That's right, go watch those, and more, right now, for free, legally, in your browser. Apologies if you already knew about this, but I didn't, and I read the Internet a lot, so I thought I'd pass it along to everyone else just in case. And, again, props to Ankit for showing it to me in the first place.

My work productivity just took a nose dive of epic proportions. Seriously. 

It almost goes without saying that this has been an eventful weekend. Over 20 tornados touching down in Kansas, and similar weather shenanigans in Oklahoma. Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota all got hit as well. There were tornado warnings right outside the Twin Cities. Freaky stuff. Hopefully this is all winding down.

Now on to something rant worthy! As some of you may know via a Facebook note a while back, I hold engineering and the sciences in very high esteem. As an engineer I value hard work and judge based on merit, efforts, and results. The only discrimination is against those who can't do the job. This discrimination is necessary since the hard sciences impact so many lives. We cannot make mistakes.

This is why I got so upset when I saw this article a while back. It amazed me that people would think there's this huge discrimination against women going into the hard sciences. More women graduate then men, and more women hold higher degrees. There's nothing that says women aren't capable of doing anything they want to do. It's just that in the hard sciences, the percentage of women is much less than that of men. You can read my note on Facebook for more on that, and in the article itself. 

Then on Digg today there was this. Many women stay out of science and engineering because many aren't interested in it. REALLY??? People don't do things they aren't interested in? And this is a controversial study? I know lots of guys who dropped out of engineering because they weren't interested in the math or the amount of time required for the classes. Why is this some big mystery that we have to figure out? Just because some job or field doesn't have the same percentages of sex and race that the population at large has, doesn't mean there's a problem. It just means people do whatever they're interested in.

I've never understood the idea that men and women have to be supremely equal. We're not "equal" creatures, we're complimentary. A man is not better than a woman, and a woman is not better than a man. The only equality that is necessary is that everyone gets equal opportunity. That's it. If a guy wants to enter a field that's stereotypically female, he should be able to. If a woman wants to enter a field that's stereotypically male, she should be able to. The only restriction on anyone is just whether or not they can fulfill the requirements of the education and of the job. 

I'm tired of people still fighting the old gender wars. So what if there's not a lot of women in engineering or sciences? They can have whatever career they want. Categorizing people into groups instead of viewing them as individuals will only make the problem worse.

Now here's the real question, if we need to change things to make sure there are more women in engineering and sciences, why aren't we starting programs to fix the huge gender gap in the humanities and social sciences? I mean, everyone has to be equal, right?

-Mike 

Read this. Make sure you get to page two.

Hokay.

So a guy who works for Team Catholicism came out and said it's cool to believe in aliens.  Not that any particular Team Catholicism proclaimations have much effect on me any more... somewhere between calling out the Muslims and a priest trying to explain to me how homosexuality and kleptomania were inherently the same thing, I stopped getting the memos (and on that note, grats to California).  Now, unlike my demi-hero Joss Whedon, I very much believe in the "sky bully", an afterlife, a meaning to "it all", etc.  Heck, I even still think Catholicism is a heckuva foundation-- which is why you'll find my religion beliefs listed on the book of faces as "Hare Club for Men" (I hope somebody out there gets that reference before they go to Wikipedia).  

SooOOooo I see this news all over the place and think, "Good! Some open-mindedness!"  (And, honestly, reading that article, there are a LOT of statements in this press release I LOVE.  This guy is smarter on the uptake than many officials...)  But then I get to this gem, which not all the reports have been covering:

"There could be (other beings) who remained in full friendship with their creator"

And suddenly my knee-jerk reaction kicks in.

Aliens didn't commit original sin, eh?

I could be wrong on this, but I think the majority of people reading this blog ascribe to some theory of evolution.  They understand differences between micro and macro evolution, they get the reasons that particular fossil links are hard to find (because it happens very fast), and so on.  So, I'm not talking to any frakking fundamentalists, unless Riley's mum is lurking over his shoulder.  Which means we're all on the same page: the Bible is a good book.  Divine inspiration? Sure! Amazing message? Absolutely! Literal? Fack no. Heck, there's so much contradiction between New & Old Testaments, as well as the fact that the books that made the cut were chosen by just another bunch of humans, not unlike the bunch of humans that wrote the flawed books... if we are to believe that any free will was involved, we must believe there are some problems.

Not that creation as told in the Bible is a problem, if you're functioning above the intelligence of a properly educated junior high student.  It's a represenational story.  It says, in short, "God created everything and it was sweet."  Then the second item, "He also created us to be like Him, but the sweetness got messed up via choice."  I don't think that some evil woman tricked my species into falling out of grace.  It's a very anti-feminist world view, in my opinion. I'm more inclined to believe that myself and everyone around me was made very much like God.  When the first post-monkeys started to make choices that went against survival but instead towards emotion and intellect, they occasionally made choices, because of their freedom, that were anti-God.  And the beauty of that is that we really CAN choose (thank you, Lord).  

So, why does the concept of guilt-free aliens bother me?  For me, it assumes a full human-centric view.  Jesus came to save us, and nobody else. Paul had to write letters about this viewpoint problem from day one.  God came to save us all. Now, I'll give you He might have repeated the performance elsewhere, sure. I have no problems if you want to tell me about the planet Claxxon Five, and their Savior who was laser-beamed to death to save them from sin. 

BUT if you say there are intelligent beings out there, and they got a pass, there's something wrong there.  Either they are not intelligent beings, which means they work purely on survival, OR God made someone literally "better" than us.  Our He/She Lord allegedly made angels with will and reneged on the enterprise after one of them became a real asshole.  If extra-terrestrials got a pass, though, that would mean they were fully intelligent, and for some reason, they got the full story.  They realized, fully, that God was awesome, and so they just never-ever screwed up.

Maybe this doesn't bother you.  But think about this.  If you're a functioning Christian, you believe that when you die, if your ducks were in a row, you go to Heaven.  And there, you don't "lose free will" but you "gain eternal life".  So, you choose, forever, to play for team Holy.  If you're making said informed decision, that means you're closer with the big fella than any angel was, because when they had choice and strong communication lines they still had some people cut out.  So, while it's been theologically exemplified for sometime that humans > angels, we would now have a universal view that other > human.  I'm assuming both "other" and "human" would be technically made in God's image, so... it makes no sense.  Unless God made intelligent beings NOT in Her own image that were in better Communion with Her.  Which is kind of a self-defeating view for anyone in the Vatican to be taking on, eh?

Now, I know this isn't some religious decree that says, "THIS IS HOW THE CHURCH BELIEVES" or even the Pope speaking on the matter.  But it is someone in Catholicism, in a position of authority, speaking publically and saying something that is, to me, fairly damning.  Maybe Mr. Vatican Science Guy doesn't want the aliens to have free will.  Or maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill.  

My rant is done.  What's your opinion, gang?