Dumbest Fucking Guy on Earth #2

I think i'm going to start a regular feature here. I'm calling it "Dumbest Fucking Guy on Earth" in memory of General Tommy Franks comments after meeting top neocon Douglas Feith. Since this is technically the second "Dumbest Fucking Guy on Earth" post i've made i shall start the numbering system retroactively making this the second in the series.

This weeks (months/years? you know i don't post regularly) "Dumbest Fucking Guy on Earth" is James S Robbins (an American conservative, go figure). His particular deed that earned him this epithet is writing this artile in the National Review Online http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTJmNWI4N2Y2NTBmY2E3ZTIzZjcxM2IzM2ZjNjRkYWI==

You'll feel the idiocy from the title alone, "Hooray for global warming!"
I'll let you read the article to decide for yourself if this guy deserves my abuse.

Read it?
Dumbest Fucking Guy on Earth right?

I particularly like his line where he says
"A warmer wetter world could very well mean more rain forests — hence more biodiversity! We are supposed to value that for some reason, right?"

Unbelieveable.

Now i know that the NRO is a right wing piece of hackery that has a strong conservative agenda but come on, publishing stuff like this is like putting a sign up saying
"Our magazine is approved of by idiots who don't know what they are talking about!"

Goons.

Go to hell John Reid You Fascist Scum!

I am furious. I'm at work so my raging fury is careful masked by a smiling, pleasant exterior but deep down my rage is endless.
Why so angry? I hear you ask.
Here is why http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5257518.stm

I quote
"Britain might have to modify its freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their "misuse and abuse" by terrorists, John Reid has said. " Notice the lack of information on when we might get these freedoms back or how they might be "modified".

and

"It is up to each and all of us to ask the questions: what price our security? What price our freedoms? At what cost can we preserve our freedoms?"

Lets see, how about, Mr Reid, you go fuck yourself and remember exactly who you work for. You work for us, you fucking fascist! Our freedoms are not for you to take away or "Modify" (Mmmmm Orwellian language). How dare to suggest that we can defend our freedoms by abandoning them? What kind of freakish world have our political leaders entered where losing freedoms protects them? Whats next, ignorance is wisdom, weakness is strength?

We cannot fight Islamo-fascism by instituting our own brand here.

May i humbly offer the solution to world peace. Or rather a series of steps that will vastly increase global peace, our own security and the living conditions of mankind.

1) Bitch slap Israel into forcing the creation of a Palaestinian state and get Israel to retreat to its own borders instead of the illegally held lands it currently uses. Use sanctions, embargoes and political pressure to force this (sadly the UN option is off the table since the US would veto anything that threatens or even mildly rebukes Israel. As it has done for decades now)
2) Decrease military spending and increase education spending by an equal amount. The weapon we will use to destroy fundamentalism is education. That would also help equal out the vast differences in prosperity/poverty in this country which hit the muslim and immigrant areas so hard.
3) Rewrite the rules on lobbying, bribery and political influence of large corporate entities. Make bribery punishable both to those who give, and those who accept the money. Take the money out of lobbying and lower the maximum limit on party/canditate donations and loans. This would limit the influence of corporations and the very rich in our political system.
4) Tell the oil companies to fuck themselves and offer large incentives for power companies to develop renewable energy sources. This would decrease our reliance on foreign oil and gas and save us from feeling the need to interfere in the middle east.
5) Formally rebuke the Americans for Iraq and withdraw our troops to Afghanistan. Plough lots of money into there to actually help the Afghans rather than exploit them. A well set up and run Afghanistan would do more for our reputation with Muslim nations than any dicking around in Iraq ever could.
6) Get closer to Europe. At least until the Americans calm down and elect sensible people again.

Ok, thats probably not world peace but it'd be a hell of a start right? And none of this modifying our freedoms bollocks.

Israel, Lebanon, Palestine

What an enormous clusterfuck this whole middle east war is turning out to be. Our beloved leaders seem to be making the most inane comments. Here in a nutshell is what seems to be happening.
- Hamas militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier.
- Israel started bombing the shit out of the gaza strip
- Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli Soldiers and fired a bunch of rockets into Israel killing a few folks.
- Israel started bombing the shit out of Lebanon.
- Israeli troops and tanks moved across the Lebanese border.
- Western nations begun to pull their citizens out of Lebanon, there are very few western citizens dumb enough to be in the Gaza strip so that wasn't a problem for us.
- Our leaders demanded that Hezbollah stop the rocket attacks and give back the Israeli soliders but curiously did not demand the same from Israel.

I'm not sure i really understand but what the fuck is wrong with Israel? Some nutter with a bomb kills a few Israelis and they level a housing complex. The response is totally disproportionate. The Israelis are war criminals. I say this with no bias, its true. It is what we call a fact. They deliberately target civilians and civilian infrastructure in matters of war. Thats a war crime. Go on, look up the Geneva conventions, there it is, war crime.

And what do we in the west do. Do we reprimand Israel? No. Do we put Israel under sanctions? no. Do we support Israel with Millions in aid and weapons and (in the case of the US) veto any criticsim of them in the UN? yes.

So we have a very young nation, illegally occupying land and committing war crimes against its neighbours, and we are completely backing them, never uttering scorn or concern except at their enemies. And we wonder why the locals hate us.

Seriously, finding someway to bitchslap the Israelis into complying with international law and abandoning their illegally held lands (and returning them back to the Palestinians) would be the single best thing we could do for Middle east peace. And yet there seems to be no such effort under way.

On this most recent issue, Qatar introduced a UN resolution to force a cease fire. A CEASE FIRE. not a settlement or surrender but simply and end (for the time being) to the bombing. And guess what America did. Thats right, they vetoed it. Fuckers.

I now sincerely believe that the US wishes to destabilise thewhole mideast region, they actually see this war as a good thing. Just another reason why those dopey fuckers need to get off their arses and impeach Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/et al.

Of course, our own Tony Blair, bitch that he is, is firmly towing the American line urging Hezbollah to stop firing rockets and give back the Israelis so that Israel has an excuse to stop bombing them. No excuse is needed. Israel must be made to stop and to pay for its crimes.

Note that i'm no more sympathetic to Hezbollah or Hamas (although Hamas as a majority party need to seize the moral high ground and stop doing this kind of stuff). They opened this particular round of violence. It only remains to be seen who will stop the violence first. If anyone.

Roleplaying

I'm a geek i know. Maybe even a dork. Whatever, not only do i thoroughly deserve these apellations, but i enjoy them. One of the geekiest things i do is Roleplaying. For those not in the know, roleplaying is a leisure (and leisurely) past time where in players design and create characters and then play these characters in a very loosely scripted fashion. One of the players takes on the mantle of GM (Games master, also know as storyguide, storyteller, dungeon master, director and a host of less wekll used epithets). The GM roleplays all the stories minor characters and sets the scene and generally keeps things ticking along.
Think of it as a play with the players playing the major characters and the GM playing all the supporting roles, villains, and chorus girls, and also being the director, producer, lighting guy and ticket seller.
The worlds these games are set in are usually not earth as we know it. For instance, in my favourite games, Ars Magica, Cyberpunk, D&D and Vampire (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the world of darkness games) the world as, respectively, Mythic Europe circa 1220 (Europe as the people then believed it was, complete with faeries, demons and dragons), 2020 post apocalypse America, a swords and sorcery world called Toril and finally a version of earth just like ours but full of corruption, ghosts, vampires, etc.
The aim of these games is not to win, winning as such is impossible. The aim is to take your characters through stories and enjoy oneself. Usually the characters face trials and tribulations, hopefully conquer (or at least survive) them and go on to be wiser, more powerful and more interesting.
All actions of the characters and GM are spoken not acted out. There is a form of roleplaying where the players dress up like their characters and act it all out called LARP (Live Action Role Play) but this is very much a different kettle of fish to what is known as "tabletop" or "Pen and Paper" Roleplaying.
The main joys of roleplaying i think come from escapism. Many of the people i roleplay with pay characters very different from their everyday self and use RP as a way to express this side of their character. Some play idealised versions of themselves, some play total opposites. One friend invariably plays women despite being a guy, another tends to play rather dumb characters who have problems interacting on an intellectual level. Another tends towards characters VERY hostile to authority and yet another plays cheeky backstabbers. I personally tend to find myself playing very clever, sinister, usually evil but very polite people. I think for me this allows me to air all my naturally evil tendencies in a safe environment, allowing me to be pleasant and friendly the rest of the time.
Roleplaying has various bad reputations, firstly as hugely geeky. Fair enough. Secondly, it came under major attack by my favourite idiots, the Christian Right. This was way before my start in Roleplaying in the 1980's, but basically D&D got accused of inducing satanism, suicide, murder and all other kinds of ridiculous nonsense. Its all long blown over now but you can still find an article or two on the web warning of the satanic reach of young dorks playing D&D.
If you get the chance, give it a go. You may have fun. If not fair enough but at least you know what you are missing.

Atheism

Just a quick post,

The previous post got me thinking about Atheism. Some people, theists mainly, want atheism to be treated as just another religion. Reminds me of a comment someone left on a blog i read

If “atheism” is a religion, then “off” is a television channel.
If atheism is a religion, “not collecting stamps” is a hobby.
If atheism is a religion, then ‘bald’ is a hair color.
If atheism is a religion, then health is a disease.

Dumbest fucking guy on earth

Just as the title says

http://brandontstanley.blogspot.com/2006/06/polemic-against-atheism.html

Feel free to leave him some comments.

Little Bit Warm

Those that know me generally know that i like the cold. Correction. I like cold weather. I'm usually toasty warm in such weather, clad in layers of black and big coats. This is because i am a mammal. I'm warm blooded which means i generate my own heat from the processes of my body. This heat, when trapped by clothing, then keeps me feeling warm and comfortable.

In times of heat i remove layers of clothing and even shock people with my lilly white legs in shorts. However, this does not cool me down. It only lessens the amount of heat my body retains. Its very hard to cool down when the weather is hot and the bodies chief method of doing so is via sweat. I hate, i hate absolutely hate, being hot and sweaty for any reason not connected to vigorous physical activity (e.g. ninja, claire). I despise getting hot and sweaty from just sitting around.

At present my green and noble island (Britain) is in the midst of a heat wave. I live in Manchester and highest temperature of today is 28 degrees C. It isn't yet midday and so temperature hasn't spiked yet but my office is already 30 degrees C and will only get hotter as the day goes on. My office (and most of Manchester it seems, is also breeze free, making the heat stifling and stuffy. Since i work for the Home Office we don't have fancy new gadgets like air conditioning.

I'm suffering, it amazes me that some of the people i work with don't actually mind the heat. They actually enjoy it. Freaks. I could understand it if we were all on the beach or by a pool and could throw ourselves in to cool off, or if we were doing something physical that would make us hot and sweaty but just sitting on our rumps typing? Thats not right.

I sincerely cannot wait for Autumn to turn up, kick summers butt and begin a long period of storms and cold weather.

My first Meme

I blame Mark fully for this cop out form of blogging (and he blames Phee). Still, i'm a curious devil, so answer away.


My name:

Who is the love of my life:

Where did we meet:

Take a stab at my middle name:

How long have you known me:

When is the last time that we saw each other:

Do I smoke:

Do I drink:

What was your first impression of upon meeting me/seeing me:

What’s one of my favorite things to do:

Am I funny:What’s my favorite type of music:

What is the best feature about me:

Am I shy or outgoing:

Am I a rebel or do I follow the rules:

Do I have any special talents:

Would you call me preppy, average, sporty, punk, hippie, glam, nerdy, snobby, or something else (what):

Have you ever hugged me:

What is my favorite food:

Have you ever had a crush on me:

If there was one good nickname for me, what would it be:

What’s your favorite memory of me:

Who do I like right now:

What is my worst habit:

If you and I were stranded on a desert island, what is the one thing I would bring:

Are we friends:

If I died would you cry:

Would you go to my funeral:

Download Festival!

Wow, no posts for two months and then two come along at once! Blogging is like buses.

Couple of weekends back me n' the missus went to the Download Festival at Donnington. And it was rather good actually.

Sadly we left it too late to get weekend camping tickets but we managed to get tickets to go on Saturday. Saturday of course being the day that Metallica headlined. The Metallica. The gods of Metal. Whom I worship. And lo, they were fucking awesome!

Most of the other bands during the day were actually rather crap. Deep throated roaring metal that i really can't stand. Claire obviously loves this kind of "Music" and hence enjoyed them more than me. The only other group that got me all giddy were Within Temptation. A Dutch group that i had never heard of. They are a kind of goth/ballad/metal outfit and were absolutely fantastic. In fact, given that Metallica were predictably awesome, the fact that Within Temptation were a surprise awesome actually made them my favourite group of the day.

Check out the dark lovelies http://www.within-temptation.com/

Aside from the music, Download featured 29 degree heat all day, with no shade. Given how much i wilt in the heat, I surprised myself by being able to cope ok. I got a natty Cowboy hat which stopped the sunstroke and had a great time. Plus i got to see Claire walking around in a bikini top. Always good.

We met up with a drunk Mark and a sunstruck Rob, both amusing, their new friends (from car sharing) Lizzie, Martyn, Emma and Dan. Martyn gave me a small plastic toy soldier who went to live in my hat band. Lizzie flashed us her boobs. Lovely people.

I also bumped into Dinny, Mark (Bradford Mark) and Beddy, good to see them again, I don't see them as much as I'd like.

The day wrapped up with a night spent in a nice little hotel and a fry up in the morning. I honestly can't remember the last time i had so much fun and i shall definately be trying to get camping tickets for next year.

Piccy courtesy of Mark



Thats us, all sitting around.

New Job!

Well my temping is finally coming to an end. Due to me being a bit rubbish i haven't managed to find a job until now. Thankfully the Home Office will employ any old fool. And hence I now work for them. I'm in Her Majesties Inspectorate of Probation. I am the very lowliest flunky. A kind of assistant flunky to normal flunkies.

Still, the pay check is steady, if pathetically small) and my colleagues are a decent bunch for the most part. I'm on Flexitime, which given my problems with buses is a GOOD THING. Its alos quite easy to get to on foot, in fact its quicker to walk home than get the bus. Hence i now walk lots which can only be a good thing.

Hopefully, my new pay check will allow me to start getting rid of my huge overdraft.



To all my regular readers, "Sorry I've been gone so long. I'm sure you both missed me"