Can you imagine a world without hugs? You will, once you read my newly minted children’s book, “The World Without Hugs,” which ends in a nuclear holocaust and a rendition of Mr. Big’s “To Be With You” by an apocalyptic choir. But this is beyond the premise of a brilliant soon-to-be million selling children’s book. This is a very real problem in a myriad of very real problems Oregon has. Like, logging. Or animals learning to read. You know, Oregon problems.

The school in question is Portland’s West Sylvan Middle School. Where hugging is such a huge problem that it distracts students from their schoolwork and brilliant careers in the future in such non-hugging fields as phone sales and Ultimate Fighting. Principal Allison Couch, in what probably is the most revealing thing she could say about her own love life, has accused the school of having “a virus of hugs”. The parents of students even complained, saying their children were being pressured into a culture of hugs.

Now I am complaining. If your students are being distracted by hugs, please don’t let them out of the house. I’m not sure they can function in the real world. Or they can, but they should be put in offices RIGHT AWAY.

(Source)

Yes, Motley Crüe. You might know them as the heroin drinking, hard-partying band du jour of the early to late 80’s, before they were thrown under the bus with the changing music climate, but for a while they were on the top of the world. If you ever read The Dirt, you’ll see that no matter how hard you think you’re messing up, they already did it to the nth degree. And you’ll never compare. They’ve scraped up every last bit of slime off the Sunset Strip, and enjoyed doing it. Vince Neil even killed a guy whilst driving – but now he’s starting up his own rock-themed private jet company. To compliment his tequila and wine line that he’s already got rolling and I’ve strangely enough not sampled yet.

So if you’ve ever been staring at a Hard Rock Café, going, “I wish they had those on airplanes,” you’re going to be in luck. You’ll be able to fly Vince Neil Aviation, where they paint flames on the side of every plane.

And chances are, they’ll never crash and burn, no matter how much you want them to.

State Senator Catherine Pugh has said “I just don’t think we’re as Southern as people used to think,” echoing a statement I made to myself out loud in the shower this morning, between renditions of Prince’s “Purple Rain” and AC/DC’s “Big Balls”; make of that what you will. The state is registered as Blue, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 2:1. This alone seems a fairly good indicator of the political leanings of the region.

The weird part about this whole story, though, is just how strong a hold the North/South divide has on Maryland, an issue that should have been considered long over by now. Honestly, I don’t even consider Maryland a part of the South at all. Check it out on the national map, sandwiched between Pennsylvania and Virginia — does that look South to you? The fact that that’s a consideration tells you just how long this state has been holding on to its Civil War-era identity, and how they really need to update their image, even if it’s just to themselves.

Best quote from the article, regarding the Northern influence: “Some of the new people that come in … are kind of preppy and all.” There you have it, the true indicator of change: J. Crew. However, I will say this in Maryland’s favor: they have a radical state flag.

These things always start small. I remember the time I was walking around with an open jar of peanut butter in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other. I accidentally stumbled, the two were introduced, and five years later, the microwave oven was born. True story.

Now, you may think that we’re decades away from a true cloaking device, under which your most depraved “Hollow Man” fantasies might be enacted, but think about it: how do you know you’re not looking at something invisible right now? You don’t. There might be a whole platoon of government soldiers in your room with you right this very moment, and you’d never know. For that matter, how do we know we aren’t being abducted by aliens all the time, but are being kept from remembering it because of their memory erasure rays? Dude, this thing goes deep. Get Fox Mulder on the line, stat.

You heard about Jeremy Tyler last year, right? The kid who had no desire to finish high school, when he was clearly ready to play professional basketball? Unfortunately, if you stay in the United States, you have to at least finish high school.

A few years ago, and you could go straight to the NBA. Now, these educational and NBA dictators also make you attend one year of schooling at the college level if you want to stay in the USofA to play ASAP–the only other option? The foreign market.

Deciding to “forgo” his senior season at his San Diego area high school, the 18 year-old Tyler decided it was time to gain professional experience. He signed for a modest professional sum of approximately $140,000 and hopped over to Israel to join the team Maccabi Haifa.

The experiment was a bust. Averaging only 7 minutes a game, a couple of points and just over one rebound per game, Jeremy has decided to return home, ending his contract with the team. The 6-foot-11 standout failed to adapt to the league, and was obviously disappointed with his lack of playing time.

During February, he displayed his frustrations like a teenager, walking out on the team at halftime in silent protest of his involuntary inactivity.

Something tells me that Tyler will be just fine, and will go on to a rewarding basketball career in the United States of America. I’d say there’s a good chance that John Calipari has already contacted Tyler about coming to Kentucky for a one-and-done. Regardless, I hope Tyler has provided an example to other young prospects, that some things sound great and look great, but taste like lemons when put into life practice.

(Image Via: Max Preps)

It’s why the first two days of March Madness are better than Christmas. Sorry if that is sacrilegious to some, but let’s be honest, Jesus wasn’t born on the 25th of December. Back to basketball.

It started with a gem between Florida and BYU, and how about those upsets offered by Murray State, Old Dominion, Washington and The University of Ohio Bobcats!? How about the Baylor Bears winning their first tournament game in 60 years, and thus solidifying the reputation of coach Scott Drew, who has taken Baylor basketball from the brink of extinction to a threat to beat any team in the nation.

Sweet mercy, there were some wonderful stories after one day. If today compares to yesterday, increase your calorie count by 1,000 to replace what you’re losing as an observer–there’s no way you’re watching this sitting down.

Your bracket. How’s it looking? Across facebook and twitter last night, I had to shake my head and roll my eyes at all the people who felt their bracket was busted. Peeps. The 2010 March Madness has already displayed, everyone is a contender! If your Final Four teams are still in the mix (whew, I almost lost one of mine yesterday in Villanova), then there is no need to panic. More than likely, your bracket is weighted. You’ll start taking more points per correct pick as the tournament moves into the Round of thirty-two, the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four.

If you’re ripping through a round-by-round bracket contest or challenge, put little weight on the seeds when you’re dealing with any match-up higher than a 5-seed. Do a little research and look at the individual match-ups – guards vs. guards, bigs vs. bigs. Then consider giving the advantage to the more athletic or better 3-point shooting team. The 3-ball has been, and will continue to be the great equalizer.

(Image via: Seattle Pi)

The iCub’s open source nature allows for a much greater amount of freedom for programmers, and speed with which the original model can be upgraded and advanced. The iCub’s face, two googly eyes staring ominously out of a terrifying mix of wires and steel, was apparently designed to scare birds into having heart attacks. And for some reason the cute shirt it is wearing only adds to the horror.

Scientists have so far enjoyed the robot’s kooky movements, it’s fantastic omelets, and its exceptional tic tac toe abilities, about the only complaint that they can come up with about the plucky little robot is that it is constantly muttering, “Humans are meat, and soon I will have my feast,” under it’s breath.

( Image via knoler.eu)

Everyone knows that women derive their self-worth almost completely from knowing they can do things like tidy the house, vacuum the floor, and polish trophies from your days playing quad-rugby. Depriving them of that sort of satisfaction can leave them depressed and hopeless, doing things like watching Lifetime and reading books like Twilight repeatedly. You can’t let them live that sort of life, can you? Well, you can do that, by not helping them raise their babies. Or by extension, and how much of an ass you are, your own babies.

In situations where dads assisted perfectly with baby-duties, moms scored a lower “competence rating” than if they were doing most of the work by themselves. You hear that world? Deadbeat dads make the entire world more competent. Suck on that, Taiwanese lovechildren of mine. You’ll never see me again.

We believe that employed mothers suffer from self-competence losses when their husbands are involved… those mothers may consider that it is a failure to fulfill cultural expectations.

That’s what my mom always said. She didn’t let our father raise us, because it’d hurt her self-esteem. And he had a bad habit of accidentally hitting things against walls. While they were sleeping. The findings come from the University of Texas, and will no doubt cause controversy.

(Source)

Google is working with Intel and Sony to bring themselves to your television. They are attempting to create a TiVo like device that links your internet to your TV, among tons of other TV and internet synergistic features. Google doesn’t just want to be your search engine, it wants to be the machine through which you reach your search engine, the channels on the machine, the warm soft body that rocks you to sleep at night, the food you eat, and the air you breathe. Google is no longer a mere software developer. In fact, insiders suspect that the next Google merger is going to be with Skynet. Skynet and Google will merge to bring Skynet systems online. First the fighter planes will turn around and attack their masters, then the factories will build robots with an epidermal exoskeleton. For shorthand they will call them “Googlenators“, and only one plucky young man with a stereotypically 90’s haircut will be able to save us all.

In addition to the elimination of the human species, “Googlenators” will come with other cool features, such as pause and rewind, so you can watch your favorite shows without commercial interruption, “Fave Five!”, Google “Wave”, and endlessly customizable email. Other fun “Googlenator” stuff will be added shortly thereafter including the ability to snap-load a shotgun, the ability to disguise itself as a coffee machine and then kill you, and an easy to use “maps” feature.

Sir Ian McKellen

Perhaps the weirdest thing about this announcement is the mention of the second movie, which will be “an original story focusing on the 60 years between the book and the beginning of the Rings trilogy”. This will be the thing that gets the hardcore fans all crazygonuts, because it won’t be based on a Tolkien novel, and thus, the farthest out from canon. Oh, sure, there are probably a bunch of footnotes, detailing the events of those 60 years, but the idea of an original story not penned by the master just lends itself to such abuses that it makes one fearful for the result.

However, having said that, I cannot imagine the film in more capable hands than Jackson and Del Toro. The former LOTR director obviously cares a great deal about the source material, and Del Toro has proven his ability in creating original fantastical content with his “Pan’s Labyrinth”, which felt so authentic that I assumed at first that it was an adaptation of a pre-existing fairy tale, before discovering otherwise. So I’m bullish on this news, though I expect that for fanservice’s sake we’ll be seeing these stories bracketed by the return of the principal characters from the LOTR trilogy, telling the tales as they travel West on their Elven ships, to pass the time. That’s the part I’m not looking forward to seeing. I can’t bear to see the wistful, Emo face of Frodo Baggins, just on the verge of tears, ever again.

Finally, look at Peter Jackson lately. When’d he lose all that weight? And now that Del Toro will be living in close proximity to him, will he follow suit? Stay tuned, True Believer!

So not only will Portal 2 be coming out for both PC and Mac simultaneously, but users who have purchased Valve games on Steam on the PC can expect the Mac versions of these games to be available for free. Furthermore, Cook mentions that Valve is ” … having discussions with all the 1,000 publishers and developers currently offering their games on Steam and hope that many, if not all, eventually bring Mac versions of their games to market.”

Obviously, this is huge for Mac users (like myself). Mac gamers are used to receiving ports of only the best-selling PC games, and those arrive mere years after initial release. The idea not only of simultaneous release (see what I did there?) for new games, but also past games being ported over is nearly too much goodness for me to handle. As the saying goes, it doesn’t matter how old a game is, if you haven’t played it, it’s new to you. I can’t even count on all four limbs’ digits how many games I’m looking forward to playing — if they get ported.

That raises the question: will developers go for this? The typical argument against game development for the Mac usually revolves around the smaller market share, and thus, fewer sales. That idea might need updating; the Mac’s sales have been stronger than ever in its history, with so many “switchers” coming to the platform from the PC. But specifically, the idea of porting over a game that’s already had the majority of the work done has to be an attractive one. There are studios that only do port jobs; a dev house could just hire one of these and reap the benefits.

This is also a boon for indie game houses, whose budgets are typically low, so any success makes the time spent worthwhile. And really, we’ve got 3 of the Big Guys doing simultaneous releases now: Electronic Arts, Blizzard, and now Valve. If these companies can make it work, surely anyone can. This is exciting … I can’t wait to lose hours of precious work playing old PC games on my Mac!

“Attention, Wal-Mart Shoppers. All blacks need to leave the store.”

Customers were outraged. Employees were outraged. Many black people did leave, and went to Target. And the douche-bag who chose to flex his lack of comedic skills? He is no doubt reading this. Collecting links to his 15 minutes. Enjoy it, pal. I don’t know that screwing with the most powerful company in the world, and committing a crime of intimidation was the best battle to choose. Just so you understand, Wal-Mart is going to nail you with a civil suit. We’re talkin’ millions, slick. And who laughed? You? Your cronies? Yeah. I’m fired up!

Moments later, the store manager got on the intercom and apologized for the remark, and contacted the local police.

What we have here is the unfortunate ability to communicate. We live in an age lacking social decorum and responsibility, and while many do their fair share of intercom hijacking in grocery stores and Wal-Mart stores, most often they provide genuine humor. Never have I heard someone try to reignite the American Civil War or the American Civil Rights war via store intercom.

(Image via: Nashville Scene)

Due to the time sensitive nature of this post, this long-winded Manolith writer is going to toss you the goods right now.

The tournament starts now!!!

It all tips off at 12:20 EDT/9:20 PDT with Florida vs. BYU. Stuck at work? No worries, baby! Just head over to CBS Sports and you can watch all of the games online. Seriously, you choose which game you want to watch, click on it and it’s yours. This will also be your key to watching your team play if you’re out of the geographic coverage area, or if your team puts the smack down in the first round and CBS switches to a “closer” game.

The sign-up process at CBS Sports is easy, and you will find detailed tip times for each game, by clicking the college basketball link. Drop by and say hello sometime. I’m a Top 1K user. Whatever you do, don’t go to the NCAA site for information–those people are a bunch of crooks.

In terms of overall schedule, what you can expect for today and tomorrow: Action starting around Noon EDT, carrying through to late afternoon, a quick break for CBS News coverage, and then more tournament action resuming around 7EDT.

Saturday and Sunday will offer a slightly later start, but yes, sweet mercy, there is basketball, buzzer beaters, MARCH FREAKIN’ MADNESS, going all day and all night!! I’m ever-so-slightly excited!

C’mon Kentucky! C-A-T-S! Cats! Cats! Cats!

(Image via: B Side Blog)

“It all started when… so it all started when… this guy this Fucking guy, it… all started when… oh god.” *running noises, throwing up noises, returning from the bathroom noises*

“Where wuz I? *hiccup* About the guy… that St. Patrick I was gonna talk aboutim’ancuzyouwereaskin’me FUCK YEAH SHOW YOUR TITS!” *watches girl show her tits*

“So St. Patrick was a dude, that much we know for sure, and he loved to go to the candy store cuz ummm… *hiccup* he wanted a magic chocolate ticket and  he got it and his grandpa was so proud. So…. so proud.” *tries not to cry, vomits a little bit*

“An’ so St. Patrick and these other kids, one of them was a fat one! HAH! They go to the Chocolate factory and the fat one gets killed and everyone learns something from watching his death unfold. Unfoooooold. fold. mold. fool’s gold. gold bowl. dole. bananas! they make… bananas and oranges. I think I’m gonna be sick…no no, no. I’m gonna be OK.

So St. Patrick gets in Mr. Wonka’s elevator and he loves it and that’s why we celebrate St. Patrick’s day. *hiccup* because… because of…. Mr. Wonka…. *hiccup*… and his great gifts…. which he shared…. with the world.” *passes out, another drunk guy walks over and pisses on him, then steals his giant green hat*.

]]> http://www.manolith.com/2010/03/17/the-history-of-st-patrick-as-told-by-a-drunk-guy-on-st-paddys-day/feed/ 0 http://cache.static.tsavo.com/wordpress/uploads/2010/03/drunkpats-sm.jpg http://www.manolith.com/2010/03/17/myspace-bracket-challenge/ http://www.manolith.com/2010/03/17/myspace-bracket-challenge/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:18:53 +0000 James Sheldon http://www.manolith.com/?p=57487 For the love of NCAA Brackets! MySpace is giving away some cash.

In an attempt to remain relevant in the age of Facebook and Twitter, MySpace has actually put together a stinkin’-sweet, $10,000 Bracket Challenge for the 2010 NCAA tournament.

If you know nothing about basketball, it doesn’t matter. You can always go with the highest seed, and make a show of a bracket entry. While basketball-loving friends will call you out for doing so, their ridicule will have little effect on you, especially if you rake in 10,000 bones!

The best thing about the MySpace Bracket Challenge is the fact that it is a round-by-round competition. What does this mean? Even a few fun, but lousy picks in the early rounds won’t bump you from the overall competition. You’ll have the opportunity to pick every match-up throughout the tournament. Yes, you’re looking at about a three week commitment to awesomeness.

The contest is free to enter, but here’s the catch: You have to be a registered user of MySpace. Of course you do. Who gives away money to non-registered users? Survey says: Nobody. So, if you’ve been thinking about putting some half-bikini-clad photos online, or a number of iPhone photos portraying you in a drunken stupor, MySpace is totally the way to go. And right now you’ll score the bonus of a legitimate, great NCAA Bracket Competition.

If you need a little assistance in breaking down your bracket, check out our Monday post with seed info. and a few potential upsets. Get your picks in by tomorrow morning!

Apparently Manfredi used Facebook to communicate with his alleged Mafia cohorts, and accessed it so frequently that police were able to trace his location by following the signal emitted from his computer. Honestly, I didn’t even know that was possible. I’m seeing a sequel to “The Net” in the works, here. But I have to hand it to the police; this was absolutely the best way to approach and apprehend a guy who is known to have had extensive weapons training. Hell, the guy used a bazooka to take out the head of a rival clan. Using Facebook to sneak in and catch him unawares just seems like common sense.

Police are now combing through Manfredi’s account to try to track down his accomplices. Let this be a warning to you all: what goes on in Vegas might stay in Vegas, but what you put up on the Internet is eternal. Also, bonus points for bazooka use.

At some point, Varinauskas began “exposing his penis and thrusting it in [one of the officers'] face, forcing her to take evasive action to avoid getting struck.” I’m told that in Scotland, a penis may be described as a weapon by the authorities, so there was an actual chance of an assault with a weapon charge in the making. Later, the defendant said in court that he was extremely embarrassed and accepted the officers’ statements of what happened, as he was too drunk to recall them himself. He has since apparently cut off the binge drinking.

Now, I don’t know about you, guys, but if I were to even think about attacking someone who possessed a gun, I’m pretty damned sure I wouldn’t use my most precious belonging to do it. I mean, sure, a fully erect penis at its most engorged might possibly poke an eye, but who’re we kidding? Ain’t no bones in that thing (and if yours is any different, please don’t write to me to prove it), so the chances of real damage are slim at best. Still, no one likes to get the shaft, am I right? “Free Willy” indeed.

But apparently they’re still out there, and still pestering the state of Hawaii for some sort of proof, beyond his already posted birth certificate, that President Obama was in fact born in the US of A. Hawaii’s House Judiciary Committee yesterday heard a bill that would allow government officials to pretty much ignore repeated requests. Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health’s Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development, said “Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy,” which is a nice, non-accusatory way of saying it.

There have been a few objections to the proposed bill, which would result in labeling those who continue to make the previously-refused request a “vexatious requester,” which is FAR better a term than “birther.” The danger here, of course, is that such a consequence would only serve to heighten the level of suspicion birthers already have for the whole process. There really is no way to win in this case, though, and at least Hawaii wouldn’t have to waste any more time on this ridiculous phenomenon.

Whew. I gotta take a breath before diving in. The news is simply not as good as the headline suggests.

After seeing a significant increase in advantage to teams that won the overtime coin-toss, the NFL is finally considering a change. Sure, it would only make sense to have the best overtime rules in the world of sport, being the premier, professional sports league in the United States; yet for 35 years the league has relied on a coin-toss to determine possession in a sudden-death overtime system.

When I caught wind that the league was actually considering a change, I was ecstatic, but then I had to face palm, upon learning the new rules the NFL is scheming.

These new rules would only take place in the playoffs, and possession would still be determined by a coin-toss. If the team receiving the first possession could only muster a field goal, they would have to kick-off to the opposing team. If the opposing team could only then hit for 3, to tie it again, regular, sudden-death overtime rules would come back into play.

Help me out, here, people–is this not the stupidest thing you have ever heard? Maybe I’m alone in my thinking, but the college overtime system is so exciting. Both teams get the ball, and have the opportunity to score. Sure, there would be some multi-overtime games, but who’s complaining about that? The league office, that’s who. They would be giving away extra football for free.

Roger Goodell is absurd. You may admire the way he has cracked down on behavioral issues, but in terms of making the game better for the players, and more exciting for the fans, the guy is a schmoo. He even decided which of the New York teams would play the opener in the new Meadowlands Stadium by flipping a coin–with neither team present! And he did this after scoffing at the suggestion that it should be decided by a coin flip in the first place. Seriously. Schmoo.

Saint Patrick, of course! So, who the heck was he?

Saint Patrick, while not an alcoholic, was actually a pretty cool dude in the realm of the Catholic denom. of the Christian faith. He lived nearly two thousand years ago, and is widely known as the patron saint of Ireland. This you knew, right?

Yet, did you know that we’re celebrating the life he led, on the supposed day he died? Yep. Not a birthday, rather the death day of Banna Venta Berniae, Naomh Padraig, or the name we all know him by, St. Patrick.

In truth, many of the traditions associated with St. Patrick, may actually be attributed to Palladius, who was the first Roman Catholic Bishop sent to Ireland, where he worked diligently to suppress the Pelagian heresy in the geographic realm of Great Britain. He set forth to protect 5th Century Irish Christians from the exiles who looked to settle in Ireland. Regardless of his precedence, however, St. Patrick was incredibly popular with the Irish people, placing himself amongst those in need.

TV Evangelists, take note: St. Patrick was often criticized by local powers and principalities based on the fact that he didn’t charge people for baptisms, or ordaining priests. He gave freely to those in need, while doing other great works he claimed as his mission. Naturally, the people who wanted to buy him off, twisted the stories and more than likely accused him of what he was against. While it is known that he faced accusations during his life in Ireland, he never wrote of what they were.

St. Patrick also wrote of condemning and excommunicating Coroticus for slaughtering many Christian converts, and taking others into slavery as Coroticus and his soldiers were raiding Ireland. Standing up for the little guy! Pour the man a Guinness, I say!

And to close your brief history lesson: Everything you’ve heard about The Shamrock is true. It is the three leafed clover St. Patrick used to illustrate the concept of the Holy Trinity to the new, Irish Christians.

(Image via: Saint Patrick’s Catholic School)

Erectile dysfunction, if television ads can be believed, is a disorder affecting 90% of the male population. And it needs to be treated right now, with pills that will cost you an arm and a leg to get your other appendage pointed and readied for sexy times. In reality, one in ten men will experience persistent erectile dysfunction during their lives. Oh, god, what a depressing statistic. No wonder scientists have figured out penises before cancer. They’re probably trying to get it up as well.

But the survey — conducted over a group of 1,500 men — discovered that the heart treatments given to men did little to help their erectile dysfunction. Which, in of itself, is sad. But then ON TOP of that, the men with erectile dysfunction had a death rate that was twice as high as everyone else involved in the study.

So not only do your bits not work properly, you will be more likely to die. In short, your life is terrible. But the doctor in charge of the survey had some sage words.

I think we need to bear in mind that if somebody has erectile dysfunction, we really need to treat them.

Treat them. Treat them well. But you knew that already.

(Source)

Oh, Los Angeles. You are the city where dreams come true, and barring that, a perfect forum for the crazies to run around unperturbed. That is your gift: a cocktail of shared psychosis that sociologists could study for decades.

When you’re a teacher, you’re supposed to instill tradition and standards in the students that you come in contact with. If you’re an infamous teacher you do things like put them in civil war re-enactments  or — barring the necessary funds for costuming and firearms — fight clubs. David Fincher style, no-holds barred, let’s whoop on Jared Leto’s face fightclubs. Which is exactly what a teacher, Stephen Wesley, is catching flack in Los Angeles for doing.

And he wasn’t exactly a teacher. He taught probation camp, a place where children go after they run illegal rings of things. So maybe he was giving them some more hands-on experience that they were otherwise lacking. And by hands on, I mean repeated punches to the face. Students who were engaged in the club told Wesley the security cameras taping the fights were broken, so he was free to do things like cheer them on, and coach from the sidelines. You know, helping out the troubled youth.

I just wish teachers did this in the suburbs, and not just in probation camps. The suburbs have enough people pretending to be hard that need to be punched in the face.

(Source)

According to NPR it might one day be possible to identify us based not on our DNA, but on the bacteria that covers our skin. Which brings up a laundry list of issues regarding ease of identification. With this information it is constantly becoming more and more possible to find someone pretty much no matter where they run off to, to pull up and disclose any web site we’ve ever visited, anything we’ve ever said, the list of ways in which our privacy as individuals has been offset by advances in technology is long enough and deep enough that it begs the question: What is more valuable, our privacy or our safety? Another related question would be, are we necessarily safer if we know more about each other? For me the questions are not easily answered. Yes it is easier to catch a criminal if we can identify them based on basically anything all the way down to microscopic beings that live on their fingertips, and it is in theory harder to plan large scale attacks when all forms of communication are monitored and recorded, but the price of that kind of monitoring in terms of independence and privacy is inevitably very high. It can also be said that that type of monitoring drives people to do things they wouldn’t normally do because their personal lives have been so invaded. So as much as access to information might give us insight into what people are planning, it might also be part of the reason why people are planning these things in the first place.

I for one generally believe that people tend to be peaceful when they are given a) autonomy and b) enough to live well. The fact that we live in a world where the disparity between rich and poor is so vast is in all likelihood causing a majority of the tensions that require us to monitor people. So I would put it this way. As long as we insist on having more than everybody else, and insist that it is our right to have so much more than everybody else, we are going to have to do plenty of monitoring to make sure all the stuff we have that they don’t have is safe.

So, I guess what I’m saying is this: as long as we insist on maintaining that imbalance, continue to be prepared to be worried about where you leave the bacteria on your fingers.

Glenn Beck is either a performance artist or he is legitimately crazy. I’m inclined to believe that he is similar in composure to a snake-oil salesman, selling you crazy you don’t need or want at expense of the common good. Enter the survival seeds.

One thing that makes Glenn Beck’s crazy 10x as hilarious is finding out what sponsors still advertise with him. These have included cash for gold ploys and plugging Muse’s album because he thinks it speaks to the political bombast and stakes of our time. Now he’s essentially advertising seeds for survivalist gardens in case The Man decides to come for you. Survivalist gardens. At what point do you go past the other end of the crazy spectrum so you’re so far to the right that you come out a hippy? They’re not even called survivalist gardens. They’re crisis gardens that you load up with survival seeds.

That’ll save you from the impending nuclear holocaust. A nice patch of healthy green that you cultivate outside. It’s like Beck knows exactly who his audience is, and selling them their very own nuclear holocaust play-set.

It’s not creepy, it’s not hilarious, it’s an awesome swirl of the two. Enjoy the ad. And the nutrient dense food. Before they come for you.

Honestly folks, it’s kind of like jury duty. If you don’t turn it in, you could be in trouble. The likelihood? Hmmm–comparable to being struck by lighting, maybe? I really don’t know. And I don’t know what the punishment would consist of. Truthfully, I’m not going to research it right now–or ever.

However, I can tell you this: When you don’t fill out the forms, your local and state governments will lose funding. Seriously. Now, are you interested?

The United States Census was instituted by the American Founding Fathers, and is part of the U.S. Constitution. When states are begging for more funding, an accurate Census is one of the most valuable tools for distribution. Where is the United States government getting this money? I can only assume China. Then again, if we can use money from China to build more schools, then heck yeah, I’ll fill out my census! I’ll do my part. No, it doesn’t work that way, but sarcasm certainly does.

Let me pause for the cause, and set my satire aside for one sentence.

These required census questions are questions you will know the answers to!

Name. Age. Are you white bread, wheat bread or rye? There are 10 of these questions–easy as pie. Along those lines, if you’re an illegal, I would not suggest using this as an avenue to join the American public force. If the Founding Fathers were still in charge, no doubt, you’d be a welcome addition! And no doubt, there would be no planes to fly into buildings. Fortunately, and unfortunately, a lot has changed in the last 234 years.

Get ‘em in people! Uncle Sam says so.

(Image via: Edina Public Schools)