Let's Celebrate Bastille Day!

Above: King George III
Noted tyrant and galactic menace.

Every Fourth of July we celebrate the defining moment of American history: with the stroke of a pen (really a giant bird feather dipped in ink-goddamn it must have taken hours to write anything), we finally rid ourselves of the tyranny of the English King and replaced it with a democracy of, by and for a handful of wealthy white male landowners. Kind of brings a tear to the eye. While a bunch of dudes in a room signing a document is a totally compelling story, it pales in comparison to the rivers of blood in which history's greatest badasses birthed their nation.

Sort of like the Occupy Movement but
with more cannons and even laxer hygiene.

Mired in an economic crisis and subject to a regressive tax system that makes Ronald Reagan look like freaking Robin Hood, 18th Century France was kind of a shitty place to live for the 99%. Hungry and fed up (or rather underfed up) with a pack of rich aristocrats flouncing around their gold-leaf Palais in their tights, ermine-trimmed robes and those stupid powdered wigs European people love so much, the impoverished masses of France decided un oeuf was un oeuf and stormed the Bastile-a big fort/prison thing. The kerfuffle kicked off the decade-long period known as the French Revolution.

Highlights of the Revolution included the abolition of feudalism, lots of shouting (possibly in French) and the Reign of Terror in which tens of thousands of political undesirables were publicly beheaded by Guillotine. Yeah, the head-chop-o-matic invented by Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin as a more humane method of execution. I suppose it's more humane than beating the condemned to death with a cudgel made of puppy bones, but still, holy shit France.

 Oh, and in case you thought the Dark Ages ended in 1000 A.D. you should know that the last Guillotining
happened in 1977. 19-goddamn-77. Let's just hope no one in Texas ever hears about this thing.

You can really taste the cruelty!

So yeah, keep this colorful and blood-soaked history in mind the next time you refer to them as cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Anyway, now every July 14th the French have their 4th of July (still with me?) marked with fire works, parades and, I don't know, whatever the French equivalent of barbecue is. Probably foie gras or something. It's like the ground-up liver of a duck that's been force-fed corn its entire life. Like, for real, what is up with the French?

The Revolution was a time of social and political upheaval, uncertainty and violence.
On the upside it took home 8 Tony Awards. Suck on that, Cats. 

What, Brian and Tom get no parkas?

Above: the thing I hope these
douchebags get sued into.

Wow. I hope Brian and Tom sue these dicks into the stone age. Is that a thing you can do? Sue someone into the stone age? Well, I hope it is and I hope they do it. What the hell am I talking about? Here, check out this piece of galling anti-gay nonsense. Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere, a married couple living in New Jersey were tipped off that a Virginia-based group called Public Advocate of the United States was using a doctored version of a photo from their engagement party in an anti-gay political mailing in Colorado. Here's the original, non-hate-filled pic:

Just a happy, newly engaged couple enjoying New York's temperate climate...

And here's the (poorly) photoshopped version in which the Public Advocate cropped out NYC and replaced it with the frigid desolation of Colorado. 

...what the hell? Public Advocate of the United States couldn't
be bothered to photoshop some winter coats on these two? It's like 30 below...

It's true, just ask Kirk Cameron. TV's
Mike Seaver and noted expert on gayness.

I think this raises the question of why Public Advocate didn't simply get a couple of male interns to make out instead of stealing the photo. Well as a drooling pack of hate-mongers, they're only happy when they're making gay people miserable and turning this couple's cherished memory into a vitriol-laced message of intolerance kills two birds. Also, making the interns kiss would turn them into insatiable cock-hungry sodomites who will stop at nothing to further the homosexual agenda.

"I can't be expected to keep track of
all the anti-gay bullshit I send out."

-Eugene Delgaudio

So yeah, Public Advocate of the United States, a group whose name makes them sound like a pack of Erins Brockovich fighting the good fight against evil corporations who manufacture baby cancer, is actually on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of anti-gay hate groups. When reached for a comment, Eugene Delgaudio, President of Public Advocate and Willie Tanner look-a-like, spouted some crazy about dinosaurs and the President and then pointed out that there's like "...2,000 photos and in the neighborhood of 80 to 100 videos on [his] website..." and that he'd be "hard-pressed to find anything today."  


So yeah, his shitty little homophobe's club gets 15 minutes of national attention and he's too busy to root through the 'I hate queers' folder on his desktop and delete the photo? Here, enjoy Eugene's statement to his fans on the Public Advocate Website:

Dinosaur? Ow! You got burned
Southern Poverty Law Center!

Thousands Flock To Public Advocate as Prehistoric Dinosaur Southern Poverty Law Center Sends A Letter 

July 11, 2012

Statement From Eugene Delgaudio, President of Public Advocate:
Another news release from the Southern Poverty Law Center that they send to everybody about Public Advocate.

And as President of Public Advocate, I am looking into it.

#30#

End of Statement.

Well, he's got us there. It is impossible
to support marriage equality without also
supporting mandatory sex with donkeys.

Looking into it? #30#? Well, I guess that's the end of that. Or is it? While he might have said 'End of Statement,' Eugene totally drivels on for a few more stylistically daring and randomly capitalized lines. He expresses some outrage about the way the SPLC took issue with his group's staging of a man-on-donkey wedding to illustrate how marriage equality is exactly like bestiality, and then he mentions some of his groups hilarious YouTube videos including the one about Barney Frank (he's gay, get it?) and the one with Ted Kennedy's swim team.

There's even links to a few including one about Moses getting arrested by Nancy Pelosi's Thought Police. Click on it, it's amazing (look out cast of Birdemic!). Oh and that music you here? That's 'Tank!' by Yoko Kanno from Cowboy Bebop's opening credits. How dare they!

It's getting so bible camp teens dressed as Moses can't even read the Ten Commandments
without getting pretend arrested by other teens dressed as British Bobbies.
Thanks Nancy Pelosi, thanks for ruining America.

He's like regular Jesus, except he leads
a team of spandex-clad, giant robot
pilots against the forces of evil.  

On an interesting side note, Jean White, the Colorado State Senator being attacked (along with gay people everywhere) in Public Advocate's mailing is a moderate Republican who supports Civil Unions, so as far as PAUS (acronym! Pronounced: Pah-oose) is concerned she's basically a donkey-rapist. I think we have a united front here people. In one fell-swoop, Public Advocate of the United States has given Gays, Republicans and Cowboy Bebop fans all a reason to prey to Cher, Ronald Regan and Manga Jesus (in that order) that Eugene Delgaudio and his bible camp acting troupe get canker sores. 

Next time, re-boot harder.

I just saw The Amazing Spider-Man, and it was good. I liked it. It was a matinee and I'm usually more agreeable towards movies for which I paid less than 11 dollars to see, but for real, it's pretty good. In fact, I enjoyed this movie despite the fact it's another origin story and I totally hate origin stories.

Behold: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a 97 minute explanation of where Logan got
the leather jacker he wears in X-Men 1. Turns out he stole it. Mystery: solved.

Time: our deadliest foe.
Just ask old people.

So yeah, decent movie, but what's that? You'd like to hear me complain about something? Anything? No matter how nit-picky? Well, I don't usually...well, ok, there is one thing but it's pretty spoilery, so if you haven't seen the film, stop reading. Still there? Ok. Now, really it's only a spoiler if you didn't already know that one out of every three comic book adaptation movies is required by law to end with a scientifically implausible destructo-device that gets shut-down seconds before going off.

'Goddamn right I can.'

-Magneto

X-Men had Magneto's mutation machine, in Batman Begins it was Ra's al'Goul with a toxic microwave thing and in Spider-Man 2 it was Doc Octopus's reactor deal. It's like no one involved in these movies felt that their villains are threatening enough on their own or that the climaxes were exciting enough without the artificial tension created by a ticking clock or a soulless computer voice counting down our hero's remaining time. I mean, Magneto can reverse the planet's magnetic poles causing untold havoc. What does he need with an Anna Paquin-powered MacGuffin?

"Hmmm...it needs something...maybe...a... 
countdown! Vanderbilt, you're a genius!"

-The screenwriter, not rocking the boat

Anyway, This movie's villain, Dr. Connors, aka The Lizard, has one of these devices, complete with countdown, which Spider-Man has to shut off before it's too late. Since it's a remake, you'd think the writers would have gone out of their way to avoid repeating the plots of other comic-book movies, but here we are. In fact, this movie, a re-boot of another movie which itself was adapted from a comic book, even has this scene at the end in which Peter Parker's English teacher talks about how there's only really ten plots in all of fiction...it's like they wanted us to know that they know that we're on to them.

Spider-Man's Giant Robot: not in the movie.
Would have been surprising though.

So maybe all fiction is just variations on a limited number of plots. That's cool, and hey, it's just a movie, right? After all, The Amazing Spider-Man isn't really about the doom-gadget, it's about characters and relationships and characters turning into lizards and how that effects their relationships. I can usually accept a well-worn plot if it's a good movie, and this was a good movie, it's just that this particular doom-gadget is especially stupid. Now, I'm about to get even more spoiler-ific here, so skip the rest of this if you want to be surprised. Well, actually if surprise is the only thing your looking for in a movie, don't see The Amazing Spider-Man.

Super-Villain Solutions and Logistics
for the 21st Century

Anyway, like I said, more spoilers. In this case, the device in question is a airborne chemical delivery system thing invented by Oscorp in case they ever need to distribute a biological agent, like say a cure for polio or a mutagen that will turn everyone in New York into lizard-people. Ok. Fine, you can see where this is going right? The Lizard steals the thing, loads it up with Lizard juice and starts the clock.

'Oh, I get it! It's the thing from before!
Remember? The thing?'

-some jackass in every audience

Sure it seemed a little too convenient that Dr. Connors would happen to work at a company that would have the perfect machine on hand just in case he ever goes nuts and wants to mutate millions of people. And yes, it was a little heavy handed the way the writers set it up for the audience at the beginning of the movie by having Dr. Connors give a tour of Oscorp in which he points out the device and practically says 'pay attention audience, this will be important later!'

But what I want to know is why does this machine, built ostensibly to deliver an aerosolized cure for bed bugs or whatever (it's New York, right?) have a 'countdown to detonation?' Shouldn't it just have an 'on' switch? I mean, it's supposed to be a piece of medical equipment, yet it comes equipped with a dramatic tension-inducing countdown timer for no goddamn reason.

"Thank you for choosing the Oscorp Asthmax 3000. Detonation
of life saving medication in your mouth will be commence in two minutes..."

Above: No.

So yeah, like I said, TAS (the amazing acronym) is a good comic book movie. The re-hashy plot and brain-meltingly stupid weaponized lizard-o-matic don't really ruin it, they just make me wonder how much better it could have been if they'd just tried a little harder to be different from every other comic adaptation of the last 20 years. Look, as a nerd I have a moral obligation to find fault in everything, so take my complaining with a grain of salt. Also, let's not overlook the fact that the film contains absolutely no Bono whatsoever. None.

The Wrath of Gary

Put on your nerd pants everybody, I'm about to talk about Star 2rek: The Ensequeling. If it's too much for you, here's a link to Reuters. Anyway, according to Topless Robot who read it on Totalfilm.com, who heard it from some guy (Karl Urban, aka Dr. McCoy, aka Judge Dredd), Bilbodict Cumberholmes might not be playing Khan after all.

'...this is for Season 3 of Heroes you green-blooded son-of-a-bitch!'

-Bumberdink Clumberhitch in Star Trek 2

'A female...space officer? Is she like,
in charge of the space kitchen?'

-NBC Executives

Instead, according to Karl Urban, Cumberbatch will be playing oft-overlooked Kirk nemesis Gary Mitchell. Who the shit is Gary Mitchell? Well, way back when Gene Roddenberry was putting together The Star Treks for NBC he filmed a pilot episode called The Cage. It was about super intelligent telepathic aliens with throbbing, ass-shaped skulls who kidnap Captain Pike (this was pre-Kirk) and two female crew members as breeding stock for their space zoo. It was pretty smart for TV sci-fi in the 60's and featured a female first officer-she wore pants and everything.

Cool right? Well, no. NBC decided there wasn't enough over-acting and flying dropkicks so they told Roddenberry to try again. The result was the second pilot: Where No Man Has Gone Before starring William 'Priceline' Shatner-the inventor of the two-fisted punch.

'Yes, and throw in some more punching. In fact, make it double-punching. With two fists.'

-Network notes

God-like powers are the sci-fi equivalent
of rabies-at some point your friends are
going to have to put you down. And how.

This time the Enterprise passes through a lava-lamp barrier field which hyper-evolves a couple crew members including Captain Kirk's best pal Gary Mitchell. The rest of the episode is about Kirk deciding exactly how hard to kill his BFF before he goes all Dark Phoenix on the ship and crew. It was also a pretty good episode and if J. J. Abrams insists on boldly going where Trek has already gone before, the Wrath of Gary sounds like way more fun than a Khan re-tread.

Above: A truly dizzying intellect.

Of course it might also be that Karl Urban is throwing up some sort of smoke screen to make us think Khan isn't the big bad in the movie. On the other hand, Urban might be the sort of man who would know that we're on to him and so he's telling us the truth in hopes of misleading us into believing a lie. So is this rumor a sure thing? Not remotely. Because Karl Urban comes from New Zealand and as everyone knows New Zealand is entirely peopled with sheep. Anyway, I'm suddenly way more excited to see Trek 2.


On a side note, if Trek 2 is a WNMHGB (acronym!) remake, it might mean that Alice Eve (seen left) is playing Doctor Elizabeth Dehner (right)-the other crew member who catches super-powers from the magic space barrier. In fact, it seems pretty obvious now. Look at the on-set pictures:

Of course at this point it's all wild speculation. I mean, Alice Eve's hair
is parted on the right whereas Elizabeth Dehner's is parted on the left. 

Reverend Collier gets no blintzes.

'Annual Pastors Conference. All White Christians Invited.' Yup, so says a flyer advertising a conference for the totally not crazy sounding Church of God's Chosen. What kind of 10-year olds with a pillow-fort and a 'no girls allowed' sign bullshit is this? Behold:

So like bring a dish to pass. Nothing too 'jew-ey' though.

If he took off the white pride hat and
 stopped denying the holocaust, maybe
someone would have Bill over for shabbas.

In defense of his church's crazy, head pastor and racist-in-chief William J. Collier points out that he hasn't been invited to any black, Muslim or Jewish events for some reason, so really they started it. It's not like the CGC (acronym!) is a even a hate group. Sure, they believe in the inherent superiority of the white race and explicitly bar non-whites from their meetings and the KKK is attending this conference but...uh, what was I saying? Oh, right, Reverend Collier wants to make it clear that his church is not a hate group. They're just united, as a group, in their common hatred of people who look/belive differently. What's hate-groupy about that?

The conference is even ending with a cross burning, oh but not a klany, 'we don't like your kind here' cross burning, this is more of a celebratory 'cross lighting' -like if Burning Man was run by racists instead of dub-stepping ravers on mushrooms.

As it happens, Burners are fervently opposed to
equal rights for giant wooden people.

Like most 1st century Jews living in
Roman Judea, Jesus was probably a Viking.

'We are not breaking any laws, we are not violating any ordinances, we are bringing the word of God to people who want it...' Oh. Ok. But then Collier went on to explain that by 'people who want it' he means white people, who, if you didn't already know '...are part of the chosen race.' Holy shit. Leaving aside the questionable assertion that God's chosen race could possibly be the same one that produced Vanilla Ice, why the hell is 'because religion' a pass for whatever discriminatory, bigoted bullshit someone wants to do? I know they're not technically breaking any laws, but is it really so hard to be a person without the threat of legal repercussions?

And what about the people who live nearby? Thanks to this jackass, their whole community gets lumped into the Alabama stereotype of missing-teeth racists and moonshine, and that's just not fair. Won't somebody please think of the yokels?

Above: The 4.8 million other people in Alabama
who are not associated with Collier's racist church.

Taste the Science!

'Awww...but I wanna...'

-Scream Guy, making his case

In an amazing display of whatever the Korean word for chutzpah is, South Korea's envoy to the International Whaling Commission has announced that his country no longer feels like abiding by the decades old moratorium on not driving whales to extinction. Why? Well, it's been "painful and frustrating for the people who have been traditionally been taking whales for food." Sort of like how our ban on stabbing people has been difficult on those who would like to stab people.

'I guess this whale got lost, wandered on
deck and slipped in this pool of blood.'

-Some Whaler

According to the article, people have been taking whales 'accidentally' caught in nets for years despite the ban. This announcement is just South Korea's way of saying 'screw you' to the rest of the Commission's signatories. And no, I have no idea how you accidentally catch and kill a whale. I've managed to go years without accidentally capturing, killing and then processing the carcass of a fifteen ton Minke Whale. It's like there's an entire not-so-secret whaling industry based on assuming we're all idiots.

Kinoya's Canned Whale Meat:
Taste the Science!

Speaking of assuming we're all idiots: for years, Japan has been making use of an 'it would be funny if it wasn't so sad' loop-hole in the ban that makes whaling totally cool if it's in the name of scientific research. Yeah, that's right, you can kill a whale and sell it for meat as long as you slice it open like a taun taun, feel around inside its gooey innards and then shout: 'for science!' At least Norway and Iceland, in typical Viking dontgiveafuckness, have the decency to openly ignore the toothless ban.

Look, I'm not trying to knock anyone's traditions here, but there's a finite number of whales left in the world. Is our need for pre-electrical lighting, traditional whale burgers and authentic corsets really worth wiping out whales forever? Can we seriously not come up with a anti-whaling policy that's better than: 'Please don't kill whales, unless you feel like it and find them delicious.'

Sorry Steampunks, your otherwise totally accurate alternate universe sci-fi
Victorian-era costumes will have to make due with synthetic corset boning.

Let's Celebrate Canada Day!

Hey, did you know that today is Canada Day? No? You didn't? Shame on you, and yes, I'm allowed to dole out shame here because, as I may have mentioned five or six times before, I am one quarter Canadian. To celebrate the enactment of the British North America Act of 1867 here are some Canadian 'Did you knows?'*

Pictured: Another thrilling moment in Canadian History.

Above: Goons.

Did you know that Canadians once burned down the White House? Well, they didn't, they got their goons to do it but still. It happened during the War of 1812, which was the Revolutionary War's lesser known sequel. Sort of like S. Darko. Yeah. There's a Johnny Darko 2, betcha didn't know that. Anyway, during the Revolutionary War II, the Americans were harassing Canadians along Lake Erie and even set fire to the Canadian Capitol. In fairness the British were kidnapping American sailors and pronouncing 'aluminum' wrong, so they kind of had it coming.

In retaliation, the Canadian Governor asked his British masters to please be so kind as to burn the shit out of Washington, which they did, destroying the Capitol, the Library of Congress and gutting the White House. Yeah, remember that next time you watch Kids in the Hall or pour syrup on something.

'The Burning of the White Hoose'
Next time you see a Canadian, punch them in the face.
They'll know what it's about.

Seriously guys? 

Did you know that Canadians have their own money? You see, technically Canada is another country and as such has its own currency. That's cool and all, but the problem is that their coins are almost identical to ours. Anyway, I used to live an hour from the border and it wasn't uncommon to find Canadian change mixed in with your real money, especially when you go to park and every other quarter is rejected by the meter. Like its people, Canada's money can pass itself off as American without much effort. Simple numismatic coincidence or prelude to invasion?

Did you know that there's a Queen of Canada? Furthermore did you know that she's the same Queen as the Queen of England? It's true:

See? It's the same damn Queen, just with a different hat.
She's the monarchical equivalent of a pallet swap.

Above: The Queen of Australia.
Look familiar?

That's right. Elizabeth II is the Queen of 16 countries. Sixteen totally real countries including Jamaica, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas and the possibly real but I can't swear to it island double punch of Saint Kitts and Nevis. According to Wikipedia, she's also somehow the Admiral of Nebraska. Look, I know the Fourth of July is coming up and we're supposed to be celebrating our independence and all, but holy shit, this woman is the unquestioned ruler of 16 countries. Wouldn't we be better off surrendering now? It's only a matter of time before she assimilates our culture into her collective, we might as well go with some dignity.


*Warning: Don't try to use this information to impress someone you'd like to sleep with. There is no greater sex-repelant than Canadian factoids.