Zeitshiest

$20,000. Each. Yes, twenty thousand dollars, that's what six former congresspeople and an ex-senator (Mike Gravel, you know, the rock guy) are getting paid to sit in a room and listen to witnesses explain that not only are aliens real and frequent visitors to our planet but that the government knows all about them and is hiding the truth. 

Pictured: A weather balloon reflecting light from
the planet Venus. Also swamp gas. (courtesy: USAF)

"Cough...Eh-hem..."

-Me, asking for 20 grand

You know, I've long insisted that there is life on other planets, and like this committee I am also not in Congress so what I want to know is where's my twenty grand? The answer is, of course, no one gives a shit that I think there are aliens. However, plenty of shits were given to "...as many as forty researchers and military/agency witnesses" who are right now testifying before the former members of Congress at the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure or CHD (acronym=legit).

Photo of the Capital Dome, off-center
quote in times new roman, no site this
classy could possibly be bullshit... 

I know what your thinking, how were these former congresspeople able to take time away from not being in congress in order to hear testimony? Well, I'm sure $20,000 each had a hand in it, but as it happens, this is an "event with historical implications", the website even says so, and why would they lie? Check it out, it's a surprisingly classy site, not the standard gif-addled GeoCites eye-sores one would usually associate with people trying to prove that the government is hiding aliens from us. There's even a trailer which...wait...do historical events usually have trailers? 

Thif fummer, King George if about to meet a royal pain in the <explosion!>
The Revolutionary War: Coming foon to a colony near you!

Oh that? They're just agreeing
to disagree...about everything...ever.

Does this smell a little Zeitgeist-y to anyone else? I mean, wouldn't the kind of conspiracy the CHD is trying to sniff out would require hundreds or maybe even thousands of people from different branches of our government and military all working together in lockstep unity despite political and philosophical differences over decades? Like, we can't get everyone to agree on anything...at all, not guns, not healthcare, hell, a third of us would like us to elect Jesus the king of 'merica. Yet somehow the shadowy figures behind this conspiracy have been pulling this off since Rosewell?

If somehow the Citizen's Hearing on Disclosure cracks open the largest conspiracy of our times using slick web design and Facebook likes, awesome, more power to them. But is it weird that I have more confidence in the idea that aliens exist and just find us too uninteresting and/or primitive to bother with than I do in the Government's ability to cover them up?

Earth: It's the galaxy's Delaware. Have you
ever had the urge to visit Delaware? Exactly. 

Apparently the 'H' stood for Hipster.

Here's a fun fact: did you know that Jesus was a hipster? Oh yes, the first century rabble rouser who, some believe, was the son of/the same guy as (they're a little murky on this point) the almighty creator of the universe, was also somehow a hipster according recent research...and by research I mean marketing campaign.

Above: An artist's rendering which Biblical scholars
now agree is an accurate portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth.

Miracles include: turning water into PBR
and knowing where to find the cool parties.

Obviously a two-thousand year-old street preacher from Roman-occupied Judea would have had little in common with today's black rim glasses wearing, beskinnyjeaned millenials, so what gives? This poster gives (see right). AllStars? Wow, Jesus must have been a hipster...or a Time Lord. It's from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, and is part of the Church's attempt to re-brand Catholicism for the twenty-first century without having to do any of the hard stuff, like you know, admitting women priests, ditching the celibacy thing or getting over gay people. 

In Japan, Jesus is portrayed as a mecha-
pilot battling aliens in Neo-Jerusalem.

According to the Diocese's spokesperson:

"Historically, representations of Christ have reflected the population that was worshiping there...it doesn't seem to me so far-fetched that the representation of Christ would be a hipster. Jesus stood in contrast to the culture of his day, that's what a lot of hipsters do."

-Monsignor Kieran Harrington,

explaining white Jesus

Ok, so Brooklyn, a noted spawn point for hipsters, would naturally need a hipster Jesus, although I'm not sure shopping at Urban Outfitters really qualifies as standing in contrast to the culture of the day. Anyway, no matter what your feelings for the Catholic Church, you have to admit that the posters are a far cry from some of their previous recruitment drives.

"Hey, if you sign up I'll stop hitting you with this mace!"

-Some Crusader

Shirtstorm

Pull this shirt from stores in light of
recent events? Gee, you goddamn think?

So Nike was making these t-shirts with the blood splattered phrase 'Boston Massacre' printed on them, but after the recent bombing and subsequent week-long horror-spree, they're pulling them from store shelves. Here's what a Nike spokesperson had to say:

"In light of the recent tragedy in Boston, we took immediate action last week to remove this product from distribution."

-KeJuan Wilkins, PR genius

Well, yes, but sweet mother of all merciful crap, what is wrong with Nike in the first place? I mean, look at the thing. If Nike's t-shirt department were a 10 year old boy, their school would be calling in a behavioral psychologist. 'Boston Massacre?' What ever happened to 'Go Team'? Or 'Have a good game'?

...and this is why I don't write slogans for Nike.

Pictured: The effective range of a
revolutionary-era musket.

Originally the phrase referred to the 1770 Boston Massacre, a clash between British soldiers armed with muskets and colonists armed with harsh words which left five civilians dead and several soldier's feelings hurt. After the trial, six of the soldiers were acquitted and two were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to branding (I know, right?). It may sound unfair, but keep in mind that an 18th century muzzle loading firearm was about as accurate and deadly as an angry mob shouting insults, so in many ways both sides were evenly matched.

Above: the sports

While the first blood-shed of the American Revolution is obviously a subject ripe for parody, here, Nike is referring to the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, who, according to my exhaustive internet research are some kind of sporting teams. The implication here seems to be that Yankees fans would like to see the Red Sox dead. Look, I won't pretend to understand the sports, but holy shit, wouldn't you just rather see them lose at baseball?

Pat Robertson: Level 9 Televangelist

Don't get me wrong, gay sex is
one of his favorite subjects...

Just the other day I was thinking to myself: gee, we haven't heard from Pat Robertson recently, which is odd given that not only is he an expert on many, many subjects, but also God's spokesman. Sort of like Alan Rickman's character in Dogma. He's basically the metatron. Pat's always got his finger on the pulse of America's moral dilemmas, from gay Boy Scouts to gay couples sacrificing babies to Molech. Of course, he's not only concerned with gay sex, he also cares about straight couples. Robertson once psychoanalyzed a disobedient wife based solely on her husband's email. He even went so far as to prescribe a dose of whoop-ass to keep her in line.  

Pictured: A wizard
practicing 'the magic.'

With all of Pat's helpful tips and sage advice it should come as no surprise that his TV show includes a segment where idiots can call and ask God's mouthpiece the stupidest questions ever posed in the history of posing stupid questions. Like this:

"Dear Pat, I want to ask for your opinion: Is it safe for a Christian to enjoy video games that have magic in them, if the person playing the games is not practicing the magic?"

-John, a grown-ass adult

Is 'John' is asking Pat Robertson if God might confuse pretend magic in video games with real magic...sigh...and you know, condemn Christian gamers to hell by accident? Wow...you know, I don't think the Bible contains any particular admonishments against video games, so 'John' can probably relax, enjoy some Skyrim and assume that the almighty isn't a superstitious, medieval idiot.

"And yea, whosoever chooseth the Wizard in Gauntlet
shall know not but everlasting damnation in the lake of fire."

-Leviticus, 21:34

Above: lives being destroyed by Dun-
 Pat knows what a video game is, right?

Sound advice right? Maybe I should have a TV show...Let's see what Pat has to say:

"...I don't know what game you're talking about...I know there's one called Dungeons and Dragons that literally destroyed people's lives, I mean they got into this thing and they were almost...it was like demonic....But if it's based on magic and the ah-cult [sic] again, stay away from it...I just think we should flee from evil. Period."

-Pat Robertson, noted authority on the ah-cult

Huh...how 'bout that? I know that people (idiots, mainly) like to connect video games to violence, poor-grades, obesity, gay marriage and the Crimean War, but I never in a million years would have linked casting Firaga in Final Fantasy X to burning in hell for all eternity. Well, now you know...

Ever since Assassin's Creed II came out, there's been
a sharp increase in parkour and doge-murder. Fact.

Our nerdly duty.

Suit up boys and girls, I'm about to get trekkie. Like very trekkie. You might want to bail out now. Still with me? Ok, inspired by the Kickstarter campaign for a Veronica Mars movie, there's a chance of bringing back Star Trek: Enterprise as a Netflix series.

Of course, by 'suit up' I mean slip in to
your ill-fitting, homemade future onesie.

"Fuck the Prime Directive!"

-Jean-Luc Picard

Holy shit? Awesome right? Apart from J. J. Abrams' entertaining, yet explosion-heavy reboot movie, there hasn't been any new Trek since 2005 when the UPN Firefly'ed Enterprise (it's a verb I made up meaning 'to prematurely cancel a sci-fi TV series'). Its cancellation, along with the movie franchise being sunk by the objectively terrible Star Trek 10: The One Where Picard Goes Off-Roading on a Pre-Warp Planet, put an end to the 18-year stretch of Star Trek episodes that began with The Next Generation all the way back in 1987.

UPN's move forced many of us to, you know, go outside and have a social life...it hasn't been easy, but the prospect of new episodes offers trekkies a ray of hope. A 'ray' in this instance being strictly metaphorical as we'd be watching it indoors, away from the harsh glare of the surface world.

"Yup, this is the life...a rickets-filled, lonely existence likely ending in heart disease."

And then this happened.

So you're probably confused and wondering which of the eight or nine dozen Star Trek spin-offs was Enterprise? I'm glad you asked. Enterprise was the most recent and probably the least popular, it lasted only four seasons whereas TNG, DS9 and Voyager all ran for seven. Despite staring nerd-icon Scott 'Quantum Leap' Bakula, the fans were kind of divided on it. Some loved it for its grittier, near-future setting, fancy-schnamcy special effects and for reasons best left unexplored, scenes of the crew smearing decontamination gel all over each other.

Other fans however, took issue with the quasi-Christian rock theme song, the writer's tendency to recycle plot lines and the aforementioned decontamination scenes which really are about as creepy as they sound.

That's Evil Parallel Universe Captain Archer fighting a Gorn abord a Starship stuck
in-between dimensions thus ripping off three (one, two and three) Kirk episodes at once. 

You heard me, Zombie Vulcans!

So why bring it back? Well, despite some weak entries, most notably the episode where Scott Bakula fights lizard-men in 2004 Detroit, (seriously? Detroit?) the series was pretty good and managed to get better as it went on. Season three had an episode with zombie Vulcans, and if it made it to season five we would have seen live-action Kzinti (a bloodthirsty race of cat-people from Larry Niven's Ringworld). Doug Drexler, one of the effects artists, set up Facebook page which you can, and should, go like, and supposedly Netflix is tracking the number of people streaming it, so go do your nerdly duty and watch because for real: zombie Vulcans.

Brace yourselves for 'significant wordplay'!

Look out, according to the Today Show, the new Kmart ad has gone viral...Although I'm not really sure that saying something has 'gone viral' actually means anything, but apparently this commercial has because it caught Matt Lauer's attention...and also because Kmart is likely paying the Today Show to talk about it. Synergy!

Going viral just means that something is spreading like a disease...
which, historically speaking, is not usually a good thing.

It's funny because 'ship' sounds like
'shit' and old people are incontinent. 

Anyway, the ad is kind of funny, so go on, click on it, it's not going to make you a tool of corporate America or anything. The real hilarity though is listening to Matt Lauer prepare us all to hear a word that sounds like, but isn't shit:

"And we want to give you a word of caution, this is especially for parents who may have children in the room right now, the ad we're about to play you uses word play, significant word play to pitch a new service for free online shipping..."

Holy shit, look out kids, there's going to be significant wordplay! You know, anyone who's concerned that children can't psychologically handle profanity has clearly never played Xbox live and heard the face-meltingly offensive things 13-year olds will shout while they make Master Chief tea-bag your rapidly cooling corpse. 

"Fuck you dick-breath, I just pwned your ass!"

-Jamie, beating her friend
Nicole in Call of Duty 4 

And the award goes to...

Fun Fact: Fischer actually invented
comparing people with whom you
disagree to the Nazis.

"You know, we're getting to the point, I don't know what the emblem would be, remember when the Jews in Nazi Germany, they had to wear a yellow Star of David on their sleeve? I mean, we're getting to the point now where that's what they're going to make us do...we're getting to the point where these homofascists™ are going to force us to wear on our sleeves some kind of identifying marker so people will know who the racists and the homophobes and the bigots are they can stay away from them."

-Bryan Fischer, noted supporter of bigot rights

Yes Bryan, there are striking similarities between the persecution and genocide committed against the Jewish people and you being called a homophobe. Striking in the sense that it makes people want to strike you for being such an ignorant asshat.

And then they came for the rabid-foam homophobic douchebags...

"I'm not saying that students who don't show
 up are gay, but they probably do love dick."

-Rick Santorum

Fischer made these comments on his radio show in response to the controversy revolving around a Rick Santorum speaking engagement at a high school in Michigan. Students who wish to attend the former presidential candidate/dried body fluid's speech must get their parent's permission. The reason? Homofascism. Santorum's kind of famously anti-gay and the school would rather he not spray his vitriol on the students. Seems pretty clear cut to me, but Fischer's comparing the decision to the Holocaust anyway.

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole clip, I mean, don't eat first, but check it out. It's hilarious, at one point Fischer comes up with the phrase sodomy-based marriage™ which should probably win some sort of award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of Right-Wing Paranoid Rhetoric.

"C'mon don't be such a wuss, our marriage doesn't have to
be sodomy-based, just every once in a while..."

*Homofascist™, Sodomy-based Marriage™ and related crazy are the intellectual property of the American Family Association. All rights reserved...just not the gay ones...

World of WTF

Have you ever thought that maybe there was hope for the human race? That somehow we may, as a species, survive, fulfill our potential and build a brighter future? You have? Well, here, this will take care of that.

I don't speak Mandarin but I'm pretty sure he's
saying the equivalent of Whatthefuckholyshit?

In fairness, MOP does raise the level
cap and add a new character class.

Did you click on it? No? Sigh...I'll sum up, but seriously, this is the last time...I mean all you have to do is click the link...So an 18-year old walked in to an internet café in Taiwan and stabbed a man to death with a watermelon knife. Holy shit. That's terrible right? Well yes, but no, believe it or not, that's not even the worst part. Get this: nobody even tried to stop him. Everyone was so into Mists of Pandaria or whatever that nobody did a goddamn thing. Can you believe it?

Oh, but hey, even that's not the worst part. Hold on to your ever-dwindling hope for humanity because not only did nobody try and stop the guy, but some of the café patrons kept on playing their games. At least one did so, according to witnesses, whilst covered in the victim's blood.

Above: the moment the last ember of the human spirit was extinguished forever.
Also, the moment Andrea's guild just pulled off a successful raid against some Ogres.

Although it explains how no one
is trying to stop Michael Bay from
doing the Ninja Turtles reboot.

We'd all like to think that if we're ever in a similar situation we'd step up and kick the crap out of the murderer, get on the news and then have lots and lots of sex, but the reality is probably closer to the apparent apathy in this café. There's a phenomenon called the bystander effect, in which people are so paralyzed by the shocking brutality they're witnessing that they can't intervene. It might help explain what happened in Taiwan and it existed long before online games. Of course, it doesn't explain why some of the customers went back to playing. They might just be terrible people, playing in to the media stereotype of gamers as sociopathic addicts who are one Redbull away from a killing spree.

Look, I'm guess I wasn't expecting one of the café patrons to turn into Batman, defect the knife with a well-thrown batarang, and leave the assailant tied, gagged and ready for the police to pick up, but goddamn. 

"Game over, scumbag..."

-Batman, because he would 

totally say something like that

Someone told him it's not a real phaser, right?

Um...no. No. Two-hundred and thirty one thousand dollars for Captain Kirk's phaser is just too damn much money. And no, this isn't because I'm a Picard fan. For $231,000 that phaser better goddamn work.

Picard doesn't need phasers. He's classy.

Here's a kid pretending to be an astronaut
using a hamster ball and the hose
off of a dryer. Cost: $11.50 

I mean, who the smeg has that kind of money to spend on crap like this? And since this was an auction, I think a reasonable follow up question is who the smeg else also had the kind of money to drive the bid up that high? Were any of them aware that for the same money they could have bought a ride on the space plane? Instead of buying a prop someone once used while pretending to be in space, they could have actually gone to space. Could this guy seriously not come up with a better use for this money? You know, like college or curing some disease or, I don't know, converting it into gold coins and swimming around in them?

Or hey, did you hear about these elementary school kids in Massachusetts who were forced to go hungry when they couldn't pay for lunch? Yup, children were actually made to march over to the trash bin and throw away their food for lack of funds and this guy spent a quarter of a million dollars on a 40-year old plastic ray-gun. Capitalism: broken.

$231 grand? William Shatner should come to your house and
make you waffles...would that be weird? That'd be weird wouldn't it...

Theocracy now!

Sweet mother of jinkies! According to this poll, 32% of Americans think that we should pass an amendment establishing Christianity as the official religion of the U.S. Thirty-goddamn-two percent? One in three? Is that even real?

Above: one in three people make very poor decisions regarding
facial hair, and there's never been support for a balbo amendment.

Bill of Rights Fun Fact: The 3rd Amendment
requires every American to punch a Canadian
at least one in their life. Go on, look it up.

Ok, so the First Amendment says that the government can't actually establish a state religion and on the upside it looks like 68% of the country is totally fine with that. So, rest easy secular agnosto-humanistic Vulcantologists, we're in no danger of throwing away 230 years of legal precedent just because a bunch of Neds Flanders (it's like mothers-in-law) paused the The Bible Miniseries long enough to take a survey, but still... I mean, you kind of have to wonder who are the people that came up with this poll and what did they hope to accomplish other than asking people pointless and divisive questions?

"All those in favor of House Resolution 994: On declaring Christianity
the one true faith and telling everyone else to suck it, please say aye."

Deluded. They're deluded. The Earth
is billions of years old. Fact. 

I mean, other than pissing people off, what would there possibly be to gain? If Christianity was America's official opiate of the masses what would that even mean for people? Would Christians get 10% off at Denny's? Some kind of tax break? A special diamond lane? That doesn't seem fair to the rest of us. And exactly what kind of Christian are we talking about here? Do they mean Protestants, Catholics, whatever the hell Young Earth Creationists are? What? There's like fifty flavors of Christian and they're not exactly known for turning their other cheeks and getting along.

Mmm..tastes like religious persecution.

Clearly 32% of those polled didn't do very well in history class or else they'd remember that from 1517 up until whenever discotechs were invented, the number one hobby in Europe was murdering each other over things like what communion wafers are made of and who should wear the tallest Pope hat. Before she was a cocktail, Bloody Mary was a Catholic Queen of England who liked to set Protestants on fire...you know...for Jesus. Shit like that is one of the many reasons the powdered wig enthusiasts who wrote the Constitution steered clear of picking a state religion in the first place.

What? People drive like assholes in
two-dimensions, do we really
want to add another?

Look, I'm not saying people are crazy* because they believe in things, but people can be crazy about their beliefs. Thanks poll, but we already knew that. Of course many Christians would love it if Christianity was the official religion, just like I'd love it if we all had hover cars, it doesn't mean these are good ideas. All this poll did was point out that 32% of respondents are unclear on why we separate Church and State. Maybe the article should have been about how we need more funding for eighth grade social studies.

*Ok, this Florida woman did receive a message from God in her goldfish cracker. You typically don't see non-believers (or non-Floridians) making claims like that. Like, Richard Dawkins would never say he saw Charles Darwin's face staring out at him from a piece of bread or a Dorito or something.

"All I see when I look at this sandwich is a cold, 
godless void bereft of meaning...and some lettuce."

-Richard Dawkins

Culture Shock

I just read terrible, terrible news. Iain M. Banks is ill and only has months to live. When I started reading his Culture series a few years ago, he immediately became one of my favorite authors ever. If you're a nerd and have never read his stuff, go get Consider Phlebas right goddamn now. Not because Banks is dying but because he's amazing.

And also because sooner or later Michael Bay or someone is going to
come along and make a shitty movie out of it and then you'll have to get the
copy with 'Now a Major Motion Picture!' plastered across the front. 

Yeah, ok, Banks kind of cribbed the
Orbitals from Ringworld, but it's cool,
Larry Niven's kind of a dick.

The titular Culture is this massive, super-advanced interstellar civilization of ga-gillions of human-like aliens who live on starships, space stations and giant rings like the Halo from Halo (which they totally ripped-off from Banks). It's sort of like the Federation on Star Trek but instead of using their amazing starships and technology to not interfere with backwards, pre-warp planets and to teach primitive aliens about this thing we earthmen call love, the Culture is about letting people do, have and be whatever the hell they want at any time. 

"Wait, let me get this straight: your Prime Directive says you can't show us
 how to irrigate our fields, give us antibiotics or help us out in any way but
 you can totally just phaser our god to death because you have
philosophical issues with worshiping a computer? What the hell guys?"

Such a society would also never
consider 'Teen Paranormal Romance'
a legitimate genre. 

While most authors would treat this as a utopia with a secret dark side, Banks is like fuck it: living in the Culture would be awesome. The real rip your heart out part about Banks' illness is the fact that if the Culture were a real place and we all lived there, nobody would die of cancer. Ever. Banks would have been cured by now or had his mind downloaded into a new body or something. Sure, there's probably a downside to living forever in a world where your every want is instantly fulfilled. For instance...uh...well there's...let me get back to you on that.

Oh, and if you really want to sob uncontrollably check out his statement on Orbit's (that's his publisher) website:

"...I've withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I've asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry - but we find ghoulish humor helps)."

-Iain M. Banks, being awesome

Hey science: if you've got a secret cure for cancer, now would be a good time...