It's an admittedly unpleasant analogy...

So hey, like, bring the kids.

So in a recent interview, Jai Courtney, one of the actors in the unnecessary and preposterously named Terminator: Genisys, said the following:

"I would love to see it be rated R, but I don't think it will. I think in this day and age, it's much more likely to be PG-13. There were no f-bombs. But there'll be a healthy amount of movie violence."

And in doing so perfectly summed up everything wrong with the Motion Picture Association of America, and possibly Jai Courtney. I just don't understand how we're supposed to take the people who hand out movie ratings seriously when they're totally cool with gratuitous violence and cruelty as long as there're no swears or genitals. 

F-bombs: no. Hydrogen bombs: abso-fucking-lutely.

I'm not saying it's impossible,
just somewhat unlikely.

Courtney's prediction is just him talking, and not official or anything, but it would be in line with the last Terminator movie: Terminator: Salvation, which, despite being a depressing, two hour slog of murder and violence was light on swears and therefore totally acceptable for thirteen-year olds. Look, I'm not in favor of shielding kids from the real world, but it's not like genocidal chrome kill-bots from the future are likely to come up. Hearing the word fuck at some point in their lives on the other hand, is probably in the cards.

"Gosh dang, this is probably
going to smart quite a bit..."

-Carey Elwes in Saw,
before amputating his foot

Everyone knows the MPAA is a outmoded dinosaur of an organization wielding an unreasonable amount of power over a doomed industry and if we just wait long enough they'll evaporate along with the dark, sticky-floored movie houses over which they rule with an arbitrary fist, but to they have to be so blatant about it? It's objectively ridiculous that swearing warrants a higher content rating than violence, but for whatever reason MPAA and their bullshit ratings still carry an unreasonable amount of weight, effectively determining how widely a film will be distributed and how it will do commercially.

They just shouldn't be a thing anymore. It's like the emperor has no clothes, but nobody does anything about it. We all just let him continue to wave his flaccid, impotent authority at the American film industry like some creeper in the park.

Above: the titular unpleasant analogy.

What the hell is a Synod?

This had to be the least comfortable
conversation in the history of the world.

In a not-so stunning move for an organization that took 400 years to admit that maybe Galileo was on to something when he said the Earth moved around the sun, the Catholic Church has decided that  gay people are still not welcome after all. The hopes of progressives were briefly raised when Pope Francis, widely regarded as the cool Pope (let's face it, it's a low bar), convened a meeting of Bishops (or Synod, if you're fancy) to discuss family issues like divorcees getting remarried and same-sex relationships.

You know, because who knows more about marriage and gay people than 253 elderly, celibate priests? Am I right?

The answer, of course, is everyone else on Earth.

"Let us all rise and sing
hymn 235: Poker Face."

Anyway, it's not like the Church was going to start renting out St. Peter's for gay weddings, or singing Lady Gaga at Mass, all the Pope was pushing for was for the Bishops to agree on a report which stated that '[h]omosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian Community...' which is, at best, a grudging acknowledgement. The report would would have then gone on to knock same-sex marriages saying that they cannot be equal to those between a man and a woman (or Marriage Classic®). So why the hell can't these guys, in 2014, suck it up?

Well, it turns out a lot of them were prepared to suck quite a bit up. The draft with the language about gays maybe not being so bad after all got 50% of the vote, but needed a 2/3rd's majority to pass. The fact that half the priests in the room were willing to join the 21st century is itself kind of a miracle.

The Bishops finally agreed to:
"Gay people, um, exist."

Blessed Pope Paul VI, soon-to-be
Patron Saint of the Rhythm Method

Hey, uh, speaking of miracles, the Pope ended the conference with the beatification of Pope Paul VI, which is sort of a step on the road to sainthood. In nerd terms, he leveled up. The important thing is that Pope Paul VI was the guy who clarified the official Catholic stance on birth control, you know, the position that says that nothing, not even a condom, should stand in the way of God's plan, or say the rampant spread of STD's. Um, way to go guys. Way to go.

Let's lower the bar!

Just some of the planet's 7,267,055,683
people.* Keep up the good work Texas.

Are you ready to have your mind blown? You are? Good. So do you remember Greg Abbott? No? Good, he's kind of a dick. Read this, it'll catch you up. He's the Texas Attorney General who was appealing the ruling that Texas's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. His rationale is that the State has an obligation to encourage opposite-sex marriage and ban same-sex marriage because only straight couples can make babies. And then only when joined in the bonds of holy matrimony. Because in Texas, that's how science works.

Anyway, Abbott's back with a new tactic: this time he openly accepts that his justification for keeping the ban on same-sex marriage is baseless, but that it shouldn't matter because, get this: the law, he says, doesn't have to make any sense.

"I don't see what everybody's problem is. The courthouse is over there, while
the giant stone tablets with the Ten Commandments are over here. On the lawn.
They're not actually touching, so church and state are separate. See? I'm a lawyer."

-Greg Abbott, Texas AG, candidate for Governor

and one of the many reasons I'll never live in Texas

"Horseshit."

-Some Judge ruling

on the gay marriage thing

According to the brief, the ban was thrown out because it fails something called a rational basis review. A rational basis review (yes, I looked this up on wikipedia, what's your point?), asks whether or not a "government action is a reasonable means to an end." In this case, is there a legitimate reason to ban same-sex marriage or is it just some red-state horseshit put on the books by a bunch of Republicans trying to lock-up the ignorant homophobe vote? A federal judge ruled that it was the horseshit thing and blamo: the ban is unconstitutional. Sounds pretty simple right?

Every conceivable rationale? But
doesn't it kind of come down to:
sometimes people are assholes?

Because it's not. It never is. According to Abbott's appeal, the State doesn't actually have to show that the ban was doing anyone any good. Instead, according to Abbott:

"...the plaintiffs bear the burden of negating every conceivable rationale that might be offered for Texas's marriage laws--regardless of whether those rationales appear in the State's appellate brief."

-Texas AG Greg Abbott

Above: Because gay people.

I'm not a lawyer so bear with me here, but this kind of sounds like he's saying that Texas doesn't need to have a rational reason to ban same-sex marriage, just the desire to do so. If anyone wants to challenge it, then all they have do is address every imaginable scenario in which the law might possibly make sense. Even ones they haven't thought of yet. It's like he's trying to lower the bar so that ridiculous rationales for the ban like, 'encouraging straight people to breed' and 'gay marriage causes hurricanes' are taken seriously.

So is it just me, or is this like an incredibly dangerous precedent to set? The only way to over turn a bad law would be to show undeniable proof that it's completely useless in every possible way in all possible parallel dimensions throughout the multiverse and for all time. Unless we're prepared to stack the Supreme Court with Time Lords (not in itself a bad idea), I don't see how this shit is going to fly.

To be clear: Greg Abbott could say that letting gay people get married would summon Gozer
and bring about the end of the world, and it's on you to prove in a court of law that it wouldn't. 

*Here, click on this for the current population. Spoiler alert: it's gone up.

Let's Celebrate (and dread) Federation Day!

Put on your party hats people, or if you don't have a party hat, maybe fashion a crude one by rolling a piece of paper into a cone. Today is-wait, what? I don't know, tape it to your head or something, god, do I have to think of everything?

"Commander, you do not understand. Klingon honor demands
that I kill you for this. Kill. You. I won't even feel bad about it."

-Worf, son of Mogh

and noted pooper of parties

Above: Star Trek tackled tough issues like
space-racism using subtle social commentary.

Anyway, today, as I'm sure you're all aware, is Federation Day. Not aware? Shame on you, here, catch up. The Federation is sort of a high-tech space UN which, if Star Trek is to be taken as prophecy and not just as a preachy sci-fi TV show from the 60's and its many spin-offs and movies, is due to be founded 147 years from today. Usually this is a day to celebrate how awesome the future will be, but I think it's also important to reflect on what we risk losing in the face of unchecked technological advancement.

Pictured: Everything that is
wrong with the 21st century.

Yes, the future is going to be full of lycra-clad optimists boldly going and amazing technological wonders, that's a given. But this technology is going to change us and we need to be prepared. Look at Google Glass. It's been available for less than a year but already everyone who owns one is an insufferable asshole. Don't misunderstand me, I love the future and can't wait for it to get here, but technology isn't going to solve all of our problems and will almost certainly create some new ones.

Clearly in the future we'll
all be goddamn wizards.

For example, did you ever take Spanish or French in high school? Congratulations, you just wasted hours of your life on something that will be rendered pointless as soon as someone invents the universal translator. Suddenly everyone you meet, no matter what planet they're from will speak unaccented, colloquial American English. You know, the best language. How does it even work? Magic, apparently. The universal translator is invisible, can instantly pick up new languages, translate them in real-time and somehow even make alien mouth movements sync up with the translated speech. See? Magic.

"As a matter of fact I did understand
that, and your words cut me deeply."

-Quark, noted ear-wanker

So what's the downside? Universal translators will make communication between completely different forms of life not only possible, but downright effortless. It sounds cool, but some things are bound to be lost in translation. Take our many earth swears for example, they often don't translate between languages here on our planet. Check out this entire Japanese book about how to swear in English. American English, that is, because calling someone an douche bag in British English is a whole different thing. The point is there's no way the Ferengi are going to fully appreciate all the subtle nuances when we refer to them as greed-driven ear-wankers with asses for heads.

Speaking of implausible technological developments with significant downsides no one on Star Trek ever had to deal with: replicators. Sure, they're going to feed, clothe and shelter the masses of humanity and usher in a new age free of want, and that's going to be great, but not everyone is going to be able to exercise self-control. Ever watch TLC?

Oh, right, hoarding. That is totally going to be a problem.

Want more stuff? Go raid the Irish coast.

I'm not an historian, but I'm pretty sure there were no hoarders in the middle ages. Between the fifth and fifteenth centuries there was no Amazon.com, no Walmart. You couldn't stuff your house with whatever the medieval equivalent of Beanie Babies were because everything had to be made by hand and it took forever. Only in the 20th and 21st centuries did humans start accumulating enough things that it was actually possible to be crushed by an avalanche of your own useless crap. Now throw a magic box that makes shit out of thin air into the mix. Yikes.

The Holodeck OS 5.4 update finally
fixed a bug that allowed the creation
of sentient literary super-criminals.

Ok, so the universal translator is going to drain the color and depth out of communication, and replicators are going to drown us in an endless supply of tchotchkes. Surely something in the future will be worth preserving our heads in robot bodies just so we can live to see it. Something like, say, the holodeck. I mean, what could possibly be the downside to a technology that lets you live out your wildest fantasies with fully tactile, three-dimensional holograms? If you guessed catastrophic malfunction that endangers your entire starship, you're close, but that only happened every third episode. 

What I'm talking about is how hopelessly addicted we'll all become and how lame real life will seem after an hour in holo-land.

"Weird? Nonsense Number One. What happens
on the Holodeck, stays on the Holodeck."

-Jean-Luc Picard,

about to get freaky

Um...happy Federation Day everybody!

Look at us, right now, both staring at screens. We're never more than arms reach away from some kind of electronic entertainment/porn delivery device. Now imagine that all of us had access to a fully immersive, voice activated, computer-generated environment complete with characters we can totally have consequence-free sex with. There will be exactly zero reason to leave. Ever. Holodeck-addiction might mean the end of our species. Bummer, right?

But hey, I don't want to leave you on a down note, so maybe this will cheer you up: today also happens to be Leif Erikson Day, the day on which we celebrate the Viking explorer who discovered America long before Columbus and way the hell after the millions of people already living here. You can celebrate by talking like a Viking. All day. Seriously, it'll drive people insane. Enjoy!

It's like Columbus Day, but without the genocide.

There are easier ways to solve the maze...

"Look, we just want the mice
to get into a good school."

-Scientists

So this is either a really awesome idea or a really terrible idea. Here, check out this article from BBC.com. Go on, check it out. With me? No? Why don't I save us both some time and just sum it up: some MIT geniuses/lunatics genetically modified some mice in an effort enhance their ability to learn, which I guess is either a problem with the mice or with the expectations scientists are putting on them. Anyway, they did it by screwing with their genes until they produced the human form of a protein called Foxp2. Cool, right? Yeah, sure, people still die of cancer and AIDS, but hey, smarter mice!

It apparently worked because the super-mice were able to solve a maze faster than their non-super colleagues. The experiment however, raises some, you know, questions...

Questions like: if they wanted to solve the maze so badly, why didn't the
scientists just use their superior height and look at the maze from above?

I think it's safe to say that the
polar bears are going to be pissed...

Ethical questions. Like, if we can just ensmarten animals to a human-level of intelligence, should we? Should notn't we? And by that I mean, if animal sapience is just a genetic switch-flip away, what kind of jerks are we if we leave them to languish in stupid town while we continue to pet and/or eat them? Shouldn't they have a say? And once uplifted (it's a sci-fi thing), aren't they kind of well, people? Up until now we could be totally dicks to animals and the environment and no one said a thing. Well, other people did, but we never listen to us. What's it going to be like, suddenly sharing the planet with other species who can talk back? 

We're kind of terrible at getting along with our own species. We can't seem to go a decade without trying to wipe an entire people off the planet, so how long do you suppose it will be before we turn on our neighbors in The Republic of Gazelle, or The United Moose Emirates?

"Sure, the humans put down the Great Pig Uprising, but what
we did afterwards proved who the real animals were..."

-Quote from Ken Burns'

The Porcine War

Can we, as a species, claim to be evolved
when we keep giving Kirk Cameron airtime?

Look, I'm all for animals. I'm even sometimes a vegetarian, riding high on moral superiority until low iron makes me reach for a burger. But do we really want to mess with evolution in this way? Who are we to say that the mice in that lab are unintelligent? Maybe they're exactly as smart as mice need to be. It's not as if their natural habitat is full of right-angle mazes and cheese. And besides is human-like intelligence really all that great? I mean, didn't we invent war, slavery, industrial pollution, intolerance, homophobia, sexism and not one, but two Human Centipede movies?  

I guess the point is, shouldn't we get better at treating each other like people before we start thinking about inviting the other animals to the sentience party?

On the other hand, it'll be amusing to watch the Evangelicals
absolutely lose their shit over hot human-on-chimp action.

Captain Needa has a point...

Above: I'm not kidding. It really is
unlivable for like 5 months a year.

As you probably know, I'm originally from a medium-sized city in Upstate New York called Rochester, and-you didn't know that? Really? I know I've mentioned it before. Like, a few times. Remember? It's the town with the Alec Baldwin-approved grocery store, hilariously out-of-touch county officials and an extremely low tolerance for transphobic radio hosts. No? Unbearable winters and confusing local elections? None of this rings a bell? Wow, it's like you don't know me at all.

Anyway, researchers at the University of Rochester (the very same institution that last year proved all religions wrong) have invented a cloaking device. Yes a goddamn cloaking device. Freak out nerds, the future is here.

"They can't have disappeared. No university optics program that small has a cloaking device."

-Captain Needa,

shortly before being

force-choked/fired

"Could I get you to stand over there and look
through the lens? Awesome. Now stand still..."

-Predator

Ok, you can stop freaking out now, the future isn't really here. After all, this is science, so we're going to have to walk things back a bit. If you're anything like me, when someone says 'cloaking device,' you think of something that can render a three-dimensional object invisible, like a Romulan Warbird or the Predator. The -sigh- "cloaking device" developed by the U of R's optics department works by placing a series of four lenses between the viewer and the object you don't want to look at. You can then look through the lenses and, assuming they're large enough and precisely arranged, see through to the other side. So, like, hurray? I guess.


Just so I'm clear, it's not so much a cloaking device as it is an 'elaborate system of lenses,' right? Which, sure, is pretty damn impressive but if you're going to come out and call something a cloaking device, it should at least-

"So you're not impressed? Tell me, how does your cloaking device work? What's that?
You didn't invent one? Oh, maybe you should stop talking then. I've got science to do."

-Doctoral Student Joseph Choi,

putting me in my place and deservedly so

Or you could ask people to do this and get
the same effect for free. Suck on it, Choi.

-oh. Well, I guess that shut me up. Anyway, according to the technology's developers, their system, called the Rochester Cloak (yeah, that's what they're calling it), can be scaled up to hide larger objects and has practical applications including giving truck drivers a better view behind and allowing surgeons to see through their own hands while operating. And if that's not cool enough (it's not...) the components are off-the-shelf meaning you could build one yourself for like $100, which is relatively cheap. I assume...I mean I've never actually shopped around for four square inches of invisibility.

Re-armageddon!

Look out rapture fans, they're rebooting the apocalypse! That's right, Left Behind is getting a reboot powered by the unbeatable box office gold that is Nicolas Cage.

Nicolas Cage's most recent role was in the short-lived internet meme:
'Hey, that guy from the 1800's kind of looks like Nicolas Cage. Spooky, huh?'

Co-authors Lahaye and Jenkins are all
 that stand between us and the Gayluminati.

What the shit is Left Behind you ask? Make yourself comfortable. I'll explain. Left Behind is a series of novels by Tim LaHaye, an evangelical minister and a novelist called Jerry B. Jenkins, who I'm guessing did all the heavy-lifting. I mean, LaHaye's got a lot on his plate already what with warning everyone about the gays and the Illuminati. You know, the secret international conspiracy that's been manipulating global events in an effort to establish a one-world government? Oh, yes, he's one of those. Check out some of his tin-foil hat-worthy ramblings:

"Having read at least fifty books on the illuminati, I am convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man's inhumane actions against his fellow man during the past two hundred years."

-Tim LaHaye,
spouting some crazy

You know, I've read a lot of books about wizards, but it doesn't mean
we can blame them for the last 200 years of people being dicks to each other.

Above: Buddhist monks totally
wasting their time seeking a state of
enlightened detachment...suckers

But I digress. LaHaye's books are are about the rapture, which, according some Christians, is when all true-believers will be beamed up to heaven to watch the rest of us amoral heathens suffer through a thousand years war leading up to Judgement Day. You see, in the Left Behind universe, God only raptures those who subscribe to a super-specific branch of theological belief. Which one? Why Premillennial dispensationalist eschatological protestant Christianity of course. Which kind of begs the question: why is God such a dick?

I mean, if there was really one true belief system and the rest were just decoys or traps there to damn people to an eternity of pitch fork poking and Jean-Paul Sartre plays, why would God or whoever bury it in some bullshit secret code in the craziest book of the Bible? Like, is he trying to get us to buy the strategy guide?

It's goddamn Deborah Cliff all over again...*

"Holy shit, look out! God's love
is everywhere! We're doomed!"

-Left Behind, The Comic Book

If it sounds like I'm a little peeved that such a book/movie/video game/soulless media franchise, even exists much less is getting a big-budget reboot, it's because I am. There's just something transparently wish-fullfilly about writing a story about God proving your worldview 100% correct and then forcing everyone who disagrees with you to endure a thousand years of horror. And for a guy who presents himself as an authority on a religion ostensibly about things like peace and love, the whole thing seems a little, what's the phrase? Contrary? Aggressively hypocritical? Horseshit?

But what do I know? I'm ragging on things I don't know anything about and have absolutely no stake in, so please, take my ranting with the requisite measure of salt. How much salt? Oh, I'd say about 5'2" and hundred and twenty pounds or so? I don't know, whatever a bronze-age woman might have weighed.

"Look, in my defense, I did warn Lot's wife not to look back
at the spectacular scene of fire and destruction behind
them. What was I supposed to do? Not murder her?" 

-God

*+5 to your nerd roll. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's this puzzle in Simon's Quest in which you have to find a crystal and then-you know what? You could google it, but really you just had to be there.

Oh, and one more thing...

Did I mention that Cage will be playing an airline pilot named Rayford Steele? Yup, Rayford Steele. And if that didn't stretch credulity enough in a movie about the rapture, Rayford goddamn Steele doesn't even moonlight as a gay porn star. Can you believe it?

Co-staring Chad Micheal Murray as Shaft Ramwell
and Lance E. Nichols as Dakota Thrustmore.