Pseudo Existence

A Michigan based company has come up with a new punctuation mark.

The SarcMark is meant to be used in the same manner as a period would at the end of a sentence. The writer uses the SarcMark to denote sarcasm in their text. Although this seems like such an obvious necessity, it’s taken several millennium for man to come up with.

Once downloaded for only $1.99, you can use the SarcMark in your text documents simply by pressing Ctrl + >.

I look forward to using this mark in many situations that would otherwise be lost without a sarcastic tone of voice. Finally, the deaf will no longer lose the sarcasm when watching movies with subtitles.

You can click and drag the video in 360 degrees!

Lord Monckton recently attended a conference in Copenhagen on the myths of Global Warming. There just happened to be some Green Peace protesters outside of the event and he had a few words with one of them.

About a year and a half ago I had no idea who Glenn Beck was. One day I came across his book “An Inconvenient Book”.

I checked the back cover for a summary and noticed all the quotes from people like “Finally! A guy who says what people who aren’t thinking, are thinking. – Jon Stewart”.
Being a fan of Jon’s show and seeing the goofy smirk on Glenn’s face on the back cover, I thought the book would be similar to the political satire Colbert generally writes. I bought the book for a few laughs.

By the time I got to the third chapter of the book, the laughs stopped and I realized this guy was not only serious, but was also insane. I buried the book in my shelf, never expecting to open it again.

Well, last night I finally found the only good use for this book:

This could be useful

Found a use for it!

Looking to hollow out a book of your own? Check out: How to Hollow a Book in 80 Easy Steps!

Saw this earlier, thought I’d share.

If you enjoyed this comic, head on over to slowpokecomics.com for more!

Let’s face it, the war on drugs has been a failure since its conception. Thousands of people are being held in prison for non-violent crimes. We’re spending millions of dollars to keep these non-violent prisoners behind bars in order to keep them from damaging their own bodies with illegal substances. Ok, that makes sense.

Besides the obvious fact that we need to decriminalize possession altogether, I propose the legalization and government-controlled sale of Marijuana. Putting people away for smoking one of the most natural and harmless drugs on the market should be a punishable offense!

“But you don’t get it! Marijuana may be relatively harmless, but it leads to harder drugs!”

Because Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) has already articulated a well played response to the gateway drug theory (using an analogy of milk being a gateway to bourbon), I won’t go into that here. Today I’m going to assume that Marijuana actually does lead to harder drugs and I firmly believe this is the direct result of its status as a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971).

Marijuana is safe to use and is near impossible to overdose on (you’d need to smoke well over your own weight to even come close). The effects of this drug wear off after only a few hours, at most, and have no long term side effects. Because of this, it has become one of the most commonly used illegal drugs and the one many people start with. No matter what the status of Marijuana under the law, it will remain this way.

Now, let’s look at what a person needs to do in order to purchase their supply of Marijuana. They have one of two options, they can either grow it themselves or buy it from a dealer. The former is difficult to do and has a lot of risks to it, the latter being the more likely option. Buying from a dealer can be a tricky and sometimes dangerous business. When one buys from a dealer they don’t know, they have no idea how safe the transaction is going to be, or if their drug will be laced with something shady.

The thing about dealers, as you may know, is that they often don’t sell one particular drug. Many dealers are in the business with many different options for their clients. Though Marijuana is a profitable business in its own right, there are many other drugs that can yield faster monetary gain for a dealer (cocaine, heroin, amphetamines). Because of this, it’s not rare to find a dealer who is willing to push harder substances onto the client. Remove the dealer from the equation and you remove the harder substances.

Now, let’s assume at this point that people are still going to go out of their way to move onto harder drugs, why could this be? Well, one need only look in the direction of the Misuse of Drugs Act for an answer.

By the very fact that it exists, the Act is telling people that drugs in categories A, B and C are dangerous. The government is telling you that these drugs are so harmful to your personal well being and those around you, that they need to carry fines and jail time with them for possession and use.

But wait a second. Here we have a young teenager, let’s call him Tommy, who has just tried Marijuana for the first time in his buddy’s garage. Tommy’s first experience with the drug wasn’t necessarily as pleasant as he had hoped (all that damn dry mouth and paranoia), but he came out completely unharmed and un-addicted. Maybe he’ll try the drug again sometime and even learn to ignoring the annoying parts, but the important thing here is that he came out unharmed.

“But wait”, Tommy thinks, “if the government has classified Marijuana as such a dangerous and addictive drug, why should I be worried about trying Cocaine or Speed? I mean, Marijuana sure didn’t mess me up like they said it would. Maybe I’ll try them once and see for myself what happens.”

I can say these things with the utmost of conviction, for I have first hand experience. Yes, I tried Marijuana long before I ever touched a pill or put anything up my nose and I used the same arguments to rationalize the progression. It’s far too easy to move on to harder drugs when the dealer’s pushing them onto you and you’re not sure you can believe what you’ve been told about their dangers due to the “boy who cried wolf” effect of the Marijuana laws. The dealers, in some cases, were even doctors prescribing perfectly legal drugs that have had much worse effects on my mind and body than weed has ever had.

Enough is enough. Weed is one of the safest drugs available and has been used for thousands of years to relieve stress, pain and many other debilitating effects. The legal drugs we have for these problems are far worse to our health than Weed will ever be. It’s time we put the old ways of thinking to rest and realize illegalization has caused more harm than good.

This is something that I find comes up a lot when talking to sheltered white kids, so I figured I’d get my thoughts on the subject down.

First off, I feel it’s entirely ignorant to invalidate an entire culture of music because you’re not into it. Not to mention, it’s foolish to base an entire genre off of a few songs you’ve heard or seen on TV.

Now, if you’re under the assumption that rap consists of one guy standing around spitting lyrics, your definition is very limited. Although ppitting solo is more of a poetry with advanced rhythm and inflection, rap can be and is often so much more.

Music is simply an expression of emotion, like any art, but in the form of sound organized in time – usually containing elements of rhythm, melody, timbre and other qualities. Not all need to be present to qualify the piece as music. A drum solo may not have the harmony of a full symphony, but that does not disqualify it from being music.

Rappers use a wide variety of voice timbre when producing their music, as well as various rythyms and dynamics. Inflection and tempo are obvious examples, otherwise you’d never be able to distinguish one rapper’s style from another (those of you who claim you can’t are obviously not listening).

The tracks laid behind the lyrics, especially during the chorus, often include both a beat and some form of melody. Go out and listen to some Andre 3000, Wu-Tang, Dr. Dre, Onyx, or any number of the better artists. Hell, the song Conspiracy by Onyx uses a fucking Violin!

If you choose not to like Rap because it’s just not for you, fine. However, trying to say it’s not music is like declaring to the world that you’re living your life couped up in your own little cave of self-culture. You’re missing out on some amazing music and I feel sorry for you.

I am dumbfounded at what is going on with the Republican party. Are they trying to run themselves into the ground day by day?

First it started out with John McCain’s campaign. It seemed like every decision made sunk him further and further into the ground. The more they focused on absolutely ridiculous accusations of relating Obama to terrorism and socialism, the less interested people were. Not to mention they go and pick Sarah Palin as VP running mate?

Then you’ve got this Joe the Plumber debacle who wasn’t even a plumber and had no intentions of buying his own business. Stood to make more money from Obama’s plan than McCain’s. Alright, that was a failed project… Then why is he still around? Why is he still making speeches for the Republicans on the economy and foreign policy? What the fuck does he know about either, he can’t even figure out if he’s a plumber! What a joke.

But the worst of the worst is happening right now. It seems the entire Republican party has banded together under the ruling of Right Wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh is one of the most idealistic lunatics in existence who is constantly spewing from the mouth some of the most ridiculous ideas I’ve ever heard. He lies to his listeners and manipulates the truth in any way possible to fit his ideals.
The far right seem to get their information from him, which is a dangerous thing. He has no moral standing when it comes to reporting the truth.

So the Republican party has banded together to Filibuster and vote against anything the new President tries to throw their way. He comes up with a stimulus package that has the most probable outcome of stopping, if not slowing down our current downward spiral of job loss and foreclosure and the Republicans band together to try to stop it completely!
Do they have a plan of their own put together? NO! All they’re suggesting is “More Tax Cuts!”. We tried that, it doesn’t work! Pull your heads out of your asses and realize that tax cuts will never dig us out of this hole!

But what I find fascinating about this entire ordeal is the Republican Party’s strategy.

If they vote No on the Stimulus and it doesn’t pass, the economy gets worse and worse while the Democrats have majority and the Republicans may stand a chance next election campaigning “This is what happens when the Democrats have Majority”. Maybe people’s memories are short-term enough for this to work, or maybe they’ll seen as the party that stood in the way and lose even more votes!

If they vote No and the Stimulus works, they hope they can campaign on the fact that the stimulus may have worked, but there were better ways of going about it. (Yet they haven’t really offered any plans to the table except a general ‘Cut Taxes’ consensus, which history has already shown to have failed.)

If they vote No and the stimulus passes, but doesn’t fix everything or fails horribly (not likely) they campaign on being the party that tried to stop it and take back over.

The Republican Party as a whole is betting on the stimulus to fail and the economy to get worse, as it’s their only chance in the next election season. They want us to suffer for two more years so they can take back a few seats in the house and senate, only to make things worse anyway!

Well, the American people have already spoken. We elected Obama because of his plans for the economy. The majority of Americans are pro-stimulus, because we’re smart enough to realize that something needs to be done about this situation. So when the stimulus helps turn the economy around, the Republican Party better hold on tight. If they thought the Democrats had a hold on Washington now, just wait. The more they follow the ridiculous ideals and logic of people like Rush Limbaugh, the more they dig themselves into the hole with everyone but the far right. And as the election showed, you’re going to need more than just the far right to win the next election season.

Besides, anyone who voted for McCain on the assumption that Barack Obama is a terrorist… I really don’t know what to say to you and doubt you’re smart enough to work a computer to read this anyway.

I have not always been skeptical of religion. It wasn’t until I learned to think for myself and ask questions. At that point I began my journey down the road of Agnosticism/Atheism.

My parents raised me without church and I never really knew what they believed. It just wasn’t a topic that really came up. I know my grandparents were devout Catholic, but they always lived too far away to affect me.

One time, early in grade school, I became curious about church and God. I asked my parents if we could go to church one Sunday because I wanted to see what it was all about. So the next week I woke up early, skipped my cartoons and threw on my nice clothes. We headed to the local church where I remember seeing some of my friends. I do not remember a thing from the day’s sermon. I was too young to sit there and pay attention to these sorts of things and that was the last time I ever wanted to go back. It was long, boring and hot.

It seems to me that if all children followed this path, they’d never grow up to follow one of the mainstream religions. The church knows this, so they force children into church and Sunday school at an early age, scaring them will Hell and Demons until they accept the faith. It must be done this way, because faith is a silly thing when you’re capable of thinking for yourself. Why is it that God needs us to rely on Faith to begin with?

I feel it’s important to ask questions about our existence and surroundings. Usually when someone tells you to just believe them and not ask questions, they’re hiding something. So what is God hiding from?

Maybe it isn’t God who is hiding at all. Perhaps it is the machine of Organized Religion that is hiding from the truth.

If I had that much  corrupted power that could be so easily taken away, I guess I’d be hiding from the truth as well.

Let’s face it, we’re living in the 21st century. The Bible is full of so many contradictions and rediculous concepts, it’s hard to take it serious. If you want to believe in God, please feel free. All I ask is that we drop these Millenia-Old concepts and move God into the age of reason once and for all. There’s no reason for God to hide behind Rhetoric and Fear. Let’s upgrade our beliefs and ideas about God. A God who’s not afraid of scientific advancement, technological break-through, freedom of thought and enjoyment of life.