From The Crow's Nest

Arrr, mateys! If ye don't already be knowin', today be September the 19th, or International Talk Like a Pirate Day! ARRRRRRRRRRR! It be the day when Pastafarians (ed - followers of the parody "religion" involving the Flying Spaghetti Monster) o' many varieties fly the Jolly Roger and speak in the style o' our Romanticized view o' Historical Piracy.

And if ye say it be gay, then ye be walkin' the plank!

First up the mast be Grand Pirate Cap'n Wil o' the Wheaton with this'ere TLaP Day classic. Note the tiny hat an' cheery disposition. Arrrrrrrrr!


An' then there be me, photoshopped though it be. I changed me avatar on the Twitter for this day, an' this be the end result. Ahoy!


Next into the bilge is @AtheistinWA from me Twitter followin'. Of this here image, he says "See, a year and a half of Digital Design pays off! It all lead to my avatar[!]" An' what a fine avatar it be, laddie. I'll be raisin' a pint o' the ale for ye t'night!

So what're all ye lubbers doing for Talk Like a Pirate Day? Tonight, good ol Cap'n Prophyt's gonna go an' slap-n-tickle o' the wenches at the local watering hole! Have a fine holiday, an' may ye all be touched by His noodly appendage! Arrrrrr!

On Teabaggers

Video Rant Time! Watch and be amazed...

Yep, I'm not terribly happy. But hey, I stayed calm, which is a plus...

9/12/09 - The Day The Earth Stood Stupid

I'm just going to let the video speak for itself.

Once, I was proud to be an American. Now? Not so much...

Employee's Revenge

Last night, at 3:30 in the morning, Justin knocks on my door and wakes me up - to come take and Photoshop pictures of him again. He had some taken already, and those were the first I 'shopped. Of these, one gave me a most excellent idea. And now, for waking me up at 3:30 in the morning, I present my revenge, courtesy of my twisted mind, Photoshop and GIS:


Evil. I am it.

Get Off My Fucking Lawn

That title? Sing it to the tune of the high-note "I Want My MTV" line from near the end of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing." Yeah. Fits, doesn't it.

And hey, speaking of the former most awesome network ever, lookie here at what transpired at the once-vaunted and now-comical "Video Music" Awards:

Once upon a time, there was a video of Kanye crashing the stage here. But MTV is a bunch of douches, as I'll speak on in a minute. I can't find a postable video anywhere right now.

First of all: MTV hasn't been MTV for years. What was once Music Television is now just Television du Craptastique. Music Videos have been relegated to expensive digital-only sister networks or the wee hours of the morning on basic cable. Once, the Music Video stood as a proud artistic expression platform, broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week, thus justifying an awards ceremony like the VMAs. Those halcyon days - much to the dismay of Generation Xers (and up) like me everywhere - are long since gone.

If you don't really have music videos anymore, why have a Video Music Awards?

Second of all: This just in from Ric Romero - Kanye West is officially a bigger douchebag than Simon Cowell, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Glenn Beck combined. In fact, I'm gonna say that, even though we're only 9 years into it, Kanye has officially locked up the Douchebag of the 21st Century title. And this is taking George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, AND Bernie Madoff into account.

Whoever the fuck Kanye West thinks he is, he honest and for-truly isn't, by any stretch of the LSD-expanded imagination.

We're talking about a man who says his biggest regret is 'never being able to see [himself] perform live.' Hey Kanye, I'll do you a favor and tell you what I think of your live performances, few of them that I've seen: YOU'RE NOTHING SPECIAL TO WATCH, JACKHOLE.

I highly doubt that Beyonce appreciated what Kanye did at all, given the fact that she invited Taylor Swift up on stage with her later that evening. If you ask me, she looked pretty fucking embarrassed. Nice job, there, you fucking egomaniac.

Hey Kanye, I hate to say it, but this industry won't need you for much longer. It most certainly doesn't see you as the great you seem to think you are, bucco. You're a dime-a-dozen pop entertainer with nothing special to offer, other than a seemingly in-born ability to act like a colossal asshat and generate controversy as a result.

There's nothing special about your music. You've built your career on the backs of other artists (Daft Punk and Shirley Bassey come to mind) and aren't really all that fit to even stand in the shadows of entertainers like Marvin Gaye, Issac Hayes, Barry White, George Clinton, Tupac Shakur, Smokey Robinson, early solo Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie - fuck, even ROCKWELL got Jacko to sing backups for him. Where's your pull?

Funny - Rockwell makes more money now with "Somebody's Watching Me" being in all those Geico commercials, while nobody's really doing anything with your music.

Hey Kanye: Do us all a favor and go the hell away. Take your over-inflated, self-serving ego out into the desert - where it can't choke the life and respect out of anything around you - and do some soul searching. You're quickly becoming less famous for your music and more famous for the fact that you're a blithering sot.

Much as I don't really care for Taylor Swift, you seriously owe both her and Beyonce Knowles a couple of apologies the size of your head - which is exponentially artificially enlarged. After that, be gone with you, and never return to these lands...

Facing The Hate

From @denyreligion comes this link to a quick Proud Atheists post with the following video clip. XM host Michelangelo Signorile (@msignorile) is interviewing "Pastor"* Steven Anderson, the current hate-monger-of-the-moment:

Now first of all, I really have to hand it to Signorile: There's NO WAY I would have been able to resist flipping out on this man. People who rationalize absolute stupidity - and preach it to adults and children alike every Sunday - just drive me insane. Had it been an in-studio interview, I probably would have shown him what a criminal act really is.

Not good, and very counter-productive to our cause, I know. But that's how these people make me feel. This extreme kind of bob-and-weave reasoning is unhealthy to the human mind. It's like a poison that attacks what you know about right and wrong and warps it into some mutant form of gray matter palsy-induced pseudo-morality, rationalized by circular reasoning and outright lies.

Look. If you plot and carry out the murder of another human being - no matter what that target person does or has done - you are guilty of murder in the first degree, and should be punished accordingly. Life in prison, death, whatever sentence is handed down by either a Judge or a Jury of your peers - accept it.

This country wasn't founded solely on "God's Law." It just so happens that "God's Laws" are quite similar to the laws of Reason: It's wrong to kill, duh. It's wrong to steal, duh. It's wrong to fuck your buddy's wife, duh. It's wrong to lie, duh. But that's pretty much where the similarities end.

A freethinker knows it's wrong to hate someone for some petty reason, like skin color or sexual orientation, or even political views. Duh. But "God's Law" says that hate is perfectly OK, condemning - with prejudice - lifestyles with a peculiar selectiveness. It's OK to hate anyone that's different, "God's Law" says. Really? And here I grew up thinking hate was wrong and stupid. Silly me...

A freethinker knows it's wrong to try and impose your beliefs on someone else. Duh. We don't actively go recruiting - all we do is find folks who think the same way, and then we congregate and discuss stuff. Gee, just like you practitioners of "God's Law" do every Sunday! The big difference here is, folks like them are always trying to add to the flock. They're always trying to convince you that God makes them happier than they ever have been in their lives (how, I still don't know), and that there's no other way for you to be that happy unless you think exactly the same way they do.

That's the whole "With us or against us" mentality that not only spawned an illegal war in Iraq, but the very mentality that has divided this Nation like never before - Even during the Civil War.

A freethinker knows that a House Divided Shall Fall. Duh. But no, not "God's Law" followers. They're willfully ignorant of that little nugget of advice. No, they gleefully tip the balance, drive the wedge, pull out the fulcrum, take your pick. And they do so, happily, in the name of God. Gee, thanks, Fundies.

Former Minnisota Governor Jesse "The Body/Mind/Governing Body" Ventura once said in a Playboy interview that "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers." I'd like to expand on that a bit. You see, it's these same weak-minded people who become the pawns of people like "Pastor"* Anderson. People like him see an oppertunity: If they exploit the fears and beliefs of these people, they can use them to gather strength for their own bigoted, hate-fueled outlook on life, and turn it into a political force.

Rationality and Common Sense should tell EVERYBODY - Atheist, Christian, whatever - that that is most certainly wrong.

Duh.

*I've known plenty of Pastors in my lifetime, and this man is nothing like the Pastors I have known. All have been kind, tolerant people who don't preach venom and bile - just misinformation, unfortunately.