Guns and Robots

Saturday, blessed Saturday. Besides bringing me good tidings of a day off (Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAAAAYYYY) it also brings news of the cool. Here comes your double dose of geekgasm goodness.

First off is the badass looking trailer for Call of Duty 4. I've been a little battle-weary (har har) of the WWII shooter genre for a while now, and from what I see so far, the modern-day setting of COD4 looks like a very welcome change.

The setting looks heavily influenced by the Iraq war; including gritty, brutal urban combat. It definitely looks like something to keep my eye on.

As if that wasn't enough for one day, AICN has what may well be the first actual review of the Transformers movie. Gushing, heaping amounts of adolescent praise seems to be the order of the day. I now know for sure where I'll be on July 4th.

Technorati tags: gaming, call of duty 4, cod, game trailers, war, transformers, movie, entertainment, optimus prime, megatron, Michael Bay

Of Women and Car Buying....

Women.  I love them.  I hate having them as customers. They overwhelmingly tend to want to see every car on the lot only to decide they can't really decide right now and have to look at them all again the next day. The worst part is, they typically don't know one car from another. Toyota and Chevrolet mean the same thing to women.

Please, let the men buy.  It's sexist, I know, but at least they can get in and out of a dealership in less than 9 hours.

 

 

Technorati tags: women, cars, dealership, funny

Time to Ban the Internet

Forget gun control.   Without eBay, this never would have happened.

Ok, smartassedness aside, why is this newsworthy?

Who cares where the Virginia Tech killer bought empty ammo clips?  Would there be a different angle to the story if they came from WalMart? This is the type of irresponsible story that does nothing to inform anyone. 

Honestly, this type of 'internet = evil' meme is entirely too prevalent in the media.  There is no other reason to research or even write an article like the one shown here other than to make people think that somehow the killer's eBay habits are of some special signifigance. 

Let's let VT move on and stop with the sensationalist bullshit, mmmkay?

 

 

Technorati tags: Seung-Hui Cho, Virginia Tech, eBay, media, sensationalism

Columbia Rape Suspect in Custody

Good news coming in from New York! Police have arrested a suspect in the heinous, brutal rape of a Columbia journalism student.

A homeless ex-convict has been arrested in the rape and torture of a Columbia University graduate student, who was held hostage for 19 hours, cut with a knife and left tied up with the bed set ablaze.

Robert Williams, 30, faces attempted murder, rape, kidnapping, arson and other charges stemming from last week’s assault, police said Friday.

Investigators said evidence found at the victim’s apartment and an anonymous tip pointed to Williams. The suspect, also known as William Roberts, has previous convictions for attempted murder and assault.

Hopefully they've got the right person.  If anyone deserves a healthy dose of PMITA, it's him.  Ain't irony grand?

 

Technorati tags: Columbia University, rape, Robert Williams, William Roberts, New York, torture, crime

I'd rather just melt some icecaps...

Imagine four years of watching paint dry on a park bench in the middle of a rainstorm.  What on Earth could be that dull you ask?  Al Gore.

What could possibly be worse than Al Gore, hollywood superstar and amazingly gifted hyponist?  Al Gore becoming President of the United States.  Brace yourself folks, it could happen. While probably as likely as global warming actually being proven, it's better to prepare for the worst now.

Friends of Al Gore have secretly started assembling a campaign team in preparation for the former American vice-president to make a fresh bid for the White House.

Two members of Mr Gore's staff from his unsuccessful attempt in 2000 say they have been approached to see if they would be available to work with him again.

 

Technorati tags: Al Gore, global warming, politics, president, Democrat, election, white house

I LOLed. Then I cried.

 

 

Technorati tags: Emo, goth, humor

This Scion's Fiction

They say that good artists copy and great artists steal.  If that old adage is true then these cars must be freaking phenomenal.

 

Look familiar? At a loss for original car designs, a Chinese car manufacturer called 'Great Wall' has resorted to ripping off (and performing grossly incompetent facelifts on) several other manufacturers vehicles.

Pictured here is the eerily named 'Coolbear.'  It gets weirder.

 

Technorati tags: China, cars, Great Wall, Scion, Toyota, Fiat, automotive, ripoff, design

Scientologists Swoop In After Shootings

From the ambulance-chaser department:

The Church of Scientology has dispatched "ministers" to provide "grief counseling" for shell-shocked youth at Virginia Tech - but critics suspect the sect hopes to convert the vulnerable students.

"It's shameless, how they milk human tragedy to promote their organization," charges Rick Ross, whose CultNews.net has long tracked the group...These young people [at VT] are experiencing trauma. What they need are qualified mental health professionals."

"They did this at Ground Zero [after 9/11]," says Ross. "They did this in New Orleans [after Hurricane Katrina]. They look for very high-profile disaster that can be milked for photo ops" to promote the Church."

A sickening grab at publicity under the guise of philanthropy and their self-styled war on psychiatry.

Even before Cho's name was released, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group founded by the church, said in a press release that "media and law enforcement must move quickly to investigate the Virginia shooter's psychiatric drug history - a common factor amongst school shooters."

Ebner argues that the commission "claimed psychiatric drugs caused the Columbine High School shooting. But it came out later that the shooters went wild because they were off their meds."

 

Technorati tags: Virginia Tech, VT, shootings, Cho, Scientology, Columbine, CultNews, Cult, Rick Ross

Dr. Phil Is an Ignorant Jackass.

The only thing more repugnant to me that the immediate onslaught of blame-laying in the wake of the Virginia Tech killings is the ill-timed resurrection of the silly 'video-games cause violence' meme.

First Jack Thompson runs off at the mouth about a supposed connection, and now none other than the most intelligent human being on Earth and solver of global problems *cough* Dr. Phil joins the fray.

You cannot tell me - common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society...

We’re going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murders of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.

This garbage comes from people who've never played anything more violent than Freecell. Ok, maybe minesweeper, but that does nothing to bolster their argument for sure.

I grew up on Doom, Duke Nukem3D, the gloriously over-the-top Rise of the Triad, etc. I've stormed the virtual beaches of Normandy and sent more digital Nazis to their virtual graves than I could ever hope to count. As someone intimately familiar with gaming and gaming culture, these pop-icons speaking out about a topic about which they obviously are completely ignorant is insulting. Not only insulting but dangerous. First they blame video games and music. Then books, movies, art...where does it end. This is a slippery slope there is no need to scale.

Instead of whoring themselves out for TV face time with their stupid, uninformed theories, wouldn't it make sense to stop with the bogus speculation and needless insinuations and do something novel - like trying to find out exactly what snapped in this kid to make him do something like this?

Dr. Phil should be ashamed of himself for adding his voice to this chorus of stupidity. There are a thousand other things that need to be addressed now. The political maneuvering, posturing, and self-promotion needs to stop. People have died. Living, breathing humans are gone, never to see another sunrise and the first thing he sees fit to add to the discourse is laying blame on video games.

I find that disgusting.

Technorati tags: Virginia Tech, VT, Jack Thompson, video games, Dr. Phil

Iran Condemns VT Shootings

Iran on Tuesday condemned a gunman's rampage the previous day at Virginia Tech university which left 33 people dead and was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

"While condemning this (attack), (Iran) expresses condolences with the nation and the families of those killed," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement...

Attacking innocent people, irrespective of their race and nationality, is contrary to divine and human values no matter which group or person carries out such an act under any name," the Iranian statement said.

Hmm.

 

Technorati tags: Iran, Virginia Tech, VT, shootings, Hosseini

A Face is Worth a Billion Words

Coming to terms with the senselessness and enormity of the Virginia Tech killings won't be easy. Tonight I still am mourning for these people I never met, and may never have.

That's not to say our paths would never have crossed, and when you think about it like that, this tragedy has potentially affected more of us than will ever be known. Now with the passage of a day, information is starting to come out about the killer and his motivations - and also about those who will undoubtedly be forgotten by the media long before the perpetrator. The victims.

Here are some of their stories.

Technorati tags: VT, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, shootings, victims

Perpetual Joy

When is a boob not a boob? When it's a desk toy. 'Udder' genius.

 

Technorati tags: Gizmodo, toys, breasts, boobs

Oh No He Didn't!

Iran should not live in an illusion and believe that the United States has been defeated in Iraq and the way is open for it to take over this Arab country. Iran should be aware of the fact the US and its allies have liberated Iraq. In spite of the huge amount of money spent on the war, America is not the loser. The real losers are the people of Iraq and Iran, which is facing international sanctions.

The United States has not been defeated and it will not leave Iraq. The current discussions on this issue in America reflect the nature of their democracy. President Bush has the authority to veto the decisions made by other institutions. If Iran thinks the death of US soldiers in Iraq will exert pressure on the leadership of that country it is mistaken. The loss of 3,000 soldiers over a period of three years constitutes a very small percentage compared with the 150,000 US soldiers stationed in the region.

What right winger spouted this you may ask?  How about Ahmed al-Jarallah, Editor-In-Chief of the Kuwait-based Arab Times in an April 1 opinion piece.

Where's your defeatism now?

 

Technorati tags: Arab Times, Islam, Iran, Iraq, middle-east, war, Ahmed al-Jarallah

People Are The Worst Kind

I'm really not getting happy feel-good vibes off of humanity right now.

Tied up and left to die in a burning apartment, a Columbia student used the blaze set by her sadistic rapist to free herself, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday.

"It appears she was able to escape as a result of the fire," Kelly said. "She was tied, and the flame was used by her to break the bond."

The 23-year-old woman, identified by sources as a student at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, endured 19 hours of rape and torture at the hands of a sick creep in her Hamilton Heights apartment Friday night.

In what Kelly called a "particularly vicious" assault, the fiend tied his victim to a bed, cut her, raped her, burned her with scalding water and chemicals - and then set the woman's futon on fire to cover up the crime, police said.

He was so brutal he slit her eyelids, Kelly said.

What the hell is wrong with people?

 

Technorati tags: Columbia University, crime, New York, torture

There are no words...

Sitting at work today I watched the drama at Virginia Tech unfold on the internet, then on TV in the customer waiting area. There are no words to express the sadness we all felt as the death toll crept higher and higher. When things like this happen, you can't help but feel for the families who don't know whether they'll ever speak to their children, boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands, fathers, mothers or friends ever again.

Virginia Tech's President just released a figure of 33 dead at a press conference. 33 families who have lost someone near and dear to them. We may never know why people snap and do things like this, but I dare say it doesn't matter; what matters is that they do. We will never be able to stop these things through any amount of counseling, intervention, or by any other means. When someone is going to snap, they will. We can only hope to minimize the number and severity of these types of attacks, though even one is too many.

What we can do without fail is to love one another as if today is the last day we'll see each other. In times where senseless killings like this occur, it may well be. Cherish the ones you have, let go of grudges, vendettas, and hate. Life is fleeting and is far too short to risk losing the opportunity to love.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, as the media scrambles to assign blame to anyone and everyone except the shooter, and to posit the endless stream of what-ifs, remember that what really matters is that so many people are gone, cut down before their time. So many lives wasted, loves destroyed, and families who now will never come to be.

Of course we must act to determine what happened and if something could have been done. To deny that would be ignorant. But we mustn't let the media-fueled quest for blame to become the end all of this. We must mourn the fallen and take the opportunity of their loss to remind us to treasure what, and who, we still have.

Technorati tags: Virginia+Tech VT shooting crime massacre

Titanic: From Tragedy to Trinkets

Although the concept seems interesting, there's something about this that smacks of poor taste to me. Maybe it's the fact that 1,500 people died and now they're making watches for rich people out of what is essentially a mass grave.

Steel and coal from the Titanic have been transformed into a new line of luxury wristwatches that claim to capture the essence of the legendary oceanliner which sank in 1912.

"So many rich people buy incredibly complicated watches without understanding how they work, because they want a story to tell," he said. "To them we offer a story."

I've got your story right here. These things are for insensitive elitist materialists with more money than either brains or emotion. Over a thousand people died and now you can brag to all your filthy-rich friends at the country club you spent $173,000 on a watch made from the wreck?

Some story.

Technorati tags: Titanic, Romaine Jerome, Yvan Irpa, Titanic DNA

Don von Imus

What? Don Imus isn't the only dumbass on the planet to utter racist comments? You're kidding.

A German army instructor ordered a soldier to envision himself in New York City facing hostile blacks while firing his machine gun, a video that aired Saturday on national television showed.

The clip shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways. ... Act.”

To be honest, given that hypothetical incident, race wouldn't be a factor to me. I'd just as easily open up on three white guys acting like that. All the same, coming from the German army of all places, I can definitely agree that the comments were in bad form.

“The German government obviously has work to do to correct something that is insidious ... Clearly these folks don’t know anything about African Americans or the Bronx...”

Exactly. In the Bronx, a German soldier would have been shot at first.

Technorati tags: Don Imus, German Army, racism, Germany

Iranian People's Court

Judge Wapner was more effective at combatting crime than the Iranian Supreme court. This is now a proven fact. Behold, the mess that is Islamic jurisprudence.

Iran's Supreme Court has acquitted a group of men charged over a series of gruesome killings in 2002, according to lawyers for the victims' families.

Up to 18 people were killed in just one year, but only five of the murders were tried in court.

According to their confessions, the killers put some of their victims in pits and stoned them to death. Others were suffocated. One man was even buried alive while others had their bodies dumped in the desert to be eaten by wild animals.

The accused, who were all members of an Islamic paramilitary force, told the court their understanding of the teachings of one Islamic cleric allowed them to kill immoral people if they had ignored two warnings to stop their bad behaviour.

Oh, well, I guess if your local cleric says it's ok...

 

Technorati tags: Iran, Islam, crime, murder, Supreme Court, law, middle-east

Assault with a Deadly Nipple

I've seen a lot of those 'craziest police moments' shows, and heard a lot of stupid and almost unbelievable stories in my time, but we may have a new winner.

An 18-year-old woman is to appear at Richmond Magistrates' Court accused of assaulting a police officer with breast milk.

It is alleged she was detained for trying to steal shoes from Lizard, in Hill Street, Richmond. After being arrested for theft she sprayed an officer with milk from her right breast.

Half of me wants desperately to see video of this incident, while the other half is trying to figure out the physics of the attack.  I have to wonder how she had time to lift her shirt, presumably remove her bra, and then manage to aim and fire that thing while being arrested.  What kind of pressures are involved here anyway? I had no idea you could actually use them like super-lactosoakers.

 

Technorati tags: UK, crime, criminal, assault, lactation, breast milk, police, Felicha Marin

Clinton Panders to Globalist Agenda - Surprise!

I'd like to say I didn't see this coming:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Thursday that Raul Yzaguirre, a prominent Hispanic activist and former president of the National Council of La Raza, would co-chair her presidential campaign and lead its outreach to Hispanic voters.

A little background here might help.

Raul Humberto Yzaguirre (born c. July 22, 1939 in San Juan, Texas) is an American civil rights activist and open borders globalist...

...In the 1990s Yzaguirre said, "US English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks." He was referring to US English the nation's oldest, largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States.

Yzaguirre is a member of the David Rockefeller headed Council on Foreign Relations and was a member of the Independent Task Force on North America.

In May 2005, [the] task force published Building a North American Community. A plan that calls for greater cooperation between the United States, Canada and Mexico through the degradation of national sovereignty. The plan also calls for the free movement or goods, capital and people in a North American union.

Not that I'm any huge fan of Bush, but perhaps  all the left-wing mudslinging in his direction has blinded said lefties to exactly who is operating among their ranks.

Clinton. La Raza. Globalism. These are three things that most certainly do not belong in the same sentence, much less the White House.

 

Technorati tags: Hillary Clinton, La Raza, Yzaguirre, globalism, CFR, North American Union, English, racism, politics, White House, Democrat

Rollin' up on the Po-Po

I love it.

 

Technorati tags: Police, humor, funny

Feel My Flow

To emcee is to move the crowd, and to do that, rappers use their hands.  Whether it’s a loose-fingered wag or tight, staccato pointing, hand gestures add an important element to performing.  Why do rappers use them?  Hand gestures give your verses more energy, they work to emphasize certain words, and they add a visual element to a listening experience.

 

I'm going to use these while selling cars.  I think it'll probably help me move more cars...er...whips.

 

Technorati tags: rap, hip-hop, dance, eminem, emcee, music

Birds from the Past

The car lover in me totally digs this:

I'd love to have one of these just to give props to the 70s, the decade that brought you...well...me.

Technorati tags: cars, automotive, pontiac, firebird, gm, general motors

Awesome Architecture

I'm resisting the urge to call this design 'far-out' out of a need to rid the internet of all things cheesy.  Still, this has to be one of the more interesting and cool pieces of design I've seen.

 Definitely worth the click.

 

 

 

Technorati tags: Architecture, design, art, homes, Matti Suuronen, futuro house

Bring the New Robot Hotness

The name Michael Bay is enough to strike terror into the hearts of movie-goers everywhere.  The unwelcome fear that your hard-earned ten dollars is going to be wasted on another craptastic piece of trash that barely deserved to be filmed in the first place is a hard thing to swallow. Well, that and stale movie theater popcorn, but I digress.

All of that aside, it looks like this summer's Transformers movie might just revive the childhood passion I had for the franchise.  I'm not going to get my hopes up too much, but from the latest trailer, it looks like Bay might just have a winner.

 Check it out.

 

Technorati tags: Transformers, Michael Bay, Movies, Film, entertainment, Megatron, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Starscream

Misery Loves Company

No longer confined to Livejournal and Myspace, emo kids are now branching out into the real world.

Forget happiness, the in-crowd is being moved to tears by a new wave of super cool misery clubs, which give visitors (with the help of a pile of chopped onions) the chance to weep away their woes.

The birds are dying, man.  I have to ask though, isn't the hip emo thing to isolate yourself from actual human contact and to share your life only via the web?  If so, doesn't the concept of an emo club seem to be self defeating?

Technorati tags: Misery, emo, clubs, entertainment

Give the Brits a Break

The other night driving home from work, I heard something which made my blood boil. I flicked the radio on and punched the AM button in the hope of finding some talk radio station interesting enough to keep me awake on the trip home from a long day at the dealership.

Because of crappy reception and poor timing, the only thing I was able to pick up was Michael Savage.  Ordinarily I can't handle listening to him because he comes across as an obnoxious know-it-all whiner.  That and his tendency to ramble on and on about how everyone he disagrees with are vermin, rats, rodents, pests, psychos, etc all the while griping at his studio engineer to throw on some oldies rock.

Being familiar with his schtick, I more or less ignored him for the bulk of my trip until he started talking about the British seamen who'd been captured by Iranians.  He went on for several minutes about how they were traitors, losers, sissies, and every other name his venomous, crotchety old mind could cook up.

He worked himself into a near orgasmic frenzy of hate, criticizing them for appearing in videos released by the Iranians, cooperating with their captors, and every other act imaginable except, quite possibly, breathing.

I'd like to see that whining SOB in a similar situation and see exactly how he responds.  Let's see him, blindfolded and thinking he's about to be shot, tell his captors to go to hell.  That'd never happen in a million years.  His snivelling ass would be in the fetal position begging for his miserable life the second he heard a bolt being drawn back.  It's easy to talk smack when you've got a million braindead radio listeners ready to kiss your ass no matter what you say.  It's also easy to talk smack about people with guns to their heads...until you have a gun to yours.

So what if they cooperated.  They were in a hopeless situation.  Resistance would have meant death, and they knew that.  They lived to fight another day. 

Maybe Savage can turn off his emotions as easily as he's able to turn off his brain cells, but these young people did what I suspect most anyone would do.  They survived, and in the military, isn't that considered a desirable outcome?

Technorati tags: Iran, UK, Navy, hostages, Ahmadinejad, Khameini, war, terrorism, Iraq, Faye Turney, Michael Savage, conservative

The Rock Rolled

Matthew 28:1-7

1  After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

2  There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

3  His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.
4  The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

5  The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.

6  He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

7  Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."

 

Happy Easter!

Technorati tags: Easter, Christianity, Resurrection, Jesus, Religion

History is Now Rewinding, Stand By

More news from the UK:

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

...some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

And the downward spiral of western society continues unimpeded by common sense.

Technorati tags: Holocaust, UK, education, terrorism, Islam, Muslims, revisionism, political correctness

More Than Meets the Eye

Filmwad's got some seriously badass new pictures from Transformers. Come onnnnnnnnn July!

 

Technorati tags: Transformers, Michael Bay, movies, film, cinema, Optimus Prime, Megatron

British Kamikazes?

Two wrongs do not make a right.

A senior RAF officer asked fighter pilots whether they would consider suicide missions as a last resort to stop terrorists if their weapons had failed or they had run out of ammunition.

The head of the RAF's elite One Group who is in operational control of Typhoon, Tornado, Jaguar and Harrier fighters and bombers, is reported to have asked the pilots: "Would you think it unreasonable if I ordered you to fly your aircraft into the ground in order to destroy a vehicle carrying a Taliban or al-Qaida commander?"

Wow, we're really taking the moral high-ground against terror, aren't we?

 

Technorati tags: RAF, Britain, War, Terror, Terrorism, UK, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Iraq, Afghanistan