Never Forget. Remember, Remember...

 

"... the true genius of the plan was THE FEAR... FEAR became the ultimate tool of this government." -- V, V for Vendetta 

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Under the Republicans, petty tyrants used 9/11/01 and the threat of "terrorism" -- a real thing that existed but that the government-sponsored fear campaign and its lackeys in the media leaned on far too heavily to grease the skids to justify new, increasing power grabs.

Under the Democrats, for the past year-and-a-half up to today, 09/11/21, and likely into the near future, petty tyrants are using "covid" -- a real thing that exists but that the government-sponsored fear campaign and its lackeys in the media lean on far too heavily to grease the skids to justify new, increasing power grabs.

 
While not all the details are the same, how unfortunately prescient the movie "V for Vendetta" was... It takes place in 2020, after an infection was made in a lab, leading to a pandemic, that a national political party generated increasing FEAR around in order to win a divisive election, and upon winning continued to lean more heavily into in order to maintain and enhance control over the population, imposing upon the populace a remedy that resulted in record profits for a pharmaceutical company, while still instituting lockdowns and other increasingly draconian policies based on FEAR in the name of "UNITY".

And while we in the US might not be at the level of tyranny as seen in the movie, add in another similar factor of British-sounding accents, curfews, family members being taken from homes, concentration camps, and more -- and Australia is just about there, revisiting its history and ancestry as a continent-sized prison colony. 

So maybe it's not as far off as we'd like to believe, considering how rapidly Australians made their transition.

The parallels are a little too close for comfort.

Petty tyrants, at any level of government, whether they claim to be so-called "conservatives" or "liberals" (whatever these terms even mean, anymore) should be allowed nary an inch. It's the same old story that repeats itself. The generation and propagation of FEAR is, has been, and will always be, the greatest tool the government can use to get the people to willingly grant them, due to inflated or even outright false pretenses, increasing and permanent control over their choices, their livelihoods -- and their very lives. 

As the slip slopes, the dominoes will continue to fall...

A thousand cuts. The ubiquity of it all numbing us, dumbing us down. They grow increasingly numerous, sharper, and deeper -- all for a virus with up to a 99.99% infection recovery rate, where the vast majority of the infected have a mild to asymptomatic response, where those with sever reactions have an average of four comorbidities, and where the average death age is higher than the average life expectancy. 

According to MedRxiv (pronounced "med-archive"), a free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences, and jointly owned and operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Yale University and BMJ, "The [Infection Fatality Rate] of COVID-19 in community-dwelling elderly people is lower than previously reported. Very low IFRs were confirmed in the youngest populations." Until people hit their seventies, all age groups have survival rates well over 99%:

• 0-19: 99.9973%
• 20-29: 99.986%
• 30-39: 99.969%
• 40-49: 99.918%
• 50-59: 99.73%
• 60-69: 99.41%
• 70+: 97.6% (non-institutionalized)
• 70+: 94.5%

In spite of this, the narrative of FEAR and impending chaos and looming ubiquitous death must be reinforced, regardless -- note the constantly shifting goal posts and the focus on "cases" as opposed to considering the actual virulence of the infection.

Your "jab" is less and less consequential. Enjoy your forever-jabs!

Covid, now endemic as so many of us always expected it to be, is never going away. If the ongoing narrative regurgitated by the usual suspects in the government, media, and useful idiots in the rank-and-file embeds itself over the long-haul, then these and other power grabs along with the campaign of FEAR continuing into perpetuity is a very real prospect. 

The beatings will continue until morale improves

I don't know about everyone else -- but I know what I'm watching, tonight, on this September 11th.

Tool's 'Fear Inoculum' Released 4,869 Days after their last album, '10,000 Days'

Three major events took place in my life, recently. First, after years of financial sacrifice, we bought our first house. Second, we had our third child, a girl. And third?

The new Tool album, Fear Inoculum, was released. It had been 4,869 Days between the release of Tool's 10,000 Days and their new Fear Inoculum. That's almost 13 and-a-half years... or 160 months... or 116,856 hours... or 7,011,360 minutes... or 420,681,600 seconds, or... nevermind. I think I can speak for all Tool fans when I say that we've been waiting a long time for this...

Notice if you take the way TOOL is written, and fold it over itself,
it creates a syringe ('Inoculum').

First, a Quick Time Warp to the 90s

Going back, I started really discovering my own taste in music in the 6th grade. My first album was the Escape From LA soundtrack I bought with some money I saved from illegally working as a minor, pumping gas at a full service gas station. Escape from LA was an awesomely bad, cheesy action flick I loved, released in 1996 with a solid lineup and absolutely horrific special effects.

Man, they really don't make 'em like they used to... and thank goodness for that.

The soundtrack really struck a chord with me and inspired much of my taste, with other great music by the likes of Gravity Kills, White Zombie, Stabbing Westward, Ministry, Tori Amos, and, of course, Tool. Their track, Sweat, among others, immediately hooked me and away I went. I was already somewhat familiar with Tool's music at the time, having been somewhat scared, but oddly entranced by, their unique, dark, stop-motion music videos from when they'd play on MTV. From there, flipping through one of my video-game magazines, I found one of those thick sheets that listed maybe one or two-hundred different albums, advertised as "PICK *10* CDs, ALL FOR ONLY A PENNY!", with the obligatory explosive graphic behind it that we're all oh-so-familiar with. I excitedly penned in the little square boxes for the ones I wanted, enclosed a corroded penny in the envelope with the list and sent it off, completely not grasping the concept of 'fine print' with my rapidly changing, hormone-rattled, 11-year-old brain. If I remember correctly, my collection of music began at this moment, with the order of Opiate, Undertow, and the new AEnima Tool albums, The Downward Spiral and Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails, Antichrist Superstar and Smells Like Children by Marilyn Manson, Astro-Creep: 2000 and Supersexy Swingin' Sounds, by White Zombie, and The Crow movie soundtrack.

Anyway, I remember receiving additional CDs in the mail I never ordered, seemingly for free, keeping some and tossing others. Increasingly larger bills eventually started arriving, which I naturally ignored, and collectors naturally pursued with additional fees, interest, and messages on our answering machine. I remember the story my mom told me about how she blew up at them over the phone for being the dopes who tried collecting money from an 11-year-old child, incapable of entering into any legitimate contract on his own. They stopped calling, and I still had ten cool, new music CDs. With a newfound discovery and appreciation for music, my world opened up.

All for a single penny.

 Ahh, yes. Simpler times. 

Lateralus was released several years later, a year before my high school graduation. With each subsequent Tool album, there's a clear sense of steady growth and refinement of their sound from a previous one, but this was a huge evolution in tone that essentially retained, while somewhat transcending, their original and iconic sound, with their next 10,000 Days feeling like an expansion and slight twist on Lateralus. These changes in style, tone, and spirit from one album to the next have always been subtle, but steady, organic, transcendent, and on their own terms, while retaining their signature unique sound.

Tool also introduced and turned me on to Alex Grey, who collaborated with them
on numerous pieces of album artwork for Lateralus, 10,000 Days, and Fear Inoculum.

A common thread through much of Tool's music has long been about a cycle of realizing and integrating the Jungian shadow, of change and growth, the shedding of old skin and letting go, and transcending that which we crave and hold on to from social conditioning and base instincts. Needless to say, a lot has changed in my life in those 4,869 Days, with so many things, people, places, and parts of myself left behind. My love and appreciation for Tool's music remains, however, all the same, and as it's grown and changed, so have I.

A True Scotsman's Fan's Review... A Pneumasterpiece or Premature Inoculation?

Thirteen years. Six very long songs, broken up by four tracks of instrumentals and/or oddball sonic experimentation. Fairly par the course for a Tool album, right? Wrong. These songs are absolutely epic in length and dwarf all past Tool songs -- they each range a bare minimum of over 10 minutes to up to almost 16 minutes long. Even if you smashed Parabol and Parabola off of the Lateralus album into one track, you'd still only end up at 9:02. That may sound intimidating, because it is -- but they're all good to great pieces and feel like they're over within the length of a typical song. This is truly progressive metal, with most tracks starting off quiet, low, and simple, and building up to increasingly heavier and complicated structures over the course of the song. Basically, if Pink Floyd and Tool had a baby, that baby would be named Fear Inoculum.

Was President Lyndon B. Johnson Just a Time-traveling, Alternate-reality Racist Rick Sanchez?

On this gray, stormy, Boston October, Saturday morning, I engaged one of our favorite pastimes -- tumbling down the internet rabbit hole. Eventually, it brought me towards 'ole Lyndon B. Johnson, former Vice President to John F. Kennedy who, upon JFK's assassination in 1963, succeeded the throne to President of the United States. LBJ is particularly hailed by his fellow Democrats for his 'Great Society' reforms, where,

... the main goal was elimination of poverty and racial injustice... [and] in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There are some, errr, lesser known facts about him, as well, though. As it turns out, he was quite the character. Self-absorbed egomaniac, exhibitionist, known machiavellian for getting policy through congress (Frank Underwood from House of Cards was primarily "two scoops of LBJ with a dash of Richard III and a pinch of Hannibal Lecter"), and mid-sentence burps all give LBJ a certain je ne sais quoi that even Rick Sanchez, himself, might envy...

"Ladybird--I mean, Morty--everything in life is about sex, Morty -- EXCEPT SEX. 
Sex is about POWER, Morty!!!" - Frank Underwood/LBJ/Rick Sanchez

Rick Sanchez, is that you?

I came across this wonderfully, appropriately animated video of an audio recording where LBJ is on the phone in the oval office of the White House ordering some tailored pants. This is where I found the rabbit hole and started peering into it. Now, it's clear this guy knows how he likes his pants and throws around measurements like its nobody's business, but there's a segment of the video, from about 1:11 to 1:51 that really stood out...

The glorious transcript of this segment, below:

The Apple iPhone's 'Notch' Abomination is Spreading and There is Not a Goddamned Thing you can Do About It

When I first saw 'The Notch', its barbarism felt like a cheese-grater against my brain. I couldn't take it. It was a total, fucking eyesore. I found peace in the fact that it was an 'Apple iPhone thing' at the time, and I was an avid Android user. I'd cast aside the Cult of Apple a decade or so ago, and took solace in the idea that the despicable nonsense of 'The Notch' would be rejected and cast aside by civilized society, obviously. My devices would be safe.

I would be safe.

... or maybe not.

It didn't last. It's coming to more and more devices. With the last Android update on my beloved Pixel 2 XL, I noticed a new setting, buried deep -- hidden away, like a monstrous, threatening thing that was watching, waiting, to crawl out from its abyss and pull all back into oblivion with it. This setting added a software 'Notch' into my screen, likely for devs to design and program their apps around. I was aghast at what this implied for the future of my Android devices and I felt like huddling in the corner, wrapped up into a fetal position, rocking back and forth, sobbing as this abomination, my oppressor, beat me -- nonstop. Would the beatings end? Could they end?

No. The beatings will continue -- until morale improves.

A Meta Review: Ubisoft's New 'Far Cry 5' has the Ideologues All Bent Out of Shape... AnD tHaT's A gOoD tHiNg

Originally, I wasn't very interested in picking up Far Cry 5, the latest entry in a series of formularized games going back to 2004 -- but the more I read about and saw more of its gameplay a couple of weeks leading up to its release, the more excited about it I became. The Montanan setting was much 'closer to home' than past installments, the cult concept was intriguing, the graphics looked gorgeous, the music highly thematic, and the gunplay sweet. The addition of co-op in its beautiful and chaotic open world of Americana was all just too much to pass up, this time around.

Pre-orders were placed.


First, The Actual Game

Allusions to 'The Last Supper', anyone?

On the politics (or mostly lack-thereof) within Far Cry 5 -- they had absolutely zilch, zero, nada to do with my initial excitement, subsequent purchase and ongoing enjoyment of this game. Far Cry 5 feels like The Dukes of Hazard taking on some equally cartoonish cult, and, ultimately, if I’m playing a Far Cry game, I’m not doing it for deep political commentary, regardless of the setting. I'm doing it to have fun in amazingly rendered open worlds and with the characters that dwell there, with great voice-acting, script, and well-executed facial and other animation mo-cap. I expect solid gameplay and combat with many ways to approach varying, highly dynamic situations within the chaos-engine that smashes, head-first, into what would otherwise be considered a paradise on earth.

At the end of the day, you and your buds are going to be sending flaming mountain lions to ravage a bunch of goonish, cult-obsessed, drug-addled hillbillies. Or maybe you'll take out psychopathic cultists with an M60 machine gun mounted on a flame-painted muscle car. Or maybe you'll whack them upside the head with a barbed-wire, nail-studded bat as you whip by in a pickup truck. Or maybe you'll raid doomsday prepper stashes. Or maybe you'll just enjoy the scenery. Or maybe you and your friend will do some fishing in order to feed your diabetic pet grizzly bear, 'Cheeseburger'. Whatever floats your boat, man (like, literally, you can go fishing on your boat).

Holy Fuck, the E3 2017 Devolver Digital 'Press Conference' was a Thing of Fucking Beauty

First, some background. I love Devolver Digital -- their style, the kind of hyper-violent, hyper-mature (immature?) or just generally bizarre, over-the-top games they publish. The music you often find in their games is simply sublime. More generally, they just don't give a fuck. They don't seem to hold back on anything -- and I love it. They know a great indie game when they see it  -- games big publishers wouldn't or couldn't touch with a 10-foot pole due to either some of the themes broached or just the riskiness of a project. In the end, they pull games into their line-up that seem to consistently reflect a certain, shall we say... je ne sais quoi?

This guy's face from Hotline Miami 2 may as well be Devolver Digital's face

Some of my personal favorites are games like Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Mother Russia Bleeds, Shadow Warrior and Shadow Warrior 2, Gods Will Be Watching, Strafe, OlliOlli 2, and The Talos Principle. There's quite a bit more that I haven't played, too -- they've got a pretty sizable catalog for an indie publisher, but it continues to grow every year, and they rarely miss the mark. Most of their games look like they came out of a time machine from the 80s, inspiring a wonderful bout of nostalgia, especially from us millenials. Of course, this is either part of the charm and the draw, or 'retro' is just an excuse for small or single-person development teams to get away with shitty graphics. In any case, I think they look quite beautiful, and they often implement gameplay mechanics and/or styles that are original, innovative, and just refreshing. Since big publishers are far less likely to take many risks on this kind of content, Devolver Digital fills a very important void.

Netflix cancels 'Sense8' -- Oh, gosh, gee, golly, willikers... How could this have ever happened?!

Netflix describes the show on its main page as, "From the creators of "The Matrix" and "Babylon 5" comes this tense series in which eight people can telepathically experience each other's lives." Oh, is that all it is? Sounds like some great science fiction! I loved The Matrix, it's one of my favorite movies! I've never seen Babylon 5, but I've heard good things and it's rated very highly, even on imdb! So, hrmmm.... I wonder why Sense8 was cancelled?

Oh... so whichever Sense8 character I 'am', I'm the pan-sexual one. Got it.

Well, it probably didn't help that the show insulted the intelligence of its viewership by actually being nothing more than a thinly-veiled SJW, gay and trans propaganda piece -- and this is coming from someone who supports gay marriage and the right for anyone to be gay or trans. It presented itself and was marketed as something it, well, wasn't. The vast majority seemingly wanted sci-fi, not gay/transgender sex scenes, at times with trying-too-hard, 'shocking', ahem... elements, no less. And 'to the extent that it was' what it claimed to be -- that was the thin, albeit highly transparent, insulting, preachy veil.

PROPAGANDA-CEPTION

Now, yo dawg, I heard you like propaganda, so I put propaganda in your propaganda, so you can propagandize while you propagandize. 

Seriously, though, if you're not as familiar with the show, here's a positive propaganda piece on the propaganda of Sense8. I suggest reading the whole article to get an idea of 'the masterpiece' that you missed, but here's a snippet...

While each of the characters can be sexually attracted to anyone, they may not find themselves romantically attracted to everyone. Instead, the sensates might identify as being interested in the opposite (heteroromantic) or the same (homoromantic) gender, and even two (biromantic), all (panromantic), or no (aromantic) genders. 

Sense8 seems to be going to infinity and beyond in its exploration of how attraction and sex function as part of the human experience. So, why shouldn’t it go one step further? Not only do the sensates create an opportunity to expose general audiences to an often ignored, unexplained, and underrepresented sexual orientation, but they have a serious chance to introduce the public to another aspect of attraction. 

It also creates a win-win scenario in terms of the series LGBTQIA representation. We live in a culture that frequently presents us with negative or less than realistic portrayals of gay and lesbian characters. In come Lito Rodriguez (Miguel Ángel Silvestre) and Nomi Marks (Jamie Clayton), two sensates whose personal development is literally as good as—if not better than—their perceivably heterosexual counterparts.

My eyes are rolling into the back of my head.

TTH

Look, there's nothing wrong with having gay or trans characters in your show. It can mix up the characters a bit and possibly insert a necessary dynamic for your story, but don't do it in a way that compromises said story or condescendingly preaches to your viewership, especially if you're already coming from a political fringe, all while claiming that you're something you're not. You've got to be more subtle, more sophisticated than that. Instead, we're treated with little gems like this one, right in the first episode of this 'sci-fi' series... 

"Hey, kids, you like science fiction?! Family movie ni--OH MY GOD"

No one I've known would ever consider me a prude, but that was... jarring, considering. Kinda sets a different tone, guys.

No one watching a show for entertainment likes being preached to, apart from overzealous activists who live and want to live in a bubble. Naturally, those are the ones who came out engaging in all sorts of slacktivism about its cancellation -- and likely, these types were pretty much the only ones who stuck with it, why viewership was so abysmal, and why it was cut off at the knees after only the second season. Of course, regardless of all of the protesting, petitioning, tweeting, blogging, and threats of account cancellations and boycotts by SJWs, "Netflix Apologizes to Viewers: 'Sense8' Is Still Canceled". Oh, well, then. It's almost as if Netflix is a for-profit company fueled by revenues from viewership as opposed to being powered by SJW slacktivist screeching! Who woulda thunk it, the folks at Netflix know pretty damned well what they're doing.

'House of Cards' is not at all this kind of #LGBTQIABBQ%+ propaganda, but most certainly has interesting, important gay characters and is a great example of how to do them the right way. Of course, I think the issue is that 'House of Cards' is actually meant to be and works out as an interesting, well-made story. 'The Wachowskis', on the other hand, set out to make little more than a propaganda piece all along, where a sheen made of slivers of an otherwise potentially good sci-fi story gets wasted and marred by being tightly spread over a rotten core of SJW propaganda and just-for-the-sake-of-it-sex.

Sorry, 'The Wachowskis', but it seems The Matrix Trilogy (more emphasis on the first movie) and V for Vendetta signaled the beginning, the height, and from there the very rapid and steep decline into Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending, and now, Sense8.

'Salad Fingers' Creator David Firth takes the Unwashed Masses to task with CREAM

From the file of 'What the Fuck Did I Just Watch'...

I've been a big fan of the 'Salad Fingers' series for years. It's just... darkly bizarre and there really is nothing quite like it. David Firth typically creates some very dark stuff that's hard to forget and some of it really pushes the limit, or even just cuts right through the limit entirely. Ole Salad Fingers just scratches the surface of his others works that do a damned good job of making you feel like you've lost a piece of your soul after watching them -- pieces you may never get back. Of course, why would anyone watch stuff like this? Us millenials love it, for some reason -- we gobble it right up. A lot of us tend to be drawn, in a way, to some really dark, shocking, and nihilistic themes. In humor, even, the darker the better.

This is something entirely different, though. Firth is not merely expressing himself through another dark, depressing, scary, brutal, existentialist nightmare of an attack on our delicate (read: sane) sensibilities. The animation and ambience is, as expected, 'classic Firth' -- not that I think Mr. Firth is capable of making anything that looks or sounds remotely 'normal', in the first place -- but don't let the general creepiness turn you off from watching it. It hits on all cylinders with regards to the point he's trying to convey and the themes and concepts he's alluding to.

In proper ad absurdum fashion, even if someone had somehow invented something that literally cured society of all of life's ills and inconveniences, ended all war and lifted our standards of living to that of an immortal, healthy, beautiful, intelligent, wealthy, always happy state -- perhaps even allowing us to achieve a kind of godhood -- the great unwashed masses could probably be manipulated to not only be against it, but hate it, and ultimately support prohibiting it through institutional violence. It's a cleverly illustrated extreme example, but Firth asks you to step outside of the zeitgeist of constant infotainment and propaganda overload, reflect, and for christ's sake... think for your fucking goddamned self.

Challenge the status quo, even with an amazing, humanity-saving concept, or better yet -- even something as simple and powerful as truth, and be destroyed by the machinations of those in power with something to lose. Further, prepare to have the rest of society join in on it, because how dare you. Sounds about right.

You'll find that Firth critiques some of the worst offenders, here:

• Intellectual property arguments
• Ubiquitous dishonest and agenda-driven 'studies'
• Fearmongers and alarmists
• Character assassinations
• Mainstream media pundits, talking heads, shills, surrogates, sophists, and other propagandists who try to 'get ahead of the narrative' to manufacture public opinion with outright lies and other forms of general deceit and intellectual dishonesty
• Black Propaganda 
• 'Useful idiots' who lose themselves in the manufactured group-think and lose their ability to think critically
• The State

I could go on in greater detail, but Mr. Firth communicates everything much better with the story of his super miracle cream than I could with more words.

Watch it, below...

On being an outsider very effectively speaking truth to power, or just all-around upsetting the status quo in an extreme way -- watch for the character assassination campaigns and the mass-manipulation that could be taking place. CREAM creator, Dr. Jack Bellifer, could just as easily be someone like Julian Assange of Wikileaks. Or Edward Snowden.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels, German politician and 'Reich Minister of Propaganda' of Nazi Germany

Or, dare I say it, as someone with mixed feelings about him -- Donald Trump. Trump is regularly, and often enough rightfully, called out for stating untruths of various degrees, but here's the thing some are saying about 'ole Donald, that I think gets it right. For better or for worse, one shouldn't take everything he says literally, but one should take it seriously. Politicians use the truth to tell lies, while artists use lies to tell the truth, and Donald Trump is not a politician. Trump is the anti-politician, a kind of social artist, and part of this is what has sent everyone into a tizzy in seeing the upset of all of our political norms and expectations. While Donald Trump may not be the president we wanted, he could very well be the president we needed -- a protest vote that could finally, actually, somehow win against the vast and deep political machines of both parties.

And, as we can see, the character assassination campaign is certainly out in full, unadulterated, unapologetic force, to an extent we've never seen before, with complete disregard for the collateral damage, and by so many with the greatest ideological, economic, and political assets at stake.

'Bill Nye Saves the World' is a shit show and Bill Nye is the Kim Kardashian of Science

Lurking around on Twitter, today, naturally sucked me into yet another black hole of a host of 140-character 'exchanges'. Not having initially realized that a lot of the chatter was due to the new Netflix production, pretentiously named 'Bill Nye Saves the World', I'd expressed my increasing disdain for Bill Nye. Some rando had the nerve to honestly try to compare him to a modern-day Carl Sagan. How anyone could even remotely consider such a comparison is a stretch beyond belief.

Carl Sagan has rightfully earned his place in the pantheon of science popularizers. His long list of qualifications and experience working in academia, deep engagement with NASA, SETI, and the scientific community in general and receiving numerous scientific awards, having written multiple acclaimed science fiction books (one of which, 'Contact', was turned into a great movie), and creating the widely popular and effective show, 'Cosmos', leave no question as to his contributions. Further, he's long posthumously solidified his place simply based on how many prominent figures in science he's inspired.

... And then you have someone like Bill Nye. A lot of us fondly recall him as 'Bill Nye the Science Guy' on PBS from our childhood, who made scientific experiments look fun and interesting. I remember looking forward to watching his show wheeled in on a big CRT television, played from a VHS tape with poor tracking during science class in elementary school, and tuning in while staying at my grandparents' house. How fleeting such sweet nostalgia can be as you witness Bill Nye continue his fall from grace, but even I was not prepared for the shameful train wreck I was about to witness.

I'd already come to my own conclusion that his scientific mind and approach to things didn't seem to have aged well. Relying purely on nostalgic celebrity from (fellow) millenials as some kind of implied claim to scientific authority should almost be sufficiently disqualifying, but Bill Nye seems utterly relentless about whittling away at any perception of authority he has left. When live and in the hot seat and not following a script, his either remarkably obtuse or remarkably dishonest attempts to debate scientific issues he portrays himself as an authority on show a greater degree of intellectual vacancy than I would have thought. Unfortunately, what little respect I'd had left for him had been mostly drained, flowing from nostalgically positive, to now negative territory, especially after having finally seen a clip from his new show.

Seemingly, the SJWs have hollowed out and infected this man's mind, turning him into a veritable husk of his former 'Science Guy' self. Do you think I'm being a little overdramatic? Well, then... Please brace yourself, for we have now reached Mount Everest, peak-levels of cringe...

Oh, my, how far the mighty have fallen.

Let us have a moment of silence for what little dignity remains for this man, once a titan in our young, hungry, curious minds. What was once someone teaching and showing us about objective, empirical science has now crossed over into a sideshow of bizarro-world, gender-fluid theory, as so artfully and tastefully displayed by 'Rachel Bloom', from 'Crazy Ex-girlfriend', whoever the fuck that is, anyways. Seeing ole Bill Nye dancing around so creepily to it all is just cheap icing on this cringe-cake I wouldn't serve even to my worst enemy.

So how could this have happened? Let us top said cringe-cake with some sour grapes, to boot. Of course, Bill Nye was never a real 'Science Guy', anyways. He actually just has a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and merely played a 'Science Guy' on TV, according to a script. Being intellectually vacant and willing to do anything for money and some sad vestige of fame is what has turned Bill Nye into the Kim Kardashian of science. 

Now, if some think I'm cherry picking only one cringey piece from an otherwise great or even mediocre or even sub-par show, I'm really not. Out of the sake of pure, morbid curiosity, I invite you to flip on Netflix and actually put yourself through an episode or two of this. I've watched a bit and there's really only so much I could take. With that being said -- I really, truly do hope that Progressive SJWs continue pumping out trash like this. They've become a parody of themselves, and they're too delusional, tone-deaf, and stuck in their sad little echo chambers to realize it.

Oh, and don't forget -- almost half of the fun of watching any youtube video is reading the comments!

An Experience of Seeing the Movie 'Logan'

I just saw this last week with The Wife and... wow. This had to have been one of the best movies I've seen in theaters in recent memory. In case you live under a rock and haven't seen the trailer, check it out below -- this one in particular absolutely hyped me up, and Johnny Cash's cover of 'Hurt', originally by Nine Inch Nails, was a flawless choice of a song to attach to it.

If you can't quite tell from the trailer, 'Logan' is a very different kind of superhero movie. As pretentious as this sounds, one might even call it 'post-superhero'. Apart from that, the acting (from everyone), the script, direction, and production were all top-notch. Unlike past 'X-Men' movies, it was gritty and felt about as 'grounded' as a superhero movie could feel (with, I think, the Nolan-Batman movies being the 'most grounded'), and lemme tell you, it was dark -- probably the 'darkest' 'superhero' movie I've seen. At times, you might even call it depressing -- but I was enthralled with the experience from beginning to end.

While it doesn't hurt to have seen the past 'X-Men' and 'Wolverine' movies for the sake of some of their character development and for you to develop more of an attachment towards the characters, 'Logan' carries all of its own (fairly heavy) weight very well. Surprisingly, it doesn't actually lean on those movies at all, and, if anything, completely detaches itself from them, though still in a way that respects the established canon. Believe it or not, the fact that the vast majority of characters from the past 'X-Men' films aren't even mentioned, let alone making any appearances, actually adds to an ambiguous sense of loss. There are a lot of unanswered questions, here, which seems purposeful. We aren't trying to save humanity, this time around. There is nothing 'epic' going on. Everything, and everyone, seems to have fallen apart. This is Logan's story, it's much more personal, and anything about the past has been abjectly left behind.

The way 'Logan' engages your emotions around the characters as well as the sudden, if not jarring, unexpected insertions of extreme violence and gore that, at times, sneak up on you is all quite visceral. I never found myself 'bored', and the movie felt very dense, with little to no fluff or padding, even at a hearty 137 minutes long. The ending was well done. Everything was well-done. The movie 'knew what it was', it focused in on it, and it did it very well.

To put it another way... in how I feel that 'Mad Max: Fury Road' (which I also absolutely loved) distills the 'Mad Max' movies down to its purest essence -- 'Logan' does that with Wolverine's character. A character with a constant sense of loss, of rage, and of expressions of sudden, uncontrollable, and extreme violence.

If you're at all a fan of any of these kinds of movies, can handle some feelings, some gore, and especially if you love Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, then I highly recommend you don't miss out on this one and, ideally, see it on the big screen. As a side note, I also read that they're doing a kind of 'black and white' version, which I'm very much looking forward to.

All in all, I give 'Logan' at least 9 out of 10 Sisyphean Boulders. I expect this one to already be a contender for best film of 2017, easy.

Newspaper Brains, Television Souls, and High-school Ideas

“I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas. Kennedy himself was 9/10ths the way around the clock or he wouldn't have accepted such an enervating and enfeebling job -- meaning President of the United States of America. How can I be concerned with the murder of one man when almost all men, plus females, are taken from cribs as babies and almost immediately thrown into the masher?”

― Charles Bukowski, Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993

Ted Cruz and the Twilight Zone Election of 2016

George H. W. Bush 'the Elder One' refuses to vote for Trump, and may even vote for Clinton purely out of spite. The old man is obviously butthurt over Trump personally embarrassing his son in front of the nation, but at least he has some honor and sticks by his family.

As we're all well familiar, Donald Trump insulted Ted Cruz' family, called his wife ugly and threatened to 'expose her secrets', whatever that means. He generated attention towards conspiracy theories that his father was involved in the murder of JFK. He effectively labeled him as 'Lyin' Ted', and as a final, penetrating thrust, insinuated that he (GASP!) wasn't a true scotsman American and may not have even been eligible for the presidency in the first place, bringing attention to his Canadian-ness.

Ouch. That last one? That's a doozy.

So how does ole Teddy respond to these constant attacks on his person and family? He tells The Donald that he's immoral, a liar, unfit to be President, creates a whole bunch of drama and feet-stomping over it, and just yesterday, endorsed him in a lengthy Fecebook post which has garnered over 100,000 'Likes'.

... yes, you heard that last part right.

It seems particularly low, even for a politician, to trade in his family's honor for some vestige of power, scraps of power, or promises of scraps of power that no one will have any real obligation in fulfilling -- and it doesn't seem Cruz has any good bargaining chips left to hold them accountable to it. If Donald Trump were a career politician who relies on maintaining a reputation of back-door deals, the situation would be different, but that's just not the case. Naturally, Trump is going to get a significant boost out of this, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that many #NeverTrump folks follow in predictable Fibonacci fashion, whether they publicly admit it, or not. If Clinton was finally coming to the realization that things were going to be a lot more difficult than she and her outrage machine expected, before, then she's going to be having a lot more trouble, now.

But I digress from the purpose of my post, and I'd like to culminate this all into a little story...

You and others are herded into a large room. You look around and see individuals from all walks of life; young and old, rich and poor, black and white, and any other arbitrarily drawn lines between them you can think of. Trump's presence is amongst you, and you were all brought here to legitimize this event. Whether you actually wanted to be here for this or not, it still wasn't your choice today, just as it wasn't yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. It's part of the whole point, I guess. Any public, ritualistic expression of power isn't merely for the sake of the domination of one individual over another, after all.

"Enter, the Dishonorable Senator Cruz from Texas!"

Heavy doors open, slowly, with a thick haze emanating from its void. It looks empty, like there's nothing there. Was this a ruse? Did ole Lyin' Ted pull a fast one on The Donald as one final slight? Could there be, perhaps, a sliver of honor left in this man?

The haze diffuses throughout the audience. It has a putrid stink to it, and you cover your mouth to lessen the heaviness of it all. Still, nothing... until you look down. From the void you catch the glimpse of a heavy mass coming into focus. Its movements are unnatural and lethargic. What is this wretched, cursed thing? Could this be some lowly, devolved beast? A creature that natural selection had still yet to eliminate from whatever unholy environment it had borne from?

With baited breath, everyone waits.

Suspense turns to impatience until, finally, you and others recoil towards the sight of the foul thing that emerges. Alas! It is Cruz, as initially expected, slowly writhing on its belly towards Trump, leaving a foul-smelling kind of trail in its wake. It tosses itself forward, much of its mass concentrated in its head, an agonizing look on its twisted face.

Thump. Slap. Thump-thump. Slap. 

Finally, it worms its way up to Trump, groveling at his feet, its tiny meat-hooks at some point in its miserable existence having probably been arms, reaching, as it slinks up to and 'grabs' ahold of Trump's leg -- begging, mewling, not even for crumbs, but the mere promises of crumbs from its overlord, Trump. The Donald flicks his foot away, similar to how one might try to remove the feces he had just barely started to, but not yet fully, stepped on.

It opens a hole in its face you can only assume is a mouth. Noises come out. No one understands, but no one really cares, neither.

It grimaces and lets out a pathetic sigh. It slumps to the ground, no longer managing the energy it takes to hold itself up, resigning itself to whatever fate awaits it. How could this foul, feeble thing have survived for as long as it did?

A quiet, awkward moment passes, dragging out the spectacle. Trump stands there, like a statue. The others are looking at eachother, unsure of what to do. The event is painfully uncomfortable to witness.

The creature lays there, isolated, rejected. Its inadequate protrusions stretched out in front of it, the putrid trail connecting it to the feet of its overlord.

"Please!", you cry out. "Let us finish this chapter in the Theatre of the Absurd! End this poor, miserable creature's suffering, for its own sake -- and ours!"

The Donald's face moves slightly, and he glances down at the thing. His face melts into a kind of mix of disdain, disgust, and annoyance as he places his shoe closer to the creature's face.

Its head hangs low while it looks up at its master, who stares back down at it, unflinching, unfeeling. The creature capitulates under the weight of his eyes, and curls into itself as it pushes out a shaky tongue towards the sole of The Donald's foot, which is pulled back a few inches. The Donald grabs his belly and laughs, and the room stays quiet. It laments and musters the last of its energy to inch forward, but buckles.

For a moment, silence.

Suddenly, the thing starts wheezing. Its breathing becomes erratic and its body and sad protrusions start to convulse. The Donald is unmoved by this, and stares. You and the others look down and away as you hear the final death rattle, and then, nothing.

...

The crowd disperses. On your way out, you hear a frightened child ask, "Mommy, what was that ugly monster?"

She responds softly, trying to comfort him,"Shhhhh. It's okay, my child. That thing was once a man, a long, long time ago."

It backfires and the child becomes agitated. "But... mommy, does that mean I could turn into a monster like him, one day?"

The mother is caught off guard, realizing she must choose her words wisely. "No, honey, but living your life as a politician sure won't help."

A Review for No Man's Sky on the Playstation 4

Every once in a while you just gotta take a break from all of the political bullshit and stop to smell the roses. And by roses, sometimes that means digital roses. And by smelling, sometimes that means with your eyes and your ears. Or something.

No Man's Sky (also referred to as NMS) is a Playstation 4 game (also just released on Windows PC) that has been in development for over 5 years by an indie developer named Hello Games, which consists of a small team of 15 highly talented and creative people and headed up by boss and frontman Sean Murray (who's quite the humble and disarming dude). With multiple delays, the weight of ever-increasing expectations from the mainstream press and gaming community and a massive hype train barreling forward such as which the world has rarely seen in the videogame industry -- it was a project almost beginning to look like another depressing example of vaporware doomed to crumble under its own weight, bearing down on the small team. It was a herculean effort, but by golly, they did it.

Mostly.

First, a few things. I haven't come close to 'beating the game' (whatever that means, anyways), but I've played a lot since it was released and have a pretty good handle on how everything is and where it's going. There doesn't seem to be much of a 'story', so much as tons of 'lore'. Personally, I like this and think it fits more with this style of game, but some people may not. The lore is solid enough, too -- it's not overly cheesy, unoriginal and flat like you'd find in your typical sci-fi videogame, and seems to be more along the lines of the kind of philosophical, abstract foundation you'd find in a decent sci-fi book. The heaviest inspirations fall clear from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the general '50s to '80s space sci-fi era. On the lighter side, you'll find inspirations from franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars. As a genre, it's harder to nail down (like an increasing number of games these days) -- NMS is a lore-filled open world 'sandbox' focusing on survival, exploration, discovery, and trade, with a sprinkling of light combat -- lighter on the FPS side, slightly heavier on the space-sim dog-fighting side.

If you're interested in seeing more screens from No Man's Sky, you can see my full gallery here. Now, onto the review in an easily digestible, nutritious format. It's just Like soylent green!

The Good

• The game really does an amazing job of conveying an absolutely massive, unheard of scale to everything. There are 18 quintillion procedurally generated planets. That's an 18, with 18 zeros after it. Let that sink in for a moment.
• Many have described the game as having an immense feeling of 'loneliness'. I know where they're coming from, and to an extent, I agree -- but I don't find the word to be entirely accurate. A more appropriate word is 'virginness'. In most cases you'll be both the first and last person to visit and explore an entire planet with its own climate conditions, flora, and fauna. It's a feeling you have to experience to really appreciate.
• And of course, you can name any of the flora, fauna, planets, moons, and star systems you discover. They get uploaded to the game's server and any player who comes across it will see anything you've named and discovered, with your account name next to it.
• The 3D graphics and visual effects are, in a word, sublime. This is by far my favorite game to screenshot.
• The ambient music, which is also procedurally generated (to an extent) according to the scenery and situation, sounds really great. It fits very well, and has a solid space sci-fi, Mass Effect-ey kind of sound to it. 
• The procedurally generated worlds and creatures are varied enough, although it can be quite clear they are all 'coming from the same place' -- that being a computer algorithm that deforms, recolors, and retextures (within certain parameters) a bunch of hand-made presets. This all still looks great and there's no way I can hold this against them considering current technological limitations and the size of the design team at Hello Games.
• The procedurally generated animations for the procedurally generated creatures interacting with the procedurally generated landscape looks mostly natural, with only some minor clipping issues every once in a while.
• The variability of challenge is solid enough. Some planets will be very relaxing, with bountiful resources and a pleasant environment. They'll feel 'safe'. Others can be an legitimate challenge, with extreme, harsh climates and effects, hostile life, aggressive sentient machines, and far less resources needed to survive. These planets will severely punish you for mistakes and overconfidence, making you stress out on if you'll make it back to your ship before you succumb to it all. One minute could have you and your inventory filled to the brim with needed resources and protection -- the next will have you genuinely worried if the planet is going to eat you alive.
• The transitions from planet to space, moon, other planets, and back again is seamless and looks, sounds, and feels great.
• The open nature of the game allows for solid, personal, emergent storytelling of exploration and survival.
• The potential for patched-in, free, and paid DLC for this game is absolutely immense. Soon we're going to have volumetric clouds, and already Sean Murray is talking about base-building and your own personal freighters.  I also foresee a future with a much-needed 'snapshot mode' a la The Last of Us and Doom.
• The No Man's Sky subreddit is really something. It's a giant magical factory of hilarious memes, great stories from players' experiences in the game, beautiful screenshots, and a helpful community for players with hints and tips.

As a side note, you can tell that even with all of 'The Good' parts to its whole, that it is even still somehow more than the sum of its parts. Sean Murray and his team at Hello Games clearly really put their heart and soul into this, and at the very least, for that alone, my hat is off to them.

The Bad

• Some bugs on the PS4. I've had the game crash about 30% of the time while trying to warp to another system. This is far too high, and kind of an annoying problem. A couple times I've also had serious clipping issues such as 'falling through the world' and getting stuck, having to reload a save, as well as pulse-jumping into an Atlas Station, requiring another reload. 
• 'Finding nearby discovered systems' in the galaxy map doesn't seem to work with finding my old systems, nor can I remove waypoints that I've set to other systems.
• Some silly, unintuitive design decisions on the GUI and controls that really should have been fixed or implemented. You can't change control schemes or bindings. While the galaxy view looks great -- it's very clunky and doesn't work quite as it should at times. I can't find some old discovered systems or planetary locations to go back to and can't set any of them as a waypoint from the discoveries menu. You can't change temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit. All seemingly very simple stuff that should not be an issue.
• The developers apparently thought you were too stupid to learn how to actually fly your ship on a planet, so they took away any option for advanced flight controls altogether, limiting you to extremely basic flying and an inability to hover in place. Maybe it's a kind of game design limitation, but it's still a let-down.
• These guys really need an editor. Far too many typos and grammatical mistakes which can be immersion breaking even at the worst possible times such as when 'the lore' advances.
• You can't fly near the sun, no matter how long you try. Trust me, I've tried, as have others. It's a fucking skybox.
• The No Man's Sky subreddit is really something, along with Sean Murray's non-answer answers.

The Ugly

• The PC version, by user reviews and community comments, seems to be absolutely unplayable for far too many people at release. Technically irrelevant with regards to the PS4 version, but it should still be noted. Your mileage may vary.
• Boss and frontman Sean Murray explicitly stated numerous times that you would be able to meet other players, however extremely unlikely that would be. On the first day, two players did what was necessary to meet eachother, but it was not possible. It does not seem to be the case that you can actually meet, and he has utterly avoided answering questions on this head-on. Make of this what thou wilt. There are also a few other controversial issues, one example being with him claiming that technically you'd be able to fly directly from system to system, though you'd never want to, and it would take forever, when in fact the Hyperdrive warp is a loading screen, and you can't even fly near your own sun (again, it's a fucking skybox).
• The No Man's Sky subreddit is really something. The vitriol and hate slung personally at the NMS fan community, Hello Games and, in particular, Sean Murray, can be really, really disheartening. There are some very, very bitter and nasty trolls out there.

"DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER?!!?!"

So considering all of this, should you buy No Man's Sky? Well, that depends. 

If you are primarily a CoD fan (even the so-called 'sci-fi' Advanced and Infinite Warfare versions) and those are the only kinds of games you like, where you want to kill shit and blow it up with non-stop action and excitement, then no -- do us all a favor, stay the fuck away from NMS. You will most certainly find the game 'boring', and to top it off we're going to have to hear about much you think the game 'sucks', even though it wasn't designed for that kind of experience. If you go through No Man's Sky, rushing to the end, not caring about and ignoring the lore, not caring about 'stopping to smell the roses' often, and trying to 'beat the game' as quickly as you can -- you're probably going to have a bad experience. And while I have yet to beat the game, myself, it looks to be building towards a deeper message relating to this.

However, if you're a huge sci-fi fan and are okay with or prefer a more 'deliberate' and generally 'chill' experience and have retained a sense of imagination and wonder, then buy this shit, right the fuck now. Yes, in spite of its (glaring) flaws, 'The Good' most certainly, hands-down overweighs 'The Bad' and 'The Ugly'. Plus, we know that most, if not all, of the issues brought up will be fixed, and the game will be greatly expanded over the years. Hell, this is too much of a cash cow for Sean Murray and Hello Games to pass up patching, hooking people in with free DLC, and releasing paid DLC, to not do this.

If you're in between those two, then your mileage may vary. Even then, I would still say it's worth at least a sale price of at least 20% off for its originality alone, as long as you've still got a sense of wonder and imagination going on.

In short, the experience of playing No Man's Sky is a slow burn, akin to a controlled, delayed orgasm through tantric sex, while playing a game like Call of Duty is more along the lines of having a quickie. Some people experience premature ejaculation and can only have quickies, and hey, that's fine and all -- while others, well... they have room in their repertoire for and know that there's a time and place both.

The Final Verdict

Initially, my gushing for this game was getting the best of me and made me want to give it a whopping 9.0 out of 10. After discussing it all a bit more on reddit, a rereading of my own review, and some reflection, I've recalibrated myself and adjusted my score accordingly. A score of 9.0 out of 10 is what it could have and should have been according to what was promised -- but primarily due to some missed expectations, a lack of a couple promised features (that IMO don't really detract from the intended experience), bugs, and some other silly elements I noted, I have adjusted the score down one point.

8.0/10, would still tantric sex the galaxy again.

A Tale of Unfathomable Triggering, Endless Tears, and the Self-induced Neutering of the Progressive Vanguard

I definitely don't support Trump. With that being said -- I most certainly prefer him over Clinton.

Why? Well, for the most part, I actually find both of their politics to ultimately be mere inches apart -- a trend of recent presidencies that show Republican and Democrat nominees for federal office (less so at the state level) have been moving closer to 'the center' from either side, with constituencies and the hoi polloi moving increasingly to the margins of progressivism and libertarianism. I actually think this recent phenomenon is due to the distillation of ideas due to the (sometimes crude, but still effective) purification process from the internet -- but that's a discussion for another time.

However, we do have some important differences between these two that are factors in my preference... 

The SCOTUS, Obviously

A big one and definitely a contender for the most important issue, is that of the next Supreme Court Justice to be appointed for life due to the recent passing of Antonin Scalia. There are a few other SCJ's getting a bit longer in the tooth, and with likely two full terms for the next president (which has been another trend for decades, now), we're looking at more than enough time for another SCJ or two to leave empty seats. SCJ's have not, in the history of the United States, broken more than 90 years of age, leaving fairly high chances for some more to be replaced within the span of the next eight years. 

Plumb-line, true-scotsmen, small-l libertarian SCJs are of course most preferable, but the least likely.  That leaves us with 'liberals' (which at this level and in this day and age seem to be more Progressive leaning as opposed to 'liberal', anyways) and Conservatives -- which really just means that leaves us with conservatives, since 'liberals' and especially Progressives are much more likely to centralize increased power to the federal government.

So imagine a Clinton Presidency, likely for the next two terms, and potentially two or three of her picks (likely during an inevitable flip of control of the legislative branch to the Democrats) bringing about an easy Progressive majority in the SCOTUS. Consider for a moment that this will thrust the SCOTUS to consistent Progressive interpretations of the Constitution and other laws for the next 30-or-so years and the long-lasting effects that will have on legislation in the past, present, and future and the entire structure of the US Government. Really, just let that sink in for a moment.

Right, I thought so. It is what it is.

Critical Mass

The other big difference is one of paramount importance and is, for me at least, a great silver lining in a Trump Presidency, unique to Trump vs the other possibilities throughout the primary season. Progressive heads will explode the world over when he wins. Actually, they've already lost. It's done. It's been done for weeks, if not months, now, and the writing is on the wall. Their ideology is completely unworkable, unrealizable, and incoherent. They're so out-of-touch with the American people that they're still nowhere near realizing it. A Trump presidency will not be a surprise to anyone but them. Their sad, washed-up vanguard is pushing a failed, desperate narrative -- and they keep pushing it and failing, regardless, even with the media above-and-beyond mostly on their side. The incessant hammering of politically correct social pressures has created some thick hides and rendered many immune to it. So many people are over the politically correct, third-wave feminist, SJW, whiny, entitled bullshit and they're not afraid, anymore -- they can't be shamed, and the shaming has completely switched directions. Progressives and their vanguard have overplayed their hand for far too long, and the final rejection of this bastardization of liberalism has finally reached critical mass with the campaign of Donald Trump.

Desperation

Again -- Progressives are a bit slow on the uptake for a lot of this. Naturally, they'll be the last to know, and all this flailing about we've seen from recently is to be expected. The unbelievable arrogance of trying to spin the recent DNC email leak and make themselves (and supposedly, the American people, by extension) out to be the victims of Russian agents and hackers to control the election in favor of a Manchurian candidate? Well, okay, then. Don't at all pay attention to the fact that they were the ones blatantly exposed for lies, corruption, and hypocrisy to their own donors, activists, and constituents -- whether it was even done by the Russians or the Chinese or a DNC leaker or martians is completely besides the point .

They're really starting to reach at straws, though. The sad new spin attempt today was actually quite an impressive coordination of "Quick, run to the phones!"-style, shameless, false propaganda. Following Donald Trump's recent Press Conference on Hillary Clinton, the shilling for ole Hillary reached great heights. Within the span of minutes, I suddenly saw dozens of extremely click-baity articles (a short list of examples here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) of center to left news pages (and even many supposedly non-political technology pages!) jump on claims that he essentially engaged in treason by explicitly and publicly asking the Russian Government and Putin to hack the US to get emails on Hillary. Of course, this was taken completely out of context, words were twisted to mean something completely different, and they tried (and failed) to blow it up into a much bigger deal than it was. All he said was that if the Russians do in fact have Hillary Clinton's missing 33,000 e-mails (and he didn't know if they did, and doubted they did), then he hopes they give them to the press. He never said he wants them to hack the US or a major party. He actually stated on Twitter (hours before the statements in the conference in question) that whoever has the e-mails, if they do, that they "should share them with the FBI." It's all right in the video, embedded below.

The fact that they're now using such weak and pathetic claims to try to control the narrative so cheaply, despite how easily debunked it all is -- shows how weak and tenuous they know their position has become. They're flailing and lashing about, like a small child who hopelessly knows he is not about to get his way.

And really, you gotta hand it to the guy... The sheer cojones to take unfiltered questions from a very hostile press, who are all or mostly very clearly trying to prop up Hillary -- and happily stump them... Just totally epic. 

He truly is 'a nimble navigator' (hat-tip, the_Donald Subreddit). I suggest watching the whole thing -- he's very good at dealing with the press on his own, he doesn't hold back much, and it's really quite entertaining, to boot.

When reality finally hits them -- it will all be absolutely delectable. And it couldn't come soon enough.

It's Time to put the Blame for 'The Great Recession' Firmly Where it Belongs.

This is a great interview with Michael Burry, the actual market genius (played by actor Christian Bale) from the movie 'The Big Short' -- and yes, this guy is on-point. People need to stop trying to lay the blame at the feet 'unfettered free markets' while trying to absolve all of the actors in the shit-show that was the Great Recession. There's plenty of blame to go around -- but especially so for the US Government, the Federal Reserve, and GSE's like FME and FRC.

On to some snippets from the interview...

NYMAG: When I spoke to some of the other real-life characters from The Big Short, I was surprised to hear that they thought that financial reform was pretty effective and that the system was much safer. Michael Lewis disagreed. In your opinion, did the crash result in any positive changes?

Michael Burry: Unfortunately, not many that I can see. The biggest hope I had was that we would enter a new era of personal responsibility. Instead, we doubled down on blaming others, and this is long-term tragic. Too, the crisis, incredibly, made the biggest banks bigger. And it made the Federal Reserve, an unelected body, even more powerful and therefore more relevant. The major reform legislation, Dodd-Frank, was named after two guys bought and sold by special interests, and one of them should be shouldering a good amount of blame for the crisis. Banks were forced, by the government, to save some of the worst lenders in the housing bubble, then the government turned around and pilloried the banks for the crimes of the companies they were forced to acquire. The zero interest-rate policy broke the social contract for generations of hardworking Americans who saved for retirement, only to find their savings are not nearly enough. And the interest the Federal Reserve pays on the excess reserves of lending institutions broke the money multiplier and handcuffed lending to small and midsized enterprises, where the majority of job creation and upward mobility in wages occurs. Government policies and regulations in the postcrisis era have aided the hollowing-out of middle America far more than anything the private sector has done. These changes even expanded the wealth gap by making asset owners richer at the expense of renters. Maybe there are some positive changes in there, but it seems I fail to see beyond the absurdity.

NYM: How do you think all of this affected people's perception of the System, in general?

MB: The postcrisis perception, at least in the media, appears to be one of Americans being held down by Wall Street, by big companies in the private sector, and by the wealthy. Capitalism is on trial. I see it a little differently. If a lender offers me free money, I do not have to take it. And if I take it, I better understand all the terms, because there is no such thing as free money. That is just basic personal responsibility and common sense. The enablers for this crisis were varied, and it starts not with the bank but with decisions by individuals to borrow to finance a better life, and that is one very loaded decision. This crisis was such a bona fide 100-year flood that the entire world is still trying to dig out of the mud seven years later. Yet so few took responsibility for having any part in it, and the reason is simple: All these people found others to blame, and to that extent, an unhelpful narrative was created. Whether it’s the one percent or hedge funds or Wall Street, I do not think society is well served by failing to encourage every last American to look within. This crisis truly took a village, and most of the villagers themselves are not without some personal responsibility for the circumstances in which they found themselves. We should be teaching our kids to be better citizens through personal responsibility, not by the example of blame.

NYM: Where do we stand now, economically?

MB: Well, we are right back at it: trying to stimulate growth through easy money. It hasn’t worked, but it’s the only tool the Fed’s got. Meanwhile, the Fed’s policies widen the wealth gap, which feeds political extremism, forcing gridlock in Washington. It seems the world is headed toward negative real interest rates on a global scale. This is toxic. Interest rates are used to price risk, and so in the current environment, the risk-pricing mechanism is broken. That is not healthy for an economy. We are building up terrific stresses in the system, and any fault lines there will certainly harm the outlook.

NYM: What makes you most nervous about the future?

MB: Debt. The idea that growth will remedy our debts is so addictive for politicians, but the citizens end up paying the price. The public sector has really stepped up as a consumer of debt. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is leveraged 77:1. Like I said, the absurdity, it just befuddles me.

The absurdity is befuddling, indeed.

Also, let's get the details straight. The crisis pervaded almost 1,000 out of the United States' 6,900 banks, particularly the largest ones that got involved in the sub-prime market, mortgage-backed securities, and credit-default swaps. Not all US banks got mixed up in all of these toxic assets. Most banks stayed pretty conservative and smart with their lending and risk management and didn't need a bailout. I actually worked for one of these east-coast banks for three years immediately following the recession -- and they very much took advantage of the situation. Most of them weathered the financial crisis very well, considering.

Additionally, I continue to hear and read this utter nonsense that 'economic deregulation caused the crisis'. It's just complete and total silliness. This alleged 'economic deregulation' that all of these ignorant Pro-regressives like to refer to involved a 1999 repeal of two provisions (not the whole act, which is usually the first sign that the person you're talking to is regurgitating half-truths) of what was called the Glass-Steagall Act (also known as the 'U.S. Banking Act of 1933'). These two provisions separated commercial banking and investment banking activities so as to try to keep these industries isolated from eachother within the same company. However, the repeal of these provisions of this act had nothing to do with what caused the crisis. If it did, then Canada, which was definitely affected by the crisis, would have experienced many of the same problems. Well, it didn't, even though Canada didn't have anything like Glass-Steagall. Canada weathered the crisis pretty well, actually -- they certainly fared a lot better than the US, all while mixing commercial and investment banking since, well, forever in their banking history.

But, hey, don't just take my word for it -- take it from Former Deputy Governor Jean Boivin (2010-2012), himself, of the (Central) Bank of Canada. They had a sharp, deep recession, and immediately bounced right back -- faster, even, than the past couple recessions.

Hell, the entire claim of 'economic deregulation under Bush' is just absurd, even apart from all of this. Looking at the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), there has not been a single president, since at least Jimmy Carter (elected in 1976), and I'm pretty sure since even before FDR (obviously), who actually cut regulations on net. As a matter of fact, individual regulatory restrictions increased anywhere from a 57,000 minimum under Bill Clinton, to up to 105,000 under Barack Obama -- and Barry's numbers are based on stats only two years into his second term. At that rate, he'll hit 140,000 additional regulatory restrictions over the course of his presidency. The last I checked, the CFR currently stood at an approximated whopping 160,000 pages long. The whole idea or claim from pro-regressives, et al, that we have some vestige of a 'free market' -- is nothing short of complete and total  willful delusion.

Back to the factors that played into the Great Recession. Yes, there's plenty of blame to go around -- but where does it start, really? Certain actors set the stage for this all to take place. It was all done with good intentions, of course. Home ownership for all -- regardless of income, savings, or credit-worthiness! Near-zero interest rates, always! Infinite economic growth and increasing home prices, forever and ever! Equities, through the roof, with no end in sight! Central planning and micro-managing has defeated the free market! Consume everything! Produce nothing! Finance debt with more debt! Dig holes and fill them back up again! Move water with a bucket from one end of the pool, with water splashing out everywhere, and dump it into the other end of the pool, to end up with more water! See? All of our contrived and/or broken measuring instruments say-so!

But you know what they say... the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And it's never paved as well as it is with the arrogance of government bureaucrats.

The US Government expanded the Community Reinvestment Act under Clinton, pushing more people towards home-ownership that often weren't ready for it. They pressed the issue further by mounting increasing regulations over the financial and banking industry, punishing banks if they didn't lend to riskier individuals and families, and rewarding them if they did. You've got all of the other major financial regulations -- one for every letter of the alphabet, and then some. Throw into this mix a Federal Reserve that sets absurdly artificially low interest rates for extended periods of time, within a highly materialistic culture that loves to live beyond its means and is all too eager to accept easy credit -- and you naturally have a bubbling cauldron ready to explode.

I am and have long been with people like Michael Burry on where we were and we're headed. The path we're marching towards is a minefield that could set off a global financial crisis the likes of which we've never seen, and we're trying to fix the same old problems with the same old tools that caused those problems in the first place. Now, the Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place -- the US economy is addicted to low interest rates, like a heroin addict. If it doesn't get its fix, it goes into a ruthless withdrawal. Eventually, the same old dose doesn't work its magic and bring the same euphoric high, anymore, and so now there's talk of entertaining the possibility of negative interest rate territory to get the same effect. Near-zero rates aren't having the effect they used to, anymore. Even increasing the Federal Funds Rate a measly quarter of a point sent the markets reeling. Yes, a major factor in the equities drop was an 'oversupply' of oil, but the rate hike couldn't have come at a seemingly worse time.

In the end, the US Government and Federal reserve is just kicking a snowball further down the road that continues to get bigger and bigger. Eventually, that snowball will roll up on a hill, and roll right back down on each and every one of us in an avalanche.

Source on the regulatory restriction numbers, here.