The Chucksphere

While this is a gross oversimplification, glosses over perfectly reasonable debate that can be had, and uses some prejudiced language, it is also a very powerful summary of the Bush years:

“Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.
There’s a word for this: it’s evil.”
–Paul Krugman

Well, having two Word Press blogs operating under the same domain is causing some weird things to happen vis-a-vis accessing the content for the older one. So, I’m copying all of the old Chuckese and making a static archive of it. It won’t be searchable, but neither is the one now. Formatting will take time, but it may be done by the time I’m out of school for the summer.

I took today to do my whenever-I-feel-like-it Neurocam search.

The Neurocam website is generally in the same format as the last time I mentioned.Still known as Neurocam X04, still has the ghost “protocol X04 initiated 10/07/08″ message in the bottom corner. The logo in the top left has changed, and has apparently gone through 6 revisions and is on its 7th version.

Most of the revisions to the X04vx.jpg file is resizing, so they were omitted.

The archives are password protected, which sucks because I wasn’t able to copy/analyze them yet. Also, they wil cease to take applications after 8pm on 22-April. I’d totally apply, but they have an overabundance of 18-22 year old men. No love for the college kids, eh?

The Yellow-1 website has changed radically. Rather thant the flash construct, there is merely an embedded background image.

When the source is viewed, this hidden message is revealed in the HTML:

<p><!--
Samuel: Did they at least follow up?
Agent9: You can say they've been dealing with some issues.
Agent9: It was a huge amount of data.
Samuel: So what does that mean anyway?
Agent9: You just want me to tell you what you're thinking.
Samuel: Well if it's true..
Agent9: It's just change, Sam, get used to it.
Agent9: Anyway, Mr. Holding expects your report no later than Tuesday.
Agent9: Maybe you'll find your place here after all.
-->

This is shaping up more and more like an Alternate Reality Game. I mean, this stuff is obviously meant to be found. “Samuel” and “Agent9″ could very well be “Dr Samuel and Agent Mandula” from the audio file on Neuroboards (see below).

Nautonier is password protected. The image is unavailable, but here’s the salvaged version of it from the Internet Archive.

Fiat Nox is the same as it has been in a long time.

But, according to the archive, it was different in 2006:

The Fiat Nox website as it appeared in 2006

The text is an email link to a chap named Iocus Severus. That particular image, which is identical to the Nautonier symbol is labeled as the FN glyph. The current symbol is called the FN Lamen. A Lamen is a mystical symbol or pendant worn to show the source of supernatural authority.

I had the misfortune of coming accross this turd of an ad against same-sex marriage by the National Organization for Marriage. They try to defend their interference with other people’s lives by claiming those other people are going to interfere with them! In what fucked up world does that make sense? It’s not like Obama’s Gay Liberal Stormtroopers aren’t going to pull straight men away from their families and make them bugger each other. It’s giving our fellow citizens equal rights, which horrifies these NOM creeps to no end.

At 0:16, a woman says she’s “a California doctor who must choose between [her] faith and [her] job.” Now, I can see that being anywhere near valid in a debate about abortion or birth control or something like that. But what does this have to do with gay marriage? Does she want the right to refuse treatment to gays? That’s what it sounds like.

New Jersey church guy at 0:22 is being “punished” by the government because they don’t want to perform gay marriages. “Punish” in N.J. Fundie speak meaning “voluntarily complying with New Jersey’s anti-discrimination statute in order to retain tax exempt status for their catering-hall.”

Massachusetts Parent is afraid of her child being exposed to *gasp* differing views!

The parade of people at the end are saying that “those advocates want to change the way I live” and “I will have no choice.” Yet they offer no evidence, and are in fact advocating that we interfere with how other people are living their lives. This is nothing but a bald-faced attempt to prey on people’s bigotry and claim that they are being oppressed because they can’t discriminate against gays anymore. These people are fear mongering, distorting the truth to make it look like some sort of shadowy cabal is out to get the God-Fearing Christian Minority (fear-mongering of this type tends to be a characteristic of the right-wing in this country; I wonder if it’s something about the fearful mindset that drives them in that direction, or if they’re all reading out of the same playbook).

(The Rainbow Coalition part in the title comes from that part at 0:47 where the guy tries to not make his group look like a buch of bigots.)

So tax day is coming up, or past, or something (I did mine months ago), so here’s a little tax-themed post for you. The Arkansas state government apparently want to show you that they feel your pain in the tax-paying process, and so added smiley and frowney faces to the Refund (ln 53) and Tax Due (ln 54) lines, respectively.

What the fuck is wrong with you, Arkansas? This isn’t the kind of thing that conveys a “Responsible Government” message. More like a “Our Comptroller brought his kid into work a few weeks ago” message.
(Link) (WARNING: PDF)

My first thoughts regarding Monday’s episode of House: what the fuck? Those bastards just killed off my favorite (pretty much be default) character among House’s medical minions. I mean, I understand they had to segue Kal Penn off the show becuse he’s going to work for the Obama Administration, and they got to use the opportunity to film a Very Special Episode, but I would have tried to give the happy(-ish) character a happy ending.

When Forman and 13 found him lying on the floor, you couldn’t see the blood, and I just assumed he was going to be the patient of the week; this struck me as king of shlocky, but I’d have far preferred them to have killed him off medically than suicide. I know this wouldn’t give House any character development, but I don’t think sacraficing the only relatable character in the core cast for some probably-transient character development (which I guess only serves the purpose of getting House and Cuddy to bone) is such a smart move; this is why I am not a script-writer.

I also found the online memorial a bit…tacky.

(Another link)

I was reading Pharyngula today when I came accross a link to these letters. The astounding amount of craziness oozing out of these missives really took me off balance. I’m 19 years old, and have essentially never lived without the internet, so I’m used to all of the crackpot wing-nuttery I’ve seen on it, and more-or-less associated the crazies with the internet. After all, the internet allows them to contact each other and feed each others’ wackiness. The 911 Truth movement and the right-wing screamers who claim that Obama is a secret Kenyan Crypto-Muslim all seemingly grew out of the internet and couldn’t survive in the world goverened by the laws of reason.

But it’s easy to forget that the internet isn’t just the collected thoughts of some Anonymous being. These are people’s thoughts, and there has always been a certain part of the human population that’s been out of touch with reality in some way or another. The JFK assassination, alien abductions, etc have had their conspiracy theorists for decades. Strange cults and even major religions all started with someone who wasn’t fully grounded in reality. And there’s always someone out to get you. These were ubiquitous in culture even before the advent of the internet, it’s just that the web has made it cheaper for those voices to speak: what was once limited to the scribblings of a schizophrenic are now available on the web as the typings of the schizophrenic.

(Further Reading)

In my lifelong quest to provide the maximum media with the minimum message, I’ve moved my blog onto the front page, which wasn’t really doing anything other than being blue. Now, it’s host to a rarely-updated blog.

I suppose this makes my far-flung website more “unified” and all, but don’t expect anything more than what you’re allready getting.

Also, it looks like shit. I heavily modified the “Sandbox” theme, and a bunch of the layout I had planned for this site rather went down the drain. Until I’m proficient enough to untagle this mess, it’ll be a mess. Why didn’t I hold off on this until I figured this shit out? Because I’m sick goddammit, and I can’t be arsed to do actual work when I’m sick, so I devoted my day to this instead.

In short: stop going to Chuckese for your semi-monthly drivel, come here.