Obscurity.

Obscurity never had an easy childhood. When she was growing up she was beaten by her adjective father for long periods of time, horribly. When he finally left she was the only noun in a house full of verbs. The verbs weren't much nicer to her and essentially shunned her. When they went out and did lovely things, because they are doing words, little Obscurity was forced to stay inside because of a terrible case of asthma. School was no refuge. Every day after class a group of quotation marks would gang up and pick on her. One day when Obscurity had grown up and finally put this whole ordeal behind her she entered into a reality television show and became very famous and much in demand. Especially to describe others who had competed in reality television over the years. Now Obscurity lives with her husband Proper Name and their beautiful baby boy, Tmesis, in a wonderful Idiom by Figure of Beach. Jokes for nerds! Happy Valentine's Day.

Random politico.

Ever since the events of 9/11 the western world in general and the United States in particular have been obsessing over the dangers of terrorism. There are certainly many real threats, but the tools available for fighting terrorism are often very intrusive. At which point does personal freedom and privacy end for the benefit of the general public’s wellbeing and the protection of society? How much should we be willing to give up for safety and peace of mind? The word ‘terrorism’ of course implies that you cannot have terrorism without terror in some form or another. The terror is essentially always the threat of bodily harm or death in seemingly random acts of violence perpetrated by some aggressive and remorseless assailant. The strategy of a terrorist is to use isolated acts of violence in order to instill fear and confusion into the population. That means a very small group of people can cripple an entire society with relative ease. They are able to do so since normal people have an inability to understand risk. Allow me to demonstrate by using an example. After the large-scale terror attacks against America in 2001 airline travel essentially stopped completely for days, even weeks. After the first couple of days it was not because of any government control, people were just too afraid to fly. The industry’s stock plummeted and thousands of people lost their jobs, furthering the damage upon the fabric of society. This is despite the fact that even after these horrendous acts it is safer to fly than drive your car. It is probably even safer than before considering the increased security and fewer number of terrorists. This fear and inability to understand risk drive people to accept their leader’s infringing on their personal freedom and rights. Sometimes it even seems as if they demand that their rights be reduced in order to at least give them the semblance of safety. We are simply fooling ourselves. Society and the world we live in contains far too many dangerous situations to ever be completely secure. Even an airplane can never be secure beyond a shadow of a doubt, far too many people have access. This is necessary to ensure the operational safety of the mechanics of this incredibly complicated piece of machinery. A much more effective method than law enforcement going to extremes in their surveillance of the populace is to educate the population to think rationally about the perceived dangers from terrorism. What are the odds of being killed or even injured in a terror attack? What are the odds of an attack taking place in your neighborhood, or even your country? Curtailing the rights of huge swaths of the population is not only wrong from a moral standpoint but it is also as I have argued ineffective. The only way to disarm the terrorists is to take away their main weapon, terror itself. It is our government’s responsibility to guarantee our safety to a certain extent; I have no objection to this, obviously. However it is also their responsibility to guarantee that fear among the population does not grow completely out of proportion to the reality in which we all live. We do not need generalized statements from our leaders and reduction of our rights. What we do need is competent leadership and reassurances based on facts.

Worst ever.

Worst Super Mario Bros. fan art ever!

It's OK to laugh.

Always Funny - Midgets. Yes midgets, not dwarfs or "little people" or other synonyms that make them sound like mythological creatures, why they'd prefer those are inexplicable. What negative connotation does midget have? Everyone knows what it is and attaches no negative emotions to it. It's not "nigger" or "faggot" or even "Indian". Midgets are funny, sorry midgets, get used to it. You're adorable no matter what you do. Their arms and hilarious little legs are what my dreams are made of. They just make me smile. Like puppies. I know that they are people with feelings, but how do you expect me not to look when someone with a huge (pun absolutely intended) physical defect shows up? If someone with a taint for a forehead walked by anyone would look, hell even the kid with the one little stumpy arm would look. By the way, how does that guy wipe his bum after he's had a shit? If I were a midget I'd ride around on a tricycle and smoke cigars all day. Often Funny - Gay men who act like total fruits. I know laughing at all gay people is just wrong. Mostly because gay men in general aren't very funny. They're just like everyone else, boring. Always thinking of everyday stuff like laundry or what to make for dinner or how they'd like a snack. There are however gay men any sane person would laugh at. If someone doesn't that person probably has serious anger issues. You know the type of homosexual I'm talking about. These ultra-queer effeminate guys in tight gold hotpants, a pink tanktop, combat boots and that grating voice. The stereotype that's come to haunt the LGBT movement for decades. One thing you have to remember is that those gay men exist, by the tens of thousands all over the world. I've seen some of them and they are hilariously absurd. Note that I don't mention gay stereotypes on TV as being funny, American sitcoms are horrible.

Sometimes Funny - Kids who get themselves killed.

A child starving to death in Africa is horrible and tragic. These children were never given a chance in life and probably suffered more in their short lives than you or I in our comfy middle-class life ever will. Count your lucky stars you came from the right womb. That said, some kids deaths are incredibly funny. It's all about context. When ever I hear about some rich kid getting bored and deciding that playing nailgun roulette or anal bottle rocket surprise is a good idea I chuckle. My only regret is that these kids didn't take their parents with them so we'd be without their whining. Their parenting failed, they're failures as parents and as human beings and their comedic value is essentially zero. Even when kids get faux-depressed and decide to kill themselves I often laugh a little. What happened? Did Hot Topic run out of your size of leather pants? The least these little douchebags could do is leave a proper suicide note explaining how neither music nor video-games drove them to this. Spare me the angst ridden crap about how you loved your girlfriend/boyfriend. If anyone cared they'd have payed attention when you were alive. Stop ruining the fun for all the rest of us.

Never funny - Cool people.

Go into any indie cafe in the middle of the afternoon and you'll find more of them than you'd ever care to see in your life. Don't these people have jobs to do or at least some form of activity other than sitting around? It's a beverage for fuck sake, it's not the Messiah and this place isn't the Temple Mount. If I hear one more asshole reading a book shushing me for having a normal conversation I'll pour his coffee onto his book, throw his book onto the floor and then shit directly into his notebook. I don't even know if these people are considered cool or even if they would describe themselves as such. They're just too cool and ironic to be labeled. Irony isn't dead but half-assed sarcasm from idiots who study English Literature certainly is.

Feminism is dead, to me.

Recently the leader of the largest Swedish left wing party and former prime minister left his post and went into some form of retirement. That's not really what I'm interested in, even in the slightest. What intrigues me is the hunt for a successor to the "throne" as it were. The party, the "Social Democrats" or some similar translation, have been in power for most of the past 80-100 years. From time to time they were switched out for some center-right coalition that never really worked very well. So come the next election the Social Democrats swept back into power. This past election an unusually "strong" center-right alliance managed to squeak by and win. I'm not going to mention how much bullshit they threw around in the campaigns, the outright lies and the multiple shit storms (there's an expression I never thought I'd pluralize) they've got going right now. To be honest most politicians and parties do that sort of stuff, no matter what ideology, that's par for the course. This has been mentioned a billion times, because it's so hilarious and constructive to point out. The fact is people keep falling the same stuff every election. When they finally realize this they just bitch and moan and never try to do anything about it. Neither do they attempt to engage in a rational discussion concerning politics and ideology. No one even wants to broach this subject. Kissing your reader's, viewer's or fan's asses is much more rewarding. Where the hell do all these politicians come from? They don't reproduce asexually in some dark pit somewhere. They come from the populous. The same type of schools and institutions and homes as you do. If lying is what works, that's what they'll do. Getting back to the subject: the current front-runner for the leadership post is Mona Sahlin. A politicians with very little credibility among the constituents. Many county and municipality party members have also expressed much dismay at this possible outcome. The reasons for their distrust of her is partly based on a few minor scandals in the 90s. That sort of stuff doesn't really bother me much. The main problem I have with her is that she's swallowed the red pill of Idiot Feminism. This is the sort of feminism where no amount of scientific evidence, differences of opinion or facts can sway their narrow understanding of reality. To them society is just a huge patriarchy where men either subconsciously or overtly discriminate women. As if all men do all day is sit around in a secret club and plot evil schemes to fuck up a woman's day. It could also be various institutions and social norms that consolidate this system. I have yet to see any scientific research to prove this. You'd think some researcher could stick a couple of people into a glass maze or something. Don't misunderstand me. I support equal rights for both sexes. Equal pay, equal amounts of ice in their drinks or whatever. I am however in some ways a pragmatist. There are areas where this won't work. There will never be as many firemen who are women, they lack upper body strength. Changing "firemen" into the more politically correct "firefighter" is retarded and men will never (Joe Pesci willing) bare children. But with all these rights come the same amount of duties. When was the last time you heard a feminist demanding women be conscripted into the army? How many female welders are there, apart from those shown in awesome film classics such as Flashdance? Ever think the reason why they keep raising the question of the number of female corporate board members could be because that's their retirement plan? That's how far removed they are from the public. Like the cleaning lady is going to retire to some fucking high payed cushy board position. Actual debate over social class and the gaps between rich and poor has been completely replaced by either shallow TV-friendly ploys or extremist hyperbole. Mona Sahlin either falls into this type of feminist politics or she's just donning this costume in order to climb to power. Either way I'm not biting. When people question how fit she is for the position her supporters immediately transform the entire discussion into a gender issue. Trust me, it's not. There were at least three other female candidates that would have been more appropriate but who bowed out of the running. If the party elects Mona Sahlin, it's as if they want to loose. Competence has nothing to do with gender. They should be out looking for the the most capable candidate and if that's a woman, awesome. The previous leader also had tits. PS. I know this is sort of boring.