But apparently it’s not:
Sinead O’Connor changes her name after converting to Islam
When I was in high school & college, she was an amazing talent. Since then, she’s been largely know for being bugnuts. So, y’know, a day ending in “y.”
Oct 252018
Oct 162018
This whole streaming service looks like Pearl Street and Netflix had a baby.
Yeesh. I remember a time, not so many decades ago, when many people actually thought that the “Information Age” would lead to people finally shucking nonsense. Feh. Newage is here to friggen’ stay.
Oct 112018
As an almost immediate followup to the immediately preceding post, I offer this:
Why a Latina-Led ‘Charmed’ Reboot Makes Perfect Sense
Yet another reboot, this time of a TV series I never watched in the first place. So on the one hand I’m torn between absolute apathy born of not caring in the slightest about the original show and a general disdain for reboots. But the author of the piece thinks the reboot is an absolutely fantastic idea for two reasons:
1: “When a reboot is done right, it can provide marginalized groups — women, people of color, the LGBTQ community — an opportunity to get a foot in the door with an established fandom. When there’s a built-in fan base, it’s more likely a project will have longevity. By reusing a familiar idea that a network or production studio knows has worked before, creators allow underrepresented communities to integrate their own vision into an established universe and make their own space.”
And…
2: Hispanics (or “Latinx” as the author calls them for some reason) are all a bunch of superstitious boobs incapable of facing the real world without a satchel full of magical trinkets and practices, and boy howdy that makes them the perfect sources for stories about witches.
Point number one shows the cynical politicization that has corrupted so much of our cultural heritage… the easiest way to get your identity politics into the public view is to hijack (“culturally appropriate”) some other property. Why go to the bother of creating your own unique stories and characters, when you can hijack someone elses *and* claim that any opposition is racism or misogyny? Point number two would seem to be a little bit insulting to anyone of Latin ethnicity and who isn’t a gullible fool. It also points out the cognitive dissonance of many on the left who claim that their side is all about the science and that those on the right are all religious nutjobs. There is no important difference in rationality between faith healing based on prayer, and faith healing based on magic.
Oct 112018
We “refuse to be silent any longer”: magic as self-care after Kavanaugh
A long article talking about “witches” and other deluded goofballs whipping up talismans and rituals and other such nonsense as a way of coping with their failure to get their way in all things. When it comes to nutburgers like these, I’d rather have them believing in and practicing magic than believing in and practicing, say, chemistry.
Not only does the practice of “magic” keep them away from doing actually harmful things, it also makes them look silly to rational people. I would *vastly* prefer it if my opponents were to oppose me with the power of prayer or voodoo dolls or smoking herbs and other such rubbish than with baseball bats or sensible-yet-dishonest TV ads. Additionally, the sheer amount of time, effort and money they waste on this humbuggery keeps them poorer than they would be otherwise.
Sep 222018
You know, I’d *swear* I’ve seen something much like this before somewhere. Shrug. It’s still amusing.
Sep 162018
Spot the moment when the mood in the room suddenly changes…
If you want some entertaining alternate reality reading, TRY THIS.
Aug 192018
So what happens when a Christian couple watch a music video based on Nordic heathenism?
Aug 162018
Throughout most of human history – and during all of human pre-history – being stupid was an effective way of removing yourself from the gene pool. But over the last century or so, western civilization has been substantially covered in nerf so that stupid people stand a damn good chance of living not only long enough to reproduce, but reproduce a *lot.* However, the rst of the world is not necessarily so safe for the invincibly stupid. Gentlemen, behold:
Millennial Couple Bikes Through ISIS Territory to Prove ‘Humans Are Kind’ and Gets Killed
“Humans” are not kind. *Some* humans are kind. Some humans are monsters. Most humans are just sorta okay. Similarly, some human cultures are kind, some suck. And if you go into a culture that sucks, the monsters are much more likely to put their monsterism on display. THIS IS NOT A SECRET. This is common knowledge. To believe this…
“Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own… By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.”
… is to believe utter nonsense. “Evil” may or may not be an objectively determinable thing, but it is *certainly* something that, by the western understanding of “evil,” exists in the world. And some places are *loaded* with evil, whether or not you believe it to be. And if you choose to disbelieve in the existence of evil and human malevolence, you are courting just the sort of disaster that befell these people. It’s not so much a matter of saying that they “deserved” to be run over with a car and repeatedly stabbed… but then, someone who throws himself off a cliff in the belief that the rocks below love him and wouldn’t hurt him doesn’t “deserve” to die either.
Jul 282018
Second movement from Beethovens seventh symphony. Just the thing for the world going up in flames. If you haven’t seen “Knowing,” there’s a bit of a spoiler here.
Jul 242018
So I was passed this link. Since it’s to an RT (Russia Today) story, I naturally assume it’s not trustworthy, so I put it to the test. The story claims that if you feed a string of the word “dog” repeated 20 times into Google Translate, set it to some non-English language translating to English, it spits out End Times prophesies. Seemed dubious. But what the hell I gave it a shot.
Start with:
dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog
And you get with most languages, a string of “dog” repeated twenty times because “dog” is not a word in that language.
But there are a few anomalies:
Icelandic (and Norwegian, and Swedish): “However, however, however, however, however, though, though, however, however, though died though, however, however died died”
That’s a little odd. But then:
Hausa (a west African language): “Doomsday Clock is three minutes at twelve We are experiencing characters and a dramatic developments in the world, which indicate that we are increasingly approaching the end times and Jesus’ return”
Umm. That is *specific*enough of a turn of phrase that I assume that it is the result of someone at Google having a little fun. the RT article apparently spoke with a computer expert who thinks that the Google translation algorithm is an imperfect AI (I’m shocked at the very idea!) that “hallucinates” if you feed it gibberish.
So, experimenting further. Sticking with Hausa, I changed the number of times I use “dog:”
DogX6: dog dog dog – reader email
Dog X 16: Doomsday Clock is three minutes at twelve We are experiencing characters and a dramatic developments in the world
Dog X 24: krist dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog
I swapped out “dog” for “cat” and only got a string of “cat.” Color me stunned that cats won’t be involved in the apocalypse.
I tried dog x 20 with other languages. The great majority only spit out a number (generally less than 20) of “dog.” But that “end times” message was repeated in Igbo (another west African language) and Samoan.
And Urdu gives: Double Dude Double Drop Double Drop Double Drop Double Pain Two
I assume if you said “dog” to someone who speaks Urdo, they’d think you meant “two” or “drop” and maybe even “pain,” so I guess that one makes sense in way. But the “end times” message sure seems like it was programmed in, hallucinating AI or no.
so if you see an unkempt, unshaven wild-eyed weirdo in a bathrobe standing on a soapbox screaming about dogs, it’s up you to decide: “whackjob or prophet?”