His soul is on the roof!

George Carlin, dead at 71.

I personally considered this man a true comic genius, the first angry comic (and quite possible the last good one). He passed last night of heart failure.

I can't think of a single witty comment or complex metaphor that would befit the memory of such a jokesmith and founder of the Frisbeetarianism movement, so I will simply quote some of the comments that made me smile and the world a little brighter for me.

I think it would be interesting if old people got anti-Alzheimer's disease where they slowly began to recover other people's lost memories.

When cheese gets it's picture taken, what does it say?

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ...And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!

Journalists: Second Class Citizens.

Take a few minutes to read the running commentary in the response sections of the SkyNews website and you will get the strong impression that the word “journalist” is synonymous with the words “liar”, “scandal monger”, “opportunist” and “parasite”. It seems that in the minds of the average member of the public the humble “journo” is like a latter day Shylock, duplicitous and conspiring to create the train-wrecks they so often report - creepy, cowl-wearing monsters skulking in the shadows pulling the threads of an intricate tapestry to create controversy and sell newspapers.

And for a small part, they aren’t far wrong.

It is, however, unfair to judge all journalists in this way. There are hundreds of scribblers out there “writing the good write” who are going unrecognised or whose stories go un-read because of the maxim – and it is a very simple truth – “if it bleeds, it leads!”

Tabloids in truthiness shock!

It’s not a matter of ethics but of economics. Its no longer necessary for the likes of the Sun or the Daily Mail to ensure that what is splashed on the front page of their paper is truthful or even credible – in fact it is entirely the opposite! Nearly every single front page of the Daily Mail and other tabloids is the propagation of rumour or hypothesis disguised as fact – it only has to sound barely plausible in a distinctly cynical manner and it will sell more papers (and thus advertising) than the paper is likely to lose in a libel suit. Net gain for the paper.

Every single paper purchased which contains a story like this, reinforces this practice. Compare this to the cost of producing new stories and actual investigation. You have to pay for sources, expenses (journalists have to eat contrary to what senior editors might tell you), travel and then there is the time it takes a journalist to produce the story, then they have to get paid for it. It takes seconds to speculate and you can always come up with a “Official source who wishes to remain unnamed”.

EXTRA EXTRA – JOURNO’S CAN’T WIN!

Is there an answer to the problem?

One way would be to raise the level of cash involved in a libel case – make it too expensive to risk saying something dumb in public. Problem is that libel is a very tricky subject and defence lawyers for large chain newspapers are extremely competent. In many cases they can effectively argue the case out of court because most papers aren’t going to make the mistake of directly accusing someone of something, they always use the “He said she said” principal which effectively shifts the responsibility to their “unnamed sources”.

The other down side is that small publications that might really be on to something will start killing stories of actual merit because of the fear of legal issues – combine the two and you only make the problem worse.

What about forcing journalists to reveal their sources? All this does is put honest journalists in the clink and frightens whistle blowers into staying quiet that they might get caught and sued (most people haven’t the money to be able to protect themselves).

Government standards, ombudsmen and official intervention? Freedom of speech has enough problems thank you.

So put yourself in the shoes of one of the journalists you are maligning. They know that they have an ethical duty to report the truth and to provide for the public good by keeping them informed and up to date – trouble is that you can’t eat ethics. So for the most part journalists will very quickly find themselves becoming flexible in their standards (or getting thinner in their middles) just to keep going and eventually they will either sell out or quit.

He is Stardust

Arthur C Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, died today aged 90.

The last of science-fictions holy-trinity* is no longer with us and I can’t help but wonder what will fill the void left by their overwhelming talent, vision and insight into the human condition.

Goodbye Arthur, you ideas made manifest are the lasting memorial and testament to your singular genius.

* The other two being Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers/Stranger in a Strange Land) and Isaac Asimov (I Robot/Foundation series).

A retraction and thank you to Will Wheaton.

Dear Will,

In the past I have maligned you to friends, vilified you to acquaintances and (believing you to be a blight) wished your company upon my enemies. I have belittled your career, poked fun at your portrayals and generally not been very complimentary at all.

Today, after reading your blog post and excerpts in regard to the death of Gary Gygax, I find I must withdraw all my bitterness and biliousness. I can not continue to make you the object of my ire knowing that you to, are a geek like me.

Wesley, all is forgiven!

Kind regards,

Ronan Lowe.

Rolling in Valhalla now brother ...


Gary Gygax has died aged 69. The father of role playing games and the man to whom so many nerds, geeks, fantasy nuts and basement dwellers owe thousands of hours of believing they really are a six foot tall nubian, Lvl6 Fighter with twin +1 Longswords.

Please, take a moment and reflect on the things this man has given, he has in someway, at some point touched the lives of nearly everyone.

Personally, when I think of the worlds I created in my own mind based on the sets of rules he laid down, I can't help but feel indebted to him.

Rest in piece brother.

I'll be digging my own foxhole - get away from you people!

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/78839/#more

Well isn’t this a fine example of how the cynical “Afghan/Gulf/Some place next door by 2009” campaign is being conducted.

Perhaps it’s just me but the pseudo religious crusade being waged in the Middle East is more than a little distasteful. I say “pseudo” because I don’t personally believe that the men pulling the strings are really all that concerned with religion, at least when compared to their bank accounts and stock portfolios.

Bush has been posturing as a kind of Cowboy-come-Crusader Knight ever since a handful of dickheads were allowed to fly aircraft into a number of buildings around the North Eastern United States. Blair, tagging along as his side kick, the good friar fighting the great evil in the name of Queen and Country like a character from a Chaucer play. Both of them have adorned themselves in the affectations of religion – though, admittedly, Bush is a fundamentalist and was so even before his usurping of Casa Blanca – because it brings the confused and befuddled masses on to their side, being ostensibly “religious” gives people something in common with their leaders and does a lot to close that “us and them” gap.

This gets really nasty though when you hear stories like the above. Think about it. This means that there are actually officers in the US military who believe that this is a religious crusade and that a devout faith that their non-existent sky-fairy has a bigger dick than the other guys non-existent sky fairy will somehow turn the tide of war. This is the same mentality that military commanders had with their knights and archers in the middle ages – strangely enough “God” never backed a losing side (but rumour has it he was betting “both ways”).

With this image in your mind one wonders where the lines between Al Qaeda training camps in the hills of Pakistan and the USMC training grounds in Quantico are drawn? If both sides are being deliberately drilled to believe that they are fighting for their god and that the other side is populated by heathens – how the hell can this campaign to slaughter thousands of the worker classes to bring down the unemployment figures ... I mean war, ever end?

Anyone who has the guts to serve in the army deserves respect. It doesn’t matter if they are atheist, Christian, Jewish, Muslims, Hindu etc What matters is that they are willing to make a sacrifice for the benefit of others. When people (even other military personnel) start making religion, gender, sexual orientation or any other irrelevancy a barrier to progression or service then you can’t help but think “Fuck you! These people are willing to put their life on the line for everyone else, what gives you the right to tell them they can’t?”

Of course, this does invite the question “Who, exactly, are they protecting” ... but that’s a post for another day.

Stop!

Stop and search protocols are to be scrapped with immediate effect in Britain.

The Home Secretary claims that it is because filling out the stop and search documentation has caused a beuraucracy that is taking up six million man hours. Thats 6,000,000 for those of you who need visual aids.

Thing is, they have also claimed that it takes a debilitating 7 minutes to fill out the stop and search forms. 7 minutes!

Do the math on this one. 7 minutes per form, 60 minutes in an hour, thats 8.57 forms per hour. This works out to 51,420,000 forms being filled out. Thats a hell of a lot of searches.

Interestingly, the statistics show that if you are black you are seven times more likely to be stopped than if you are white (being Asian is only twice as likely). Essentially 70% of stops are of black people meaning that 3,5994,000 of those forms are regarding those of African decent.

Maybe if the police in the UK weren't institutionally racist they might just have a little more time on their hands.

The New Meme...

Ok, so I normally leave my blogs up a little longer than this but I have come across something that the world needs to know about.

Click here to see why you shouldnt fuck up on "teh intarwebs!"*

Nick, you are finally famous buddy.

*you might have to keep refreshing due to the forums limited bandwidth and the sheer number of people finding out just how big a deuche Nick is.