Seahorses, I Love 'Em (& other Links of Interest)

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The Inferno is fascinating because of the order in which the sins are put.

Yes, it's intriguingly weird that in Dante's schema, frauds turn up on a lower level of Hell than genocides.

A little guide to the surreal doings of Commodus-esque dictator Turkmenbashi. "Hey, going to the Turkmenbashi reading down on the corner of Turkmenbashi Street and Turkmenbashi Boulevard? It's happening on the 27th of Turkmenbashi." (EDIT: Bonus link to the Ruhnama, Turkmenbashi's personal scripture for the Turkmen nation, now a prerequisite for graduating from school or indeed entering Heaven. Some strange stuff.)

[zmeiat_joro]

Yes, it's intriguingly weird that in Dante's schema, frauds turn up on a lower level of Hell than genocides.

Concealing a genocide happened would be worse, once it does happen?

[Delthayre]

Courtesy of a tall, pasty stranger in a bowler hat Stupid Comics. Including Ronald MacDonald at War, Flintstones comics that are hilarious because they aren't funny, and not Archie.

And because I feel like it: consider Tom Waits' "Downtown Train" versus Rod Stewart's "Dowtown Train".

[frumpwallow]

Pentagon confirms it sought to build a 'gay bomb'

i hurt right now from laughing so much.

[bi]

Looks like someone took a leaf from the book of Elron...

[Risla]

Pentagon confirms it sought to build a 'gay bomb'

i hurt right now from laughing so much.

Oh my god. xDDDDD

What the hell?

[Klaivas]

Because homosexuals are sooo much more sexually driven than heteros.

[simon.clarkstone]

Looks like someone took a leaf from the book of Elron...

What are they selling? It isn't clear.

Because homosexuals are sooo much more sexually driven than heteros.

I think the idea is that: gay soldiers will be (potentially) sexually attracted to the other soldiers around them, some of the formerly-straight ones will be very embarassed about it, and in some of the enemies' cultures homosexuality is highly stigmatised.

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The NeoTech thing is satire, I think. I'm very fond of this part: "Remember in the Miss Annabelle Story when Jake and Jasmine attended a Church of God-Man? Remember how they felt?" Boy do I ever!

That "Gay Bomb" story is hysterical. That could be a plot right out of an old Get Smart! show. (Or a gay porn flick, I guess, depending on how you treat it.)

In other news: Christopher Hitchens may be a prat (okay, strike "may be") but it turns out perhaps he was kind of right about Mother Theresa being a crazy person.

[bi]

ils, simon.clarkstone:

They're selling literature which claim to hold the secrets to endless power, money, and sex. Somehow they also managed to sneak in a quasi-libertarian "political movement" into this whole mix. And no, it's not satire... that's the sad part.

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And no, it's not satire... that's the sad part.

Oh. Holy shit. That's actually quite frightening, then.

All the Great Operas in Under Ten Minutes, for those who don't want to sit through all that pesky singing.

The scary thing about this ad parody is that there are real radio stations that aren't far off.

Gary England saves lives. A hilariously over-the-top promo for a local weatherman.

Jon Pertwee, master of the martial arts. I've always been a Tom Baker partisan, myself, but now I think I'll check out some of that earlier Dr. Who.

Women in western art, an interesting (and very carefully-selected) stroll through portraiture from Byzantines to moderns.

[Io]

This gay bomb story only shows how competent and knowledgeable they are.

[dunomapuka]

The scary thing about this ad parody is that there are real radio stations that aren't far off.

AHAHHAHAHA. I love Collegehumor. Didn't hit me what was going on until about halfway through. And that made it fantastic.

See also: Where the Fuck is Carmen Sandiego?

[Shinali Sishi]

The Inferno is fascinating because of the order in which the sins are put.

Yes, it's intriguingly weird that in Dante's schema, frauds turn up on a lower level of Hell than genocides.

My guess is that fraud can ruin the lives of people, and it is often against people who trust you, like friends and family. Genocide generally only kills people once.
Killing a lot of people you don't trust and who probably don't trust you because you don't like them...evil.
Ruining the lives of friends, family, and peers or underlings who trust you just to make a buck...that's plain nasty.

[Raphael]

The scary thing about this ad parody is that there are real radio stations that aren't far off.

AHAHHAHAHA. I love Collegehumor. Didn't hit me what was going on until about halfway through. And that made it fantastic.

Same here- for me, the first hint was when they mentioned that they don't play Lenny Kravitz. Until then, it sounded like an ordinary rock/pop specialized station.

My guess is that fraud can ruin the lives of people, and it is often against people who trust you, like friends and family. Genocide generally only kills people once.

Genocides often produce not only dead people, but survivors who are scarred for life, too.

[brandrinn]

Remember people weren't very cosmopolitan back then. killing people outside of your in-group isn't as bad as harming those close to you.

murdering an Italian: bad
murdering a Turk: not so bad
murdering an Arawak Indian: not technically murder, since not human*

death isn't that serious anyway, just he hastening of your arrival in heaven or hell. and genocide usually means mass killings of "distasteful" people, i.e. certainly not people in your in-group (example: Darfur involves no serious murder, since blacks are not very human*). lying, as Shinali Sishi pointed out, usually occurs with people you know and who trust you.

*Since sarcasm doesn't travel well on the internet, let me re-iterate that I am taking on the persona of a high-medieval European here.

[Salmoneus]

I think it's a mistake to view medieval morality as being utilitarian. The reason is simply that lying is worse than murder, and genocide is obviously not as bad as fraud. For a later demonstration, view Kant's insistence that if a blood-soaked serial murderer carrying an axe asked you if your best friend was hiding in your bedroom, so that he could decapitate him as he had done everyone else whose name began with the same letter (and showed you the severed heads to demonstrate), it was your absolute duty to tell the truth - it may mean the horrific death of your best friend, but the alternative would be lying, so....

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The text of the Inferno hints, if I'm remembering it correctly, that for Dante the distinction is along the lines of spiritual vs. secular crime, with some forms of lies about religion falling under the "fraud" category. (For this reason Judas gets the dubious honour of Hell's second-worst sinner behind Satan, his secular crime being minor but his spiritual crime cosmic.) I can't check it at the moment but I think that's at least roughly something like it.

[Pie Man]

Super Mario Bros: Frustration (Part 1)
Super Mario Bros: Frustration (Part 2)
Super Mario Bros: Frustration (Part 3)

[bi]

The document which used to be called the "MIT Guide to Lock Picking".

Edit: And, Satan holds a conversation with iGod.

Edit #2: Sex and the Matrix.

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The World's Worst Poet?

Robot Chicken's collected odes to Star Wars.

[NakedCelt]

Why I don't care for militant, pedantic atheists: Richard Dawkins illustrates.

I agree, and Kay was completely harmless too. Despite being a catholic, he never insisted that anyone else share his beliefs (unlike some catholics I know). All he said was that he believed in [a] god. For all we know, it might not even be the Christian god. What's more, Dawkins made those accusations only after reading a normal run-of-the-mill biography on a normal, run-of-the-mill, and HARMLESS comedian.

Funny that, though this thread began by ragging Dawkins, and though it's the only topic that seems to have been found worth returning to after a lapse of time, nobody either time managed (bothered?) to unearth this:

I am distressed to find myself reported as participating in a "literary spat", and as "pouring scorn" on an individual, comedian Peter Kay, for whom I actually feel nothing but goodwill (Heard the one about the atheist who scorned a comedian for his belief in a comforting God? March 8 ). The explanation is as follows. I am one of those whom reporters regularly telephone for a soundbite. Last week, I was fed a quotation from somebody, previously unknown to me, who said he believed in God because he found it comforting. Assuming I was one of a panel of usual suspects being asked to comment on this rather common sentiment, I gave my usual response.

Now it seems that I was being set up by a hired publicity machine, so that I would appear to be mounting a personal attack upon a particular individual who is my rival for a literary prize. And I also learn that the quotation they selected is an unrepresentative one from a book I haven't read (I look forward to doing so), which is competing with my own for the same prize. I hope you will allow me publicly to apologise to Peter Kay and wish him well in the competition.

I'd love to hear the results if someone asked him "what's your sign?" at a nightclub.

Possibly something like this:

Astrology, by comparison [with the real science of the stars that he has just been waxing poetical about for a page or so], is an aesthetic affront. Its pre-Copernican dabblings demean and cheapen astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles. It is also an insult to the science of psychology and the richness of human personality. I am talking about the facile and potentially damaging way in which astrologers divide humans into 12 categories. Scorpios are cheerful, outgoing types while Leos, with their methodical personalities, go well with Libras (or whatever it is). My wife Lalla Ward recalls an occasion when an American starlet approached the director of the film they were both working on with a "Gee, Mr Preminger, what sign are you?" and received the immortal rebuff, in a thick Austrian accent, "I am a Do Not Disturrrb sign."

[Salmoneus]

The World's Worst Poet?

Robot Chicken's collected odes to Star Wars.

Gah!? How can anyone write an article on McGonagall (who we studied several times in school, for GSCE and A-level), WITHOUT mentioning his Magnum Opus, the Tay Bridge Disaster? It's a true triumph of gradually mounting ineptitude:


Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

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Thanks for that, NakedCelt. Good to know Dawkins wasn't doing what he appeared initially to be doing... and I guess, lesson learned for him about letting fly with that kind of rhetoric as a matter of routine. Also, that "do not disturb sign" line is brilliant. (EDIT: Though, that said, Dawkins' take on astrology is just as humourless as I'd expected it would be.)

And thanks to Sal for the Tay Bridge Disaster poem, which is... really something. I had never imagined such poetry was possible.

Today's Black Comedy from Iraq moment: the US government has decided to start arming Sunni militias who, like, totally promise to only fight al Qaeda. I think they have to pinky-swear and everything. Upside? American troops will soon be able to take comfort in knowing that they're only being shot at by the highest-quality American munitions their government could hand out.

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Gary Farber tackles the wacky news beat. Top story? A Russian ninja terrorizes farms in northern Italy.