This looks pretty cool

I love seeing animals in their natural state, not acting differently because of a human presence.

Ricky

DARPALYMPICS!

The Greatest Picture of War?

Talk about metal as fuck.

A Battery of Soviet Artillery in action during Operation Bagration, 1944

More info about the artillery piece here.

Stalaggh: Projekt Misanthropia

“We do not like being called any form of  ‘artist’. Art is creative, we are destructive.”

Learning how to die in the anthropocene

Driving into Iraq just after the 2003 invasion felt like driving into the future. We convoyed all day, all night, past Army checkpoints and burned-out tanks, till in the blue dawn Baghdad rose from the desert like a vision of hell: Flames licked the bruised sky from the tops of refinery towers, cyclopean monuments bulged and leaned against the horizon, broken overpasses swooped and fell over ruined suburbs, bombed factories, and narrow ancient streets.

Civilizations have marched blindly toward disaster because humans are wired to believe that tomorrow will be much like today.

With “shock and awe,” our military had unleashed the end of the world on a city of six million — a city about the same size as Houston or Washington. The infrastructure was totaled: water, power, traffic, markets and security fell to anarchy and local rule. The city’s secular middle class was disappearing, squeezed out between gangsters, profiteers, fundamentalists and soldiers. The government was going down, walls were going up, tribal lines were being drawn, and brutal hierarchies savagely established.

I was a private in the United States Army. This strange, precarious world was my new home. If I survived.

Two and a half years later, safe and lazy back in Fort Sill, Okla., I thought I had made it out. Then I watched on television as Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. This time it was the weather that brought shock and awe, but I saw the same chaos and urban collapse I’d seen in Baghdad, the same failure of planning and the same tide of anarchy. The 82^nd Airborne hit the ground, took over strategic points and patrolled streets now under de facto martial law. My unit was put on alert to prepare for riot control operations. The grim future I’d seen in Baghdad was coming home: not terrorism, not even W.M.D.’s, but a civilization in collapse, with a crippled infrastructure, unable to recuperate from shocks to its system.

And today, with recovery still going on more than a year after Sandy and many critics arguing that the Eastern seaboard is no more prepared for a huge weather event than we were last November, it’s clear that future’s not going away.

This March, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, the commander of the United States Pacific Command, told security and foreign policy specialists in Cambridge, Mass., that global climate change was the greatest threat the United States faced — more dangerous than terrorism, Chinese hackers and North Korean nuclear missiles. Upheaval from increased temperatures, rising seas and radical destabilization “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen…” he said, “that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

Locklear’s not alone. Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, said much the same thing in April, speaking to an audience at Columbia’s new Center on Global Energy Policy. James Clapper, director of national intelligence, told the Senate in March that “Extreme weather events (floods, droughts, heat waves) will increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism.”

On the civilian side, the World Bank’s recent report, “Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience,” offers a dire prognosis for the effects of global warming, which climatologists now predict will raise global temperatures by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit within a generation and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit within 90 years. Projections from researchers at the University of Hawaii find us dealing with “historically unprecedented” climates as soon as 2047. The climate scientist James Hansen, formerly with NASA, has argued that we face an “apocalyptic” future. This grim view is seconded by researchers worldwide, including Anders Levermann, Paul and Anne Ehrlich,Lonnie Thompson and many, many, many others.

This chorus of Jeremiahs predicts a radically transformed global climate forcing widespread upheaval — not possibly, not potentially, but inevitably. We have passed the point of no return. From the point of view of policy experts, climate scientists and national security officials, the question is no longer whether global warming exists or how we might stop it, but how we are going to deal with it.

II.

There’s a word for this new era we live in: the Anthropocene. This term, taken up by geologists, pondered by intellectuals and discussed in the pages of publications such as The Economist and the The New York Times, represents the idea that we have entered a new epoch in Earth’s geological history, one characterized by the arrival of the human species as a geological force. The biologist Eugene F. Stoermer and the Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen advanced the term in 2000, and it has steadily gained acceptance as evidence has increasingly mounted that the changes wrought by global warming will affect not just the world’s climate and biological diversity, but its very geology — and not just for a few centuries, but for millenniums. The geophysicist David Archer’s 2009 book, “The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate,” lays out a clear and concise argument for how huge concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and melting ice will radically transform the planet, beyond freak storms and warmer summers, beyond any foreseeable future.

The Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London — the scientists responsible for pinning the “golden spikes” that demarcate geological epochs such as the Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene — have adopted the Anthropocene as a term deserving further consideration, “significant on the scale of Earth history.”Working groups are discussing what level of geological time-scale it might be (an “epoch” like the Holocene, or merely an “age” like the Calabrian), and at what date we might say it began. The beginning of the Great Acceleration, in the middle of the 20th century? The beginning of the Industrial Revolution, around 1800? The advent of agriculture?

Every day I went out on mission in Iraq, I looked down the barrel of the future and saw a dark, empty hole.

The challenge the Anthropocene poses is a challenge not just to national security, to food and energy markets, or to our “way of life” — though these challenges are all real, profound, and inescapable. The greatest challenge the Anthropocene poses may be to our sense of what it means to be human. Within 100 years — within three to five generations — we will face average temperatures 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today, rising seas at least three to 10 feet higher, and worldwide shifts in crop belts, growing seasons and population centers. Within a thousand years, unless we stop emitting greenhouse gases wholesale right now, humans will be living in a climate the Earth hasn’t seen since the Pliocene, three million years ago, when oceans were 75 feethigher than they are today. We face the imminent collapse of the agricultural, shipping and energy networks upon which the global economy depends, a large-scale die-off in the biosphere that’s already well on its way, and our own possible extinction. If homo sapiens (or some genetically modified variant) survives the next millenniums, it will be survival in a world unrecognizably different from the one we have inhabited.

Jeffery DelViscio

Geological time scales, civilizational collapse and species extinction give rise to profound problems that humanities scholars and academic philosophers, with their taste for fine-grained analysis, esoteric debates and archival marginalia, might seem remarkably ill suited to address. After all, how will thinking about Kant help us trap carbon dioxide? Can arguments between object-oriented ontology and historical materialism protect honeybees from colony collapse disorder? Are ancient Greek philosophers, medieval theologians, and contemporary metaphysicians going to keep Bangladesh from being inundated by rising oceans?

Of course not. But the biggest problems the Anthropocene poses are precisely those that have always been at the root of humanistic and philosophical questioning: “What does it mean to be human?” and “What does it mean to live?” In the epoch of the Anthropocene, the question of individual mortality — “What does my life mean in the face of death?” — is universalized and framed in scales that boggle the imagination. What does human existence mean against 100,000 years of climate change? What does one life mean in the face of species death or the collapse of global civilization? How do we make meaningful choices in the shadow of our inevitable end?

These questions have no logical or empirical answers. They are philosophical problems par excellence. Many thinkers, including Cicero, Montaigne, Karl Jaspers, and The Stone’s own Simon Critchley, have argued that studying philosophy is learning how to die. If that’s true, then we have entered humanity’s most philosophical age — for this is precisely the problem of the Anthropocene. The rub is that now we have to learn how to die not as individuals, but as a civilization.

III.

Learning how to die isn’t easy. In Iraq, at the beginning, I was terrified by the idea. Baghdad seemed incredibly dangerous, even though statistically I was pretty safe. We got shot at and mortared, and I.E.D.’s laced every highway, but I had good armor, we had a great medic, and we were part of the most powerful military the world had ever seen. The odds were good I would come home. Maybe wounded, but probably alive. Every day I went out on mission, though, I looked down the barrel of the future and saw a dark, empty hole.

“For the soldier death is the future, the future his profession assigns him,” wrote  Simone Weil in her remarkable meditation on war, “The Iliad or the Poem of Force.” “Yet the idea of man’s having death for a future is abhorrent to nature. Once the experience of war makes visible the possibility of death that lies locked up in each moment, our thoughts cannot travel from one day to the next without meeting death’s face.” That was the face I saw in the mirror, and its gaze nearly paralyzed me.

I found my way forward through an 18th-century Samurai manual, Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s “Hagakure,” which commanded: “Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily.” Instead of fearing my end, I owned it. Every morning, after doing maintenance on my Humvee, I’d imagine getting blown up by an I.E.D., shot by a sniper, burned to death, run over by a tank, torn apart by dogs, captured and beheaded, and succumbing to dysentery. Then, before we rolled out through the gate, I’d tell myself that I didn’t need to worry, because I was already dead. The only thing that mattered was that I did my best to make sure everyone else came back alive. “If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead,” wrote Tsunetomo, “he gains freedom in the Way.”

I got through my tour in Iraq one day at a time, meditating each morning on my inevitable end. When I left Iraq and came back stateside, I thought I’d left that future behind. Then I saw it come home in the chaos that was unleashed after Katrina hit New Orleans. And then I saw it again when Sandy battered New York and New Jersey: Government agencies failed to move quickly enough, andvolunteer groups like Team Rubicon had to step in to manage disaster relief.

Now, when I look into our future — into the Anthropocene — I see water rising up to wash out lower Manhattan. I see food riots, hurricanes, and climate refugees. I see 82^nd Airborne soldiers shooting looters. I see grid failure, wrecked harbors, Fukushima waste, and plagues. I see Baghdad. I see the Rockaways. I see a strange, precarious world.

Our new home.

The human psyche naturally rebels against the idea of its end. Likewise, civilizations have throughout history marched blindly toward disaster, because humans are wired to believe that tomorrow will be much like today — it is unnatural for us to think that this way of life, this present moment, this order of things is not stable and permanent. Across the world today, our actions testify to our belief that we can go on like this forever, burning oil, poisoning the seas, killing off other species, pumping carbon into the air, ignoring the ominous silence of our coal mine canaries in favor of the unending robotic tweets of our new digital imaginarium. Yet the reality of global climate change is going to keep intruding on our fantasies of perpetual growth, permanent innovation and endless energy, just as the reality of mortality shocks our casual faith in permanence.

The biggest problem climate change poses isn’t how the Department of Defense should plan for resource wars, or how we should put up sea walls to protect Alphabet City, or when we should evacuate Hoboken. It won’t be addressed by buying a Prius, signing a treaty, or turning off the air-conditioning. The biggest problem we face is a philosophical one: understanding that this civilization is already dead. The sooner we confront this problem, and the sooner we realize there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, the sooner we can get down to the hard work of adapting, with mortal humility, to our new reality.

The choice is a clear one. We can continue acting as if tomorrow will be just like yesterday, growing less and less prepared for each new disaster as it comes, and more and more desperately invested in a life we can’t sustain. Or we can learn to see each day as the death of what came before, freeing ourselves to deal with whatever problems the present offers without attachment or fear.

If we want to learn to live in the Anthropocene, we must first learn how to die.

Found here

If aliens see this, we're all fucked

Cardinal in 13 Years (During the Apocalypse)

Notice he's smilling.

How it's done

( as usual, bettered with this. If you dont wanna read all the following uber nerd shit, still listen to this, its gonna make it better, whatever it is, - like wiping your newborn daughters shit smeared ass - guaranteed )

I get a lot of questions about how the whole persistent universe works and what I mean when I talk about battle instances.
I’ve given some answers but as it keeps coming up, I thought it would be good to give all of you a longer description in how this all works and fits together.

One of my goals with Star Citizen was to create a huge open world that you could adventure in solo, with your friends, mingling with NPCs and other real people.

Freelancer was built to have up to 128 players in multiplayer, but as a few of you know that was more a theoretical maximum than something that was really practical, especially back in 2003.  When I started building Freelancer, partly inspired by the work done on Ultima Online (which was in development when I was still at Origin), the fun I was having playing multiplayer games like Command & Conquer  and Diablo I had wanted to bring the Privateer experience into the bold new world of multiplayer.  My original vision for Freelancer was to first release a single player game and then follow it up with massively multiplayer version with a dynamic economy and a world that reacted and adapted to the players actions.
I didn’t get a chance to deliver this vision and ultimately while Freelancer was a good game, it fell short of what I was aiming for.
With Star Citizen I was determined to combine what I wanted to achieve with Freelancer, with the personal experience that I think both Wing Commander and Privateer were so strong with.
But me being me, I wanted to combine things I like about the promise of a MMO, but avoid the aspects that I’m not so keen on like splintered player groups, griefing and grinding. I also was really impressed with how Demon’s Souls merged the single player experience with the multiplayer side.


All of this helped form my thinking on how Star Citizen is going to balance the difficult balancing act between multiplayer and single player.

All multiplayer games – whether they are a persistent world massively multiplayer game (MMO) like World of Warcraft or just an online multiplayer game like Battlefield 3 – have a limit to the number of players that can be active in anyone area or level. This number is usually inversely proportional to the amount of data that needs to go between the client and the server. For a game with complex physics and a fully destructible terrain, like Battlefield 3 the number of players that can active in an instance is less than a game with less real time fidelity like WoW, or Eve on Line.  But in all cases there are always more players than any one server instance can handle. For a persistent multiplayer world like WoW the solution is to split up the player base into more manageable groups called “shards”, which are a permanent instance of the universe that look after a certain amount of players.
One thing I don’t like about most MMO structures is the fragmentation of the player base between these “shards”. If you had joined much later than a friend of yours, there may not be room on his world instance anymore and you have to join another parallel one and so cannot play together. This is one of the nice things about the Eve Online design – everyone plays in the same universe.


In Star Citizen there is going to be one persistent universe server that everyone exists on. So you will never be separated from your friends, and if you want you’ll be able to join up and adventure together, you can.  Due to the fidelity of the dogfighting and physics simulation we can’t however handle thousands of players in the same area of space. Even if you had enough internet bandwidth to handle the data going back and forth and a super computer for the server there’s no PC, even with quad SLI that could render that many spaceships with Star Citizen’s fidelity.
So the “magic” of Star Citizen’s multiplayer design is how we combine a persistent universe with a more traditional (and easier to implement) temporary multiplayer “battle” instance.
The way it works is that the persistent universe server, which we’re calling the Galaxy Server, keeps track of all players’ assets, group relationships and locations inside the Star Citizen universe. As the Galaxy server isn’t handling any realtime action it can handle our complete player base, which right now would be about 45,000 players, but is designed to be able to scale to millions if need be. The other key thing the Galaxy Server does is dynamically place players based on their location, skill level, alignment and player versus player (PvP) preference into battle instances. Think of a “battle” instance like a Battlefield 3 multiplayer session or a World of Tanks Battle with the key difference that the selection of players is done transparently and is “in fiction”.



An illustration of how this would work is like this –



I start out planet side on New Pittsburg. I decide to buy a few tonnes of steel to fly to the shipyards of Terra. I’m currently in the hands of the galaxy server that communicates with my client and handles my purchases and interactions on the planet as these are not real time in the manner that the space action is. We render these in the manner of Freelancer, as detailed 3D environments where we see a third person view of our character in a location and we can click on Non Player Characters (NPCs) or terminals to buy / sell, upgrade your ship, get gossip, hear about a mission and so on.  You’ll also be able to interact with other players via a chat interface. We haven’t fully worked out the player avatar handling planet side but the bar or private clubs will be where you can meet / chat to other players. Besides populating the bar with NPCs, the game will also populate the bar with other players. If there are more players planet side than there are slots of avatars in the bar the ones visible to you will be based off your friends list and then it will be based on relevance to you – a player looking for a wingman, one from a similar group, or maybe someone that you’ve been given a mission to find or hunt down. You will also be able to see the full list of players in the room if there are more players than there are slots. Default would be a drop down list for this, but as I hate anything that breaks the immersion, we’ll probably come up with a better in fiction way of seeing the list of players – maybe you tell the bartender who you’re looking for, maybe you can look at the door list for the bar.
Having bought my cargo I launch into space. If there are players already in orbit there will be an orbit instance already created. If it’s not full then I will be placed into that. If it is full then a new one will be dynamically created. All orbit (and battle) instances reserve slots for friends and persons of interest (POI), which can be NPCs or other players, so if you’ve launched and there are multiple orbit instances and you have friends already in orbit you should be placed into that instance. This is also the dynamic that will be applied if you want to follow another player – you can “tag” them as a POI and then the game will do its best to place you in the same instance as your POI. For instance if you tagged someone planet side and they launch your PDA with its future version of Siri will notify you that your POI is leaving, giving you a window to launch into space too.



Once in orbit I can pull up my Navigation computer and set a course for my destination. If its several systems away like Terra, the nav computer will chart a course through the relevant jump points. You will be able to adjust this like on Google maps, so if you click a different jump point on the system map it will then re-route you on the shortest path to your destination with that jump point as the first “jump”.
Once I’ve plotted my nav course I would then engage auto-pilot and head towards my first “way” point on the path to my destination (a jump point, an interim space feature, like an asteroid belt and so on). At this point I’ve been handed back to the Galaxy Server, which is determining whether I will encounter a hostile, someone that has tagged me as a POI, or a predetermined encounter on the way, or if I’m going to run across ongoing battle instance that is relevant to me (some members of the instance are aligned against or with me). These encounters could be with an NPC or a live player(s) and are sorted on skill level and also – which is important to all of you that like a more single player experience and don’t want to deal with griefers – based on your player versus player (PvP) preference. So if you’ve set your game settings to be low PvP and you’re in a relatively safe area, you’ll likely have an NPC (PvE) encounter as opposed to a PvP one. Of course your ranking and any reputation you earn won’t be the same with a PvE encounter versus a PvP. My hope for this dynamic is that it will allow people to first play Star Citizen in a safer more single player open world style, but as they grow in confidence and want to test their mettle against other real players they can take the training wheels off and get into battles with real players. There will also be areas of the universe that no matter what your PvP setting is, will be PvP. These will be systems that are on the fringes of the policed galaxy and will be notorious for pirate and other illegal activity. They will also be the most lucrative areas – if you can survive.
Now if you’re flying with your friends, who you can link to via the game POI “tagging” system, they will be with you when you’re pulled into a battle instance, whether it is against NPCs, real players or a combination of both.

Once the Galaxy Server has determined that you will have an encounter based on the above criteria it either dynamically creates a battle instance, or puts you in one if one already exists at the encounter point, and that instance has room for new players.  To exit this instance you either have to resolve the hostilities by defeating who’s targeting you, negotiating an exit or just outrunning them. Once in an instance you can put out a distress call to your friends. There are two ways people on your friends list (or squadron as we’re going to call it) can help. We save slots in all instances for friends to warp in to fight. To do this they need to be in the same system. If they are they can autopilot in to your rescue and will be dropped into the instance. If they’re not in the star system, if they can get to your system before the battle is over then they can join (but will only be able to join once they’ve reached your system). The second way for your friends to help out is by “dropping in” on your ship. This only works if it’s a multi person vehicle like the RSI Constellation. In this scenario they don’t need to be in your system, they just will drop in inside your ship and will be able to move around in first person, climbing into a turret to man it, or jumping in you P52 to fly it in combat while you fly the main ship (or they could fly your main ship and you pilot the fighter)
Once the hostilities or the event (sometimes you could be pulled into an instance because you came across a derelict ship or space station and we want to give the player a chance to explore) that triggered the drop out of auto-pilot has been resolved, you can hit auto-pilot again, get handed back to the Galaxy Server and go about your way on the nav course you’ve plotted.
You will always drop out at jump points and planets, where you will need to either make a jump to another system or land.
This process is continued until you reach your final destination, which in my example would be Terra, where I would use my comm system to negotiate a landing slot, which would take me down to the planet’s surface via an in-engine cinematic. Once planet side I’ll be able to sell my cargo, replenish my supplies and look for new opportunities via the third person planet side interface.

The advantage of this system is that is allows you to tailor your experience towards your preference – solo, co-op or full PvP. It also doesn’t partition you into different, parallel versions of the Star Citizen universe as everyone is kept on the persistent server. Because our battle or orbit / space instances are temporary, you’re never stuck with one group over the long term and due to our heavy emphasis on friends and co-op, there will always be room for your friends to join you on your adventure; whether it’s against other players or NPCs.
The same instance system underpins the single player Squadron 42. If you’re playing off-line, your computer will be acting as the server and client, there will be no opportunities for friends to join and everyone will be an NPC. But if you play Squadron 42 through the Galaxy Server, even though your missions and space areas are pre-determined (you don’t get to pick where in the galaxy you are flying if you’re in the military) we will allow your friends to drop in / drop out to take over NPC wingmen and if you want extra skill ranking you can allow other players to drop in and take over enemy ace characters. This system is pretty similar to the Demon’s Souls setup where people could drop in as a Blue Phantom to help you kill a boss monster or fight off another invading player, or you could drop in as a Black Phantom to someone else’s world and try and kill them for XP and other gamerewards.
The key to all this is to allow player choice – you want to play alone you can, want your friends to join you in co-op we allow that and if you want to be challenged by other real players you can do that. The special part is that it can all happen in the same holistic universe.
I hope this helps in terms of understanding how we’re balancing the aspects of multiplayer as well as making the game fun.


 - Chris Roberts

Speaking of hotties from 30 years ago

Star Wars didn't teach me about boners, the muppets did.

The Best thing to come out of Star Wars

Did you know that Carrie Fisher did a Princess Leah bikini shoot for Rolling Stone? See more here. I most certainly didn't. In fact when I discovered it last week, I almost cried because she was one of the first women I have ever found sexy... and here... in this photo... I finally get to see the sideboob, underboob, and wet Leah I had always envisioned in my dreams.

-THIS HAS BEEN A PAID ADVERTISEMENT FOR KARL'S BONER-

Oh... and this is the second best thing to come out of starwars:

Oh Japan...

Oh Canada...

According to Chomsky, “Canadian mining operations are just destroying large parts of the world.” He said that “Canada is trying to take the lead in destroying the possibility of decent survival: that’s what it means to exploit the tar sands, and the gold mining in Colombia, and coal mining, and so on…. That means destroying the world in which your grandchildren might be able to survive: that’s the Canadian idea now.”


Article Here


I'd love to watch the video of this presentation. I couldn't find it anywhere.

Therapy

This is almost as good as playing GTA... almost.

Put on some of your favorite music, sit back, and enjoy other people's frustration and misery.

Seriously though... put on music, the video's boring without music.

News from the front lines

We've reached a schism between human nature and human potential. The war on religion is at hand.

It's started

Everyone's got their head buried deep in mud. They don't wanna see the global catastrophe thats already started. I don't need to enumerate the disasters striking everywhere. The starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease, the oversized wasps... Are we just gonna let it come without preparing for it? Do you really think the measures of appeasement they call democracy will perdure in these conditions so as to let you attain the comfortable future your bourgeois parents have envisioned for you? I have no illusions. What will you do when this system on which you completely depend breaks down? I've always said it, the best investment right now is land. A remote location, close to a good source of water.

Fuck my Big Black Ass

Stop the diversions. Eliminate the disturbances. Repair the fabric of Hatred. Vote Brulé.

I dont buy the tram idea neither. It sounds fucking retarded. I mean we're what, maybe 10 years away from getting electric buses. But thats no reason to vote Joly. Girl's got zero experience. Let her be opposition for a few years and then we'll see. Marcel Coté? I wont vote for an old white man, fuck Cote, I dont care who he is or what he says, fuck the old white man.

And then there' s that 100% français guy, now I'm interested.

I think I'll go with Brulé, we need more french-anglo conflicts in this town, its like everyone's pointing at the arabs, I mean, how can we hate ourselves if we spend all our time hating strangers. There's a fundamental imbalance in the field of hatred in this city, and I think Brulé can adequately reestablish the levels.

Cardinal Needs A New Name

I think we can all agree that Cardinal needs a new name. The person it refers too is much less relevant than when it was originally chosen.

I have a suggestion.

I mentioned in one of my previous comments that Cardinal was being cynical. And although he was being cynical in the modern sense, his general aura makes me think of Cynicism in the classical Greek sense.

I mean read this:

To the ancient Greeks, Cynicism (capitalized) was a school of philosophy and social criticism founded by a man named Antisthenes. Followers of Cynicism often rejected the material comforts and social practices of the world around them, preferring to live as simply and as virtuously as possible. Because these Cynics often refused to bathe and were frequently found shouting incoherently in public areas, they were called kuon, the Greek word for dogs. Therefore, these men became known historically as the "dog philosophers".

Perhaps the best known follower of the Greek Cynicism movement was a man namedDiogenes. Legend has it that Diogenes wandered the Greek countryside, allegedly on a never ending quest for an honest man. Honesty and virtue were key elements of the original Cynicism philosophy. The problem was that in the Cynics' eyes, few Greek politicians or prominent members of the ruling class had either of those qualities. Society in general was ruled by thoughts of personal gain, political corruption and meaningless rituals.



Bro, come on! Dog Philosopher is tailor-made for Cardinal!

Who Are You Voting for?

I'm voting Projet Montréal. Richard Bergeron is kooky, but I can forgive him that because I find his party is the only one with a real vision and a vision I like at that! They also seem to be the only party that has any semblance of ambition, something that has been lacking in this city for way too long.

As a city, I find we've settled for too little, for too long. It's time to look forward and start giving ourselves the tools to turn into a world-class city. Projet Montréal leads in the right direction I feel.

Coderre is just more of the same old, same old. Oh my god, it's almost as if he used to be in the Liberal party!

Joly is intriguing and hot. However, I've never been swayed by the whole "lack of experience is a good thing" argument. It just means you're ripe for the picking by those with experience, waiting with a trap set for you.

In case you were wondering...

Here's a nice little breakdown of how things work in this city. Complicated for nothing, I think. It's no wonder things are falling apart. 

Basically, every borough needs a minimum of 5 people sitting in the
borough council. Second to that, every borough has the right to one
representative at the city council per roughly 15000 registered voters.
Mayors and city councillors have the right to sit at city council.
Borough councillors only have the right to sit at the borough council.

There are three types of compositions.
1. Boroughs with a mayor and only city councillors
2. Boroughs with a mayor and only borough councillors
3. Boroughs with a mayor and a mix of city and borough councillors.

Here are some examples. In Villeray, with 86000 registered voters, you
have the right to 5 people sitting at city council. Thus, the mayor of
the borough and 4 city councillors. They act as local representatives
and representatives at city council. All the big ones follow this
pattern (CDN-NDG, Rosemont, etc.)

Take Outremont, with 15000 registered voters. They can only have one
person sitting at city council. That would be the mayor. But they need a
minimum of 5 people sitting at the borough council. So the other 4 are
necessarily borough councillors. All the small boroughs follow this
pattern (like Ile Bizard)

Finally, Montreal North with 52000 reigstered voters, thus they have the
right to 3 people sitting at city council: the mayor and 2 city
councillors. They also need 5 people sitting in the borough council. So
the final 2 people are borough councillors. The mid-size boroughs follow
this pattern.

The make up of each borough is explained on this site

http://election-montreal.qc.ca/userfiles/file/fr/cadre-electoral/DistrictsElectoraux2013/Cadre_Electoral_2013-2017_Synth%C3%A8se_20130517.pdf

Essentially, the wide disparity between borough populations explains
this rather complex arrangement.

Bon vote.

An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming

PREAMBLE As governments consider policies to fight alleged man-made global warming, evangelical leaders have a responsibility to be well informed, and then to speak out. A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming demonstrates that many of these proposed policies would destroy jobs and impose trillions of dollars in costs to achieve no net benefits. They could be implemented only by enormous and dangerous expansion of government control over private life. Worst of all, by raising energy prices and hindering economic development, they would slow or stop the rise of the world’s poor out of poverty and so condemn millions to premature death.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

1. We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory.  Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.
2. We believe abundant, affordable energy is indispensable to human flourishing, particularly to societies which are rising out of abject poverty and the high rates of disease and premature death that accompany it. With present technologies, fossil and nuclear fuels are indispensable if energy is to be abundant and affordable.
3. We believe mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, achievable mainly by greatly reduced use of fossil fuels, will greatly increase the price of energy and harm economies.
4. We believe such policies will harm the poor more than others because the poor spend a higher percentage of their income on energy and desperately need economic growth to rise out of poverty and overcome its miseries.

WHAT WE DENY

1. We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming.
2. We deny that alternative, renewable fuels can, with present or near-term technology, replace fossil and nuclear fuels, either wholly or in significant part, to provide the abundant, affordable energy necessary to sustain prosperous economies or overcome poverty.
3. We deny that carbon dioxide—essential to all plant growth—is a pollutant. Reducing greenhouse gases cannot achieve significant reductions in future global temperatures, and the costs of the policies would far exceed the benefits.
4. We deny that such policies, which amount to a regressive tax, comply with the Biblical requirement of protecting the poor from harm and oppression.

A CALL TO ACTION In light of these facts,

1. We call on our fellow Christians to practice creation stewardship out of Biblical conviction, adoration for our Creator, and love for our fellow man—especially the poor.
2. We call on Christian leaders to understand the truth about climate change and embrace Biblical thinking, sound science, and careful economic analysis in creation stewardship.
3. We call on political leaders to adopt policies that protect human liberty, make energy more affordable, and free the poor to rise out of poverty, while abandoning fruitless, indeed harmful policies to control global temperature.

Source: The Cornwall Alliance (the type of organization most likely to influence our shit stain of a prime mongoloïd, Stephen Harper)

‘What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?'

Great speech. Hopeless subject, but great speech.

Religion

And so it is.

I've always said the nazis tried to exterminate the jews because they were too much like them. They hold the same ideology : the nazis were the superior race, the jews are the chosen people. I don't see any difference. And thus this is the only logical consequence of such ideology.

Fuck Religion

I'm happy when religions get fucked. One of the many reasons for this is because religions fuck us all the time, and its a good and just retribution for this constant undesired spiritual molestation. It is by this order of reflexion that I signed the petition found here. Because religions have always been the number one cause for devolution.

Sign this shite, you morans! if ya gots half a bran!
   http://www.laicitequebec.org/

It`s Time for Cat Massage!

Our Democracy

• Fisheries & Oceans

  Discontinued: Species-at-Risk Program, Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program, Habitat Management, Experimental Lakes Area (Northern Ontario), DFO Marine Science Libraries, Centre for Offshore Oil & Gas Energy Research

  Slashed: DFO Institute of Ocean Sciences (Sidney, BC), Freshwater Institute - Winnipeg, Oil Spill Counter-Measures Team, Maurice-Lamontagne Institute (Quebec), Canada Coast Guard/Kitsilano Coast Guard Station

• Environment Canada

  Discontinued: Environmental Emergency Response Program, Urban Wastewater Program, Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (Nunavut), Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, Smokestacks Emissions Monitoring Team, Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy

  Slashed: Environmental Protection Operations, Compliance Promotion Program, Action Plan on Clean Water, Sustainable Water Management Division, Environmental Effects Monitoring Program, Contaminated Sites Action Plan, Chemicals Management Plan, Canadian Centre for Inland Waters (Burlington, Ont.)

• Health Canada

  Slashed: Pest Management Regulatory Agency

• Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)

  Slashed: Reduced science capacity for oversight and research

• National Research Council

  Slashed: Canada Institute for Scientific & Technical Information

• Transport Canada

  Slashed: Transportation of Dangerous Goods (pipelines/tankers oversight), Transport Canada Aircraft Services

• Other

  Discontinued: Arctic Institute of North America’s Kluane Research Station, The Global Environmental Monitoring System, Cereal Research Centre (Winnipeg), Canadian Environmental Network, Prairies Regional Office: Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, The Research Tools and Instruments Grant Program, Grants Programs administered by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)

  Slashed: The Centre for Plant Health (Vancouver Island), The Great Lakes Forestry Centre (Toronto), Horticulture Research & Development Centre (Quebec), Plant Pathology Program (Summerland, BC), Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health (Winnipeg), The National Water Research Institute (Burlington, Ont.), Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration

Primary Sources: The Professional Institute of Public Service Canada; CBC News

Secondary Source : http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/environmental-science-axed-harper-2012-2013

N.B Those organizations were destroyed in one year of Harperism, 2012-2013. A full list of all the organizations destroyed since the disaster started is yet to come. And as per your assignment for next week, you shall read this article on which you will be tested thoroughly.

Let's all sign this, shall we?

Petition :

Abandon des projets d'oléoducs et promotion des énergies vertes

To sign this petition, you must complete 3 steps:
Step 1: fill out the form that appears below the text of the petition and send it (you must accept the signing conditions before sending the form).
Step 2: consult your electronic mailbox and open the message sent by the Assembly.
Step 3: in this message, click on the link enabling you to register your signature.


You may sign a petition only once.
Petition text


CONSIDÉRANT QU’afin de faire transiter du pétrole des sables bitumineux albertains, la compagnie TransCanada Energy projette de construire un oléoduc traversant le Québec et que la compagnie Enbridge désire inverser et augmenter le flux d’un oléoduc reliant l’Ontario;


CONSIDÉRANT QUE le pétrole provenant des sables bitumineux est un des modes de production émettant le plus de gaz à effet de serre au monde et que le développement de cette industrie retarde une transition vers les énergies vertes;


CONSIDÉRANT QU’en raison des risques qu’ils présentaient, la Colombie-Britannique a refusé et les États-Unis hésitent à autoriser des projets d’oléoducs faisant transiter le pétrole des sables bitumineux;


CONSIDÉRANT QUE le débat entre le transport du pétrole par oléoduc et le transport ferroviaire est un faux débat, car tous deux présentent des risques inacceptables pour l'environnement et la sécurité publique;


CONSIDÉRANT QUE le Québec s’appauvrit en achetant pour près de 14 milliards $ en pétrole annuellement;


CONSIDÉRANT QUE le Québec possède un énorme potentiel de transition énergétique, notamment par l’économie d’énergie, l’électrification des transports, la production d'énergies vertes et l’amélioration des transports collectifs;


CONSIDÉRANT QUE cette transition créerait beaucoup plus d'emplois et serait plus bénéfique à long terme que le développement de l’industrie pétrolière;


Nous, soussignés, exigeons du gouvernement québécois:


De s’opposer à tout nouveau projet d’oléoduc (construction, inversion, conversion) qui ferait transiter au Québec du pétrole des sables bitumineux;


D’élaborer un véritable projet de société ayant comme buts de réduire drastiquement notre dépendance aux hydrocarbures et promouvoir notre transition vers les énergies vertes.



Signing deadline : December 3, 2013



CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK TO THE PETITION

Here, another reason why we need to be exterminated by giant japanese hornets shooting human tissue dissolving venom.

Remember The Tar Sands Leaks That No One Knew How To Stop In July? They’re Still Leaking.

I will not stand and watch those fuckers build that pipeline along the St-Lawrence.

Also, I couldn't take anymore. I had to destroy my facebook account after the nth self-censoring incident where I was about to tell everyone to die off and take their stupidity and fucking insane way of life to the grave with them. So anyways, if you still wanna invite me to some stupid event or something you can call me on my cellphone while I still have it. Or not. Fuck off.

Suzumebachi

This one made me feel better

Brrrr..... brrr... .bBRRRRR... (SHIVERS)

HOLY FUCK. THOSE THINGS. ARRR.... THESE THINGS!?!?!

I always knew the planet would launch a swarm of killer bees at us from its mouth if threatened.

Hornet attacks kill dozens in China

(I replaced the original photo from this article with a more accurate one. The original photo of the hornet made it look like it shit rainbows into flowers. This is more like it.)

Hundreds of people stung in Shaanxi province by swarms of giant insects believed to have multiplied over warm summer

Tania Branigan in Beijing
theguardian.com, Thursday 26 September 2013 09.27 BST

This year has been unusually severe for hornet attacks in Shaanxi province, possibly because of weather changes, says a local health official.

Twenty-eight people have died and hundreds have been injured in a wave of attacks by giant hornets in central China, according to reports.

Victims described being chased for hundreds of metres by the creatures and stung as many as 200 times.

Most of the attacks in the past three months were in remote, rural, wooded areas in southern Shaanxi, the province's China Business newspaper reported.

In the city of Ankang alone, 18 people have died from the stings, health official Zhou Yuanhong told Associated Press. People in the cities of Hanzhong and Shangluo have also been injured.

The insects' highly toxic stings can lead to anaphylactic shock and renal failure. An official from Ankang's disease control centre urged people to seek medical help if they received more than 10 stings, and warned that emergency treatment was required for those stung more than 30 times.

One woman in her 50s said she had spent almost a month in hospital and was still incontinent after receiving more than 200 stings. A man from her village died of kidney failure.

The hornet attacks are a recurring problem in the area from May to as late as November. According to Ankang police, 36 people died in the city and 715 were injured by the creatures between 2002 and 2005. But Zhou said the issue had been particularly severe this year, possibly because of weather changes.

Experts have suggested in the past that warmer temperatures in the area have led to hornets breeding more successfully, that labourers have been moving deeper into areas where they may disturb nests, and that the insects are sensitive to chemicals found in food and cosmetics.

Li Jiuzhou, deputy director of the Shaanxi Bee and Wasp Industry Association, said that hundreds or even thousands of hornets could live in a single nest. They attack humans only if disturbed, he added. But they are carnivorous and can quickly destroy bee colonies.

Ankang's fire service has removed over 300 hornet nests this summer, but experts said that the problem was unlikely to end entirely until the temperature drops.

Wang Zhengcai, an official from one of the affected villages, said authorities had warned people to be careful if they enter the woods. Local authorities have also promised to help patients pay for the treatment, because of the heavy cost for the rural poor.

The culprit appears to be the Asian giant hornet or Vespa mandarinia, which grows up to 5cm long with a 6mm sting, although the area is also home to the smaller Asian hornet, Vespa velutina nigrithorax.

So How Was the Guat?

There is no picture.

In fact, I went to find a picture for my diminutive of Guatemala. I quickly found out that Urban Dictionnary defines it as racist.

You know what I'm tired of? Shortened versions of country names being considered racist. I really can't stand that shit. To me it screams ignorance. It's like a fucking ignorance cake with ignorance ice cream.

The problem isn't the word, it's how it's used. 

The Guy On the Right Is Mister Smoove

Too Many Coincidences: Irony-rama!

Today, I found it ironic that on the anniversary of the World Trade Center thing, there was an uproar about civil servants not being allowed to jam their religion beliefs down our throats.

That was plenty enough for me to digest.

I was later informed that today was also the anniversary day for Slayer's appropriately-named 8th album, God Hates Us All. It literally came out on September 11th, 2001!

To commemorate this triple crown, I share with you God Send Death from that very album:

Check Out the Great Graphics & Physics in this Game!

YouTube.

The Importance of Hockey in Dallas

Dallas, Texas... Dallas, fucking, texas. Some would say this is the birthplace of hockey, and of hockey tradition. It's a place where every child takes to the ice and plays hockey outside with their friends... I mean.. what kid from Texas hasn't dreamed of someday hoisting the Stanley Cup in the air and screaming: "Yeeeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaaawwwww!!!"

I went to the website of the Dallas Stars and this is the first thing that popped up. It's a video that definitely has its place alongside Maurice Richard scoring 50 goals in a single season.

God Bless America.

I thought this should be reported to the proper blogging authority. There.

Le premier parfum à l'odeur de vagin : Vulva by Spi0n Yes. Nowadays, for you, the people of our generations and the other degenerates yet to come, creeps are not only the norm, they are glorified in ads that aim to sell perfume smelling like genitalia. This is our world. I sincerely believe those who continue living in it are insane, and the ones ending their lives are the only ones showing any trace of good sense. I sincerely believe this.

Beer Bear - Beyond The Invisible Line

Finally!!

I wonder how many years this is going to take. Also, I bet you that as soon as it's done, the city's going to have to tear down the viaduct... thus undoing all the hard work.

Mammoths VS Climate Change

So far, this article is the best I've read on solutions to climate change.

The guy who wrote this appears to be a well informed man of exceptional intelligence, and
it really goes to show how screwed we are when scientists and researchers have reached the point where those are the proposed solutions :

George Church: De-Extinction Is a Good Idea

Reviving mammoths and other extinct creatures is a good idea

By George Church

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Image: Carlo Giambarresi

In its June issue Scientific American published an essay stating emphatically that reanimating species such as woolly mammoths from surviving DNA is a bad idea. This dismissal is too hasty. The idea has merit and is worth discussing with an open mind—and with multidisciplinary viewpoints. [and also a very good sense of humor and end of days sarcasm]

The goal of reanimation research is not to make perfect living copies of extinct organisms, nor is it meant to be a one-off stunt in a laboratory or zoo. Reanimation is about leveraging the best of ancient and synthetic DNA. The goal is to adapt existing ecosystems to radical modern environmental changes, such as global warming, and possibly reverse those changes. [Read : the goal is to further fuck-up already fucked-up beyond all recognition ecosystems and fuck them hard until total invagination and then hope for deinvagination and the reversing of the changes induced.]

Ecosystems that depend on “keystone species” have lost the species diversity they once had because some species no longer fit. As environmental change occurs, ancient diversity may be needed again. [There, you see crazy proponents of degrowth? There are alternatives to your regressive technophobic and anti-capitalist movement: ancient diversity! Amen ] For instance, 4,000 years ago the tundras of Russia and Canada consisted of a richer grass- and ice-based ecosystem. Today they are melting, and if that process continues, they could release more greenhouse gas than all the world's forests would if they burned to the ground. A few dozen changes to the genome of a modern elephant—to give it subcutaneous fat, woolly hair and sebaceous glands—might suffice to create a variation that is functionally similar to the mammoth. Returning this keystone species to the tundras could stave off some effects of warming. [ Saved! At last we are saved! Read on, it's worth it.]

Mammoths could keep the region colder by: (a) eating dead grass, thus enabling the sun to reach spring grass, whose deep roots prevent erosion; (b) increasing reflected light by felling trees, which absorb sunlight; and (c) punching through insulating snow so that freezing air penetrates the soil. Poachers seem far less likely to target Arctic mammoths than African elephants. [...]

Link to exhibit 342 of why there is no hope