02/12/2008

Letter from God by Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip

The video is fan-made. There is a ordinary one, but it's easier to keep up with the lyrics in this one. If you're not a fast reader you're kinda fucked either way though. I agree to parts of the message, but not all of it. It's still good, and gives you things to think about.

Obama! Give America Better Sex!

"
       Dear President Obama:

For months, I’ve been predicting that when you win, nothing will change regarding sex. I’ve said you won’t stop the government’s War On Sex; you won’t demand respect for sexual rights as human rights; you won’t prevent religious fanatics from controlling non-believers’ sex lives.

You now have your big chance: prove me wrong. Here’s what you need to do:

* End funding for abstinence-only training in public schools.

* End the Department of Justice’s war on adult entertainment. Keep the war on child porn. Make it clear they’re two different things. [[Regina's Note: Notice Marty's semantics here - adult entertainment vs child porn. Absolutely right to use different words for two very, very different things. Go Marty!]]

* Decriminalize all consensual sex that teens have with other teens. Decriminalize teens sharing photos of themselves having sex. [[Regina's Note: Tech enables us to extend our sexual behavior, as well as create "new" sexual behaviors. I agree with Marty that teens sharing photos with their peers is not a criminal act -- and that their lives should not be forever wrecked for the "crime" of being young and hormonal. Besides, sharing pics is robably the quickest, most effective way to learn discretion and to think about one's own limits and the limits of one's friends. No need to send them to jail. Their peers will teach them the lesson more deeply than the adults ever could.]]

* Increase financial support for Planned Parenthood, an investment proven to reduce poverty and domestic violence. [[Regina's Note: Several of my adult friends, unmarried and married, go to PP for STD screenings and birth control, because they are young working adults who don't have health insurance. It has nothing to do with politics, abortion, feminism or any other "issue" -- except the desire not to bring issue into the world before the women are ready for them.]]

* Take the moral leadership to decrease abortion–by funding contraception services and comprehensive sex education, not by criminalizing abortion.[[Regina's Note: Duh.]]

* Require all sex education programs to be scientifically accurate. Isn’t that required by the policies of car manufacturers, meat-packing plants, and toothpaste makers?

* Require all municipalities that want to restrict commercial sexual expression (strip clubs, adult bookstores, swing clubs, etc.) to actually demonstrate a need to do so, rather than simply claim “effects like crime, disease, and blight are well-established.” Because they’re not.

* Require all federal judges to take a Continuing Education course about sexuality. Healthy sexuality, not “sex addiction” or child molestation. Make this education mandatory for anyone aspiring to be a judge.[[Regina's Note: This is my soapbox as well. So much of what we write, research or study about sex starts with the "something's wrong" -- but what about what's not wrong?]]

* Get the FCC out of the censorship business. Let Americans use the “off” and “change channel” buttons on their TV remotes whenever they want; it’s good practice for voting.

* Remove the blocking software from every federally-funded computer in America–libraries, universities, airports. Start with the computers in the White House and Congress.[[Regina's Note: There's a scene in Cordelia's Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujuold, in which it comes out that the lowest standard of living Cordelia can imagine is not having a comconsole and full network access in a home, much less in the village. When the Barrayarans express astonishment at this naive worldview, Cordelia, a Betan, explains that it's the first item on the Beta Colony constitution: the right to information access shall not be abridged.]]

I’ve said in dozens of lectures this year that you won’t make a difference in America’s War On Sex.

Please, prove me wrong. "

I see nothing wrong with any of this. Then again I am an ungodly Anarchist Swede. Westbro Baptist hates me, yey! Westbro sounds very Scandinavian by the way...

From SexRev 2.0, via Technoccult.

The Liberal Middle East?

There are interesting things going on there.
And I'm not talking about Iraq.
Iran will soon have a majority of young people insides it's borders. As you'll know if you drop by here once in a while, the Iranian blogosphere is crackling with activity.
Saudi Arabia is also heading towards a more open society for women.
The all-girl rock band The AccoLade is a underground hit, as most newsreaders probably know by now. The current King is also positive towards women helping the society, and women are also allowed to have an ID-card now.
So, is this the start of a new, more liberal, middle east? I, for one, hope so.
If Iran and Saudi Arabia (arguably two of the most conservative nations in the middle east at the moment) become more Liberal in their politics, it would probably do a lot to change the entire region.

01/12/2008

This is not the Indentity you're looking for

As usual when reading dear Penny's latest stabbing of all that is well and normal (according to people that think they're normal), I want to jump up, run all the way to the nearest McDonald's, light my pants on fire and use them as a slingshot to propel me laptop trough the front window. Preferably after I've filled it with thermite and nitroglycerin. As it burns and crackles like those burning sticks people like to play with around Christmas, I'd casually walk away with my jacket tied around my hips as a makeshift skirt. If I ever did I'd probably freeze my balls off, but it would be worth it. Being done with my usual plunge into imagination, the part that really made me go "Fuck yeah!" was this: "But conformity is safe. No matter how much time and effort you put in to making yourself acceptable and well-behaved, never doubt that it’s the easy option. I never feel more alive, or more free, than days like today when I stamp into work in big boots, a baggy black hoodie covered with slogans, a bobble hat and no make-up. But it takes courage. Courage to step outside the cosy cage of automatic approval and be your own, real person, without rules." Being somewhat of a gypsy myself (on my fathers side), I relate to this. It makes me feel warm and really alive inside to know that there are people that will disregard what others think and go with what they, and only they, feel is right. No wonder people aren't satisfied with their lives, they're trying to get approval from everyone else. I especially remember a girl I went to elementary with. One day she didn't wear any makeup. The funny thing is, we didn't notice. ("We" being a few guys.) I don't know if the girls did. If I remember correctly her voice was trembling a bit when she told us. I suspect she was feeling uncomfortable, and a bit afraid of what our reaction would be. We told her that we didn't really see any difference. Well, maybe a little if we looked closely. I don't really know what happened. But she ended up putting makeup on after a while. If she felt uncomfortable because she didn't wear it, because of something someone said, peer pressure, or anything else I don't know. What I do remember is feeling incredibly impressed by her courage. Not that I know how much perceived psychological strength a woman find in her makeup, but I can imagine that it's quite a lot. Now that I think about it I should probably have told her just how impressed I was with her. But that was 5-6 years ago now. If anything I've found that I grow weirder and weirder the older I get. I've recently become interested in Anarchism, the Riot Grrl movement (especially the music), memetics (which I'm writing 50 pages about for school), drugs (moderately, since it dry-humps my brain into oblivion. I need my brain, dammit). I've almost stopped drinking completely. I'm actually interested in politics, and followed the American Presidential election feverishly. I suspect I knew more about it than quite a few Americans. Hell, an American even told me so. All of it is obviously me to some degree. But how much? We're once again back to that damned question: "Who am I?" Sure, I could throw up some memetic theory here now. About humanity being a construction the ideas we are exposed to, how they react to the ideas that already infect us, and all of that. I suppose we could just say that we are what we think we are, but this isn't necessarily true either. We are not who we think we should be, at least. That much we can probably agree on. Unless you're the kind of person that can disregard what everyone thinks at all times. Good for you. Not really helping us that are stuck with being social human beings though. We're stuck being influenced by society you might say, so the only thing we can do if that pisses us off is to try and influence it back, destroy it, or create a new one.

27/11/2008

26/11/2008

9 by Shane Acker



Via io9

BBC Journalist Get Pissed

This is last years news. Actually, more than last year I think, but it's still interesting to see. It's a part from BBC Panoramas investigation of Scientology. John Sweeney gets pissed and starts shouting, after the Scientologists interrupts interviews, confronts him at his hotel, have people follow him, and other nice and friendly things. It's mainly the same guy over and over, and John finally gets pissed enough to shout at him. I'd probably have ended up punching him myself. There's also good examples of the "Fair Game" tactics the so-called Church denies.

22/11/2008

20/11/2008

The Problem with Views

Everyone has views on practically everything. And while some might say that all views are vaild, I'd say that just wishful thinking on their part. Just like saying that everyone is special. Sure, it's true on genetically, and although I'd never go so far as to say that two people are identical, I'd never say their completely different either. Because no matter what, we're all human.
And, since we're humans, and since humans have this ridiculously big brain that we don't seem to use as much as we should, we have views and opinions on everything as soon as we've heard about it for the first time.
Obviously that isn't really a good thing, since when we first have heard about something, it's probably from a source we trust in some way. Like a friend, a nice news site, a blog, etc. We assume, that since we like this/that/them, that they're right.
When was the last time you really doubted something someone you like said?
But just by checking things up a bit on your own you'll probably discover a lot that got lost in the translation. Or that what you heard was wrong. Sometimes it's even right! Just like the news really.
The news is interesting, because the purpose of most forms of news is to sell. Exaggerating things, leaving something out to make it more dramatic, and so on. These are all signs of a bad news. Entertainment news are usually bad for instance. Because people don't really care about getting informed about the entertainment, they care about being entertained be reading about the entertainment.
Always being critical gets annoying in the long run though, so it's a good idea to take a day of once in a while. Take it easy, watch some stupid action or comedy movie, take a bath, cook something nice. Relax. Let your brain rest and absorb the information it's received lately. It needs to do that once in a while. Usually at night, but it's probably a good idea to take a day off from time to time, just in case. Plus, it feels good to do nothing from time to time.

But this is just filler. An appetizer if you so wish.
What I really wanted to talk about is views. I know, I've mentioned them a bit, bitched about them a lot, and generally been a bit too cryptic for my own good.
But, what I wanted to say is this: If you can't question your own views, they suck.
In case the reason for this isn't obvious, I'll tell you: If you can't question what you think, and listen to other ideas and views, your censoring yourself and the world. You're shrinking the world from the viewpoint of your mind.
Which, despite what you may think, isn't a good idea. We've discovered how huge the world is, the billions of things within it, and now we don't want them to be there anymore? Sounds like devolving to me. The sound of the spreading of stupidity and ignorance. How does it sound? Like the wind speeding by maybe?
But sure, if something you've questioned does seem to still hold afterwards, it's probably not a worthless thought at least. If you find something that can take a lot of questioning and still kinda makes sense, then you've got yourself a keeper.
And I'm not talking about personal questioning of your views here. You need to get into the head of whoever objects to your view. If you're a Christian, you need to know and understand what Richards Dawkins thinks, and why. If you're Richard Dawkins, you need to understand Christianity.
But, here it gets tricky. Dawkins is a scientist. He can't just beliveve things. He needs some sort of reason. Belife for the sake of belife isn't gonna fly with any athesist. If you say that you find comfort and brotherhood in Church, a Athesist could possibly say that you take comfort in the notion that there is a meaning with life, other than life itself. A pshycological effect in other words. Just as the shared belife also gives a sense of comfort. Safety in numbers. Safety in belonging to a clan of likeminded. A tribe, in a way.
This could also be a danger with modern society, at least in my mind.
Since we can usually find likeminded, we don't have to change out minds. We don't get challanged by other ideas and views if we just stay in our own little tribe.
I'm running out of thoughts now, but remember that many of the great truths of today where so radical that some of their proponents ended up dead back in the day.
Radical thoughts change our world, which is the same as changing the world, since our view of the world becomes part of it. While fundamentalism will keeps things static and simple, and by doing so prevent change, and keep the world small.

13/11/2008

Some Parkour Vids

I'm posting a lot of videos recently, which I find a bit disturbing, since it takes longer to post a bunch of videos than writing a page. You have to watch the videos, think about the quality, if there's somewhere else you can embed from that's got better quality, etc. But one thing you should know is that I love le parkour. I've been doing it on and off for around 2 years now, and even if I've just gotten going again after a month or two of just being lazy, it just feels so great doing it that I wonder why I didn't do it sooner. It's a form of self discovery really. You get to know yourself while you cling to walls, jump over rails, land on ledges, and a few hundreds if not thousand other things. It's of course very physical, but also very mental. Your mind works constantly, judging distances, relaxing and tightening muscles, gripping concrete and iron pipes. And then there's the mental blocks to process. Why can't I do this? Is it the hight? The surface that looks wrong? Too little space to land on? All traceurs have had blocks, some easy to get rid of, some hard. It takes discipline both to train parkour, to overcoming obstacles, and with overcoming obstacles of the mind, mental blocks. Here's a video about just that, a mental block:
But of course if you haven't done parkour it's really hard to know what it feels like to throw yourself over a wall and hit the ground running. Unless you have a headcam, that is:

11/11/2008

Horrible News and Movie Industry Hate

Really! It's news, and it's horrible/disturbing!

Or how about Nigerian Baby Farms?

Or The Woman Whiteout A Face, who's been roaming parts of Europe for 15 years, leaving a trail of deaths, robberies and burglaries behind?

Via Warren Ellis.

In other news, Hollywood has given up creativity and are now focusing mainly on destroying classics, and anything not made in the US.
Remakes of:
Old Boy (by Spielberg and Will Smith),
Let The Right One In (by that guy who made Felicity and Cloverfield),
Akira (Leonardo Dicaprio),
Ghost in the Shell(Spielberg again),
Cowboy Bebop (Keanu Reeves as Spike),
Conan (some dude I've never heard of),
Death at a Funeral (by Chris Rock),
Battle Angel Alita (James Cameron),
Ninja Scroll (thanks to Dicaprio),
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (...huh?)
Fame,
The Birds (Clooney),
and probably a bunch of other I've missed are being planned, discussed or produced as I type this, and as you read it. Capital over creativity, yey!
Keep in mind though that some of these are not confirmed, so we might still be spared mental rape if we're lucky.
I'd recomend Twitch for those of you who like movies and have realized that IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are completly worthless, and are only good if you'd like to argue with people, or lern some basic trolling.
Alright, Rotten Tomatoes have some revives that actually have something with movies to do and are not just opinion. They're the minority though. And I'm not even gonna mention IMDB. Alright, it's a good place to check out some specs on movies, opening dates, actors, and things like that. As long as you ignore any lists, message boards, or ratings you'll manage.
Alright, I'm gonna stop ranting about my growing hatred for the comercial movie industry now.
I'm actually writting on a movie myself. I'm looking forward to when I can get furious over the disaster of a remake it will inevitably lead to.
Cheers!

This Makes Me Giggle Like a Schoolgirl:




And I'm even quite sure I haven't gone mad yet. It's only Tuesday dammit. I don't go mad until Thursday earliest.

Via Twitch Film.

Another Thing I'd Like To Add to My Resume

Professional Monkey Scarer

08/11/2008

I'm going to keep posting hip hop until you like it.

Seriously. People who don't like hip hop listen too much on the crap being played in commercial radio and television. And no, popularity does not equal quality. If that where the case Titanic would be considered the worlds greatest movie.
Anyway, over to what this is really about: the beats and lyrics forming these tunes. Ladies and gentlemen, brought to you by the utmost crappy quality that is YouYube, it's Soul Position!

06/11/2008

Bad Mom = No kids

I'm talking about a draft bill being considered in the Netherlands at the moment, and although the odds of it passing seem low, the mere fact that anyone propositioned such a bill is scary in itself.
If you've been deemed to be a unfit mother by the state you're gonna have to ensure you wont get pregnant for the following 2 years. If you do the child will be taken away by the state.
Needless to say I do not approve.

More details here.
Via Technoccult.

Some Awesome Ladies You've Probably Never Heard Of

Sylvia Pankhurst may have gotten called too radical by Marx, but I was thinking something a bit more contemporary. In this case: female vocalists, rappers, MCs, or whatever you wanna call it. Ladies making music. That the gist of it.
I accidentally stumbled upon something called Girl Powder on MySpace. Girl Powder is a project (or something) where a group of female musicians get together. Alright, so I didn't pay too much attention there...
Anyway, there was a lot of awesome music that was a part of this little thing. Here's 3 artists I managed to find on the horrible quality video site we all know as YouTube:


This is Donzelle. She apparently makes her videos into a little instructional of sorts. So it's not technically a music video, but it's cool. Unfortunately for me I don't speak any French, though that this song has something to do with sex wasn't really hard to get. It's called Libido Macro, for one.


GoldieLocks. British MC/rapper/singer/producer. She a forth Swede too, which makes me love her even more. Unfortunately this was the best I found on YouTube. No video, and the sound ain't too good. The music and lyrics, however, is.
Has also made an awesome refix of NERDs ´Provider´ that can be enjoyed on her MySpace.



Giselle Numba One. If there where 3 sisters in Cocorosie, she would probably be the third. Not that all her music sounds like Cocorosie or anything, but there is a strong resemblance in some cases so it's a comparison that has to be made.
She's a bit more energetic though, and also has some more pure rap tunes.

Hell, I've started so I might as well keep going:


De Tropix. Another cool band making music that at least makes me wanna get busy on the dance floor. Cherry B, the singer and dancer of the duo I think makes up De Tropix is/was a dancer for M.I.A. I got the feeling they're friends or something, but I might be wrong there so don't put any money on it.

Ok, there was a few other good one's that I couldn't find any good videos for.
Miss Odd Kidd and L'amour est la Guerre.

I did find one for Bunny Rabbit and Black Cracker though:

04/11/2008

The Story of Stuff

51 Years

That's how long ago Laika became the first living creature from our planet to go into space.
Trentemöller has dedicated one of their videos to her, and it's quite the thing of beauty:

27/10/2008

Quick News Update

Gordon Brown is a cunt because he decided to freeze Icelandic assets under the anti-terror law. The reason apparently was "economic terrorism" which is of course a lie. Why not freeze American assets instead? They were the once who caused the current economic crisis after all.
Oh, that right... Britain is Americas bitch.
And I suppose Iceland was a good fall guy. They don't even have an army, so maybe it's time to bomb them a bit too? That'd teach them not to engage in any "economic terrorism" in the future!

According to Greg Palast: "The U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that the chances of an African-American voter losing their vote is 900% higher than a white voter. Hispanic votes vanished at a rate 500% higher than Anglo votes."
Racism: I'm lovin' it!

26/10/2008

My Drinking Masterpiece

Alright, lets see. I'm gonna try and describe what I've heard was my
worst. I don't remember hardly anything except glimpses after the 2
first tequilas, until 5 hours or so later when I'm standing in the
hallways, and another drunk friends decides to push me because I look
unstable while putting on my shoes.

But, in no particular order:
Made a list of girls I liked.
Danced on my knees since I couldn't stand properly.
Drove
a moped, crashed, got a concussion and wrecked the moped (it was mine
luckily). Got either led or carried inside, with road rash on my face,
bleeding a little from the head, and with puke on my jacket.
Decided
that jumping a hedge that was almost as tall as me was a good idea when
you're not able to take two steps in the same direction. I crashed
trough the hedge, scratched my belly, and got grass stains on my face
as well. This might have been before or after crashing the moped. I
have no idea really.
Despite heavy objections from the host, threw
myself in his little brothers bed, with puke stains, gravel and so on
still on my persona. Needless to say, he was not pleased at the time.
Though the day after, when I came to collect what used to be a nice
vintage moped, he didn't seem to mind.
On the way home to one of my
friends, me, him and another friend stole 2 bikes outside a party a few
houses away. One had a cart, which the least drunk of us got to ride.
I'm surprised we actually made it back whiteout crashing even once.
Even making it back was an achievement to me at the time.
Then the
following morning, with my two friends saying "shit!" "What the hell
did you do?" and other things like that about the appearance my face,
with a severe hangover and a concussion, the first thing I do is stand
up, only to bang my head with incredible force into a 5 kilos speaker
that's mounted to the wall with iron bolts or something.

It's
amazing how much of this I've managed to piece together, considering
that I brought about a liter of strong spirits with me, drank that in
about two hours, got several shots of tequila, some beer, some
moonshine, some wine, and so on. Considering I hardly never drink, that was a bit much I've realized.
I went to the hospital the day
after, after realizing that my head felt like it was stuffed with
cotton instead of in severe pain. That's how I know I had a concussion.

Oh
yeah, and I also lay passed out in a bathtub with vomit, booze and
things on me, with a shower curtain pulled to hide the sight of the
thing I had become. This meant that as soon as I made a sound, which
was most likely slurred speak, grunts or moans, I scared the hell out
of whoever was using the toilet.
That's my worst so far. It lacks sex with animals and drugs, but other than that I think I covered most of it.
Might have pissed myself, though neither me or anyone else noticed in that case.

25/10/2008

Late Night Hip Hop

23/10/2008

A Reason to Like Obama

I've finally found one, other than that he's not McCain that is...

"The biggest problem with our energy policy has been to lurch from crisis to trance. And what we need is a sustained, serious effort. [...] I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That's just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that's going to be my number one priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation."

Other than the fact that Obama seems to be the kind of guy you could have a serious discussion with, highly intelligent, and a few other good qualities that'd I personally like to see in the leader of one the biggest and most influential countries on the planet, my personal preference for Obama come from two things that has nothing to with this:

First of, he is not "just another rich white guy with corporate interests, and religious views that influence his actions". Not really fair, I know. But that's what large part of the world seem to think these day. Considering the view of many people, especially the youth in the Middle East, Europe, and probably a few other places, seem to amount to this, although in some cases a lot less polite, having Obama elected would shut all of us up. We can't use our "American President-stereotype" anymore, and are forced to re-evaluate our opinions somewhat. (At least that's what I hope.) So, in other words, better foreign relations. I know, you might object that since it's mainly the youth that are angry at the US it doesn't really matter. But this youth will grow up, and if there hasn't been any real change, why would their opinions change? And furthermore, angry youth tend to make their opinions heard. This means that older people will hear them no matter what they do. Some might tag along just because they usually do that, just as some of the youth have, some might agree, and very few of those that disagree will voice their opinion.

I'm not saying that's the case in all of Europe, but I think it's at least a not all that faulty description of the situation in Sweden. (Which, if Obama is a socialist, I'm quite sure could also be said to be a Communist dreamland...)

And, as if that is not enough, I think the chances of terrorist attacks on the US might decrease a bit. Both because of the fact that Obama is not the "typical American President", but also because he actually knows something about Islam. Plus, the fact that he doesn't have the same military background as McCain, which I'm hoping means he's less likely to start any wars.

The Time Article, via Open the Future.

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