State of the Union: Highlights
January 29th, 2008 at 19:21

What’s that? You like it when idiots on YouTube rip-off the Daily Show’s tried and tested “splice reaction shots into clips of speeches” formula and package it shambolically? Excellent:

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The Truman Show
January 29th, 2008 at 12:35

At risk of sounding like the most arrogant man alive… is it only me who has ever wondered if the whole world does actually revolve around me? Not in the scientific sense, of course – as fat as I may be, I still don’t have a mass large enough to make any sort of gravitational impact – but in a similar way to the film The Truman Show.

You’ll remember that in the film, Jim Carrey plays Truman, the unwitting subject of a reality TV show, where his entire life is broadcast on TV, and everything he does and encounters is controlled by TV executives. I’ve wondered with alarming regularity whether or not I’m actually a less interesting, less charismatic and more easily dislikeable version of Truman.

Admittedly, my evidence for this is pretty thin, but I’ve chosen to take the 2003 “WMD in Iraq” approach, and have reasoned that the total lack of evidence means that the producers of the programme are just really good at concealing themselves.

For example, my frame of reference here is a film – this, presumably is a massive in-joke. Here I am watching a film in which there is man in exactly the situation I’m in, with “them” even describing how they go about executing such a complex ruse, and how they script everything people say to me, and yet I’m completely oblivious to the “reality” of the situation.

Other “Easter eggs” have no doubt been planted too. It can’t be a coincidence that my favourite book is George Orwell’s 1984, and my favourite film is The Matrix – both are about living in a false reality and being controlled by higher powers in a way that mirrors the Truman Show world that I’m seemingly trapped in. Sure, you actors reading may claim that a reasonable explanation would be these shared narrative themes appeal to me and my obviously delusional and paranoid mind, but if we apply the rule of Occam’s Razor – that when faced with a number of explanations the simplest explanation is the correct one, then it is much easier to say that I am living in the Truman Show than have a complex psychological analysis of my neurosis.

But can it be a coincidence that my life is almost like a soap opera? I live through various story-arcs that overlap, encounter many varied characters, the pathos is regularly juxtaposition with humour, I’ll be funny and I’ll be melodramatic– although I must admit that I’m yet to either murder someone or be murdered, nor have encountered any corpses under my patio. Another explanation could be that soap operas reflect the foibles of life rather than the other way around… but is this really likely given the evidence that I’ve laid out?

The worst thing is that I know you’re all laughing at me now – no doubt this piece of writing is pinned up in the green room where all the actors go when they’re not on set, so that people can walk past, stroke their chin and wryly remark “if only he knew the truth”.

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The Pope: Liar or Nutter?
January 28th, 2008 at 16:12

For International Relations to function well, then all of the participants (states, inter-governmental organisations, leaders, etc) must be rational actors. Its the reason why the Cold War didn’t end in nuclear holocaust: because both sides got a grip and realised that it was within the best interests of everyone if they don’t blow each other up. Its basically Game Theory: “if they other side don’t think you’re going to a twat about it, then they’re not going to be a twat about it, so you don’t be a twat about it either” (The RAND Corporation probably didn’t swear as much as this).

So it worries me that in the world today there is (at least) one man who is either a total nutter, or a horrible liar: The Pope.

The Pope is a man who must either believe that his fictitious God is listening to him and he can hear God talk back to him or is a deceitful liar, and is merely using the office of Pope as a vehicle for pushing his own political agenda on to millions of Catholics. I’m severely hoping that this Pope is a case of the latter.

If the Pope really does hear voices in his head, then he is mentally ill and thus an irrational actor. Yet unlike the crazed lunatics who prowl their city-centre habitat looking for unsuspecting normal people to harass and scare (and who have Facebook groups made by students calling them a “legend”), people actually listen to the Pope. Unlike the municipal nutters, if the Pope was to wear a sandwich board claiming the sky was falling, rather than just cross the road to avoid walking near him, some people would actually listen to him and probably start building bomb shelters. Its quite a precarious situation for us to be in: if Benedict II had a seizure and “God” told him to launch of a new Crusade, it’d cause no-end of hassle.

I hope he isn’t mentally ill - listening to a mad man’s opinions on political issues would be as insane as, say, letting a celibate man have the last word for millions of Catholics in AIDS-ridden places in Africa on issues of the human reproductive process. … Oh.

The much preferable situation is that the Pope is in fact a horrible liar. He’s not hearing voices in his head, and all of the decisions he makes and the things that he says are based on a rational world-view and weighing up observable evidence. He’s merely piggy-backing on the deluded dogmatism of others for his own political ends. And maybe wants to get away with wearing a dress without accusations of being a “tranny”.

Having a liar in charge would at least mean that although he is accountable to no-one (not even the man who doesn’t exist in his head), he’s not going to go and do something stupid. In fact, a Pope who’s a liar would probably be able to identify better with a lot of politicians and participate in the political process more easily.

So, is the Pope a liar or a nutter? What do you think?

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An Apology
January 24th, 2008 at 23:39

I’m afraid I’ve got an apology to make. The reason I’ve not posted anything for the past week isn’t because I’ve been too busy mourning Heath Ledger (funny how an anagram of the name of a man who died after a prescription drugs overdose is “Health Greed”), not because I’ve been too upset about my Facebook friend Peter Hain getting kicked out for being phenomenally corrupt, but because I’ve been misleading you, dearest readers.

I’ve posted countless times having a go at the reactionary huffing-and-puffing right wing types who read the Daily Express, but it turns out they were right all along. Not about Princess Diana. But it turns out that political correctness has actually gone mad after all.

Apparently the story of the “three little pigs” could be offensive to Muslims. I assume the logic here must be that “if Muslims don’t eat pigs, then, er, they might be really offended if they read a story about them building houses”.

It pains me to be critical on this, as I know that morons could seize upon this latest news as an excuse to complain about not being able to use the N-word or whatever, but it does strike as a teeny-tiny little bit over-zealous. I really hope this is genuine PCGM, and not me becoming naturally more conservative as I age, as that’d be phenomenally depressing.

I mean, I don’t eat animals because I’m a vegetarian… so should I be offended by it? Its a story about something I don’t eat, after all. Maybe its just humanity power tripping, with them wanting to know that if an animal ever challenges their technological authority by building a dwelling of its own, a human could eat it and thus… win at… life?

I could perhaps understand it if in the Koran there were a commandment like “Thou shalt not allow animals to build houses, as they don’t have the dexterity to properly handle construction equipment in a safe manner”, but I’m about 85% sure that isn’t in there. Can any Muslim readers confirm this?

Maybe this is really a case of the Bett awards judging panel being subconsciously racist, and assuming all Muslims are of the ultra-crackpot variety, and don’t want to cause a fuss like with the Danish cartoons?

This said, there is a valid reason to censor the three little pigs hidden three paragraphs in, which is just past that threshold where you assume you’ve got the gist of the story and it isn’t worth reading any more:

“The judges also attacked Three Little Cowboy Builders for offending builders.”

This is a case of political correctness Nazis making the right decision.

Builders are a persecuted minority, with offensive stereotypes about them overestimating the costs of work and driving like wankers. But builders are different to us, and we should recognise and respect those differences. They treat women differently, oppressing them through wolf-whistling and objectification, and they have traditional dress that we may find unusual (low-slung jeans). Their holy book though, known as The Sun, is much like the Christian Bible - there’s a lot of myths and allegory within, but at its core is some firm moral guidance - such as the (photo case) Book of Deirdre.

We must respect their culture and their values - so offending builders is a valid reason to censor the three little pigs.

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Needless controversy Israeli great
January 17th, 2008 at 19:26

I decided to liven up university today by being a bit controversial. Following a lecture on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I’ve spent the day being a bit of a militant Zionist - not a popular position to take in a university with a large population of Muslims, socialists, and assorted left-wing types. (We only have about five Jewish people).

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually strongly support Israel, or the Palestinians… or anyone really. My actual opinion on the conflict is that it is a “lot of faff” and they should all just “get a grip” (you can quote me on that). But I decided to stick up for Israel because they were the underdogs.

So this ended up with me being in a lift on the way to a following seminar that also contained a number of my fellow classmates - including a girl who’s both a committed socialist and Egyptian. So what do I say?

“I think Israel deserve the Golan Heights, given all of the crap they’ve had to put up with”

You could almost see the steam coming out of her ears.

I, of course, followed this up in the actual seminar by antagonising the situation further.

I like to think that trolling real life is a step up from trolling the internet.

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Play knifely, kids
January 14th, 2008 at 17:57

“Computer games are causing knife crime!” would be a succinct way of putting what Gordon Brown said this week whilst pandering to The Sun’s sensationalist editorial line. Quite right he is too – why would there be a complex sociological cause of knife crime amongst young people, perhaps “inequality, poverty and social dissatisfaction”, like a report by Kings College academics said, when there’s a much easier to blame, fear-inducing “man on the street” scapegoat answer?

Video games, amongst the mainstream media, always seem to get a rough ride. Despite being a bigger slice of the entertainment industry pie than the film industry, they’re derided as puerile and not a serious medium for expression, unlike books, film and unmade beds.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that games are all inherently evil and that obviously playing a game that simulates, say, tennis, is going to turn young people into crazed killing machines, given how often computer games are given the blame.

I disagree with this – as if you’re going to claim that knife crime is caused by violent video games, then why isn’t there a similar claim that there’s been massive upsurge in deaths caused by alien invasions or monkeys throwing barrels since the 1980s?

I’ve been playing computer games for years, and whilst I’m socially malnourished and sunlight now burns my pale skin, I’m pretty sure I’m not a psychopath. I’ve never felt a great desire to recreate games in real life – although after a week long minesweeper binge a couple of years ago, I did briefly for a few days after start imagining everything I saw as if it were made up of grey squares surrounded by numbers.

This all said, I think it is possible to use computer games for evil – not the obvious evils like “being violent towards people”, but some of the underlying concepts in the most innocuous games arguably have a sinister undertone…

Take Tetris, for example – on the surface it looks like a simple, yet frighteningly addictive block stacking puzzle, but dig a little deeper and you’ll see that its encouraging you to create rigid order from chaos – it wants the blocks that fall, and you the player – to conform to the pre-determined system, and is rewarding this conformity with points – a proxy for currency. It is essentially a thinly veiled exercise in pushing unfettered capitalism.

Solitaire is much the same. The reason they have it on computers in offices isn’t just because its on the default windows installation – its training office workers to relinquish any creativity and become mere drones, or machines, endlessly stacking up cards in order so that ultimately every pack of virtual cards will be identical.

The most evil game though, is probably the Mario games. On the surface, they look like a delightful cartoon romp in fantasy land, but if you look at the plot of the games, they’re about an ordinary worker, a plumber, conscripting himself to go to (an albeit colourful) war to rescue the Princess and restore an absolute monarchy that wields unlimited power to the throne of the Mushroom Kingdom, crushing the brief freedom that the citizens may have encountered. The villain, Bowser, has been unfairly demonised to create a common enemy for Mario & co to unite against, preventing any internal dissent. And at the end of each level, Mario takes with him a power star – essentially the spoils of war.

In essence, Mario is preparing the youth of today for the wars of tomorrow. Maybe computer games are evil?

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Moustaches make people look evil
January 13th, 2008 at 23:52

Have you ever noticed how moustaches tend to make people look evil? The inverse is true too: if you don’t have a moustache, you look less evil. Look at General Suharto for instance - he looks like a kindly old man, who could perhaps be the grandad you don’t see very often. He doesn’t look like a horrible dictator who caused the death of thousands of East Timorese at all.

The reason I think it is the lack of moustache is because if you look at, say, Hitler and Stalin, there’s just something about them that makes them look evil. The same goes for Saddam Hussein and John Bolton too. Its almost like a moustache is a key component of being a top-flight international bastard.

Want some proof? Have a look at Hitler without a moustache - he looks like Middle Management more than a bastard:

Adding a moustache seems to add a sinister streak to anyone. Look what happens when you add one on to Suharto:

“Hmm, I wonder what he’s planning now?”, you think when you look at him. Immediately any tentative trust based on first impressions is lost.

Even someone like Nelson Mandela, who is generally regarded as a pretty decent bloke looks like he could be a Bond villain with a moustache.

And what about children’s TV presenter Mark Speight? A couple of weeks ago it was reported that he’s suspected of murdering his girlfriend - of course, since then, its been announced that the death doesn’t look suspicious, he’s actually quite upset about it and probably didn’t do it. The news tends to forget about following things like that up quite so vigorously, so all you need to do is add an evil moustache for him to twirl, and he immediately looks more guilty of being evil:

So what’s the moral of this story? Don’t trust people with moustaches, obviously.

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Holy Matrimony, Batman!
January 11th, 2008 at 18:55

Totally unsurprisingly, my favourite news story of the day is the one about the twins who were separated at birth, raised separately, met and then got married. Its such a ridiculous story, its hard to believe that its true. But, just as the media were right about there being loads of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, I’m prepared to believe them on this one too.

What baffles me are the things that they never said to each other:

“Hey, we look really alike, I wonder why that is?”

“Wow! We share a birthday… and were even born in the same hospital at the same time of day! What a coincidence!”

“You were adopted too?! Wow!”

“Hang on a moment…”

Crazy.

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Religious TV is irritating.
January 8th, 2008 at 20:00

I made the mistake of venturing into the part of the Sky EPG I never usually touch the other day, and discovered the 50-odd religious channels. It turns out that, shock horror, they’re shamelessly using religion to extort money from viewers! Here’s a little compilation video I made…

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Change is for the weak
January 8th, 2008 at 00:55

I’m still enjoying the US Presidential race – I’d go as far as saying it’s my second favourite race. After whites.

Really though, it’s great fun to watch. I think back to British politics, and recall how achingly tedious it is comparison. Nick Clegg? Who? David Cameron has said something meaningless, really? Gordon Brown has cracked a smile? Yeah, right.

What I like about this election is that compared to Britain, it’s so very polarised. Because the US is a BIG PLACE, the President can only deal with BIG ISSUES. This means you can easily split the candidates up down the lines: Pro-guns/Anti-guns, Pro-Universal Health Care/Anti-Health Care, Pro-Immigration/Anti-Immigration, Good/Evil. It’s as black and white as an evangelical worldview. In Britain because we’re a small country with a more or less homogenous culture with three clone parties all fighting for a crowded centre ground, the fiercest debate you’re going to get if an argument over the size of tax brackets with inheritance tax. Which is boring.

It’s interesting that all of the candidates are seemingly all campaigning on a platform of “change”- most obviously Obama, as he’s always on about it, but Romney and I think Huckabee, have claimed to be after “change” too. Whilst it’s always nice to challenge the status quo every once in a while, its a bit odd to make “change” your big buzzword.

After all, it’s not as if a candidate would give a speech declaring that “I believe in keeping things the way they are! We’re doing alright at the moment, and besides, I have no new ideas, no policies, and no vision about how to make this country better. I simply want to be President so that people think I’m important”.

And besides, “change” is such a fickle word – its meaning can be, er, changed, and contorted for all sorts of evil means. Just like “Defence industry” means “Evil warmongers” and “Faith-based initiative”, is actually the current US healthcare policy (they don’t need universal health care because they’re just really, really hoping that poor people won’t get ill).

After all – change isn’t always for the better. Look at the change from Coco Pops to Choco Krispies – that was so bad that Kellogg’s had to do a massive U-turn in a blaze of free publicity. Similarly, look at scientists – they keep changing their minds about all sorts, from deciding that Diplodocus actually didn’t raise their necks up, to how evolution works – all this does is discredit them.

In fact, “change” in politics has a terrible track record. Consider the following:

1. In 1990, Britain changed its mind and joined the ERM… with disastrous consequences
2. In 2003, Britain changed from not going to war in Iraq, to going to war in Iraq… with disastrous consequences
3. In 1933, the Nazis changed from not being in power to being in power… and look where that ended up. In fact, Hitler’s entire thing was about “change” – mostly changing minorities into smoke, but change nonetheless.

So I don’t know why this “change” malarkey has so much political capital in America – it’s clearly a doomed ideology. This is why the steadfast values of conservatism are best. Cough.

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