political disease

THE LUCIFER STRAIN

[Scene: the CDC. In a sterile lab, two besuited microbiologists are performing various routine tasks.]

Mb1: No, I don't eat it, but I just didn't grow up with it, so I have no taste for it.
MB2: More for me!
MB1: Have it, my friend! But I don't think it's anything to worry about.
MB2: [laughs] Yeah, people just get hysterical when they're already stressed.
MB1: Exactly. If this happened during a better economy, nobody would--
[MB1's head explodes, spraying blood across the room. ]
MB2: If only we, the American government, had never made that pact with--
[MB2 convulses and collapses. Pan out to a view of a wall behind them, on which the sprayed blood has formed a dripping pentagram]
MB2: [gasping] Master--!

[Scene: the oval office. As the word "master" echoes, Obama looks up from a pile of papers, as though hearing something]

Obama: So it's finally happening. My only regret is that we couldn't take more of their guns. [beat; presses button for intercom]
Obama: Sarah, send Clinton in.
[Bill Clinton enters, leering and masturbating]
Obama: No, not you. Bring the woman.
B. Clinton: Yes, yes, the woman. One question, Reverent One...
Obama: I'm listening, as always.
B. Clinton: Why did we release the Lucifer strain, again?
Obama: [sighs] Listen, Bill. Remember how we want to take everyone's guns away?
B. Clinton: Of course. How could I forget? We hate their freedom, and fear their righteous wrath.
Obama: [pause] ...right. So, we created a virus that only affects the righteous, and once they die, we can take their guns and give their jobs to the mexicans who we used to deliver the flu, black Americans, and so on.
B. Clinton: Oh, right. I'm so glad that, as 4-dimensional lizard entities, we're immune to the virus.
Obama: Technically, I'm a Muslim, but close enough. Now bring me the one called Hilary and be gone, Caliban!
B. Clinton: Yes, al-Obama, the righteous, the merciful...
Obama: Merciful...?[Obama gives Clinton the "Muslim Eye"; Clinton is transfigured into a porcupine]
Obama: Curse this clumsy physical form! I wanted a hamburger.

[Scene: Church of Christ the Straight Shooter]

Reverend Steele: The swine flu is a judgment upon our wayward world! It is an unholy miscegenation of several other flus, unwholesomely incubated in the swine! The disease is here! Apocalypse is imminent! Obama is Satan, the plague is his hand! A mild fever and body aches his sword! But the sweat of the righteous will flood mightily his socialization of the banking system, whence our delivery will come! Divine Providence is the reward of those faithful to the spirit of the blood ofthasjookhasipjoteafiongantab!!!!!! [He collapses, writhing ecstatically on the ground and speaking in tongues]
Congregant 1: [whispering] I don't think Muslims are allowed to eat pork, though.
Congregant 2: [whispering] Exactly! That's why Obama is immune!
Congregant 1: So, do we use the guns to inject ourselves with Tamiflu?
Congregant 2: We can only trust the guns we make ourselves. Like this one. Home-gunning is the only way to avoid contamination.
[he produces a hand-made firearm]
Congregant 2: Now, your average Smith and Wesson is already branded with the mark of the Beats, so...
Congregant 1: Did you mean to say, Beast?
Congregant 2: You heard me. Anyway, this sweet little lady I made will...
[the gun goes off, killing him. Congregants begin to shriek and flee the church]
Congregant 1: Now it's personal. I think.

[Scene: The offices of the World Health Organization. Margaret Chan, the director, is addressing a multicultural assembly]

Margaret Chan: No, Muslims cannot eat pork. Or so I've heard.
King Abdullah: We can do anything we want, it's just not considered halaal.
Angela Merkel: That's, like...the Muslim kosher, right?
Abdullah: Please. We have nothing in common with those people.
[a beat; all break out in laughter]
Margaret Chan: Okay, okay, seriously. This is serious business. Now, I just got off the, uh, uncomfortable direct mind-link with Obama, and He's very pleased with our progress so far. This swine flu, combined with Arlen Specter's [Abdullah hisses] recent treachery, should give the Dems a fillibuster-proof majority, while the strain's capacity to endlessly reinvent itself is nothing short of Madonna-esque, and...
[a clerk bursts into the room, wild-eyed and shouting]
clerk: They're not buying it! They're not buying it! It's all over! AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Chan: Slow down. Who's not buying what?
Abdullah: [standing up] Drop to forty per barrel! Suck it, Chavez!
clerk: No, reverent one! They're not accepting Obama's birth certificate! They know it's a fake!
Chan: [eyes narrow] Then it's war.

END ACT 1

consequence credibility

In any society, individuals rely, for their safety and social acceptance, on the information given to them from others (especially higher-status others) about what risks are involved in the activities of life, and what consequences are likely to arise from wrong actions. I think one important component of pervasive and persistent ideologies entails the capacity of such to convincingly persuade potential adherents of a) the undesirability of the consequences they warn of, and b) the inevitability of those consequences following the wrong acts which are proscribed under that system.

One of the ways in which such controlling ideologies engender and maintain the credibility of claims about consequences is through the management of information sources; for example, recently in the United States, a certain segment of society has become deeply and increasingly interested in restricting information about sexuality and birth control to young people. They promote the idea of sexual education per se, like most Americans, but their conception (heh) of sexual education is defined by its complete reliance on the supremacy of an abstinent paradigm to successfully guide young people.

Empirical studies have shown that this method, whatever other merits it may have, is, at the very least, no more effective than others at inculcating abstinent behavior; in fact, it has been correlated with higher rates of teenage pregnancy and STD transmission than other methods which aim to educate by providing information rather than what amounts to a prohibition on the transmission of information.

This radical restriction of information serves two purposes: it creates a situation where many disenfranchised, uninformed young women become pregnant, and it limits the capacity of young people to question the information, or lack thereof, being presented by eliminating awareness of divergent or contradictory information, thereby enhancing the credibility of the consequences, real or otherwise, associated with, for example, pre-marital, protected sex.

In my opinion, the worst part of this is the disingenuous faux-concern with stopping teenage, non-marital pregnancy and STD transmission. The proponents of this pedagogical strategy are either unaware of its inefficacy or dishonest about their intentions, and society as a whole can ill-afford to suffer the effects of either mass-scale ignorance or fraud when the health, happiness, safety, and success of an entire generation, and especially the female portion of that generation, is dependent on the good faith and honesty of its elders.

insomniac blogging

A List of Portmantbreaux

bro: A young dude, any random man, a guy who likes to party and will yell at drunk girls to take off their tops, a frat boy.

bromantic: Guys who seem like they're very invested in companionship but are kind of misogynistic. Will say things like "Dude, I totally love and trust my girl, I just don't trust other guys" as a defense for romantic gestures like bugging her car with miniature microphones.

brosquatch: Also known as the abominable broman, this tall, hirsute fellow is native to sub-zero climes; his grunt-based language is intelligible to bartenders.

C.E.Bro: He runs a business inherited from his dad; spends most of his time losing the company's money on all-terrain vehicles, gold-plated money incinerators, and Red Bull popsicles.

sometimes I just like to make up names

Earlhard Eg Nundugger
Harelyborne Zum
Tab De Marseilles
Ekro Randcamt
Emma Veteran
Miguel Gandalf Trabuchet
Marco Twain
Ellbag Leerner
Tanner Spicer
Wreithkeyshia Obwackwordsway
Oswald Handfinger
Broad Jeff
Cathy Thiggerthaffes

There was a red line on the monitor that showed the progress of the ship through space: I was a passenger. I don't know where the ship came from or where it was going. I remember looking out of an aperture to the void, and watching stars and other distant bodies, and then thinking, There really shouldn't be clouds in space. That might have been the moment when I realized it was a dream.

self-doubt

I just noticed that the facial wash I grabbed somewhat impulsively in the duty-free is actually "Moisturizing" face wash. And...I don't know about this. I don't know if this is the direction I want my life to go in.

law school professorial incest loop

Many professors at many "top" law schools in the US are graduates of Yale or Harvard. Fine. No big surprise there, those are generally regarded as the two most elite, rigorous, and intellectually rarefied institutions.

But many of their own professors are graduates of the school at which they now teach. Before you consider that fact on your own, dear reader, consider this: what if they're wrong about everything and nobody knows because there's ne plus ultra authority? Ok, that's unlikely. But in the interest of creating a new pool of qualified professors for the most incontinence-inducingly impressive law schools, I propose: famous actors! E.G.--

Morgan Freeman teaches legal theory of race and civil rights law!

Dustin Hoffman teaches contracts and conversational Yiddish!

Al Pacino teaches whatever the hell he wants!

HOOO AAAH!