News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 7:24 pm

Gothloli ambassador? Don't know if want.

Schoolgirl ambassador? DO NOT WANT!

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:15 pm

I worry a lot of the time that Americans have had their brains turned to mush by a media and government more worried about entertainment and conflict than actually informing and leading people.

Then I see the Japanese media and realize that we still have a ways to fall. Fuck.

A media critic from that culture wrote a thought-provoking book about the LCD-ing and trivialization of the fourth estate in both the United States and Japanese and how it had really grave implications for democracies in both countries. Damned if I can find the book, though.

... what was I originally going to talk about? Oh yeah, now I remember. I had a link to post.

Forget everything I said about Japanese media being slightly worse than American media, they're both equally bad.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... more-46361

The link is explanatory.

And WHY exactly does the Alaskan GOP want Begich, who won in a narrow but decisive election to resign? Well...

Democracy-Hating Dumbshits wrote:"The Alaska Republican Party…believes that current Senator Mark Begich should resign his position to allow for a new, special election, so Alaskans may have the chance to vote for a senator without the improper influence of the corrupt Department of Justice," the Alaska Republican Party's Web site states.

Fucking Republican party. I hope they slowly drown in a pool of their own puke. Or the AIP can actually get it over with and fucking withdraw and go Galt.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:51 pm

ckafrica wrote:I don't know I don't find them that cute. But I'm more of a SE Asia kind of guy.

I guess you're also not a pedophile.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:38 am

Honestly, the gothloli and "schoolgirl" ambassadors don't look like children to me. Since I grew up in a region with no school uniforms, the "schoolgirl" outfit doesn't say "schoolgirl" to me. I just looks like a suit jacket and a short skirt together. In short, it's a "sexy office worker" uniform rom where I live. And as such I regard it as pretty hot and don't feel that this is in any way pedophilic on my part.

Women, and not girls are the only people who would dress like that where I am from.

-Username17

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:50 am

Bigode, one thinks you're making the mistake of assuming that everyone is as big an anime nerd as you (and I). For most people, what Frank said applies.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 2:17 am

Heath Robinson wrote:Bigode, one thinks you're making the mistake of assuming that everyone is as big an anime nerd as you (and I). For most people, what Frank said applies.

I'm an anime nerd, but the 'schoolgirl' outfit just doesn't strike any sparks for me.

Nor do nurses or maids.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 2:31 am

Whee! I was able to find the book. And it's for free on Google Book Search! You guys are the luckiest gamers EVAR

A Public Betrayed: An inside look at Japanese media Atrocities and their warnings to the West

Publisher Review wrote:Thorough, thoughtful, and provocative, this book lays bare the mechanisms and motivations behind these sobering abuses. And as the examples show, the very factors that have contributed to such injustices in Japan have become increasingly predominant in the news-media sectors of the West-factors such as extreme industry consolidation, the growth of nationalism, intense commercialism, and the erosion of media ethics. The lessons for the rest of the free world could be neither more profound nor more relevant. Now is the time to understand Japan and its media atrocities.

Sounds famili--OHHHHH SHITZZ!!! 8( 8( 8(

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:43 am

Yeah, I'm with Frank on this one. Sure, some schools in the area had uniforms, but they weren't the kind that you see on strippers, in porn etc. They were pretty plain and designed to make every underaged blob look the same for easy identification of where an individual blob came from.

(Hilarious incident: in my high school, uniform was optional, and by "uniform" I mean the school shirt, that's it, you could wear whatever pants/skirt you wanted within normal rules of decency. Once, some news reporters came to interview some students about the new school buses, so the principal quickly rounded up half a dozen students in uniform for a good looking photo. Now, more than half the students catch the bus... but none of those chosen did. Awesome.)

Anyway, school uniform doesn't say "underaged" to me, it says "awesome". But looking at the person IN the uniform might give you a heads-up, because let's face it, some parents are dressing their 8 year old daughters up like models and prostitutes, and if you look at the clothing and say "Must be legal", then there could be something wrong with your brain. Also, I would not complain if criminal charges were brought against aforementioned parents.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:54 am

My unasked-for opinion on the school uniforms? I like them, but only because they look professional. They're a necessary evil in anime because it's a reality of the school systems there even though I'm really fucking tired of looking at them. I don't feel that they're particularly sexualized even though I can sort of see why they're a turn-on for people. But then again I used to work in a job where female sailor suits were common so I stopped caring after awhile.

This doesn't, however, change the fact that as someone who appreciates a nice pleated skirt and pressed blouse combination that I feel vaguely and indirectly insulted at this naked appeal for attention.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 9:23 am

Mike Huckabee calls voter suppression "God's work."

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 9:48 am

Huckabee is a certified lame-o and has one of the worst cases of foot-in-mouth disease I've seen but I don't think that he was actually requesting or hoping for people to let air out of voters' tires. He's a dumb-dumb and hides his maliciousness behind a facile, easy-going persona but he's too savvy to say something like that and mean it.

angelfromanotherpin · Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:12 pm

Fox News recognized as Nazi, by ex-Nazi.

"Man, you never go full Goebbels."

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:45 pm

Okay, this is entertaining.

Information Age Prayer is a site that charges you a monthly fee to say prayers for you. A typical charge is $4.95 per month to say three prayers specified by you each day.

"We use state of the art text to speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying," the company states. "Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen."

Prices, however, are dictated by the length of the prayer. As noted in the Information Age Prayer FAQ, "A discounted prayer will cost less than other prayers of similar length."

An electronic prayer wheel, basically.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:36 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Huckabee is a certified lame-o and has one of the worst cases of foot-in-mouth disease I've seen but I don't think that he was actually requesting or hoping for people to let air out of voters' tires. He's a dumb-dumb and hides his maliciousness behind a facile, easy-going persona but he's too savvy to say something like that and mean it.

And yet not savvy enough to realize that the quote is only going to motivate the opposition and make him look bad, especially since he's a member of a party that actually does voter suppression.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:46 am

What's with all the mass shootings lately? Did R'lyeh rise up out of the ocean or something?

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:56 am

Maxus wrote:What's with all the mass shootings lately? Did R'lyeh rise up out of the ocean or something?

my dad was muttering something about America going down the tube yesterday because of all the recent shootings that he had heard on the radio and I had made a Cthulhu comment. It didn't faze him any as he doesn't know HPL. But that's an odd coincidence.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 5:07 am

Maxus wrote:What's with all the mass shootings lately? Did R'lyeh rise up out of the ocean or something?

People who get all their news from right-wing outlets are being fed end-of-days nonsense. The ones who were most unstable to begin with are being pushed over the edge.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:02 am

There were a lot of mass shootings in the thirties as well. And for the same reason. There was just one in the BRD, it's not just America.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:32 am

Let's not be coy here. Let's just flat-out say it: a combination of right-wing propaganda and a bad economy can never lead to anything good.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:48 am

Anyone have the mass shootings per capita plotted against year going back at least 50 years?

Protip: I don't need to see the stats to know that the absolute number of shootings is going to go up barring serious societal change. Since they're still infrequent enough to be newsworthy you hear about every single one. This makes them appear more prevalent as time goes on.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 8:33 am

Are we just talking about school shootings or all large scale shootings?

Because if we're talkin about columbinesqueries, those have demonstrably dropped even as media coverage of them has gone up. 55 deaths in 92-93 year, 25 in 96-97, and so on.

But as for mass shootings, no you don't hear about all of them and you never did. Seriously 6000 people were shot dead in Juarez last year. Because Mexico is basically in a state of civil war right now. And that barely makes the news because it's mostly brown people dying. Indeed, things like school shootings make the big media news circuit because they are not common anymore. That makes them news, which makes them worth talking about. But the fact that they are talked about increases peoples' perception of them as being a serious problem.

It's a weird cycle. You get a huge well of public opinion to do something about problems once people already have and it ha mostly worked. You didn't see a groundswell of perception that school firearms were a huge problem back in 1976 when 3.8% of highschool seniors had been injured by a firearm.

I mean seriously, here's the FBI chart for nonfatal violent crime involving a firearm from 1993 until 2005:

-Username17

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 9:06 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Let's not be coy here. Let's just flat-out say it: a combination of right-wing propaganda and a bad economy can never lead to anything good.

You've got to be kidding me.

There is no reason to include "bad economy" in there. The economy was the best it's ever been when the Oklahoma City bombing happened.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:19 pm

I was talking about large-scale shootings.

I remember hearing someone say that there's been five in the past month alone? Something like that.

So far, there's been one in Alabama, the one where the guy shot up the class taking a Citizenship test, the one where the father killed his five children and then himself (I don't know if that should count)...And others that I cannot actually recall right now.

Just, damn. I know they all get reported, but that's just an unreal number in this short amount of time.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:32 pm

So, the Pentagon decided to lift the ban on photographing the return of fallen soldiers.

And, in a move that strikes me as very respectful, they left it up to the families to decide. The story about the first such case indicated it was done very respectfully, with the family's permission and wishes respected. The family declined to be photographed or interviewed, so they weren't.

This, I think, is good. I have a dim view of war anyway, and would rather the public get the full view of all aspects of it. Including the fact that people die.

Think about that. People--who were born, went to school, had friends, decided the join the military for whatever reason--die in war. Real people. So, yeah, this helped remind me a little of that. I even emotionally grasped it a little (I can intellectually concede something, but actually emotionally grasping it as real is another story.)

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/06/ ... 239023770/

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:33 pm

So, the Pentagon decided to lift the ban on photographing the return of fallen soldiers.

And, in a move that strikes me as very respectful, they left it up to the families to decide. The story about the first such case indicated it was done very respectfully, with the family's permission and wishes respected. The family declined to be photographed or interviewed, so they weren't.

This, I think, is good. I have a dim view of war anyway, and would rather the public get the full view of all aspects of it. Including the fact that people die.

Think about that. People--who were born, went to school, had friends, decided the join the military for whatever reason--die in war. Real people. So, yeah, this helped remind me a little of that. I even emotionally grasped it a little (I can intellectually concede something, but actually emotionally grasping it as real is another story.)

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/06/ ... 239023770/