Let’s see if I’ve got this right. The government is effectively taking over private companies. Congress is going to vote on a new energy tax that will likely further screw up our beleaguered economy to no useful end. The president is trying to take over more control of our health care system by creating a new program that even he won’t go near. People are being killed in the streets of Iran for protesting tyranny, and all we have for them are flowery words. North Korea is threatening a nuclear “fire shower” and the best we can do is extend sanctions that haven’t done much to stop them so far. And the kicker? All the media outlets are doing is mourning the loss of one of the most vile scumbags* I can imagine.

*My apologies to scumbags, I don’t have the language to describe that kind of evil.

[Joe]

The way that smokers are treated in America sickens me. The government puts out ads denouncing their chosen lifestyle. They are persecuted through excessive taxation on the things they need to satisfy their desires. The government even has programs to cure them of their ‘illness’. It is important to remember that smokers are people too, and they should not treated differently just because they have an inclination to do something that others don’t have a desire to do. It’s really not surprising that there is such a strong anti-smoker bias in our society today. The indoctrination process against smokers starts at a young age, children as young as elementary school age are taught that it is ‘naughty’ to smoke. I think to rectify the situation, we should create programs to teach these children that it’s not wrong to have the desire to smoke. They should be taught to be open minded and to learn more about themselves and that it’s OK if they want to smoke too. Maybe when they grow up, they can become leaders within their communities and help to bring about some acceptance in this area by extolling the benefits and inherent value of the culture that surrounds this activity and the camaraderie it engenders. It’s possible that in time smoking will even become more legitimized and given it’s proper place among other state sanctioned forms of recreation like mountain climbing or swimming.

/satire

[Joe]

At the end, the Union general got up and started yelling at the Confederates because they were “killing” the wounded. One of the Confederates got so tired of listening to him that he shot him. The Union general’s response was, “You missed. Got anything more?”. The Confederate shot him a second time and the response was “You missed again.” At that point the Confederate took his pistol by the barrel and used it as a club.

[Joe]

I really should be working. There’s no way this thing is going to get done on time if I don’t keep up the pace, but I have to let it out or they’re going to put me in the “clicky house”. I woke up this mourning more tired than usual. I’ve had a headache from trying to work through it. I get into school and I realize I have to read through some more references. So I try to look them up, but the thesis I’m getting them from doesn’t have any titles for it’s journal references. I try using the authors name, but I can’t because I can’t get the stupid Spires search to accept an umlat. And of course, I didn’t type the umlat, because I don’t know how to do that. I searched the web for a site that had a u with an umlat over it and copied it into the search on Spires. Having failed there, I tried using the Syracuse University library e-journal search. After figuring out a few abbreviations in the thesis references and correcting a mistake or two, I search for the volume that I want in the journal that I want. It gives me back the latest volume. But, I’m now at the journal’s site, or at least some website hosting the journal so I use the search there and finally get the volume that I want. Now I just have to find the specific entry that I want, but again I can’t search the authors name, so I use the page number. But I have to hope that the entry that I want is on this page of search results or my page number search won’t work. Finally I find it, print it out and it’s blurry. I mean like blurrier than those purple pre-xerox copies Dr. Bud used to use. And on top of that, three quarters of the way through the article there’s a blank page and then nothing more. I can use thousands of processors to simulate wild and bizarre extensions to the standard model of particle physics, but I can’t simply find an article and print it out. Technology is a joke.

[Joe]

Deeper Cuts

Wii:
Metroid: Other M

Red Steel 2 – Part 2

Xbox 360:
Splinter Cell: Conviction

Lost Planet

PS3:
The Last Guardian

MAG

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves