Sunday, December 18, 2022

Pendulum

It seems to me that the rise to prominence of Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, Bret Weinstein, and Jordan Peterson, all during the ascension of Elon Musk, may not be as beneficial to the Republic as it might at first appear.   Or, stated another way, when something sounds too good to be true...


Wednesday, August 29, 2018

If conservatives would just start talking about climate change on social media we'd never have to hear about it again.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Time Travel

I'm fascinated by time travel, but I'm guessing that it won't happen in my lifetime.  I only say that because I definitely would have removed this post by now.

Saturday, April 09, 2016

I’ve been trying to come at a certain issue from various angles; I started with a sarcastic approach, which quickly evolved into satire.  Then I tried using rhetorical questions; exposing the truth might affect a change.  But I realize that none of that will work, any attempt to persuade certain people is simply an exercise in futility.  If you genuinely believe strong women leads in Star Wars is a bad thing, then there’s nothing I can do for you.
 
In Star Wars Episode VII, Luke Skywalker’s daughter is a Jedi – deal with it!

In the upcoming Star Wars: Rogue One, a girl living under the oppressive rule of the Empire is a little spunky – get over it!

Now that you think of it, Princes Leia was a little too rebellious for your tastes – you just didn’t notice it so much because she took her proper place right behind C-3PO and R2-D2.

On one hand you belittle and demean those who aren’t perceptive and discerning – but it’s you who don’t get what Star Wars is really about.

Or maybe there’s something wrong me because I would rather watch a million movies with Rey as the lead than one more with Anikan…


No, it’s you.

Monday, April 07, 2014

Redbox

Back when I was a kid, people rented videotapes from their local video store.  Our family had a stand-alone videotape rewinder, a device which rewound the videotape without wearing out or straining the motor in the videotape player.  The video store had a policy requiring videotapes to be rewound prior to returning; a fee could be assessed if this wasn't done.  Only on rare occasions did a videotape slip through the cracks and arrive at our home unwound... which was an irritating inconvenience but simply required a quick rewind.

Flash forward to 2014.  We live in the utopian future where rewinding is an archaic memory.  The only problem is that something far worse has taken its place.  Every time I have rented a movie from Redbox the data surface of the disc has been marred by greasy fingerprints.  Just last night I rented American Hustle which obviously only should have been handled by an adult, and it looked like the previous viewer must have been in the middle of a Kentucky Fried Chicken 5 piece meal...
It has become my standard operating procedure to wash each disc with warm soapy water, then gently dry before inserting into my disc player.  This is far more inconvenient than the occasional pre-viewing rewind that was necessary 20 years ago. 

Now let's analyze what this all means:
1) With videotapes there was a buffer -- the video store -- it's impossible to know how many people returned videos without first rewinding them.
2) It is possible that people are stupid, i.e. they handle the disc incorrectly, thus contaminating and damaging their own disc players.
3) Or, people are selfish, only mishandling the disc after they have viewed it, returning it to Redbox worse than they received it.

When I discussed this very subject with Peter late last night, he made some loose connection with something he had heard Rush Limbaugh say; apparently Limbaugh has been calling people "low information voters" instead of idiots.  Peter suggested that my Redbox observations are a microcosm of a far more troubling trend...  He's concerned that Limbaugh's "low information voter" terminology is dangerously close to romanticizing something that most likely will lead to self-destruction.  Peter says that my experience with Redbox discs is proof that most people are idiots and selfish.  He then went all politics on me, suggesting that President Obama's election to office and subsequent re-election represents the same thing.  Before I could stop him, he went even further, saying that a significant number of votes Mitt Romney received in 2012 most likely were from the very same idiots who accidently rent Blu-Ray discs from Redbox kiosks even when all they own is a DVD player.  These people are so stupid that the inadvertently do the right thing, even though every cell of their being is programmed to do the opposite.

At this point, as you can probably imagine, I told Peter that he was getting a bit carried away, and we parted ways. 

I'm guessing that one of you smartasses is thinking "I stream all my movies, so I don't have any of these problems."  Well, you're a selfish idiot too.

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Victory!


The results clearly can mean only one thing… 
Obviously there has been a referendum. 
What we need is a complete overhaul of the mental healthcare system in the United States

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Previsionism

I just looked it up on Google... no hits for the word "previsionism".  Therefore, let the record show that I, Edwardo Crum, on the 25th of October, 2012 coined the term.  Below you will find the my official reference information, so that you may cite appropriately anytime you use the term.

Revisionists have sought to manipulate historical accounts to fit their ideological beliefs.  Pilgrims were bigots, Jefferson was a pimp, "we didn't land on Plymouth Rock...  the rock was landed on us!", Columbus discovered America, etc.  Unfortunately this approach to revising history leaves much to be desired.  First and foremost, quite a few people actually have been taught something completely different.  Sure, people who actually view Pilgrims favorably are typically old and remember the days before cell phones, yet they still present a counter-view to history which Revisionists find unsettling.  The logical conclusion, and an approach which is currently being tested, is the previsionist history method.  While the prefix "pre" and the word "history" seem at odds with each other, let me explain how amazingly perfect this concept is:  So often history unfolds in a way that doesn't support the narrative agreed upon behind closed doors, where profoundly intelligent people have tirelessly planned out a perfect course for our lives.  Hiccups in history are just like hiccups in real life; they're best is they never happened.  The Previsionist is a step ahead of the history game; he knows that events must unfold in a way that promotes the common good.  While the Previsionist is obviously good for our future, alas it has become apparent that we need significant improvements to technology, since obviously our current resources are inadequate.  While the Previsionists could see the angry mob protesting because of a YouTube video, the video cameras, drones, heck- all the resources of the CIA couldn't see the throng of people gathered in the streets. 

Of course the truly suave Previsionist would say, "who said anything about an angry mob?"


*When using the following terms:  "Previsionism", "Previsionist", "Prevision", please be sure to say the following (or else you will be grossly plagiarizing a fellow blogger):  "...to use the term coined by Edwardo Crum, on the 25th of October, 2012 whilst he was minding his own business sipping some coffee..."  Below you will find an example of how to properly use this citation in a sentence.

**  Let us say that you are standing on the front porch after Bible study and you're complaining about how unfair it is that some Spanish dweeb got the credit for something that Leif Erikson did hundreds of years prior...  "I can't believe that those good-for-nothing, to use the term coined by Edwaro Crum, on the 25th of October, 2012 whilst he was minding his own business sipping some coffee, revisionists gave all the credit to Columbus for what Erikson did hundreds of years before!"