Topicless thread

[NejinOniwa]

That's one fuckedupedly awesome holiday you've got there, sir.

For me, today is a widdle day in-between STRONGEST DAY and my dad's birthday (lololol 9/11 lololol) which we won't be celebrating then as he's in Lisbon with mom, slacking off in general. Which they need, seeing how they go about. Crazy people. Anyway - just a bit more than a week left to the elections, so I'm getting slightly excited about that. -w-;

[stewartsage]

Here it is folks, first show of the year.  Featuring Dragnet this season instead of last years Gangbusters.  Now is the time for you to get in any last minute requests!

On an unrelated note, my package is finally in the United States now!

[Bella]

Xeon, how come your country gets a PARTY day and mine gets a LABOUR day? THE WORLD JUST ISN'T FAIR~ *sobs*

Sounds like a really fun holiday though. I'd try to establish it here, but chances are, I'd get a shotgun to the face the first time I demanded entry into someone's home. -v-

I'm still so torn up about losing my super fantastic list of folk artists and songs, *sobsobsobsob*

Can I request something from the album Modern Guilt by Beck? Nothing in particular, since the whole thing is awesome... eh... I guess that's it, I don't have any other ideas. :\

[NejinOniwa]

I'd like to request Goi, Rode, Goi! from the album with the same name, by Arkona.

Russian metal <3

[stewartsage]

Bella: That reminds me of a story my Stats professor told me about when he was in college at Purdue.  They had to go conduct a door to door study about religious preferences.  In 1970's rural Indiana.  First house he went to he was told "None of your fuckin' business!" and had a shotgun stuck in his face.

Yes, you may.

Done and done my good man.

Of note: I have a slide rule now.  I feel that makes me awesome somehow (that and because I can use it)

[stewartsage]

Late start, on air now.

[Bella]

@Nej: "Russian metal" makes me think of polonium 210 for some reason. -v-

@Stew: I think up here he'd have been invited in to discuss things at length over tea and cookies. People are really cool about talking religion and politics 'round here. xD

Squee, it's good to hear your delightfully southernesque accent again. :3

And that emergency alert jingle was awesome. Wish our station used one like that, instead of the standard BEEEEEEEEEEEP~ BEEEEEEEEEEEEP~

Um... I'm Too Sexy... dedicated to a professor...? Allllllright..... but he better be DAMN HOT.

BIG NEWS EVERYONE: THERE'S A MINIATURE JELLYFISH INVASION AT A BOSTON POND!!!!! AND SOME DUDE WRESTLED AN ALLIGATOR FROM THE CHARLES RIVER!!!!!! The alligator didn't injure him, but they say he'll die from, you know, getting covered in Charles River water.

[stewartsage]

Um, hooray? Southernesque...

It's been my lead in jingle for a year now, but yes, it is awesome.  Apparently it is also the reason that the FCC rewrote the regs so it must be spoken.

Not a professor, my High school World History teacher/Scholastic Bowel coach.  It's an in joke.  Forbidden from explaining on pain of death.

OH SHIT MASSACHUSETTS, THE SEA IS READY FOR HER REVENGE.

Bella, get on YIM for realtime commentary if you want :3

[Xeon]

Xeon, how come your country gets a PARTY day and mine gets a LABOUR day? THE WORLD JUST ISN'T FAIR~ *sobs*

After starving for a whole month any normal human being would want to party, it's just that simple -w-.

Also acquired 129usd in military funds from the first days harvest. Green Packs supplies are dwindling so I doubt I'll get more locally. Must travel to grandparents place to acquire more funds for the mission.

Xeon out~

[Chocofreak13]

TODAY

um....
it's sad? :\ WAAAAY back when WAS truely a sad event but it's kinda upsetting that we got all riled up over it. i agree with penn & teller that we should have just rebuilt the towers to give a big ol' 'fuk-ah yoo' to the insurgents. :\

i also find it sad that americans have a tendency to discriminate against people who look different or believe different due to ONE isolated incident by ONE group of religious extremists. we don't hate the germans or the japanese anymore cause of WWII, hell, we're even friendly with the russians, who a quarter-century ago were bloody commies! and i don't think anyone's mad at US over waco or jonestown! >:\

today, a small chunk of me kind of hates america. >:[ (a small chunk)

(ps. bells, i have used several of those terms without meaning to (or realizing it) including the ones you mentioned were not on the list.
xeon: lucky, with your money and food........i'm sick of hearing about money. >____<
nejin: elections are tuesday, i'm hoping i can vote (wondering if i'll make it back from boston in time. on the bright side, i know another person i'm voting for! ^^)
surge: ty, we're gonna pick up the computer today whether it's fixed or not (it actually started up at the computer store, weird!) since one of my teachers posts all homework assignments online and after a long day of hopping buses and subways my dogs are too tired to go down to the basement.

today, we're going to manchester to hang bras on a bridge. :3)

[NejinOniwa]

TODAY

My dad turns half a century. -w-

[Bella]

@Stew: HIP HIP HOORAY! Yes, you sound southern but not too southern. Just like my accent is Bostonesque, Massachusetts-sounding but not too... you see where this is going.

Oh... your history teacher...okay... NOW I'M EVEN CURIOUS-ER~ D:

THE SEA CREATURES HAVE JUST REALISED HOW AWESOME MASS IS. THE SEA CREATURES NOW WANT TO LIVE IN MASS. Wait until the blue whales, giant octopuses and Cloverfield monster show up. -w-

@Nej: I remember my dad turning a half century... just barely, it was like a decade and a half ago. -v-


@Kari: it's very sad, but I mean, really... how much can something sting nine years after the fact? I'm sad about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake, but if I may be blunt there are personal tragedies that I'm a lot more torn up over (or scarred from).

Agreed that they should have rebuilt the towers though... at this rate, they probably never will and instead just settle for a memorial or something...

A tendency toward discrimination is NOT an American thing though, it's a HUMAN thing. Every society from every time in history has had discrimination in one form or another - be it religious, ethnic, sexist or classist - and that's never going to change. Of course, there are some places where discrimination is very low, I imagine ethnically or culturally homogeneous countries might be this way (ie, few minority groups to cast suspicion upon) but in a place as large and diverse as America, there is a certain percentage of the population that's going to need some group to blindly hate. By the same token, would you consider France a bad country because the leaders are (or were) trying to outlaw certain Islamic styles of dress in public? I wouldn't. I disagree with the proposal, but I don't think less of the country or the people because of it.

On the flip side, what happened on 9/11 wasn't an isolated incident; there were terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda before 9/11 and after 9/11 and there will probably be more in the future. The problem that the people who discriminate against Muslims have is that they can't distinguish the VERY small group of extremists from the majority of good-hearted law-abiding citizens here in America and around the world that just happen to be Muslim. In other words... people who discriminate have absolutely no ability to see in "shades of grey". The world is black and white to them -- you're either with US, or your an ENEMY. Don't make their mistake of oversimplifying the world and hate American because of a small but very vocal minority of bigots.

America's relationship with Japan and Germany after WWII and the Russia after the Cold War is difficult to compare with what's going on now, too... in those cases, we had countries to fight, governments/dictatorships to hate, and a lot of people in those regimes were just hapless victims being suppressed by their governments. Today our enemies are FAR more ambiguous and refuse to play "by the rules" so to speak.

I could go on, but I generally hate talking world affairs in a place as public as this. I hope I didn't just break the forum ban on discussions of Politics and Religion either... ><

[Xeon]

IMO discussion of religion should stop. It never ends well for anybody -w-.

[Bella]

IMO this isn't a discussion about religion. It's about the dangers of making broad judgments. I was merely forming a rebuttal to what Kari said, something that happened to include religion and race.

It is sad how divided and sensitive people are, as a whole, branding entire topics as taboo. At least, as I mentioned before, we don't have many problems like that in my neck of the woods; it's refreshing to be able to have frank conversations on religion, world events and politics - even with strangers or casual acquaintances - without the discussion devolving into a huge butthurt-o-thon.

[NejinOniwa]

AFAIK, the ban is pretty much withered away. I haven't seen jack of it this year, at least.

Ah, clear enemies. The best friend you can possibly have is a clearly defined adversary. Not that humans ever have had much problems making them up - the problem is ensuring they stay that way and that you stay that way as well. Humans are...shifty. Uncannily so.

And this problem - the difficulty in getting a clear, proper adversary - is precisely what fuels the machina of politics. In a struggle to keep their people satisfied with their actions (not necessarily happy in general, just as long as they like them) they need something to crack down on; something to defeat, something to emerge victorious from.

Human society is built on the very concept of war - war is the most basic element of every action taken, and a war is fought on every plane of our world. Economics - a war for money; Politics - a war for the favor of the people; National policy - a never-ending war of attrition against unseen enemies brought upon by the new possibilities that emerge with every turn of the second hand of time. As less and less is defined by the borders of national territory and the movements of armies, new wars pop up like tulips in Amsterdam. The internet is not only a battleground, but also a war in itself - as well as the target, adversary and protége of a swarm of other wars.

In this age, when human understanding has not advanced even an inch of the parsec that communication has, the spreading of these wars like wildfire is inevitable. Control is not a solution - nothing can stop the human instinct of war, as little as the advancement of technology can be halted. As seen through the course of history - the Anykthera, for example - it can be hampered and reduced, and truths can be reconcealed; but the instinct of war will always bring human society to fight against its own inability to surpass nature, itself, and its dreams.

The 9/11 incident is important, because it was symbolic. For one, it was very successful, and had a clear target; It had a clearly defined perpetrator, an organization and to some degree a people who were standing up and telling the US to come fight them. It started not only one, but three wars - the Afghan war, the Iraq war, and the global "War on Terror" - and stirred up in the largely stagnating shark pond. The American shark, who had lasted out the Cold War and survived, unlike its adversary who had gone out splintered; who had once and for all definitely established itself as the true power of the west; and who for almost a decade walked without a cause to fight against or for, other than abstract thoughts and ideas. Naturally, it would gape all it could and sink its fangs into this prey, this bait. Naturally, it sucked it dry and ate it to the bones, and started tracking down its sources for more. The American shark hungers, but the easy prey is all gone - all that lingers is the phantom army of zealots, undefinable save for the common trait of wishing for their destruction.
For as abundant as faith may be in the ranks of both friend and foe, it is not omnipresent in any organization, no matter how it may so claim. The only thing that is truly irresistible for the human mind is the thought of a victory - an adversary to be fought and defeated, and a surge of mind-blowing euphoria as the endorphins happily stream through their arteries.

It is inevitable that wars rise and are fought. The only thing a clever player can hope to accomplish is not control - sooner or later, it will break, shatter or collapse from within. Only by manipulating the outbreaks of war, and the battlefields on which they are fought, can one truly manage to bring an order within the chaos of the world - an order through chaos, itself ordered in a chaotic image of stalemates, defeats and victories - a map of truths and lies; a manuscript, a plan.
A prophecy of conflict and reconciliation.