Rants

My last post was full of anger and rage, so here's another on to throw on the pile. I don't really do positive.

However, I do try to do positive things. I'm not sure where that puts me on the pessimism/cynicism scale, maybe more cynical than pessimistic.

One of these positive things is working with an animal rescue group. I admit that this was something my wife sort of dragged me into; I doubt I'd be involved if not for her motivation. I'm not a joiner, really. It doesn't come naturally to me. My usual charitable efforts consist of giving money to worthy causes, but I've typically been rather selfish with my personal time. No excuses really, I'm just generally sort of lazy and prone to getting lost in my own brain.

This is further complicated by my issues with dogs. I was raised by a crazy person who (among many other psychological issues) was a pet hoarder. At one point when I was a kid there were three simultaneous litters of puppies along with all of the pound dogs we couldn't properly care for, totaling up to about 40 dogs. Three litters of 8-9 puppies and a dozen full grown dogs. Yeah, forty. It was a pretty unmanageable situation, and it left me with issues.

So let's just say I was a very reluctant animal rescue volunteer to start with. I like animals and all, I just wasn't really mentally equipped to deal with them all that well.

But I got over it. Confront your fears or something.

See, we started with this whole animal rescue thing about three years back after we got our first dog. We got him from a pet store, and found out that yes, he was a puppy mill dog. A little online research lead us to find out that the company that sold him were a bunch of ultra-right wing religious freakshows with seriously questionable ethics and a litany of health code and animal cruelty violations. In other words, raging shitheads. A topic I covered several years back.

So as a form of penance, and because we discovered how fucked up the world of dog breeding and puppy mills is, we started volunteering.

We volunteer for both a local and national breed specific rescue now. And, well, a few things have become apparent to me, during my trials and tribulations as a volunteer. I will list these observations one at a time, with an explanation, for full clarity. I will also word this to be as accusatory and hostile as possible, because quite frankly, you fucks have it coming. So this is my gift to you, dear owners (or potential owners) of pets in America:

TAKE CARE OF YOUR GOD DAMN PETS, ASSHOLES!!

HOLY SHIT! YOU PEOPLE ARE FUCKING INCOMPETENT!! MOST OF YOU SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO CARE FOR A HAMSTER, LET ALONE A DOG OR, HEAVEN FORBID, A CHILD!!!!

That's my opening statement. You lazy bastards sicken me. And now I will go into details why.

1. First, get your god damn pets spayed or neutered. I can't stress this enough. I direct this mainly at men. Guys, seriously, your dog doesn't give a fuck whether he has his nuts or not. It doesn't affect his manhood in the slightest, because dogs aren't as insecure as you pencil dicked mouth breathers. It will alleviate stress, prevent overpopulation, and make your dog much more pleasant to be around. You know how fucking cranky you get when you haven't gotten laid in a while? That's what intact dogs go through all the time when they're full of raging hormones, times ten. See, they can smell when a female dog is ready to go, and it drives them berserk. No one wants to deal with your untrained and undisciplined dog when he's raging like a horny teenager.
2. This brings me to point two: There is no need for you to breed your dog. Your dog is not that special. There are thousands more like him, and there are plenty of reputable, and also disreputable, breeders out there making sure the dog population remains sustainably high. We really don't need you with your half assed schemes at making a few bucks by selling off poorly socialized puppies to people. For starters, you won't sell all of the puppies, and then you'll be left with several adult dogs you don't want, and eventually I'm going to wind up having to care for them or they're going to get euthanized. This goes ten times over for Pittbulls. If you read this and still feel the need to breed your dog, go punch yourself in the mouth in front of a mirror a few times and just don't fucking do it.
3. That segues nicely into point three: Pittbulls are not the devil. In fact, I generally find that the breed doesn't have a lot of bearing on how nice or mean a dog is. It's all about how well you train it, and how well you treat it. They're sort of like children that way. If you're mean to your child and don't give them any boundaries, they're probably going to grow up to be a stripper and/or a drug addict. Apply the same logic to your dogs. If you happen to be a failure as a human being, do us all a favor and don't get a dog and don't have kids.
4. Take your animals to the vet. Let me clarify: take your animals to the vet, you stupid ass. You know what's fun to watch? And by fun, I mean like trying to watch "Dancer in the Dark" and not kill yourself afterward? Seeing an entire litter of puppies or kittens succumbing to something like Parvo Virus or Feline Distemper. Or watching a dog that's never been treated for heartworm cough up blood because the only treatment for a severe case is to dose him with arsenic to kill the worms, and now the little decaying worm bodies in his blood stream are causing lung embolisms. I imagine it feels a little like snorting a satchel of pop rocks and thumb tacks. There are a ridiculous number of diseases around to just make a dog or cat keel over dead. I see a lot of pricks get the bare minimum legally required rabies vaccine (if that) for their pet and actually decline heart worm tests or any other vaccinations. Another common thing I see is people who get a cat or kitten, assume it's just fine as an indoor cat, and never ever bring it to the vet. Then, several years later, they're shocked when it gets sick and dies and they have to pay through the nose for vet bills. A little prevention goes a long way. And if you're an anti-vaccine nut, I hope you die from whooping cough, and I'd appreciate it if you stop reading my blog, and also wasting the air I need to breath.
5. Train your pet. If you can afford to drop hundreds of dollars on a purebred dog, you can afford some training classes. And for you guys, again, because I see a lot of you imbeciles thinking you know anything beyond how to wipe the drool off your chin: you don't know shit about training dogs. You may think you do, but I'll bet money you probably don't know shit about shit. It's an odd guy thing that a lot of us just assume we're going to be able to train a dog, effortlessly, by sheer virtue of our manliness. If you think this, I have news for you: you're a raging douchebag. I can't tell you how many dogs I see where some slope headed neanderthal declares a dog 'untrainable' because his ham fisted approach that 'worked for my daddy' doesn't do shit, so they just dump it off at the pound to be killed and move on to get another one. Alternately, there's the well intentioned young women who coddle the shit out of their little lap dog and don't understand why it acts out. In both cases, let me say this: Dogs are not toys, they're living critters, they have their own personalities, and they take a little time and effort to work with. There are plenty of trainers available all over who can help you with training. Hell, at least watch some Animal Planet to get some basics, they have a billion dog training shows on. Which leads me to our next point...
6. You are not the dog whisperer. No, really, you're not. I don't care if you watch Cesar Milan 24/7 and buy all of his books and videos and whatever the hell else he sells. Your TV viewing doesn't translate to experience with a dog, and his show is edited to hell for content and an enhanced sense of drama. He also confuses "calm and submissive" with "scared to move" a lot, but that's my own personal thing. He has some good methods, as do most professional trainers, but until you've actually worked with dogs you still don't know shit. Don't try that pinning domination thing unless you actually know what the fuck you're doing, it'll just get you bitten or confuse the hell out of your dog.
7. This next item applies to people trying to get rid of their dogs. Just be honest, we don't want to hear your bullshit excuses. We've heard it all. Seriously, you wouldn't believe the crap that people come up with when they want to get rid of their dog. He smells (yeah, really), he's untrainable (bullshit), he won't stop peeing on things (see training), we're having a family crisis (so bad you can't afford dog food?), we just had a baby and don't have time for him anymore (you should have thought of that before, dimwit), he's too hyper (take the fucking dog for a walk you lazy shit, you could use a few minutes moving around yourself, fatty), I suddenly found out I have allergies (after three years???), he's suddenly turned vicious to our kids (don't let your baby crawl in the dog's food bowl while it's eating, dumbass), the dog bit our son (don't let your kid poke the dog in the eye with a stick for fucks sake), etc, etc... Usually we find out the truth is that the dog has health issues and needs surgery or something, and usually people lie to us about it since they're afraid we won't take the dog in if it needs serious medical intervention. The only really legit excuse I see, and I see it way too much, is that a couple is getting divorced and have to sell the house and neither can find an apartment that allows dogs. I see a lot of people getting laid off and having to leave their home too. It sucks, and I get the feeling a lot of those people didn't try to hard to get a pet friendly place to stay, but at least I can tolerate that one. The ones I love in particular are the fucks who get their house foreclosed on and just leave the animals behind. We see a lot of dogs that are on the brink of starvation because some fucknut packed up and moved and just left their animals in an empty locked house. Which brings us to the next point...
8. Shelter dogs aren't maladjusted terrors. In fact, most of them are pretty well adjusted and love people. Some dogs, like pittbulls, get a bad rap from the news, and we do see an incredible number of them that were bred for fighting or guard duty and have been basically beaten mean. But I've seen plenty of adorably friendly and cuddly Pittbulls too. The thing is, as a rescue group, we don't take in aggressive dogs. We get our dogs from local pounds that euthanize them all after ten days, and most of the ones we take have been just abandoned or dumped somewhere once a family is sick of them. They had a family and were well socialized, maybe with a few training issues, but that's it. People just dispose of them. Maybe I'm a bit of a bleeding heart, but that's kind of fucked up to me.
9. And lastly, No, we will not surgically remove dog nipples. Yes, that's in response to any actual request. I just can't make this shit up. Yes, the dog had puppies once. No, it's not common practice to cut nipples off. I don't care if you're uncomfortable rubbing the dog's belly when it has nipples. Although I guess I can apply this to special perks and treatment some people want from poor animal rescues... Folks, this is a volunteer operation; not a single one of us gets paid for our time. Haggling for spa treatments for your potential adopted pet is just really bad form, since the fifty dollars we'd waste at the groomers could maybe go to pulling another dog from the pound about to be euthanized. Which do you think might be a better thing to do? Jesus christ I really can't get past that nipple removal thing though. Wow. And it wasn't like, one member of the family, the whole clan of them were on board with this whole nipple removal idea. The whole idea that people like that are living and walking around confuses and frightens me.

So, aside from the nipple removal, which I think was a one time incident (I hope), those are the top things I'd like to say to people who have dogs, or want to get dogs, or want to get rid of their dog. Some tidbits apply to cat owners too, because a lot of you suck at caring for your animals too.

Anyway, this rant was brought to you by the nice couple who dropped off T-bone at our place this past weekend and lied to our faces about all of the medical issues he has and the surgeries he needed and why you were giving him up. It was really awesome when he turned purple from overheating and asphyxiation because you said "Oh, he doesn't have any medical issues, he's just a little overheated and makes loud rasping noises!" and then ran out our front door as fast as you could to avoid our questions. The ice baths we gave him after you left kept him from dying, and the vet doesn't think he has any permanent brain damage from chronic over heating, although he's still at risk for tracheal collapse.

You'll be happy to know that the soft palate trim, neuter, vaccinations, heartworm tests, and nasal passage surgery went well, although we think that they two and a half years you decided to not get him treated have probably given him a hernia, so he's still vomiting about fifteen times a day and needs to be on IV fluids so he won't die. I'd like to think that if you can afford a rare thousand dollar purebred puppy you could have afforded some basic medical care, but what do I know. And we know you knew what was wrong with him, since your vet told us all about how they've been pleading with you to get him these surgeries since he was a puppy.

I can't imagine what listening to this dog desperately gasp for air every minute of the past two years must have been like, and can only say go fuck yourselves for not taking proper care of him.

Well, it's been fun, but now I'm going to go drown myself in the toilet to get away from you people.

Holy crap do I hate my current web host.

To be fair, it's not just them specifically, but certain business practicies in general.

See, I wish that companies would put a lot of effort into making a decent service or product, rather than sinking all of their efforts into thwarting people from trying to leave. If you fucking pricks took the team who went out of their way to design a nearly inscrutable and buggy web registration transfer system and applied them to maybe setting up databases and services that didn't suck a camel's nutsack maybe I wouldn't be trying to get as far away from your craptastic company as possible.

Dickheads.

I mean, really, what the fuck can a person do with a 100 meg cap on an SQL database? I had to purge my entire indexing table so that I still have room on this stupid site for everything to keep functioning, and trust me, I don't get a whole hell of a lot of traffic here.

I've run into the same shit with some other crappy companies, like credit card companies, magazines, and pretty much anything that's subscription based. Once again, here's a hint: I feel I need to be redundant and repeat myself: Instead of making it difficult for people to bail on your bullshit and nearly useless service, work on making your stuff suck less.

I've been meaning to do a tremendous number of updates and build a new theme from scratch, but I've been holding off while I get this hosting issue resolved. Hopefully some of this aggravating drek will resolve itself next week, although my entire life thus far has geared me towards anticipating further disappointment and disatisfaction with pretty much any company I deal with.

Which is good, because it means I have the mental fortitude to handle a pretty large truckload of failure from people and businesses I have to deal with.

This daily does of cynicism has been brought to you courtesy of 1and1 internet host, Sirius/XM satellite radio, and Hartford Toyota. May you all rot in hell for sucking. Oh yeah, and IE7: you suck too. And Apple; you also suck. I like the iPhone 4 a lot, and I don't give a fuck that it can lose some signal if you poke the proverbial soft spot in its proverbial malformed infantile skull, but you're still raging assholes for scaming people with that fucked up signal algorithm all these years and trying to kill off flash and lying about the real motives behind it. Oh, and people who develope fully flash based websites: You're fucking clueless. Flash was never intended for such a fucktarded usage. Way to break browsing continuity, douchebags.

Who else can I rant about?

Ok, soft targets now. Democrats: go fuck yourselves. Republicans: go fuck yourselves, twice. Teapartiers: first go fuck yourselves, then kill yourselves. Glenn Beck: I hope you go blind, you pasty faced mutant. Mainstream Media: you suck, and you're spineless; Rolling Stone magazine owned your worthless asses. Fox News: you suck, you're completely fucking delusional, and like it or not you tools are mainstream media, you fucks just cater to the lowest common denominator of media consumers.

Hmm... who am I forgetting?

Well, lots of people and companies and such. I think that's good enough for now though.

ETA: Almost forgot, Andrew Breitbart is a true scumbag. I hope he gets raped in prison some day for his lies and scams. There are enough problems in this country without schmucks like him manufacturing fake racial tension.

...

Oh yeah, the picture! I dunno, I was trying something new with perspective and mashing different cultural style elements together. I think it's actually a pretty shit pose now that I look at it a few weeks after drawing it, but the character has potential.

Not really sure what to say about this that hasn't already been said.

I guess I'm getting old enough that this type of grotesque corporate negligence doesn't shock me in the slightest. I've worked for huge companies before in the insurance industry, and the catastrophic clusterfuck of bureaucracy and red tape and insular political backstabbing made me want to throw up more or less every day. I had to stop reading Dilbert comics because they were too painfully similar to real life.

And that was just some shitty paper pushing company that doesn't really have anything to do with natural resources (other than consuming them at alarming rates) or people's lives or the environment. All they did was push money around and fuck themselves and their clients over in the stock market like every other clueless investment 'expert'.

So I guess the thought of a huge company like BP cutting corners and unleashing an environmental catastrophe through sheer negligence and stupidity doesn't surprise me. Not even a little bit. Actually, I'm surprised that this hasn't happened sooner and more frequently. Sort of like car accidents; I've been in a few, and now that I've been driving for almost fifteen years I'm actually amazed that I make it to work most days.

I generally try to avoid political and religious stuff on my blog since I eased up on my youthful militant anger that was spawned by a sudden realization that people are often quite horrible. But I'm not sure if there's a point in bothering anymore. Do I want to avoid offending people and keep my opinions to myself, or just let it all hang out? I don't really want to alienate people, but I'm also not a fan of censorship. I also don't like preachers, whether they're preaching religion or politics or patriotism or whatever brand of unthinking dogma they want to force other people to adhere to. It's pretty easy to turn into one of those tools, and the first step is opening your mouth too much.

That being said, people with strong opinions are interesting. Even if they make an ass of themselves they're entertaining to watch at least.

I figure if I draw something cool with every blog post I can probably get away with a lot of opinionated ranting.

So let's start off with a good, soft target: Conspiracy Theorists.

This is a pretty easy one: If you're a conspiracy theorist, shut the fuck up. You're an idiot. I don't mean day to day conspiracies about corporate and government espionage or negligence or human rights violations. We all know that shit happens. I mean the big retarded stuff, like alien abductions, that 9/11 was a government cover up, that global warming is a 'new world order' plot, or that the government blew up the BP oil rig on purpose. Yeah, that's right, that's the latest conspiracy theory nonsense I've had the misfortune to stumble across. It's sort of like when your cat shits outside of the litterbox and you step on it with bare feet early in the morning before you've even gotten your contact lenses in.

I subscribe to a few rules in life that generally seem to get me through each day without accidentally committing suicide or fucking my life up: Occam's Razor (Look it up), The Golden Rule (you oughta know that one), If it sounds too good to be true it is, Don't walk down stairs with your hands in your pockets, and one of my favorites: Heinlein's Razor.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity".

Pretty simple. Granted, there's a follow up line that sometimes gets ommitted that reads "But don't ever rule out malice", so I suppose those conspiracy theory douchebags can get a little bit of credit there, but frankly, successful grand consipiracies are so god damn uncommon simple because people can be really god damn stupid.

As a species we're pretty good at building stuff and figuring things out, but only every now and then. When you get down to it we're just horny bipedal apes trying to outfuck the other apes in whatever way we can manage. Cynical, sure, but I feel the need to call it like I see it. It seems to be isolated instances of cooperation, hard work, and inspiration that get our species ahead, but 90% of the time we're just kind of taking up space and screwing everything up. I find that little 10% pretty magical and awesome, so maybe I'm not a complete cynic... Maybe a 90% cynic. Yeah, that sounds good.

Where was I? Oh yeah, BP and conspiracy theorists: both of you can go fuck yourselves. That about sums it up.

***This is what paying attention to commercials can do to you***

I don't wind up watching many commercials. I have a DVR that my cable company was nice enough to give me, so I can generally avoid them.

But, every once in a while I do actually watch a show when it's airing, and then I have to sit through the commercials. Normally I just tune them out, as we all do, but the other day I sat and really paid attention to them for some idiotic reason.

Commercials are fucking horrible. It's not just the shitty products they're trying to push off on gullible little consumers, it's how they're presented. I mean, the products are terrible, no doubt, but the fake, trite way in which the announcers try to sway your opinion in a 30 second spot is chilling in the same way that a kind and polite serial killer/rapist is. It's just bloody well wrong on all levels.

I know that there's almost an art to this whole process, of getting people to buy shit through advertising, but it's an evil art, sort of like calling upon the powers of the great cthulhu to spread madness throughout the lands. I know people are gullible, and our brains are wired to make us stupid and susceptible to certain types of arguments, but knowing that wouldn't you want to, you know, not be an evil douchebag and leave people alone? It seems to me that the entire purpose of commercials is to infect your brain with inane jingles and catch phrases, like some horrid auditory plague, so that when you see their products that vile little saccharine blight of information that's wormed its way into your deep memory comes rushing back to the forefront unbidden.

Like McDonalds: "I'm Lovin' It" preceded by a brainless little "bada-bababaaaaa". That pops into my mind when I see McDonalds shit uncontrollably. I can't help it. And I don't even see all that many commercials, the shit just sticks there, like a shotgun of putrid memes that waste the activity of precious braincells.

There are plenty more. Like GEICO, the mother of all overzealous ad campaigners. I figure those fucks could discount every policy holder of theirs fifty bucks a month for the staggering amount of fucking advertising they buy. I mean, how many companies do you know that have like, five different simultaneous ad campaigns going on? I mean, really, how good can their fucking service be if they spend half of their budget on shitty caveman and lizard ads.

And speaking of which, one of these days I hope the caveman snaps, grills up the gecko over an open fire and sucks the marrow out of his bones. Then he can track down some of those idiots with the piles of Viagra and Ciais who are always inexplicably hanging out on the beach in separate bathtubs, murder them, and steal their boner meds. Then he can swallow two entire bottles of the erection stuff, and then track down that bitch Flo from the Progressive insurance commercials and bash her over the head with a club and go completely retro back to his roots and drag her off to a cave where he'll have his way with her using his new ten foot erection. And maybe he can curb stomp the Walmart smiley face, shatter the blue K-mart enema bulb looking thing, and brain a couple of walmart greeters on the way there, and perhaps stab Ronald McDonald and the Burger King through the heart with a wooden spear. AT THE SAME TIME. Then it can end with him falling in battle as the Capital One vikings come to steal Flo from him so THEY can rape the shit out of her, but then caveman and his giant cock fight them off but succumbs to wounds inflicted by the viking interlopers, and everyone winds up dead, raped, eaten, or broken.

Man, wouldn't that be awesome?

...

Holy shit I'm getting worked up just thinking about all of the gray matter I've wasted storing this useless god damn information. I think you get my point, I'm going to go sit in a corner quietly for a while.

At the very core of my being, I think I'm more of an engineer than an artist. I love designing and building things. I tinker and assemble stuff, and I have a deep appreciation for science and all things technical. I possess an analytical mind that's allowed me to learn multiple programming languages more or less self taught, with the occasional tutorial from friends and a day class here and there paid for by work.

The one thing I really, really hate though, is debugging. Debugging makes me fucking crazy. Debugging makes me want to throw my keyboard at a wall, snap a DVD-ROM in half, and use the jagged edges to slash my jugular so I can bleed out into the hateful gaping chasm that is the open case of my dysfunctional PC.

...ok, that might be a little extreme, but you get the point.

I think part of the problem with being self taught is that I have these odd spotty gaps in my knowledge; in particular good debugging techniques. I'm a hell of a lot better now than I used to be, but that's only through hours and hours of painful swearing and tears.

As much as I love tinkering, I have a very short fuse when it comes to machines or programs that are misbehaving. See, I expect people to piss me off, so I have a pretty long fuse when it comes to dealing with other homo sapiens. Machines, however, should bend to my will as a superior tool using mammal.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

As far as actual updates go (rather than whining and ranting), I'm nearly done building the new Steamvolt website. I still need some new graphics and minor tweaking, but I did manage to build this massive PHP script that should ensure that the only thing I'll ever need to do when I add a new comic page is to add the page number and chapter number, and the code will build all the rest. The debugging sucked, as it usually does, but at the end of the day I got the sucker working.

Kind of makes me want to pick up a wrench, jump on top of it, and roar in victory like a frenzied howler monkey.

A few things going on. For starters, page 3 is overdue on Steamvolt, because I'm an intense procrastinator. Fortunately, this wasn't due to complete laziness, but from a combination of my neurotic need to finish up the Elf with the guns there, and a bit of a blockage on how to do a certain city-scape panel that's now been resolved.

On other random thoughts that have popped into my head, people who use Facebook or Twitter to spout their fringe political beliefs are, to put it mildly, raging shitheads.

Seriously. Facebook is just the place where a handful of your current friends and a whole lot of people you vaguely knew in high school can keep tabs on stuff in a creepy voyeuristic fashion; getting on your soapbox and linking all sorts of political stuff to acquaintances you haven't talked to in ten or fifteen years is an absolute indicator that you are, in fact, a clueless douchebag. No one wants to read about why you're a Republican/Democrat/Libertarian/Green/Whig/Anarchist/Schmuck. Keep it to yourself, please.

Other exciting things include the fact that this rather well proportioned Elf actually made my wife jealous, which I found odd and frankly god damn funny at the same time. Her exact quote was:

"Those tits look a little too good... what the hell have you been doing? Studying the things?? Who's tits have you been looking at?!?".

to which I replied:

Ok, first, I know my target audience, and second, I'm a rather average frustrated straight male. I've been studying breasts for nearly twenty years now. The only thing shocking about this is that you're shocked by it."

That shut her up, more or less ^___^

So far I've actually been rather quiet about politics this election season. I suppose part of it is my attempt to be a bit more professional, less partisan, more appealing to visitors once I get some content built.

But today, I must speak.

I watched the debates last night, between John McCain and Barrack Obama. Especially the part about health care. You see, I used to work in the insurance industry, so I know at least a little itty bit about it. And this is what I found:

John McCain’s health-care plan for our nation is, quite literally, the worst idea mankind has ever given birth to. It is a festering, necrotic abortion of reason, and an affront to all thinking non-HMO CEO creatures on the planet.

...

I’m still trying to figure out if the idea to green-light a movie like Gigli was a worse decision than this health care plan or not, and I’m actually having a tough time deciding, that’s how unfathomably bad it is.

Of course, if you want to see the downfall of America, this is a good start. Bush has destroyed our economy, I figure McCain can annihilate healthcare, and then the next Republican after him could, perhaps, destroy agriculture. It seems like a logical progression to me.

...

Ok, getting down from my soapbox now.

Perhaps, once I calm down, I will explain in detail why it is such a heinous thing, but there are plenty of sources out there that do a better job than I.

So I've been getting way into this whole Paizo/Pathfinder D&D 3.75 thing. It's fun, and interesting, because they're asking fans to come up with ideas and do brain storming to help them develop and re-work the 3.x D&D rule set.

Back in the early days of the internet, there was much talk of the new found freedom of and access to information. People would be given the opportunity to learn and read about things that they might never have the chance to find out about in some local library or bookstore or hear about on the radio or see on TV.

The Information Age, when all humankind would become more enlightened and aware and knowledgeable, where the consciousness of the species would raise and cultural exchanges and deeper understanding woud be possible.

So what do we find today, now that the internet is so common and so many people are using it to communicate and share ideas?

First, there's an incredible abundance of porn on the internet. But that's not what this is about.

The big revelation, as it turns out, is that there are some seriously stupid motherfuckers out there.

Really, this shouldn't have ever come as a surprise to anyone. When you get down to it, and no matter how fervently people wish to deny it, we're all just angry, horny apes with oversized brains. Now, the porn thing has been discussed to death. It's a boring topic, really. The really interesting thing is the stupid shit.

We're all capable of doing, saying, and thinking dumb things. Humans suck at logic and making rational arguments, especially to ourselves. But now, with the internet, all of this stupid can be accessed by anyone at any time with no delays.

Young Earth Creationists, Religious Extremists, Conspiracy Theorists, New-age loons, Political extremists, Creepy perverts, EMO teenagers, Racists, Sexists, Furries, Anti-vaccine freaks, and everyone who's got fingers and can at least hunt and peck letters on a keyboard has suddenly gained a forum, an outlet for their absurd notions, where they can share their shitty irrational ideas and infect other irrational monkies with absurdities.

Is this a bad thing? Hell. No. This is fucking great. :thumbs:

This gives me the chance to make fun of every stupid retarded idea that our species comes up with. I mean, sure, sure, maybe we'll all become more enlightened and tolerant and better able to appreciate different cultures and solve the world problems and all that, but in the mean time, there is so much stupidity to be made fun of that it makes me giddy just thinking about it.

I've come across plenty of excellent stupidity just this month alone! My fellow primates have been in fine form!

...

Once again, it's black History month, and the bleating of the poor oppressed caucasian has yet again cried out with "Why is there no white history month? Why are the Darkies so special???"

Young Earth Creationists are still at it, vociferously defending a world view straight out of the bronze ages with 21st century computer and internet technology. Even the Republican candidate Huckabee has expressed his disbelief in modern science and biology, and he might have a shot at the white house.

Scientologists are still at it too! Tom Cruise in particular has now been shown to be one of the kookiest sons of bitches in America. At the same time, Jerry O'Connell proves that he's one funny motherfucker. Ok, so that last one isn't stupid, but it shows how awesome the power of the internet is for finding and goofing on idiocy in all it's forms.

Conservatives argue about whether one of their possible candidates is really conservative or just another dirty liberal. The words liberal and conservative and how they're defined become so muddled that they lose all possible meaning and the total collapse of the english language ensues.

Even better, police toss cripples out of wheelchairs! I mean, seriously, you can't even make up stuff this insane and moronic!

...

In the past we'd have to trawl through newspapers or listen to the nightly news and rely on spotty reporting to pick up on this stuff. Now? Shit, every dumb thing anyone ever does can now be caught on tape and put up on youtube. It's awesome. It's glorious. There is just so much more material to poke fun of now than ever before. There's so much stupid, and it burns like the heat of a thousand suns.

:yay:

Hmm, well, it seems like people really like this picture, so what the hell, now you can buy Stupid Burning Stuff! YAY!