Must. Not. Fap.

Ahhhh, Internet. You never cease to provide me with immature things to enjoy. Tonight while I was doing a live BlogTV show and the subject turned to fapping (as it so often does). Specifically, we were talking talking about this video and the line "are you fapping?"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u02KFm67uIc]

Then I'm pretty sure I traumatised someone by telling them to search on Google images for "fapping" which turned up the "must not fap" meme. Then to humour people I posed for a "must not fap" image so people could screen cap it and make fun of me.

Then things kind of took off. One of the viewers posted a pic to 4Chan and the rest piled on. I'm informed that these threads don't stay up long so there's no point in posting a link here, but I did save a lot of the images.

Enjoy these few. I will be using all the images I saved in the remix video.

Carbon Trading is probably bullshit

I've gone online a few times talking about global warming/climate change, mainly to say how much the deniers piss me off. It's one thing when people disagree with you and you have different value systems so you think their opinion is crap. But what infuriates me about global warming deniers is that their arguments are direct lies. The crap they spout is literally the direct opposite of the truth.

Their ridiculous arguments have been debunked again and again, there is NO peer reviewed science that supports their position, literally none, and it makes no fucking difference. They simply will not shut up. They even lie about wanting to "debate". They don't want to debate, that would involve listening to the other side and acknowledging when the truth is spoken. All they do is launch a non-stop verbal assault and try to batter their opponents into submission.

Every single aspect of their position is dishonest and quite frankly contemptible. Which is why I refuse to indulge them in their little game. Any of their talk about "engagement" is meaningless lies and so fuck them. I'll just enjoy my time insulting them because that's all that's left to me.

A separate issue to the truth of climate change which lying fucktard deniers tend to say is the same issue is whether or not carbon trading is a viable solution. My short answer is I don't think so. It reeks of bullshit. There's a good article here covering why carbon trading plans are likely to fail and a really funny one by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stonethat's mainly ripping Goldman Sachs apart but also points out the fact that their promotion of carbon trading almost guarantees its failure.

Also, I had fun ranting about it on YouTube

Beneath Contempt

I was playing around with some ideas on creative ways to insult morons who leave stupid comments ("go fuck yourself" is an old standby but I like to have a bit of variety) and I ended up expressing myself (as I so so often do) through t-shirts. I've gone for a variety of ways of saying someone is beneath contempt as follows:

While these designs are fun, I wanted something that I could use as a response to stupid comments that the haters wouldn't understand. Inside jokes are fun and confusing morons is even more fun. And so I came up with a pseudo-Venn diagram with "Contempt" as a large circle with a small circle underneath it (beneath contempt). It's rounded off with the explanation "you are the small circle" which becomes the reply I will give to comments that are beneath contempt.

I also explained this via a YouTube video with the help of one of the sexy models provided by Zazzle:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxpzCFTcj98]

Finally, as a result of several suggestions, I've also turned the phrase into a de-motivational poster:

The image is one of the designs that have been done for me by a YouTube friend, DrakeMagnum. The good news (as far as I'm concerned) is that he feels inspired to do a new design based on this idea. I can't wait to see it!

Police to issue $100 fines for swearing

Every now and then a news story comes along that seems so tailor made for me I simplyhave to do a video about it. This is one of those stories.

Melbourne Street Art

One of the things I love making videos of is the awesome street art/graffiti around Melbourne. The city is renowned as having some of the best street art in the world and despite the occasional bleating of various city and state governments the large scale quality works are extremely popular.

There's always a problem with taggers scrawling their shit over people's property in general and over actual quality pieces in particular. The fact that they scrawl over the really good works sums them up for me - talentless little pieces of shit who get jealous of people who can actually do something worthwhile and want to drag them down. When they can't even respect what they consider their own "scene" you know they are total fucking losers.

Actually, the thing that probably shits me most about taggers is how they defend their own stupidity. They will actually blather on about how the scene needs taggers. Talentless, childish and seriously fucking deluded to boot.

Anyhow, I made a couple of videos of street art this weekend and I thought I'd share them here. This first video is mostly newer work that I haven't shot before. Most of it is in one of the city hotspots - Hosier Lane near Federation Square and there's also a sequence that was shot in St Kilda in a lane off Acland Street.

This second video is essentially showing off a new effect I discovered when I upgraded to the latest version of my video editing software (Corel {formerly Ulead} Video Studio for those who are interested). I was going to shoot some new stills of some fairly extensive works around a tram stop and pedestrian subway on St Kilda Road but the whole area was being torn up for roadworks when I went there.

So I decided to use some old photos from about four years ago. It's highly likely none of these pieces exist any more as the artists tend to paint over them every year or two. So this video has become a tribute to the ephemeral nature of street art - commemorating works that have passed away.

Or maybe it's just pretty pictures.

The music in these videos is by my friend Kipp AKA Vortex who always comes through with good tracks when I need them.

Cute animals that will rip your face off

Australia is somewhat famous for lethal animals like sharks, crocodiles and snakes. On a more pleasant note, we are also known for extremely cute. The horrible truth that the tourism board doesn't want you to know is the cute animals will kill you too if you give them a chance.

Stupid woman sues Google for stupid reason

I do like it when I get the opportunity to highlight someone who's just really fucking stupid in a really frivolous and meaningless way. Often when I'm compiling material for a blog post or a TFU Friday video it's fairly heavy or at least contentious.

But some people are stupid, pure and simple. I like to keep my moments of stupidity private. I certainly don't do things that would draw the world's attention to my idiocy. Not so, Lauren Rosenberg of Park City, Utah. She used Google maps to get walking directions. All fine so far. Then the directions she was following essentially suggested she should walk down a highway that didn't have a footpath. But that's OK because she isn't a moron.

Oh wait, yes she is.

This moron walked into traffic on a highway and surprise, surprise, she got hit by a car. That's stupid and embarrassing but if that was the end of it I'd cut her some slack. Everyone does stupid things sometimes.

That wasn't the end of it.

This unbelievable fucking moron thinks she now has the right to sue Google because she's stupid enough to walk onto a highway. If she was dead she'd be a sure thing for this year's Darwin award but she's alive so she's a prime candidate for most frivolous lawsuit of the year. I'll go out on a limb and say she's going to lose the case, not least because Google include a disclaimer about this sort of thing.

So she suffered a painful accident. She's a laughing stock around the world. And I doubt she's learned anything by it. Stupid people are like that.

WAINGAFAT Wednesday - Quitting Facebook

There has been so much pants wetting lately about the evils of Facebook and how everyone should quit. Frankly, I don't give a fuck. The real problem is stupid people who post embarrassing stuff online with the deluded idea that it won't spread outside their immediate circle of friends. Or the really stupid ones who talk to the New York Times about how they were scared Facebook would expose what a drunken whore they are. Not to mention people who don't know how fucking stupid they look.

Anyway, if you watch this video, you'll discover my secret method for stopping Facebook from sharing your private information no matter how they change their privacy settings.

LIAR

Liar. Pete Townshend is one!

Why I don't give a fuck about male circumcision zealots

I learned a few years ago that a certain subset of humans appear to believe male circumcision is one of the greatest acts of barbarity still perpetrated in the modern world. They get incredibly obsessive over the topic and they don't seem to comprehend that many people rightly think the topic simply isn't that fucking important.

I can generally let them go, I have no interest in trying to sway them from their views. Although it can be a lot of fun to make jokes at their expense. However, where this crowd can make me extremely fucking angry is when they say that male circumcision is exactly the same as the female genital mutilation still practiced in some societies.

From experience, I have learned that it is absolutely pointless to "engage" or "debate" with people who are obsessed with this issue. It's an emotional issue for them and once an issue has become emotional there is no point in further discussion. They say they want to "debate" but all they actually want to do is ram their point of view down your throat. And I simply don't give a fuck about people who do that.

To say that male circumcision is the same as female genital mutilation is unsupportable both logically and morally. Male circumcision removes the foreskin either for cultural or health reasons (you're free to say this is pointless - I really don't give a fuck about arguing the point). The point of circumcision is NOT to impair the function of the penis or the male enjoyment of sex. In the rare cases when something goes wrong with a circumcision and there is some damage that was NEVER the INTENTION of the procedure.

Female genital mutilation is specifically designed to damage the sexuality and sexual enjoyment of women for religious and/or cultural reasons. It is a premeditated violent act that frequently causes long term physical trauma and pain for the girls and women it is performed on. It is specifically about repressing and punishing women simply because they are women.

The two act are not the same in either effect or intention. To claim male circumcision is "just as bad" is quite frankly disgusting and reprehensible. The level of self-absorption required to make such a statement stuns me.

This all came up again because of my recent TFU Friday video which included a story dealing with female genital mutilation.

I knew from experience bringing up the topic would bring the male circumcision zealots out of the woodwork and I made it very clear I wouldn't tolerate them hijacking the comments. Which, to be fair, is also baiting them. And they are far too self-obsessed to be able to resist the bait.

But I also mean what I said. In both the video and this blog post I have no intention of wasting time with people who are obsessed by the topic of male circumcision. I really don't give a fuck about the topic, you're free to have your own opinions and I have no wish to get involved in your obsessions. Those who insist on asserting that male circumcision is as bad as female genital mutilation are beneath my contempt.

By definition, I won't be wasting time on them.

All the world's religions are TFU

For Totally Fucked Up Friday this week, I managed to find an example of totally fucked up behaviour from each of the major Abrahamic faiths. When I was originally planning this I was going to simply say the major religions but I realised that would piss off the Hindus and Buddhists.

On second thoughts, that would have fit right in with the video's theme - pissing off major religions. And don't even get me started on the Zoroastrians. Motherfuckers.

I wasn't going to touch the story about female circumcision doing the rounds in Australiabecause I thought it was too sensitive and it would be too hard to cover it without being tacky. Then the theme revealed itself and it all fit in. By the way, I really have no tolerance whatsoever for fuckwits who want to carry on as if male circumcision is a big deal. Get some perspective you self absorbed fucking morons. And no, I won't indulge any comments on the topic, I will ignore them and delete them. Because I can. Get your own fucking blog you fucking loser.

Then there's the West Bank Rabbi who thinks that "women must only be heard through their husbands". I believe he also wrote "those fucking Muslims can't beat us at anything - we can oppress our women just as well as they can!"

Finally, the Northern Ireland minister who is simply too fucking stupid to be allowed outside a padded cell. The fact fuckwits like this are allowed in positions of power is nothing short of criminal. I don't give a fuck about how many people voted for them, once someone displays this level of stupidity for the sake of public safety they have to be locked away where they can't do any harm. This insane fucking freak actually thinks Ulster Protestants are one of the lost tribes of Israel. I'm absolutely floored by this level of idiocy.

Dropped Dalek Down in the Dumps

Some people are calling them the Mighty Morphin' Power Daleks. This guy is calling them "the bastards who stole my job!"

What to WAINGAFAT?

When I decided to do some themed videos on a regular release schedule it was based on observing how YouTube audiences like a schedule and a degree of predictability. This might seem counter-intuitive: the structure of YouTube means people can watch whatever they want whenever they want so surely this makes schedules meaningless? Well, yes and no. YouTubers definitely like the freedom to set their own viewing times but what they want most of all is something NEW and they like to know when the new videos are available.

This is, of course, the basis of the subscription system. If you like someone’s videos, subscribe and you get a message every time they release a new video. That tells you after the fact that someone has uploaded a video which is good as far as it goes but what I’ve learned is viewers like to anticipate when a new video will be uploaded. This was made clear after I’d been doing TFU Friday for a while as I would get a huge number of comments and messages from people saying how much they look forward to seeing it and the anticipation of getting a notification in their inbox.

Most of the top subscribed YouTubers release their videos to a schedule (to the same day of the week if not the same time) and this works in their favour. Audiences develop a stronger bond with video makers when they have some foreknowledge of what they will be getting. Releasing one video every two weeks will develop a stronger audience than releasing five in one week and then nothing for a month or more.

When I decided to cut back on the number of videos I was making (because making them ever day was becoming too much of a drain) I decided to try and stick to a regular Monday, Wednesday and Friday schedule and see if I could develop a theme for each day. WAINGAFAT Wednesday was the second theme I settled on (after TFU Friday) after being inspired by a comment from my friend Mac AKA FreeMountaineer who commented that when I made videos ripping on particular targets it was I was saying “Who Am I Not Giving A Fuck About Today?” which became the acronym WAINGAFAT.

I liked the idea of having an outlet for having a rant about things/people I thought simply weren’t worth giving a fuck about. The balance is quite hard to get – the angry videos are clearly on subjects I care about (either positively or negatively) and the challenge was how to make a video about people/subjects that I really think are beneath contempt and also have an answer to the fucking morons who make comments like “You must care because you made a video about it.” I’m not bothered so much by the fact that these idiots make such skull-fuckingly stupid comments – it’s the fact they think they’re being insightful while saying something so moronic that shits me.

And so WAINGAFAT Wednesday was born – a forum where I can talk about things that other people are maybe getting worked up about but I really don’t give a fuck.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72NX4im_5bY]

And for the idiots who still don’t get it, all they get in response to their public display of stupidity is MYASS.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCX6eoCUe7k]

Having said all that, WAINGAFAT Wednesday is the hardest video for me to do and stay on theme. I probably shouldn’t agonise over it so much but having set the theme I find it very difficult some weeks to settle on a subject that is within the boundaries of WAINGAFAT. I’ve decided it isn’t the end of the world if I skip a week when I really can’t decide on a fitting topic. This gives me less stress than making a video that I feel is “cheating”.

The biggest problem with TFU Friday is narrowing down my selection from the seemingly endless parade of totally fucked up stories that happen every week. But picking something that other people are worked up about but I couldn’t give a fuck about is frequently harder. This week at least it’s easy, with several prime candidates presenting themselves.

I think I’ll go with the finale of “Lost” – a show I have never watched. This isn’t so much a diss on the show, a lot of people I respect assure me it’s a great show but I never started watching it. There’s been a few great series of the last ten years that I haven’t watched religiously (yet – there’s always DVD) like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Deadwood. But the way some people have been losing their shit saying the ending sucked just stuns me.

Who gives a fuck about your worthless opinion you whiners? (A quick aside – the Lost fans I respect have not been acting like idiots over the ending) It isn’t that not liking the ending isn’t a valid opinion but why they fuck are these idiots bleating on as if it’s a personal affront to them? Wake the fuck up you potato heads – it isn’t about you! Here’s a suggestion: before you criticise the ending of something that has enthralled millions over the years (including you!) try making something that enthrals viewers for five fucking minutes! It’s HARD!

For years there have been jokes about how annoying Lost fans can be – going on and on about the twists and puzzles and mysteries. It turns out there’s something far more annoying than a Lost fan who feels compelled to tell you how awesome the show is and what you’re missing out on. A Lost fan who didn’t like the finale and won’t shut the fuck up about how the show’s ending is a personal insult directed specifically at them. You might think some terrible injustice has been done to you personally but like millions of others, I don’t give a fuck.

A new beginning?

If you look back over the life of this blog you will see multiple entries where I write about feeling guilty for neglecting the blog. This is another one. While I actually met the blog’s original goal of writing at least one entry every day for a year and I definitely exceeded any traffic goals I dared to set it’s faded away and I’m starting to feel like that’s a waste.

The blog has been secondary to YouTube since the end of that first year and postings have obviously dropped way off in the past two years but April 2010 was the first month on record I didn’t post a single entry. I have in my mind a plan to see if I can get back to the original idea of making at least a small post every day for a year.

I’m definitely not going to obsess about the daily target – I want the blog to be a positive experience rather than a pain – and I certainly won’t be obsessive about staying within the “angry” theme. I’ll be posting whatever occurs to me. Often this will be notes for possible future videos. There are positives and negatives to fully scripting videos but from time to time that feels like the best way to approach a topic and this is the obvious place to develop the scripts.

Plus, there’s the YouTube videos themselves. I plan to post them all here from now on – to be honest I have no idea why I stopped doing that, it would have kept the blog much more active. I do have the Twitter widget to the side so that at least has been regularly updating. I may post photos here as well (I have been posting photos irregularly to TwitPic and Flickr). In other words, it’s going to be a mixed bag but things will be happening here.

I’m not completely convinced of the value in maintaining a blog – things online have changed so much since I started that it seems less relevant now. But I do still believe that writing regularly helps your writing generally so I figure as long as I don’t let it stress me out increasing my blog activity can only be a good thing.

This is a “soft launch” and I’m making June 1^st my official launch date to see if I can maintain a post a day for another year. By starting on an easier to remember date it will make my progress towards my goal more obvious. With a week to turn my focus back to the blog I’m hoping I’ll hit the ground running on June 1^st.

Wish me luck!

Saudi woman beats the crap out of "virtue cop"

When I read this story about young Saudi woman hospitalising on of the cretinous (and frankly terrifying) morality cops that infest that country, I was simultaneously elated and depressed. Elated because it's always good to see an oppressed minority strike back at an authority figure. Depressed because I can't help but feel that the punishment meted out to this woman will be particularly brutal.

Religious intolerance is bad enough when it simply takes the form of the societal pressures to conform we get in western democracies but when there's a brutal police force whose sole role is to enforce barbaric medieval "morality" it becomes truly evil.

And around the world we have anti-Muslim morons crying "ban the burqa" and daring to say they're doing it to protect women's rights and not simply treating Muslims as second class citizens. So why aren't these champions of the rights of Muslim women promoting action against oppressive countries like Saudi Arabia and calling for boycotts?

Oh yeah... oil. We wouldn't want our championing of oppressed women to actually cost us anything.

Ignorance and lies

I’m going to propose a hypothetical situation to you. You’re in a burning building. You need to get out. You make it to the ground floor and end up in a room with two unmarked exits. One of them leads outside to safety. The other leads straight into a worse fire and you’ll be killed instantly if you open it. It fact in that room is worse than a fire. There are also lions in there. Hungry, fire-proof lions. And they have machine guns. Plus there are flying sharks with lasers on their heads. That room is bad news.

The trouble is, you don’t know which door leads to safety and which leads to certain death. Fortunately, there is someone in the room who does.

In one scenario, this person really doesn’t like you. In fact they’re a bit of a prick to people generally. They think it’s funny to send people to their death. So when you ask which door leads to safety he points you to the heavily armed lion and laser shark room. Because he’s an arsehole and he wants you to die.

In another scenario, the person is simply ignorant of how dangerous it is to go into a burning room full of machine gun wielding lions and sharks with lasers on their heads. He doesn’t really know much about wildlife but he does remember seeing a show on TV where someone petted a lion and swam with sharks. That person lived so he figures you’ll also live despite how different the situation is.

You approach the deadly door and ask is it safe to go through? He says yes so you open the door whereupon you are promptly chomped, shot, lasered and burnt to death.

Here’s an important question: in which scenario are you less dead?

That’s a trick question – you’re dead either way. Both the malicious person and the ignorant person kill you. This is why it shits me when people use ignorance as a justification for really negative and destructive behaviour. There are people who’ll make excuses for even truly evil behaviour but it’s far more common for people to want to let people off the hook because of ignorance.

“Oh, when they dressed up in blackface they had no idea it would be considered racist by some people so that means the act itself wasn’t racist.” Ignorance is no excuse. If you’re too fucking stupid to know that an act with a long history of racism is not acceptable then maybe you should just shut the fuck up when you’re being told rather than wearing your ignorance as a badge of honour!

“Why not let those people teach their religious beliefs in a science class?” Because it isn’t fucking science! The fact that someone is too stupid to know their beliefs are completely ridiculous in a scientific context doesn’t mean they should be humoured and given equal time – they should shut the fuck up!

“Don’t be so harsh on those global warming deniers, they genuinely believe that the science doesn’t support the idea that human activity is causing global warming.” FUCK THEM! Opinion is not the same thing as evidence. The fact that their ignorance has let them be led by ideology rather than evidence means they are fucking dangerous. The fact that they are really, really loud doesn’t make them less wrong! Their ignorance risks economic, ecological and human disaster on a global scale. Granting the braying ignorant masses an “equal voice” with established scientific evidence because of the weight of their opinion is not only illogical, it runs the risk of being suicidal.

So the next time someone wants me to indulge the ignorance of idiots I’m going to throw them into a burning room full of implausibly dangerous animals and see how they like it.

Knowledge vs Data

I’ve just had an epiphany. I was rolling around a few ideas in my head about the nature of learning and thinking when a few puzzle pieces clicked together for me. A disclaimer up front, I’m not claiming these are totally original thoughts that have never been articulated before by other people (although, if that turns out to be the case, hello PhD thesis!) I have not read or heard this exact thing expressed elsewhere which compelled me to write these thoughts down and share them.

Being a science fiction buff I enjoy the speculative and predictive nature of SF stories although I’m very sceptical of many (if any) writers being directly accurate in their predictions. To be fair, the open secret about SF is the best writers aren’t writing thematically about the future, they are writing about now. They use the future and/or alien worlds to frame their ideas but what they are really concerned with is the technology, issues ideas and actions of today and what paths they might lead us down.

So the focus on prediction is far more a shortcoming of readers than writers but it’s something everyone is guilty of at some point.

One of the favourite wet dreams of SF nerds is the idea of downloaded knowledge a la The Matrix and dozens of other stories. I’ve always had a gut feel this one was bullshit simply because of how long so many people have been fixated on it. I’m not really a contrarian by nature, this is more an analysis of the track record of SF predictions than saying “everyone says it so it must be wrong.”

Big and specific predictions (like personal jet packs) tend to be wrong and I’ve been convinced for a while that downloadable or implantable knowledge is simply not going to happen. It comes down to the difference between data and knowledge. Computers can hold and process vast amounts of data but can’t actually come up with ideas of their own (“not yet” is the breathless whisper from the Singularity geeks who squirt a little in their pants as they get worked up yet again over their fantasy of the rapture of the nerds). I’ll go further, the fact that a person has access to Wikipedia (or any encyclopaedia) doesn’t make them smart. In fact, let’s go even further, anyone who copies and pastes slabs of text from Wikipedia because that “proves their point” is a fucking moron.

But someone who reads, researches, analyses, proposes new ideas and just thinks dammit! That is a person who can get away with calling themselves smart.

And that’s why I think implanted/downloaded knowledge can’t work. It’s mixing up data with knowledge. The most likely outcome would be the scenario in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” where kids have information forced into their brains but they can’t use it. When they hear a trigger word they can repeat the relevant data but it still doesn’t mean anything to them.

A kid is asked about the Nile River and automatically repeats “The Nile is the longest river in the world...” Then the kid is asked what is the longest river in the world and can’t answer. He’s prompted “What about the Nile?” He reflexively repeats “The Nile is the longest river in the world...” then he’s prompted, “So what’s the longest river in the world?” and he still can’t answer.

Now, a smart person can benefit from having fast access to data but even a genius doesn’t learn anything useful from it instantly. And quite honestly, a stupid person with data is still stupid. In fact, they’re probably worse now because they’re drowning in a tsunami of data but they have no idea what to do with it. They have no way of knowing what bits of the data are most valuable and they are incapable of applying it effectively. But that won’t stop them from being a pundit on Fox News.

I have offended "the gays"

I have gone through a huge number of permutations of this since seeing some of the reactions to my video last Friday. For those wondering what they’ve missed with those could have been responses, they were essentially variations of “go fuck yourself”. That’s still my central message, it’s really only the tone of delivery that’s changed.

For those who don’t know, my TFU Friday video was 7.30 minutes long and featured me being angry about, among other things, political and moral hypocrisy resulting in the oppression of gay rights – by closeted gays. But the real fireworks came from the fact I used the phrase “Being gay is a choice.” To some people, this is apparently as bad as setting babies on fire.

And then I compounded my sin by not immediately capitulating to some people’s outrage and begging forgiveness. They appeared surprised when I did not react favourable to being told what I can and can’t say. Guess what? When nazis tell me what I can and can’t say I tell them to go fuck themselves. I say the same thing to christians, muslims, atheists, teabaggers, gun nuts, conspiracy theorists and general haters. Go fuck yourself. And some people think the fact they are gay gives them special dispensation to dictate terms to me? See if you can guess what my reaction to that attitude is. I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with “go fuck yourself”. I’m an equal opportunity abuser.

If you still can’t tell why these responses pissed me off let me explain. This outrage was generated over three seconds out of a 7&1/2 minute video and that 3 seconds wasn’t even the main point of the video which is why I didn’t put a lot of thought into what interpretation people could put on it if they took it out of context. It isn’t even that they took three seconds out of context in such a long video – a very small number of people have chosen to pass judgement on me based on three seconds despite everything I’ve done here over the years.

If you want me to have any respect for you when you pass judgement on me you had fucking well better put that judgement in the context of every video I’ve made, not three seconds out of one video. Actually, that would take days to watch all of them so that might not be the most practical proposal. Maybe just limit it to watching the video where I talked about bigotry generally and gay rights specifically. I haven’t added those up but that should only take you a couple of hours.

That’s right – that’s how much effort I’ve put into addressing bigotry. What have you done you fucking whiners?

But seeing as so many people do apparently want to know if I think being gay is a choice I will address that directly. To make it clear: my sum total of knowing what it means to be gay is I’m not gay. I wouldn’t waste time trying to make an all encompassing statement about being gay – I doubt anyone can do that but I certainly can’t and that wasn’t remotely what saying “being gay is a choice” was meant to mean.

Having said that, a lot of the outraged comments had a distinct “I am the only gay in the village” tone. It was hard to escape the feeling that a lot of people think they can unequivocally speak for the experience of all gay people everywhere. Kind of a big call. Hell, in the straight world I see a lot of conflict all the time about what constitutes sexuality and sexual identity – I had no idea things were so clearly defined in the gay world.

One person even went so far as to say sexuality overall was not a choice. All I could think was that their sexuality was very boring if it didn’t involve choices. Or maybe very weird. I make choices all the time: this person/that person, yes/no, this position/that position, do I need batteries, should I go with leather restraints or nylon rope? All sorts of choices.

Also, while I am not one of “the gays” I am one of “the olds”. I know this is the intarwebz and I’m dealing with people who have such a short attention span they don’t remember anything that happened more than 5 seconds ago but I do actually remember when the queer politics orthodoxy was very different, in the olden days. You know, the 80s.

I went to college that had a campus with a very strong Marxist/Leninist/feminist dialectic going on. And back in the day the party line was that being gay was most definitely a choice. The say gays had no choice in the matter was to suggest weakness and even said to be equating homosexuality with base animal urges that needed to be controlled. If you said being gay was genetic you left yourself open to what was essentially eugenics arguments: this “gay gene” was defective and should be treated like any other genetic disorder.

There were seriously even people saying this gay gene should be identified so pregnant women could be tested and defective gay foetuses could be identified in utero and aborted. So careful what you wish for.

Personally, I don’t think homosexuality needs a defence. If you’re gay it’s who you are, regardless of how you arrived there. But if you think you do need a defence to use against social conservatives who declare homosexuality to be somehow “wrong” and you think you have a bulletproof defence with the genetic response, sorry to disappoint you but it ain’t gonna work. Objections to homosexual sex aren’t really about whether or not it’s “natural” (whatever that means), they’re more about “ewww that’s icky.” And no matter what you come up with, the conservatives are still going to think same sex hanky panky is icky.

So yeah, if I had any inkling of how fucking stupidly some people were going to react I might have said “Being gay isn’t an issue, if that’s who you are that’s who you are. But being a lying, hypocritical coward who actively ruins the lives of people who aren’t as privileged makes you a worthless piece of shit.”

And if that isn’t good enough for you, I really don’t give a fuck about you.

TFU Files - lying gay conservatives

One of my favourite topics earned a guernsey for this week's TFU Friday - anti-gay conservatives who are actually gay. Roy Ashburn isn't as spectacular as Ted Haggard (using church money to buy crack cocaine and gay escorts) or as funny as Larry Craig (I have a "wide stance") but he's one of the boys now.

Here's a fun slideshow of anti-gay hypocrites through the years.

The other story that caught my eye was so fucked up it's almost sad. Fox News sued for the right to deliberately lie to the public - and they won. How do you even satirise an outfit that has stopped even pretending they have a soul?

1+1 DOES NOT =3

A few thoughts on facts, lies, disagreement, argument and controversy.

I’ll start with a self-evident fact. 1+1=2. There’s no shades of grey there, it’s a simple, irrefutable mathematical fact that 1+1=2. Now imagine someone comes along and wants to propose that 1+1 in fact =4. I don’t know why they want to assert something so ridiculous. Maybe a magic bloke in the sky told them. Or maybe they have a book that they declare is the divine word of this magic bloke in the sky despite the fact it’s nothing more than a bunch of fairy stories invented centuries ago to scare illiterate goat herders into behaving themselves.

Whatever. They’re being very loud about their belief that 1+1=4. No amount of evidence will sway them. The fact that every credible mathematician in the world tells them that, no, your point of view isn’t valid, 1+1 is definitely 2 doesn’t even slow them down. They trot out someone they call a “creation mathematician” who says that because the magic bloke in the sky created everything including numbers, whatever he says about numbers must be true, therefore 1+1=4.

The actual mathematicians spend a bit of time trying to think of the most polite way to say “Fuck off and leave us alone you deranged, inbred fuckwit”. In the meantime, some other people who believe in the magic bloke in the sky start to think the creation mathematicians are onto something. “I’ve never understood mathematics, I’ve failed every maths test I’ve taken in my life. I reckon it’s because the mathematicians are wrong. All that complicated thinking is just there to confuse us. I believe the magic bloke in the sky says 1+1=4.”

It never occurs to them that the reason they don’t understand mathematics is that they are really fucking stupid. Likewise, not understanding mathematics is a good indication you should leave it to the mathematicians rather than shouting that the simpler thing you’ve decided you believe in is more valid.

Soon, politicians start to latch onto creation mathematics. They’ve known for years that it’s easier to get ten morons to vote for them than it is to get one smart person on their side. They have all had expensive educations at the most prestigious universities in the country and they know creation mathematics is fucking insane. They also know how much the inbred yokels lap it up when they talk about being simple folk who believe in the same “down home” values.

So it starts to be put about that creation mathematics should be part of the school curriculum. Because so many uninformed morons believe it, it should be taught alongside mathematical principles that have been proven by the greatest thinkers in history. Because the blatherings of clueless fuckwits have the same validity as the output of the finest minds known to humanity – what are you, an elitist or something?

Most maths teachers jack up at this saying “creation mathematics” isn’t mathematics and has no place in a classroom because it’s fucking voodoo. The weasel politicians say you should "teach the controversy" despite the fact the only controversy is the fact that morons whose outlook belongs more in the middle ages think they deserve to be taken seriously.

Then someone suggests a compromise, maybe we should follow the middle ground. Maybe neither "extreme" is right. This is bullshit for a couple of reasons. First, there's only one extreme here - the extreme stupidity in believing in superstitious rubbish like creation mathematics over science. Second, the two viewpoints are not equally valid. The rantings of an ignorant fool who believes in a magic bloke in the sky simply don't belong in the same place as the works of someone following rigorous scientific and/or academic process.

In short, a compromise would be saying 1+1=3 and that simply isn't right. There are times when compromise is a good thing (in fact, this is probably the case most of the time) but sometimes it is simply not a legitimate option. Sometimes one answer is absolutely right and one asnwer is absolutely wrong. 1+1 will never =3.

Obviously, nothing as stupid as this could happen in the real world, I was using this fictional example to illustrate a point. I'm a very reasonable person (despite some performances that may suggest otherwise). I know some people can't tell the difference between a performance and real life but trust me, in real life I'm likely to go out of my way to avoid offending someone. But I won't back away from a fight when some fucking moron wants to fly in the face of reality with their stupid ideology.

So don't expect me to "respect" someone who doesn't deserve any respect. Sometimes people are so ignorant, so duplicitous and so WRONG that contempt is all they deserve. And I have to admit, I enjoy dishing it out.