Is it’s name. I pronounce it Tiggers, not Tigers, not Tigris. Tigger.

The Independent Game Rating System is an inevitable thing. With all the republicrats running around screaming “What about the children? What about the baaaabies?”, and with all the concepts of classifying the damage to kids’ poor tormented psyches that video games do, someone had to step up and try to appease both sides.

You know, sometimes confrontation is a good thing and sometimes capitulation… excuse me, compromise is bad. TIGRS is an effort to appease the jerks, and it’s a good faith effort. I don’t know Daniel Kinney, but this seems to be a genuine good attempt. At least the designs LOOK cool.

With a rating system, as a business owner, I reduce the level of risk to my business by posting. So without further adieu, here’s the TIGRS for That Cult Game.

Mild Language Intense Cartoon Violence Animated Bloodshed Suggestive Themes Crass Humor Drug Use

Not Bad, huh? Personally, I think it’s sad that parents can’t get it through their heads: If you BREED, YOU’RE the one responsible. Not society, not the neighbors, and not the police. Do your best, but don’t blame others for your or your kids’ failures. Do your very best, because the kid deserves no less, and if the kid turns out to be a brainless monster, deal with the monster. Sometimes, through no fault of our own, people are broken.

But don’t blame a GAME DEVELOPER for it. That’s just weak thinking.

Sometimes we stand beside greatness. Nicole Bradford, the Global Director of Strategic Growth for Vivendi Games appears to be one of those great souls who knows the value of commitment, and how to sell a good idea.

On Wednesday, Ms. Bradford announced an initiative that game developers need to help students. In her eyes, an mine, it’s a match made in heaven: Good developers needs practical knowledge of Math, Science, Communication, and Art. Our schools need mentors from community members - role models - to help students learn practical skills.

But this is also self serving, and not just in the “We get smart students.” There’s a political battle going on, and just like when politicians point at Booze, or Drugs, or Iraqis, saying “America is under attack”. This battle frequently involves GAMES. We’re too violent. Or corrupting the youth. Or just plain not good for kids, because we all know that our children should play innocent games like Ring Around the Rosie, or Chess, or Cowboys and Indians.

Now, I know *I* may have a problem when I volunteer to present Heresy.com games to children, but others in our industry don’t. I can offer my services to the more enlightened teachers and schools, maybe academies or colleges.

Bottomline, Ms. Bradford rocks, and deserves our support. I encourage all of you to offer her your assistance.

I’m laughing. Not at something fun- no, if I wanted funny, I’d jump over to StampAndShout and read the bumper stickers.

But over in our “Ally” against the War on Terror, the religious leaders are about to ban the letter X. I’ll give you three reasons:

• The Saudi’s are afraid Americans will BOMB the X’s,
• The Americans asked the Saudi’s because they might get confused on BOMB the X’s, or
• The Religious Tards of Saudi Arabia don’t like Xtians

Who’d've thought that the Saudi Arabia Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (SACPVPV - pronounced “we’re stupid morons who’re fucked in the head”) were on the cutting anti-christian internet laziness by replacing Christ with X?

So… if you’re in Saudi Arabia, no X-treme sports for you! No medical X-rays! No Stan Lee (”Excelsior!”) and most importantly, NO EXIT STRATEGY!

Reference Article

Take a woman to the movie that’s busting down metaphorical doors and getting rave reviews, the CHILDREN OF MEN, starring the really cool dude from the BMW commercials, the best of which is Star, where Madonna gets her ass handed to her.

Now, guys, I just watched that link on YouTube and had more fun in that five minutes than the entire hour plus of Children of Men. It’s not because I didn’t like watching a beautiful woman (and excellent actress who played Ki), or Michael (”pull my finger” - damn, that character was good), or Clive do the “I’m the hero” schtick.

I didn’t like it because the methaphor - the fact that religion and nationalism is for small minded people and that small mindedness is killing our babies (”what about the babies?”) - is slathered on like mushrooms and brown sauce on chicken fried steak. And then on more about how the children are used as political weapons. And then how some religions are just for the weak - weak in will, weak in mind. And how the religion of peace is violent - More Jihadsploitation.

The movies wants us to stop polluting. Stop fighting. And Bow to our children. Procreate for the GOOD of all things!

I guarantee - if you take a woman who has any biological ticking… in the end, after the explosions and the hero getting what all good heroes get in the end, You’re in like Flynn. So find those women and take them to the movies - and think about the Baaaaaabies!

From HyperDeathBabies comes the great comic, Anomaly

I’m so proud of you…

So, congrats, Sleeper Cell on a Year Two!

Year one was basic intrigue, a dash of “it’s a Moslem thing, you wouldn’t understand” and a bit of Moslem vs. Moslem discussion or, more cynically, “My invisible friend Allah is bigger than your invisible friend Allah, die die die!” In year two, we have a undercover agent (”UC”) rising up in the ranks from a Sleeper Cell member, to a Sleeper Cell leader. We have an actual atheist discussion in Ep 1, and probably the best ending ever. Every TV show has the inconsistent story plot that hieghtens tension but makes no sense - Buffy had her falling in love with Vampires, Heroes will have powers that sorta make sense but dont, and Sleeper Cell has will Darwyn ever have a handler outlive him?

Not trying to get into plot points, the reason why I follow this is that I believe Islam to be superior form of the Monotheist meme. To be a Christian, you don’t need to go to church (anymore). To be a Moslem, even the most liberal, is to subjugate. As Islam modernizes, and the the Arabic world has access to luxury, they too will “change” what a “devout” Moslem is.

Humans in harsh circumstances NEED reasons to live, despite the evidence before them. If you lived in Johannesburg, and were a black person during the times of Aparthied, you too would adhere to reasons to live. Currently, in the Islamic realm of earth, life is not as easy as it is… say in Cuba or Canada or Denmark. Having a religion that demands obeisance of the human will, much like a twelve step program, to spend calories on positioning your mind to continue against odds is a superior meme.

A more impressive part of Islam is the fact that obeisance requires public acknowledgment - they must bow to Mecca 5 times a day, wear head scarves, not drink alcohol. These public action steel a person’s insecurity about what others think of you - and if you’re inoculated against being different: you’re behavior sets you apart, defines you and more importantly, defines others that don’t behave as you as lesser than you.

Also, Episode 1 of Season 2 has a great ending.

Questions you may be asking:
WTF is Sleeper Cell?
A TV show. On Showtime.

Where do I get Sleeper Cell?
Honest people buy Showtime. Dishonest people download torrents.

Why is a stupidity-free website talking about a very religious show?
Because it’s a good show - while the scenarios are not completely realistic, the discussions/dialog appears genuine, and it’s got enough intrigue to keep me watching. Plus the romanticizing of Islam’s image that the show is doing (”religion of peace”), is interesting to watch.

Probably the best analysis of what religion does to kids and how we lie to them, captured by the Coolest 8 Year old in the world. Far more eloquent than I could ever be.

Brought to you by www.thebastardfairies.com

My guts went cold this morning with the knowledge of approximately 100 higher education employees were rounded up in Baghdad today. It’s a reactionary move, but I think we’re seeing a home jihadi version of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: kill the knowledge, kill the knowledge keepers.

We’ve seen this fire before: Communist Russia and Cold War America. Fervent indoctrination with a clear and concise enemy and a hallucination of a plan to get there: kill the intellectuals.

This warfare is suspiciously effective: without higher education, people will be limited in their experience. Start re-education, like Soviet Russia with Fatwas. Control the present to control the past, control the past to control the future.

We’ve seen this behavior before: in China, in Russia, in America (McCarthyism), in Cambodia. It’s the exact same behavior of Germany - a flawed final solution therefore it’s neither.

So why does it matter?
The denial of our intellectual capabilities threatens the extinction of humanity. We must leave this planet. We must adapt our form to more threatening environments. Intellectuals prefer not to fight back under the aegis that peace equals reason. Intellectuals must stop thinking that peace and reason are equivalent. Most intellectuals are “peaceful” because they avoid confrontation.

I entreat fellow thinkers that instead of thinking peaceful coexistence, think of mechanisms to burn out the fear and anger first to enact change.

We must move forward.

Google Video has captured beautiful proof that the followers of the intelligent designer don’t have any intelligence themselves.

So - what’s wrong with the 5 sided banana and 5 sided whole for a banana theory?

0) the presumption: no matter how smart or how capable of a designer you have, you still have the “who designed the designer” argument. But since this *specifically* is not Mr. BananaHand’s argument, we’ll just pass it by.

1) not all primates consume bananas. Bananas only grow in specific climates where humans are found all over the world. There are no bananas in Inuit country - and seals do not have 5 sides with easy pealing tabs like a coke can, but Mr. Bananahand can make a case for clubbing baby seals on how easy that is.

2) dates and nuts: if more people eat dates and nuts across the world - why are dates and nuts so damned HARD to eat? What - does gawd only want us to eat bananas or is this intelligent designer figure that an economy of dates and nuts and oil is just so damned easy?

3) hands come in different sizes. Does this mean if I eat a banana that is a little too big or too small, that the intelligent designer didn’t intend for me to eat it? If so, does this mean someone else is going to go hungry by design? What about babies? They can’t grab a banana off a tree, so they’re supposed to what… STARVE because they can’t peel a banana?

And so on… Please feel free to submit your own below…

If people are already convinced that the world is flat, the moon is blue cheese and gawd exists then they will find the coincidences to further justify stupid beliefs. Like maybe, Jerusalem is for jewish people because both Jew and Jerusalem start with the letter J. Hey, why didn’t Intelligent designer would have made Jerusalem start with F for stupid suicide bombing FUCKTARD?

Do I consider myself to be a “Bright”? By their definitions, yes. By my own willingness, sure. But what is a Bright? What are the attributes of Brightness?

Declaring one’s Brightness is an attempt at consciousness raising: changing the name by which someone calls oneself is an attempt to change a political discourse. Being an a-theist is a definition of no god. Being a bright is not just no god, it’s also an implication of one’s intelligence, allegiance to the truth, and a bit of shiny-ness.

By implication alone, it’s challenging an embedded linguistic metaphor and trope: religions claim their followers have seen the Light. In literature, Light versus Dark has been thinly veiled as religious versus evil, and in thesauruses (thesauri? thesaurisies?) around the word: light is synonymous with good and truth. Atheists are godless - an inherently evil state. Brights on the other hand is synonymous with curiosity - a bright child, and with progress - a bright future.

And even more simple, in a trope that only morons will understand, you can’t spell Bright without being Right.

Atheists are more united by the rational of seeking a better future with our curiosity uniting our efforts than their godlessness. Shouldn’t the name by which we refer to ourselves reflect that definition?

The Backhanded Implication
I do not regret the return implication of the Bright naming: those that aren’t Brights aren’t bright. This renaming is not just an escape from the godless state, but it’s forcing people to recognize a very big elephant that no one has been wanting to discuss: education, primarily children. Across the world today we grant parents and religious figures near impunity of how to mis-educate their children.

To be knowledgeable - to be bright, one must study from a wide resource-rich repertoire - that is to say, we have to be exposed to non-doctrine to be considered knowledgeable by our peers. To only be knowledgeable about one form of thought isn’t smart - it’s indoctrination.

The simple declaration of one’s Bright status is an action of political identity, Mazlow’s “self actualization” combined with the feminist-rooted consciousness raising efforts it takes to remove an imposed paradigm.

In short - it makes you feel good. Go on, say that you’re a Bright.