This video, at youtube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejTmistHFw0
It was posted by ATLAH Worldwide Ministries' "Pastor", James David Manning.
Were it parody, it might be hilarious. Sadly, it's real, and seriously shocking.
My thoughts:
Why does this idiot say "thus sayeth the lord" after every assertion? It's obvious that these are his individual political views--trying to pass them off as the direct word of God is not only egotistical, but probably blasphemous to boot.
How does Oprah's having been supported by white women mean she owes allegiance to one specific white woman, Hillary? What's the point of emphasizing this, when he later goes on a tirade about how Obama is selling out blacks? Manning wants it both ways, and is playing the "race card" both shamelessly and incoherently. And why does he keep referrng to Oprah as "struggling"? Even if she was at one point, she's vastly more successful than some two-bit preacher like Manning ever will be. Focusing on her hard times is just a way to make himself feel better about his own meager accomplishments.
WTF does he mean by calling everyone a closet homosexual? WTF is a longlegged pimp?
Why keep referencing the Trinity United Church of Christ, obviously a christian house of worship, but keep calling Obama "Hussein", implicitly emphasizing the worn-out, discredited, and irrelevant "Obama is a Muslim" argument?
Does Manning really believe Wright would be VP and Oprah Secretary of State? That's just stupid.
There's so much more wrong with this video, but I'm getting sick just writing about it. Where does this stuff even come from?
What an asshole.
Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
The Sidekick Incident
So, there's this interesting event that is making some waves in the internet community, what will inevitably become known as the 'Sidekick Incident' in the future. Apparently some girl found a sidekick in a taxi, and rather than return it to the owner, who sent many text messages, even offering a reward, she just replied with intransigent threats and illiterate attempts to justify keeping the phone that was now 'hers.' Because of the sidekick's ability to record the aol screen name and other info on the people using the phone, which information is then stored on T-Mobile's central servers, when the owner got a new sidekick, she was able to see everyhting the thieves had been doing with the stolen one, thus giving quite a few clues as to their identities.
A friend of the owner posted a blog about this event, at http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/ and has been getting a lot of attention. The myspace pages of thieves were posted, the fake address they gave, as well as a bunch of really shitty photos they took with the stolen phone. Also, a link to a video that the girl who stole the phone had put up on myspace about a month before the phone was stolen was posted.
This video link is actually the topic of this little diatribe of mine. THe video, located at http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=743388586&Mytoken=8DCE707B-C335-14D8-099AEAB2528135642754597 is fairly mindane little bit of bad ass-shaking by the 16 year old thief and her 14 year old friend, all set to bad music and occasionally complimented with their bad english. The video itself is unremarkable--hundreds like it must exist all over myspace. But the comment log is itself something rather amazing. At the start of it, are just 4 or 5 comments from the thief's friends at around the time the video was first posted. As of 6-07-06, when the blog went up detailing the sidekick theft, an avalanche of comments begins. Starting with many pleas for the phone's return, evolving into all kinds of ad hominem attacks on the girtls themselves, comments like "I think i threw up in my mouth a little," to glee at the immense trouble the thief will be in soon(the blog noted that the police have been notified and are instructing him how to proceed), such as 'Hahaha you're going to get soooooo much shit soooooooo quickly.' There were an assortment of absolutely revolting pornographic images, mostly posted 15-20 at a time so they took up an entire page of comments: one, a syphilitic penis and the sores all over it, another, the infamous goatse. There was pride that a stupid thief was being caught and outsmarted by a savvy nerd: 'internet > you' THere were even plenty of racial epithets: from latinos or hispanics telling the girl she was making them all look bad, to comments about how they are a couple of 'dumbinicans', to 'DEPORT THESE ILLITERATE ILLEGAL ALIENS BACK TO THE SHANTYTOWN SHITHOLE IN MEXICO THAT THEY CAME FROM.'
In short, a video posted well before the theft, and really having no connection to it other than that one of the girls in it is allegedly the thief(I say allegedly, as there seems to be discussion as to whether it really is her, and the original blog only provides a link; no evidence), has become a sort of modern-day pillory. This is really somewhat of a unique phenomenon. Besides disregarding the fact that there hasn't been any sort of trial and that in America criminals are innocent until proven guilty, the commentors seem to have taken it into their own hands to dish out the punishment as well. To some extent this is sparked on by the orginal blog itself, whose stated goal is to make the perpetrators feel so ashamed that they are forced to return the phone, but even the blog's author asks that people be at least somewhat respectful, to leave race out of it, and has also asked that people not 'run by' the thieve's home in NYC, as has been suggested by some of his readers.
Is this wrong or right? There is no phenomenon like the pillory in today's society. Punishment is for the large part meted out in silence, time is served behind bars away from the eyes of the public. True, there are certain parallels between the internet response and the media circus that sometimes surrounds high-profile cases. But there's nothing high-profile about this--people find and keep expensive things in the back of cabs all the time. The only unique thing here is that the technology allowed the thief to be identified.
The vitriol springing up against the thieves is astounding. From the sounds of the blogs, they really do deserve our contempt, but for hundreds of non-involved parties to go out of their way to mock and deride the hapless crooks seems all out of proportion to the crime committed. Beyond being a testament to the ease of communication over the internet, this is seemingly a proof of the sense of justice that really pervades our society. What is happening here is not the justice of the courts, the justice of the law, but rather the mob imposed justice of ridicule and shame that had heretefore gone the way of the true pillories of dark ages europe.
A friend of the owner posted a blog about this event, at http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/ and has been getting a lot of attention. The myspace pages of thieves were posted, the fake address they gave, as well as a bunch of really shitty photos they took with the stolen phone. Also, a link to a video that the girl who stole the phone had put up on myspace about a month before the phone was stolen was posted.
This video link is actually the topic of this little diatribe of mine. THe video, located at http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=743388586&Mytoken=8DCE707B-C335-14D8-099AEAB2528135642754597 is fairly mindane little bit of bad ass-shaking by the 16 year old thief and her 14 year old friend, all set to bad music and occasionally complimented with their bad english. The video itself is unremarkable--hundreds like it must exist all over myspace. But the comment log is itself something rather amazing. At the start of it, are just 4 or 5 comments from the thief's friends at around the time the video was first posted. As of 6-07-06, when the blog went up detailing the sidekick theft, an avalanche of comments begins. Starting with many pleas for the phone's return, evolving into all kinds of ad hominem attacks on the girtls themselves, comments like "I think i threw up in my mouth a little," to glee at the immense trouble the thief will be in soon(the blog noted that the police have been notified and are instructing him how to proceed), such as 'Hahaha you're going to get soooooo much shit soooooooo quickly.' There were an assortment of absolutely revolting pornographic images, mostly posted 15-20 at a time so they took up an entire page of comments: one, a syphilitic penis and the sores all over it, another, the infamous goatse. There was pride that a stupid thief was being caught and outsmarted by a savvy nerd: 'internet > you' THere were even plenty of racial epithets: from latinos or hispanics telling the girl she was making them all look bad, to comments about how they are a couple of 'dumbinicans', to 'DEPORT THESE ILLITERATE ILLEGAL ALIENS BACK TO THE SHANTYTOWN SHITHOLE IN MEXICO THAT THEY CAME FROM.'
In short, a video posted well before the theft, and really having no connection to it other than that one of the girls in it is allegedly the thief(I say allegedly, as there seems to be discussion as to whether it really is her, and the original blog only provides a link; no evidence), has become a sort of modern-day pillory. This is really somewhat of a unique phenomenon. Besides disregarding the fact that there hasn't been any sort of trial and that in America criminals are innocent until proven guilty, the commentors seem to have taken it into their own hands to dish out the punishment as well. To some extent this is sparked on by the orginal blog itself, whose stated goal is to make the perpetrators feel so ashamed that they are forced to return the phone, but even the blog's author asks that people be at least somewhat respectful, to leave race out of it, and has also asked that people not 'run by' the thieve's home in NYC, as has been suggested by some of his readers.
Is this wrong or right? There is no phenomenon like the pillory in today's society. Punishment is for the large part meted out in silence, time is served behind bars away from the eyes of the public. True, there are certain parallels between the internet response and the media circus that sometimes surrounds high-profile cases. But there's nothing high-profile about this--people find and keep expensive things in the back of cabs all the time. The only unique thing here is that the technology allowed the thief to be identified.
The vitriol springing up against the thieves is astounding. From the sounds of the blogs, they really do deserve our contempt, but for hundreds of non-involved parties to go out of their way to mock and deride the hapless crooks seems all out of proportion to the crime committed. Beyond being a testament to the ease of communication over the internet, this is seemingly a proof of the sense of justice that really pervades our society. What is happening here is not the justice of the courts, the justice of the law, but rather the mob imposed justice of ridicule and shame that had heretefore gone the way of the true pillories of dark ages europe.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Another day, another post... Plus a nice little lorenz attractor.
No stories about bunnies this time.
I'm still reeling from that Matisyahu concert last weekend. It was definitely the best show I've been to in a long time, and I've been listening to Live at Stubb's over and over again at work. Definitely can't wait for Youth to come out. Also, the opening act, Trevor Hall was pretty tight. I bought the CD on a whim after deciding I liked the guy's sound, and it was definitely worth it. Listened to it at least twice yesterday.
I convinced my boss to order a bunch of nerf guns for the office right before we moved and a delivery came today, so I was pretty hyped, thinking they had arrived. Instead, it was just a bunch of wooden blocks that he got for all of my coworkers who have children. Man was I pissed--I wanted toys for me, not toys for real kids. Oh well.
Lorenz attractors are pretty damn cool. The idea of chaos being the dominant force in a system, but the system nonetheless maintaining a high degree of order always impressed me, and I've been thinking about it a lot more lately. The weird thing about self-organizing systems, though, is that the systemic order is always contingent on the right conditions to create the attractors. Small changes in the rules or environment will lead to either uninteresting patterns of completely predictable order(i.e. boring stability, like a checkerboard), or the outright chaos of background noise or brownian motion. Of course there's always the possibility that changes could lead to a new, different set of attractors and an equally unique self-organizing system, and I think that when we talk about creating an evolution in social consciousness or the international politicial landscape, that's the sort of change that people usually want to create. But by their very nature these systems are unpredictable--I find myself... not exactly worrying... but at a sort of low level of constant anxiety over the future of civilization. I know it's kind of a huge thing to be concerned with, and furthermore so abstract as to be almost meaningless, but I guess when you read the news as much as I do that's what you end up thinking about a lot of the time. What's gonna happen as the focus of power shifts away from the US, the world's long-dominant superpower? How are environmental degradation and overpopulation going to affect policies and economics? Will new technology step in to counteract all the negative effects of previous technologies? What the fuck are we gonna do if Iran gets nukes? Lots of of questions, no answers...
I guess we'll just have to wait and see if we get another self-organizing chaotic and beatiful attractor, pure chaos and anarchy as extremism prevails and it's polarizing effects spread unchecked, or the 'boring stability' of total annihilation.
Damn I wish I wasn't such a downer.
I'm still reeling from that Matisyahu concert last weekend. It was definitely the best show I've been to in a long time, and I've been listening to Live at Stubb's over and over again at work. Definitely can't wait for Youth to come out. Also, the opening act, Trevor Hall was pretty tight. I bought the CD on a whim after deciding I liked the guy's sound, and it was definitely worth it. Listened to it at least twice yesterday.
I convinced my boss to order a bunch of nerf guns for the office right before we moved and a delivery came today, so I was pretty hyped, thinking they had arrived. Instead, it was just a bunch of wooden blocks that he got for all of my coworkers who have children. Man was I pissed--I wanted toys for me, not toys for real kids. Oh well.
Lorenz attractors are pretty damn cool. The idea of chaos being the dominant force in a system, but the system nonetheless maintaining a high degree of order always impressed me, and I've been thinking about it a lot more lately. The weird thing about self-organizing systems, though, is that the systemic order is always contingent on the right conditions to create the attractors. Small changes in the rules or environment will lead to either uninteresting patterns of completely predictable order(i.e. boring stability, like a checkerboard), or the outright chaos of background noise or brownian motion. Of course there's always the possibility that changes could lead to a new, different set of attractors and an equally unique self-organizing system, and I think that when we talk about creating an evolution in social consciousness or the international politicial landscape, that's the sort of change that people usually want to create. But by their very nature these systems are unpredictable--I find myself... not exactly worrying... but at a sort of low level of constant anxiety over the future of civilization. I know it's kind of a huge thing to be concerned with, and furthermore so abstract as to be almost meaningless, but I guess when you read the news as much as I do that's what you end up thinking about a lot of the time. What's gonna happen as the focus of power shifts away from the US, the world's long-dominant superpower? How are environmental degradation and overpopulation going to affect policies and economics? Will new technology step in to counteract all the negative effects of previous technologies? What the fuck are we gonna do if Iran gets nukes? Lots of of questions, no answers...I guess we'll just have to wait and see if we get another self-organizing chaotic and beatiful attractor, pure chaos and anarchy as extremism prevails and it's polarizing effects spread unchecked, or the 'boring stability' of total annihilation.
Damn I wish I wasn't such a downer.
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