It’s been a while now since i’ve published a piece. I truly miss it. And not from a lack of ideas or material but rather sheer degenerate dead waiting; idle restlessness and procrastination. It is a ghastly sickness that traps you like a tire wedging itself in a pre-paved tread. Find as little resistance as necessary to maintain… But maintain what?

I am not alone. I am the product of my surroundings. Anyone denying the great idle bore, our mindset, is a pretentious beast basking in the aroma of its own feces. The same shit day-in, day-out: speak mind-over-matter, choke occasionally, ingest mounds of thoughtless titilation. For 2500 years we seek reason and perfection as something real and ultimate… nothing but a hollow incarnation of our desire to overcome the beast of desire.

So here we are, locked in the desireless battle between Religion & Science; shouting obscenities at the power-yielding douche dolls of ancient times. Who the fuck cares? Who cares that scumbags and liars exploit brilliance for riches? Who cares that your liberty is taken to empower honestly heinous bastards so that the decievingly wretched actors can protect you from them? To these issues numb your reason with decadent beastiality. Withold your reason for isolation, for the abstract.

I wonder if this bull is anything but dead. Thoughts, ideas, abstractions. I could connect a million dots together and it wouldn’t make a difference. Power only comes when millions of people share my delusion (see taurus in the sky lately?). Until then, all we have is titilating flashes across the screen. “Still humping the American Dream.”¹

But enough of that chin-raised gibberish eh? Some pompous asshole spewing opinions from an armchair. Or is it floor-gazing regret? No matter, what’s important is movement, grounded reality, or something.  Idleness, dead waiting, rebirth. “What’s the point here?” Oh thats right, closure. After some short, meaningless consideration I will end this site… this idea. It is with this suiting title, a clear summary of my writing this last year, that I am bringing this shit to a close. Clearly it is not quite me.  The mind is built up from mostly movement and feeling… start there, think later.

http://www.deadwaiting.com

1. R.I.P. Hunter S. Thompson [↩]

Its been about a year since Danish newspapers (and subsequently others around the world) published some cartoons poking fun and the religion of Islam. We all know the story: outcry, censorship, violence, destruction, etc.

This week, many newspapers republished the cartoons (posted below) in response to a foiled attempt to murder the cartoonist¹ . Many people claim that such cartoons are hateful and discriminatory. Check a dictionary (or better yet, the koran). They are merely descriptive.

What’s the difference between description and discrimination? Well, discrimination targets people. You might hate country music, but that doesn’t mean you discriminate against country singers. Similarly, these cartoons are not examples of discrimination, they are comments on the tenets of Islam. They do not advocate harming Muslims or hatred against any Muslim - what a ludicrous conclusion. You do not have a right NOT to be offended.

Or perhaps I have the right to kill anyone that challenges my Atheism, musical taste, or gawky posture. Any religious person that claims I deserve to suffer in hell because my beliefs should be murdered or imprisoned. That is hatred; that is musical non-religious bigotry of the highest order. Welcome to my struggle² .

1. Danish papers republish Prophet cartoon. Reuters UK. 13 February 2008. [↩]
2. English for ‘Jihad‘ [↩]

All too often, the case in defense of marijuana is tainted by prejudice, stupidity, and incoherence. In the spirit of political jargon, here’s how to defend your beliefs with more sophisticated wordplay.

Lesson 1 - Deflecting the issue

Q: You think marijuana should be legal? What are you, some kind of pothead?

A: I’ll tell you what I am. I am a firm believer in the philosophical notions of liberty and truth (this might throw off your opponent beyond recovery already). I therefore reject the continuation of a policy that stands in firm contradiction to those notions.

Lesson 2 - Give a little, Take a lot

Q: The truth is that marijuana is a dangerous substance. It causes respiratory illness, psychosis, memory loss, and other problems. How can you possibly call yourself a believer in the truth and deny these facts?

A: I’ll pretend for a moment, that your ‘facts’ are not grossly over-exaggerated and that the scientific support is unquestionable. The truth is that most of these claims are much different than the original reasons for criminalizing marijuana. The lies that it is toxic, creates murderers & heroine addicts, and that it causes permanent psychosis for all users - have long been proven false. If the original reasons for criminalizing it have proven false, there is no longer reason for it to remain criminal.^{1 234}

Lesson 3 - Flipping the Issue; Go on the attack

A: These NEW claims you speak of, pale in comparison to the originals. Should we really ban anything that might increase the risk of common ailments? Should you be put in jail for eating cholesterol?

Lesson 4 - Hardcore logic for weak associations

Q: But marijuana use leads to harder drugs and profits go towards organized crime. How can you possibly support such results?

A: Profits go to organized crime because well, its a crime. If it weren’t a crime, its profits would go elsewhere. Similarly, heroine is a crime. Those people that get heavily involved in marijuana are more likely to get involved with heroine because, the same organized criminals are distributing it. Therefore, marijuana criminalization causes heroine use, not marijuana itself.

Lesson 5 - When all else fails, lie…well

Q: My daughter got into marijuana when she was 16. Today, she’s a crack addict prostituting herself for spare change. Its people like you that allow such things to continue. How do you live with yourself?

A: My grandfather was in the military. He smoked marijuana on a daily basis in order to cope with the stress and trauma, as did many of his fellow soldiers. Without marijuana, the allies would have struggled to defeat the German’s in World War II. I think a world where your daughter is a crack addicted prostitute is more pleasant than a world where each of us is in a slave camp, mutated by genetic experimentation. Don’t you?

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1. You can also suggest that marijuana has medical applications. Here’s some references to get you started: [↩]
2. “We conclude that this CBM [cannabis-based medicine] may represent a useful new agent for treatment of the symptomatic relief of spasticity in MS.” -Christine Collin, MD, et al. “Randomized Controlled Trial of Cannabis-Based Medicine in Spasticity Caused by Multiple Sclerosis”. European Journal of Neurology. Vol. 14, No. 3, Page 290. Mar. 2007. [↩]
3. ”Smoked cannabis was well tolerated and effectively relieved chronic neuropathic pain from HIV-associated sensory neuropathy The findings are comparable to oral drugs used for chronic neuropathic pain.” -Donald I. Abrams, MD et al. “Cannabis in Painful HIV-Associated Sensory Neuropathy: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial”. Neurology. Vol. 68, Pages 515-521. Feb. 2007. [↩]
4. “Treatment with cannabinoids had been shown to reduce the invasiveness of cancer cells, but the cellular mechanisms underlying this effect were unclear.” -Burkhard Hinz, PhD, et. al. “Inhibition of Cancer Cell Invasion by Cannabinoids via Increased Expression of Tissue Inhibitor of Matrix Metalloproteinases-1″. Journal of the National Cancer Institute Vol. 100, Number 1, Page 51. Dec. 25, 2007. [↩]

Scientology Pamphlet¹

Protest the Church of Scientology? Why not.

Anonymous or not, online oganizers decided to change the news, focus on a powerful organization, and show distaste for it. The nice thing about action: you don’t have to worry about libel or hate speech. It’s curious vocalized criticism of doctors, pharmacists, or homosexuals² doesn’t qualify as hatred/discrimination (But thats another issue).

For weeks anonymous videos have been threatening the church and organizing a modern media crusade. Some people went further, sending fake anthrax letters to Churches in Los Angeles³ .

Why you ask?

It definitely isn’t due to fraudulent and criminal activities, secrecy, destructive beliefs or opportunistic emotional brainwashing. So what then? Why the anger?

Maybe people in their 20’s just have nothing better to do with their time. They need some senseless, random, cause. There just aren’t enough causes for concern to keep us occupied. We crave senseless discrimination. We are legion.

I am what? Babling? No. I am fair and balanced - scientific even. I told you the what, but what about the why?

Why not? Get up off your as this Sunday. Forget about your exams, work, mass?, or hangover nursing for a day. Embrace the opportunity. Save your political passivity for Monday. Drop some acid with your MAOI’s and Ritalin while smoking a joint outside Scientology headquarters; just cause that’s your right⁴ . Do what’s right.⁵

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1. Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/groovymother/527216967/sizes/m/ [↩]
2. Just threw this one out there, not that its necessarily Scientology related [↩]
3. Mailings to Scientology sites probed. L.A. Times. 31 January 2008. [↩]
4. To find a location nearest you click here [↩]
5. Not Wendy’s [↩]

In the aftermath of Vancouver’s recent RCMP taser killing tragedy, the rug-sweep press extravaganza has taken full charge. If you haven’t seen this yet, see video below.

We begin with the Vancouver Airport Authority attempting to divert any blame towards management or personnel responsibility. Why didn’t anyone offer help, support, or translation? We all know how frustrating the airport can be… imagine 12 hours of delay, confusion, getting lost, and a complete inability to communicate. Think you might get a bit agitated?

Apparently the problem is infrastructure. According to Chief Executive Larry Berg,

“I think that we’ve lost a little bit of the human touch, the ability to reach out to people, individuals who may have different, unique circumstances, such as this individual did.”¹

No shit. When a foreign visitor gets lost for 12 hours in a major international airport that is preparing for the Olympic Games, I would expect some concerns. But despite the god-awful absence of systemized customer assistance - it is a sickening realization that the airport personnel did not step up to diffuse the situation. Anyhow, the Vancouver Airport Authority, in all its divine wisdom, decided to throw some consumer money on the issue in hopes of concealing this rather ugly scar. I’m sure $1.3 million will give their hollow apologies a voice.

On to the RCMP, who, do indeed have a tough job. Which is exactly why such a job shouldn’t be taken lightly. A few days ago Big Shot Mounties announced new regulations to restrict the use of tasers for individuals who are “combative” or “actively resistant”. Well ummm… do you really need a regulation that says that?

While admitting that tasers have been used inappropriately in the past, no clear indication was given whether the death of Robert Dziekanski was one of those circumstances. Hard to get greedy I suppose; its difficult enough to have the RCMP admit they make mistakes, let alone point one out in particular.

The simple answer to all this hubub is responsibility. Questions about whether tasers should even be used or whether they are torture are ludicrous. If you want a proper police force then they must be equipped to enforce… but if you want them to make sound judgments, you have to equip them with training and responsibility. The attitude of superiority and the mindless reflexes of these officers should be our prime concern.

But nobody wants to talk about that. So let us move on. Let us sweep these grains of infuriating incompetence beneath us. Sweep it away. Now repeat after me “the government and RCMP is only there for my protection.”

Good.

Feel better?

You won’t after watching this:

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1. Vancouver Airport Authority spending $1.3 million in wake of Polish man’s death. Canadian Press. 7 December 2007. [↩]

It is official. George W. Bush has finally gone Green

After finally getting around to the report on his desk, revealing the inconvenient truth that plastic may take thousands of years to decompose, Bush did what he does best: pledged money to a cause.

The cause was Africa. George also learned that Africa was suffering from a terrible outbreak of something called AIDS, a sexually transmitted disease. George is no dummy, he knew that the best method of preventing AIDS was through the use of condoms. That disturbing fact, coupled with an estimate of 25 million people living with AIDS or HIV in Africa, spawned a series of nightmares for Mr. Bush. Nightmares, he claims, where Africa is submerged in a landfill of used condoms for thousands of years.

“We must do something,” boasted a brave George W. Bush during his latest press conference¹, “Our landfills are filling up, our resources are being drained, and the African people may lose their country to a torrent of used condoms!”

The President was eager to reveal a bold new solution: Foreskin. “Instead of using plastic condoms, a commodity not broken down over thousands of years and restrictive of the penis’ freedom, we will free the penis from totalitarianism! We will sever the skin of every African penis so that it may have same freedoms that we American’s enjoy.”

Human flesh is, after all, biodegradable.

The President was like a polished Greenpeace soldier; shooting out scientific research and moral duty in singular sentences. He silenced his critics with relevant fart jokes and brilliant metaphor. The speech may very well come to be known as the monument of the birth… the birth of American Environmentalism.²

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1. Source misplaced while reading bible. Sorry. [↩]
2. Please note, some quotes may be slightly embellished. [↩]

Back Alley on East Hastings, Vancouver¹

Main and Hastings, Vancouver, Canada: A dessert of dirt, garbage, and the concrete dust remains of human misery. A country within a country; block after block of dull washed away brick, chapels, bent shopping carts, ‘truly’ free markets, and relief societies. Here, sleeps the soul of Canada’s tropical paradise; a wasteland of death behind the mirage of salvation. Needle-by-needle, theft-after-theft, the dust storms pick up speed.

A short, balding woman, covered in dust, paces up and down the trash-riddled alley. She glares me in the eyes, fidgets uncontrollably, and fixes a manikin-like gaze near my shoes. I take three steps to the left. She…takes one forward, hunching near the pavement. Three more to the left. Then, before I can glance back, she is crouched in the corner behind me. Another takes notice. It speeds towards her in a drunken vampire frenzy. They share. Before it is time for me to leave, deja vu. Both creatures are pacing up and down that very same street; I’d swear it was the matrix, but they aren’t trembling anymore.

Where do you find hope in the midst of a hell like this? Perhaps a tiny place called Insite: North America’s only safe injection facility. For those of you unaware of this facility, it stands as a safe haven in Vancouver’s worst area. It provides clean syringes, keeps medical staff on hand, saves hundreds of lives, prevents the spread of HIV and Hepatitis, lowers public drug usage, and reduces sidewalk needle disposal. Violence, theft, and drug use have remained stable. But perhaps most damaging of all: many addicts have pursued successful addiction treatment through the facility - possibly using health care funds.

Now, for reasons I’m sure must be related to health care, Insite is under attack.

Read more

1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/stollerdos/143573967/ [↩]

I hate you. All of you. Worthless sniveling excuses of human nature. I hate people in general really, and I find it hard to muster up any kind of sympathy for you wretched creatures. You cheat, lie, steal, rape; what the hell is not to hate? Who are your idols? Child molesters and greedy self-indulgent business whores. Oh god, oh god, when will you cast down thine apocalyptic plague?

Maybe I’m being too general.

I hate dopey dimwitted blacks, avaricious jew swine, asinine fanatical arabs, materialistic menstruating women, dull impersonal asians, lazy drunken natives, foul curry indians, mexicans, africans, australians too. I hate muslims, christians, buddhists, hindus, taoists, mormons, atheists, and even those carpet-munching wiccans. Kill homos. Screw handicaps. Miss anyone? Fuck you too.

That’s right, this is the internet and I can say whatever the hell I want… asshole.

Hate is serious. Apparently 7,000 - whoops, 7,001 hate websites have been identified on the internet. Sites with games in order to attract children¹. Sites showing how to build bombs². Sites to tickle the senses of any rotten scapegoating scum. The horrifying thing about all this is that websites bypass the media filter system. Anyone can access hate now.

Hate hasn’t always been easily accessible. Hate-mongers would seek the bible or the Quran on the black market and risk molestation at the church. Camps and schools secretly existed where children were raised, from birth, to hate women and homosexuals. All of the sudden this garbage is more accessible. Or maybe it is just the new stuff?

And what about hypocritical scum like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other do-goodder foundations seeking petty vengeance. They are worried, allegedly, at the rising number of hate websites; some more than others, I presume. Tracking down hatred all over the planet and bringing it to justice. How nobel. If they’re homosexual, two birds - one stone. These people aren’t seeking equal conditional worth for all human beings; they seek blood, as always.

Here’s an idea: Why not teach kids logic, reasoning skills. How is it, in a developed system where children go through 13 years of learning, that most will never experience the faintest glimpse of critical thinking? If society is so concerned with influential children being brainwashed by hate then maybe it should equip children with the tools necessary to resist it themselves. Haven’t we learned that trying to rid the world of effects, while neglecting the causes, is useless³?

But we can’t teach children logic, oh no. If we did that, we couldn’t brainwash them. They would question us; they would hate us for our stupidity. So let’s raise morons, together. Together we can foster hatred for logic instead of hatred for each other. Let logic be our common foe.

There is nothing wrong with us. Everyone needs something to hate.

Self-preservation at all costs.

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1. See “Ethnic Cleansing” the game [↩]
2. Anarchist cookbook and others [↩]
3. See War on Drugs [↩]