Among the Mandarins, the Words for [Fake] Crisis and Opportunity Mean the Same Thing

Astronomers in Siberia Locate an Asteroid Headed for Earth in 2065:

Recently scientists in the Crimea discovered another potentially hazardous 410-metre asteroid that is headed on a dangerous trajectory towards the Earth

United Nations agrees to establish Asteroid Warning Group

It's a Polite Way of Saying "Hello, I'm Tedious and Vapid"

Berlin, a city where being individualistic always seems to mean sheepishly following one dingbat style cult or another, is holding a "hipster festival. Gack. Most of them think the former east is charming. In other words: hide the children and the livestock.

Piraten! Move out of Your Parent's Basement!

I've never heard of a political party become so adept at repelling women without, say, making them wear veils or binding their feet:

Just after walking the German Pirate Party plank due to exhaustion, ex-Pirate political manager Marina Weisband dropped the boom on her mobbing male marauders by outing them as being just as chauvanistic and sexist as male types everywhere else are, political or otherwise.

The response she got from these thoroughly modern males amounted to "whatever you say, sweet cheeks."

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2012\04A: An Urgent Report

Noting the nuttiness of people's fears, the extent to which they are convinced that the world, as usual, is just about to end, I have been noting the nature of those who seem to love the sort of hysteria surrounding the prospect of an asteroid doing us all in.

It's a metaphor, you dopes. A metaphor for whatever fashionable piffle children are being taught to wet their beds over - by which I mean the idea that man can alter the world's temperature through self-flaggelation and feelings of sever contrition, and that a giant human-caused-weather-related wave is coming to wipe us out. Even the landlocked.

I thought I was beavering away in lonely isolation. Now, even storied philosophical figure and popular writer Pascal Bruckner is starting to get worried about our worries (and distracting preoccupations with something that only matters to a haldful of detached activists).

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, a paradigm shift in our thinking took place: we decided that the era of revolutions was over and that the era of catastrophes had begun. The former had involved expectation, the hope that the human race would proceed toward some goal. But once the end of history was announced, the Communist enemy vanquished, and, more recently, the War on Terror all but won, the idea of progress lay moribund. What replaced the world’s human future was the future of the world as a material entity. The long list of emblematic victims—Jews, blacks, slaves, proletarians, colonized peoples—was likewise replaced, little by little, with the Planet, the new paragon of all misery. No longer were we summoned to participate in a particular community; rather, we were invited to identify ourselves with the spatial vessel that carried us, groaning.

And so forth, undsoweiter: the fear of wrong simply becomes fear, and redemption, well - if you don't beileve in anything, you won't find any of that either.

The Christian apocalypse saw itself as a hopeful revelation of the coming of God’s kingdom. Today’s has nothing to offer. There is no promise of redemption; the only hope is that those human beings who repent of their errors may escape the chaos, as in Cormac McCarthy’s fine novel The Road. How can we be surprised, then, that so many bright minds have become delirious and that so many strange predictions flourish?

As far as I'm concerned, if you're preoccupied by human extinction, and have a "love-hate" relationship with the idea, make a good example of yourself and go first. After all, if the life of all of us is a cheap tool to make yourself heard, then your life is unserious and cheap to begin with.

The HuffPo Reader's Idea of "Street Cred"

One can only wonder where they think that street is - or rather at least what part of Northeast Philadelphia they think it is.

'Part-Time Hair Piece, Full-Time Lady-Getter'

You go, "Lady-Getter" ( ...? ! ?... )

Clearly, it has worked: After selling out of their stock of 2000, the couple just placed an order for 10000 additional mullets. So let's get to the most important question: Are the mullets synthetic or real human hair?

Important, indeed. Almost as important as parading you're wife's silly ironic name.

My wife Morgan went to high school with a friend that originally had this idea. He had the stuff sent over from China and had a prototype made, but let it go. We were in Cabo in 2010 and a group of tourists walked by with real mullets, and we both agreed that we should talk to our friend about getting the business off the ground.

Their choice in vacation locales says the rest.

I Know they CAN, buy MAY they?

Video: Killer Asteroids Can Be Deflected With Nuclear Warheads, New Study Says

It is common knowledge that using a nuclear device on a killer asteroid on a collision course with the Earth would only produce perhaps thousands of smaller projectiles headed toward Earth -- making a bad situation possibly worse. And yet, a new study indicates that using a nuclear device might work after all.

It's hard to know exactly what to get panicked about some days.

The Never-Ending Movie-enduced "Bee Crisis"

If it's news to you, that's because you haven't been propagandized yet by agitational activist types yet. The fact is that it's an illness, that man and his evil SUV driving had nothing to do with it, and that it's going away on its' own as nature travels its' course:

What's Going on in Princeton This Week?: Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?" examines the global bee crisis through the eyes of biodynamic beekeepers, scientists, ...

Elsewhere:

What's happening this weekend in Mercer County: Jan. 27-29: (further bee-extermination porn)


Spring line-up announced : On March 5, Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?

Get angry, people!

They Invented Their Own Worst Stereotypes

Now iss de time on Schprockets venn ve tance.

It's ART, you Ignorant Peasants!

Holiday jeers for Ugliest Christmas tree in Germany:

The startling Yuletide sight stands right next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the heart of western Berlin on Breitscheidplatz.

The “Traffic Tree” – the name being a nod to the hectic run up to Christmas - was created by 36-year-old artist Thomas Plattner, who specialises in creating sculptures from found objects. So, instead of traditional holiday baubles and tinsel, battered toys and discarded household items dangle from the tree’s scrap metal branches.

It has been christened the “ugliest” in Germany by the country’s biggest newspaper, Bild.

Normalweise, one would celebrate a meaningful date or event with the finest you can find, those things that show you've sacrificed the most you could... except in modern day Europe where you're supposed to not care.

In fact one can't even plausibly call this pile of literal refuse an homage to nature, or even an offering to the Gods of reccycling.

Why am I Reminded of Devo?

Of cave paintings and the punk esthete: one writer is celebrating the human ability to give some of us an excuse for not progressing.

I had known of the Sex Pistols' association with 6 Denmark Street for a while, but a chance remark on a BBC 6 Music programme led to the discovery that the Pistols, and in particular John Lydon, had left a substantial body of graffiti there and that, surprisingly, it had survived. The findings are described in the latest volume of the academic journal Antiquity, published earlier this week.

The graffiti that fellow archaeologist John Schofield (of the University of York) and I recorded in an upper room at the back of a vintage guitar shop include both accomplished caricatures of Malcolm McLaren, Nancy Spungen and John Ritchie (aka Sid Vicious) and other items that record the use of the building by 4" be 2" (a band formed by Lydon's brother Jimmy), and later as the home of two members of Bananarama. But the importance of the site goes beyond the eye-catching graffiti.

Behold, the onetime shame and pride of Akron, Ohio

Pretentious Crap, circa 1988

"Halb-Stadt" (Berlin West)

Where exactly DOES Art-Haus rubbish go when it dies?

The Accidental Mullet

Esquire: My Magnificent New Hair

He explained that no one should just grow out his hair. You'll grow a mullet, or an Afro, or something you probably weren't looking to grow...

Ugh.

Privacy is a Thing of the Past

Gotham, the City that never Sleeps, etal.: Explaining the Mullet Dude on Spring Street [Video]

Wednesday morning, we published a piece about an insanely coiffed mullet spotted on Spring Street. The dude sporting the classic hair style (along with tropical shorts) had a message, but it was abundantly clear.

The Swedish Miracle Mullet

"I have been trying for ten years to get this classified as a handicap," Tullgren told The Local.

"I spoke to three psychologists and they finally agreed that I needed this to avoid being discriminated against."

Whenever you see news coming out of Sweden, why do feel compelled to ALWAYS ask "is this a joke"? It’s a stupid question, because it never is.

Sweden: Man gets sick benefits for heavy metal addiction

A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability. The results of a psychological analysis enable the metal lover to supplement his income with state benefits.

So on the occasions where he DID show up to work, he employed psychiatry to try to compel his employer to listen to metal for what is likely a 6 hour a day job. This despite the fact that he was getting paid at all.

Eventually his last employer tired of his absences and Tullgren was left jobless and reliant on welfare handouts.

But his sessions with the occupational psychologists led to a solution of sorts: Tullgren signed a piece of paper on which his heavy metal lifestyle was classified as a disability, an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre.

"I signed a form saying: 'Roger feels compelled to show his heavy metal style. This puts him in a difficult situation on the labour market. Therefore he needs extra financial help'. So now I can turn up at a job interview dressed in my normal clothes and just hand the interviewers this piece of paper," he said.

Winners and enterpreneurs seem rather hard to come by after 6 decades of deprogramming people of common sense.

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2011\06F

US, Russia fight over asteroid that could destroy Earth

According to Spacewatch, the asteroid is "en route and headed our way,... "

Mullets on the Loose

FBI says mullet bandit holds up another bank:

The suspect is described as a white male, in his late 30's, about 6 feet tall, with a medium build, a scruffy appearance and dark hair cut in a mullet. He is wanted in connection with the two previous bank robberies...

That Hemorrhoid you Feel Bothering you is your Brain

European discomfort grows about bin Laden killing

So what?

"It's likely that bin Laden sought his own destiny," Zapatero told parliament on Wednesday after Gaspar Llamazares, deputy from the small leftist party Izquierda Unida, questioned his congratulating Obama.

Zapatero said "any democrat" would have preferred bin Laden stood trial, but that he understood how the operation ended in the way it did for "one of history's bloodiest criminals."

Islamist militants set off bombs simultaneously in four packed commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, killing 191 people and wounding more than 2,000, in attacks they said were inspired but not ordered by al Qaeda.

In Germany a senior member of parliament from Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, Siegfried Kauder, criticized her statement on Monday which said she was "glad that killing bin Laden was successful".

"I wouldn't have used those words. That is a vengeful way of thinking that one shouldn't have. That's mediaeval," he said.

It sounds like they want to give him posthumus citizenship and a Nobel Prize.

Contrary to what their self-regard is telling them, sometimes, ones' opnions simply don't matter in the real world.

A Portrait of the Effectiveness of Soft Power

26-JAN-2011:

EU to Cairo: respect 'legitimate yearnings' of citizens

27-JAN-2011:

CAIRO — Political protests may be rocking Egypt with a new, nonideological force, but President Hosni Mubarak and his allies have not veered from a playbook they have followed through nearly three decades of one-party rule.

As always, the government has responded to the unrest primarily as a security issue, largely ignoring, or dismissing, the core demands of those who have taken to the street.

The Humanistic, Harm Limiting, “Swedish Way”

Gosh... he might lose his license ?!?

The victim first sought treatment for depression and burn out

[ ... ]

He suggested the woman engage in "touch therapy" as a way to help her get in touch with repressed memories of past sexual abuse, going so far as to propose having sex with her to help her reminiscence.

[ ... ]

When she then said she had a boyfriend, the doctor became angry with her, prompting her to question the value of the therapy sessions.

News Digest from the Fake-Crisis Management Center, no. 2010\12-E

Belief in Progress vs. Rational Uncertainty
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

It can be found in New Age beliefs: the world is headed for a for a millennial age, and in techno-optimist futurism.

Others share an unwitting agreement with those others who tacitly think that ecological radicalism offers a set of virtues around which a body of faith can be built around.

While some transhumanists still press for technological innovation on all fronts and oppose all regulation, others are focusing on reducing the civilization-ending potentials of asteroid strikes, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.