blacksundae

Wired:

The two remaining Democratic presidential candidates recently agreed to participate in the Compassion Forum, scheduled for April 13 at Messiah College in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Billed as a conversation on faith and values, the event will be broadcast by the Church Communication Network. It also comes five days before a proposed science debate that was canceled after the candidates refused to participate.

Emphasis mine. Why would they want to talk about, you know, issues that actually affect the future of life on this planet, when they could be yammering away about the same ancient lies that have been killing people for millennia.

Fuck. And this is the comparatively rational party. It’s enough to make you want to take the Lord’s name in vain. Read on.

UPDATE: Just came across this. Seemed appropriate.

Exactly what it sounds like. My personal favorite: Tyler Perry’s They Live. Well, Perry’s made nothing but horror movies so far.

Wonkette notes something I’ve been telling people about for years. No one ever remembers this or believes me. This is an accurate description of the pilot for the X-Files spin-off, The Lone Gunmen:

This is because the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen is about corrupt Defense contractors and evil government officials flying a passenger jet into the World Trade Center so they can blame it on terrorists and start a lucrative series of anti-terror wars to boost defense-sector profits in the post-Cold War era. This was shown in May 2001 on FOX, and it got such terrible ratings that nobody noticed it was about 9/11, which happened a few months later:

Read on. Creeeeeepy. “Inside job” types are still dipshits, though.

THE ATHEIST APOCALYPSE! [via Pharyngula]

Finally, for all of Marshall’s technical missteps, it’s so very hard to hate a movie where a severed head splats into the lens of a camera.

Read on. God, I need to see this movie. It may just be an exercise in John Carpenter adoration, but — wait. What’s wrong with that?

“Now I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’re worried it’s going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything…”

Oh, no? How far would you go, then? Hmmm? Be prepared, or else you’ll be the first against the wall when Skynet becomes self-aware. Read on. [via Boing Boing]

A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.

Read on. [via Digg]

That is, Maximum Cuteness plus Maximum Cuteness plus Maximum Cuteness times a bunch more cute equals Infinite Cuteness. Whereas the old guard saw Maximum Cuteness as the stopping point, the new guard sees Maximum Cuteness as the beginning of Infinite Cuteness. To the layman, this means that cuteness can be multiplied exponentially simply by stacking forms of cuteness on each other. Thus, if penguins have a cute factor of 100, and tap dancing has a cute factor of 87, and a penguin with friends has a cute factor of 164, then cute factors quickly become out of hand, astronomical, and potentially dangerous.

Read on. [via Jchilds]

Exactly what it sounds like. For pure badassitude (and versatility) the Dobbertin Surface Orbiter is clearly the best, but it’s pretty hard to beat the Wothahellizat in the name department. Really, all of them look like winners in the zombie squishing department.

[via Boing Boing Gadgets]

“We have some people at Google (who) are really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale,” Page said to a packed Hilton ballroom of scientists. “It’s not as far off as people think.”

Read on. [via 901am]