This post has no title because there is no definitive theme... You shouldn't bother looking at this part anymore... Seriously, cut it out...

This picture comes from Ubisoft’s upcoming big-budget game. In it you play the pictured Altair. He’s a medieval assassin whose skills involve killing people and disappearing into crowds. Looking at him you can tell that he is not a person to be trifled with and therein lies a problem I have with videogame storytelling.

Imagine you're a guard and there are clues that a deadly assassin is afoot! Your crossbow is loaded but who is there to fire at? Who in the sea of peasantry could be the dreaded assassin? Worry not friend because sussing out the killer has become quite easy in the video game world. See that guy over there who looks really, really cool? Shoot him. Don't ask questions; just put one in his back. There is no way a normal, everyday, unthreatening person winds up looking that cool. Check the peasants around him, not nearly as cool looking, are they? No, in fact they look rather lame when put up next to this guy so really there should be no doubt. Kill the really fucking cool guy because that will be your assassin each and every time. If I was an evil tyrant in a video game I would simply execute anyone wearing metal-as-fuck armbands and crazy belts, and in doing so I would live to be a ripe old age.

Consider Mungo; he who herds sheep in the video game world. I have no picture of Mungo to show you because he is undeserving but worry not, your imagination will suffice. You can tell worthless Mungo is harmless because his serf’s rags are lame and he wears boots made out of burlap. His belt is but a piece of knotted twine and there are no daggers tucked within. If he was designed by a Japanese person he might be wearing a pot on his head and be prone to breaking out in dance. Hiding behind Mungo, however, is this impressive looking fucker who's sporting some insane leatherwork and looks as if he’s never danced or known happiness in his life. How in the video game world does a guy come to own such finery? Really there is only one answer...

He looks that bad-assed because he can kill a lot of people easily. The toughness of a person is in direct proportion to the crazy gear they sport. See the detailed embellishments on his bracers? Translated that means he can kill like ten guys in a row, so shoot him.

Shoot him in the back.

If only real life bad guys were so easy to spot.

A number of Donald Rumsfeld’s memos have been leaked. Chances are his former employees stopped being afraid of him and are cleaning out his desk if only to show the world what kind of insane fucking goober they had to work under. It seems this guy was completely consumed with image and how to manipulate it. He was a pre-internet dinosaur who vainly thought that he could still control the message despite the avalanche of facts at our disposal. The delusion of this man stems from the fact that he thought the States could be run as it was thirty years ago. The real shame is that he was allowed to do so.

Can you even say weapon of mass destruction using clicks and whistles?

Civilized nations around the world are moving to ban the use of cluster bombs. What a bunch of pussies! Most of the countries who want them banned have to import fire so of course they’re against them. I think that if you can’t invent it then you shouldn’t even have a say. Settle down there Swasiland, adults are talking, it’s big boy time. Tell me what’s so wrong with a weapon that releases a thousand other indiscriminate weapons that lay dormant until a child finds them? These things are better than land mines because you don’t have to bury them; they do all the maiming and require none of the shovel work. Israel dropped cluster bombs on the Lebanese last year so if you don’t like these horrible weapons then an argument can be made that you are in fact an Anti-Semite. You’re not an Anti-Semite are you? America loves their cluster bombs and their Jews so thankfully I don’t see these rocket propelled amputee factories going anywhere soon.

It will be just like the bible only with no god.

You know what Iraq needs, a flood! Did I say need? What I meant is gonna get. The Mosul dam is shoddy and the money that was going to go into fixing it is gone. If it breaks the city of Mosul will fall into the jurisdiction of Aquaman and parts of Baghdad will be under a dozen feet of water. Can you image some guy with flippers and a suicide vest paddling towards you? That would be pretty interesting.

Freedom and Democracy - It's super-effective!

Apparently a few hundred of them there Taliban were spotted poking around the Afghan city of Kandahar. That’s bad because Kandahar is where all the Canadian hotel journalists hang out and wait for the military to give them news on the war. When the Taliban move into a village the residents are forced to flee, not because they fear the radical Islamists but because they want to avoid getting caught in the customary NATO bombardment. Nothing like fighting the good fight eh? In other news from Kandahar the war is going super well and we are all totally awesome.

This is a totally bragible statistic...

This is Parade’s annual 20 Worst Dictators in the World list. There are some truly diabolical assholes on this list but let me break it down to you in the way you really want; 6 black dudes, 7 brown dudes, 4 yellow dudes, and 3 white dudes though one of them is named Islam so there is no fucking way he’s on my team. Not one woman tyrant was able to break the barb-wire ceiling. It’s like I always say, vagina and human suffering just don’t mix.

I'm Robert Frikken Goulet! I AM LAS VEGAS!

Robert Goulet died this week, he was 73. Mr. Goulet had a French-Canadian dad and spent some time growing up in Canada so we can lay claim to him in that desperate way that Canadians lay claim to American celebrities. His later commercial work was pretty hilarious as was Will Ferrell’s belligerent rapping impression. When he was young he looked totally different then when he was old too. I hate that about old people.

Consumption and Bowel Movements: The building blocks of the universe.

I’ve gone from vaginas to the elderly so my next logical stop will be Black Holes! These aren’t just any Black Holes either but the super-serious ones that eat suns and can fart out a planet! Check the gallery to see some beautiful pictures of space. If looking at things that are not beautiful is more your thing then the article also provides a picture of an astronomer.

Scarbee Says: First you get the pollen, then you get the nectar, then you get the women...

I love extremism and so do you! Centrist philosophy and moderation is probably the key to stability and sustainability but once most humans achieve this cozy nook they tend to test the boundaries, then leap over them, and then snort whatever it is they find on the other side. Extremism is where the adventure begins, where humans discover their flaws and where the all the great dramas come to a crashing, fiery end.

Though parenting has rendered me for the most part dormant my appetite for extremism, my deep-seated belief in hedonism as a viable and worthwhile lifestyle is well-documented but of a garden-variety sort. There is a whole other domain of extremism that I dare not go lest the light of dawn find me before I’ve dragged my weary ass back over the aforementioned line. I know I'm missing something even if it's only diminishing returns. For this reason retirement is going to be something special with me for all the six or so months that I'm liable to last. Anything that gives me the fear now is going to be what my Freedom 55 is all about. My children aren't likely to receive much inheritance what with the high cost of infant pituitary glands. They'll have to find their own way like I did which is fine by me, it builds character.

I often ponder if its common sense or cowardice that causes me to pull the rip-cord with the ground still a full mile away. Whether it’s the party life or politics or insane ideologies there are levels of extremism that creates impact craters out of people’s lives and I’ll admit to being honoured when I get to bear witness. I find this kind of extreme consequence for extreme belief fascinating if only for the pendulum’s arc; the predictable path of what some have called karma. Mostly the inevitable outcome, the hammer strike of reckoning is merely the reinforcement of long-established rules but I still walk away humbled and strangely illuminated. Imagining Elvis straining on the toilet will always be my Rodin’s Thinker; it just tells me the stories that I'm always willing to hear.

The Power of Nightmares: perfect Halloween viewing!

If you’ve never watched The Power of Nightmares I highly recommend hitting the torrents. You may not agree with everything this three-part BBC documentary says but it attempts to provide the cause to many of the modern effects we feel today. I recall it now because it describes life in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union retreated; how the various mujahideen cells were prone to turn on each other and then eventually, themselves. Their extreme view of Islam would brook no variation with the end results being that groups of hardened religious warriors would annihilate their own brothers-in-arms upon the aftermath of their victory against the communist superpower.

Al Qaeda here, Al Qaeda there, Al Qaeda - Al Qaeda everywhere!

Meanwhile Pakistan is enjoying the poisonous fruits of their own brand of extremism. Whatever you think the threat of radical Islam is to western nations it pales to the blight they have become where they have been given shelter. Al Qaeda isn’t just in the remote Peshwar region of Pakistan anymore, they’ve insinuated themselves into city and suburb while they raise resources to mount increasingly larger attacks. Something like a thousand Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives fighting this menace since this War on Terror started and they have been left demoralized because a portion of the officers in power seem to condone their supposed enemies. They do so because they go way back, back to when they were allies against the Soviets. They fought the same enemy in their youth and those bonds do not easily break. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Pervez Musharraf has allowed Benazir Bhutto to return; to rally the seculars and repel the rising jihadist tide.

Guess who's coming to my big, fat gay dinner?

An extreme point of view should always be held in suspect because black and white views have through the course of history mobilized those who easily submit to authority. Is the extremist a true-believer or are they manipulating the masses for personal gain? I've always suspected that Republican mouthpiece Ann Coulter was more of a clown than a true neo-conservative. She rarely fails to vilify the purveyors of opposing views as closeted homosexuals. Imagine her embarrassment when she got caught on camera enjoying the viands at a hip gay restaurant in the heart of the West Hollywood village? Busted you might say, much like the ostrich carcass her bigoted soul is bound to. I shouldn't make fun, it must be tough having a body where the part with the widest circumference is your asshole.

Sure the ammenities suck but think about all that free intolerance!

The extremism present in Iraq’s current sectarian fault-lines is an easy example to present when running with this theme. This article goes over the transformation of a declining Baghdad burg over a period of time and the bitterness it engendered among the American troops stationed there. The picture painted is bleak indeed.

When I can afford to wire my mud hut with Alarm Force I promise to lose the rifle.

Check it out, something somewhat related to Canada! Much to no one’s shock it has been discovered that Afghans in the north are stockpiling weapons in case the Taliban return. What isn’t said is that Afghanistan has been a wild frontier for hundreds if not thousands of years and who can begrudge these people their home defence? This is where the illusions of the west collide with the realities of life over there. Any gain made by NATO forces is overshadowed by a restless enemy in the south. There are officially not enough troops to stabilize many significant regions of Afghanistan and so the Taliban operate in this area with impunity. The mission is grinding to a stall of irregular movement and sweet opium still flows from that nation unabated. This situation has all the makings of bad news waiting to happen.

Said with a Tony Montana accent: My queen bee's hive is so fucking polluted she can't have any larva.

Did the extremist trends in our society have an effect on bee population? How’s that for a half-assed tie-in? Anyway a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder is sweeping our continent and killing the bees off in droves. This might potentially have devastating effects on our agriculture. I’m not a big science fan most of the time but this article has sufficient doomy-gloomy goodness to satisfy. Plus this article made me come up with Scarbee, and he's staying. Any last words Scarbee? "Chu got a fucking problem with bee man?" HA! Good one Scarbee!

Newsflash! Religion is still a joke, believers last to get punchline.

This dense article warms my hell-bound heart. The Religious Right movement has run aground due to a marvellously failing President, the disillusionment of their flock, and the death of certain brimstone-farting blowhards. The politically-charged holy trinity of same-sex marriage, abortion, and teaching creationism as a legitimate science has begun to lose its lustre as a form of national debate and none of the current crop of Republican vote-panderers passes muster anymore. Certain heads of the American secular state are calling for the formation of a new party; a traditionalist organisation which focuses on the religious roots of America’s colonial infancy. From a strategic point of view I think the timing is certainly right. The secular big-business libertarians of the G.O.P have always been uneasy partners with the holy rollers. What with the reputation of the former being in the toilet and the latter now voting in record numbers a timely schism may change the face of American politics. This is a long-shot but if you follow these things you can see how Republican candidates have had to embrace religion and change their stance on their core issues. The likes of Guiliani and Romney are running scared and changing tack, you can see it. Who knows, maybe they’ve done the math and are trying to divert a disaster?

A full-on religious party within the U.S. would be like mana from heaven to me. A dynasty of Reverend Presidents is just what the history books need to make this epoch even crazier than it already is. A boy can dream.

Aliens vs. My Little Pony... One sided yes... But just think of the tie-in toys!

I don’t think it will be possible for me to review a video game poorly. This is not because I give all things related to the medium a free pass but because in order to review a game properly one must play through the game, and playing poor games is quite simply unnecessary in this day and age.

Reviewers cannot be trusted. These writers are corrupted hacks, industry whores who have thoroughly skewed the system with their secret allegiance to a product provider. I should know; I’ve done the deed and cashed the cheques. You know something isn’t right just by looking at the numbers. Sevens, eights, and nines dominate the review space and nothing wrought by human hand achieves such success on a sustained basis. Ours is a species of momentary, accidental greatness.

Reviews when taken as a whole can be used as a metric. Many game sites now collect all the reviews to create an average. This is more helpful but not without knowing how to mine the data. The system is simple and I can spell it out for you briefly. The system assumes the rankings are from 1 to 10.

Six or Less: This game is an unrepentant piece of shit and you should feel no guilt in stealing it or vandalizing copies when in the store. If you are given a six-rated game by a friend then they are no longer to be trusted because this gift constitutes a serious lack of judgment. If a girlfriend or significant other gives you this game you are within your rights to find someone who looks exactly like them, fuck them mercilessly, take pictures of the event, and then hand them over to the girlfriend while thanking them for last night because it was bloody amazing, and I do mean bloody. Your mother will buy you this game.

Seven: This game has glaring flaws and/or lacks innovation but isn’t broken. It is the video game equivalent of channel-surfing and you will play it only to stave off boredom. There is a whole retail industry devoted to seven-rated games and in English we pronounce it RENTALS. It is possible to fall in love with a seven-rated game if the subject matter just happens to intersect with a topic or task that you are intensely interested in. For example, my favourite seven-rated game is “The Suffering: Prison Is Hell.” In this game you can shoot little girls in the head. They’re supposed to be the evil ghosts of little girls but the graphics are spotty and so they just look like little girls… Little girls that you get to shoot… In the head. I borrowed this game from my gamer-wife Mike years ago and I’m not returning it because mooching off my friend enhances the whole illicit experience.

Eight: This is the true passing grade for a video game. Fucked eh? Eight-rated games are the low-water mark not for excellence but mere acceptability. Little Chinese girls must score an eight in gymnastics school or else they are drowned in dark wells of ice-cold water. I wish the video game industry employed similar motivational tactics. Buying an eight-rated game at full price is a necessary evil to feed the industry.

Nine: This is your standard great fucking game. You will play this game right through two times minimum and you may even do it back to back. This is the heady cream on the top of Belgium beer. Radical Islam flourishes in the Middle East because nine-rated games are unknown to their angry and sexually frustrated youth. Wives should not speak or move ungracefully when a nine-rated game is slotted into the machine. The game would often enjoy a sandwich while running and the wife should feel free to make herself useful in that regard.

Ten: This is a nine-rated game that is being reviewed by one of the above mentioned bribe-taking hacks. The review is worth reading because within you will find reams of bullshit laid out in the most glowing of terms. Reading the lies of others does improve your own skills and so you should approach it as an educational endeavour. Ten-rated games are reviewed by the used car salesmen of the video game industry. They operate in a Glen Gary Glen Ross fog of desperation, and their fawning while pathetic, serves to expose the misery that is their celibate lives. Still this is one good fucking game and you should pick it up.

Reviews are however losing even more status than they already have because downloadable content in the form of demos is sweeping the industry. You get to play a slice of the game and form your own opinion. To that end I have currently played four-and-a-half metric shit-tons of garbage game demos and I could review one of them. I will in fact do so in my next post but right now I’m going to throw out the news items that closed off my week.

Iran defiant over US Sanctions

Sanctions Are Meant to Prevent War

Sanctions against Iran are official. Banks and business interests have been targeted, though these measures are seen as mainly symbolic given that the Iranians do little business with the U.S. This is how a run-up to an attack goes though. You get congressmen into a voting pattern so you can go back later on and coerce them to remain consistent.

U.S. considers Kurdish air strikes

The Kurds may wind up face to face with the business end of the 21st century. In order to keep Turkish forces out of Iraq the U.S. is considering the use of air strikes on the independence-seeking guerrillas. Right or wrong mean nothing in the face of air power.

Modern Ideas in the Desert

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is building a more secular university of technology with his own money because he believes the Arab world is falling behind in that regard.

$240 Million from Microsoft for Facebook

I know you kids love the Facebook. Microsoft bought a very small stake in the business for a quarter of a billion bucks. I’m amazed that advertising dollars alone can generate this kind of megalith.

Pit bulls, Miniature Horse and Cancer Boy

Finally I’m going to tell you the saddest story you’ve ever heard. One day a little boy was stricken with brain cancer. Now I’m going to tell you the nicest story you’ve ever heard. The Make-A-Wish-Foundation found the little cancer boy and gave him a miniature horse named Anniversary which made the boy very happy. Now I’m going to tell you the most terrible story you’ve ever heard. Anniversary was ripped to pieces by a pair of pit bulls! Unfortunately there was no picture accompanying this story so instead I put up a picture of the Predalien to be featured in the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator movie because that is probably what those dogs looked like to poor Anniversary as he met his gory doom. In closing I only have one more thing to say. Where is your baby Jesus now, cancer boy? He’s not in your head fixing your dying brain and he wasn’t protecting your teeny-tiny horse, so where is he?

Kids have to learn. That’s what I’m here for.

I'm the fat man at the Buffet Table of World Events...

The previous rant was supposed to be my usual attempt to segue into a variety of somewhat relevant news items but in the end I didn’t bother to land the plane. I’m rather surprised that it wound up being one of my longest posts and that I had twenty times as much to say on the issue than President Bush said himself. At the end of it I was all spent and satisfied but then remembered I had a dozen news links that I originally intended to put in. I’m like that guy who buys four pornos anticipating a musky night of sexual self-exploration only to blow myself empty watching the previews. I see that porno guy a lot, every time I go to the porno shop in fact. (Editors note: He’s looking into a mirror.)

So I’m going to throw up some more links and I have to tell you it’s been a very eventful week in the world. Babies have been born, autumnal corn is all but harvested, somewhere the gentle rain soothes the brow of a weary man who has learned to love himself and in doing so, love the world… But I know you check up on me for all the bat-shit insane crazy stuff, to remind you that we are going straight to hell. So let’s go!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/world/asia/19pakistan.html?th&emc=th

Okay this is fucking horrific. Massive twin explosions turned Benazir Bhutto’s triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years of exile into a tragedy. The explosions spared the obviously-targeted former Prime Minister but killed a whopping 134 people at the time of writing and wounded around 400! If I had known that Pakistanis were so bloody hardcore I would have made way less fun of them back in public school. Do you think Pakistan’s covert agency (the I.S.I.) was behind it? Bhutto’s husband seems to think so. It seems a by-gone conclusion that Bhutto will sweep the upcoming elections and do everything in her power to turn Pakistan once again into a democracy. President - slash - General Pervez Musharraf stands to lose a lot of power and authority if the country changes direction so the motive is certainly there. All in all this was a truly epic event. Check the slideshow in the article, the pictures are something else.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101700967.html?wpisrc=newsletter

The Turkish government authorized its military to move into Iraq and deal with Kurdish separatists who have been targeting their soldiers and civilians. Really they had no choice; something strong had to be done in order to save face. Consider that last summer Israel had just two soldiers kidnapped and they replied by killing around 1,000 Lebanese. The Kurds stoned one of their own kind - a young girl no less - just for getting engaged to a Sunni, and how did the Sunnis respond? They killed around 500 people with truck bombs just for disrespecting them like that. Turkey has lost something like 31 people in the last two weeks including 13 servicemen. They have to come back hard or look weak. The Turks have crossed into northern Iraq many times in the past but never while the U.S. was minding the store. The military’s authorization will last for a full year so they might take their time on enacting their payback.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/washington/14weapons.html?th&emc=th

It appears that Israel’s target in the Syrian strike was indeed a nuclear plant being constructed. I’ve heard from other sources that the Syrians have abandoned the construction site and that North Korean consultants were killed in the attack. Contrary to the Iran situation I can’t blame Israel for striking a clandestine nuclear project that the I.A.E.A. knew nothing about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/world/asia/14china.html?th&emc=th

In environmental news China has a lake that’s green and gross. There was a guy saying “Excuse me, but our lakes are becoming green and gross,” so they tossed him in jail. This is why I think China’s new rise to power is a paper dragon. The people who are passionate about sustainability and preventing long-term disaster are silenced so in the end every possible bad thing that can happen to them, will happen to them.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency

Here’s what might happen to us though. This is a projection of what our lives might be reduced to with the disappearance of cheap oil. It’s very compelling but extremely bleak as well. Black gold hit 90 dollars a barrel today. I’ve already started wringing my hair out for fuel.

http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071017/FOREIGN/110170057/1003

This is just a quick update on the Iraq/Blackwater incident. C.E.O. Erik Price said that he will not allow his mercenaries to be tried in Iraqi courts. Remember that Iraq is supposed to be a sovereign nation and this fucker is nothing but a greasy businessman. He says that Iraq lacks the capability to provide fair courts but I think that might have something to do with the fact that Blackwater has ensured Iraq remain lawless by constantly barreling down the streets shooting and killing civilians. It’s sickening how these war-profiteers never realise that they are part of the problem.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/15/AR2007101500841.html

Similar in tone to the soldiers writing about the Iraq War, here is another one penned by a large number of officers. Again compare their thoughts with those of General Petraeus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html?th&emc=th

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702241.html?wpisrc=newsletter

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101802456.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Finally I have a trio of articles on Russian President Vladimir Putin. This guy, he’s fucking golden. Sure he’s a shadowy, former K.G.B. autocratic with blood on his hands but you can’t help but admire how FUCKING EFFECTIVE he is. This man hasn’t made a misstep in years. His detractors are winding up dead all over the world, one of them by nuclear-frikken-poison! He seized Russia’s oil interests from the oligarchs at the perfect time to fill the nation’s coffers. He bitch slaps Condoleeza Rice anytime he feels like it because the poor half-orc just can’t keep up – the last time was to derail U.S. backed missile defense programs in Europe. Now he’s siding with Iran and is telling the U.S. they should back off. Best of all however is he adopted Franklin Delano Roosevelt of all people as an ideological role model. Brilliant! Beloved President Roosevelt served beyond his two terms you see, and America at the time endorsed it. Putin looks to do the same thing. Talk is that he will become Prime Minister and control the country from there, sighting his love for an American hero while doing it. I’m getting both misty and moist! Bush was so wrong on this guy. Way back he claimed to “look him in the eye” and see his soul and all that bullshit. Now he’s claiming that democracy might not be in “Russian’s D.N.A.” which not only sounds ridiculous but is contrary to his previous talking point that people the world over crave democracy and that America is the tube of Pringles that is sure to satisfy.