Siblings

I've been here at my friend's place for a little over a week now and I'm starting to get a bit irritated. He and I are both fine… we game or we go out to eat, watch some shows/movies, maybe go for a walk, whatever. My brother, on the other hand, is impossible to please…

About four days into the trip, he said that he was feeling a little homesick. I asked what he was missing and he said "I don't know". He's 20 years old…

He will only eat the same things over and over again. He only eats once a day, too, so he never wants to go out when we do (which isn't often anyways), and he never wants to eat what we want to eat. He's basically been living on tuna helper, macaroni and cheese, and subs.

All he wants to do is play video games. Getting him out of his room here is almost as hard as getting him out of his room at home and everything has to revolve around him. He wants to watch his shows when he wants to watch them. He wants to play his games when he wants to play them. He wants to watch his YouTube clips when he wants to watch them. He has no concept of trying anything new or the world not revolving solely around him. He's happy as long as things are going his way but when people start doing their own thing, he begins to lose interest, withdraw, and mope.

He also can't seem to comprehend that he's in someone else's place… he needs to keep it clean. He doesn't take any initiative to bring soda cans out of his room or to rinse them out as my friend has requested. He doesn't throw trash out or anything. I have to tell him. It's like I'm babysitting him to some extent and it's getting on my nerves.

I also dislike the fact that the kid doesn't want to spend money… like at all. He's so far past "tight" that there's no word to describe his insane desire to hang onto his money. What he's holding onto it for is beyond me. He won't help pay for any of his games, he doesn't help buy food, doesn't buy clothes, nothing!

I know he can't help it…I know something is wrong with him and he was raised to be something of a spoiled brat…but I can only take so much before I start to get irritable around him. I think I've been doing pretty good, I've hardly snapped at him but I've realized that I could never, ever live with him…here or anywhere else.

Would you buy a used car from one of these guys?..

This is too funny:

America's offensive diplomacy

...there's no cause for alarm, the world's in the hands of people with the emotional and intellectual sophistication of an underfed rat. I wonder if any of them has ever had a conversation with anybody that's lasted more than three exchanges, because they all appear to deal in soundbites. And if hyperbole were a commodity, then the US would be even wealthier than it is, now.

If it were me, I wouldn't bother cutting the head off any snake, rotten, or otherwise: I'd stuff its tail in its jaws and allow it to eat itself.

God, that's quite tiring... how do they keep that shit up?

Saudi prince found guilty of murdering his servant

Saudi prince found guilty of murdering his servant

Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane said: "...This verdict clearly shows no one, regardless of their position, is above the law."

LOL. True, but not in the way that you mean, DCI McFarlane.

Addendum:
I've just reminded myself of that wonderful Anatoly France quotation, which goes something along the lines of:

The Law, in its majestic neutrality, treats all men as equal: all are forbidden from sleeping under bridges, stealing bread and begging in the streets

Amen.

Servant 'let Saudi prince kill him without fight'

Perhaps this is evidence, from a psychological perspective, that one should never acknowledge another person as one's superior, on any level... Taken to its full logical extent, we now know where this approach to human interaction leads:

Servant 'let Saudi prince kill him without fight'

Besides which, how can one acknowledge as superior a bunch of wankers who have been inbreeding for generations? I mean, good Lord, they probably only have half a dozen functioning braincells, between them... Perhaps, like the Graeae, they lend them to one another, as they are needed.

Study highlights mental problems in US teens

Well, I suppose if one goes looking for evidence of something, then one will find it:

Study highlights mental problems in US teens

However, the National Institutes of Mental Health ("NIMH"), and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Sychiatry ("JAACAS"), are not renowned for their impartiality.

Anyway, I think we should quickly drug these kids, before somebody thinks of something more constructive... The system's failed: if I ever satisfy myself that you've been using mental health diagnoses as a tool of social control, I will visit your own tools on you.

Marr hits out at 'angry rantings of drunk bloggers'

I don't care what you say... This is funny... Draft your own punchline!

Marr hits out at 'angry rantings of drunk bloggers'

This is also funny:

"...there are people who use blogs to discuss philosophical ideas, report niche news, point out factual errors in the media and much more," Mr Hundal said...

LOL. It's therapy, you twat: it's got fuck all to do with reporting news, replacing journalism [sic], error-checking, or "discussing philosophical ideas". One is able to clarify one's ideas, if one chooses, when one sets them down on paper and sees them for the shite that they are. A pity that Marr doesn't appreciate this. Oh, yeah, and Andrew: your bum smells of poo. And that's just about the level of intellectual sophistication that you deserve.

Incidentally, Marr described bloggers as

"socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements."

I make no comment on the first two labels. However, I'm sure I've read that Marr is gay, and thus single. He is going bald. I've no fucking idea what "cauliflower-nosed" means - any relationship to "cauliflower ears," which refers to the damage by boxers to the cartillage of said organ, owing to being punched, too much? And his mother's basement is no business but hers. He may well have been drunk when he made those comments. You're not seeing these qualities in bloggers because they're ones that you're all too familiar with are you, Andrew?

Rufus May: we must all learn how to care for one another

I thought that this was funny:

Rufus May: we must all learn how to care for one another

After all, there's no shortage of little monkeys who take enormous pleasure in watching somebody experience psychological trauma (who congratulate themselves in the possibility that they may have installed that trauma, in fact). And there's no shortage of slightly bigger monkeys who refuse to permit others to have their own thoughts. Is there, now?

Face it: your system has failed, and you've forgotten how to be kind. Just as I have. One can't rise above the prevailing culture forever.

Bad behaviour down to genes, not poor parenting, says study

LOL.

Bad behaviour down to genes, not poor parenting, says study

Well, thank goodness we've got that sorted out. You see, we can proceed with this as our "truth," now, to the exclusion of all else. The trouble is, if it's not the truth, then the treatment we prescribe to treat ADHD will fail, and very quickly.

Now, you lazy fuckers: everything is learned, and if you explained stuff better, instead of punishing anything and everything you don't like, you might get further, faster. But you won't, because you're too fucking stupid - and you will indoctrinate your children with the same behaviours that you, and/or others, have shown them.

Addendum:
While I'm at it, I may as well point out why it is that one shouldn't tell a person that they have absolutely no control over their own behaviour. Or, for that matter, why one shouldn't tell others that a person will behave irrationally, irrespective of how one conducts oneself towards that person. It is this: it removes all responsibility from the individual to try other stuff.

In other words: this irrational, fictional person that we're talking about will always have a mind that goes everywhere, and can't concentrate, and is impossible to control, and they will never do what they're told, so they are aberrant, and it's not our fault - the best we can do is feed them some drugs, shunt them out of the way, and ignore them as best we can. Great system. Just make sure that you don't ever question whether or not your approach is wrong, and maybe these aberrants have a point, because it'll fuck your mind.

Fear of lifts: 'My fear was ruling my life'

LOL. Not in my class.

Fear of lifts: 'My fear was ruling my life'

That's great, when people tell you what their fears are... A piece of piss, in fact. But most don't - most just offload their shit on others. And as for being hypnotized... Every communication is a form of hypnotism, you stupid cow.

Addendum:
Oh, and another thing: the author of that piece says somewhere that she became anxious at the mere thought of being in a confined space (the Tube, specificically, I think). As such, this business of going up and down in a real lift, was completely fucking superfluous. As for "tapping"... Fuck me - complete bollox. If one does it right, then the person forgets that they were ever afraid - they shouldn't have to remember to be not afraid.

The trouble is that people live with their fears for so long that they end up believing them to be real, and they believe the triggers for those fears are real, too - it never occurs to most people that any given act or word can have any number of different applications - good and bad. Fuck it: there's no profit for me in this.

UN prepares for 'first contact' with alien life

I thought that this was quite funny. First off, we know that aliens only communicate with, and abduct, rednecks (I have no idea why this is, and motivation is one thing I've given up enquiring after). However, let's assume that those skinny, little, grey men with the almond eyes deign to talk to an officially-designated person...

UN prepares for 'first contact' with alien life

What could possibly be the civilized approach to greeting a life form so sophisticated that it's worked out how to travel at FLS? "Shoot," perhaps? That seems to be the civilized approach to every other problem, so why not this one? And, then, "we" could steal their technology, and make ourselves even more dangerous than we already are.

I think it's better that human beings never leave this planet, to be honest.

GSK's Avandia banned in Europe on heart worries

Now, I found this interesting for a whole bunch of different reasons...

GSK's Avandia banned in Europe on heart worries

First, it appears in the Indy's Business section, but not in the Health section... Second, this:

"I'm surprised the European agency has decided to remove the product from the market," said Savvas Neophytou, an analyst at Panmure Gordon. "I'm not entirely sure there is a massive difference in the response, although one sounds more draconian in that they're withdrawing the product. The restrictions imposed on the product used in the US are effectively the same.

"I expect this decision, although a lot of the impact of the Avandia franchise in the Glaxo investment thesis has been greatly reduced because of what has happened already over the last three years, could lead to some 3 per cent or so downgrades [on profits]."

My first reaction was "what a wanker Savvas Neophytou is"! And then I realized what he thinks is important in the world, and his reaction becomes understandable. "Glaxo investment thesis..." What a crock!

Anyway, let's cut to the chase, shall we? We've got a company that now has a track record of hiding adverse event data. Data, in both the cases of Seroxat and Avandia, that is potentially life-threatening, when withheld (OK, it's harder to prove in the case of Seroxat, but not for those who've experienced the acknowledged side effects). That's the current understood position, I think. There is no argument. And is anybody scrutinizing GSK's other products, to see if they've been pulling the same shit, elsewhere? Well, not as far as I know.

So, GSK produces shit products that are dangerous. Regularly. It hides the data. Regularly. It intimidates those who rumble its activities. Regularly.

And then nothing happens. If the system were true to its declared philosophy, GSK would be a distant memory. Which tells me all I need to know about the system (ie, the system is more accurately described by Savvas Neophytou).

Addendum:
"I expect this decision, although a lot of the impact of the Avandia franchise in the Glaxo investment thesis has been greatly reduced because of what has happened already over the last three years, could lead to some 3 per cent or so downgrades [on profits]."

Now, have another read of that... That is quite a strange use of parentheses... Is it just bad grammar? Re-phrase:

I expect this decision could lead to some 3 per cent or so downgrades [on profits], although a lot of the impact of the Avandia franchise in the Glaxo investment thesis has been greatly reduced because of what has happened already over the last three years.

Dunno, probably just bad grammar - I don't know Neophytou's phraeseology well enough to know whether he deleted something, before saying it, for example. My best guess is that he's given the interview face-to-face, and it's been recorded and reproduced, word-for-word.

So, he's started to have a thought suggesting that GSK will suffer a 3% reduction in profits, and quickly countered that by pointing out that Avandia's significance has been scaled down steadily over the past three years, (possibly in anticipation of a ban(?)), before completing the thought concerning the downturn in profits. In other words, his mind worked faster than his mouth, and he provided a counterproposition to the negative view, even before he'd expressed the negative view in words.

From the desk of Salam Umaru

Goodness me! What a lot of wan..., er, bankers there are!

Mr Umaru contacted me from... Yep! Burkina Faso! Mr Umaru is an auditor at a bank, which tells me a great deal about Mr Umaru's view of how an auditor should conduct himself (in my experience, he's right).

As with the previous two Lagos Scam emails I've published details of, there's a sizeable amount of cash that's been sitting in Umaru's bank for some time, courtesy of the wholesale death of the beneficiary's family. Mind you, there was an added detail, this time: they died in a plane crash. Risky business, this foreign investment, isn't it?

What a load of fucking bollox. One would have to be truly the most corrupt person in the world to fall for this shite!

How the CIA ran a secret army of 3,000 assassins

I thought this was funny:

How the CIA ran a secret army of 3,000 assassins

The cunts couldn't run a bath. Besides which, a person who operates under somebody else's control has no autonomy, and no capacity for independent thought, no matter what they might think to the contrary. If these 3,000 genuinely are assassins (originally Nizari Ismailis), then they are incapable of doing anything else - so when they run out of Taliban, you'd better watch your fucking arses.

Remember OBL? The CIA used to think he was all right, when he was fighting the Soviets. No fucking clue whatever, these people. On the other hand, the CIA can spend the next couple of centuries trying to track down these 3,000 and their descendents, having declared them terrorists.

It's not clever, you know: striking convenient deals with people who are already motivated to do murder, and then denouncing them, once their usefulness has ended. And as a parting shot, I'd point out that the Nizari thought of selective murder first, so you cunts aren't even original. Difference was, they used it in preference to widespread bloodshed, I understand.

Compliments of the day from Mr Garuba Lawal

A business news update from Burkina Faso. I have been contacted by Mr Garuba Lawal, who is a banker in Burkina Faso. Now, my contact with Burkina Faso is extremely limited, but I cannot help but wonder if there are anything other than bank workers in this impoverished country? And if there is nobody but bankers, then what does that tell us about poverty and the banking industry?

Anyway, back to Mr Lawal, who has USD25mm, which he wants to transfer to my account, he says. As with Mr Tampy (see posts, passim), the legal beneficiary of these funds was a foreign national, who died 13 years ago, with his next of kin. Obviously, I'm massively intelligent and can see these patterns, but for those who can't, I'd just like to point out that prudence requires that if one is a foreign national investing in Burkina Faso, then one should steel oneself to the possibility of dying with all of one's family, based on the limited sample of evidence available to me.

So, there you go... If one is a bit strapped for cash, just be aware that there is corruption aplenty in West Africa, and there's free money to be made.

Scientists identify brain's region for introspection

I thought this was quite funny ("...Funny how? What the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what's funny?.." etc):

Scientists identify brain's region for introspection

It wasn't so much that some kind of phenomena or other has been identified, which might, upon closer examination, mean something. No, it was this, from Dr Steve Fleming, of University College London:

"Take the example of two patients with mental illness, one who is aware of their illness, and one who is not. The first person is likely to take their medication, the second less likely," he said.

So, a person is mentally ill, whatever that means. And they become aware that they're mentally ill. This indicates that their capacity for introspection is advanced, apparently. Now, a second person is mentally ill, whatever that means. But they are not aware (refuse to accept?), that their thoughts and behaviour are those of a mentally ill person. This second person's introspective capabilities are less advanced. Well, I'm glad that that's cleared up!

So, this fabulous "discovery" is of no fucking use, whatever, unless we are in a position whereby we may improve a person's introspective capabilities, such that they can see the world in exactly the same way we do, and perceive that they are, indeed, as mentally ill as we tell them they are. Whereupon they can start taking their medication. On the other hand, if they start seeing the world in the same way we do, then either they've become sane, or else we have to join them on the psychiatrist's couch.

I think my capacity for introspection has been severely diminished by all the bullshit I've been fed, because I can't for the life of me see where my thoughts have gone wrong, here. After all, if I was thinking straight, I'd perceive that this discovery was actually worthwhile, so I must have gone wrong, somewhere.

Revenge of the nerds: Should we listen to futurists or are they leading us towards ‘nerdocalypse’?

I've a confession to make: I nearly found this amusing ("I amuse you? I make you laugh?.." etc). And then I realized that the world is being conducted by, and for the benefit of, people such as the founder of PayPal. There may be other, altogether more interesting things than "the singularity" happening (and if the singularity happens, it will only happen for a small number of people - the ones who sponsored it), but they will never be looked at, for whatever reason.

Revenge of the nerds: Should we listen to futurists or are they leading us towards ‘nerdocalypse’?

Anyway, if you really want a philosophical discussion about what human evolution and AI is likely to look like, then it will have happened long before you realize it. Also, the idea of controlling AI strikes me as bizarre, but I can't quite put my finger on why, yet. Are we able to create something that can teach itself, or learn at an accelerated rate (and is that what we mean by AI, anyway?)? Would we even allow ourselves to create something that was more intelligent than us; and if we did create something more intelligent, would we acknowledge its existence, or would we just stifle it, for fear of what it would achieve, and would we not be terrified of being left behind? And if we create something that's ten times more intelligent (definition, please), than us, should we really assume that it's going to adopt the same model that we have (those who are in charge at the moment had better hope not).

I don't know: put 100 geeks in a room, and all one gets is self-aggrandizing bullshit - the world does not revolve around a couple of hundred moneyed individuals, you pricks. Evolution is about adapting to the shit one is faced with. The idea that one avoids the shit, by design, is the very antithesis of evolution, but it is the model that the founder of PayPal (for example), is following. And what happens when a piece of shit finds its way into one's perfect world? Ummm: the aroma!

Addendum:
I think I know why these monkeys want a super-human intelligence: it's so that they can feed it shit information, and have it construct solutions to the shitty problems that their own behaviour has created. In short, you want something superior to you that you can treat as a slave. Well, I hope it bites you on the arse, you lazy, duplicitous fuckers.

Dave is Dead: Long Live Trevor

My Rover 25 iXL Auto that I bought back in April got rear-ended, when I was on holiday, down in Cornwall. What with Rover now defunct, the parts are astronomical, and the insurers designated it as "beyond economic repair," and lobbed me a cheque. So, I had to spend another n hours sourcing another vehicle (where n is a relatively large number, represented thus: 20 < n < 100). Given that I only had a courtesy car for a limited period of time, it was a pain in the arse.

Anyway, the upshot is Trevor, a 2003 red Citroen Xsara Forte with 45k on the odo. Dave is dead: long live Trevor.

Matt

US woman Sonya Thomas devours 181 chicken wings in Buffalo contest

Now, this is what I call news! I don't want hard-hitting, investigative journalism... I want people eating unfeasibly large amounts of poultry, in an equally unfeasibly short period of time:

US woman Sonya Thomas devours 181 chicken wings in Buffalo contest

I just love the idea of professional eaters, too. I wonder what the governing body's called?

God didn't create universe, says Hawking

I guess there's a God vs. Physics argument, going on somewhere that I didn't know (or care), about...

God didn't create universe, says Hawking

And I still don't care! But this amused me (LOL - I just imagined Stephen Hawking reprising Tommy's words, in Goodfellas: "...I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to fucking amuse you?.."):

"If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we should know the mind of God."

Fuck off, you cunt! You don't even know the minds of your fellow humans! If, and it's a big if, God exists, and (S)He/It is a supreme being, then you will never catch up with it, unless God's mind is in stasis, and it won't be, because nothing is.

Of course, Hawking's apparently moved on from this idea to one where God doesn't exist, at all, such that knowing God's mind becomes an impossibility, because one cannot know something that doesn't exist. All the same: what a cunt!

Addendum:
Do you know what really pisses me off about this? Of course you don't, because I haven't told you, yet. It's that a person such as Hawking gets kissed on the very same arse that he's talking out of... He's discussing a theory that can no more be proved than the existence of God - he's exchanging one set of unproveable beliefs for another. Am I the only one who sees the fucking irony of that?

And another thing: if "A Brief History of Time" (being the only one of his tedious writings that I've troubled myself with), is anything to go by, he's unbelievably limited in the concepts that he can entertain, simultaneously, or else combine to create a single concept, or else assimilate into his existing belief system. You want to play around in the Universe of Ideas, motherfucker? Then learn the basics.

The Apollo hoax theories

The Apollo hoax theories

LOL. Who gives a shit? Allow me to re-phrase: does-it-really-fucking-matter?