Roger Ebert is Wrong

 

Acclaimed critic Roger Ebert once commented that a video game can never be art. I think Mr. Ebert severely underestimates the talent and the skill of modern video game makers. He should consider what goes on in the creation of games as well as the full effect of the final product, if well made. Video games do not deserve some of the stigma that they receive, especially the ones with such a rich cinematic feel. A well done video game has a number of artistic qualities in it, including, but not limited to, architecture, music, painting, 3d modeling, storytelling, and so on. In the right combination, this can deliver a masterpiece.

Of course, this must begin with the age old question of “what is art?” Art is subjective, so on some degree I suppose if Ebert doesn't want to see a video game as art, that's his prerogative. But on the other hand, I think he's ignoring a vast amount of artistic quality over the stigma on video games being cheap and trashy. Art is any expression of human creativity, meant to evoke a response from the viewer. That response may be an emotional reaction, or a sudden insight, or a simple thought provocation. A stick figure is not seen as art in most cases (though I've seen some funny stick figure animations on youtube that might counter this statement, humor is of course an art form) because a stick figure is too simple to provoke any real response. This too is subjective, perhaps it provokes a response in someone else. The Mona Lisa is the most famous panting in our history because the aesthetic value of the painting elicits a response from most people who view it.

One does not have to like a work of art in order for it to be art either. I'm one of the few who sees the Mona Lisa and I don't understand why it's so famous. It's a beautiful painting, it's artist was a man of many talents, but I've seen numerous works of similar quality that are less famous. Regardless of my own opinion, it is still a work of art. A child might draw a picture of a house, the lines all crooked, the windows deformed and the coloring going beyond the lines and yet it's still a child's artwork regardless of the lack of talent. Thus even if Ebert believes all video games to be talentless trash, they are still a form of art, a form of human creativity.

All video games are works of creativity and all video games attempt to provoke a response in the viewer (or in this case, the player) and thus by definition a video game is art. Adventure games try to, at the minimum, provoke an adrenalin fueled rush, while puzzle games try to intrigue the player so he keeps trying to solve the game. This is the base however. Better video games can evoke so much more. The Mass Effect (ME) trilogy by BioWare Corp is a grand example of this. I think that trilogy managed to evoke every single emotion I have through its eighty hour adventure across the Milky Way. I laughed, I got angry, I was excited, and I think there may have been some dust in the room at some other points, coincidentally during the sad moments. Weird how that works. Anyways, since ME is such a good example, I will be using it in this essay to provide examples though this is not meant to be a review of the game. I will also point out other games as they become relevant.

Before I talk about how the game as a whole is a work of art, I will break it down into components. Video games are a mix of other art forms. Architecture is found in level design. Painting and graphic design can be found in the texturing of the levels and skinning of the models. Modeling can be akin to sculpting, making a three dimensional shape out of nothing. If the game features a story, there's story telling and characterization. Music and ambient sound sets the atmosphere.

All three ME games feature a vast space station known as the Citadel. It sits in the Serpent Nebula, an enormous, rotating ring (the Presidium) with five arms extended from the rings (the Wards) each with a city built upon it. Level designers use architecture to design such a device, as fantastical as it is, to make it believable. Once Commander Shepard (the protagonist, note that since Shepard is player created, his or her attributes can vary, I refer to her as 'her' because she was a she in my playthrough) is on the Citadel interior, the level has gardens, pathways and lakes. There are stores and nightclubs of every type along the hallways and corridors in the Wards and Presidium. A good level designer has to create floors and walls and ceilings with light sources, windows and every other aspect of architecture that is applicable to his work to create a design that makes sense. He has to decide how the doors open, what the ambient light is, what the over all look and feel of the station is. The Citadel is a futuristic station, a safe haven from the dangers of the galaxy and it is the heart of civilization and thus all these things have to be considered in the design.

When we land on Thessia in Mass Effect 3, and Illium in Mass Effect 2, the architecture is distinctive to the asari culture (the feminine aliens that live on those planets.) The builds are lean and slender, with elegant and graceful curves. Omega is a dank and dirty city, dark and ugly and rife with crime. The Collector Ship in ME2 is creepy and foreboding, built like an insect hive. And such a look works, given how insectoid the Collectors are. Level designers use architecture to create consistency. Throughout ME, we find ourselves on three different geth ships (geth are a synthetic race of machines) and each ship is distinctively geth in it's architecture, the way the doors and hallways are designed. When you're on a geth ship, you know it. Architecture is a key art for any game that requires any sort of exploration. Skyrim uses architecture to create a Norse atmosphere, drawing from Scandinavian styles to build the many cities in Skyrim such as Whiterun or Windhelm. Both Jorvasskr and Dragon's Reach look like they are straight out of Norse mythology. World of Warcraft gives Night Elves an exotic look with their distinct Asian architecture and they give the Horde a war-like look with their heavy use of hard metals, spikes, and blood red banners. I could go on listing examples.

And this alone can make a game art. There have been so many times that I simply stopped in Skyrim to stare at some of the landscapes (though to be fair, landscaping is a separate art from architecture.) Entering the new upgraded Orgrimmar (a Horde city in WoW) I had to stop and enjoy the sights. The level designers put a lot of hard work in creating an aesthetically pleasing, consistant and believable world and this alone is art.

Jorvasskr, in Whiterun, Skyrim

What of painting? Painting and drawing is perhaps the oldest form of art aside from speech and storytelling. Well all that architecture is pointless if you don't give it any skin. No one wants to look at a gray-shaded mass of polygons. Our world needs to be textured. It needs a feel to it. Texturing is a key element to level design, creating the base look of the game, often using skills from both painting and using photomanipulation to create textures. The walls and floors and the cielings of the Citadel in ME need a look to them and BioWare gave it a look akin to a futuristic city, with neon lights and metalic colors. There are advertisements too for various stores, advertisements that someone had to actually sit down in front of Photoshop and actually create. 

It is not only the levels that need painting but also the models. Shepard's armor must be painted. Colors must be chosen, at least for the default colors, as well as a theme. Shepard's face and hair must also be painted, in fact, as Shepard is a player designed character, many faces and hairstyles must be painted. The other characters are not player designed. Characters such as Garrus Vakarian must have a consistent look at all times. In all three games, Garrus's quality and detail steadily improves, because the technology improved between 2007 (when ME1 launched) and 2012 (when ME3 launched.) But while Garrus gained detail and quality, he looks otherwise the same in all three games. He is distinctively Garrus because the artists picked a theme for him. They determined how his face paint would look, his eye color, his typical armor style, his facial features. This is all derived from painting the textures that wrap around the model.

This goes beyond character models. Everything must be painted, from weapons to coffee pots. Books on shelves, computers, even the silly space hamster Shepard has in the commander's bunk on the Normandy. And speaking of the Normandy, that ship must also be painted, inside and out, giving it its distinctive look. Though the texture artists might not pick up a brush (and in some cases they might pick up a brush, or more specifically, an electronic stylus and paint on a tablet,) they must, just like a typical painter, pick between color themes and determine how to best color the world. It is a different application of an age old art, aided by computers and filters, but don't let that fool you; the computer may aid the artist but it will only produce great work if the artist puts talent into it.

For a two dimensional game, such as the classic Mario World, Mario and every element in that game was painted from the artist's own creativity. Every enemy, every block, the background, menu elements, all of it. And the artist had to use every ounce of creativity he had to create his vision with the technological constraints of that time. Somehow the artist created an italian mustachioed plumber in a red hat and overalls in a graphic eight pixels by eight pixels. And moving back to the three dimensional world, the storm troopers in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (1997) have fewer polygons than Commander Shepard's face in Mass Effect 3 (2012.) Point is, these artists work in very tight constraints, or at least, they use to, and they still bring out their creations, they still create a distinctive and beautiful world.

Creating the models that populate the world is also an artistic form. In fact, 3D modeling is already culturally accepted as an art form. These artists can create models that are impressive. I've seen some renders that were so lifelike, I thought they were photographs until I inspected them closer. In ME3, when the Reapers invade Earth, Shepard is in Vancouver. While the city is under attack, she (or he) makes her way to the Normandy. Along the way, you encounter a Reaper standing in the river. Just the size and the scale of it is enough to take your breath away. The monstrous and malevolent machine towers over the skyscrapers of the city, and Shepard appears to be an ant at it's feet. The modelers created a model that is pure intimidation, which goes along with the storyline of these evil Reapers who are devastating and nearly impossible to kill. They are loosely based on Lovecraftian mythos, great cosmic beings from the darkness beyond, with dark metalic skins, blue glowing trim and, in Harbinger's case, glowing golden 'eyes.'

The Reaper Harbinger at the Citadel conduit

The Reaper Sovereign and one of his infamous quotes, from my deviant art page

Or on a lighter note, the Normandy is an agile and graceful ship and it is modeled to appear graceful and agile, with its smooth curves and aerodynamic shape. It does not matter that aerodynamics mean nothing in deep space; we equate aerodynamics with speed and agility. By designing the Normandy in that manner, we expect it to behave as if it is aerodynamic, even in the dark of space. 

SSV Normandy SR-2, Mass Effect 2, during battle with Collectors.

The smaller details in the game, the design of weaponry and basic homegoods is both futuristic and realistic. Since the game only occurs two hundred years in the future (the story has a good explanation for how we become so advanced in such a short amount of time) many devices look advanced, but not so far. There's nothing terribly unrealistic about many of the weapons Shepard and her squad uses. And whenever you find yourself in a domestic setting, a coffee machine still appears like a coffee machine, kitchen goods are still familiar. Point is, the models are designed to match the environment, to create a world we can believe in. Much like the architecture used in level design, culture also plays into a factor. The asari-made Disciple shotgun has the same elegant curves as their buildings. The geth plasma shotgun has similar designs to geth spaceships and architecture. Reaper husks have the same color scheme and theme as the Reapers themselves. Care is taken to ensure that the models match the culture that created them, again requiring creativity and talent. The modelers who design these things are artists in and of themselves, and their product is art.

Music is another artform encountered in a video game. Mass Effect 2 ends with the destruction of the Collector base, met with a heart-pounding song consisting of trumpets, violins, a choir, all at a fast paced beat. The final space battle for earth begins with the Normandy entering the Sol Relay (the Mass Relay that enters Earth's solar system) followed by a massive fleet that Shepard put together. First the Normandy exits the relay, then hundreds, perhaps thousands of ships come out of faster-than-light behind it, in an awesome moment coupled with a powerful battle theme, with subtle notes from ME's first theme song. It is a song of inspiration and hope and galactic unity, a song that says “we will not go without a fight.” Or take the music that plays as Shepard is leaving Vancouver as the Reaper invasion of Earth begins. As the Normandy begins to take off, a sad song begins to play. She's watching from the open cargo door. Two shuttles are loading evacuees, including a small boy. As the shuttles are loaded, a Reaper descends upon them. The Reaper's appearance punctuates the music with harsh chaotic sound. The shuttles take off. The Reaper fires and destroys both shuttles. Shepard looks away in horror and grief and then enters the Normandy, shutting the cargo door behind her. As the music continues, the Normandy ascends, and we see Vancouver under assault from many Reapers. Then once out in space, we see the reminiscent of the destroyed human fleet and the firetrails of the Reapers and their forces descending on to our planet. And we can see the outline of the continents on Earth began to light up with fire. The music enhances the sorrow of that scene, making the player feel shocked and horrified by what is happening to our homeworld. I literally was so taken back by seeing that little boy get killed, I shouted “No!” at my computer before I even realized it.

Here's the scene:

Music adds an emotional atmosphere to the game. The Suicide Run theme at the end of Mass Effect two makes an exciting scene even more exciting by adding music that pumps adrenaline. The Leaving Earth music adds sorrow to an already horrific scene. The music at the end of ME3, much like Leaving Earth, is also sorrowful, yet bittersweet, for the sacrifices required to finally defeat the Reapers. Music is a very powerful tool when used correctly.

The Suicide Run:

 An End Once For All (played at the very end of ME3):

Related to music, is sound. Sound may not often be considered art, yet I would say it is. Ben Burt, who designed most most of Star War's sounds was very creative creating the sounds in the Star Wars films, often using the weirdest sources to come up with the sound of a hyperdrive or a blaster or a lightsaber hum. The world is full of sounds and it is an art to produce sounds that work.

Sound, like music, can also elicit emotions, fear being the easiest. Of all the creatures the Reapers unleash upon us, I hate Banshees the most, because of that unearthly wail they make when they approach the player. It's bonechilling, not only because they are difficult to defeat, but because it's such a high pitch wail. Half Life 2 features Fast Zombies, another example of a good use of sound. They too feature a high pitched wail that sends tingles up the spine, but worse, you can hear their footsteps, which is just as chilling. In the Ravenholm mission, the Half Life protagonist Gordon Freeman finds himself on a rooftop with a shotgun. It is dark and you can hear them screaming and coming up the gutters, shaking the pipes and they come from every direction. You know you are surrounded. In another episode, Gordon is in a tunnel, his only light is from a few flares and a flashlight with dying batteries and you hear them from every direction.

Sound can also be rewarding too. There are upbeat chimes and tones that play in Mario games when Mario finds a powerup of some sort, letting the player know he found something good. Knowing when and how to use sound is an art in and of itself.

Perhaps one of the most enriching aspect of a video game often frequently downplayed by men like Ebert who probably don't play a lot of games, is their ability to tell a story. Books and movies are great mediums to tell a story, but a video game puts you in the protagonist shoes. Mass Effect and Dragon Age lets you even make choices for the protagonist. It's more personal this way, when done right, because now you see the world as the character sees them, not as some third party reading or watching the story unfold. You see Commander Shepard's galaxy as she sees it, not as a person sitting on a couch watching from afar. You become more invested in the story, more emotionally involved. At the start of the game when I saw that little kid get blown up, it wasn't only the music that made me feel it, it was my own involvement in the game, how I was drawn into the world of the game itself. I could feel what the Commander felt, and that was a feeling of shock and grief. For a fictional, computer generated kid.

Mass Effect is full of all these little moments, good and bad, where you you're drawn into the emotional content of the game. You feel enraged and helpless on Thessia when Kai Leng escapes with the data that might defeat the Reapers, as Thessia falls to the Reapers. You laugh when Shepard and Garrus have their little shooting contest. You feel angry and disgusted when you realize the abomination Cerberus has performed at Sanctuary, tricking refugees from the war to turn them into test subjects. You feel sorrow when you're forced to escape Earth as the Reapers invade. You feel proud when the krogan are freed or the quarians regain their homeworld. As I said earlier, these moments are enhanced by music, but they are made by the storytelling that occurs. You began to care about the characters and so when one dies, you feel it. It hurts to leave Ashley or Kaiden behind at Virmire to die. It hurts to see Mordin Solus die at the Shroud facility in order to give the krogan a future. It hurts to see Legion die to free the geth and enable the geth to stop their war with the quarians to aid them in rebuilding their world.

The Death of Dr. Mordin Solus (scene begins at 1:35 if you don't care for the Reaper vs Thresher Maw bit)

Acting is a part of story telling and while it may be strange to call it acting when the actors are computer generated models, except for their voices, yet it is acting because the body language and facial expressions in the animations give you the emotional story, as well as the dialogue done by BioWare's talented team of voice actors. After escaping Earth and Mars, at one point Shepard is in the communications room, after discussing things with Admiral Hackett with squadmate Liara T'soni. Liara says to Shepard, “its going to get worse, isn't it?” Shepard stops, looks at Liara, and grimly says, “if we don't stop the Reapers, yes.” It's difficult to describe in words but visually (the image is below this paragraph) that scene sells the emotions. It's going to get worse. And part of why seeing the little kid get blown up on Earth is so difficult is Shepard's facial expression, first one of worry and fear, then one of dismay and grief. Another moment that is perhaps not so grim is in Mass Effect 2, at the end, when Shepard shuts off the Illusive Man. Having finished the mission and no longer wanting to work for him, she shuts him off mid-sentence and then walks away with a big smile. As she makes her way through the damaged Normandy, her team looks to her and nods in acknowledgment, loyal and proud to work under her command. No words are spoken at this point, just body language and facial expression. With a team of talented animators, the use of flesh and blood actors is not a necessity to illustrate the emotional content of a story. Again, this requires talent and creativity on the part of the modeling and animating team.

"It's going to get worse, isn't it?" "If we don't stop the reapers . . . yeah."  Even a screenshot can't do it justice.

Storytelling is the oldest form of art. Our history was brought down from older generations through oral retellings. Mass Effect is one of the games I've played with a well written story that just took me in. From the initial mission on Eden Prime, seeing Sovereign ascending in the sky, to finally firing the Crucible to defeat the Reapers at the end, it is a long, yet fascinating story that hooks the players. As an example, Mass Effect 2 perhaps has my favorite beginning for a video game. It begins with Miranda Lawson talking to the Illusive Man about Shepard. The first impression of the Illusive Man (TIM) is that he is a man with ulterior motives, a man who's interests won't be what they appear to be. You know he is sinister, even though what exactly is sinister about TIM is not revealed until ME3. Then it turns to the familiar Normandy and its crew looking for geth, orbiting a planet. Suddenly, the Normandy is attacked by a mysterious ship. The Normandy is pulverized, half the crew is killed and Shepard is launched into space, where her suit springs a leak, she asphyxiates, falls into the planet's gravity, and dies. It is a jaw dropping opening. Who is the Illusive Man and what does he want wish Shepard? What was the mysterious ship and why did it target the Normandy? And how in the world did the game start out by killing the protagonist? Well as the game continues, Shepard is revived after two years on an operating table and the story slowly answers most of those questions, but that first ten minutes just hooks the player into the game.

The Illusive Man

Mass Effect 1 was very effective as well, in how it revealed its plot. For the first three quarters of the game, Shepard is chasing Saren Arterius, the apparent antagonist of the game, but at Virmire she learns the truth. Saren is not the antagonist. Saren is nothing but a puppet. Saren's ship, Sovereign, is the true antagonist of the story. Saren is not using Sovereign, Sovereign is using Saren. Sovereign is in fact a Reaper using Saren to allow the rest of the Reapers, awaiting in dark space beyond the galaxy, to enter and began their harvest of the galaxy. It is a very effective plot twist because upto the point where Shepard talks with Sovereign at Virmire, Sovereign is barely spoken of and most certainly not seeing as a sentient, intelligent being.

 

The cinematographic teams used their own creativity to advance the plot, especially at the climax of each game. The Battle of the Citadel at the end of Mass Effect 1 is an exciting end to the game, as Shepard uses the Conduit to return to the Citadel and races to stop Saren, while Sovereign and the geth assault the Citadel through the Mass Relay, pulverizing Citadel and Alliance forces in their way. As Sovereign works to activate the Citadel and allow the Reapers to enter the galaxy, the galaxy fights back, but Sovereign makes short work of any ship that tries to destroy him until Shepard destroys Saren, disrupting Sovereign's shield. The game ends with Sovereign being obliterated and a piece of Sovereign crashing on Shepard, who is believed to be dead until she pulls herself up from the rubble.

During the Suicide Run in Mass Effect 2, after going through the Omega 4 Relay to attack the Collectors on their home turf, there's an exhilarating scene with the Normandy evading Collector forces in the debris field on the far end of the relay. It's exciting not only because its action packed, but also because, depending on how you played the game so far, the player might lose squad mates due to the damage the Normandy takes. With the right upgrades, everyone will live, but without those upgrades, upto three will die. The assault on Earth in ME3, which I already mentioned when talking about music, is a visual treat when the fleets arrive through the Mass Relay. The Normandy comes through the relay, followed by a massive fleet from every species in the galaxy, united under Shepard's banner. They quickly make their way to earth, passing some familiar planets along the way, to engage the Reaper forces in what might be the largest sci-fi battle in history. These plot points are definite works of art, designed and written by talented animators.

ME3 final battle:

The overall plot is not the best plot I've ever read, but it is still a very good plot. However, whether or not I think it is good is irrelevant, the plot is a work of creativity and its purpose is to evoke a reaction, which it does. The plot keeps the player interested and invested. It's a fascinating plot, in part because it explores the galaxy's cultures, it threatens the galaxy with annihilation, it has conflict and romance and many philosophical moments. It makes you think at times.

The characterization is some of the best I've ever seen. Many video games have dry and shallow characters. Duke Nukem is just a macho gunslinger who kills bad guys with a big gun. Shepard has a personality, or perhaps I should say personalities, since it depends on how the player chooses to play her (or him.) The side characters all have good back stories, they add to the story and they are interesting to engage in conversation. You are made to care for the ones on your team and to be frustrated by the ones who oppose you. Udina is a great example of a frustrating character, he is an ambitious and selfish politician who gets in Shepard's way too many times. You find yourself hating the man, but you have to deal with him. You get to know your squadmates. Garrus becomes your loyal protege, taking Shepard's lead in his own actions. Thane's death is touching because his last thoughts are to pray to his gods, begging them to forgive her.

With a strong plot, good characters, powerful moments and surprising twists, the story itself is an art. Even from the first mission of the game, arriving at Eden Prime, being attacked by the geth, betrayed by Saren and seeing Sovereign in the sky, the game draws you into the plot. It is an entertaining journey from Eden Prime to the final defeat of the Reapers with the Crucible. And I was downright impressed with how well the trilogy was put together, but again, this is not meant to be a review of the ME trilogy. Half Life has the same elements in it, though perhaps at a smaller scale. Half Life also has a story that draws the player further into the twists and turns of the game, especially with the mystery of the G-Man, who controls Gordon Freeman throughout Half Life and its sequals. The story element is the last art element in the game.

All these elements, when put together and executed with talent, can create a masterpiece, a supreme work of art. Yet, a game doesn't have to master every single one of these elements to be art, the game doesn't have to master any of them, they simply have to exist within the game. Not every element needs to be there either. A game is art so long as it is a creative expression and it evokes a response in the player, thus any game can be art, even Minesweeper. Roger Ebert is wrong. Roger Ebert looks at a game and is prejudiced to believe it is nothing but vapid trash. Games with outstanding visuals, storytelling, world building and so on and so forth, such as Half Life, Mass Effect and Skyrim can be masterpieces. And lesser games are still art, because aesthetic quality is subjective to the viewer. All games are art on some level or another.

J Kuhl Signing Off

The "Threat" of Sharia Law

There is a group of religious people in the United States. They are a minority and they are disliked by a large number of bigots. These people have a law system in place in the United States. These people have a religious court established in the United States and many of them use this court to settle civil disputes rather than using the American court system. It is a mediation system in which both parties in the dispute must agree to the courts ruling or the ruling is not legally binding. People who do not follow this religion cannot use these courts.

What is the religion? Judaism.
What is the court system? Beth Din.

In fifteen states in the United States, there is an ongoing effort to make Sharia law, the Muslim equivalent of Beth Din, illegal. It is a wave of Islamaphobia but Sharia is not very different than Beth Din. Non Muslims cannot participate in the disputes and both parties must accept that the Sharia court is legitimate. People argue that Sharia law is a means for Muslims to take control of the United States and make it an Islamic state. This is false.

First of all, Sharia can never be a part in our laws, just like Beth Din cannot be a part in our laws. The First Amendment makes both Sharia and Beth Din invalid court systems under Federal and State laws. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." Thus Sharia can only be a private court system between two parties and it cannot be enforced legally. Already, due to the First Amendment, creating laws to ban Sharia is unnecessary, Sharia is not a threat due to the First Amendment

Secondly, bigots claim that if Sharia law goes into effect, there will be corporeal punishment, stonings and amputations and stuff like that. But as I said earlier, Sharia cannot be state or federal law and therefore whatever punishments the courts dish out cannot be illegal. Last I checked, things like stoning is illegal. It doesn't matter of a Sharia court orders a stoning, stoning is still illegal.

Not to mention that Sharia law courts, much like Beth Din, is in place for civil disputes, not criminal disputes. Such disputes aren't going to lead to corporeal punishments and even if they do, those punishments are STILL illegal.

The islamophobia in the US is disgusting. It just as wrong and bigoted as the laws against black people in the pre-1960s. It doesn't matter that this is not about skin color, this is the type of stuff that Martin Luther King lead massive protests about. Americans need to stop being afraid of Muslims. There are a billion and a half Muslims and I assure you of those billions, the ones engaged in terrorist activities are an extremely small minority.

This is the United States, a nation built on the idea of freedom and equality. That freedom and equality does not only apply to white christian males, but to every human being on the planet. Stop being afraid of Islam. It is no different than any other religion.

"But it's violent!" Go read the Bible and tell me it isn't violent.

J Kuhl Signing Off

Obama's had a good week

Obama had a pretty good week last week. First he wrecked Trump:

Trump, an avid birther, spent the last month being an obnoxious loudmouth complaining that Obama was not an American. He went on to claim that he was 'thinking' about running for President. For a while, he was all over the place on the news. He continued his line about how Obama was not an American and that he should release his birth certificate.

Obama already had released his birth certificate, he released a certificate of live birth, which serves as prima facie evidence in any court of law as proof of birth. But of course, Trump, being an idiot, didn't let that stop him. He went on to claim the original long form birth certificate was missing.

Then suddenly, Obama had a short press conference where he produced his birth certificate.

Trump claimed it was a victory for him, that he made Obama produce his birth certificate, but I think the rest of the world saw what really happened: Trump made himself look like a fool. Then he made things worse for himself and in a press conference after Obama released his BC, Trump was asked about the so-called investigators who claimed Obama's BC was missing. Trump did not answer the question, he merely continued the line that he was proud of himself.

Trump then got Trumped at the correspondents dinner. He sat there stonyface as the audience laughed at Obama's jokes about Trump. Again, the potential presidential candidate made himself look like a fool, a thin-skinned fool. If he can't take the heat of jokes that he should have expected, how can he take the heat of being president? It looked very bad for him.

Then Obama had his big night on May 1st. He came on the air and very calmly announced that Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, had been killed in a Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan.

So in one week, Obama ripped the carpet out from underneath one of the high ranking GOP hopefuls and killed Osama Bin Laden, devastating Al-Qaeda and bringing justice and vengeance to the 3000 victims who died in the 9-11 attacks and the thousands more who died in other terrorist attacks across the globe.



I'd say he's had a very good week.



However, to continue with the OBL raid, I've been quite irritated with some of the responses I've seen from both Left and Right.

Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf has complained bitterly that the United States did not respect Pakistan's sovereignity when Obama sent the SEALs in. OBL was living in a freaking fortress in the middle of a military town called Abottabad, which is something like a two hour drive from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Now, you're going to sit here and claim that Osama's been hiding in the middle of a military-centric town, that close to the capital, for five years and you didn't know? It's very suspicious. Here's the deal, Musharraf, if you don't want the US to disrespect your sovereignity, don't harbor known terrorists. We didn't tell you? Oh well that might be because we didn't want the untrustworthy elements in your government to tip OBL off. The president said in his campaign trail in 2008, that we will go into Pakistan to kill OBL if we have to, and we did. Obama was justified to bring this murderer to justice, even if that meant ignoring folks who cannot be trusted to aid us.

I get really irritated when people start complaining that "we shot a poor, helpless unarmed man." Especially the Right, but the Left's doing this too (Noam Chomsky is like the Rush Limbaugh of the Left, but no one listens to him.) Seriously guys? Dressing Osama as a poor victim of homicide? Seriously? You know who else was unarmed?

The three thousand men and women who died on 9-11.

But more importantly, who's to say he was unarmed? There are so many rumors around, no one really knows the real story, except the SEALs and the President's council who watched the raid take place. Even if he was, many of the reports I've read say he resisted (and a few said he did not.) If that is the case, who's to say that he or the building he was in wasn't set up to explode? This is a man who would willingly blow himself up for the cause if he had to. If he resisted, the only appropriate response was to shoot him, or find out the hard way if he's wearing a bomb belt.

And why is there suddenly so much sympathy for OBL? Is it because Obama is the one who got him and not Bush? Well that's Bush's fault for giving up the chase and dismantling the team and apparatus in place to catch him. Oh and there's the whole bit about invading Iraq too. Bush gets no credit for this kill, just for that.

Osama Bin Laden was a mass murdering psychopath. The SEALs brought him to justice. Al-Qaeda is now devastated by the loss of a beloved leader and the US has gained a ton of intel that thwarted another plot to attack America's railways. Osama's death was a good thing, a victory for Americans and justice for the victims. Don't give that man sympathy in an attempt to make "the other team" look bad. Democrats and Republicans and Independents all should set aside their differences and unite behind this one victory.

We can go back to spitting in each others faces when the excitement over this event dies down.

"Nation, fear is just a state of mind, but then again, so is mad cow disease." Stephen Colbert

J Kuhl, Signing Off

Whoa I think I almost forgot this existed.

Last post September 2010.

So I haven't posted here in almost a year. Not entirely sure why, I guess I just fell out of habit. And then I went to Basic for three months and just didn't come back.

Well, I think it's a good time to get back on track

Git er dun.

J Kuhl Signing Off

Bring Em On

Faux News recently gave the President some flak for saying "we can absorb another terrorist attack" claiming that he was inviting more terrorist attacks, that he wanted us to be attacked. This, from a network that claims to be "fair and balanced."



This has got to be one of the stupidest things someone on Fox has said. I think it was pretty clear what Obama was saying and that his comment was in no way an invitation for another terror attack. What he said was, in a nutshell, if we get attacked, we will survive and recover, and we will be stronger because of it. Please tell me, how this invites an attack. If an attack makes us stronger, why would the terrorists want to attack us? If we're going to survive and recover, why would the terrorists want to attack us? All he is saying is that the US can absorb an attack and recover perfectly healthy and be stronger because of it.

Look at 9-11. For a little while, we were stronger. We were united and we rallied together in support of this country and its president after the attacks. Everyone was ready and willing to do what was necessary to destroy Al-Qaeda so such a thing could never happen to us again.

The conservative outrage over this comment makes me wonder if they're afraid that the next terror attack (god forbid there is one) could destroy us. I wonder what makes them so frightened. A terrorist attack is terrible thing, don't get me wrong, and no one wants one, but are they seriously frightened that if one happened, we wouldn't survive?

That's all Obama is saying. If an attack happens, we will survive and recover. It is a statement of our strength, not an invitation for attack.

But it was okay for George Bush to challenge the terrorists directly and say "Bring 'em on?" Not only is that an invitation, but a challenge for them to accept. It was a cowboy attitude that lead to both middle east wars and claimed the lives of millions. Bush actively invited them to attack us, Obama simply stated we were strong enough to survive and recover from one.

J Kuhl Signing Off

I Am Pissed

As is all the rage in the news, a large portion of Americans are protesting over a "ground zero mosque (that is neither on ground zero, nor a mosque)" and ignorantly equating ALL muslims to the same extremist terrorists who attacked us on 9-11. At the same time, in Florida, some mustachioed idiot insists on banning a bunch of Korans with his fundamentalist extremist church. Across the world, Muslims in the middle east are protesting this event, burning American flags and blaming ALL Americans for the pastor's book burning idiocy.

Interesting. Interesting how both groups are ignorantly judging an entire group by the actions of the extremist few, how the protesters here in America are just as ignorant as those over in the Middle East. The tea baggers and Parks51 opponents would be shocked to read this I'm sure, learning that they're just as ignorant as the protesters in the Middle East.

You see, this entire thing is stupid. And it is pissing me off. Why are we so goddamn frightened of Islam that were going to violate our own freedoms? The people who died on 9-11, died for the freedoms that America holds dear and those freedoms include freedom of religion and freedom to do what you wish with your own property. I think rather than being insulted by a "ground zero mosque" they'd be more insulted by stripping freedom of religion from the Muslims over bigotry and fear.

Are we going to let Osama Bin Laden win?

The behavior here in the US is disgusting and abhorrent. The media and the right wing are fanning the flames of hatred for their own political and financial purposes and the teabaggers are silly enough to blindly go along with it, frothing at the mouth with the next rightwing talking point.

And then they have the gaul to freak out when they're called "bigots"

Gee, a quick google search and you see tea baggers carrying signs comparing Obama to monkeys, references to Kenya or his "Islamic birth," signs about how Islam is evil and murdered 3000 people on 9-11, calling the Parks51 project evil, claiming it supported by Hamas, and none of it is true.

This is as stupid as saying "All Christians hate gays because the Westboro Baptist Church protested at a soldier's funeral." Islam did not attack us on 9-11. We are not at war against Islam. The people who attacked us on 9-11 were Islamic, but attacked us for their own extremist religious viewpoint, not by a viewpoint shared by the majority of Islam. If Fred Phelps blew up a gay bar, would people be protesting against Christianity as a whole? If after the gay bar was destroyed, would people get pissed off if someone built a church next to the rubble?

Of course not, this is a god fearing Christian country according to these teabagger idiots, never mind the fact that this nation was founded on the idea of religious liberty for all.

Oh and in other news, do the teabaggers even know what "tea bagging" is? I'll give them a hint:

It has nothing to with tea

But if they want to be known as tea baggers, I'll keep calling them that.

J Kuhl Signing Off

Fareed Zakaria and the "Terror Mosque"

When I was in grade school, some 10-15 years ago, I was taught, somewhat naively, that the US was the beacon of freedom and justice in the world. And I still believe that, in comparison to other nations, it still, in many ways, is, even if we are plagued by corruption and greed at every level of government.

Yet even as I grew older and became more disillusioned with the world around me, I still believe in the American idea, the nation of freedom and opportunity, where anyone, of any creed and any faith, can succeed.

Which is why I am deeply disgusted by the behavior of Americans in light of the Cordoba House in New York City, some two blocks away from where the World Trade Centers once stood. Many Americans feel that such a "mosque" (and I put mosque in quotations because it is not a mosque, it is more of a YMCA type of place with a room for prayer) is offensive to the victims of that terrible Tuesday morning. Yet, the Cordoba House is only offensive if you equate all Muslims to the type of Jihadist Islam that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda embrace!

Islam, like Christianity, has many different sects and Al-Qaeda is only part of it. Claiming that all Muslims are supporters of anti-American, anti-Western terrorism, is nothing more than bigotry and ignorance. Many Muslims died on 9-11, other than the 19 hijackers, innocent Muslims, hated by Osama because they lived and worked in the United States and did not ascribe to his strict interpretation of Islam.

Fareed Zakaria, a political commentator on CNN.com explained this very well and below is a clip of his show hosted on Crooks and Liars.



As Zakaria explains, Al-Qaeda hates Sufi Islam. The Muslims building the Cordoba House are Sufi Muslims. It is asinine, stupid, and ignorant, to equate the Cordoba House with the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11, especially since those terrorists would glady kill Imam Faisal Rauf for the simple reason that he is a Sufi. There is absolutely no reason why anyone would be against this project.

And yet, these protesters are everywhere now. Not only in New York, but across the nation. According to Time Magazine, the city of Wilson Wisconsin had an ugly, hate-filled town meeting when a prominent doctor, Dr. Mansoor Mizra proposed construction of a mosque (Time Magazine, Aug 30, 2010, page 23.) One man even asked Dr. Mizra if there would be weapons training at the mosque.

Weapons training.

How stupid and bigoted can you get? The article goes on to describe some of the other idiotic statements brought up at the town meeting, such as "the political objective of Islam is to dominate the world with its teachings." Which is not true of all sects of Islam, as much as such a saying would not be true of all sects of Christianity or any other major religion. Its a sweeping generalization that does NOT describe moderate Islam and ignorantly mixes the every day moderates with the extremist Jihadist whom we are fighting in Afghanistan.

Another citizen said "I just think its not America." And this pissed me off. This was the inspiration of my opening paragraph. I was brought up to believe that America was a land of freedom, free expression, free religion, free speech, etc. America is strong because we stand behind its principles, we stand behind its freedoms. It isn't freedom for all, provided that you are a white christian, it is freedom for all, of any creed, ethnicity, faith, and so on. This freedom is the America I was taught about in grade school, not the America we have become, an America of fear and bigotry.

Its disgusting, and I am disgusted. 61% of Americans oppose the Cordoba House (Time, Aug 30, 2010, pg 23) and for what reason? Because it would be an 'insult to those who died on 9/11.' Muslims died on 9-11, Sufi Muslims who are not extremists, are not terrorists, died that day because they did not follow Bin Laden's strict beliefs. I think they'd be insulted. As well as everyone else who died that day, would be insulted to see us throw away Constitutionally protected rights that they died for. These people died because we have freedom of religion and now we're going to strip it away because we're afraid of some Islamic boogieman?


We are not Saudi Arabia. We are better than Saudi Arabia. Our Constitution is stronger than their monarchy. We shouldn't be stooping to their level. Saudi Arabia, where Mecca is located, does not believe in freedom of religion, a fundamental human right. This is immoral, but what can we do about it? The US has no jurisdiction over Saudi Arabia. But the US has jurisdiction over itself. It takes pride in its freedoms, it takes pride in its cultural diversity and so it should embrace the Cordoba House as a symbol of our religious tolerance, and not rejected it out of bigotry, fear, and hatred.

But no. Fareed Zakaria, I suppose, will be ignored, not only because he's rational and logical, but because he has brown skin and Arabic looking name, kinda like how 24% of Americans STILL BELIEVE OBAMA IS A MUSLIM (Time, Aug 30, 2010, pg 26) because his middle name is 'Hussain.' No, I suppose we'd rather live in ignorance and fear than actually learn about other cultures and learn to coexist with other people. I suppose we'd rather reject our Bill of Rights because we're afraid.

Thank you America for giving in to terrorism. Osama bin Laden has won. This is exactly what he'd want us to do, destroy our very freedoms ourselves.

I am disgusted.

Oh and before I finish, let me dispel some myths.

1. The Cordoba House is NOT a mosque, it is a community center with a prayer room.
2. The Cordoba House is NOT on Ground Zero, it is two blocks away in an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory that was damaged on 9-11
3. The Cordoba House is NOT opening on 9-11-11, that is an unsubstantiated rumor
4. Imam Faisal Rauf is NOT a radical, he is a Sufi Muslim "well known for supporting interfaith dialogue" (Time, Aug 30, 2010, pg 22)
   

Please America, stop spreading ignorance and hate. I was naive enough to think we had learned our lessons 50 years ago during the Civil Rights Movement . . . I guess we haven't.

J Kuhl Signing Off

America is a Land of the Free

Before I even begin, let me fully quote my favorite part of the US Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now, in New York, there's a bunch of stupid ignorant crap going on about a mosque being built within the vicinity of Ground Zero. The ignorant bigots claim that it'll be opened on 9-11-11, to mock Americans, but that rumor has never been substantiated at all.

And now they've gone further. A conservative group has called to ban all mosques in the US. And there have been numerous protests lately over other planned mosques in the US.

This frightens me because another guy in another nation tried banning a religion, some sixty years ago.



His name was Hitler.

Last I checked, America promised freedom of religion, freedom to believe whatever you desire. Muslims have every right to practice their religion, as much as any other religion. The vast majority of the Muslims do not profess the radical beliefs that the 19 hi-jackers from Al-Quaeda did on 9-11. Most are disgusted by the acts of the Taliban, Al-Quaeda and other extremists and many came here for American freedoms.

Now that they've come, we're going to betray them with bigotry? We're going to ignore our most sacred Amendment, the one protecting our most valued freedoms because we're scared? We're going to turn to ignorance and hate because we're frightened of some bogey man from the middle east? Is the (F)Right Wing out of their ever-loving minds? We built this nation on the idea of freedom and we don't need to go tearing that down because we've become so ignorant as to be afraid of some Muslims. 90% of the Muslims here in the US are ordinary people.

Sure, we have our fair share of radicals. We got the guy who failed to blow up a car bomb in times square and the major who gunned down several servicemen in Fort Hood, and so on, but they represent a radical extremist view point that most muslims do not share.

Some people argue that all Muslims are extremist because the Koran tells them to murder people who aren't Muslim. By this logic, Judeo-Christains are also murderers. The Old Testement is filled with Hebrews killing non-Hebrews in the name of God.

Why don't we start living up to our own standards and behaving as if we believed in the strength of our own Constitution? A mosque 2 blocks from 9-11 (actually, Islamic culture center) is not anything to throw a fit about. We should welcome it really, and show the world we really do believe in freedom of religion.

And we definitely do not want to be this:



Oh and if Sarah Palin wishes to profess to be a lover of the Constitution, she needs to embrace the construction of this Islamic center, not condemn it.

Then again, if she ever says anything with an iota of intelligence, I'll eat my hat.

J Kuhl Signing Off

BP Oil Spill is NOT Katrina is NOT 9-11

Stop comparing BP to Katrina and 9-11. This is getting tiresome, and its idiotic rhetoic coming from both the left, the right, and the media. These three disasters are unique. One was a terrorist act, one was the weather, and one was the result of gross negligence.

9-11 was caused by murdering jihadest terrorists bent on destroying not only Americans but anyone who doesn't follow their strict beliefs. It occured because the federal government failed to put the pieces together and see that such an incident was going to occur. The pieces were there but the CIA and the FBI did not communicate thus the puzzle was never put together. The BP oil spill had nothing to do with Jihad, was not an act of terror and its insulting to those who died on 9-11 to compare it to the BP oil spill.

Katrina was the weather. No one could have stopped it. However, we could have better mitigated before it by ensuring the integrity of the levees in a Cat 5 storm and we could have responded afterward better through FEMA. The key difference between Katrina and the BP oil spill is that the government does not have a federal agency with expertise in oil spills. We did however, have one to respond to Katrina (FEMA.)

The BP oil spill was caused because BP was too cheap to actually pay for good cement work. They ignored Haliburton's warnings when they were constructing the site and did not perform safety tests. Then after the spill, they kept underestimating the severity of the leak, which hampered clean up efforts. Most of the clean up is done by corporations with expertise in oilspill clean up. The government on the other hand has no such expertise and no agency to help out. There is little the government can do but pass legislation to regulate the oil industry so this doesn't happen again.

The BP oil spill's fault rests entirely on BP. Stop blaming Obama. Stop claiming that the government isn't doing enough. This is not something the government specializes in or had prepared for.

And for the love of all that is holy stop comparing this oil spill to events in the past to which it is NOTHING alike.

J Kuhl Signing Off

World of Warcraft and Human Nature

You may have noticed that there is a feed on this site that links the activity of my level 80 Paladin, Orissa, in the game World of Warcraft (WoW). I put that there because I wanted to see how it would work, which leads me to this post.

I've played this game since 2007 and Orissa has always been my main character (typically refered to as a 'main') and she has always been the character I use to participate in the hardest raids. There are several things about human nature that I've noticed while playing this game that I want to describe in this post, but first, some background information or my post won't make a lot of sense to people who have never played this game.

WoW is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) made by Blizzard Entertainment. Massively meaning that it takes place in a fantasy world some 15 square miles (which is enormous for a virtual environment) and is broken into some 200 servers each with 5-20 thousand players (and usually 3-10k online at one time.) And I'm not even counting the Asian and European versions of this game. It is multiplayer. At end game, you either find yourself fighting other players, other real people spread across the US (since I have the North American version of WoW, I typically only meet other Americans, a few Canadians and the occasional Mexican) or you cooperate with them to defeat difficult bosses. Also, the economy is player driven, with an in-game auction house, where players trade with each other, using gold as a virtual currency. It is online, obviously. It is also role-playing (RP) in that you pick a class and a particular role to play in the game and its a game. Each of these roles has its own function in the game.

Orissa is a Level 80 Protection Paladin with a Retribution off spec, on the US-Ghostlands server, and an officer in the guild Tribute to Insanity. There are 80 levels of character advancement. Protection is her primary talent specialization, which defines her role as a tank and Retribution is her secondary and when activated, defines her role as melee dps. And a guild is basically a group of players who have come together under one name to work together. As an officer, I help make policy decisions and occasionally lead raids.

Raiding in Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion of the game, is broken down into two levels: 10 man and 25 man. 10 man raids are for the smaller guilds (such as mine) and 25 man raids are for the larger guilds. 25 mans are typically a bit harder to succeed at, harder to organize and drop better loot. However, each raid can be run as a 10 man or a 25 man. The reason Blizzard designed the game this way was because they wanted people to see the raid content. Before Wrath and Burning Crusade came out, all the raids were 40 man raids and thus only the largest and most hardcore of guilds could get in. A grand total of 3% of the game's population saw the interior of the Naxxramas 40 man raid, which was, during Vanilla WoW, the last and the hardest raid. Now 40 mans are gone, and every raid in Wrath has a 10 and 25 man setting.

Wrath of the Lich King, starts at Tier 7 (T7) for loot and goes up to T10 and raid progression looks like this:

Naxxramas (Naxx): 14 bosses, T7 (Naxx was brought back in Wrath as a 10/25 man and entry level raid)
Eye of Eternity (EoE): 1 boss, T7
Obsidian Sanctum (OS): 1 boss, T7
Ulduar (Uld): 14 bosses, T8
Trial of the Crusader (ToC): 7 bosses, T9
Onyxia's Lair (Ony): 1 boss, T9
Icecrown Citadel (ICC): 12 bosses, T10
Ruby Sanctum (RS): 1 boss, T10

Each raid with 1 boss takes about 45 minutes to an hour, ToC takes about 90-120 minutes, and the rest take 4-6 hours. However, you have one week, from Tuesday to Tuesday, to finish a raid and raids are usually scheduled by guilds and spread across a week. My guild will do about 2 hours of ICC on Tuesday, another 2 hours on Wednesday, and then finish it on Friday. Then we do it again, starting on Tuesdays. The reason for Tuesdays is that Blizzard takes down all the servers for a few hours each Tuesday for maintenance and they decided that was a good time to do raid resets as well.

I am going to focus on the 10 man versions of these raids as my guild does not have the people to field a 25 man. Each raid requires three arch-typical roles, which are Tank, Healer and DPS. There are 10 classes, all of them can perform DPS, 4 of which can be Tanks, 4 of which can be healers, 2 of which can be all three.

Each 10 man requires 2 tanks, 2-3 healers and 5-6 DPS. What are these roles? The Tank is the heavily defensive character who's job is to ensure that the boss hits him and not the other, more fragile classes. Orissa as I've said is a Tank. What she does is she gains threat on the boss (threat is a variable in the boss's AI; when a player does something, he gains threat and the person with the highest threat is the person the boss attacks) while using her abilities to reduce incoming damage (for example, keeping Holy Shield up, an ability that increases her chance to block by 30%.) DPS stands for Damage-Per-Second and indicates a player whose job it is to do as much damage as possible while avoiding taking damage as best as possible and the Healer is pretty self explanatory. This is a trinity, if you will. Tanks require healers to stay alive. Healers require tanks to stay alive. DPS is required as most bosses have some sort of mechanic that makes them impossible to kill if the fight goes on too long and thus high dps is needed to kill the boss in a certain time frame. A raid without one of these three roles will fail.

Thus we get into what I wanted to say about this game. Sometimes I wonder if WoW could be a college major with all the crap that goes on in the game, but I digress. The interesting fact about this game is how everyone in this game works together and knows each other but no one in this game really knows each other. Take, for example, the Guild Master (GM) of my guild, a man who plays a Priest named Angoth. I know a few things about him. He's married (to another player in the guild), was in the Navy in nuclear submarines, loves a good joke and is a pretty funny guy and a good GM. But I don't know his real name or what he looks like. All I know is the personality I see when he's online and when he's in Ventrilio (a voice-chat 3rd party program.) And this is true for every guildy. I know them by personality, by voice and by screenname, but I don't know what they don't reveal in Vent or in guild chat.

These are the people I work with and coordinate with however. Since most raids require a great deal of coordination in order to down a boss, it requires that I know how these people will play and how to communicate with them and yet it is difficult to learn anything about them through such an impersonal interface.

Just to get a view on how complicated a boss fight can get, lets look at one of the bosses for a moment. Mimiron is one good example. Mimiron is the 12th boss out of 14 in Ulduar. The raid does not actually fight Mimiron, but the inventions he controls. It is a four phase fight. First phase, Mimiron is in a battletank-like vehicle called Leviathan MKII. It requires that all the melee dps, including the tanks, keep an eye out for land mines and ensuring they have a path to run away from Leviathan. It requires that they keep an eye out for Shockblast and run away from Leviathan when this occurs. The healers must heal the tank through heavy damage from Leviathan, especially when he uses Plasma Punch. Then after Leviathan is defeated, it rolls away and Mimiron goes into an anti-personnel cannon, which then requires that players avoid the five-million damage instant death rockets, that they avoid the Laser Barrage that'll make about a 100 degree arc and instantly kill anyone hit by it. Then if they survive that, the third phase begins in which case a helicopter comes out, again, with Mimiron driving it. A ranged dps has to kite the head, while one tank has to pick up robots that spawn around the room and the other tank has to grab all the little bomb bots that the helicopter drops before they explode and kill the healers. Furthermore, DPS have to loot a magnetic core from dead robots to bring the helicopter down so they can do damage to it before it flies again. Once defeated, you enter phase 4, in which all three earlier vehicles, the Leviathan, the Anti-Personnel Cannon and the Aerial Command Unit, all come together as V-07-TR-0N, a big robot. With the exception of the little robots, everything in the previous phases, occurs again in this phase, all at one time and worst of all, each of the three components MUST die within 10 seconds of each other, or the surviving components will repair the dead one to full health and the raid will wipe (which is slang, meaning "everyone dies") because the berserk timer (which increases Mimiron's damage by 5000%) will be met. The hardmode (which leads to better loot) of this fight is everything I've mentioned, and fire. Lots and lots of fire.

Point being, it takes a lot of coordination, situational awareness and teamwork in order to down the more difficult bosses. Mimiron was, when Ulduar was the final raid in WoW, one of the hardest bosses in game. My guild would be in vent while raiding and we'd be warning each other when a rocket launches or when Mimiron was doing his shockblast or other abilities. Tanks would be calling out for stronger heals during Plasma Punch and DPS would be calling out when they needed to use the magnetic core to bring the Aerial Command Unit to the ground. Strategy would be discussed, failed attempts would be analyzed and we'd be constantly working out how to perform better next time so we can get a kill.

Its teamwork against a difficult objective, with strangers. People whom I've never met in real life, working together for a common goal. But as an officer, it is my job (if you will) to help keep all these people working together, and try to get the guild to fit their needs as best as possible.

And yet there is a serious darkside to this, one that is illustrated by WoW, but also very common on the internet wherever anyone can hide behind a shield of anonymity. On Trade Chat one morning, I was discussing something with another character in the game, when a third character popped up and called me things like 'baddie' and flamed me because I hadn't been past Professor Putricide (7th boss of 12 in ICC and more difficult that Mimiron) at the time. It was a display of immaturity and foolishness and he could get away with it easily because I don't know who he is. He'll suffer no real life repercussions for that, his real life reputation remains untouched and heck, he might be a nice guy in real life, so long as he has a reputation to maintain.

Which frightens me.

This isn't a problem unique with WoW, it is found on every on-line venue, from other multiplayer games to the Fark.com forums to 4chan (which is infamous for their internet hijinks and complete lack of manners, entirely because there is no accoutability.) It makes me wonder then, if people are only decent towards other people because they have a reputation to maintain. Is there any true honesty or is it all play acting? Remove our faces and our real names, and our true personalities emerge.

Not everyone acts like a jerk without a name and a face, but a large number do. And maybe they are just jerks. It is still however, a frightening concept to think that everything we do is simply an act to appease our fellow man.

"We haven't much time, friends! You're going to help me test out my latest and greatest creation. Now, before you change your minds, remember, that you kind of owe it to me after the mess you made with the XT-002!" -Mimiron at the start of Phase 1 (XT-002 is a huge robot and is the fourth boss in Ulduar)

J Kuhl Signing Off

So I Took a Gander at Conservapedia . . .

For anyone who doesn't know, Conservatives have claimed that Wikipedia has a well known liberal bias (Conservapedia) and in response, rather than making an objective and unbiased wiki, made Conservapedia.

This leads to the creation of the most ridiculous, and biased wiki on the net.

Just look at some of this:

On Liberals: "A liberal (also leftist) is someone who rejects logical and biblical standards, often for self-centered reasons. There are no coherent liberal standards; often a liberal is merely someone who craves attention, and who uses many words to say nothing" (Conservapedia)

Because we all know that biblical standards lead to logical standards right? Heck no. Biblical standards lead to idiots like Fred Phelps spreading hate, or creationists spreading lies. Biblical standards do not lead to logic, but science and logic does. And what do they always claim goes against the bible? Science, with its liberal logic and liberal facts.

On Obama: "Barack Hussein Obama II (birth name Barry Soetoro, allegedly born in Honolulu August 4, 1961 . . ."

I chuckled at the word "allegedly." Allegedly, this entry was written by a frothing Birther tea party activist.

"As President, Obama approved offshore oil drilling including the Gulf of Mexico"

Sure, before the oil spill, the Conservatives were like "DRILL DRILL DRILL" and now that its over, they act like they never supported it and that Obama was an evil guy who hates the environment and allowed the BP spill to happen.

Whaaaat? O.o

"Obama depends completely on reading from teleprompters when he talks, even in an elementary school"

As did most other presidents, including the Most Holy Republican Messiah, Ronald Reagan.





Woops, the one below is George H. Bush, but that's alright.



And I'll throw in George Bush for giggles:



"However, it is also true that Barack Obama is an evolutionist. Barack Obama told the York Daily Record that "I believe in evolution..."."

I freaking hope so

On Evolution:"The fossil record is often used as evidence in the creation versus evolution controversy. The fossil record does not support the theory of evolution and is one of the flaws in the theory of evolution."

What? Oh you mean all those transitional fossils we have? These facts must have a liberal bias.

"There seems to be a backlash against the strong-arm tactics that have been used in recent years to censor and intimidate scientists, teachers, and students who raise criticisms of Darwin.”"

As opposed to the Creationist lies that are used to try to wedge intelligent design into a biology class?

And one more thing about Evolution. On their page on Barack Obama, I guess they think he's a social darwinist since they have a little paragraph on that. And next to that paragraph, a picture of Charles Darwin, who never ever argued for social darwinism . . .

I don't want to turn this post into another Evolution vs Deluded Fantasyland Beliefs Creationism post however, so I'll move on.

I just don't get why, if Wikipedia has such a liberal bias, they make a wiki with such a conservative bias? How about making a wiki with no bias?

What a bunch of garbage anyways

J Kuhl Signing Off

Oh Boy, Mrs. Palin Does It Again

According to talking head (because that's all she is now) Sarah Palin, the off shore drilling oil spill isn't BP's fault, but the fault of, get this, environmentalists. She argues that if the environmentalists had let us drill in ANWR, we wouldn't need to drill in the Gulf and thus this disaster would have never taken place.

Its just jaw dropping how . . . I hate to say this, but how stupid this is. If environmentalists had their way, we wouldn't even be drilling in the gulf. We'd be using alternative energies now (which we have the technology) and no longer dependent on foreign oil or offshore oil. Its stupid to blame environmentalists on a disaster caused by corporate greed and lax regulations.

I really hope that the Republicans run Sarah Palin in 2012, that'll be the comedic event of the century.

Further more, not only is it a stupid argument, but also a lie. Here are several clips where Palin advocates offshore drilling, and calls it safe.

Please, someone, make her go away. She's not only an embarrassment to republicans but to Americans in general. I mean, does she even realize that she's become such a laughing stock?

Drill baby drill.

J Kuhl Signing Off

Why We Make Fun of Muslims

Draw Mohammed Day was a few weeks ago, but it brought up an interesting controversy amongst those of us here in Western civilization as to why we simply don't respect the wishes of the muslims and not depict Mohammed in drawings.

The answer is simple: To make a point and that point is, death threats and violence will not intimidate us. If we were to simply stop drawing pictures and cartoons, they'd realize that their violent protesting causes us to react in their favor and they'll do it more. And it leads to a slippery slope. If we give in to their demands and stop drawing pictures, then they'll get violent when we offend them in some other way. And this can continue until in our fear of retribution or fear of offense, we inadvertently strip away the right to freedom of speech.

No.

The more they protest, the more violence and hate they spew, the more we will lampoon their backwards religion and the more silly pictures of Mohammed we'll draw. Is it childish? Perhaps, but consider this: When a child starts screaming in a grocery store because his mother didn't buy him cookies, is she going to buy him cookies? Of course not! She'll tell him to shut up and threaten him with more punishment if he doesn't behave. Its the same concept here. Rather than rewarding their bad behavior, we punish them by continuing to do that which they are throwing a tantrum about.

Ironically, if they want us to stop drawing pictures of Mohammed, if they want us to stop making fun of their religion, then they need to stop reacting so violently to criticism.

Furthermore, this simply goes to illustrate how ridiculous Islam is. Violence over a cartoon? Over a drawing of Mohammed? Banning Facebook and Youtube because these sites were used to dare to criticize Islam? Islam isn't special. Islam, like any other religion, has NO right to try to squash freedom of speech. If they don't like it, tough. No religion is immune to criticism. No religion may deny free speech.

So lets continue to lampoon Islam until they figure it out. Lets teach them how to be adults. If they want us to stop treating them like kids, if they want us to take them seriously, maybe they should learn to be adults and learn to be civil. Maybe once they realize that violence is not the answer to the world's problems, the negative attention directed to Islam would turn elsewhere.

I don't see this happening any time soon though.

J Kuhl Signing Off

A Loud Silence

Islam, I have a message for you. This in particular, goes directly to the moderates, not the extremists, as the extremists are beyond logic and diplomacy. The only action against extremists is warfare. They say do not fight fire with fire, but they have left us no other options.

But this message is for the moderate Muslims, the day to day Muslims who want to be a part of Western culture and enjoy the fruits of our civilization. I had, until now, nothing wrong with moderate Islam. But now, there is one thing about them that really pisses me off.

Islam has been committing major crimes against the Westernized world for the last decade (and a few before that even.) I can list them:

• 1993 World Trade Center Bombings
• 2000 USS Cole Bombing
• 2001 World Trade Center/Pentagon Bombings
• 2002 Bali Bombing
  
• 2003 Shoe Bomber attempt
• 2004 Madrid Bombing
• 2005 London Bombing
• 2005 Bali Bombing
  
• 2006 Gatorade Bomber attempt
• 2008 Mumbai shootings
  
• 2009 Underwear Bomber attempt
• 2010 Times Square Bombing attempt
  

And so on and so forth. I could add in all the countless suicide bombers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which killed harmless civilians. Islam has been infected with violence. When a Danish cartoonist dared to draw Mohammed . . .



. . . it sparked outrage and violence. When the Pope quoted someone who said 'Islam is violent,' Islam reacted with outrage and . . . violence. When Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh made a documentory that criticized Islam, he was murdered while riding his bike to work. When South Park lampooned Islam and Mohammed, the creators of South Park recieved death threats.

It is apparent to me that the lunatic fringe of the Islamic religion has taken full control. Moderate Muslims in the US often complain about being compared with terrorists. Well guess what, your entire religion is guilty of terrorism, if not by action, then by inaction.



Everytime the Islamic extremists do something terrible, there is a loud and deafening silence from the Muslim moderates. We rarely hear any condemnation from prominent clerics. We never hear anything from the Muslim world that tells us that you are not like them. We never hear anything that tells us that Allah does not support terrorism. You have allowed these lunatics to take control of your religion with nary a peep in protest. You aren't powerless. Say something. Use the blogs, use Youtube, use Facebook. If you want to deliver Islam from the radical extremists, if you want to prove that Islam is the 'Religion of Peace,' if you want to be in Western culture, then use the media and technology of today and denounce the radical Muslims.

But until then, all of you are guilty by association. If it takes a guilt trip to get you into action, so be it.

I'll leave you with this:



J Kuhl Signing Off

Really? Trading Chickens for Healthcare? Really?

In Reno Nevada, the people in charge of the poll booths decided to ban chicken costumes. The reason for this is that the costumes are being used to mock Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden. I think it is reasonable to ban such costumes as I feel it is necessary that the polling booths remain politically neutral, however the reason this incensed me was the reason why protesters were wearing chicken suits in the first place.

Lowden had commented that people should, in lieu of using money or a gov't run healthcare system, barter with their doctors. She said, and I quote, "Our grandparents would bring a chicken to the doctor."

This made me shake my head in disgust. A chicken. Right. Because my doctor would take, in lieu of a $30,000 bill for a surgery, a freaking chicken. It's a preposterous idea and obviously she doesn't literally mean "bring a chicken" but that only illustrates how a barter system won't help the issue. If my doctor is going to accept something other than money, he'll accept something of equal or greater value, meaning that I'd have to own something worth those thousands of dollars to cover my expenses. Even then, the doctor has to find some means to convert whatever the trade was into cash. It won't help.

Then I noticed something else. This woman is a multimillionaire. If she gets cancer, she has the money to pay for it, the money for the medication and everything. She's all set. But damn, if I get cancer, I've already got college bills, and now a hospital bill? I'd be screwed, really. And how is it fair that someone who is rich has a greater advantage to healthcare than someone who is poor?

This is what really astounds me when people are so adamant against healthcare for everyone. With our current system, poor people are left hung to dry if they get sick. Even if they live, it can still be devastating to their lives, incurring massive debt from hospital bills. I just don't understand how healthcare isn't a right for every American, and not simply a privilege for those who simply afford it?

Tea Partyists and Republicans like to scream 'SOCIALISM' in a loud voice when the idea of public health care comes up but perhaps there are somethings, like life's basic necessities, that shouldn't be in the hands of capitalists. Perhaps we should have a government that takes advantage of both capitalism and socialism. A healthy mix of both ideologies will do much better for our nation than simply ignoring the good that can come from socialism.

I am not arguing that we adopt an all out socialist economy. Of course not. Our economy for the most part should be capitalist. I am simply saying that we can use socialism to level the playing field and ensure everyone in America has their basic needs. What is so immoral and evil about that? What is it about the idea of giving everyone a hand when needed that the conservatives are afraid of?

Healthcare should be an option for everyone, no matter how much or how little money they make. Having access to medication, doctors, surgeries, etc, should not come with a crippling bill to those who do not make money.

And someone who is a multi-millionaire, who either never knew or has forgotten what it is like to live from paycheck to paycheck, has no room to make comments such as this.

Chickens?

Really?

J Kuhl Signing Off

Once More, Palin Proves to be a Frothing Lunatic

In a recent speech to the National Rifle Association, Sarah Palin once again showed that she can simply make bullshit up and pass it off as fact.

Sarah Palin claims that Obama will take our guns.

Uh . . .



When the hell has Obama ever said anything like that?

And if a barbie doll started talking, I swear, it would sound just like Palin.

J Kuhl Signing Off