July 29, 2009

"I build you this awesome box keg, and all you put in it is light beer?"

MillerCoors LLC, the beer-makers of (surprise!) Miller and Coors, are test-marketing a new $20, 1.5-gallon “Home Draft” box, built to fit in your fridge and keep beer fresh for about 30 days. Sounds fun, right? Well, don’t reach for that lampshade just yet, Bluto:
The price per ounce is roughly 15% higher than for an 18-pack of the same beer, MillerCoors said.

Come again? Buy in bulk; pay more? The schlock-hop jockeys explain the idea like this:
The product, which is recyclable, is aimed at the 30% of beer drinkers who say they prefer draft beer to the bottled or canned variety, said Andy England, chief marketing officer at MillerCoors. "We're really trying to meet that occasion when you just got back from work and want to reward yourself."

Ah. So this is for the connoisseurs whose delicate palates differentiate bottled-versus-draft, but who still swig swill. Seriously, “rewarding” yourself with a tall Miller Lite is akin to taking a “vacation” to your great aunt’s house. Full article here.

For the actual Carribean getaway of beers, go here. Or, to settle for the weekend-with-friends-in-Chicago of beers, there’s always good old Sam.

Headline explained (sort of) here.

Mobile Ala. Police, Tired of Being Punked by Stephen Hawking, Lower the Bar

Back on July 10, the Guardian Force held open auditions to fill a roster spot. Turnout was disappointing to say the least, and in the end we decided none of the applicants had the goods.

Enter: Antonio Love, aka The Human Terror.

Love, a resident of Mobile Alabama, strikes an unholy fear into the hearts of men so deeply and thoroughly that even the bravest among us dare not look him in the withering eye. Just last week (and I am not making this up) local police attacked Love while he was most vulnerable – sitting on the toilet in a Dollar General Store. Love, who is both deaf AND mentally retarded (not to mention battling the runs), relayed the day’s events through a hand-written note:
"I wait and sit toilet," Love's note read. "I think about someone try break door. I hold door hard."

At that point, ... [the officers] shot pepper spray under the door.

"The police arrive General Dollar and throw poison through under the door ... I can smell poison and I'm amazing and shock."

Love turned the water on to wash the irritating chemicals off his face. "Then I'm think someone gone."

The officers ... [had gone] to get a tire iron to pry the door open.

"Then again someone knock knock," the note reads. "My head hold door, and my hand put hold lock the door. I spit poison with water. Someone hit hard hard."

The officers broke into the room.

"I'm almost fall and surprise the police here. The police get the tazz three strings in my stomach, chest and hand and hit my head. I'm falled."

...Love said he did not open the door because he thought "the devil was trying to come in."

Anyone who is so powerful – despite being deaf, retarded, and shitting – that he must be gassed, Tasered, beaten, and handcuffed just to get him to step out of the bathroom will always have a place among the Guardian Force.

July 27, 2009

Political Porcine Protagonist Pursued by Perturbed Police

In Aaron Sorkin’s political wet dream The American President, plucky presidential advisor Lewis (played pluckily by the plucky Michael J Fox), describes the American hero-need thusly:
People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

Or, evidently, root for a feral pig. Following Ron Paul’s failure to place in a single presidential primary, Bob Barr’s failure to be more man than moustache, and Barack Obama’s failure to keep any of his campaign promises that would have reduced the power of the federal government, libertarians have pinned their inspiration to a pig.

My favorite part:
”It’s not easy [to catch]. You have a 150-pound pig with an attitude,” said Jim Crosby, director of Bay County Animal Control.

For the record, 150 pounds is 15 pounds less than Justin Timberlake weighs. The Guardian Force's bid to catch the pig was rejected by County authorities as "prohibitively expensive".

July 24, 2009

In Moab Utah, Hobos Pity You!


Oftentimes someone acting in a manner completely harmless to others still deserves to be called an idiot. (The Henry Louis Gates kerfuffle is one example.) Daniel Suelo decided in the Fall of 2000 to stop using money, live in a cave in Utah, and survive off the scraps of commercialism. Daniel Suelo is an idiot.

Witness his catharsis:
In 1987 ... [Suelo] joined the Peace Corps and was posted to an Ecuadoran village high in the Andes [and] charged with monitoring the health of tribespeople in the area. ...The tribe had been getting richer for a decade, and during the two years he was there he watched as the villagers began to adopt the economics of modernity. They sold the food from their fields ... for cash, which they used to purchase things they didn't need, as Suelo describes it. They bought soda and … big bags of MSG to flavor [their] starchy meals. They bought TVs. The more they spent, says Suelo, the more their health declined. He could measure the deterioration on his charts. "It looked," he says, "like money was impoverishing them." [emphasis added]

Well. He could measure it on his charts. In two years, Suelo witnessed a healthy agrarian society embrace capitalism, amass imported goods, incorporate them into their lifestyles, and physiologically deteriorate to a measurable degree. That’s some potent TV.

So, broken by the woe of watching Ecuadorians get what they want, Suelo moved on.
He moved to Moab [Utah] and worked at a women's shelter for five years. He wanted to help people, but getting paid for it seemed dishonest—how real was help that demanded recompense?

Answer: entirely real. But Suelo was evidently so offended by his own salary that he decided to never help anyone, anywhere, ever again. Abandoning society, he holed up in a cave outside Moab and now subsists mostly on whatever he scavenges from daily dumpster-runs into town.

Again, Suelo’s eremitic lifestyle is harmless. If anything, he is (unintentionally) living out a form of libertarian fantasy. It’s the Herculean leaps of cognitive dissonance necessary in reconciling his philosophy with his choices that make him an idiot.

Pick out your own laconic gems from the full Details piece here.

Hat tip to "Darrell" for the article.

July 21, 2009

"I Knew Ward Cleaver. Ward Cleaver was a Friend of Mine. You, Sir, are no Ward Cleaver."


Thank the gods I have crimefighting.

There was a time, after floundering through my twenties from job to job and struggling to find much success at anything, that I embraced the comforting idea that I had been born to be a father. It was my calling, I decided. Protecting, nurturing, and caring for my son would – I was certain – come as naturally to me as drafting did to Frank Lloyd Wright. Just as Ted Williams was a hitter, I would be a father.

The sentiment explained my restlessness at work, since I had no more business pushing pencils than Julia Child had digging ditches, right? I gripped the idea and let it pull me through the workweeks like a rescue rope in a flooded river. I had purpose now; meaning, and motivation.

Reality has been rudely unaccommodating of my expectations. I may be Gretzky in my mind, but fatherhood is more oil painting than ice hockey.

Now, I love my son, and fiercely. I stare at him in my wife’s arms and I know that I would charge the Maginot Line armed with sparklers if that’s what it took to protect him. But that is where he is happiest: in her arms; and the feeling is fairly mutual. I’m frustrated faster than I should be; I’m stymied by his fussing; I’m bored by his squirming. Desperately I want to live up to Heathcliff Huxtable, but each successive evening proves me more Al Bundy. Of course I will never give up, and I’m certain a competent fatherhood will settle in on me just as it has on other men for thousands of years. Still, it would have been nice to be a natural.

So, as I said, thank the gods I have crimefighting. Without that clear and fulfilling calling, I might be left to wonder what the hell I’m here for after all...

July 20, 2009

From gods' Lips: Green Gauntlet on Freedom, by Carolyn Woodward

In June, I had the opportunity to interview members of the Guardian Force while researching my upcoming book on superheroes, "From gods' Lips". One question I posed to every member was: What does freedom mean to you? Portions of their answers will appear in this ongoing series.

First is Guardian Force veteran Green Gauntlet:
Finch is the one hung up on “freedom” as some kind of tangible endgame, like one day the last bonehead will go tits-up and suddenly we’ll all be happy and safe and prosperous.

To me, “freedom” is just a word, like “aspirin” or “Camaro” or “huckleberry”. I’m just trying to build the world I want to live in, you know, one obstacle at a time. You don’t want to let me smoke dope? Frak you, chief. You want to tell me what kind of car I have to drive? Frak you. You want to tell a woman she’s not allowed to sell the most sought-after commodity on Earth – you know what I’m talking about. Triple-frak you. [Laughs] Finch is gonna kill me for that one. But it’s the truth.

See, I’m out here day in, day out taking punches from Rhino-man and dodging lightning bolts and shit. So yeah: say all you want about liberty, freedom, justice. If I’m gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is “poon-tang”.

July 17, 2009

Crimefighting for Gumshoes by Chase Leeds

Remember those terrible jokes in kids’ magazines like Boys Life, Highlights, and Barely Legal that paired a fake book title with a clever(ish) author’s name? Think: No More Broccoli! by Kurt Child, or Succeeding as a Lawyer by Sue Yu.

Well, Ann Forest Burns just happens to be the spokeswoman for the American Forest Resource Council, a coincidence that makes this superhero smile. The AFRC is a clever(ish)ly-named timber industry group opposed to President Obama’s reversal of a Bush policy that doubled the amount of logging allowed… Oregon forests… endangered owls… old-growth— Okay, seriously, no one cares.

Whole snorrific NYT article here.

Five minutes’ worth of third-grade name humor here.

July 16, 2009

Leave as a Boy; Come Home as a Really Pedantic Boy


From the July pages of The Economist (the second-best dead-tree magazine around) comes this piece about a humanist summer camp.
Kids aged 8 to 17 share cabins in the woods. During the day, they paddle canoes, shoot arrows, go swimming and explore nature.

But [cue sinister music]:
Lunch comes with a five-minute talk about a famous freethinker. Campers are told that invisible unicorns inhabit the forest, and offered a prize if they can prove that the unicorns do not exist. The older kids learn something about the difficulty of proving a negative. The younger ones grow giggly at the prospect of stepping in invisible unicorn poop.

…Campers are not told that there is no God; only that they should weigh the evidence. They learn about the scientific method. …The kids are encouraged to explore ethical questions, too. The more argumentative ones sit in a clearing and debate the nature of justice.

Granted, this camp probably produces some of the most unbearably condescending 16-year-olds on Earth. But a skeptical mind is life’s most useful tool, so sign baby Wyatt up for 2017.

Plus, archery!

Hat tip to longtime commenter “Ryan” for the article.

July 15, 2009

Egon Warned you not to Cross the Streams


Have you, like millions of other Americans, ever thought: "I like war, but something about it just seems a little too... reverent"? Well fret no longer. The Pentagon (which is now evidently headed by George A Romero) has contracts with a Maryland robotics company that is developing a robot capable of running on... wait for it... dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.


I'm certain I'm not the only one who recognizes that there is absolutely no difference to a fuel-seeking program between a corpse and a live person. What could possibly go wrong?

July 13, 2009

Liberty's Gunslinger

Radley Balko may just be the Roland Deschain of investigative journalism.

Check out his latest piece on "law enforcement carelessness and callousness" here. Or, make an afternoon of it on his homepage here. You'll not regret it.

Want to Insult People while Maintaining an Air of Superiority? Here's How!

Illogical etymology aside, homophobia specifically describes a fear of homosexuals. Antipathy or outright hatred is covered by the term bigotry, so the nuance is worth exploring. Especially in the context of the new movie Brüno, the Sacha Baron Cohen vehicle and surprising success that just might save Universal Pictures from a disastrous hit-free summer.

Those experiencing homophobia generally describe a niggling fear that they may be sexually approached or desired by someone of their own sex, and they are repulsed by the imagined experience of that encounter. A homophobe may, for example, have no negative reaction at all to a gay celebrity or an actively pro-equality politician, but sharing a barracks, a breakroom, or a bathroom with a homosexual gives them inescapable willies.

Like arachibutyrophobia, the fear is irrational, and the onus is on the individual to temper his behavior in a way that prevents his fear from inhibiting the rights of others. In a reasonable world, homosexuals (who have far better things to do with their time than sexually pursue irrational heterosexuals) and homophobes (who have a responsibility to temper themselves) can exist in mutual ambivalence.

Which brings us to Brüno. Universal Pictures would have us believe that “Brüno uses provocative comedy to powerfully shed light on the absurdity of many kinds of intolerance and ignorance, including homophobia,” but the title character repeatedly goes out of his way to orchestrate the fantastical situations that homophobes fear the most. Texas Congressman Ron Paul sits down for an interview with the unequivocally gay Brüno – seems tolerant, right? – and finally has enough of the charade once Brüno drops his pants and coaxes Paul onto a nearby bed. In another scene, Brüno spends an entire evening trying to raise the discomfort quotient among a group of rugged hunters, eventually confirming their every reservation by sneaking uninvited into one of their tents after lights-out. Now which of these individuals, Universal Pictures, is practicing “absurdity” and “intolerance”?

In Borat, Cohen illuminated anti-Semitism by acting as an anti-Semite, spouting hatred for a mythical enemy and capturing the reactions of those around him. The difference in Brüno is that Cohen has become the boogeyman himself, then (ostensibly, by the studio’s statement) chastises those he encounters for believing in the boogeyman. His portrayal of a predatory homosexual is worse than a minstrel show (a charge leveled all over the Intertubes); Brüno is a landshark to galeophobes. And it is a recipe for turning homophobia into bigotry.

Brüno is very funny. Shame on Universal and Cohen for claiming that it’s something more.

July 8, 2009

Resolved: California still Slightly Freer than Equatorial Guinea

The folks at Foreign Policy and Freedom House have once again done the Guardian Force’s light work, compiling a list of The Least Free Places on Earth.

Most frustrating (in an admittedly ethnocentric kind of way) is probably Turkmenistan, whose people shook the swaddled oppression of the Soviet Union only to enjoy a more local form of totalitarianism:
President Saparmurat Niyazov, the former head of the Turkmen Communist Party, took power in 1991, isolating the country, gutting formal institutions, muzzling the media, and creating an elaborate personality cult around himself, complete with a gold-plated statue in his image that revolved to always face the sun.

Still, as much as these sad, extreme examples may give Americans some perspective-based comfort, it is imperative that freedom not be appreciated by degree. A man trapped nearest the water’s surface is still drowning, no matter how many are trapped deeper. And, unfortunately, the water is rising.

Methodology and data from the report here.

July 7, 2009

See the World! Fight for Liberty! Shirk the Responsibilities of your Personal Life!


The Guardian Force will be holding open auditions on Friday at the Empire City Convention and Government Center from 08:00 to 17:30. After last year’s fiasco, Mayor Daliani has asked me to explicitly mention that singers and dancers – no matter how fabulous – will not be considered. Also no Baldwins, please.

Blast, Nightblade, Ultragirl, and I will interview applicants on a first-come, first-served basis. In addition to raw power, we will be judging specifically on witty banter, dramatic flair, chutzpah, moxie, and costume design. Please be prepared with a headshot, resumé, and a two-minute melee combat routine.

Special note to gadgeteers: You are not superheroes. Take your utility belts, your slightly-faster-than-normal mopeds and your smoke pellets, and go LARP with the rest of the geeks.