Bob Conservative: I love pie! I eat pie all day! It’s sooo good! Derp derp derp!

Joe Rational Person: Maybe you should cut down on the pie, Bob.

Bob: Fuck you, you socialist, communist, anti-American pie, tofu-guzzling Ass fairy!

(years later)

Bob: Great. I have heart disease and cancer. Why aren’t you doing anything about it, Joe? You dick! Get out of here, you’re not my friend anymore!

Dan Conservative: Hi Bob! Glad you got rid of that douche cuz I’ve got the solution!

Bob: I hope it’s not pie, because I’m anti-pie now.

Dan: It’s more pie!

Bob: Awesome!

“I’m sure there are all sorts of higher powers like electromagnetism and gravity, and things like that. But I don’t believe in a deity, no. I see no evidence for that in my life or anywhere else in the universe. Personally, people can believe what they will and they will believe what they want. I find that most deism, and certainly most theisms take a fairly narrow view of the universe, and most people’s views of God or gods seem to be rather impoverished. The universe itself, the physical world that we can perceive with our senses and grasp with our minds, seems to be far more wondrous then most people’s conceptions of a deity.”

— Ron Reagan, PR.com interview, April 13, 2009

We just celebrated another St. Patrick’s Day, so I’ve decided to mark the occasion with a post.  I’m not usually in the habit of making generalizations about racial groups, but I feel that since I am Irish, and am therefore a member of the club, I have privileged access that allows me to do just that.  And, in addition, being Irish, my racism is only the result of following the example of my own people.

The Irish are religious, intolerant drunkards—as a race they’ve managed to embody all of the qualities I despise.  What good have they done for the world?  Not a whole lot.  Their greatest accomplishments all relate to fighting wars; and not as the strategists, but as dumb foot soldiers, because beating the shit out of someone is the primary talent inherited from Irish genes.  Here’s a list of some of the “top” inventions developed by Irishmen: the submarine, the ejector seat, the harpoon gun, the tank, and shorthand writing.  Is there a pattern here?  I would say most certainly.  With the exception of shorthand writing, everything in the goddamn list is at the least indirectly related to war and murder.  In fact, it was an Irish physicist (Ernest Walton) who figured out how to split the atom.  Of course!  The only possible motivation for an Irishman to stop drinking for five seconds and get a fucking degree would be to contribute to the development of the atomic bomb.  And speaking of bombing shit, IRA anyone?  Irish are essentially the Muslims of the white world.

Now, I can’t say without hypocrisy that I’m opposed to blowing the shit out of people now and then, but I feel that any race (as any individual) needs to round out their skill set a bit; try different things.  And at first glance, it might appear that the Irish do indeed take part in some nonviolent activities.  The list I mentioned above included one seemingly innocent invention: shorthand writing; but this is hardly a positive, and still quite befitting of the Irish.  Only such a group as them would cut corners to literacy by developing a method of writing which requires as few letters as possible.  How about the world of entertainment?  Quite a few actors and actresses are Irish, but one of them is Ben Affleck, so the accomplishments of all others are nullified.  In the area of politics we have such shining examples of humanity as Bill O’Reilly and Senator Joseph McCarthy.

What about that Lucky Charms leprechaun?  I can see why the Irish might be offended by him (the product ran in Ireland but failed), as he’s hardly a representative specimen.   If he accurately signified all that is Irish, he wouldn’t be talking about rainbows, pink hearts and other such homosexual trinkets.  More likely he’d pull a couple pipe bombs out of his green hat and blow those kids the fuck up.  No multiracial cartoon kids are going to take an Irishman’s cereal.

The Irish aren’t all bad though.  Corned beef and cabbage is a tasty meal.  And… well, there’s corned beef, and… I’m sure there’s something else— I just can’t think of it at the moment.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

That statement is basically a false dichotomy – the same kind of conundrum as “you’re either with us or against us.” It presents a false choice: you are either guilty of something and therefore have a reason to hide it, or you are not guilty of anything and therefore have no reason to hide anything. It is based on the (false) premise that privacy’s sole purpose is to conceal wrongdoing, and it excludes the possibility that someone may be innocent of any wrongdoing buy may still want to conceal their activities. Why? Because something is embarrassing, but not wrong. Something may be deeply personal. Someone may have concerns about their information being used for marketing purposes or stolen. The list goes on and on.

Basically…that’s how you counter it.

If Haitians were constantly questioning their faith, they would all be atheists. If Haitians were constantly questioning their faith, they would all be atheists…

Sorry, I had to repeat that a few times as I attempt to wrap my head around it.

First, a brief history of Haiti, or “God’s Shitter” as I like to call it. The western half of the island of Hispaniola started as a wealthy French colony, built on the backs and blood of slave laborers from Africa. It was called Saint-Domingue at this time. Under French rule, the black population would remain enslaved for about 100 years, until invaders from Spain and Britain pressured the French into freeing the slaves and allying with them to fight off these external threats. After beheading King Louis, the Jacobins (crazy people who were all about the natural rights of men, but had a fetish for removing heads from necks) took control of France and supported abolition for all French colonies.

So the former slaves kicked out all of the invaders and took control of their country and everything was hunky-dory. Well, until the planter lobby found its way to Napoleon Bonaparte’s ear. Greedy planters, the kissing cousins of modern corporations, were repulsed by the idea of not being super rich, so they convinced Napoleon to send 20,000 troops to Saint-Domingue and reinstitute slavery. There was lots of fighting, and if it hadn’t been for Yellow Fever, the colony might have been retaken by the French. 100,000 black and 24,000 white colonists died, but they beat the invaders and declared full independence from France. The colony was renamed Haiti. I think they chose this name because of God’s hate for them.

From this moment things did not get better. Lots of infighting occurred; the country was divided in half, then recombined; the French tried to take control again and Haiti was forced to pay the French to retain independence; after this the Haitian government was continuously replaced from within in coup after coup after coup.

Eventually the United States sent some Marines to quell some of the chaos, but they ended up killing thousands of Haitians, so, I mean, it sounds like they did a bang-up job.

In the following years some dictators took control, there were DEATH SQUADS, more coups, more chaos, corruption, etc, etc, etc. And amidst all of this throughout the years, the people of Haiti have been poor as fuck. It is the poorest nation in the Americas; people there live on $2 a day. Wikipedia tells me that, even though they fought the French three fucking times to keep from being enslaved, due to abject poverty more than 200,000 children are forced to work as free household servants — or in other words, as slaves.

So now a huge earthquake ravages the country. A precise earthquake, I might add. The vast majority of the population is in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s largest city. The earthquake was centered right on this spot. Right where it could do the most damage. Is that not suspicious? It almost seems like some conscious, omniscient, omnipotent force was aiming at them like a diabolical darts player. I wonder who that could be? Who has the power to do such a thing? Who is known for sending down pestilence and flooding the Earth on occasion?

And yet the Haitians, a deeply religious, Catholic people, are praising God and continuing to attend church services in full force. Well, not in full force; there are the ones who were crushed as their own churches collapsed on them, of course (like Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot).

Their faith is all they have, CNN reports. That’s psychotic. All they have is insanity then. I’m not sure how else to describe it. It’s akin to Stockholm syndrome.

This is faith. God just killed your friends, family and loved ones. Or, if he didn’t, he at least stood by and watched as it happened. Yet you love him and thank him and pray to him. It’s like if I was walking down the street with a gun in my pocket and I saw a woman being raped, but rather than shooting the rapists, just kind of stopped and watched. And then, when it was over, she thanked me profusely for my benevolence.

No, scratch that. That metaphor does not properly convey the absurdly paradoxical nature of God’s supposed greatness and the faith of his followers. In this rape scenario, there would still be some risk to me. Maybe the kidnappers have guns too. Maybe I’m paralyzed by fear. If I shoot I could miss and then they’d shoot me, or worse, I’d shoot and hit the woman.

God doesn’t have that problem. He is all-powerful. He has no fear. He can’t miss. He doesn’t even need to lift a fucking finger. He could have stopped the earthquake with a thought.

But he didn’t. It’s like if I approached the proceeding rape in my bulletproof Popemobile that just so happened to have a top of the line laser attachment with a built-in, military grade targeting system that never misses, yet instead of zapping the rapists, I put it in park, popped a bag of Orville Redenbacher in my Popemicrowave, kicked back and watched the action.

The current official death toll is 72,000. It’s expected to reach 200,000. Maybe God should have read his own fucking Book. I’m thinking specifically of the part about the Good Samaritan. It’s in Luke, God. Try skimming it when you get a second.

I keep hearing about people praying for the Haitians. Okay. I think I need another metaphor. Let’s see, how about this: Praying for God to help the Haitians is like asking 1944 Hitler to help the Jews.

Oh wait, that metaphor fails too. Hitler felt threatened by the Jews. I mean, they had influence in German cinema, science, banking, etc. Not the same with God. No one on Earth is threatened by the Haitians, let alone our all-encompassing, all-powerful Creator. It’s like he saw how much fun everyone was having shitting all over Haiti and he got jealous and said, “Look what I can do!” like fucking Stuart from MADtv.

Today there was actually a second earthquake in Haiti. An aftershock, but it was pretty big – 6.1 on the Richter scale. Talk about kicking a man when he’s down. Shit, actually, God’s not even doing that – the Haitians were already down. He kicked them with the first quake. Now he’s just pissing on them as they lay bloody and broken.

In the first CNN link, at the end of the video, they mention how the church leader is grateful for all of the miracles God has granted in the form of quake survivors, but he can’t explain why the quake itself – why all of the death and destruction on such a grand scale – happened.

I have an explanation. Apparently most of Earth’s population can’t handle it, but I do have an explanation.

This is it: We live in an indifferent, uncaring, apathetic universe. There is only the natural world. There is no supernatural. There are no spirits. There are no gods. There is not one God. Everything in this natural world happens because it happens; there are reasons, but they aren’t meaningful – at least, not in the way that primitive belief systems see meaning. 4.6 billion years ago the Earth coalesced from the dust and particles of the solar nebula into a ball of molten rock through entirely natural, unconscious, amoral processes. The Earth’s crust hardened and is now composed of plates floating on a semi-solid mantle. The plates move about and bump into each other. We know how earthquakes work. Our methodology and body of knowledge that explains this natural world of ours is called Science. More precisely, Geology.

God did not cause the earthquake and he couldn’t stop it. Not because he’s an asshole, as I suggested above, but because he doesn’t exist. He doesn’t EXIST. The people who survived didn’t because of miracles handed out by a magical guy in the sky; they were just lucky; in the right spot at the right time. 200,000 others weren’t so lucky. It wasn’t that they weren’t religious enough; not that they didn’t pray enough; not that they led immoral lives; not that their ancestors made a pact with Lucifer 200 years ago. It was plain dumb luck.

I liken this to rappers and Kevin Smith thanking God for all their blessings. God is so choosey. I have to wonder: what am I to him? Tuna noodle casserole? Well, okay, I’m an atheist, so God hates me. But what are all of my Christian friends who aren’t blessed with wealth and fame? What are inner city high school teachers? What are nurses? What are the 911 victims? What are the tsunami victims? What are the Katrina victims? What are the 200,000 dead Haitians? Haiti’s population is something like 80% Catholic. Did they just pick the wrong denomination?

No. You weren’t chosen. Don’t be so conceited. It’s just luck. You’re lucky enough to have been born with the right genetics or the right family or the right peers or some combination of those. Millions and millions of others were NOT so blessed. Similarly, the earthquake survivors weren’t chosen. When the roof came crashing down, some jumped left and some jumped right. This is the way the universe works.

Our sun gives us life. We’re made of elements born in its core; every day we’re bathed in its essential energy. But some day our sun is going to get really big and consume this entire planet, turning it into a horrible firey inferno and ultimately obliterating it. And the callous universe won’t give a damn. Happens all the time, just like ant hills flattened under the feet of jovial little boys.

Point is, everything that can be attributed to God or Brahman or Izanagi or Quetzalcoatl or Zeus or Anu or The Spirit of the Buffalo, can be explained better – more concisely and with less ambiguity – by modern science. The Haitians shouldn’t be praising Him. They should be cursing Him. They should be questioning their faith. They should be atheists. They should be casting Him out of their country once and for all. Because, really, what has He done for them other than Shit on them? Without their faith will they be left with nothing? Perhaps. But maybe they can replace it with something new. Maybe instead of faith in God, they can have faith in the people of all the other nations that are coming to their aid right now; people of The United States, Canada, Britain, Denmark, Australia, India, China, and even France; people of the secular Red Cross, people of the secular UNICEF organization.

When the aid runs out maybe they can have faith in each other. As corny as it sounds, at least it’s real. More real than God anyway. And if that doesn’t work, well, they can always put their faith in Anderson Cooper.

To all of the other people of Faith in this world: It’s 2010; it’s the fucking future. Embrace it. It’s time to end these ancient mind games.

I wish I would have thought of this. I’d have made it so that it always answers with “You smell like an incontinent chimpanzee’s ass to Edward Cullen and he would rather stake himself to death than come within 100 yards of the rancid walking shitbag that is your body.”

Where have I been? Well… nowhere interesting. Most of my days are spent putzing around on the computer or doing nothing or drinking. At this very moment I’m actually operating under the influence of some Captain Morgan® Original Spiced Rum. Got a little Captain in You? I generally prefer Jack, Jim, or Johnnie, but when I’m drinking in the middle of the day I tend to go for something a little lighter. Heaven forbid people think I’m a drunken jobless loser.

Let’s see. I went to Subway today. Half the patrons were staring at me the whole time I was there, which always happens to me at Subway for some reason, but on the bright side they had Italian dressing. Nothing pisses me off more than a Subway without Italian dressing. And they try to pass off vinegar & oil as “the same thing.” It is NOT the same thing you assholes! I know nothing about the preparing and mixing of consumable ingredients and the resulting actualization of condiments, but I’m damn sure there’s spices and shit in Italian dressing. Vinegar & oil contains two things: vinegar and fucking oil. No spices and no shit! So shut up!

Seriously, it’s like, what if I make chocolate chip cookies for my nephew, but I follow Subway guy logic? What’s in chocolate chip cookies? Sugar, water, butter, flour, chocolate chips, etc. Right? Well, what if I throw out everything but the butter and the chocolate chips? “Here Billy! Here are your fucking chocolate chip cookies!” What would he be thinking when I drop a stick of butter with chocolate chips pressed into it onto his plate and call it a chocolate chip cookie? I’ll tell you. He’ll be thinking: “Are you fucking retarded, Uncle Shaun?” And he would be right to ask that. Because that would quite literally be fucking retarded. Do you hear me Subway guy?

But I digress.

OH! Ah ha! I know what I’ve been doing. I’ve been deleting spam — Russian comment spam to be exact. I get tons of it on this site, all written in Cyrillic letters with the backwards R’s and N’s. Fortunately, thanks to my Lord and Savior, Google, I can translate it and be sure they’re not talking shit about me. Here is an example:

Я отметила отлично  нацепила на голову тыкву и бегала по улице.

Which translates to:

I said well dressed up a pumpkin on his head and ran down the street.

Okay, they’re not bad mouthing me in their secret language. They’re just psycho bat-shit crazy. Whew.

But, really, I swear this would not happen under Soviet rule. I see the fruits of the free market are juicy and succulent in the former Communist state. And because of it I get to waste my time checking boxes and selecting “Mark as Spam” in WordPress when I could be spending my time drinking Captain Morgan® Original Spiced Rum. Got a little Captain in You?

Christ. Give me the looming threat of global annihilation any day. At least with that I can have hope that this pisshole world is going to end soon.

But I digress.

What was this post supposed to be about anyway? Hmm, trying to think. Oh, I just looked at the title. Jump Thrust. This article is about the Jump Thrust. What is the Jump Thrust, you ask? Well, take a look at this:

It is the most badass sword-based attack. This particular instance is from the trailer for the new Clash of the Titans. Here we see Sam Worthington as Perseus performing said attack. It’s when a warrior runs and jumps into the air and stabs down and seriously fucks up his opponent in a singularly awesome fashion.

This trailer, which just came out, really got me thinking about Jump Thrusting. It’s all the rage these days. I’m seeing it everywhere. So, if you want to be cool I suggest you learn how to execute a proper Jump Thrust. I personally recommend following Achilles’ technique in the movie Troy.

First, the run up

Then the jump

Followed shortly after by the thrust

Then the “aaaarggghhh!!”

Close with the nonchalant “Did I just kill a guy with a jump thrust? Fuck yeah I did” walk, while the guy collapses behind you

And dead.

Here we have the classic scene from 300 where the dude cuts off the other dude’s arm:

It’s actually more of a Jump Slash than a Jump Thrust, but we’re talking about the same family of martial techniques here. All that really matters is the jump and the overall Badassery Quotient, not the specific technique.

I’m wondering, though — is the Jump Thrust only performable by ancient Greeks? I mean, my examples were Perseus, Achilles, and the Spartans. All Greeks. If this is the case, I’m extremely disappointed. I am not Greek. I’m Irish and Danish… and Scottish… and English… and… well, let’s just say Super White.  It’s disappointing because I can think of some people I’d love to Jump Thrust. I’d probably Jump Thrust half of my High School classmates if I could. Bill O’Reilly immediately comes to mind. Rush Limbaugh too, but I’d have to Jump Thrust him extra hard to get through all of the layers of fat. Oh, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck from The View. Man, I’d Jump Thrust her all day.

I’d LOVE nothing more than to Jump Thrust Glenn Beck. But I’m pretty sure he likes getting Jump Thrusted. Kind of like my good friends over at What Would Picard Do? and Save Natural Selection. I know they can’t get enough of being Jump Thrusted.

If you’re not an ancient Greek hero, there is a way you can still Jump Thrust. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve done it. You probably just don’t remember.

Take a look at this:

Yes, the little Elven pinko, Link, learns what is called the “Downward Thrust” in Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link after speaking to a Hylian Knight in the Harbor Town of Mido (No I didn’t know that off the top of my head. I looked it up, so STFU). The knight’s only words are, “WHEN YOU JUMP PRESS DOWNWARD TO STAB.” If only real life wasn’t so gay and it was this easy to perform a Jump Thrust. I’d be so awesome.

Hey, what if you could do everything in life by talking to a knight and pressing a sequence of buttons?

WHEN WALKING HOLD “A” TO RUN

WHEN WORKING OUT PRESS UPWARD AND DOWNWARD TO GET BUFF

WHEN SLEEPING AT NIGHT PRESS FORWARD TO SHUT NEIGHBOR’S GOD DAMN DOG UP

WHEN GIRLFRIEND IS TALKING PRESS LEFT TO DISABLE AUDIO PROCESSING PORTION OF BRAIN

WHEN GRANDMA CRAPS SELF FOR THOUSANDTH TIME HOLD RIGHT TO SCOLD AND CLEAN UP MESS

WHILE TRYING TO CLIMB CORPORATE LADDER PRESS “B” TO SLIT OWN THROAT AND DIE

Speaking of Zelda 2, what a strange game. It was nothing like its predecessor. Zelda 1 was top-down and you couldn’t even do a normal jump, so the idea of Jump Thrusting was beyond all conceivable imagination. Does Jump Thrusting make Zelda 2 a better game than the original? Hands down, YES.

That’s it. I need more Captain Morgan® Original Spiced Rum. Got a little Captain in You?

(Follow whipjack.net on twitter at twitter.com/whipjack. Get this same crap in 140 characters or less. Well, eventually. When I actually start using it)