SemiConscious Dot Org

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die. – Abdul Alhazred, The Necronomicon

I was 13 years old when I first discovered the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, the man who (along with Edgar Allen Poe) essentially invented the modern horror genre. In particular, I loved his most (in)famous short story, The Call of Cthulhu, and its ominous-sounding first paragraph:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

With that in mind, imagine my shock upon stumbling across this news story:

New Zealand fishermen have caught what is expected to be a world-record-breaking colossal squid.

Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the squid, weighing an estimated 450kg (990lb),took two hours to land in Antarctic waters.

Horror of horrors! It’s not bad enough that Teh Gay Agenda is loose upon the face of a terrified planet; now we have to worry about soul-sucking squid monsters from another dimension.

Now I know what you’re saying: “Aaron, I don’t think that, just because some fishermen hauled up a big-ass squid, it means that the human race will soon be swallowed whole by The Great Old Ones. You’re overreacting, man!” Well, my skeptical friend, let’s see if you’re so dismissive after you notice the eeries similarities between this:

Colossal squid, known by the scientific name Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, are estimated to grow up to 46 feet long and have long been one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep ocean.

.............

If calamari rings were made from the squid they would be the size of tractor tires, he added.

Colossal squid can descend to 6,500 feet and are extremely active, aggressive hunters, he said.

And this:

It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters.

Still not convinced? Check out a picture of the ferocious monster hauled from the deep last week, and compare it to the terrifying visage of Great Cthulhu. And if you aren’t quaking in your boots yet, consider that, according to the news stories, the colossal squid was caught in the vast emptiness of the southern ocean, disturbingly near to the rumored location of Cthulhu’s sunken city of R’lyeh. (Not to mention that the incident happened fairly close to Antarctica, home to Elder Things and even more terrifying Shoggoths.)

Alas, my friends, I’m afraid the evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible. All of the Great Old Ones and Elder Gods are waking up, and will soon retake this world as their rightful territory and devour its current inhabitants (us.) There is no escape, and nothing you can do to avoid your horrifying fate. When your conscious soul screams in agony as you slowly digest inside Great Cthulhu’s stomach for a thousand years, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

For years, Fundamentalists and other assorted wingnuts have been warning us that America risked destruction from an insidious menace known only as “The Gay Agenda.” Much wailing and gnashing of teeth has attended the relentless efforts of this arch supervillain to subvert and destroy Western civilization by shooting all right-thinking Americans with his Gay Laser of Gayness, thus turning everyone Gayer than the Gay Mayor of Gaytown. But, up until now, no one knew what The Gay Agenda looked like. How can one spot and thwart this dastardly threat, if his very appearance remains a mystery?

Well, you need wonder no further, for the face of The Gay Agenda has at last been revealed!

There he is, folks. Memorize that face, for it represents a more terrifying threat to America than Islamofascists, ACLU lawyers, Hollyweird, or even Liberals – combined! In fact, just looking at him makes me so angry that my forehead is beginning to throb and pulse.

(Oh wait, that’s not my forehead…Jeebus save me!)

Okay, so maybe he didn’t actually say it, but he linked to it.

Even if you’re a traditional, Barry Goldwater conservative, the kinds of budgets that Bush has sent to the hill not only this year but this whole century are the worst-case scenario; they increase spending generally while cutting taxes and social programming. They commit taxpayers to giant subsidies of already Croseus-rich energy corporations, pharmaceutical companies and defense manufacturers while simultaneously cutting taxes on those who most directly benefit from those subsidies. Thus you’re not cutting spending—you’re just cutting spending on people who actually need the money. (According to the Washington Times, which in a supremely ironic twist of fate did one of the better analyses of the budget, spending will be 1.6 percent of GDP higher in the 2008 budget than in was in 2000, while revenues will be 2.6 percent of GDP lower). This is something different from traditional conservatism and something different from big-government liberalism; this is a new kind of politics that transforms the state into a huge, ever-expanding instrument for converting private savings into corporate profit.

That’s not only bad government, it’s bad capitalism. It makes legalized bribery and political connections more important factors than performance and competition in the corporate marketplace. Beyond that, it’s just plain fucking offensive to ordinary people. It’s one thing to complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once a month for some struggling single mom in eastern Kentucky. But when your taxes are buying a yacht for some asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour … I sure don’t remember reading an excuse for that anywhere in the Federalist Papers.

Of course, the fact that our “President” is working overtime to drive the final nail into the coffin of the American middle class isn’t nearly as important as figuring out why Britney shaved her head.

See, this is what happens when I make the mistake of ignoring my RSS reader for a few days: I miss out on the latest censorship controversy. It seems that some librarians and schools are choosing not to stock the book that won the 2007 Newbery Medal (that’s an award for excellence in children’s literature, for you non-liberry types) because… the book contains the word “scrotum.” Yep, the Talibanization of America is now apparently so far advanced that using an anatomically correct, utterly non-sexy medical term to describe a body part induces fainting spells on the part of our self appointed Morality Police.

A few of the commenters at librarian.net suggested that the author deliberately threw the word “scrotum” into the book knowing that some weenies would object, and that the ensuing controversy would increase her book sales. If so, I have only two things to say: “Well done!” and “Where’s my checkbook?”

(Bonus censorship link: “Vagina Monologues” is now “Hoohaa Monologues.” Sweet.)

UPDATE: I smell a poll!

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Granted, my chances of being elected President of the United States in 2008 had already taken a near-fatal blow once it became clear that no one who swears on Teh Internets can ever be elected. Nevertheless, I was prepared to soldier valiantly on in pursuit of some party’s nomination.

However, today I came across this USA Today/ Gallup poll, which pretty much sealed my fate:

If your party nominated a well-qualified Candidate For WH ‘08 who was _, would you vote for that person?

Now, it’s true that, as an atheist, I do spend most of my free time plotting the destruction of Christianity and inevitable triumph of world Communism when I’m not busy sacrificing babies to Satan. The part that really bums me out is that, according to this poll, I would get walloped in a head-to-head contest by any of the three batshit loonies currently being touted as leading Republican presidential contenders: Mitt Romney (“Mormon”), Rudy Giuliani (“Married for third time”), and John “Grampa Simpson” McCain (“72 years old”).

Given the low regard in which atheists are held by the Jeebus-loving majority, I suppose I should be glad that Gallup didn’t include “convicted child molesters” in their poll. It would have been too depressing for words to see that kinder-diddling perverts are still more electable in this country than people who refuse to proclaim allegiance to the Invisible Sky Buddy.

But maybe all is not lost: I hear the People Who Hate People Party still needs a candidate.

Happy New Year! Chinese New Year, that is.

This year is the Year of the Pig. As it just so happens, yours truly is a Pig. I assume that this means that, by the end of the year, the tattered remnants of humanity will acknowledge me as their Supreme Leader.

In the meantime, let’s read about how wonderful I am:

Intellectually curious, honest and tolerant, those born in the Year of the Pig can be relied upon for their loyalty and often make true friends for life.

Like the knights of old, Pigs are often highly regarded for their chilvary and pureness of heart, and will often sacrifice their own well-being for the greater good.

The Pig can be very naive, however, and may easily fall victim to the unscrupulous who take advantage of their idealistic nature – as Pigs see everyone as loyal and caring as they are. Although forced to play the fool many times, they will just as likely hold fast to the notion that everyone is at heart decent and admirable.

Stubbornly optimistic, the Pig will not tolerate those with well-meaning advice on how to be a Pig, but since they dislike quarreling and discord their anger usually cools quickly. Sometimes looked upon as a snob, the Pig just finds it right and natural to exhibit good manners whenever possible. Their main goal in life is in serving others, and no matter how difficult circumstances become the Pig will never waiver or retreat, forging ahead in the sure knowledge that all will be well.

Pig people love to read, are generally thirsty for knowledge, and not readily talkative, but if presented with an opportunity to discuss topics of interest with like-minded individuals Pigs may find themselves talking non-stop for hours!

People born in the Year of the Pig are trusted associates in whatever career they happen to choose and often shine as entertainers, social activists or politicians.

(link via RexLibris)

Creationists Defeated in Kansas:

School authorities in the American heartland state of Kansas have delivered a rebuff to subscribers to the notion of intelligent design by voting to banish language challenging evolution from new science guidelines.

Next stop, 20th century* or bust! Yeeeee haaaaa!!!!

I can’t help but think that, just perhaps, the Flying Spaghetti Monster had something to do with opening the public’s eyes on this topic. Praise to the FSM, and may we all be Touched by His Noodly Appendage.

Of course, lest we succumb to the comfortable illusion that blinkered, philistine ignorance about basic scientific principles and the desire to replace said principles with religious fairy tales is confined to the US, I invite you to read this.

(*Author’s note: We are currently residing in the 21st century. Baby steps, people.)

It has always been my unofficial policy to never attribute any societal ill to malevolence on the part of those in charge when it can be more readily explained by stupidity. Granted, the example of programs like MK-ULTRA and COINTELPRO proves that, yes, they are occasionally out to get you. However, the more Machiavellian a theory is, the less likely I am to give it credence. (For instance, there is a decent-sized subset of the population that believes that our government took an active role in planning and carrying out the 9/11 attacks. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Bush administration is guilty of criminal negligence surrounding the events of 9/11; they were warned that Al-Queda was planning a major attack, and did nothing to prevent it. However, given the uninterrupted string of colossal fuckups in the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, do you really think this administration is capable of masterminding 9/11? Me neither.)

Having said all that, I do sometimes read news that gives me serious pause. For instance, today I learned that a Japanese company has just produced the world’s smallest RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags. RFID tags, which are already routinely used to track everything from store inventory and library books to livestock and pets, have steadily been getting smaller, but this new chip represents a huge size reduction: it’s five hundredths of a millimeter wide, roughly the size of a grain of dust.

By itself, this news is not particularly threatening; however, given that the new chips are small enough to be sprayed from planes or dusted on solid surfaces, one can readily conjure up any number of scenarios under which governments might use this technology to surreptitiously track and spy upon their citizens. For instance:

For example, suppose you participated in some sort of protest or other organized activity. If police agencies sprinkled these tags around, every individual could be tracked and later identified at leisure, with powerful enough tag scanners.

Again, none of this is to posit that our government will use devices such as these secretly or illegally. But, given the current administration’s established track record of skirting the law in the pursuit of its War on Terra, why would they not do so?

(link via LISNews)

You knew it was only a matter of time, but still, the sad news tugs at the heartstrings:

The venerable floppy disk, storage system of choice for computer users since the early 80’s, will soon be no more. Computer retail giant PC World has announced it will no longer stock the drives or computers that come with them installed. I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before the other computer megastores stop carrying them as well, at which point it will no longer be profitable for any company to continue producing them. The humble floppy will then be quietly dragged into the Recycle Bin of history.

True, with the advent of rewritable CD-roms, USB keychain drives, and external hard drives, the floppy had long since become obsolete. Still, it’s amazing that, in the world of technology, where obsolescence is measure in months if not weeks, the floppy disk has hung around, virtually unchanged, for over a quarter of a century.

I can still remember, as though it were yesterday, the joyous Christmas morning when I received my very first floppy drive. I knew that, from that day forward, I would inhabit a new world, one in which I didn’t have to wait 45 minutes while my Commodore 64 loaded Super Zaxxon from a tape cassette player. Any time I wanted to play video games, I merely had to load up that 5 1/4 inch bad boy, and I would be ready to blast the hell out of aliens in 1-2 minutes, tops!

The 5 1/4 inch disk of yore soon thereafter shrunk to 3.5 inches and ceased to be floppy, but except for increases in storage capacity, has remained sacrosanct ever since. And they’re still in use, at least where I work. Last year, when we received a grant to buy new computers for the library, the staff screamed bloody murder at my offhand comment that the new computers would not have floppy drives. I had to spend extra money out of the grant to special order ones with floppies installed. Neither CD-roms, flash drives, nor password-protected folders on the server could take the place of that priceless satisfaction that came with popping the disk from the drive and walking away with it, knowing that your work was safe forever. (The kids, of course, couldn’t have cared less. They had no idea what those strange openings on the front of the computers were for, anyway.)

Sure, the flash drive in my pocket holds roughly 700 times the amount of information that a floppy can hold. Sure, when I insert the flash drive into my computer, I don’t have to worry that a piece of it is going to break off in the drive and require a half hour of prying with a paper clip to remove it. Sure, I don’t have to be deathly afraid that someone will write on it or bring it too close to a magnet, thus destroying its contents forever. Still, I can’t help but feel nostalgic at the imminent demise of the humble floppy. By so cavalierly discarding a trusty, faithful servant, have we not also discarded a tiny, magnetically charged part of our souls?

(Editor’s Note: the staff here at Heavy Metal Librarian apologizes profusely for the preceding slide into Alan Alda-esque mawkishness. You have our assurances that the offending staff member will be fired.)