Things that you wish you didn't know

Holy Living Fuck.

Report: Obama helicopter security breached

A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter, NBC affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh reported Saturday.

Employees of Tiversa, a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology, reportedly found engineering and communications information about Marine One at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.

Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, told WPXI-TV: "We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter."

The reason this information got into unfriendly hands? A computer of a defense contractor containing the sensitive data on the helicopter that carries The President of the United States had a p2p program installed on it.

Sounds like an RIAA scare story, but this one was real!

Profiles in Jackassery: Rob Liefeld

Today we will start two on-going features: Profiles in Jackassery, and What the Fuck is Wrong With Rob Liefeld! (the title of the second may change with the second installment).

If you love comics, you probably know the name Rob Liefeld and hate it. Rob Liefeld is a living symbol of not only the worst tendencies in mainstream comic books, but in humanity in general. He is widely know as egoistical, hard to work with and passive-agressive, lazy, and a plagerist.

All this might be forgivable if he was some sort of mad comics talent; some sort of tortured genius, fatally flawed, but scorching brilliant.

But he can't even cover his ass with that, because Rob Liefeld is an monstrously bad artist.

I could try to describe the artistic abominations that have come from Liefeld's pencil, or explain how he can barely draw feet (and spends a lot of time finding ways to avoid drawing them), but I think the only way to truly explain how awful Rob Liefeld is as an artist is to just show you.

So how bad is Liefeld...


HOLY CRUTCH ON A CHRIST, THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE FACE IN AMERICA AND HE CAN'T GET IT RIGHT!

For a detailed run down of Liefeld's crimes against comics, see The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings at Progressive Boink.

Tune in again for Profiles in Jackassery.

Yeah, that's right, I blog now

Not content to simply observe the decay of western civilization through the silent art of photography, and the occasional caustic quip, on this day, February 28, in this foul year of our Lord 2009, I have started a blog.

When ever one starts something like this, it's good to set forth a mission statement, a set of principles, a governing agenda that will set the tone for future. So here it is.

This blog will be in the genre commonly known as "cultural criticism." This means I will comment on and critique contemporary culture, both at home and aboard across all categories of human endeavor. At least, that how journalists and members of the chattering class would explain it. To explain succinctly what this entails, I'll basically be posting news stories and various things I found on the internet and going "HOLYGODJESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? LOOK, EVERYBODY, CROWED AROUND AND LOOK AT THIS HORRIBLE THING I FOUND." Well some of the time. This isn't going to be strict misanthropicism here. Hunter S. Thompson tried that, and the poor bastard blew his brains out (but then, that was because he didn't like getting old). We will focus on the live affirming and the positive as well as the evil and soul crushing. However we will at all times act with an eye towards the Weird and the Rare.

Some things that will be covered here include: Politics, Americana, urbanism, post-industrialization, cultural decay, urban decay, tooth decay, why Anarchism is untenable, public space, spaceships, Rob Liefeld, corrupt rat bastards, bad movies, good movies, good bad movies, urban exploration, subversion of all kinds (especially subversion of the subversive), anachronisms, street art, political theory, theories of all kinds, ANYTHING I DAMN WELL WANT.

Also, because I am an avid photographer, the photos of myself and other worthies will frequently be a subject here. I will also be shamelessly self-promote my work, including prints which I may have for sale, and my forthcoming photo book (which should be out just as soon as I get the damn photos picked out for it) on a frequent basis.

Now that we've got that settled, let's get down to brass tacks. Onward and upward, damn the torpedoes, free lunch... final wisdom... TOTAL COVERAGE