Author Archives: Raizen

Was there actually a threat to the Pokemon World Championships?

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It’s been over a week since we’ve heard news of a possible massacre which supposedly would have taken place at the Pokemon World Championships which were held in Boston this year. Since then, we’ve had time to consider the information presented to us. While I reacted strongly to the news (as did a lot of people), I’ve had some time to consider the information presented, and I actually have doubts that there was any real danger to any attendees of the PWC.

Was there any danger to PWC attendees? At this point, that’s something for investigators to figure out. However, a number of members of the Pokemon community already seem convinced of their guilt. This might actually be mistaken, and I admit that my quick reaction to the news may have been likewise mistaken. This is something that can happen when we are presented with news that sounds shocking and hits close to home. We are prone to overreacting.

In the case of the supposedly-thwarted massacre at the PWC that theoretically could have taken place, there are several mitigating factors that one can find if one were to carefully read the news stories (keeping in mind, of course, that many news outlets omit such important information altogether to present a story more fitting with the personal bias of it’s journalists).

For one thing, consider what these two men are charged with: according to BostonGlobe.com, the two men are charged with “unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and other firearm charges.” Why? Because the two men couldn’t produce a license to carry the weapons.

That’s it. No conspiracy to commit terrorism or similar charges.

If the two were really conspiring to commit a terrorist act, the lack of an appropriate charge for having done so would have been a serious omission. But there was no such charge. What this suggests is that the authorities have considered the information presented to them, and decided that there was no intent to commit a terrorist act.

Another point to consider is that the two men did not carry the guns into the convention center with them. Here is a question: If two people had the intention of carrying out a mass shooting, wouldn’t they want to take their guns with them? Of course they would. But they didn’t. And what this suggests is that the story of the two being gun aficionados who wanted to visit a shooting range after the tournament is actually plausible. It’s supported by the fact that, when attempting to gain entry to the event, they left their guns in the car.

Next point is the nature of the firearms and how the ammunition was packaged. Of the two guns pictured in BostonGlobe.com’s story, one is a shotgun, the other is a rifle, and the ammunition was not stored in bags. The weapons in question would have been more fitting for a hunting trip than for an urban assault. Such guns would quickly run out of ammunition, presenting an opportunity for people to stop them as the weapons were reloaded. And because the ammunition wasn’t stored in bags, there was no indication of any intent to carry the ammunition on their persons in a theoretical shooting. This evidence suggests that the two really did have the intention of visiting a shooting range after the tournament.

Considering this, fellow Pokemon fans, we shouldn’t be so quick to string these two men up by their toes. Careful consideration of the evidence suggests that they may not have had any malicious intent, after all.

Another point to think about is the fact that these two men really seemed to be Pokemon fans. Think about it: These two weren’t just passive Pokemon players, they received invitations to Worlds. That’s something that not every Pokemon fan can claim to have done. So it’s not like these were two guys that were some Pokemon-haters who were out to discourage Pokemon fans from enjoying their favorite game (with a mass-shooting, of all things). Furthermore, the two belonged to a Pokemon fan group on Facebook. Considering these things, do these two seem like the kind of people who would want to have a shootout at an organized Pokemon event? I don’t think so.

“But what of the evidence to the contrary?” What evidence would that be? Some might point out that the name of their Facebook group was “Mayhem Pokemon Crew”. And? It’s yet another Facebook fan group with an edgy-sounding name. There are a lot of gaming groups with edgy names like that. They are usually so named, not because there is a desire among it’s members for wrong-doing, but just to give their group a sort of appeal.

“But what about the joke about ‘killing the competition’?” It would seem that the two made a really bad joke, and they underestimated people’s capacities to take it seriously. And that they took it seriously wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; making such jokes with weapons makes people seriously consider the safety of people near them. But by the looks of it, it really was just a joke, even if a bad one.

It seems like the Pokemon community generally wants to see these two men locked away, and the liberal media doesn’t seem to care much to discourage them considering that, in turn, this story is being reworked by people with an agenda that involves rewriting the constitution of our republic to take away the right to possess weapons.

The court of people’s minds have already assigned guilt where there might not actually be any.

Considering the information that’s been presented to me so far concerning the two men accused by so many of plotting a massacre at the Pokemon World Championships, I am not convinced that the two actually had any intention of carrying out a shooting at the event.

It would appear as though the only charges that the two men face concern their possession of firearms without a permit, and other firearms charges. This is a matter that is in the hands of the justice system. As for us Pokemon fans, it might actually be mistaken to assign guilt, considering that the evidence points to the two men not being a danger to the Worlds event.

We might find out more about the supposed would-be shooting soon. Until then, it would seem that the two men might be innocent of what so many are accusing them of. I know that people are jittery concerning the recent increase in mass shootings, but it might be that, in this case, there’s no guilt.

As the old saying goes, “It’s better for twelve guilty men to go free than one innocent man be condemned.” That’s something to think about.

UPDATE (9/2/2015): The two would-be shooters have been denied bail. Because of this, the two will be held for about 4 months, the time it would take before their trial would take place.

It would seem that the Facebook conversation between the two wasn’t the only time that the two had joked about guns. There is an ongoing investigation into whether there was a potential mass-casualty situation. That’s something that still seems unsure, but that doesn’t mean that those viewing the case from the outside looking in aren’t already convinced of their guilt. It really doesn’t look good for the two right now, however. That these two have engaged in threatening gun jokes before means that there is at least something wrong with their sense of humor. What’s more, there is also an ongoing investigation into whether one of the two engaged in cyberbullying. If that turns out to be the case, that would make the two look even worse. That’s one of those things that the public hears about and gets sick of pretty quick. That would contribute much more to the desire to make an example out of the two.

The way things are looking, the two have an established history of making threatening gun jokes on the internet, and the matter culminated in the two being found to have brought near an event the same guns that they posted a picture of while making a joke threatening the safety of the event attendees. It really doesn’t look good for these two. Based on the information provided, it’s not surprising that the two were denied bail.

At this point, however, the most serious charges against them concern their possession of firearms and ammunition without permits. They still don’t officially face charges for conspiring to commit a mass murder. At this point, however, it’s hard to tell just what their motives were. That “they seem crazy” is not sufficient to convict someone for conspiring to commit a mass murder, there needs to be substantial evidence for that. However, the history of the two’s online interactions seem sufficient to deny them bail.

The two had a lawyer, who insisted that the two didn’t have any intent to cause harm. However, intent is a hard thing for people to measure. What the two joked about (if they were joking) was a pretty serious matter concerning the safety of a number of people. So it’s not a surprise that the two failed a dangerousness hearing.

What becomes of the two is up for the justice system to decide. For those wondering why I made a post that appeared to defend these two: It wasn’t my intention to defend what either of these two did that may have been wrong. Personally, I find the mentality of those who are out for blood a little distasteful, and I pointed out that there are mitigating factors to this case. Whether the two were guilty of plotting to carry out a mass-murder is something that I still don’t know, considering the information currently available to me (and to just about everyone else). A lot of people seem to have their minds made up, and much of that seems to come from emotional reaction, facilitated in part due to how the information was presented to them, rather than by carefully considering the information available. I’m sure that most people, if they were to appear on the news one day with a serious charge made against them that they were innocent of, would strongly desire that people would carefully consider the case rather than assume the worst about them. But it seems that the court of public opinion isn’t that kind. There are people who have been accused of sexually abusing children that have been cleared of the charges, but their reputations are still ruined. This is because of that “assume the worst” mentality. It might seem like “playing it safe” to some people, but assuming the worst of everyone you meet it taking it too far.

America has a problem, not with guns (which have been around for centuries), but with rotten attitudes, some of which can lead to mass shootings (which have only recently become a trend). America is going to continue having that problem as long as they obsess over padding all the walls and taking away the sharp objects, but not treating the mental disease that makes people want to go on killing sprees.

Animal abusers swiftly punished (but harvesters of human organs still run free)

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In the comments sections discussing the controversial videos that expose Planned Parenthood’s illegal selling of fetal organs, I remember reading about how the media is sparsely reporting the story and the political left is looking the other way, but if there were a video showing animal abuse, there would be immediate consequences.

As it so happens, a videotape by a group called Mercy for Animals has exposed blatant animal abuse at the hands of a farm in Tennessee. Immediately afterwards, Tyson Foods, who in turn supplies chicken to McDonald’s, terminated it’s contract with the farm.

So, there you go. Animals are abused, it’s caught on one video, and it gets immediate media coverage, and action is taken against the perpetrators immediately. However, when it’s human lives that are harvested for organs, and there are a number of videos, some of them hours long, showing evidence of the crimes that have been going on for years, it’s treated with a media blackout, and president Obama voices his support for the perpetrators without having watched any of the video evidence.

There seems to be a disease that is damaging American minds. The double-standard that the media is showing favoring livestock grown for food over their own human specie is just one symptom of it. There have also been more mass shootings in recent times. What this shows is an increasingly callous disregard for human lives.

One would-be incident was the possibly averted shooting that would have taken place at the Pokemon World Championships. There is a possibility that the two would-be gunmen were only joking. Even so, it’s become an occasion for some to use the incident to further their own agenda. There are a lot of people out there that have a problem with video games, and want to impose more futile regulations on them. And, of course, there are those who are out to take guns away from everybody.

Both guns and video games have been around for a long time, but mass shootings are a very recent epidemic. Even if you were to pad every wall and take all the sharp objects away from everybody, if the infirmity of mind that leads to mass killings remains untreated, they’re just going to keep happening.

The blatant disregard for human life is a growing epidemic in America, and the harvesting of human organs by Planned Parenthood is yet another symptom of it. As disgusting as this is, it’s even worse yet when you realize that the president of the United States himself is enabling it. If that’s where things are now, where do they go next?

Boston Police thwart shooting plot at Pokemon World Championships

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A plot to have a massacre at the 12th Pokemon World Championships has just been foiled. A link to the news story is here.

I’m happy that the Boston Police stopped these guys. While it’s easy to get cynical and think that police like to let power go to their heads, they do make communities much safer. I hate to think what might have happened if the would-be gunmen weren’t stopped.

As for the two would-be gunmen, they were competitors who had received invitations to worlds. One of them posted a picture of a hunting rifle on Facebook and said that they were “ready for Worlds”. The other joked about “killing the competition”.

One might think that it was just a joke between the two. If that were the case, it’s a vintage bad joke.

The two would-be gunmen might not have been bad at playing Pokemon (they did receive Worlds invitations), but they evidently didn’t understand the public nature of social media. The two attempted to gain entry into Worlds, but for a possibly unrelated reason, they were turned away and were slapped with “No Trespass” orders. The convention center security contacted the Boston Police Department, who were aware of their Facebook exchange, and they detained the two.

Bravo, Boston Police Department!

As it turns out, the two weren’t joking in their Facebook exchange. Boston Police found firearms in the two’s vehicle, and the two were arrested.

When you think about Pokemon, what do you think about? Maybe you think about cute, colorful hug-em-squeeze-ems that can breath fire and expel electricity. Maybe you think about dragons and whales wrestling for sport. You probably wouldn’t associate Pokemon with some guys who flip out and decide to kill a bunch of kids. As it turns out, there are some pretty messed-up people out there.

Pokemon is a game about friendship and adventure. In the Pokemon fanbase, there is a sense of energy and enthusiasm that makes it different from other game communities that I’ve seen. Pokemon players are less likely to become intellectual tyrants and instead encourage players that seem to be struggling. Because of this, it’s surprising that someone who plays Pokemon would seriously consider carrying out a mass murder. But, again, there are some messed-up people out there.

While it’s surprising enough that such a person existed in the Pokemon community, it’s more jarring still that two such people met one another and encouraged one another to carry out their sick murder fantasy. In the years that I’ve played Pokemon, I have never seen anything close to the kind of attitude that the two would-be gunmen exhibited.

However, there is a bright side to this. The Pokemon community, as well as the community at large, is much safer thanks to the efforts of the Boston Police.

As for the two failed terrorists, they’re probably finding out that Pokemon isn’t very popular in prison. One of the big games in prison is Poker. Not that they’ll be the ones playing; guys like them are typically used as bets.

I know that there are people out there who would use this incident to attempt to further their political agenda, saying things like “this is why guns should be banned”. No, it isn’t. This is why spanking a misbehaving child is a good idea. Doing stupid things like counting to five or ten only encourages your children to act up, because you’re establishing a limit that is very easy to push, and demonstrates to them that you’re too lazy to administer an actual punishment. Children have a hard time understanding an explanation as to why acting out is wrong, but they do understand when something hurts. Use that to discourage negative behavior, and in time, they’ll figure out the relationship between bad behavior and bad results. Besides, if you spank your child, you won’t kill them.

And if you spank your child, you’ll be far less likely to suffer the shame and disgrace of being the parent of some deviant that fired a gun at some kids playing games. Preventative measures are better than long-term regrets.

As for those who are worried about the safety of the Pokemon community, it’s much safer now that two would-be killers are locked up. The news may be jarring, but you can continue enjoying Pokemon.

UPDATE: I have made a separate entry with additional thoughts on this matter. It might be that the two men weren’t conspiring to carry out a mass shooting, after all.

Planned Parenthood might sue. Could this backfire?

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Let’s start this off by sharing a video that Planned Parenthood and the American political left does not want you to see. The following is the latest upload by the Center for Medical Progress:

The latest video is the most incriminating yet. In it, a former member of Planned Parenthood explains how babies were extracted alive then had their organs harvested, including a brain which was obtained from the living infant by slicing it’s face open.

Pretty disturbing stuff, right? And yes, it’s illegal. If the infant is extracted alive, killing it is a homicide.

So then, what does Planned Parenthood have to say about this? They’re thinking of suing.

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Planned Parenthood is considering legal action against the Center for Medical Progress, the group that exposed their baby-part-selling operations.

Yes, Planned Parenthood, who themselves have been selling baby parts in violation of Federal law, which is a felony, no less, is considering taking legal action against the group that exposed them for doing so, saying that it was illegal to spy on them in such a manner. In the United States of America, whose government has spied on it’s citizens.

This isn’t Bizarro World here. People who have been committing Federal felonies for years are considering suing the people who exposed them. Again, in America.

Planned Parenthood is considering this course of action, as opposed to not bringing much attention to themselves, because if they did, they might end up jailed for the crimes that there is video evidence of them having committed. I can imagine that ending up in Federal prison might ruin their day, as it probably would for most people. Considering this, wouldn’t they want to keep a low profile, to avoid bringing attention to themselves?

Republicans have been calling for defunding Planned Parenthood. Is that it? While it’s true that Planned Parenthood should be defunded (they should not have been receiving Federal funding to begin with), this shouldn’t stop there. Leadership of Planned Parenthood should be arrested. They broke the law. Why aren’t they being arrested?

The Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood, Dawn Laguens, demanded that the Center for Medical Progress submit “all of the videos and the source footage unedited, and they would hand it to Congress and law enforcement” as opposed to “splice it together in all sorts of crazy ways in order to tell a political story.”

Here’s the thing: if Dawn Laguens wants the full, unedited versions of these videos so badly, she can get them the same way everyone else has been getting them: by going to the Center for Medical Progress’ YouTube channel. They have been posting unedited versions of their videos in their entirety.

Didn’t she know that they were up there? Yes, there are edited versions about ten minutes long that get to the point. There are also corresponding FULL FOOTAGE videos, which happen to be far more incriminating than the edited versions. There goes the argument that CMP has only been uploading the most scandalous and heavily-butchered parts without sharing the rest of the conversations.

Also, I’m for Congress and law enforcement seeing these videos. I wouldn’t mind if every member of Congress saw these videos. However, I get the impression that Dawn Laguens doesn’t know how YouTube or the internet works. Turning these videos in to Congress doesn’t remove them from the internet. They’d still be on YouTube’s servers, probably on multiple servers to accommodate the high volume of traffic that these videos are getting. It’s likely that many people, anticipating efforts to silence the CMP, have downloaded the videos for themselves and might host them on their own web space or share them with a peer-to-peer service such as μTorrent. Once a file is on the internet, the expectation is that it will be copied many times and be around for a very long time, especially when the material gets significant media attention.

Another thing I find odd is that Planned Parenthood really seems to think that the American public is siding with them on this matter. That’s not the case. One thing that the comment sections of these videos show is that the people who have seen them are pissed. Big time. And as more people see these videos, there will be more people who will want to see Planned Parenthood’s leadership incarcerated, and the organization’s doors shut permanently.

Because of that, one would think that Planned Parenthood wouldn’t want to bring much attention to themselves right now.

iPhone 6s: Will it bend?

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The following is a video from the YouTube channel, Unbox Therapy:

Unbox Therapy has received a shell like the one to be used for the iPhone 6s, Apple’s next generation iPhone, to be revealed next month. It would seem like Apple listened to the consumer backlash which they received after the release of the iPhone 6, after it was found that those phones bend a little too easily.

Last year, Unbox Therapy uploaded a video showing the host bending an iPhone 6 Plus with just his hands, and it gave with just a little bit of force. Afterwards, the host tried to bend the phone back, and the screen actually started to come off the device. Considering that the iPhone would set a person back over $600, I think that might be a problem.

That puts Apple and their engineers in quite a dilemma. Either they were incompetent and didn’t sufficiently design or test the iPhone 6, or they knew that they had manufactured a faulty product and they put it on the market anyway because they knew that people were going to buy it. Which is it? In either case, Apple doesn’t look very good.

It seems like they’re doing something about it this time. The case for the 6s looks like it will still be made of aluminum (which is probably Apple’s favorite metal), but at least the case is going to be thicker at some points to make it more durable. I know that if I spent over $600 on a smart phone, I’d want it to last at least two years.

In terms of value for dollar, the iPhone is probably Apple’s best device. Besides that, Apple doesn’t offer much in the way of value. This is particularly true for their MacBook line. MacBooks are not the finest computers out there. In terms of technical specs, MacBooks are behind the times by several years. When a person buys a MacBook, they’re buying the same components that make up a PC. There’s the same storage drive as what’s used by PCs, and the same CPUs that are made by Intel, even if they’re dated. And Apple still has the nerve to charge over $1000 for these things. A person could buy a new laptop as technically capable as a MacBook for about half as much.

So, when a person buys a MacBook, what are they spending so much money on? To be able to use Mac OS. And in the case of the newest Macbook, a single USB type C port, so you can brag about being one of the first to adopt the new USB standard.

I like USB type C, but having that being the only port on the device? And there’s only one? If MSI wasn’t also an early adopter of USB type C, there’d probably be far fewer people taking it seriously. Also, the USB type C port is how the system charges. Which is a cool feature of USB type C. However, because the MacBook has only one USB type C port, it can’t charge and have another USB device connected to it at the same time. So, those who like to use their computer to charge their phones might want to find a better solution than the new MacBook. Like plugging it into the wall. That’s been a thing for a while.

I compared the prices and technical specs of several PCs using Google shopping search, comparing them to the new MacBook. This is what I found:

macbook specs

The new MacBook, with it’s admittedly adequate (for now) 256 GB solid state drive, 8 GB of ram, and dinky 1.1 GHz CPU would set a person back $1,279.00. Think that’s a bargain? Read on.

dell inspiron specs

I searched for laptops with comparable specs. Among what I found was this Dell Inspiron i15RV. It also sports a 256 GB solid state drive and a 1.4 GHz CPU. It would only set a person back $589.00. One might point out that it only has 4GB of ram, but an upgrade to 8GB would only set a person back about $60 and would be very easy for just about anyone to install.

To hammer the point home, I searched for laptops within $100 of the price listed for the new MacBook, and what I found is a laptop that can beat up the MacBook:

acer aspire specs

If you’re going to spend over a thousand dollars on a laptop, why not spend it well? This Acer Aspire V Nitro achieves 1.3 TB of storage with a solid state drive and a hard disk drive, has 16 GB of RAM, and has a 2.6 GHz CPU, more than twice as fast as the MacBook’s.

By the way, for those thinking of pointing this out: Yes, I know that there’s more to a processor than it’s clock speed. Still, it’s a valid question as to why Apple prefers processors with lower clock speeds in their computers.

I started on iPhones, and drifted to MacBooks. That might seem like drifting off topic, but it does help to be realistic when it comes to the quality of tech. Especially when it comes to Apple, who is famous for offering products that have an MSRP that is disproportionately greater than the cost of the components that went into it. I don’t hate Apple, and I think iPhone is one of the better smart phones on the market. However, not every Apple product is a great deal, and even when it comes to iPhone, it helps to do some research before going out and making a purchase.

UPDATE (8/19/2015): Unbox Therapy has uploaded a new video testing the iPhone 6s shell that they received. Here it is:

It would seem like Apple has taken the “bendgate” matter seriously, and has made a shell that is much harder to bend. So confident they were in their new shell, that they sent one to the man who bent their iPhone 6 with his bare hands, bringing much attention to it’s durability. Predictably, he put the new shell to the test. That won’t be the only thing to consider about the next iPhone, but this is still a pretty cool development.

Free bleeding: The new thing in feminist insanity (grossness warning)

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Feminists have been hard at work to appear as immature as possible, and some of them have found an irresponsible new way of doing so, and it’s called “free bleeding”.

If you’re afraid that that means that feminists are now experiencing their periods without the use of tampons and pads, I have bad news for you: that’s just what it is.

This became a thing just after Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon without using a tampon. She was going through her period, and she reasoned that it would be far more comfortable to run the marathon without a feminine hygiene product, though she also said (likely as a pretext) that she did it to raise awareness of women that don’t have access to feminine hygiene products.

So, she bled a gross black mark right into the pants she was wearing. And feminists enjoyed it, adopting free bleeding in an effort to overcome oppression and erase the stigma associated with menstruation.

What oppression would that be? If it’s oppression to use a maxi pad, would it also be oppression to shower and brush one’s own teeth?

Believe it or not, there’s no stigma associated with menstruation, and it’s not oppression when there’s an expectation that someone exercise hygienic practices associated with it. Menstruation is a natural part of a woman’s life. It’s not unfair in any way that women experience such a thing, nor is the expectation that she manages it in a safe and hygienic manner. Not managing one’s period safely creates a biological hazard, and it leaves people with an impression that the person is irresponsible. And psychotic. If menstruation is gross, it’s gross because it’s not being properly handled.

If a person doesn’t have maxi pads or tampons, does that really mean that they have no solution to managing their period? Maxi pads and tampons are relatively recent inventions. Women have been finding numerous solutions throughout history. Why have they been doing this? Probably because they want to avoid ruining their socks, shoes, and other clothing, and maybe also because there would be something unpleasant with having one’s genitals be bloody and infected.

I know that there are people out there that would prefer for men and women to be the same. They’re not getting what they want because there will always be physiological differences between men and women, and therefore differences in medical treatment and routine maintenance regarding these differences. You play the cards you’re dealt. Before someone mentions it, I’ll point out that going transgender can only take a person so far. The most science can do to change a person’s gender is butcher their body to get them to closely resemble a member of the opposite gender. If you’re a man who thinks he’s a woman or vice versa, you have a psychosis. If you don’t like what I just said, you don’t like facts.

There are times when what you’re saying is so obvious, you kind of feel like you’re being condescending. It would be a matter so self-evident, that it’s tiring just to think about arguing about it at length to someone who just doesn’t want to accept it. It’s particularly the case when it comes to arguing with liberal fringe groups such as feminists and vegetarians. If they were to come out of their immature worldviews, they’d have so much to gain, such as no longer being wrong about something and experiencing the benefits of putting something that works into practice. But they don’t want to. They’re so determined to be so wrong.

Feminists in particular strive to be offensive. It’s the reason why many of them unashamedly accuse men in general of crimes for which individual men have no guilt. Their hypocrisy is so obvious, accusing men of being sexist when they themselves practice it. But they don’t care. Feminists are out to be grating and offensive. This new thing involving free bleeding is just another step down into the pit of insanity.

There’s no defending Planned Parenthood anymore.

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I had just watched some of the videos recently posted on the YouTube channel The Center for Medical Progress, and I’m floored. The videos in question expose operations by Planned Parenthood to sell aborted fetal tissue.

If you’re wondering, selling fetal tissue is highly illegal. It’s a federal felony.

You can watch the videos if you want. But if you do, you’ll probably be shocked and disgusted. These videos show a side to humanity that might change the way you look at people. The following embedded video is the first uploaded to that channel, so it’s works well as a place to start:

In the past, the issue of abortion has been a topic that’s been very politicized, to the point that if a person stated their stance on the issue, then you could figure out their political affiliation pretty quick. Planned Parenthood became the most famous offerer of abortions in the United States, so they became like a face for a controversial topic.

However you stand when it comes to abortion, you really should not be defending Planned Parenthood when it comes to this. This is the kind of thing you should want to distance yourself from, and fast. What Planned Parenthood has done is not just illegal, it’s morally repugnant and offensive to basic human decency. The president would have to try pretty hard for his next scandal to look worse than this.

These videos, more of which are pending, are the result of a three-year-long investigation. What this by itself indicates is that Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in dead baby parts has been going on for a long time. Hearing their employees and leadership speak of this in these videos as though they weren’t a big thing is pretty chilling. What’s obviously evil to the rest of us can be just another day in the office to someone who has long since reasoned away what they’ve been doing.

Planned Parenthood has since gone on damage control, saying that the videos in question have been heavily edited. Which might not sound like a defense against the accusation or a refutation of the evidence clearly shown in the videos, because it’s neither. It’s quite a lame defense for such a serious crime. It’s like if hundreds of photographs of the concentration camp at Auschwitz were being circulated in newspapers during WWII, and Goebbels answered this by saying that some of the pictures were taken at a Dutch angle. Also, “FULL FOOTAGE” videos of the investigation were, in fact, posted to YouTube on the very same channel, making the “heavily edited” defense entirely useless.

As hard as it may be to believe, the full footage videos may actually be more incriminating than the shorter ones that get to the point. For example, in this video, at about 4:27:50, a conversation starts between the investigator and a Planned Parenthood employee regarding another client. The client wanted a variety of baby parts to help them to make humanized mice.

Yes, humanized mice.

Planned Parenthood is knowingly in cahoots with a bunch of mad scientists who want to make humanized mice. It sounds like a cross between a bad sci-fi movie and a right-wing worst case scenario lecture. But it happened.

And yes, it’s highly illegal.

There’s no defending Planned Parenthood anymore. If someone would try to defend them, they’re either an obvious troll who is trying to get a reaction, or so far to the left that they fall off the side of the plane, or something else that’s probably a little difficult to explain. Maybe some kind of ideologue that Democrats would be happy to have voting for them.

So, what’s it going to be, America? Still going to wait for matters to get worse? It can get worse. We’re arriving at the point where those who do evil can do so without fear because they know that most of us don’t have the nerve to do anything about it. A lot of what we’ve seen lately has been pretty horrible, but that’s just the stuff we know about. There’s bound to be far more.

My opinion of cheating in Pokemon

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In Pokemon, cheating is huge. And it’s a very sensitive topic. On one side, you see people saying that it devalues the game, and on the other, you see people making excuses for it because that’s what they do. Being someone who plays Pokemon, I have an opinion of cheating, and it’s not really favorable.

If you hack your games but don’t connect to online competitions or trade online, then this might not apply to you, because what you’re doing doesn’t really have an impact on online competitions or what people get in trades. If you’re ruining the game for anyone, it would only be yourself, but you probably have your own reasons for doing what you do. It’s not like you’re trying to trick anyone into thinking you’re putting a lot of effort forward or using illegitimate means to gain a competitive advantage. Competitive cheaters, on the other hand, are different.

Most people don’t need an explanation of just how obvious it is that when a competitive environment is governed by rules and regulations, when participants circumvent or attempt to defeat those rules in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage for themselves, that’s unfair for those of us who played by the rules. Such cheating isn’t just defiant to the established rules of the competition, it disrespects the efforts of those who play by the rules.

Therefore, when a Pokemon video game competition forbids pokemon or save files that have been obtained or modified with an external device or outside normal gameplay, to enter such pokemon or games with such save files into competitions would be considered cheating. Obvious.

So obvious, in fact, that it can be quite surprising how far cheaters go to insist that they’re not cheating.

Of course, they don’t want to be called cheaters. That’s a very unpleasant-sounding word. It implies what they pretty-much do. So you’ll see some of them try pretty hard to explain why they think that what they’re doing isn’t cheating. Similarly, people who lie don’t like being called liars, even though that’s what they’re going. If they’re outed, they lose the advantage that they’d gain from their cover-up.

In some cases, you might hear something like: “It’s not like I’m giving myself something unobtainable. I’m just saving myself a little time.” Is that so? So then, if you make yourself the finest set of competitive battling pokemon that you could raise Xerox, buy a plane ticket and travel to some place like Vancouver so you can participate in Worlds, then get banned from the competition and are turned away, how much time did you actually save? You could have instead bred and raised a team of six competitively-viable pokemon from eggs in just a few hours each to save yourself from being humiliated in front of a bunch of other Pokemon players that don’t even want to look at a cheater.

Yes, obtaining competitively-viable pokemon is easier in the sixth gen games than it ever has been. It only took me a few hours to hatch a 5IV (except SpA) Torchic with Speed Boost and an Adamant nature. Even if it only takes a few hours, hatching a competitively viable pokemon from an egg is a rewarding experience. In sixth gen, it’s so easy to get wild pokemon with high IVs thanks to things such as Friend Safari in XY or Dexnav in ORAS, and use items like Destiny Knot and Everstone so natures and stats are passed on with breeding. Then there’s the fact that pokemon generated in the sixth gen that are in the Undiscovered egg group have a guaranteed 31 in at least three of it’s IVs, which includes legendary pokemon. If someone still cheats up pokemon for themselves just to have some that are competitively viable, just how lazy are they?

Some cheaters complain that if they have to play fair, then they’d be at a disadvantage compared to players that put more time into the game. That actually sounds like an opportunity to learn a life lesson. If someone puts more time into something, then they’re more likely to be better at it. Professional athletes spend hours most days of the week conditioning themselves so they’d perform well when it comes time to play. A student who studies for an hour every school day is more likely to do better in exams. If you think it would be fun to raise pokemon, you’d spend time doing it. If Pokemon is your favorite game, then why not play it?

Cheating has become so widespread, that some players have felt justified in doing so because there are so many other players that do it. That’s some faulty reasoning. If a player is one of the thousands that might be turned away from a single event for bringing a cheated pokemon, they’ve still been turned away. Some that cheat might be getting away with it because they are using a hacked pokemon that can pass the checks. But that doesn’t make that pokemon legit, it means that the player discovered a way to get around the system.

It might seem like I’m explaining why cheating is wrong to a bunch of kids. I remember seeing numbers representing disqualifications for a single competition by division, and the highest number of disqualifications was for the Masters division, which represents the oldest Pokemon players, with over a thousand disqualifications. It might be that the numbers were skewed more towards the Masters division because there may have been more participants in that division. However, that’s a huge number of grown-ups turned away for cheating that should have known better. Considering that Pokemon has what is easily the biggest eugenics simulator that gaming has to offer, one would think that grown-ups would be more interested in learning the rules so that they don’t come off as unfit.

I posted a couple days ago that stricter hack checks are going to be implemented for Rating Battles and Battle Competitions. It wouldn’t be surprising if the same checks would be in place for Worlds this year. Depending on how strict these checks are, there might be quite a bit of drama from players that are sent home because they were found to have something ineligible in their party.

But what?

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I’ve been noticing a trend where people append their sentences with “but…”, and that’s how they end their sentence. An example of this phenomenon is as follows:

“I intended to park closer to the store, but…”

When expressed in writing, the substance of the sentence ends with a comma, then the word “but” is appended, followed by an ellipsis.

When a person ends their sentence with “but”, they often look to one side, with their head leaning slightly, as though to leave the remainder of their statement to be inferred solely though their tone. Rather the finish the sentence, the speaker trails off and shifts the burden of interpreting the incomplete thought to the listeners, because the speaker cannot be bothered to properly express the thought that might not have been properly formulated in their mind to begin with. As they do so, they often smugly roll their eyes and stress the word “but” as though using such a lazy template of communication were something that they could take pride in, not respecting you enough to communicate with you as though you were their intellectual equal.

The word “but” has nearly the same meaning as “however”, and is often followed by more information that adds to or may even modify the previous statement. It may also indicate exceptions or perhaps even make contradictions to the preceding proposition. Furthermore, ellipses (…) indicates omissions; statements intentionally left incomplete.

Considering this, when a person ends a sentence with “but…”, they could be leaving out just about anything. Even important information could be omitted. So the example sentence above:

“I intended to park closer to the store, but…”

…Could have omitted the following:

  • “…I was attacked by killer ants from outer space.”
  • “…my car gave out in the middle of the parking lot.”
  • “…there are picketers outside that hate the fact that this company makes money.”
  • “…I was a little concerned with the militant, pedophile rapists that are throwing rocks at our windows.”

Why omit something that, if known, would have likely influenced decisions made by the hearers?

If you’re sick of this kind of corner-cutting in communication, there’s something you can do about it. When someone ends a sentence with “but…”, ask them “…but what?” Have them finish their own sentence. In so doing, you’ll be directing the burden back onto them of formulating their own thoughts in their own minds, where it belongs, and making them properly express that thought in the form of a complete sentence.

It might be that, after several times, they’ll get the point and stop being lazy with their communication. Or they’ll just take their lackadaisical sentence structure to someone who doesn’t mind that they’re not finishing their own sentences. In either case, you win.

If someone were to be just as lazy with other areas of their life, how would it work out for them? Imagine how they might sound confessing to it:

  • “I tied one shoe, but I didn’t tie the other one. Oops. Oh well, I’ll just leave it like that.” *
  • “I know you wanted a turkey sandwich, but I found this ‘Tofurky’ instead. Close enough, right?”
  • “I started the laundry, but then just left the wet shirts in the washer for days. Now they have mildew on them. My bad!”
  • “Yeah, the steak is underdone, but what do you expect when I only cook it in half the time! Aren’t I cute?”
  • “Yeah, I want kids, but I’m still making you pull out before you’re done.”

Like that last point, leaving sentences incomplete by ending them with “but…” is like making someone pull out before they’re done; you’re obviously not concerned with the other party’s satisfaction at all.

* Wow, that sounds stupid. It wouldn’t be surprising if that became a fad in middle schools and high schools.

Does Nintendo have a plan for curbing developer laziness?

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oldnintendoseal

Lately, there has been a lot of speculation about Nintendo’s NX console. This reminds me of the speculation that surrounded one of their previous projects, code-named Revolution, which turned out to be the Wii.

In both instances, Nintendo was having a weak console generation, and there has been speculation as to what kind of innovation they’d come up with next. In Wii’s case, the system didn’t disappoint, except in several notable areas:

  • The processor on the thing didn’t come close to the kind seen in Xbox 360 or PS3, though that didn’t prevent games like Metroid Prime 3 from running well on it,
  • Some people didn’t like the name Wii, and
  • Game developers largely treated the system as a dumping ground for miscellaneous shovelware and shallow, gimmicky experiences.

Recently, SquareEnix suggested possible support for the NX, which might even manifest in the form of a couple entries in the Dragon Quest series. There would be very little to worry about when it comes to SquareEnix. However, not every video game company out there is as committed to producing quality products.

In fact, the epidemic of low-quality shovelware is something that’s pretty widespread across various platforms, PC included. There have been botched releases that should have been relatively straight forward, such as a recent port of a Batman game to PC, or various broken games that game developers aren’t fixing because they already have gamers’ money.

There was a similar situation in the ’80s, just prior to the gaming crash of that time. Game makers were rushing low-quality, licensed products to consumers eager to buy them. One of the most famous of these was E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, famous for having so many unsold copies, that they were buried in huge quantities in a landfill in Arizona. Why were so many licensed games winding up in landfills? Because gamers were becoming jaded with the steady stream of over-hyped, low-quality products.

This is why, in the ’80s and early ’90s, the Nintendo Seal of Quality was such a big deal. That seal was Nintendo’s way of saying “We’ve reviewed this product and determined that it is a functional and enjoyable product that’s worth your money.” In some cases, one might wonder how a game managed to get Nintendo’s Seal of Quality. However, by encouraging game makers to strive to attain this seal on their products, Nintendo encouraged a level of quality in games that, otherwise, gamers had little guarantee of. There were no review sites such as MetaCritic or even GameFAQs back in the ’80s. That assurance of quality meant something to gamers.

Nintendo’s NX console is coming up, and there are probably many shovelware developers out there eagerly waiting to pile on their underwhelming digital refuse. Perhaps something like the Nintendo Seal of Quality would be an effective measure to protect gamers from wasting their hard-earned money on games that hardly work.

For such a thing to be effective, Nintendo would have to be discerning concerning what games are made for their system. They would have to be more stern than just being glad that some third party developer is making games for their system. They’d have to have what it takes to say “No, this product isn’t finished yet. Continue to work on it, and maybe we’ll review it again.” If Nintendo themselves were to once again take a stand to encourage quality in games, gamers would regain respect for Nintendo in a hurry. Because gamers do see that there are a few things wrong in the gaming industry.

Does the gaming industry have issues? Yeah, there are a few:

  • Rushing products to market for the gamers eager to buy it, ready or not,
  • Abusing DLC, in some cases charging money for content already on the game disk,
  • Games that can only be played online,
  • Not repairing buggy and broken games, even with simple updates.

There are more. It seems like some game makers are pushing the limits of what they can get away with. But if they keep it up, gamers might end up becoming much more cynical about something that should be about having fun. Yeah, fun. Did we forget that that’s what playing video games is about?

Would Nintendo stand up for gamers by encouraging quality games from game developers? It wouldn’t be the first time that they did. But it’s certain that they continue to encourage sales of their own game systems by making quality games, themselves. That makes it very easy to be a Nintendo fan. That alone might be the strongest case for buying an NX. Whether third parties put much effort forward on NX games remains to be seen.

There’s a reason why Nintendo has as much respect as they do. They put a lot of effort forward. Satisfied customers tend to become return customers. If another gaming crash occurs, Nintendo would be very likely to survive it, because many gamers trust them.