I went to see Avatar with my family in a packed suburban movie theater, and truth be told the only thing that sticks out in my memory now are the trailers, one in particular. Sure, everybody—including myself—made a little gasp or a yummy sound when we saw the words on the green-band message before the trailers lift off of the screen. But they mostly blurred together. It was a slew of standard family fare, such as the latest unnecessary Shrek movie, another Robert Zemeckis animated feature, and a lot of magical sparkly things flying across the screen in 3D. The main attraction hadn’t even started and the audience was already moaning and groaning like the proverbial money shot was imminent. Then the theater fell silent, and it was my turn to blow my movie-going load. A deep orchestral hum started up, the NASA logo appeared, and then the huge IMAX screen was filled with stars and wide angle shots of space equipment.

Call me a dork, but the IMAX: Hubble 3D trailer made me feel like a little boy on Christmas. It seemed completely out of place among all the kids’ movies, and the audience’s silent reaction seemed to agree with me.

I can see how it might be hard to get pumped for a movie that seems like it was made for science centers and museums. But I’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff produced by the Hubble telescope. The Ultra Deep Field 3D—that one time they pointed it at a patch of blank sky for over a week, found an unbelievable amount of galaxies clustered there, and made them into a 3D collage—was pretty memorable.

Stuff like that gets me hooked on the idea of a space documentary with that all-important third dimension added in.

Avatar alone gave me fleeting waves of vertigo; I can only imagine the head popping potential for this movie. Is anyone else with me, or am I just a nerd?

Image via ABCNews

Fast food pioneer and visionary Glen Bell, Jr. died in his home on January 16, 2010, at the age of 86. He brought the world one of the most famous businesses in America: Taco Bell.

Bell was born on September 3, 1923. He was one of Glen and Ruth Bell’s six children. Raised in California, he served in the Marines during World War II. Upon his return to California, he first got into the fast food by opening up a few drive-in stands in the late 1940s. Originally he had a hamburger stand, which competed with the other drive-in places around, but his fondness for Mexican food drove him to found Taco Bell. Bell first sold tacos at his stand for a mere 19 cents, and they became so popular that he opened up Taco Tias with a single partner in 1954. In 1956 Bell sold the Taco Tias because his partner no longer wanted to expand the franchise. One year after selling Taco Tias he opened El Taco with three other partners, but after realizing he didn’t want to answer to partners anymore, he struck out on his own and opened the first Taco Bell in 1962 in Downey, California. His initial $4,000 investment in the restaurant soon turned into a money-making machine. In two years he opened eight more Taco Bells, with grand openings featuring live salsa music, free sombreros, and searchlights. The chain grew rapidly. By the time it was bought out by PepsiCo in 1978, there were already 868 franchises open. Now the company claims to operate more than 5,800 franchises and serve over 2 billion customers a year in the United States.

I can’t even begin to put into words how much this man has impacted my life. I’ve made many many many drunken runs to the Bell—even sober ones. I never met the man, but without him, the world would be missing of one of its greatest fast food establishments. So I propose a toast to Glen Bell, a visionary, entrepreneur, and greater man than I could ever hope to be. Thank you, Glen. Thank you for bringing college students everywhere affordable, tasty munchables; for bringing us quick, delicious meals during our work breaks; and for bringing us the beloved Chihuahua, and so much more. Thank you Glen, for the smiles on our faces when we open up that wrapper and bite into a little slice of drunk person’s heaven. May you rest in peace, enjoy the infinite supply of angeltacos you have surely earned.

A lot of people raised objections to a new Dodge Charger commercial when it premiered during the Superbowl, mostly along the lines of “it’s tacky, misogynistic, and lame.” So, inevitably, someone made a spoof of it to post on the internet. Here is that spoof, a “rebuttal” from the female perspective. And it’s, um, PERFECT. Seriously, if it was a real ad, I would buy whatever it was selling for my mom (she’s a third-wave feminist).

(via Alex Blaggazine)

[Ed. Note: We at The Yeti love politics. We also love poetry. Most of all, though, we love combining things we love.]

A HAIKU ON CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES:

Time-tested truths, like
“The gov that govs least govs best.”
(Somalia rules!)

A GHAZALVILLANELLE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

[Ed. Note: Originally I wanted the national security poem to be a ghazal, an ancient Arabian poetic form, for irony. But ghazals are super difficult and complicated, so I wrote a villanelle that steals pretty heavily from Dylan Thomas' classic "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" instead.]

Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights,
We must oblige our enemies if they want to call it war;
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

The Muslim snuck in ‘cause our security wasn’t tight,
They should have made him strip, drop his pants to the floor;
Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights.

And that other country, Yemen, should be in our bombing sights—
If we aren’t killing foreigners, then what’s our freedom for?
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

We aren’t even torturing, that keeps me up at night,
The rule of law prevailing will just make them hate us more.
Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights.

But Mr. President, for Iran please do what’s right.
(Psst, I heard the Ayatollah called Michelle a whore.)
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

We must shock and awe the world, must attack with all our might,
Must kill and maim our enemies, must wage an Endless War.
Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights.
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

A CINQUAIN ON ECONOMIC POLICY:

Ronald
Common sense con
Did it stimulate you?
We got the cornhusker kickback
Reagan

William Blake? Who dat?

(Images via Yahoo! News)

As I’m sure you can tell, this is a trailer for the upcoming film The Losers. It looks pretty good! I for one will probably see it in theaters and try to enjoy the experience. Here are five reasons why I think you should do the same:

1. Zoe Saldana is really really, ridiculously good looking.

2. Rocket launchers!

3. It’s co-written by Peter Berg (of Friday Night Lights).

4. Something something something comic books.

5. STRINGER BELL!!! (Idris Elba, aka The Best)

President Barack Obama at his first State of the Union address.

President Obama gave his first State of the Union address on Wednesday, January 27, and I had my concerns about what was to come. My fears proved well-founded. Dubya’s State of the Union addresses were more than mere political speeches – they were masterpieces of dark, screwball comedy, using blatant absurdity to reveal deep and disturbing truths about our national character. Anyone with a heart and a brain had to laugh, if only to keep from breaking down in tears.

Inevitably, Obama failed to live up to his predecessor. Besides a few quips, the whole affair came off as pretty much sober-minded and reasonable, hardly the laugh riot one would expect from contemporary American politics. However, I’ll do my best examine the speech in a similar manner.

Continue Reading »

Ah, welcome to the wonderful world of democracy. America: shining beacon of Freedom to the entire world. Let us be the very paragon, the Shining City on a Hill for others to look to for their marching orders. We will lead by example. And salute the outcomes of our most celebrated democratic system.

Nah, screw that. Do you really want to trust your political future to the fickle and unreasoning opinions of the unwashed masses? Take matters into your own hands!

So, you’ve decided to steal an election…

Well, where would you start? You might want to tap your connections in the industry. You’ve got a good start there: 80% of the voting machines in the country are operated by ES&S and Diebold (now Premier Election Solutions), which are operated by two brothers, whom both have Republican ties. On August 14th, 2000, The CEO of Diebold, Walden O’Dell, promised to “deliver” Ohio for Bush in 2000. And he did.

You might want to make your machines incredibly easy to hack. If they’re hacked, make it impossible to tell. A study conducted by Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy showed how such machines can be hacked in less than a minute. They found: “Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with little if any risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss… AccuVote-TS machines are susceptible to voting-machine viruses that can spread malicious software automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre- and post-election activity.”

Besides being hacked by software, make it ridiculously easy to open physically. Make the lock easy to pick. And, make the exact same key open every voting machine in the nation. Then, make it a key that’s easy to find, like, a hotel minibar or a jukebox key. Then, post a picture of the exact key on your website. Diebold did all this.

If you can tell that a machine has been tampered with in some way, destroy the evidence. Poll workers are instructed to zip-tie their machines shut. If the zip-tie is found to be cut or broken at the end of the day, all of the results from that machine are discarded. So, just send some operatives into the enemy’s strongest precincts and cut the zip-ties. That way, all of the votes registered on that machine will be discarded.

You might want to hire someone to steal the election for you. Computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testified under oath before Congress that he was approached by Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) to write a program that would flip an election 51-49 and would be entirely undetectable.

You know what? Why not just have some of your friends who run the polls take the machines home with themselves? Workers in California actually took home electronic voting machines with them before the election in a policy – I’m not kidding – called “sleepovers.” I can’t imagine the justification.

Finally, make sure that the code stays secret. Make sure the public has no oversight. Diebold has repeatedly invoked a defense of “trade secrets” to resist turning over the code that comprises the very essence of American democracy. Florida’s 13th District Court of Appeals agreed.

This, of course, is just a primer. There are many more creative ways to rig an election, but the basics have been covered here. Remember, your most valuable tool is a complete disdain for the integrity of your nation, the faith of its people, and the sacred process of democratic politics that may be mankind’s last vestige of freedom.

Living at Osceola Ridge was an unadulterated travesty. The management was incompetent. The premises were dirty. People had parties and blasted music at all hours, filling the parking lot and intimidating police into staying in their cars and relying on megaphones to break them up. Management breached the lease by entering my apartment on more than one occasion without giving warning. Maintenance would enter and leave without locking my front door. Booth’s free housing scholarship was mismanaged. Utility bills were divided up improperly between roommates. A roommate of mine was fined twice for the same offense. Booth Management has changed its name to iPad Management, but I have a hunch that the essential incompetence remains.

I decided to move out in the Fall of 2006. To top it all off, Booth illegally withheld money from my security deposit without notifying me within 30 days. So, I did what any legally informed and pissed-off former resident would do: I threw the book at them. What follows is the letter I wrote to Booth Corporate. A quick apology was the reply, and my money was refunded three months later. It was only $30, but it was damn worth it.

Dear Booth Properties,

I received a letter in the mail, postmarked October 1st, 2007, detailing Booth’s intention to impose a claim upon my security  deposit. Unfortunately, the time period within which to notify me of your intention has expired, so that Booth has waived its right to do so.

Florida Statute 83.49(3)(a) clearly states:

“(3)(a)  Upon the vacating of the premises for termination of the lease, if the landlord does not intend to impose a claim on the security deposit, the landlord shall have 15 days to return the security deposit together with interest if otherwise required, or the landlord shall have 30 days to give the tenant written notice by certified mail to the tenant’s last known mailing address of his or her intention to impose a claim on the deposit and the reason for imposing the claim [...] If the landlord fails to give the required notice within the 30-day period, he or she forfeits the right to  impose a claim upon the security deposit.” Emphasis added.

To satisfy the above notice period, Booth Properties would have had to have postmarked their letter detailing their intent to impose a claim on my deposit by September 9th (9/09/07), my date of vacating Osceola Ridge having been August 9th, 2007. Clearly, this statutory requirement has not been met as evidenced by the following:

The letter addressed to me is dated 9/13/07, past the statute of limitations. The statement of deposit is dated 9/13/07, past the statute of limitations. The check for the remainder of my deposit is dated 9/20/07, past the statute of limitations. Finally, the certified mail containing the notice is postmarked October 1, 2007, undoubtedly past the statute of limitations, ending on September 9. Booth Properties has therefore forfeited its right to impose a claim upon my security deposit.

I am not disputing my utility charges of $11.69, but the charge deducted for “additional cleaning” at $30.00. I fully expect the latter charge to be refunded to me in full upon receipt of this letter, in accordance with Florida law.

I am writing to assist any fellow Booth residents, in order that they may prevent being scammed in the way I almost was. Booth nearly got me. Don’t let them get you.

Politicians are not scientists, nor are they historians.  Politicians can be wildly intelligent people, passionate about a commitment to public service and the overall improvement of the standard of living, but at the end of the day, the men and women we elect to office have never worked in a nuclear research facility or spent hours in a library studying the nuance of Middle Eastern history.  We surround them with a throng of advisors and hope that the delicate balance of Constitutional checks prevents them from making the wrong decisions.

So tell me, ladies and gentleman, what are we going to do about Iran?

President Bush’s push for military action centers conspicuously on the development of Iran’s nuclear program, stating in an October 17th press conference, “It is in the world’s interest to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon.”  At what point does the development of a nuclear reactor for energy purposes turn into the creation (and, more importantly, deployment of) nuclear arms?  What is the role of the United States in determining when and where that line is drawn and how does that relate to US involvement in the past?  With a little bit of science and a little bit of history, alternative view points are sure to be found.

On Monday, November 17th, the FSU Public Debate Society engaged this topic head-on, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of US-involvement with Iran’s nuclear program.  The resolution read:

RESOLVED: The United States Federal Government should permit the development of an Iranian nuclear program.

Kimmy Stewart, Captain of the FSU Policy Debate Team, lead the efforts to affirm the topic with teammate Dustin Daniels.

“Iran isn’t going to build nuclear weapons,” insists Stewart, “The western view of Iran as an anxious, war-hungry nation is ahistorical – nukes just aren’t their bag.  As it stands, Iran has considerable nuclear technology but they depend on the West to enrich the uranium necessary for nuclear power.  We are forcing them to depend on us and projecting a strictly neocolonial policy on a modern state.”

Stewart’s claim holds considerable weight when viewed in conjunction with certain scientific truths, the first of these being that a nuclear reactor is not equivalent to a nuclear bomb.  While the technology of one is helpful for the development of the other, Stewart points out that “there is little incentive to fund a multi-billion dollar nuclear reactor to hide and aid a clandestine weapons program.”  While I won’t pretend to understand the intimacies of nuclear physics, I do know one thing: plutonium equals bombs.  Only the finest enrichment of uranium can yield the high-potency plutonium required for the creation of a nuclear warhead, a process that far exceeds the enrichment needs of a nuclear energy site.  If Iran is to rebuild its most recent nuclear program, under various contracts with Russia and China since 1995, the constraints of the building agreement do not describe the kind of facility required to refine uranium for any purpose beyond the creation of energy.

On the negative side of this resolution, FSU Debater Renzo Cafferata attempted to undermine the entire concept of nuclear development.  “Though the ideas behind the NPT [Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty] were good,” he says, “the Treaty itself is flawed.  Reducing the number of arms while allowing for the development of nuclear energy sites is the 1970s answer to the question of nuclear war and alternative energy – better alternatives can be found.”

Engagement on the question of environmental politics is one which the Bush administration has avoided completely, focusing instead on impending war, doom, and gloom. US involvement with the initiation and development of Iran’s nuclear program since the 1960s seems to have completely departed from modern discussions of Iran’s nuclear capacity, with current leadership poised as both the innocent victim of potential assault and the defensive leader of the world police.  Should the US invade Iran?  Does the support of a nuclear program compromise global security, international treaties, or environmental concern? The Public Debate Society engaged each of these topics at the debate.  In the future, come, get involved, get educated, and prevent catastrophe.

The FSU Public Debate Society was created to bring national and international topics to the larger public for the purposes of education, activism, and engagement.  Each debate lasts approximately 45-minutes, followed by a question and answer period between audience members and the debaters. For further information regarding the debate or the team, please contact FSU’s Policy Debate Coach, Matt Grindy at  mag04m@fsu.edu.

Smash! Chips from the passenger door splatter like confetti. Chewy barks with a wolf’s howl. Firestone tires screech and skid. The white bandanna on Bill’s head is covered in slimy red. His brows furrow and his eyes protrude. Bill’s dimples disappear. His legs become crushed and his arms become sprawled across the roof of the car (the car has since become a convertible). A squeak like a mouse is heard from Chewy, and then… there are no more barks heard from Chewy. Bill’s car rests at a forty-five degree angle.

I recognize the Greek letters of his black hooded sweater; the boy is in a fraternity. His head bobbles and his eyes blink and his legs wobble a little. His sweater smells like marijuana and Jell-O-shots. His mouth is ajar and his shoulders limp. I ask myself, “Does he know what just happened? Does he know there’s a gash on his chin and forehead?”

My mom, younger brother Jonny, older brother Drew, and I drive back from a quick drive-by of University of Central Florida campus, heading back to Coronado, our Disney World resort. Jonny’s 18 and about to graduate, so a quick detour from Mickey Mouse is necessary. Fifty-five miles per hour feels like seventy in a Chrysler Sebring convertible. Yellow Submarine, a favorite song of ours, blasts our speakers. Drew, my older brother, harps about yesterday’s bad weather.

Suddenly, our car slides by like it is just escaping a train at high speed. Abruptly, the car stops. I jump out. My brother says, “No, stop!” I only hear the “No.”

My feet carry me to the metal barrier on the north side of the road. A blue Honda Accord is half balanced by the barrier and half tipped over in a small highway townhouse. Smoke, from the hood of the car, floods the area. The driver’s door and the car’s bumper are smashed in. Reaching in the car, I grab the frat boy’s left wrist and pull him out a little. Suddenly, a tie touches my right ear. A man in a business suit is grabbing the boy’s forearm. The smoke increases and enters the interior of the car. We pull harder and faster. The boy is out of the car and in the road, hunched over. His palms are at his thighs. Someone says, “Don’t let that fucker move.”

I scan the free newspaper in the lobby of Coronado. My arms and legs feel a tingle of little bumps. The headline of the Local section of the newspaper reads: Frat Boy’s Honda Tee-Bones Bill The Dentist’s Gallant, with the subtitle, Bill Is Paralyzed and His Dog Chewy, Is Dead; A Car, Not A Gun, Was The Instrument He Killed Chewy With.

Loud and judgmental, silence is heard.

I question myself. “Why did I help that frat boy out? Chewy is dead and Bill is paralyzed. Why, why… why? I shoulda let him die? No, this is not fair. Life is not fair. He killed them. He deserves to die. I shoulda let him die.”

Hitherto, I was that frat boy. I partied until 5am, drank away millions of brain cells, and would smoke a half-eighth daily. Worse—I did this and drove. That day, after the incident, I promised myself to never drive messed-up again. Two years later, I haven’t broken that promise.