The name of this game is H.A.V.E. Online. It’s a PC title, and an open beta is supposed to go down sometime this year. The game looks strangely familiar.
An homage?
Even with the otaku toy twist, the game is a little too close to Team Fortress 2 for some on the Korean internet, where the game is kicking up a mini-controversy. The game is being called "an embarrassment" to the Korean game industry.
SupaGoGoMan was clever enough to really hit it home.
This is really quite amusing, it seems in good taste, and distinguishable enough to stand on its own, I’m not sure if its a plagiarism as much as an “homage” as Kotaku says. I thought it was amusing enough, not to mention adorable.
My dad and I at Disneyland for my 15th birthday in 2005. Shot from the Mark Twain.
Yes, today is my birthday. Celebrating 19 years of sycophantism. Incidentally, it’s also Lindsay Lohan’s birthday. It seems that all the beautiful, sexually charismatic, lesbians—I believe you only have me twice, so far—are born on the same day.
Short answer: No; but, I hope that you would expect me to delve deeper than that. Attempting to prove that America is not a Christian nation seems to carry with it the same feeling of trying to prove that the sky is blue. It is a flat out false statement.
The heaviest ammunition I can fire back with is the first line of our first amendment to our Bill of Rights, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That’s all I really need to say. At the top of the list on how this country will be ran, the first thing you read is “No official religion.” As a consolation for the religious, it also says that you cannot be restricted from believing whatever you want.
Even though you’re supposed to save the best for last, I still find it appropriate to place that argument on top. It seems that over the years the religious have disregarded that blunt passage from The First Amendment, and decided to push it aside in the name of being good Christians. Now, people like me have to fight to take back space that is to belong to everybody from the Christian majority. It strikes me deep to have to defend that which is so important to me. Indeed, the establishment clause matters more to the non-believer. Nothing is more frightening than a religious oligarchy that knows they can get away with anything. Suppression of that mentality is what has made it possible to make so much progress.
From the start, the United States functioned as a secular nation. 6 years after The Bill of Rights was signed into law, our second president, John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1791. This treaty attempted to established peace between the United States and the Muslim state of Tripoli. Barbary pirates were capturing passing ships including American ones and forcing its crew and passengers into slavery. The United States had no quarrel with any Muslim nation and the treaty tried to convey that the United States was not responsible for the crusades and was not built on the foundation that justified it. The article reads as follows:
Article 11: As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The entire history of the treaty is quite interesting; unfortunately, this treaty proved insufficient to establish peace and had to be followed up with the United States Navy and Marines. But notwithstanding, we have President John Adams reaffirming that we are not a Christian nation. Humorously, the paranoid Christians among us who think that President Obama is turning America into a Muslim nation might not want to disregard this little peace of history, because in the same breath that says we are not a Christian nation also says we’re also not a Muslim one either.
Thus far I have cited you two documents endorsed by two founding fathers who in their lifetime would go on to become president. So it’s not the case when President Obama mentions that we are not a Christian nation that he is starting a new trend. Indeed, he is reaffirming something that seems to have been neglected for some time. This entire issue has arisen because of at least three occasions when President Obama has cited that America is not as religious as some would like to believe.
The first instance where President Obama confessed our secular constitution was during his inauguration when he spoke that “We are a nation of Christians, and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers.” It was amusing to hear that some were offended by his acknowledgment of 3.6 million people. Ironically, I did find it a little offensive when former presidential candidate and former governor Mike Huckabee agreed with President Obama by saying “I think its an honest assessment that there are certainly many people in this country that are not necessarily believers in anything other than themselves.” As Liberal Viewer articulated better than I can, “I really don’t think the only two choices are theism or narcissism.”
The next instance where President Obama quite bluntly stated that we are not a Christian nation was in Turkey during his visit to Europe in April of this year. He spelled out that, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens….” It came as a surprise to me that some Christians took offense from that statement. Especially considering that the statement meant that he was not taking favorites. It was a little embarrassing to see people get upset over a statement that is such a simple truth.
Almost as a follow-up to the rang felt by Christians after President Obama made that statement in Turkey, Christians expressed even more distress when they heard that President Obama called America a Muslim nation. A statement like that was too outrageous to be true and it turned out it wasn’t, but that didn’t stop the Conservative media from propagating the misinterpretation. President Obama made this statement just before his trip to Cairo and reads thus:
And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.
Christians compounded his earlier statement “We are not a Christian nation,” with his new misinterpreted “We are one of the biggest Muslim nations,” and outrage insured. His Turkey statement was to tout America’s tolerance, and his pre-Cairo statement was to tell all rational Muslims that we don’t hate them. He was making the point that many Muslims live in America and that they are treated just as any other citizen.
Starting with the contributions of our presidents from the beginning of our country’s formation and continuing with our current President, they persist to reaffirm that our country is in no constitutional sense a religious one. We can add President Obama’s statements to the ones made by John Adams and James Madison and many other important American leaders. Not only should Christians cease in criticizing President Obama’s statements regarding our secular country, because not only in doing so they’re criticizing many other American leaders whom they might appreciate, but they are also demonstrating their ignorance that borders on the arrogant.
President Obama’s inauguration speech where he acknowledged the non-believers can be watched at approximately 14:24 can be found on the White House’s YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PuHGKnboNY
Liberal Viewer’s YouTube video where he comments on Mike Huckabee’s statement regarding Presidet Obama acknowledging the non-believers, and the rest of his videos can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twoXZE9U0Io
My grandfather was nice enough to offer it to me. It’s in pretty good condition for being such an old car. It needs new struts that are proving difficult to find. There’s also a vacuumed leak in the break assist, and it’s leaking oil from the exhaust manifold; also, the resonator looks like the Apollo 13 after they stirred the tanks. The interior needs some work too. Other than that, it’s a really nice car.
Apparently Mike Arrington (TechCrunch) was on the “B” list for review copies of the Palm Pre and decided to be huffy with Leo, who let him have it back. At some point people need to realize that Mike Arrington is indeed a douche. He once stiffed us at Cranky Geeks, never showed up and never apologized or even bothered to call.
I has no idea that Leo Laporte had it in him. Good for him. How dare Mike Arrington accuse Leo of slanting his review. I was waiting for Leo to say “We’ll do it live!”
When Arrington said “What are you going to do about it” cartoon steam came out of my ears. What did he expect Leo to say? “Come over to your house and punch you in the face.”
Arrington’s a pasty faced “troll,” as Leo describes. What an ass-hole.
At first I was reluctant to talk about this subject because it would have been all personal and psychological—all about me, and how I thought Meet the Spy was creepy. But now, after having a chance to ferment, I can actually offer you something that you might actually care about.
I don’t think I overstep my expertise (or lack there of) when I say that consistency in video games is very important. I’ve seen my favorite video games slip into cart racers and die because they ran out of ideas. Inconsistency flags went up in my mind when I watched Meet the Spy.
I can’t fault Valve for trying something different, and Meet the Spy was certainly that. In some ways it was for the better. The look and feel of the cinematography mimicked that of a live action movie, something that needs to be seen with 3-D animation.
Meet the Spy suffered similar and unique issues relative to the other character introduction videos. Not to be too nit-picky (but it’s a critique, so what the hell) but these videos are often laced with cheap lines, as if they couldn’t think of anything better to say, i.e.: “Use more gun,” “They got more *beep* than they got the likes of me” “She weighs one hundred fifty kilograms and fires two hundred dollar,” blah, blah, blah. Meet the Spy uses lines like these. Not only that but they ran with them. When the Spy sad, “your mother,” that was funny, but then they go a long way with that little joke by actually making the effort to show photos. Everything up until this point was great. When the Heavy showed the Soldier the photo and you saw the Soldiers reaction, which was near priceless. However, from that point on, it got bad.
On the unique side, this video was dark—it wasn’t dark comedy it was just dark, it was too serious. Up until now it’s been all smiles, but when the Spy disguised himself as the Medic, there was a tinge of evil; something that does not belong in Team Fortress 2. I had too much sympathy for the characters getting killed. I almost thought the red spy was the enemy. These videos are supposed to show-off the character to demonstrate their skills and personality. Perhaps the Spy doesn’t have much of a personality, but every other character has been charismatic and positive. The Spy’s character seemed inconsistent.
We don’t know much about the Spy, but I don’t think they did him justice. They made him too serious. Listen to his laugh in the game; the guy is not without a sense of humor or character flaws (see below).
Another slight inconsistency is in the story style. Every other video, debatably with Meet the Soldier, has had the character addressing the camera. Meet the Spy looked more like a scene from a movie. It seems more productive to have these videos in an interview format to better convey the quality of the characters personality. Nothing is really learned about the character in this one.
I think Valve wished it could make feature films. Either that, or they wish to bring a more cinematic quality to their games. Valve posses the artistic talent, the technical skill in model making, animation, and world creation, and the innovation to make movies. This video seemed like a cry-out to do that. They pulled more expression and more drama out of these characters than I have ever seen before. But that’s not the point of the videos, again, inconsistency.
To sum, the video seemed to lack focus. It was inconsistent compared to its predecessors in both mood and style. It did not accomplish what the other videos did in regards to showing off the characters personality. The videos are almost like propaganda for the character, and in this one I felt sympathy for the people the Spy killed. It’s still entertaining, but a little gruesome. On it’s own, it’s not bad, but it doesn’t do the game justice.
You know, it is a shame. The new “Meet the Spy” video was quite darker than its predecessors. It’s also a shame that there was evil in this video. Yes, there was violence, and blood, and insanity, but never evil. I figure Valve was matching the mood of the character. But dam…talk about a head-shot.
Apparently someone at Valve leaked it. I think I will have to talk about that and more later.
The Discovery Institute picks a new slogan to run with every year. Last year it was “Academic freedom,” the year before that, it was “Teach the controversy.” This year, it’s “Haeckel’s embryos.”
He looks like he’s about to sneeze
Time for a history lesson. Too bad I’m not a history teacher, because that means we’re now in a time paradox. So, just consider this a I-just-glanced-at-Wikipedia-and-formed-an-impression lesson. Ernst Haeckel was a German renaissance man. He was a biologist, philosopher, physician, and artist. All thing that are very hard to do well all in one life time. He did some research on embryos. Being an artist he was a bit of a drama queen, and had a knack for exaggerating. So when he went to record what he was seeing, he might have fudged some of the data. The pictures that he drew of the embryos were slightly vivid approximations; although, they were probably the best thing they had at the time.
Later in time, when we started looking at embryos again and took pictures of them, we found out that these embryo drawings weren’t as accurate as they could have been. So the scientific community did its job and added to the mass of scientific knowledge by contributing better pictures of these embryos.
So in the end, everything was fine. Sure, Haeckel wasn’t a great scientist but he was no slouch. And eventually more data came in.
Sounds pretty cut and dry, right? Well of course not…
Most people wouldn’t look twice at the sight of some fuzzy embryo drawings, especially after seeing just how accurate they were. But our friendly, well-funded, neighborhood, obscurantist at the Discovery Institute have reengaged that ever-green slogan of “Make the Controversy,” by turning Haeckel’s embryos into a shameful sight to behold.
Since science removes old data with better data, the Haeckel drawings were purged. But the Discovery Institute plays it as if the scientific community were hiding something! As if the scientific community didn’t think anyone would notice that these embryos don’t look as much alike as they had lead people to believe!
They also sell it as if there is no new scientific knowledge to present on the issue of evolution. They’re trying to make the theory of evolution look pitiful.
But here’s what you need to know:
One of these embryos is a chicken, the other a human. Guess which one.
The point is, comparative embryology is a strong point for evolution. The Discovery Institute is trying to make it sound like Haeckel lied and every scientist is taking advantage. But as I’m sure you can see, these embryos do look very much alike, which suggests common ancestry.
I started working on these a little while ago. I’ll probably continue with them throughout time. Some of them are a little more obscure than others. Enjoy, I hope…
