News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:52 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:While we're on the subject, how the hell do you tenderize porkchops enough so that when you broil or fry them they're tender as hell without tearing the meat?
Marination. Soak them in lemon juice or coca cola for a while and then grill them up. The sugars caramelize on the outside of the chops and the acids soften the meat.

-Username17

Thanks to your blog, I tried that a while ago. Using coke as a marinade, and mixing in some chillis, various random sauces and stuff (Mirin, sweet chilli, soy sauce, lemon juice) and then making a stir-fry.

The meat was nice and tender, and tasted great, not that I got to try much of it: my sister and stepsister declared that the vegetables had soaked up all the chilli-related things and were too spicy to eat, so just had most of the frigging meat, so I managed to get a few pieces and ate most of the (delicious, moderately spicy) vegetables.

And the dog had the rest, and was eternally grateful for about 10 minutes or so, before forgetting he'd ever been fed.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:21 am

A quick "marinade" of water and a small spoonful of baking soda will totally tenderize the toughest meat. You don't even have to let it marinate long - ten minutes will work just fine. Quick rinse the baking soda off (to keep it from continuing to tenderize), and add whatever flavor you want. It's good for when you've forgotten to prepare in advance.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:16 pm

News estimates economic bailout to cost $23 trillion dollars. However, the majority of the estimate is made up of things which are either not in need of bailing out, weren't suggested to be bailed out, or duplicate packages of suggestions which never made it past consideration. Let alone included in the 'bailout' that W Bush started last year.

-Crissa

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:31 pm

http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us ... han+AT%26T

So it seems that AT&T started one of the first salvos against net neutrality.

I know people don't like 4chan, but fuck that. Yeah, they supposedly had reasons, but they also had better methods to solve their issues.

At least the invasion board for this is halted for now...

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 11:26 pm

That is, BTW, the 'new' AT&T, aka SBC. They sued the old AT&T for selling package deals of cable and phone, and when they won their case, bought AT&T minus the spinoffs of cable and technology.

-Crissa

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 8:34 am

Well shit. If that goes unchallenged, then that's just another step towards ISPs simply telling everyone what they are and are not allowed to access.

I hope 4chan strikes back with enough fury to cripple the company, sending the message of "No"/"We will not be denied"/"Dongs".

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:10 am

Apparently AT&T is claiming that ACKs (a control message) were being sent from the image server to target an IP in their range. However, their response was an illegal one, as they're allowed to filter, but not block, legitimate services.

Here's something (not) new: Department of Homeland Security employee sues the department for Immigration Control and Enforcement agents mistakenly raiding his house. Also included is a link to an article about US citizens accidentally detained and deported.

-Crissa

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 10:32 pm

Crissa wrote:Here's something (not) new: Department of Homeland Security employee sues the department for Immigration Control and Enforcement agents mistakenly raiding his house. Also included is a link to an article about US citizens accidentally detained and deported.

They tried to deport my mom - they just showed up at her office one day to haul her off. [Un]Fortunately, her father had just died and she happened to have all the necessary vital papers in her bag because she was doing the post-death bureaucracy thing on her lunch break (hers, her dad's, her mom's, and her sister's).

We thought it was all inspired by the fact that my Aunt went nuts and declared herself a foreign princess and got her ass carted off by the police in California. Mom was livid because they managed to track her down - at work, no less (not information known by my aunt) - but apparently, they couldn't be bothered to check family birth/immigration certificates.

Immigration seriously needs a subscription to ancestry.com.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 10:43 pm

So, what's encouraging ICE to detain/deport citizens? Does having more deportations and detentions directly result in more funding? Are they supposed to 'make their number look better'? Does a division get a bonus every time they do a raid? Is releasing someone significantly more difficult than continuing to hold them?

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 11:58 pm

Note sure how many of you care, but I find this rather rage-worthy:
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/07/2 ... eroge-ban/ [NSFW]

They seriously want to ban ALL hentai, not just the rape stuff. Fuck that noise.

...not that most people care, but fuck censorship.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:45 am

Meikle641 wrote:Note sure how many of you care, but I find this rather rage-worthy:
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/07/2 ... eroge-ban/

They seriously want to ban ALL hentai, not just the rape stuff. Fuck that noise.

...not that most people care, but fuck censorship.

Yeah, that's pretty sad. You should probably put some NWS tags up, though. It's obnoxious that the feminist movement as a whole is tarnished by this censorship group.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:09 am

Fixed.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:34 pm

Isn't hentai a fairly broad range of subject matter? Generally, I don't care for it, even the vanilla stuff has too much slobber and they still have the problem of japanese animation having annoying female voices regardless of it being dubbed or subtitled, but really there are people that enjoy it, and they don't bother me.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:48 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:Isn't hentai a fairly broad range of subject matter? Generally, I don't care for it, even the vanilla stuff has too much slobber and they still have the problem of japanese animation having annoying female voices regardless of it being dubbed or subtitled, but really there are people that enjoy it, and they don't bother me.

It really is a broad range of subjects. I mean, there is seriously an entire subgenre that's "yaoi" that is entirely about men having sex with other men and mostly marketed to women. Like the "Nonthreatening Boys" magazine that Lisa Simpson reads.

Japanese sex culture is fucking weird, but even above and beyond the fact that censorship never solves anything (indeed, the entire tentacle genre exists because of censorship laws), to claim that hentai in general all treats women poorly is crazy talk.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:03 pm

Yaoi and pornography marketted towards gay/bi men is sort of like the difference between lesbian erotica marketed for het/bi men and actual lesbians. Take from that what you will.

Also, Frank: Maeboshi. Designed as a method of censorship but became a fetish in its own right. Nice work there, guys.

But anyway, since hentai doesn't operate under the same restrictions actual pornography does (namely, a dearth of special effects money, actors, and scriptwriters) hentai tends to be be somewhere in the same quality as most anime. For example, Fate/Stay Night started out as a hentai visual novel.

Quick rant:

I really, really do not like the heteronormality of yaoi down to having a 'male' role and a 'female' role. I mean, it's abstract it's fine since it's sex and sex is good and real world relationships often naturally have a masculine and feminine role. But like most hentai, the genre tends to take it too far. We don't need the damn seme to be a foot taller with a stern chin and sharp eyes and a bemused, world-weary demeanor in every goddamn yaoi out there! Your characters are gay--we know this, okay?! THE FELLATIO GAVE IT AWAY.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:26 pm

Catharz: Because who is at the top really does matter. If your employer prefers you to detain people rather than use due diligence, that's what you will do, or lose your job. All this was a problem exacerbated by the Bush administration. They seriously overturned eighty year old case law about imprisoning immigrants without due process.

Also, their bosses did not want to actually catch employers, because that was their buddies. So they go after individuals to bump up the numbers, yes.

-Crissa

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:59 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:Isn't hentai a fairly broad range of subject matter?

Yes. It's like banning pulp novels. Or books written in Queen's English. It's a medium, not a genre by itself (in this case, it's a medium for porn - but that doesn't change the basic facts).

Lago PARANOIA wrote:But anyway, since hentai doesn't operate under the same restrictions actual pornography does (namely, a dearth of special effects money, actors, and scriptwriters) hentai tends to be be somewhere in the same quality as most anime.

Most Hentai is produced on a shoestring budget (generally more so than Live Action porn, because it's more niche) but the costs of special effects is, seriously, pretty much the same as not having the special effects. That's why it tends towards the more bizarre - you can cater to markets that aren't tapped by normal porn without much real cost. The real reason why hentai has the occasional decent script is that hentai doujinshi (aka fanfic) is serious business (it's a way to get recognised by manga publishers, can earn you money if you're good, and gets you into Comiket earlier than everyone else) so they really brute force the problem (and there's an awful lot of brute forcing).

Not only do you have Comiket, but there are stores which sell pretty much only doujinshi that have significant sales. Outside of Japan we only tend to see the exceptionally good examples. Most hentai is shit, worse than even normal Japanese porn, and that all gets filtered out by the people who translate stuff.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:47 am

I frigging hate Japanese censorship, for the record. I know this will be another one of those "Lol, Koumei is such a racist, hating the Japanese as usual" moments, but it's really annoying. When I pay good money I don't expect to see fuzzy black clouds or huge mosaics.

Hentai can have some hilarious censorship though. Whether it's that tiny black bar that obscures all of nothing (but it still counts, apparently), or my personal favourite, the giant glowing energy cock.

When was the last time I recommended people watch Karakuri Ninja Girl? Even if it really should be classified as "Comedy with nipples".

Oh, and as for the yaoi thing, try Gravitation. From what I saw, they all look like prettyboys with no clear gender role. Wait, actually, I think even that might have the younger, shorter uke. Um, I think there was some other yaoi show I saw at the same con* that didn't have the obvious seme and uke. I can only remember one guy saying that he would have to whisper the heavenly message of the gods directly into the mouth of the other, so that the words would not be released into the wild (he fell for it), then claiming that for some reason they had to press their naked bodies together for it (he fell for that too).

Long story short, hentai should be documented as a case against using nuclear weapons on people: look at the stuff they produce years later.

*What, you think I watch yaoi anime in my own time? I was manning the "Weird, obscure and/or ecchi" theatre at a convention. Little did I know that I would be seeing a whole lot of gay man sex. On the plus side, there was Koi Koi Seven, which had enough panty shots to rival IkkiTousen.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:56 pm

The laws demand that specific things be censored. In that they demand certain pieces of the anatomy be censored. So, as would be expected those things get censored. In a lot of cases only those things get censored.

Another case where censorship just fails to work for the effect that it was intended to.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:59 pm

What's so bad about hentai games? Strategy games are simulators of mass murder. I mean, I've killed around 10000 POWs a year in Total War. Master of Magic rewards exterminating the undesirables (because only people of your own race count toward the final score). You can literally nuke cities in Civ. Did these games ever draw any criticism? None that I know of.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 12:09 am

[sarcasm]

Violence is so much more acceptable than sex. I know I'd way rather my eleven month old watch bloody decapitation and mass slaughter on television than see a picture of another mother breast-feeding her own child.

[/sarcasm]

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 4:19 pm

The very thought of breast feeding being "child pornography" is so sick as to be disgusting. Then again the whole kid porn parinoia that arrests parents for innocent photos of children is also disgusting. When perverts start writing laws, stuff like this happens!

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:10 pm

http://washingtonindependent.com/53396/ ... in-america

So what proportion of Southern whites doubt that Obama is an American citizen? While Ali did not release the racial breakdowns for the the South, and cautioned that the margin of error in the smaller sample of 720 people would be larger than the national margin of error (2 percent), the proportion of white Southern voters with doubts about their president’s citizenship may be higher than 70 percent. More than 30 percent of the people polled in the South were non-white, and very few of them told pollsters that they had questions about Obama’s citizenship. In order for white voters to drive the South’s “don’t know” number to 30 percent and it’s “born outside the United States” number to 23 percent, as many as three-quarters of Southern whites told pollsters that they didn’t know where Obama was born.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:24 pm

VS.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:09 am

Nationwide, 58% of Republicans don't believe or know that the President was born in the US.

Admittedly, Republican self-identification has never been lower.

-Crissa