Category Archives: Humor

Humor, Movies

Match the GOP Candidate with the Futurist Movie

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Which futurist movie results if each GOP candidate is elected?


Newt Gingrich:

  • “The Road” — Bold new thinking, like removing government regulations against eating children.
  • Alternate scenario: “Zardoz” — Giant heads drifting around making strange pronouncements.

Mitt Romney:

  • “Demolition Man” — The moralizing is half-assed, but at least corporations are doing well.
  • Alternate scenario: “AI: Artificial Intelligence” — So much effort to build the perfect human, but it is never quite convincing.

Ron Paul:

  • “Mad Max” — Government is finally off our backs (and market forces are allowed to play out in the energy industry).

Rick Perry:

  • “Rollerball” — Corporations rule the planet, and Houston is recognized as a global power center.

Rick Santorum:

  • “The Handmaid’s Tale” — Order is restored to familial relations.
  • Alternate scenario: “28 Days Later” — It turns out all that rage can be spread by bodily fluids.

Michele Bachmann:

  • “The Stepford Wives” — Something is deeply wrong in suburbia.

Jon Huntsman:

  • “Silent Running” — Yeah, I don’t know what to say either.

(Thanks to JP and CK for ideas.)


Humor

No to weather-generating androids!

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The X-Men‘s Storm is bad enough, but Elijah J. Brubaker really has objections to Red Tornado, a, err, tornado-making robot. He evaluates the probabilities:

I have a nerdish bone to pick with these comics writers that create robots with powers like this… Making a character a robot immediately implies some sort of science-fictiony s**t is going down right? So having a science fiction character with a power that involves something akin to magic is kind of f****d up. I don’t care how far into the future you travel no one will ever create a robot that has the ability to turn his body into a tornado… it’s not just unlikely, it won’t happen. I think the technology might eventually exist to make a robot into a tornado but god damn it, who would want that?

Who indeed.

(Comics Reporter via a cartoonist friend)

Humor

“If I Only Had a Blog”

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Colleague Kevin Osborn wrote an impromptu song for the would-be futurist blogger this morning:

If I Only Had a Blog

I could broadcast my opinion
And not be just a minion
Another worthless cog,
I would not waste an hour,
I’d become a virtual power
If I only had a blog.

I would write on future topics,
Foresightful not myopic,
The world would be agog:
Write on gamers, write on genomes,
Write on China, write on new homes,
If I only had a blog.

Oh I could tell you why
The nanos will soon rule;
I could write of things that make me seem a fool,
But I’d stand firm, just like a mule.

I would be a future shamus,
And someday I’d be famous,
A prince and not a frog,
Be succinct and be frugal
I could be a hit on Google
If I only had a blog.

Humor

Nuclear research: a telling argument

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The Onion argues that a rapid, irresponsible expansion of nuclear power is essential:

Without swift, even reckless expansion of our domestic nuclear-energy program, scientists will never be exposed to the new and unique radiation poisonings from which the most powerful superheroes are generated.

We must, they conclude, give priority to “scientific research and its resulting freak accidents.”  Indeed.