Steve Likes to Curse Writing, comics and random thoughts from really a rather vulgar man. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 5 1566 52 10142

Articles from Steve Likes to Curse

From the geniuses who brought us Mission Impossible III and Felicity . . . 2007-04-29 09:34:09 ...

In witch the author puts a shitty pun in the title of his article 2007-04-28 22:11:14 We went to Borders tonight and Ashley got a couple books on Wicca. She?s not thinking of joining the local coven ? way below the weight limit, for one thing ? just curious about the beliefs, the philosophies, the rituals and such. One of the books she got contains a complete Book of Shadows, which, near as I can tell, is the overwrought designation Wiccans give to their equivalent to the Bible. Except that Books of Shadows differ from coven to coven. I was paging through and found a section of spells, including a page devoted to ?String Magic.? To my disappointment, it had little to do with quantum physics. String magic involves taking pieces of string that have been blessed, sanctified, whatever, and shaping them on an altar into the form of something you want, ?a car, a house, a paycheck? ? that last one is interesting; how does one shape a string to look like a paycheck, I wonder. Then you visualize the object you want, say an incantation, and at some point the desired object is sup ...

The Mars Face ain't no face, so you might as well face it 2007-04-27 13:11:57 I remember the thrill that ran through me the first time I saw the famous photograph of the Martian Face. I was a little kid, maybe five or six or a little older, in the early part of my astronomy phase, ready and willing to latch onto anything that offered hope for life on other planets, no matter how flimsy or suspect. I saw that Mars Face, photographed by the Viking 1 orbiter in 1976, and my heart jumped into my throat. What was it? Who built it? What was it doing on Mars? It was exhilarating just to ask the questions. To the right is the Mars Face as most of us have seen it. That renowned picture is actually rather misleading ? the ?eyes? and ?mouth? are shadows caused by the angle of the sun, and the black dot that gives the appearance of a nostril is really blank point where data is missing, not a feature at the actual site. Even considering those factors, the picture is a little spine-tingling. Imagine working for NASA in the 1970s, sorting through images sent back across tens o ...

Attention "Anonymous" and Other Tax Protesters - Here's where you find the law that doesn't exist 2007-04-26 11:51:37 ATTENTION ?ANONYMOUS? AND OTHER TAX PROTESTERS ?Here?s where you find the law that doesn?t exist: A disgruntled reader ? a certain ?Anonymous? ? commented on an article from the day before yesterday. Here?s what he said, to save you the trouble of looking it up: You are wrong!The Federal reserve is a private bank. I haven't paid taxes for over 11 years now. Regular income taxes don't apply to the private sector. You need to check your facts before writing any more shit. Go find the law and show us, we are waiting. In the meantime, after you get tired of searching for a law that doesn't exist, watch the documentary "Freedom To Fascism" by Aaron Russo. The article being commented upon was about Operation Northwoods and has nothing to do with Aaron Russo or tax protests, but I?m happy to respond nevertheless. I agree that the Federal Reserve is a private bank. I?m bothered by that, but one thing Russo?s film conveniently overlooks is the amount of oversight Congress regularly exercises ...

Astronomers find perfect bowl of porridge 120 trillion miles from Earth 2007-04-25 13:51:17 Have you seen this?  Have you heard about this?  European astronomers announced yesterday the discovery of an Earth-like planet orbiting the star Gliese 581, 20.4 light years away, in the constellation Libra.  Nothing is certain, of course, but early indications are that the planet, Gliese 581 c, has an atmosphere and an average surface temperature similar to Earth.  It was also suggested ? though this might just be those giddy astronomers getting ahead of themselves ? that the planet might have liquid water, which means it could also be capable of supporting life.Don't get the wrong idea when I say "Earth-like."  Gliese 581 c is estimated to be 50% larger than Earth, with perhaps five times the mass.  That means gravity on c is about twice as strong as on Earth.  c also orbits 14 times closer to its sun, a red dwarf star smaller and cooler than our Sun.  That sun could appear twenty times larger than our Moon in the sky over c.  Some astronomers also theorize that c doesn't rotate, ...

A moment like this . . . 2007-04-25 12:55:07 Varjak (he of "'s Center of Insanity and Death" fame) emailed me with the news today and I was so giddy that I just had to get a screengrab from the MLB website to preserve this no-doubt fleeting moment for posterity, and to share it with all (four) of you.  Behold . . .The young season has become a Bronx bomb, baby.  The Yankees in the cellar and the Red Sox and O's at the top.  I'm not naive enough to think it'll last, but for right now . . . how fucking sweet it is. ...

Fuck Operation Northwoods 2007-04-24 15:01:07 I published a version of yesterday?s post on American Chronicle and have already received email from amateur conspiracy theorists presuming to point out that their various ?alternative explanations? are not only completely reasonable, but true. This one fellow, who seemed earnest enough and at least didn?t come off as pissed at me for belittling his beliefs, sent me a PDF file of the infamous Top Secret memo sent to the Secretary of Defense by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 detailing Operation Northwoods. Northwoods, for the three or four of you who have avoided being beaten over the head with it by 9/11 conspiracy theorists, was a proposed secret military project to provide a pretense for U.S. military action against Fidel Castro?s government in Cuba. It called for a series of staged ?false flag? events to give the impression that the Cuban government was hostile to the United States and posed an imminent threat, therefore giving the U.S. the justification to invade the island and ...

Wherein the author disparages numerous notable conspiracy theories 2007-04-23 11:04:39 I have nothing against conspiracy theories or those who promote them, in spirit. There are things about the attitude I rather admire?the questioning of the obvious, the determination to peer behind the curtain and see what?s really going on. My admiration is tempered somewhat by the fact that nearly every conspiracy theory is poorly conceived, misguided and spectacularly wrong, but I still can?t blame the theorists for trying. If you?ll allow me a minor revision, there is something fundamental to conspiracy theories that I have an issue with: the word ?theory.? In science, a theory is a logical explanation for something, formulated from evidence and objective observation. By that reckoning, I think a better term for what men like Alex Jones, David Icke and Aaron Russo peddle is ?conspiracy delusion.? Conspiracy delusions cover a wide range of topics and originate from all along the political and ideological spectrum. No matter where your personal beliefs fall?liberal, conservative, som ...

Clown-in-Chief trusts his cronies to bring the funny this week 2007-04-22 12:21:57 The leader of the western hemisphere, commander of the mightiest (and most exhausted) army on the planet, our endearingly bumbling Chief Executive, had the line of the week at the White House Correspondents? Dinner last night: [I]n light of this tragedy at Virginia Tech I decided not to be funny. Which made it different from every other time he?s opened his mouth how, exactly? With President Bush giving his formidable comic abilities a rest, the ?humor? was provided by noted Johnny Carson impersonator Rich Little. Before Little unleashed his repertoire of scintillating political satire, which included impressions of Presidents Nixon and Reagan, Bush introduced Press Secretary Tony Snow, who made his final public appearance before withering away and succumbing to cancer later this year. Sheryl Crow and Karl Rove also apparently nearly got into a fistfight over global warming, a dispute which ended when Crow said ?You can?t talk to us like that ? you work for us!? and Rove countered, ?I ...

John McCain's new campaign poster 2007-04-21 22:42:51 ...

Movies That Kick My Ass, No. 9: Elephant 2007-04-20 14:28:21 Movies That Kick My AssNo. 9: Elephant Gus Van Sant made Elephant four years after the massacre at Columbine High School. Watching it is like witnessing the slaughter from the inside. At Columbine, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered twelve of their peers and one of their teachers, then each committed suicide.  Van Sant?s film, inspired by but not a factual depiction of the Columbine shootings, is immediate and chillingly authentic, as though it?s all just happened again. He shot on location at an actual school in Portland, Oregon, with a relatively low budget (around $3 million), working with a cast composed almost entirely of unknown or non-professional actors, and made one of the most unsettling, emotionally devastating movies I?ve ever seen. Aside from the subject matter (and the dread of inevitability which covers the film like a shadow), Elephant is unsettling because it is simultaneously naturalistic and dreamlike. Individual scenes are staged and acted realistically ... Movies

The many faces of a coward 2007-04-19 11:23:07 Yesterday when I saw the pictures was when I really started to hate the son of a bitch. The tragedy, the evil of what Cho Seung-Hui did was easy to see, but it wasn?t until I saw the photos he sent to NBC Monday morning during the two-hour lull in his killing spree that I got a concrete sense of who this guy was and what he really did. Cho mailed NBC a package with photos he?d taken of himself, videos where he addresses the camera and sort of explains his motives for the massacre, and a written manifesto. People have called him troubled, creepy, a loner, a monster, but the one thing he was above all the rest, the one thing he was that fed ? maybe poisoned? ? everything else, was a coward. The pictures show Cho striking various menacing poses, pointing his guns at the camera and at his own head, most of the time with this carefully affected cold-blooded stare on his face. I?ve read and heard various news people and commentators describe how chilling and disturbing these pics are, which ...

When is a shitty play not just a shitty play? When it's a cry for help. 2007-04-18 17:04:41 I was obviously shocked by the shootings at Virginia Tech as soon as I heard about them and was able to conceive the immensity of what had happened. It wasn?t until Ashley told me that two plays the shooter had written were available to read online that things veered off into the surreal. Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old student who murdered 32 of his peers and professors Monday morning, was an English major. His plays, one-acts written for a playwriting class, were posted online here by a former classmate of his.  Ian MacFarlane, said classmate, also wrote an eloquent little piece about the shooting and a few of the victims he knew personally, which you should take a second to read before diving into the fruit of the murderer?s id. I lack all necessary expertise to analyze Cho?s motives or personality, to speculate on why he decided to kill so fucking many people, but having read both his plays, I can at least tell you this: the guy couldn?t write worth a shit. Both plays ? Richard McBe ...

Happy taXmas 2007-04-17 14:32:14 Since the 15th was on a Sunday and yesterday was an obscure holiday in Washington, D.C. called Emancipation Day, which celebrates the day in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln ordered all slaves in town to be freed and paid the former slave owners 300 bucks a head for their trouble, today is Tax Day. I filed my taxes like three months ago and have long since received my state and federal refunds, but there are always those who insist on waiting until the last possible second. I?m not sure why this is, other than blatant slothfulness, since the vast majority of people in the U.S. have paid their taxes already by having them automatically deducted from their paychecks, so filing late only means you?ll have to wait longer for your refund. Not everyone gets a refund, I realize, even following the progressive and compassionate tax cuts championed by our saint-like chief executive, which put a whopping couple of hundred dollars back in the hands of thousands of middle class families, most of whom no ...

Comic Book Review - Batman: Detective 2007-04-16 12:12:01 Comic Book ReviewBatman: DetectiveWriters: Paul Dini, Royal McGrawArtists: J.H. Williams, Don Kramer, Joe Benitez, Marcos Marz (Pencillers); Wayne Faucher, Victor Llamas, Luciana Del Negro (Inkers); John Kalisz (Colorist); Jared K. Fletcher, John J. Hill (Letterers) Not all that long ago, Batman was cool. A few years ago Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee were kicking unseemly amounts of ass with their ?Hush? storyline in Batman, followed by a rather shittily written run by Brian Azzarello which the brilliant artwork of Eduardo Risso more than made up for; and meanwhile Batman: Gotham Knights was quite the kick-ass title itself, written by the likes of Devin Grayson and Scott Beatty, with art by guys like Roger Robinson and Dick Giordano, and covers by the great Brian Bolland, and Black & White back-ups by everyone from Harlan Ellison to Darwyn Cooke. Flash-forward to the present, when just about everything Batman-related has gone to shit. Gotham Knights was cancelled as part of the idiotic ?One Ye ...