2014: A Retrospective

Greetings fellow space-travellers.  We hope that you are enjoying your shuttle to the Nebulon Cluster and will continue to use Slipspace Tours in the future.  Make sure to try the Neptunian Invertibrate Platter, it's delicious!  Anyway, your inflight entertainment today is a documentary about the year 2014.  Please enjoy.



2014.  The year of the peregrine falcon.  A time when people used wheels to travel rather than suction tubes, and people were still born into families.  This was a turbulent year for human existence, and one which shaped the present we know of today in 2114.

The year started off innocently enough when the human race finally created talking food.  This technological achievement lead to a culinary revolution across the globe.  Now, broccoli could inform the customer how long it takes to boil at which optimum temperature.  Beef could demand to be tenderised, shouting at the chef to “put your back into it!” and calling them a “sissy nancy boy”.  This lead to an increase in dinner parties around the world.  Many famous chefs released their own talking dishes, until one of Gordon Ramsey’s Lamb Shanks was accused of telling a child to “Grind my fucking meat, you little cunt!”

What the first talking food products may have looked like.

Despite this glorious start to the year, events quickly turned sour when the Apple corporation threatened to invade Ireland.  Inspired by Ireland’s progressive business tax regime, Apple decided to take ownership of the entire country in order to prevent their rivals from benefitting from the same tax rates.  Although the invasion was short lived, it was the swiftest and most brutal conflict in human history as Apple deployed their SmartTanks and their iICBMs, turning the whole country into an irradiated wasteland.  After an initial assault of only 8 hours, 93% of the population had been obliterated.  Apple ceased the invasion when it realised that there were few remaining natives to sell their products to.  This event instilled the Irish with a deep-seated fear of Jobs, a fear which continues to this day.

Other global conflicts arose when the KONY 2 campaign kicked off on Kickstarter, trying to raise enough money to buy a rocket, strap Kony to it, and blast it into the sun.  The campaign was so successful that many Kickstarter donators signed up their own children to fight against this global menace.  Anyone who donated their child got a free signed photograph of the organiser waving his genitals at passing traffic.  As a result, Kickstarter now owns the largest platoon of child soldiers on the planet, and plans to use them to reboot Bugsy Malone.

Speaking of reboots, 2014 was the year when movie reboots became a genre in themselves.  Although we take movie reboots for granted these days, there was a time when less than 100% of films were reboots, and 2014 turned out to be the pivotal point.  There were reboots of The Matrix, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Flubber and Jumanji, each darker and grittier than the last.

Some men just want to watch the world gurn.

Other than cinema, global culture was beginning to stagnate.  Book publishers and ballet producers were unwilling or unable to make dark reboots of their famous classics, so a new form of culture had to be established.  This new cultural phenomenon started out at street level and was universally derided upon its inception.  Who could have dreamed that by 2114 it would be a multi-billion dollar industry with advocates stretching across the galaxy.  That medium is, of course, Artistic Wanking.  Although it is almost unthinkable in modern times that people were repulsed by this, back then it was the height of taboo and people were forced to wank in private like social pariahs.

Anyway, that’s all we have time for today.  Join us next time on 2014 Retrospective where we’ll be looking at the coronation of North West, PSY’s song for Korean peace, and the day that people realised that PRISM was actually in their own interest.

Podcast Episode 3

Here is episode 3 of the Podcast.  I've gone with a different host this time, so let me know if you have any problems:




Credits:

Big thank you to Bumferry Hogart at Thoughtless Gibberish for his tireless work as Hugh Huxley.  Massive shoutout to Bryan at A Beer For The Shower for providing the PUFC sketch in it's entirety, and for providing the grunt's voice on the Dr Demento sketch.

Music:

Cypress Hill (feat. Tom Morello) - Rise Up
James Bond Theme

Also, I'm thinking about posting the transcriptions of the sketches for anyone who can't listen to it for whatever reason. Let me know if anyone is interested in this idea.  As usual, post any feedback below.

They May Be Watching

So, it turns out that your average tin-foiled lunatic Illuminati-obsessed conspiracy theorist might not be so crazy afterall. In a show of faith to the conspiracy nuts out there, the American government has decided to throw them a bone and start monitoring everyone's Internet and phone activity.

In a series of superb articles that arose in the Guardian, and subsequently other American publications, it would seem that the NSA (Nosey Spying Assholes) have been collecting vast amounts of data on millions of American citizens, plus folk overseas.  The reports suggest that the NSA has unlimited access to vast amounts of calling data from Verizon, including caller ID's, call length, frequency, and if you have one of those impractical cord phones for kitsch value.

Not only that, a leaked Powerpoint document (I know) suggests that the government have a special agreement with many internet companies called PRISM. PRISM encompasses some of the biggest tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook, and gives the NSA a backdoor to search through their customer data at will. Shopping for terrorist associates will be as easy as buying something off of Amazon for an NSA employee.

Government conspiracy or Pink Floyd album?

This is done under the pretence that it's all about catching terrorists. When they catch one of these plots before it blows up (so to speak), they do a fantastic job of publicising it. The government wants you to think that these measures are working, so they make sure the public is aware on a massive scale. This way it'll be easier to pass legislation to give them more power over your personal data.
Considering that these reports only surface once or twice a year, is it really worth datamining all this information to protect us from so few terrorists? Even if left unchecked, fewer people would die from terrorism than from sharks throwing coconuts at us on the toilet, or whatever the popular comparison is.

It isn't a new thing either. This programme began under Bush, but continues under the current administration. Both major parties want this. It's a situation that the American people cannot vote their way out of.

As an English guy, why am I so concerned about the Internet history of the average American citizen? Why does it matter to me whether the government watches Hank from Idaho watching 2 girls 1 cup on repeat for three days solid? Well, Britain has a "special relationship" with the States in that, after giving America a blow job, Brtain stays on it's knees and allows itself to become a footstool. We share (I mean hand over) vast swathes of information to America as a show of good faith.

This weekend, foreign secretary William Hague, the least contentious politician in a barrel of corrupt monsters, appeared on TV to remind us that we are not being watched by our government and that any intelligence gathering is always done in strict compliance with the law.

Britain's delightful foreign affairs hobgoblin, William Hague

That's fine, but how is that any different to what's happening in the US? Everything that has happened is in full compliance with the law. Technically, by law, the companies involved in PRISM are required to outright lie about their role in the operation, and even deny its existence. This makes it very difficult to believe that our government aren't doing the same or allowing the NSA to work here also.

It's easy enough to dismiss this and say "it doesn't matter to me, I have nothing to hide". That's great, thanks for reassuring us, but I doubt even 0.5% of those who have been studied and spied on so far have ever thought about commiting acts of terrorism. Terrorism is being used as an excuse to let the government study everyone with a microscope and infringe more and more on our lives. On the other hand, it's extreme to claim that we're living in an Orwelian police state, but privacy is a basic human right that we shouldn't give any ground on. The government doesn't need to know the extent to which I call sex lines in a single week, nor does it need to know that I named my main desktop PC "poop pants1" in a fit of childishness. I would be more pleased if my tax money paid for schools, hospitals and other such civic buildings, rather than cataloguing my online conversations about biscuits.

So what's the solution?  Well first, you need to take a roll of tin foil and begin wrapping it around your head.  Afterwards?  I don't know, an online petition of some sort?  What do I look like, a man of action?  I'm a man who complains. I'll let you lot do all the campaigning.