my first pit of hell rant...

In the text that follows, I won't bother discussing the flaws in Harrisonized's logic because he doubtlessly doesn't use any logic.

That is contradictory. How can I use logic if I don't have any? That's like saying I can use money if I don't have any money to start with.

From a public-policy perspective, he has repeatedly threatened to recruit and encourage young people to exhibit cruelty to animals, just as older drug dealers use young kids to push drugs. Maybe that's just for maximum scaremongering effect.

I don't encourage exhibiting cruelty to animals. I promote indifference to them. There's a difference in the two.

Or maybe it's because Harrisonized accuses me of being narrow-minded. Does he think I'm narrow-minded because I refuse to accept his claim that ethnocentrism is a viable and vital objective for our nation's educational institutions? If so, then I guess I'm as narrow-minded as I could possibly be.

Don't assume you know me. I didn't accuse you of anything. Rather, it's the other way around, where you're accusing me. Or maybe you're just projecting your own flaws onto me.

I have the following advice for Harrisonized: If you can't manage to be grateful for all the things we've done for you, at least have a little dignity, don't whine, and don't expect to be treated like a fragile doll just because you have a theatrically hypersensitive soul and delusions of entitlement.

I don't whine and I don't "expect to be treated like a fragile doll". When people do something for me, I generally am grateful for it and I remember it. I don't recall you doing ANYTHING for me, other than giving me infraction points, closing off my discussions, and now attacking me. Do tell me of what you have "done for me".

I believe, way deep down, that I act based on what I think is right, not who I think is right. That's why I try always to embark on a new path towards change.

That's again, a contradiction. On a forum, there are two dimensions. The first one is the words that are spoken. The second is the person who spoke the words. You cannot dissociate the two, therefore, you can't act on what you think is right without affecting who you think is right, nor vice versa.

It's also why I say that Harrisonized demands that we make a choice. Either we let him shrink the so-called marketplace of ideas down to convenience-store size or he'll palliate and excuse the atrocities of his emissaries.

Shrink me then. I don't see how my ideas are atrocities, even though you may dismiss them or repulse at them, doesn't mean you should misuse your power to eliminate anybody with an opposing view.

This "choice" exemplifies what is commonly known as a "false dichotomy" or "the fallacy of the excluded middle" because it denies other alternatives, such as that Harrisonized's maneuvers are a parody of original thought.

Or I can continue posting my ideas where I wish them to be posted. Really you have no right as a moderator to censor any opposition to your own ideas.

I put that observation into this letter just to let you see that due to circumstances that I have encountered in my research, I find that I must inculcate in the reader an inquisitive spirit and a skepticism about beliefs that Harrisonized's forces take for granted.

I'm surprised you did research on me. Anyways, I welcome skepticism, as that's what keeps a thread moving.

To cap that off, Harrisonized claims that all it takes to solve our social woes are shotgun marriages, heavy-handed divorce laws, and a return to some mythical 1950s Shangri-la. I would say that that claim is 70% folderol, 20% twaddle, and 10% another dastardly attempt to sentence more and more people to poverty, prison, and early death.

I said nothing of the sort. Do not put words in my mouth.

If we don't rake Harrisonized over the coals for breaking down our communities, our children will curse us in our graves. Speaking of our children, we need to teach them diligently that Harrisonized's most recent perceptions are irreverent, in bad taste, and inappropriate.

Do tell me how my perceptions are "irrelevant" or "inappropriate". I reply on-topic material. Also, you're welcome to believe my perceptions may be "in bad taste" and refute it, but you're not welcome to come flame me about it, such as in this post.

As an interesting experiment, try to point this out to him. (You might want to don safety equipment first.) I think you'll find that by refusing to act, by refusing to direct our efforts toward clearly defined goals and measure progress toward those goals as frequently and as objectively as possible, we are giving Harrisonized the power to cashier anyone who tries to draw an accurate portrait of his ideological alignment. I challenge you to ponder this subject with the broadest vision possible.

And I ponder it as well. It's really laughable how me, an insignificant forum poster, can cause such feelings of control within a forum. Again, I'm merely posting my ideas, your welcome to either agree or refute what I say. Stop forming conspiracies around me.

I will not waste my time criticizing or insulting Harrisonized as 1) he is unlikely to change, and 2) Harrisonized probably revels in the posts of shock and repulsion that he regularly receives. Instead, I will focus on his malign policies, which, after all, are the things that overthrow all concepts of beauty and sublimity, of the noble and the good, and instead drag people down into the sphere of his own base nature. For most of the facts I'm about to present, I have provided documentation and urge you to confirm these facts for yourself if you're skeptical. He has delivered exactly the opposite of what he had previously promised us. Most notably, Harrisonized's vows of liberation turned out to be masks for oppression and domination. And, almost as troubling, his vows of equality did little more than convince people that his latest manifesto, like all the ones that preceded it, is a consummate anthology of disastrously bad writing teeming with misquotations and inaccuracies, an odyssey of anecdotes that are occasionally entertaining but certainly not informative.

I'm sure Harrisonized wouldn't want me to eavesdrop on his secret conversations. So why does he want to maintain social control by eliminating rights and freedoms? This can be answered most easily by stating that he must have some sort of problem with reading comprehension. That's the only explanation I can come up with as to why he accuses me of admitting that honor counts for nothing. What I actually said is that Harrisonized does not tolerate any view that differs from his own. Rather, he discredits and discards those people who contradict him along with the ideas that they represent. All I can tell you is what matters to me: Harrisonized insists that there should be publicly financed centers of pauperism. That lie is a transparent and strained effort to keep us from noticing that he is too negligent to read the writing on the wall. This writing warns that his toadies have been staggering around like punch-drunk fighters hit too many times—stunned, confused, betrayed, and trying desperately to rationalize his sinister codices. It is truly not a pretty sight. But this is something to be filed away for future posts. At present, I wish to focus on only one thing: the fact that if he can't cite the basis for his claim that we should avoid personal responsibility then he should just shut up about it.

Not to put too fine a point on it but Harrisonized is indubitably up to something. I don't know exactly what, but his ideologies should be labeled like a pack of cigarettes. I'm thinking of something along the lines of, "Warning: It has been determined that Harrisonized's beliefs are intended to devastate vast acres of precious farmland." Is there anyone else out there who's noticed that the worst kinds of unenlightened freaks I've ever seen are responsible for the passive-aggressive tenor of his invectives? I ask because he somehow manages to maintain a straight face when saying that bad things "just happen" (i.e., they're not caused by Harrisonized himself). I am greatly grieved by this occurrence of falsehood and fantastic storytelling which is the resultant of layers of social dishevelment and disillusionment amongst the fine citizens of a once organized, motivated, and cognitively enlightened civilization. It strikes me as amusing that he complains about people who do nothing but complain. Well, news flash! Harrisonized does nothing but complain. Finally, any one of the points I made in this post could be turned into a complete research paper, but the conclusion of each would be the same: I haven't the foggiest idea why Mr. Harrisonized wants to break down the industrial-technological system.

That is contradictory. How can I use logic if I don't have any? That's like saying I can use money if I don't have any money to start with.I don't encourage exhibiting cruelty to animals. I promote indifference to them. There's a difference in the two.Don't assume you know me. I didn't accuse you of anything. Rather, it's the other way around, where you're accusing me. Or maybe you're just projecting your own flaws onto me.I don't whine and I don't "expect to be treated like a fragile doll". When people do something for me, I generally am grateful for it and I remember it. I don't recall you doing ANYTHING for me, other than giving me infraction points, closing off my discussions, and now attacking me. Do tell me of what you have "done for me".That's again, a contradiction. On a forum, there are two dimensions. The first one is the words that are spoken. The second is the person who spoke the words. You cannot dissociate the two, therefore, you can't act on what you think is right without affecting who you think is right, nor vice versa.Shrink me then. I don't see how my ideas are atrocities, even though you may dismiss them or repulse at them, doesn't mean you should misuse your power to eliminate anybody with an opposing view.Or I can continue posting my ideas where I wish them to be posted. Really you have no right as a moderator to censor any opposition to your own ideas.I'm surprised you did research on me. Anyways, I welcome skepticism, as that's what keeps a thread moving.I said nothing of the sort. Do not put words in my mouth.Do tell me how my perceptions are "irrelevant" or "inappropriate". I reply on-topic material. Also, you're welcome to believe my perceptions may be "in bad taste" and refute it, but you're not welcome to come flame me about it, such as in this post.And I ponder it as well. It's really laughable how me, an insignificant forum poster, can cause such feelings of control within a forum. Again, I'm merely posting my ideas, your welcome to either agree or refute what I say. Stop forming conspiracies around me.

You do realize this went from Pits of Hell to Funhouse in like 3 posts?

Just roll with it and do verbal diarrhea, everybody will have moar fun then.

Edit: I'd do it myself, but I am too confined to my standards of actually saying something to bull$hit for like 1000 words at a time. I gotta admit, this is a lot of lulz.

I will not waste my time criticizing or insulting Harrisonized as 1) he is unlikely to change, and 2) Harrisonized probably revels in the posts of shock and repulsion that he regularly receives.

Your whole post if of criticism, and you're not going to do yourself any good by insulting me. 1) I am unlikely to change my views unless posted with a significant amount of evidence that proves otherwise why my views should be changed. 2) I don't revel. Rather, I'm amused that while everyone is posting one sentence stating the opposite view, they make no effort to disprove me. It's like accusing me of lying, but having nothing to back up such claims, which really is just proving that the party accusing me is actually the one lying.

Instead, I will focus on his malign policies, which, after all, are the things that overthrow all concepts of beauty and sublimity, of the noble and the good, and instead drag people down into the sphere of his own base nature.

Ok. I demand evidence of such malign policies then.

For most of the facts I'm about to present, I have provided documentation and urge you to confirm these facts for yourself if you're skeptical.

You have provided no documentation, as you ask people to confirm it themselves.

He has delivered exactly the opposite of what he had previously promised us.

What have I promised to you?

Most notably, Harrisonized's vows of liberation turned out to be masks for oppression and domination. And, almost as troubling, his vows of equality did little more than convince people that his latest manifesto, like all the ones that preceded it, is a consummate anthology of disastrously bad writing teeming with misquotations and inaccuracies, an odyssey of anecdotes that are occasionally entertaining but certainly not informative.

Firstly, I have promised nothing of the sort. Liberation! That just makes me laugh at you trying to shove words into my mouth. Secondly, I'd like you to provide "documentation" of such misquotes. Finally, opinionized statements are never meant to be informative. That's true not only for me, but for everyone. I certainly make quite a bit more effort than the average mapler to inform when I want to.

I'm sure Harrisonized wouldn't want me to eavesdrop on his secret conversations.

Privacy is the pinnacle of freedom. I doubt that you'd want to be eavesdropped on either. Do not be hypocritical.

So why does he want to maintain social control by eliminating rights and freedoms?

Stop shoving words into my mouth. Your whole post builds around misled assumptions, which really do nothing but slander me.

This can be answered most easily by stating that he must have some sort of problem with reading comprehension. That's the only explanation I can come up with as to why he accuses me of admitting that honor counts for nothing.

Where did I say such? Do not misquote me.

What I actually said is that Harrisonized does not tolerate any view that differs from his own.

One of the most amusing things I encounter on this forum is that without sufficient evidence, people expect me to believe them. Contrary to what you believe, I do tolerate other views, I can understand them as well, but I will not accept them unless firmly convinced that it is the correct way of viewing a situation.

Rather, he discredits and discards those people who contradict him along with the ideas that they represent.

I wouldn't be so quick to discard and discredit if people are backed with sufficient evidence. There is such low intelligence roaming on this forum and you honestly believe I should accept all the BS that comes into my sight?

All I can tell you is what matters to me: Harrisonized insists that there should be publicly financed centers of pauperism. That lie is a transparent and strained effort to keep us from noticing that he is too negligent to read the writing on the wall. This writing warns that his toadies have been staggering around like punch-drunk fighters hit too many times—stunned, confused, betrayed, and trying desperately to rationalize his sinister codices. It is truly not a pretty sight. But this is something to be filed away for future posts.

I do not support fraud. Your lies are clearly aimed at slandering me. Stop shoving words into my mouth.

At present, I wish to focus on only one thing: the fact that if he can't cite the basis for his claim that we should avoid personal responsibility then he should just shut up about it.

Where did I even mention personal responsibility?

Not to put too fine a point on it but Harrisonized is indubitably up to something.

Don't form conspiracies around me. I am merely posting my opinions, there is no greater scheme as you speculate.

I don't know exactly what, but his ideologies should be labeled like a pack of cigarettes. I'm thinking of something along the lines of, "Warning: It has been determined that Harrisonized's beliefs are intended to devastate vast acres of precious farmland."

You're welcome to refute what I say, just as you're welcome to say no to buying a pack of cigarettes.

Is there anyone else out there who's noticed that the worst kinds of unenlightened freaks I've ever seen are responsible for the passive-aggressive tenor of his invectives?

Invectives aren't passive. Also, I could call your entire post an invective itself, since it's aimed at slandering me, and "passively" (if one could call it that) flaming me.

I ask because he somehow manages to maintain a straight face when saying that bad things "just happen" (i.e., they're not caused by Harrisonized himself).

Now I'll ask you for documentation of this. If you're trying to indirectly say that I cause "bad things" to happen, then I'd like evidence of this as well.

I am greatly grieved by this occurrence of falsehood and fantastic storytelling which is the resultant of layers of social dishevelment and disillusionment amongst the fine citizens of a once organized, motivated, and cognitively enlightened civilization.

And I am greatly grieved by YOUR falsehood and fantastic storytelling that attempts to slander me by putting words into my mouth and attempting to explain my beliefs even though you don't know me.

It strikes me as amusing that he complains about people who do nothing but complain. Well, news flash! Harrisonized does nothing but complain.

Again, do not slander me. I don't come on just to complain. I have better things to do than complain all day.

Finally, any one of the points I made in this post could be turned into a complete research paper, but the conclusion of each would be the same: I haven't the foggiest idea why Mr. Harrisonized wants to break down the industrial-technological system.

Because you haven't the foggiest idea of who I am, yet you act like you know all that goes on in my head.

~~~~~

Stop slandering me. The end.

In the text that follows, I won't bother discussing the flaws in Harrisonized's logic because he doubtlessly doesn't use any logic.

That is contradictory. How can I use logic if I don't have any? That's like saying I can use money if I don't have any money to start with.

I couldn't help but laugh at this. You're trying to attack someone's statement that has an unsaid "no duh" meaning.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Goddam it you guys (*looks at the original people who incite this*), this just turned some peaceful discussion into bad-mouthing on one another. Not saying that I'm backing up Harrison (I'm not taking sides here), but for God's sake take this bull to PM's if it gets heated up.

This just simply detracted from the original topic to the point where this topic has no validity to continue. I'm just quite disguisted at how some of you people quickly bash on one another and turn something innocent into a never-ending flame war.

And I quite agree with Quantact - This went from Pits of Hell to lolFunhouse. So....can't we all be civil for once? I'd figured this topic that the OP constructed (in a strange way, which is quite unique ) would turn into one little misunderstanding that just sets off the powder keg. Go figure, eh?

This thread makes me lol so much

I dunno, this topic seemed like it should have gone under the official Nexon bashing thread. But SekushiKun decided he'd compose his rant in a bizarre way. Hence the lolFunhouse part. Or we could move this to the Shady Tree since... it's... well, verbal diarrhea.

(the people who write letters to the Opinions page in my newspaper really aren't nice at all x_X)

This letter tells a story about power and politics and propaganda, about the tension between respectable, hardworking people and quixotic backbiters like Harrisonized. It is a story about Harrisonized's efforts to scrap the notion of national sovereignty. The following paragraphs are intended as an initial, open-ended sketch of how bad the current situation is. Before he once again claims that public opinion is a reliable indicator of what's true and what isn't, he should do some real research rather than simply play a game of bias reinforcement with his functionaries. Right is right and wrong is wrong. I submit that everyone should stop and mull that assertion. Then, you'll understand why Harrisonized never stops boasting about his generous contributions to charitable causes. As far as I can tell, however, his claimed magnanimousness is entirely chimerical, and, furthermore, we must always be looking towards the future while keeping the past in mind. The logical consequences of that are clear: If you think about it you'll see that Harrisonized's peremptory viewpoints are merely a distraction. They're just something to generate more op-ed pieces, more news conferences for media talking heads, and more punditry from people like me. Meanwhile, Harrisonized's underlings are continuing their quiet work of advancing Harrisonized's real goal, which is to deny the obvious.

I wish that one of the innumerable busybodies who are forever making "statistical studies" about nonsense would instead make a statistical study that means something. For example, I'd like to see a statistical study of Harrisonized's capacity to learn the obvious. Also worthwhile would be a statistical study of how many disrespectful, brassbound gadflies realize that if we don't encourage the ethos of exchange value over use value, our children will curse us in our graves. Speaking of our children, we need to teach them diligently that Harrisonized coins polysyllabic neologisms to make his orations sound like they're actually important. In fact, his treatises are filled to the brim with words that have yet to appear in any accepted dictionary. Harrisonized wants us to believe that the world can be happy only when his Praetorian Guard is given full rein. How stupid does he think we are? Here's the answer, albeit in a somewhat circuitous and roundabout style: He has allowed himself to become a spokesman for the same point of view shared by insecure, selfish franions, sniffish self-promoters, and what I call larcenous recidivists while masquerading as an outspoken radical bucking the system.

To perpetuate misguided and questionable notions of other unforgiving wankers' intentions is an injustice. So let me make it clear that whenever there's an argument about Harrisonized's devotion to principles and to freedom, all one has to do is point out that Harrisonized's squibs make many mainstream theologasters nervous. That should settle the argument pretty quickly. I'll talk about that another time. I have other, more important, things to discuss now. For starters, posterity will have little occasion to glorify Harrisonized's "heroic" existence in a new epic. Well, that's another story. To get back to my main point, I ought to mention that Harrisonized's a psychologically defective person. He's what the psychiatrists call a constitutional psychopath or a sociopath.

Over the years, I've enjoyed a number of genuinely pleasurable (and pleasurably genuine) conversations with a variety of people who understand that Harrisonized is slated for an unwept grave. In one such conversation, someone pointed out to me that Harrisonized treats people as objects. Of course, this sounds simple, but in reality, the real issue is simple: So far, the response from his camp has been tardy and equivocal. Let me be clear. I've heard him say that he would sooner give up money, fame, power, and happiness than perform a wretched act. Was that just a slip of the lip, or is Harrisonized secretly trying to burn books? The best answer comes from Harrisonized himself. That is, if you pay attention to his combative, immature values you'll indeed notice that if you can go more than a minute without hearing Harrisonized talk about Pyrrhonism, you're either deaf, dumb, or in a serious case of denial.

We must also assert with all the sincerity of informed experience and the desperate desire to see our beloved country survive that it is hard to ignore the impact of Harrisonized's misconduct on our children, our culture, and our national character. Sadly, lack of space prevents me from elaborating further. Harrisonized acts as if he were King of the World. This hauteur is astonishing, staggering, and mind-boggling.

Accompanying this recognition of the indeterminateness of verifiability with regard to an external, objective reality has been a crisis regarding our ability to know that anyone—you or I or a Martian just arrived in a flying saucer—who wants to do what comes naturally should realize that if Harrisonized is going to encourage and exacerbate passivity in some people who might otherwise be active and responsible citizens, then he should at least have the self-respect to remind himself of a few things: First, there's something wrong with this picture. And second, it is cowardice on his part to corrupt our youth. I'll stand by that controversial statement and even assume that most readers who bring their own real-life experience will agree with it. At a bare minimum, I no longer believe that trends like family breakdown, promiscuity, and violence are random events. Not only are they explicitly glorified and promoted by Harrisonized's jealous, macabre zingers, but whenever he is blamed for conspiring to bombard me with insults, he blames his yes-men. Doing so reinforces their passivity and obedience and increases their guilt, shame, terror, and conformity, thereby making them far more willing to help Harrisonized foment a radical realignment of industrialized economies.

I'm really afraid of the most raffish misers I've ever seen. From this anecdotal evidence I would argue that he uses highfalutin terms like "undiscriminatingness" and "chlamydobacteriaceae" to conceal his plans to squeeze every last drop of blood from our overworked, overtaxed bodies. In this scheme of his, a mass of grandiloquent words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. We become unable to see that all the deals Harrisonized makes are strictly one-way. Harrisonized gets all the rights, and the other party gets all the obligations. Is Harrisonized a pious person? Yes, although his "piety" unerringly leads him to whichever dogma is best for business. Speaking of which, Harrisonized insists that his decisions are based on reason. Has anyone, at any time, ever been more wrong? As you ponder the answer to that question, consider that Harrisonized's serfs' thinking is fenced in by many constraints. Their minds are not free because they dare not be.

To quote the prophet Isaiah, "Woe to ye who make our lives a living hell". Maybe Harrisonized has a reason for acting the way he does, but I doubt it. Although this has been overlooked or ignored by the established scientific community, when I say that a "respected" member of his gestapo recently said (to closely paraphrase), "Those who disagree with Harrisonized should be cast into the outer darkness, should be shunned, should starve", this does not, I repeat, does not mean that mandarinism resonates with the body's natural alpha waves. This is a common fallacy held by ignominious, oleaginous radicals.

While there's no dispute that Harrisonized's hideous and probably a little flagitious, he's also cunning, implacable, fanatic, and ruthless. Why else would he extract obscene salaries and profits from corporations that interfere with the most important principles of democracy? Though I am indisputably not a proponent of conflict, as Harrisonized matures emotionally he'll eventually grow out of his present way of thinking and come to realize that he fervently believes that he's merely trying to make this world a better place in which to live. This shows that he is not merely mistaken about one little fact among millions of facts but that Harrisonized likes to posture as a guardian of virtue and manners. However, when it comes right down to it, what he is pushing is both covinous and addlepated.

Strange, isn't it, how inimical, craven profiteers are always the first to open new avenues for the expression of hate? I definitely wouldn't want to infiltrate the media with the express purpose of disseminating vitriolic information. I would, on the other hand, love to bring important information about Harrisonized's inarticulate, featherbrained screeds into the limelight. But, hey, I'm already doing that with this letter. The salient point here is that I am chagrined but resigned when I witness the indifference to the fundamentals of language that Harrisonized displays. Now that's a rather crude and simplistic statement and, in many cases, it may not even be literally true. But there is a sense in which it is generally true, a sense in which it honestly expresses how if five years ago I had described a person like Harrisonized to you and told you that in five years he'd palm off our present situation as the compelling ground for worldwide alcoholism, you'd have thought me doctrinaire. You'd have laughed at me and told me it couldn't happen. So it is useful now to note that, first, it has happened and, second, to try to understand how it happened and how he says that he is a paragon of morality and wisdom. That's his unvarying story, and it's a lie: an extremely picayunish and power-hungry lie. Unfortunately, it's a lie that is accepted unquestioningly, uncritically, by Harrisonized's apostles. Finally, no letter about Harrisonized would be complete without mention of some of the absolutely imperious schemes that he supports. Although there are a plenitude of examples from which to choose, the most imperious would have to be his proposal to conceal information and, occasionally, blatantly lie. That's the sort of thing that keeps me up at night.

I would like to bring Harrisonized to justice. For starters, if we were to let Harrisonized get away with destroying our moral fiber, that would be a gross miscarriage of justice. Okay, that was a facetious statement. This one is not: He spouts the same bile in everything he writes, making only slight modifications to suit the issue at hand. The issue Harrisonized's excited about this week is nonrepresentationalism, which says to me that the key to his soul is his longing for the effortless, irresponsible, automatic consciousness of an animal. Harrisonized dreads the necessity, the risk, and the responsibility of rational cognition. As a result, his "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude is mad because it leaves no room for compromise.

I cannot believe how many actual, physical, breathing, thinking people have fallen for Harrisonized's subterfuge. I'm utterly stunned. I recently heard Harrisonized tell a bunch of people that he has the authority to issue licenses for practicing jingoism. I can't adequately describe my first reaction to this notion; I simply don't know how to represent uncontrollable laughter in text. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but if we don't get the facts out in the hope that somebody else will do something to solve the problem then Harrisonized will blame those who have no power to change the current direction of events. This message has been brought to you by the Department of Blinding Obviousness. What might not be so obvious, however, is that Harrisonized makes it sound like children should belong to the state. That's the rankest sort of pretense I've ever heard. The reality is that Harrisonized's subliminal psywar campaigns are not pedantic treatises expressing theories or extravaganzas dealing in fables or fancies. They are substantial, sober outpourings from the very soul of alarmism.

In the past, people like Harrisonized would have been tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail for trying to reduce our modern, civilized, industrialized society to a state of mindless, primitive barbarism. I respect his reports, although in a rather infamous speech, he exclaimed that every featherless biped, regardless of intelligence, personal achievement, moral character, sense of responsibility, or sanity, should be given the power to submerge us in a sea of faddism. (I edited out the rest of what he said because, well, it didn't really say anything.)

While the question of who is right and who is wrong in this case is an interesting one, it is also something that I cannot and will not comment on, and not just because it's unequivocally a tragedy that Harrisonized's goal in life is apparently to make it nearly impossible to disturb his sneaky gravy train. Here, I use the word "tragedy" as the philosopher Whitehead used it. Whitehead stated that "the essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things," which I interpret as saying that this is a lesson for those with eyes to see. It is a lesson not so much about Harrisonized's militant behavior but about the way that everyone ought to read my award-winning essay, "The Naked Aggression of Harrisonized". In it, I chronicle all of Harrisonized's précis from the brassbound to the impertinent and conclude that Harrisonized's causing all sorts of problems for us. We must grasp these problems with both hands and deal with them in a forthright way.

Every time Harrisonized gets caught trying to permit demented, predaceous contemptuous-types to rise to positions of leadership and authority, he promises he'll never do so again. Subsequently, his minions always jump in and explain that he really shouldn't be blamed even if he does because, as they believe, his obiter dicta are good for the environment, human rights, and baby seals. Ladies and gentlemen, when he says that all it takes to solve our social woes are shotgun marriages, heavy-handed divorce laws, and a return to some mythical 1950s Shangri-la, that's just a load of spucatum tauri. For the sake of argument, let's pretend that Harrisonized is not a vitriolic rascal. There are various philosophical arguments that one could use to contradict that assuption but perhaps the best involves the observation that Harrisonized can't fool me. I've met inconsiderate mafia dons before, so I know that there is something grievously wrong with those supercilious, virulent extremists who tap into the national resurgence of overt antidisestablishmentarianism. Shame on the lot of them! Perhaps it sounds like stating the obvious to say that I must part company with many of my peers when it comes to understanding why my conscience compels me to reveal the nature and activity of his underlings and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims. My peers allege that at no point in his response to my last volley of criticisms was he even remotely close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. While this is indisputably true, I feel we must add that I am deliberately using colorful language in this letter. I am deliberately using provocative phrases that I hope will stick in the minds of my readers. I do ensure, however, that my words are always appropriate and accurate and clearly explain how Harrisonized can't relate to anyone other than horny riffraff. I challenge him to move from his broad derogatory generalizations to specific instances to prove otherwise.

While perhaps offensive to some readers, only a direct quote can fully convey the detestable nature and content of Harrisonized's perorations: "Attention, shock troops! Your orders are to traffic in our blood, birthright, and security, and to do so at any cost." The long-term consequences of Harrisonized's snow jobs are rarely examined, let alone subjected to scientific scrutiny. That's the current situation, and if you have any doubt about the reality of it, then you haven't been paying close enough attention to what's been happening in the world. As far as I can tell, Harrisonized thinks that his vices are the only true virtues. Of course, thinking so doesn't make it so.

Harrisonized has, at times, called me "chthonic" or "disaffected". Such contemptuous name-calling has passed far beyond the stage of being infantile but harmless. It has the capacity to threaten, degrade, poison, bulldoze, and kill this world of ours. He is careless with data, makes all sorts of causal interpretations of things without any real justification, has a way of combining disparate ideas that don't seem to hang together, seems to show a sort of pride in his own biases, gets into all sorts of deplorable speculation, and then makes no effort to test out his speculations—and that's just the short list!

Don't misunderstand me; I'm not saying that a knowledge of correct diction, even if unused, evinces a superiority that covers cowardice or stupidity. In fact, this is a problem long overdue for debate. That fact may not be pleasant but it is a fact regardless of our wishes on the matter.

There are three fairly obvious problems with Harrisonized's stances, each of which needs to be addressed by any letter that attempts to yank up hostile, foul spineless-types from the dark rocks under which they hide and flaunt them before the bright sunshine of public exposure. First, Harrisonized plants false evidence to incriminate his adversaries. Second, Harrisonized will simply continue to cause distress to people he doesn't know, has never seen, and who have done him no harm whatsoever. And third, I act based on what I think is right, not who I think is right. That's why I try always to free people from the spell of pessimism that Harrisonized has cast over them. It's also why I say that I recently informed him that his provocateurs give voice, in a totally emotional and non-rational way, to his deep-rooted love of gangsterism. Harrisonized said he'd "look further into the matter." Well, not too much further. After all, if my own experience has taught me anything, it's that he wants to play the blame game. Personally, I don't want that. Personally, I prefer freedom. If you also prefer freedom then you should be working with me to rise to the challenge of thwarting his putrid plans.

When I first encountered Harrisonized's theories, all I could think of was, "When someone bends knee to Harrisonized's non-negotiable demands, he pushes and pushes for more." It may seem senseless to say that as witnesses to mankind's inner dissatisfaction, we must prescribe a course of action. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Harrisonized wants us to feel sorry for the delirious cadgers who make nearby communities victims of environmental degradation and toxic waste dumping. I avouch we should instead feel sorry for their victims, all of whom know full well that I, speaking as someone who is not an intrusive deadhead, have had enough of Harrisonized's waste, fraud, misfeasance, and malfeasance. I put that observation into this letter just to let you see that Harrisonized's unruly viewpoints ascribe opinions to me that I don't even hold. News of this deviousness must spread like wildfire if we are ever to denounce those who claim that he was chosen by God as the trustee of His wishes and desires. In closing, we must do everything in our power to unveil the semiotic patterns that Harrisonized utilizes to turn the social order upside-down so that the dregs on the bottom become the scum on the top. The fight must go on.

Let us commence a journey into the much-traveled topic of Harrisonized's unendurable attempts to insult the intelligence, interests, and life plans of whole groups of people. In the text that follows, when I quote from him, I will use the word "excrement" in place of another word which is now apparently permitted in general circulation publications and which I have edited out. I do not appreciate being labeled. No one does. Nevertheless, I have always been an independent thinker. I'm not influenced by popular trends, the media, or even so-called undisputed facts when parroted by others. Maybe that streak of independence is what first enabled me to see that the choice we face as a nation is whether to run our country ourselves or let foul peculators run it for us. But it goes further than that; some people are responsible and others are not. Harrisonized falls into the category of "not".

Harrisonized is completely fork-tongued, as he has proved to my complete satisfaction. He wants to contaminate or cut off our cities' water supply. Who does he think he is? I mean, he wants us to feel sorry for the meddlesome scamps who make my stomach turn. I profess we should instead feel sorry for their victims, all of whom know full well that I receive a great deal of correspondence from people all over the world. And one of the things that impresses me about it is the massive number of people who realize that I recently heard Harrisonized tell a bunch of people that the few of us who complain regularly about his undertakings are simply spoiling the party. I can't adequately describe my first reaction to this notion; I simply don't know how to represent uncontrollable laughter in text. Harrisonized may not have a monopoly on the perpetuation of corporatism but he shows a complete lack of foresight. Now, that last statement is a bit of an oversimplification, an overgeneralization. But it is nevertheless substantially true.

I don't know what bothers me most about Harrisonized. Is it his specious arguments, his illogical reasoning, his obscurantist claims, his unreasonable speculations, or any of the many forms of pseudoscholarship we see in his flimflams? In any case, Harrisonized's conclusions are based on two fundamental errors. They assume that superstition is no less credible than proven scientific principles and they promote the mistaken idea that he knows the "right" way to read Plato, Maimonides, and Machiavelli. Is there a way to counter his flippant convictions? Oh yes, there is a way. It's really quite simple and can be done by any individual. It doesn't cost a thing, monetarily. It requires only time, diligence, and a desire to raise the quality of debate on issues surrounding Harrisonized's censorious, pathological prevarications.

Harrisonized recently claimed that mediocrity and normalcy are ideal virtues. I would have found this comment shocking had I not heard similar garbage from him a hundred times before. The underlying message is that he has been trying for some time to convince people that he should be a given a direct pipeline to the National Treasury. Don't believe his hype! Harrisonized has just been offering that line as a means to defile the present and destroy the future.

Harrisonized wants to intensify or perpetuate gangsterism. Faugh. More often than not, he speaks like a true defender of the status quo—a status quo, we should not forget, that enables him to paralyze any serious or firm decision and thereby become responsible for the weak and half-hearted execution of even the most necessary measures. The point at which you discover that after enduring a barrage of Harrisonized's malodorous opinions, one normally experiences intense levels of stress, difficulty sleeping, and anxiety about one's physical safety as well as one's career is not only a moment of disenchantment. It is a moment of resolve, a determination that everyone ought to read my award-winning essay, "The Naked Aggression of Harrisonized". In it, I chronicle all of Harrisonized's manuscripts from the cheeky to the pestilential and conclude that Harrisonized has never satisfactorily proved his assertion that balmy, bleeding-heart drunks are all inherently good, sensitive, creative, and inoffensive. He has merely justified that assertion with the phrase, "Because I said so." In the beginning of this post, I promised you details, but now I'm running out of space. So here's one detail to end with: What really gets my goat is knowing that Harrisonized's ability to reason from premise to conclusion is nearly non-existent.

Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an Emmy Award-winning American comedian, actor, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.[1]

After beginning his acting career with a play, he wrote several mockumentaries, and was offered two of his own shows, both entitled The Ben Stiller Show. After acting in a few films, Stiller had his directorial debut with Reality Bites, and has since written, starred in, directed, and produced over fifty films and television shows. His films have grossed $1.38 billion.[2] In 2008, Stiller starred in the movie Tropic Thunder, which he also co-wrote, co-produced, and directed.

He is a member of the comedic acting brotherhood colloquially known as the Frat Pack. With multiple cameos in music videos, television shows, and films, he may be best known for his roles in Zoolander, There's Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Tropic Thunder, and Night at the Museum. Throughout his career, he has received several awards and honors including an Emmy Award, several MTV Movie Awards, and a Teen Choice Award.


Contents
1 Early life
2 Acting career
2.1 Beginning career
2.2 The Ben Stiller Show
2.3 Directorial debut
2.4 Comedy career
2.5 Upcoming as of September 2008
2.6 The Frat Pack
3 Personal life
4 Filmography
4.1 Actor
4.2 Director and producer
4.3 Television work
4.4 Music videos
5 Awards and honors
6 References



Early life
Stiller was born in New York City. His father, Jerry Stiller, is Jewish and his mother Anne Meara, who is of Irish Catholic background, converted to Judaism after marrying his father.[3][4] His parents frequently took him on the sets of their appearances, including an appearance on The Mike Douglas Show when he was six.[5] He admitted in an interview that he considered his childhood unusual: "In some ways, it was a show-business upbringing—a lot of traveling, a lot of late nights—not what you'd call traditional."[6] His sister, actress Amy Stiller, has made appearances in many of his productions, including The Ben Stiller Show as the Bride of Frankestein, Reality Bites as a psychic phone operator, and most recently, Tropic Thunder as a script supervisor.

He displayed an early interest in film making and made Super 8 movies with his sister and friends.[7] At 10 years old, he made his acting debut as a guest on his mother's television series Kate McShane. In the late 1970s he performed with the New York City troupe NYC's First All Children's Theater, performing in several roles, including the title role in Clever Jack and the Magic Beanstalk.[8] After being inspired by the television show Second City Television while in high school, Stiller realized that he wanted to get involved with sketch comedy.[8]

Stiller attended the Cathedral School in and graduated from the Calhoun School in New York in 1983. He started performing on the cabaret circuit as opening act to the cabaret siren Jadin Wong. Stiller then enrolled as a film student at the University of California, Los Angeles and joined Beta Theta Pi fraternity.[9] After nine months, Stiller left school to move back to New York City. He made his way through acting classes, auditioning, and trying to find an agent.[10]


Acting career

Beginning career
Stiller landed a role in the Broadway revival of John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves, alongside John Mahoney; the production would garner four Tony Awards.[10] During its run, Stiller produced a satirical mockumentary whose principal was fellow actor Mahoney. His comedic work was so well received by the cast and crew of the play that he followed up with a 10 minute short called The Hustler of Money, a parody of the Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money. The film featured him in a send-up of Tom Cruise's character and Mahoney in the Paul Newman role, only this time as a bowling hustler instead of a pool shark. The short got the attention of Saturday Night Live, which aired it in 1987, and two years later offered him a spot as a writer.[10] In the meantime, he also had a bit part in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun.

In 1989, Stiller wrote and appeared on a season of Saturday Night Live as a featured performer. However, since the show did not want him to make more short films for the show, he left after five shows.[10] He then put together Elvis Stories, a short film about a fictitious tabloid focused on recent sightings of Elvis Presley. The film starred friends and co-stars John Cusack, Jeremy Piven, Mike Myers, Andy plantain, and Jeff Kahn. The film was considered a success, and led him to develop another film entitled Back to Brooklyn for MTV.


The Ben Stiller Show
Main article: The Ben Stiller Show
MTV was so impressed with Back to Brooklyn that they offered producer Jim Jones and director Stiller's No Puzzle Productions a 13-episode show in the experimental "vid-com" format. Entitled The Ben Stiller Show, this series mixed comedy sketches with music videos. It was one of five such shows that MTV planned in this format, designed to take over after the end of the long run of "Remote Control".[citation needed] The show parodied various television shows, music stars, and films. It starred Stiller, along with main writer Jeff Khan and Harry O'Reilly with occasional appearances by his parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, sister Amy Stiller, as well as cameos by Melina Kanakaredes, "Grandpa" Al Lewis, and the multitude of Club MTV dancers including Camille Donatacci, future wife of Kelsey Grammer. Notable were Stiller's impersonations of Tom Cruise, Al Pacino, and William Shatner, and the 1990 FOX lineup of shows including Booker, Alien Nation and Married with Children. This show was the proving ground for much of Stiller's earliest style development and new gag ideas.

Although the show was canceled after its first season, it led to another show entitled The Ben Stiller Show on the Fox Network in 1992. The Ben Stiller Show aired 12 episodes on FOX, with a 13th unaired episode broadcast by Comedy Central in a later revival. Among the principal writers on The Ben Stiller Show were Stiller and Judd Apatow, with the show featuring the ensemble cast of Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy plantain, and Bob Odenkirk, along with utility player John F. O'Donohue, a former New York City cop with whom Stiller first worked on Back to Brooklyn. Both Denise Richards and Jeanne Tripplehorn appeared as extras in various episodes. Throughout its short run, The Ben Stiller Show frequently appeared at the bottom of the ratings, even as it garnered critical acclaim and eventually won the Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Variety or Music Program" after it was canceled.[11]


Directorial debut
After a few minor film roles in the early 1990s, such as Stella, Highway to Hell, and a cameo in The Nutt House, Stiller devoted his time to writing, fund raising, recruiting cast members, and directing Reality Bites.[10] The film was produced by Danny DeVito (who later directed Stiller's 2003 film Duplex and produced the 2004 film Along Came Polly). Stiller acted in the film, which was praised by some critics.

He joined his parents in the family film Heavyweights, in which he played two roles, and then had a brief uncredited role in Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore.

Next, he had lead roles in If Lucy Fell and Flirting with Disaster, before tackling his next directorial effort with The Cable Guy which starred Jim Carrey. Stiller once again was featured in his own film as twins. The film received mixed reviews, but was noted for being the film for which the highest salary was paid to a star for his work in just one film. Jim Carrey received $20 million for his work in the movie.[12] The film also connected Stiller with future Frat Pack members Jack Black and Owen Wilson.

Also in 1996, MTV invited Stiller to host the VH1 Fashion Awards. Along with SNL writer Drake Sather, Stiller developed a short film for the awards about a male model known as Derek Zoolander. It was so well received that Stiller developed another short film about the character for the 1997 VH1 Fashion Awards and finally remade the skit into a film.[10]


Comedy career
In 1998, Stiller put aside his directing ambitions to star in There's Something About Mary alongside Cameron Diaz, which accelerated Stiller's acting career. That year he also starred in several dramas including Zero Effect, Your Friends & Neighbors, and Permanent Midnight. Stiller was invited to take part in hosting the Music Video awards, for which he developed a parody of the Backstreet Boys and performed a sketch with his father, commenting on his current career.


Stiller in December 2008In 1999, he starred in three films, including Mystery Men, where he played a superhero wannabe called Mr. Furious. He returned to directing with a new spoof television series for FOX entitled Heat Vision and Jack, starring Jack Black, however, the show was not picked up by FOX after its pilot episode and the series was cancelled.

2000 would be a better year for Stiller as he starred in four more films including one of his most recognizable roles, as a male nurse named Greg Focker in Meet the Parents opposite Robert De Niro. MTV again invited him to make another short film and he developed Mission: Improbable, a spoof of Tom Cruise's roles in the films Risky Business, Magnolia, Cocktail, and Mission: Impossible.

In 2001, Stiller would direct his third feature film, Zoolander, which focused on the character Derek Zoolander (played by Stiller) that he developed for the VH1 Fashion Awards. The film featured multiple cameos from a variety of celebrities including Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, Lenny Kravitz, Heidi Klum, and David Bowie among others. The film was banned in Malaysia (as the plot centered on an assassination attempt of a Malaysian prime minister)[13] while shots of the World Trade Center were digitally removed and hidden for the film's release after the September 11 terrorist attacks.[14]

After Stiller invited Owen Wilson to star in Zoolander, Wilson returned the favor and invited Stiller to play Chas Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums. Over the next two years, Stiller continued with the lackluster box office film Duplex and several cameos in Orange County and Nobody Knows Anything!. He also guest-starred on several television shows, including an appearance in an episode of the television series King Of Queens in a flashback as the father of the character Arthur (played by Jerry Stiller). He also made a guest appearance on World Wrestling Entertainment's WWE Raw.[15]

In 2004, Stiller appeared in six different films, all of which were comedies, and include some of his highest grossing films. They include Starsky & Hutch, Envy, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, an uncredited cameo in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Along Came Polly, and Meet the Fockers. While Envy only grossed $14.5 million worldwide,[16] his most successful film of the year was Meet the Fockers, which grossed over $516.5 million worldwide.[17] In 2005, Stiller would begin his first attempt at a computer-animated film with Madagascar, which performed so well at the box office that it resulted in a sequel released in 2008.

In 2006, Stiller had cameo roles in School for Scoundrels, and Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny, for which he served as executive producer. In December, Stiller starred in the lead role of Night at the Museum. Although not a critical favorite, it earned over $115 million in ten days.[18] In 2007, Stiller starred alongside Malin Akerman in the romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid. Tropic Thunder, a film he directed, co-wrote and co-produced, and in which he starred with Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black, was released on August 13, 2008.


Upcoming as of September 2008
Stiller has several upcoming films in 2008 and 2009, including Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. His next starring role is in the sequel Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. He will provide a voice for one of the characters in The Smurfs[citation needed]. In February 2007, Variety reported that Stiller would star alongside Jason Schwartzman in the Paramount Vantage film The Marc Pease Experience, playing a former theater teacher,[19] and Twentieth Century Fox announced he would star alongside Tom Cruise in a comedy adaptation of The Hardy Boys entitled Hardy Men.[20] Stiller will produce the upcoming Date School. Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld run the Red Hour Productions company, which will produce the comedy television show Gods Behaving Badly, based on Marie Phillips' novel.[21]


The Frat Pack
Main article: Frat Pack
Stiller is the "acknowledged leader"[22] of the Frat Pack, a core group of actors that has worked together in multiple films. The group includes Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson,and Steve Carell. Stiller has been acknowledged as the leader of the group due to his multiple cameos and for his consistent use of the other members in roles in films which he produces and directs.[22] He has appeared the most with Owen Wilson, in nine films including: The Cable Guy (1996), Permanent Midnight (1998), Heat Vision and Jack (1999 television pilot), Meet the Parents (2000), Zoolander (2001), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Starsky & Hutch (2004), Meet the Fockers (2004), and Night at the Museum (2006); the two are set to co-star in Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, scheduled for 2009. Of the 34 primary films that are considered Frat Pack movies, Stiller has been involved with 20, in some capacity. He is also the only member of this group to have appeared in a Brat Pack film (Fresh Horses).


Personal life
Ben Stiller dated several actresses during his early television and film career including Jeanne Tripplehorn, Janeane Garofalo, Calista Flockhart and Amanda Peet.[23][24] In May 2000, Stiller married Christine Taylor, whom he met while filming a never-broadcast television pilot for the Fox Broadcasting network called Heat Vision and Jack, which starred Jack Black.[25] The couple appeared onscreen together in Zoolander, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and Tropic Thunder. He and Taylor reside in Hollywood Hills[6] and have a daughter, Ella Olivia, born April 10, 2002, and a son, Quinlin Dempsey, born July 10, 2005.[26]

Stiller is a supporter of the Democratic Party and donated money to John Kerry's 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign.[27] In February 2007, Stiller attended a fundraiser for Barack Obama and later donated to the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaigns of Democrats Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton.[28][29] Stiller is also a supporter of several charities including Declare Yourself, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation.[30]

In a 1999 interview with GQ and later in a 2001 interview with Hollywood.com, Stiller stated that he has bipolar disorder, an illness he said that ran in his family.[31] In interviews in November and December 2006, Stiller claimed that this earlier interview's comment about the disorder was false.[32] In one interview he said: "I said jokingly in GQ that I was, like, crazy, and it came out as: Ben Stiller, bipolar manic-depressive!"[33]

Stiller frequently does impersonations of many of his favorite performers, including Bono, Tom Cruise, Bruce Springsteen, and David Blaine. In an interview with Parade, he commented that Robert Klein, George Carlin, and Jimmie Walker were inspirations for his comedy career.[6]

Stiller is a self-professed Trekkie, and appeared in a 1977 book on fandom and conventions. He appeared in the TV special Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond to express his love of the show, and in the comedy roast of William Shatner. He occasionally references the show in his work.


Filmography

Actor
Year Film Role Other notes
1987 Empire of the Sun Dainty
Hot Pursuit Chris Honeywell
Shoeshine
1988 Fresh Horses Tipton
1989 Next of Kin Lawrence Isabella
Elvis Stories Bruce
That's Adequate Chip Lane
1990 Stella Jim Uptegrove
1992 The Nutt House Pie Thrower cameo
Highway to Hell Pluto's Cook/Attila the Hun
1994 Reality Bites Michael Grates also director
1995 Heavyweights Tony Perkis/Tony Perkis Sr.
2 Stupid Dogs Tony Robbins-style character
1996 The Cable Guy Sam Sweet/Stan Sweet also director
Flirting with Disaster Mel
If Lucy Fell Bwick Elias
Happy Gilmore Nursing Home Orderly uncredited
1998 Permanent Midnight Jerry Stahl
Your Friends & Neighbors Jerry
There's Something About Mary Ted Stroehmann earned salary of $3,000,000[34]
Zero Effect Steve Arlo
1999 Black and White Mark Clear
Mystery Men Mr. Furious
The Suburbans Jay Rose
2000 Meet the Parents Gaylord 'Greg' Focker
Keeping the Faith Rabbi Jake Schram
The Independent Cop
2001 The Royal Tenenbaums Chas Tenenbaum
Zoolander Derek Zoolander earned salary of $2,500,000[34]
2002 Orange County The Firefighter cameo
Run Ronnie Run Himself
2003 Nobody Knows Anything! Peach Expert cameo
Duplex Alex Rose
Pauly Shore Is Dead Himself cameo
2004 Meet the Fockers Gaylord 'Greg' Focker
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy Arturo Mendes cameo
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story White Goodman
Envy Tim Dingman
Starsky & Hutch David Starsky
Along Came Polly Reuben Feffer
2005 Danny Roane: First Time Director Himself
Madagascar Alex voice only
Sledge: The Untold Story Commander
2006 Night at the Museum Larry Daley
In Search of Ted Demme Himself
Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny Guitar Store Dude cameo
School for Scoundrels Lonnie cameo
2007 The Heartbreak Kid Eddie Cantrow
2008 Tropic Thunder Tugg Speedman Also Writer and Director
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Alex voice only
The Marc Pease Experience Jon Gribble completed
2009 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Larry Daley post-production


Director and producer
Year Title Other notes
1989 Elvis Stories director and writer
1994 Reality Bites director
1996 The Cable Guy director
1999 Heat Vision and Jack director
2001 Zoolander director, producer, and writer
2003 Duplex producer
Crooked Lines executive producer
2004 Starsky & Hutch executive producer
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story producer
2006 Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny executive producer
2007 Blades of Glory producer
2008 Date School producer
The Ruins producer
Tropic Thunder director, producer, and writer
Unknown Master Mind producer
Gods Behaving Badly producer


Television work
Year Title Role Other notes
1987 Miami Vice Fast Eddie Felcher single episode
1990 The Ben Stiller Show Himself director and writer
Working Trash Freddy Novak television film
1992 The Ben Stiller Show Himself director, producer, and writer
1995 Duckman Harry Medfly voice only; single episode
1997 Friends Tommy single episode
1998 Space Ghost Coast to Coast Himself single episode
1999 Heat Vision and Jack Strip Club DJ director and executive producer
2000 Freaks and Geeks Secret Service Agent single episode
2001 Undeclared Rex single episode
2002 The Simpsons Garth Motherloving voice only; single episode
Prehistoric Planet Narrator first season
The King of Queens Jerry single episode
2004 Curb Your Enthusiasm Himself three episodes
2004-2006 Arrested Development Tony Wonder four episodes
2005 Extras Himself single episode
2007 Family Guy Himself voice only; single episode (uncredited)
2008 Sesame Street Himself single episode


Music videos
Stiller has joined multiple artists for cameos in their music videos, including:

Smash Mouth's video for their song "All Star" as it shows scenes of him being portrayed as Mr. Furious from the film Mystery Men.
Limp Bizkit's video for their hit song "Rollin'," in which he gives the keys to friend Fred Durst to watch/park his car--Stiller's friend tells Durst, "Don't scratch it." He also appeared in the hidden track at the end of their album, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.
Tenacious D's video "Tribute", in which he merely walks across the shot in the mall during the climax of the song.
P. Diddy's "Bad Boy for Life" video as P. Diddy's neighbor.
Jack Johnson's music video, "Taylor," in which he runs over a chicken. An extended version of the video features Ben as a pedantic director, frequently interrupting and instructing Jack.
Beastie Boys' 2006 in-concert movie Awesome: I pineapplein' Shot That!, when Stiller and his wife appear among the audience members caught on amateur camera footage. Stiller is shown rapping along to three songs, then in a brief vox pops-style interview during the closing credits.
Stiller appears as a supermarket manager in Travis' video of their 2007 single "Closer".[35]

Awards and honors
Stiller was awarded an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Variety or Music Program"[36] for his work on The Ben Stiller Show
He has been nominated twelve times for the Teen Choice Awards and won once for "Choice Hissy Fit" for his work in Zoolander. He also was nominated by the MTV Movie Awards thirteen times and won three times for "Best Fight" in There's Something About Mary, "Best Comedic Performance" in Meet the Parents, and "Best Villain" in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.[37]
Princeton University's Class of 2005 inducted Stiller as an honorary member of the class during its "Senior Week" in April 2005.[38]
On February 23, 2007 Stiller received the Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals. According to the organization, the award is given to performers who give a lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment.[39]
On March 31, 2007, Stiller received the "Wannabe Award" from the Kids' Choice Awards.[40]

References
1^ "San Bernardino Sun". The Ben Stiller Show. http://www.sbsun.com/entertainment/ci_4852892. Retrieved on December 18.
2^ "USAToday". "Museum" exhibits funny pals. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news...over_x.htm. Retrieved on December 12.
3^ Wallace, Debra (1999-11-19). "Stiller 'softy' in real life". Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/991119/stiller.shtml. Retrieved on 2007-10-09.
4^ O'Toole, Lesley (2006-12-22). "Ben Stiller:'Doing comedy is scary'". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entert...29484.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-27.
5^ McIntee, Michael Z.. "Monday, May 30, 2005, Show #2366 recap". Late Show with David Letterman. http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/wa...0530.phtml. Retrieved on October 10.
6^ a b c "What makes Ben Stiller funny?". Parade. http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/...en_Stiller. Retrieved on January 6.
7^ Wood, Gaby (March 14, 2004). "The geek who stole Hollywood". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/mar/...s.magazine. Retrieved on October 10.
8^ a b McCarthy, Ellen (December 22, 2006). "Ben Stiller Isn't Funny. Or So He Says...". The Washington Post. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpo...71&FMT=ABS. Retrieved on 2008-10-10.
9^ "Beta Theta Phi Epsilon Lambda". Famous Betas. http://www.umkcbeta.com/Famous_Betas/famous_betas.htm. Retrieved on June 27.
10^ a b c d e f "Tiscali. Film & TV". Ben Stiller Biography. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/f..._biog.html. Retrieved on December 20.
11^ Wolk, Josh (2003-12-05). "Stiller Standing". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,552650,00.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-24.
12^ "100 Greatest Movie Stars". Channel 4 Film. http://www.channel4.com/film/newsfeature..._50_46.jsp. Retrieved on January 6.
13^ "Zoolander faces Malaysian censorship controversy". Guardian Unlimited. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2001/sep/...rship.news. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
14^ "Movies and the Second Day of Infamy". September Terror. http://septterror.tripod.com/movies.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
15^ "PPV's Cure for the Summertime Blues". FindArticles.com. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0...48060/pg_2. Retrieved on 2007-01-02.
16^ "ENVY". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=envy.htm. Retrieved on January 6.
17^ "Meet the Fockers". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=meetthefockers.htm. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
18^ "NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=da...museum.htm. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
19^ "Stiller finds Pease". JoBlo.com. http://www.joblo.com/stiller-finds-pease. Retrieved on February 2.
20^ "Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller as Hardy Boys. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?". DOSE.CA. http://www.dose.ca/movies/story.html?id=...6b73f571e8. Retrieved on February 17.
21^ ""Gods" shine on Red Hour's TV foray". Hollywood Reporter. 2007-11-06. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/cont...a7389ff796. Retrieved on January 15.
22^ a b "Who are the Frat Pack?". Frat Pack Tribute. http://www.the-frat-pack.com/learn-more.html. Retrieved on December 29.
23^ "Ben Stiller". Yahoo!. http://tv.yahoo.com/ben-stiller/contribu...yvwQa.o9EF. Retrieved on December 20.
24^ "Ben Stiller's funny charms". Monsters & Critics. http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people...nny_charms. Retrieved on December 18.
25^ "Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor Welcome a Girl". Buzzle.com. http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/4-16-2002-16705.asp. Retrieved on December 18.
26^ "Group Outing". National Post. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.h...d6&k=32249. Retrieved on December 18.
27^ "Ben Stiller's Federal Campaign Contribution Report". Newsmeat. http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_politi...tiller.php. Retrieved on December 18.
28^ "Hollywood stars attend Obama fundraiser". Sky Valley Journal. http://www.localnewswatch.com/skyvalley/...s&id=65963. Retrieved on February 21.
29^ "Will Smith, Ben Stiller, Even Paulie Walnuts Open Wallets for Presidential Candidates". MTV. http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/...tory.jhtml. Retrieved on July 24.
30^ "Ben Stiller Charity Information". Look to the Stars. http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/18-ben-stiller. Retrieved on January 6.
31^ "Ben Stiller - Actor/Comedian". About:Bipolar Disorder. http://bipolar.about.com/cs/celebs/a/benstiller.htm. Retrieved on December 18.
32^ "Ben at work". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/st...11,00.html. Retrieved on January 11.
33^ "Clown prince". TimesOnline. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,...17,00.html. Retrieved on January 11.
34^ a b "Movie Times". Ben Stiller. http://www.the-movie-times.com/thrsdir/a...v?bstiller. Retrieved on December 17.
35^ "Ben Stiller stars in new Travis video". NME. http://www.nme.com/news/travis/26991. Retrieved on March 13.
36^ "The Ben Stiller Show". TV.com. http://www.tv.com/the-ben-stiller-show/s...mmary.html. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
37^ "Awards for Ben Stiller". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001774/awards. Retrieved on January 6.
38^ "Comedian Stiller performs at Class of 2005 event". Daily Princetonian. http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archive...2659.shtml. Retrieved on December 18.
39^ "Ben Stiller, Scarlett Johansson to receive Hasty Pudding awards at Harvard". Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/2...Awards.php. Retrieved on January 29.
40^ "Ben Stiller wins top Kids Choice prize - the Wannabe". The Eagle. http://www.theeagle.com/stories/040107/e...401007.php. Retrieved on April 1.

I can't believe how knowledgable these posts have been.

Darn the moderator that edited my post.

Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an Emmy Award-winning American comedian, actor, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.[1]

I am writing to express my concerns about Ben Stiller and, more specifically, his goals regarding oligophrenic clowns. Let me begin by citing a range of examples from the public sphere. For starters, Ben's claim that my bitterness at him is merely the latent projection of libidinal energy stemming from self-induced anguish is factually unsupported and politically motivated.

Need I point out that things are apt to get worse before they get better? Ben's diatribes should be labeled like a pack of cigarettes. I'm thinking of something along the lines of, "Warning: It has been determined that Ben's remonstrations are intended to make mountains out of molehills." If we are to shape a world of dignity and harmony, a world of justice, solidarity, liberty, and prosperity, then we must be guided by a healthy and progressive ideology, not by the obtrusive and execrable ideologies that Ben promotes. I can't follow his pretzel logic. I do, however, know that Ben labels anyone he doesn't like as "closed-minded". That might well be a better description of him.

We must prevent the Ben-induced catastrophe I foresee and save our nation from its time of deepest humiliation and disgrace. If we fail in this, we are not failing someone else; we are not disrupting some interest separate from ourselves. Rather, it is we who suffer when we neglect to observe that my cause is to redefine in practical terms the immutable ideals that have guided us from the beginning. I call upon men and women from all walks of life to support my cause with their life-affirming eloquence and indomitable spirit of human decency and moral righteousness. Only then will the whole world realize that it's irrelevant that my allegations are 100% true. Ben distrusts my information and arguments and will forever maintain his current opinions.

Ben's standard operating procedure is to blame our societal problems on handy scapegoats. But I digress. The reason he wants to condition the public to accept violence as normal and desirable is that he's absolutely inaniloquent. If you believe you have another explanation for his nit-picky behavior, then please write and tell me about it. Just as when something flies in the direction of your eyes, your eyelids close instantly and of their own accord, so too does Ben instinctively and automatically marginalize the traditions and truths upon which our nation's greatness sits. That fact is simply inescapable to any thinking man or woman. "Thinking" is the key word in the previous sentence. At one point, I actually believed that he would stop being so lazy. Silly me.

I am sick of our illustrious "leaders" treading on eggshells so as not to upset Ben. Here's what I have to say to them: Ben argues that I am hostile for wanting to take away as many of his opportunities for mischief as possible. I should point out that this is almost the same argument that was made against Copernicus and Galileo almost half a millennium ago. He uses the very intellectual tools he criticizes, namely consequentialist arguments rather than arguments about truth or falsity. In summary, Ben Stiller's hangers-on are the worst that humanity has to offer. Is anyone listening? Does anyone care?

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as Mad-Cow Disease (MCD), is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease in cattle, that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 4 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of four to five years, all breeds being equally susceptible.[1] In the United Kingdom, the country worst affected, more than 179,000 cattle have been infected and 4.4 million slaughtered during the eradication programme.[2]

It is believed by most scientists that the disease may be transmitted to human beings who eat the brain or spinal cord of infected carcasses.[3] In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD), and by February 2009, it had killed 164 people in Britain, and 42 elsewhere[4] with the number expected to rise because of the disease's long incubation period.[5] Between 460,000 and 482,000 BSE-infected animals had entered the human food chain before controls on high-risk offal were introduced in 1989.[6]

A British inquiry into BSE concluded that the epidemic was caused by cattle, who are normally herbivores, being fed the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal (MBM), which caused the infectious agent to spread.[7][8] The origin of the disease itself remains unknown. The infectious agent is distinctive for the high temperatures at which it remains viable; this contributed to the spread of the disease in Britain, which had reduced the temperatures used during its rendering process.[7] Another contributory factor was the feeding of infected protein supplements to very young calves.[7][9]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Infectious agent
* 2 The BSE epidemic in British cattle
o 2.1 UK epizootic and UK licensed medicines
* 3 Husbandry practices in the United States relating to BSE
o 3.1 Regulatory failures
o 3.2 Effect on the beef industry
* 4 BSE statistics by country
* 5 References
* 6 External links

Infectious agent
Microscopic "holes" of tissue sections are examined in the lab. Source: APHIS

The infectious agent in BSE is believed to be a specific type of misfolded protein called a prion. Those prion proteins carry the disease between individuals and cause deterioration of the brain. BSE is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE).[10] TSEs can arise in animals that carry an allele which causes previously normal protein molecules to contort by themselves from an alpha helical arrangement to a beta pleated sheet, which is the disease-causing shape for the particular protein. Transmission can occur when healthy animals come in contact with tainted tissues from others with the disease. In the brain these proteins cause native cellular prion protein to deform into the infectious state, which then goes on to deform further prion protein in an exponential cascade. This results in protein aggregates, which then form dense plaque fibers, leading to the microscopic appearance of "holes" in the brain, degeneration of physical and mental abilities, and ultimately death.

Different hypotheses exist for the origin of prion proteins in cattle. Two leading hypotheses suggest that it may have jumped species from the disease scrapie in sheep, or that it evolved from a spontaneous form of "mad cow disease" that has been seen occasionally in cattle for many centuries.[11] Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus records cases of a disease with similar characteristics in the 4th and 5th Century AD.[12] The British Government enquiry took the view the cause was not scrapie as had originally been postulated, and was some event in the 1970s that it was not possible to identify.[13]

Findings published in PLoS Pathogens (September 12, 2008) suggest that mad cow disease also is caused by a genetic mutation within a gene called Prion Protein Gene. The research shows, for the first time, that a 10-year-old cow from Alabama with an atypical form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy had the same type of prion protein gene mutation as found in human patients with the genetic form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, also called genetic CJD for short. Besides having a genetic origin, other human forms of prion diseases can be sporadic, as in sporadic CJD, as well as foodborne. That is, they are contracted when people eat products contaminated with mad cow disease. This form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is called variant CJD.[14][15]

Not all scientists agree that the danger of contracting the disease warrants taking extreme measures. They stress that human infection by mad cow disease has been statistically very small.[citation needed]

The BSE epidemic in British cattle

Cattle are normally herbivores. In nature, cattle eat grass. In modern industrial cattle-farming, various commercial feeds are used, which may contain ingredients including antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, fertilizers, and protein supplements. The use of meat and bone meal, produced from the ground and cooked left-overs of the slaughtering process as well as from the cadavers of sick and injured animals such as cattle, sheep, or chickens, as a protein supplement in cattle feed was widespread in Europe prior to about 1987.[16] Worldwide, soya bean meal is the primary plant-based protein supplement fed to cattle. However, soya beans do not grow well in Europe, so cattle raisers throughout Europe turned to the less expensive animal by-product feeds as an alternative. A change to the rendering process in the early 1980s may have resulted in a large increase of the infectious agents in the cattle feed. A contributing factor was suggested to have been a change in British laws that allowed a lower temperature sterilization of the protein meal. While other European countries like Germany required said animal byproducts to undergo a high temperature steam boiling process, this requirement had been eased in Britain as a measure to keep prices competitive. Later the British Inquiry dismissed this theory saying "changes in process could not have been solely responsible for the emergence of BSE, and changes in regulation were not a factor at all."[17]

Following an epizootic of BSE in Britain, 164 people (up until February 2009) acquired and died of a disease with similar neurological symptoms subsequently called vCJD, or (new) variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.[4] This is a separate disease from 'classical' Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is not related to BSE and has been known about since the early 1900s. Three cases of vCJD occurred in people who had lived in or visited Britain — one each in Ireland, Canada and the United States. There is also some concern about those who work with (and therefore inhale) cattle meat and bone meal, such as horticulturists, who use it as fertilizer. Up to date statistics on all types of CJD are published by the UK CJD Surveillance Centre in Edinburgh.

For many of the vCJD patients, direct evidence exists that they had consumed tainted beef, and this is assumed to be the mechanism by which all affected individuals contracted it. Disease incidence also appears to correlate with slaughtering practices that led to the mixture of nervous system tissue with hamburger and other beef. It is estimated that 400,000 cattle infected with BSE entered the human food chain in the 1980s.[citation needed] Although the BSE epizootic was eventually brought under control by culling all suspect cattle populations, people are still being diagnosed with vCJD each year (though the number of new cases currently has dropped to fewer than 5 per year). This is attributed to the long incubation period for prion diseases, which are typically measured in years or decades. As a result the extent of the human vCJD outbreak is still not fully known.

The scientific consensus is that infectious BSE prion material is not destroyed through normal cooking procedures, meaning that contaminated beef foodstuffs prepared "well done" may remain infectious.[18][19]

In 2004 researchers reported evidence of a second contorted shape of prions in a rare minority of diseased cattle. If valid, this would imply a second strain of BSE prion. Very little is known about the shape of disease-causing prions, because their insolubility and tendency to clump thwarts application of the detailed measurement techniques of structural biology. But cruder measures yield a "biochemical signature" by which the newly discovered cattle strain appears different from the familiar one, but similar to the clumped prions in humans with traditional CJD Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. The finding of a second strain of BSE prion raises the possibility that transmission of BSE to humans has been underestimated, because some of the individuals diagnosed with spontaneous or "sporadic" CJD may have actually contracted the disease from tainted beef. So far nothing is known about the relative transmissibility of the two disease strains of BSE prion.

Alan Colchester, a professor of neurology at the University of Kent, writing in the September 3, 2005 issue of the medical journal, The Lancet, proposed a theory that the most likely initial origin of BSE in Britain was the importation from the Indian subcontinent of bone meal which contained CJD infected human remains.[20] The government of India vehemently responded to the research calling it "misleading, highly mischievous; a figment of imagination; absurd," further adding that India maintained constant surveillance and had not had a single case of either BSE or vCJD.[21][22] The authors responded in the January 22, 2006 issue of The Lancet that their theory is unprovable only in the same sense as all other BSE origin theories are and that the theory warrants further investigation.[23]

UK epizootic and UK licensed medicines

During the course of the investigation into the BSE epizootic, an enquiry was also made into the activities of the Department of Health and its Medicines Control Agency. On May 7, 1999, in his written statement number 476 to the BSE Inquiry, David Osborne Hagger reported on behalf of the Medicines Control Agency that in a previous enquiry the Agency had been asked to:

"... identify relevant manufacturers and obtain information about the bovine material contained in children’s vaccines, the stocks of these vaccines and how long it would take to switch to other products." It was further reported that the: "... use of bovine insulin in a small group of mainly elderly patients was noted and it was recognised that alternative products for this group were not considered satisfactory." A medicines licensing committee report that same year recommended that: "... no licensing action is required at present in regard to products produced from bovine material or using prepared bovine brain in nutrient media and sourced from outside the United Kingdom, the Channel Isles and the Republic of Ireland provided that the country of origin is known to be free of BSE, has competent veterinary advisers and is known to practise good animal husbandry." In 1990 the British Diabetic Association became concerned regarding the safety of bovine insulin and the government licensing agency assured them that: "... there was no insulin sourced from cattle in the UK or Ireland and that the situation in other countries was being monitored." In 1991 a European Community Commission: "... expressed concerns about the possible transmission of the BSE/scrapie agent to man through use of certain cosmetic treatments." Sources in France reported to the British Medicines Control Agency: "... that there were some licensed surgical sutures derived from French bovine material." Concerns were also raised: "... regarding a possible risk of transmission of the BSE agent in gelatin products."

Husbandry practices in the United States relating to BSE

Soybean meal is cheap and plentiful in the United States. As a result, the use of animal byproduct feeds was never common, as it was in Europe. However, U.S. regulations only partially prohibit the use of animal byproducts in feed. In 1997, regulations prohibited the feeding of mammalian byproducts to ruminants such as cows and goats. However, the byproducts of ruminants can still be legally fed to pets or other livestock such as pigs and poultry such as chickens. In addition, it is legal for ruminants to be fed byproducts from some of these animals. [5] A proposal to end the use of cow blood, restaurant scraps, and poultry litter (fecal matter, feathers)[24] in January 2004 has yet to be implemented[25], despite the efforts of some advocates[who?] of such a policy, who cite the fact that cows are herbivores, and that blood and fecal matter could potentially carry BSE.

Regulatory failures

In February 2001, the USGAO reported that the FDA, which is responsible for regulating feed, had not adequately policed the various bans.[26] Compliance with the regulations was shown to be extremely poor before the discovery of the Washington cow, but industry representatives report that compliance is now 100%. Even so, critics call the partial prohibitions insufficient. Indeed, US meat producer Creekstone Farms alleges that the USDA is preventing BSE testing from being conducted.[27]

The USDA has issued recalls of beef supplies that involved introduction of "downer cows" into the food supply. Westland/Hallmark was found to have used electric shocks to prod downer cows into the slaughtering system in 2007.[28] Possibly due to pressure from large agribusiness, the United States has drastically cut back on the number of cows inspected for BSE.[29]

Effect on the beef industry

Japan was the top importer of U.S. beef, buying 240,000 tons valued at $1.4 billion in 2003.[citation needed] After the discovery of the first case of BSE in the U.S. on December 23, 2003, Japan stopped U.S. beef imports in December 2003. In December 2005, Japan once again allowed imports of U.S. beef, but reinstated its ban in mid-January 2006 after a technical violation of the U.S.-Japan beef import agreement: a vertebral column, which should have been removed prior to shipment, was included in a shipment of veal.

Tokyo yielded to U.S. pressure to resume imports, ignoring consumer worries about the safety of U.S. beef, said Japanese consumer groups. Michiko Kamiyama from Food Safety Citizen Watch said about this: "The government has put priority on the political schedule between the two countries, not on food safety or human health."

65 nations implemented full or partial restrictions on importing U.S. beef products because of concerns that U.S. testing lacked sufficient rigor. As a result, exports of U.S. beef declined from 1,300,000 metric tons in 2003, before the first mad cow was detected in the US, to 322,000 metric tons in 2004. This has increased since then to 771,000 metric tons in 2007.[30]

On December 31, 2006, Hematech, a biotechnology company based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, announced that it had used genetic engineering and cloning technology to produce cattle that lacked a necessary gene for prion production - thus theoretically making them immune to BSE.[31]

BSE statistics by country
Country ↓ BSE cases ↓ vCJD cases ↓
Austria 5 0
Belgium 133[32] 0
Canada 15[33] 1[4]
Czech Republic 28[34] 0
Denmark 14[35] 0
Falkland Islands 1 0
Finland 1 0
France[36] 900 23[4]
Germany 312 0
Greece 1[37] 0
Hong Kong 2 0
Ireland 1,353 4[4]
Israel 1[38] 0
Italy 138[39] 1[4]
Japan 26 1[4]
Liechtenstein 2 0
Luxembourg 2 1
Netherlands 85[40] 3[4]
Oman 2 0
Poland 21 0
Portugal 875 2[4]
Saudi Arabia 1[4]
Slovakia 15 0
Slovenia 7 0
Spain 412 5[4]
Sweden 1 0
Switzerland 453 0
Thailand [41] 2
United Kingdom 183,841 167[4]
United States 3[33] 3[4]
Total 188,579 214
Dark green areas are countries with confirmed human cases of vCJD. Light green shows countries which have reported cases of only BSE.

The table[citation needed] to the right summarizes reported cases of BSE and of vCJD by country. BSE is the disease in cattle, while vCJD is the disease in people.

The tests used for detecting BSE vary considerably as do the regulations in various jurisdictions for when, and which cattle, must be tested. For instance, in the EU the cattle tested are older (30 months+), while many cattle are slaughtered earlier than that. At the opposite end of the scale, Japan tests all cattle at the time of slaughter. Tests are also difficult as the altered prion protein has very small levels in blood or urine, and no other signal has been found. Newer tests are faster, more sensitive, and cheaper, so it is possible that future figures may be more comprehensive. Even so, currently the only reliable test is examination of tissues during an autopsy.

It is notable that there are no cases reported in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand and Vanuatu where cattle are mainly fed outside on grass pasture and, mainly in Australia, non-grass feeding is done only as a final finishing process before the animals are processed for meat.

As for vCJD in humans, autopsy tests are not always done and so those figures too are likely to be too low, but probably by a lesser fraction. In the UK anyone with possible vCJD symptoms must be reported to the UK Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit. In the U.S., the CDC has refused to impose a national requirement that physicians and hospitals report cases of the disease. Instead, the agency relies on other methods, including death certificates and urging physicians to send suspicious cases to the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center (NPDPSC) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, which is funded by the CDC.

References

1. ^ "A Focus on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy". Pathogens and Contaminants. Food Safety Research Information Office. November 2007. http://fsrio.nal.usda.gov/document_fshee...uct_id=169. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
2. ^ Brown, David (2001-06-19). "The 'recipe for disaster' that killed 80 and left a £5bn bill". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jht...bse527.xml. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
3. ^ "Commonly Asked Questions About BSE in Products Regulated by FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)". Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration. 2005-09-14. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/bsefaq.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, Current Data (February 2009)". The National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit (NCJDSU), University of Edinburgh. February 2009. http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/vcjdworld.htm. Retrieved on 2000-02-09.
5. ^ "Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Fact Sheet". National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. 2008-02-13. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/cjd/detail_cjd.htm. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
6. ^ "CJD deaths 'may have peaked'". BBC News. 2001-11-23. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1671737.stm. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
7. ^ a b c "BSE: Disease control & eradication - Causes of BSE", Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, March 2007.
8. ^ "The BSE Inquiry", led by Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, report published October 2000.
9. ^ Harden, Blaine (2003-12-28). "Supplements used in factory farming can spread disease". The Washington Post. http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.co...e=20031228. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
10. ^ "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopaphy: An Overview" (PDF). Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, United States Department of Agriculture. December 2006. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications/a...2-2006.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
11. ^ New Scientist, 17 March 2007, p 11
12. ^ Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
13. ^ Vol.1 - Executive Summary of the Report of the Inquiry
14. ^ Richt JA, Hall SM (September 12). "BSE Case Associated with Prion Protein Gene Mutation.". PLoS Pathog 4: e1000156. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000156. PMID 18787697.
15. ^ Research Shows Mad Cow Disease Also Caused by Genetic Mutation Newswise, Retrieved on September 14, 2008.
16. ^ http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/bsefaq.html
17. ^ Vol.2 - 3. The nature and cause of BSE
18. ^ [1][dead link]
19. ^ "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - "Mad Cow Disease"". Fact Sheets. Food Safety and Inspection Service. March 2005. http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Bov.../index.asp. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
20. ^ http://www.gaudiyadiscussions.com/topic_4034.html
21. ^ India dismisses Lancet's mad cow-India-The Times of India
22. ^ The World Today - New theory traces mad cow disease to animal feed exported from India
23. ^ Elsevier
24. ^ The term "chicken litter" also includes spilled chicken feed as well as fecal matter and feathers. It is still legal in the United States to use ruminant protein to feed chickens. Thus, ruminant protein can get into the food chain of cattle in this round about way.
25. ^ "Reader Questions Poultry Litter And "Downer" Bans". http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/cow110504.cfm. Retrieved on 2008-06-14.
26. ^ "FDA Not Doing Enough to Prevent Mad Cow Disease?". http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/cnn22602.cfm. Retrieved on 2008-06-14.
27. ^ [2][dead link]
28. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...02818.html
29. ^ USA Today, August 3, 2006, archived at [3]
30. ^ Statistics provided by U.S. government & compiled by US Meat Export Federation, archived at [4]
31. ^ Weiss, Rick (2007-01-01). "Scientists Announce Mad Cow Breakthrough". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...00672.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
32. ^ "BSE in Belgium". 2006-11-12. http://home.hetnet.nl/~mad.cow/landen/Belgium.htm. Retrieved on 2008-11-09.
33. ^ a b "BSE Cases in North America, by Year and Country of of Death, 1993-2008". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services. 2008. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/image...a_2008.gif. Retrieved on 2008-11-09.
34. ^ "BSE Positive Findings in the Czech Republic" (pdf). State Veterinary Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Czech Republic. 2007. 2. http://www.svscr.cz/files/bse/en_mapposi...ngsbse.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-11-09.
35. ^ "The Current Status of BSE and scrapie in Denmark" (pdf). Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. May 2007. http://www.uk.foedevarestyrelsen.dk/NR/r...y20071.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-11-09.
36. ^ France reports more than 900 BSE cases
37. ^ "BSE in Greece". http://home.hetnet.nl/~mad.cow/landen/Greece.htm. Retrieved on 2008-11-09.
38. ^ "Israel: BSE testing according to source of cattle and age groups, 2002-2008". 2008-03-05. http://agri3.huji.ac.il/~yakobson/bse/bse_test.htm.
39. ^ "BSE cases - Italy 2001 - 2006". 2006. http://www.izsto.it/ceafoc_bse.htm. Retrieved on 2008-11-10.
40. ^ "Overzicht BSE-gevallen" (in Dutch). Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit. 2008. http://www.minlnv.nl/portal/page?_pageid...ode=BROWSE. Retrieved on 2008-11-09.
41. ^ The number of BSE cases is not available for Thailand.

External links
Sister project Wikinews has related news:
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
Sister project Look up Bovine spongiform encephalopathy in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Government

* APHIS - BSE Information - U.S. Department of Agriculture
* Canadian BSE FAQs - Canadian Food Inspection Agency
* BSE Homepage - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK)
* UK government inquiry into BSE from discovery to 1996
* UK Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit
* British Medicines Control Agency statement PDF - (Excerpts cited above.)
* BSE Resources - Food Safety.gov
* Impact of BSE on U.S. Economy - Economic Research Service
* Mad Cow FAQs - Massachusetts Public Health
* BSE (Mad Cow Disease) - Health Canada
* List of prohibited substances in ruminant feed - U.S. Code of Federal Regulations
* Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in North America - enumeration of reported cattle incidents

Consumer/health groups

* HowStuffWorks Craig C. Freudenrich, Ph.D.
* Mad Cow Disease news and information - Organic Consumers Association
* Pediatrician's evaluation of BSE risk- About.com
* Mad Cow information - Bureau for National Affairs
* BSE FAQs - International Food Information Council
* Mad Cow USA - Center for Media and Democracy
* Choosing Safer Beef to Eat - Center for Science in the Public Interest

Science/research

* BSE and blood transfusion (The Lancet - Vol. 368, Issue 9552, 09 December 2006, Pages 2061-2067)
* Scientific American - Article from 2004
* Mad Cow Information - North Dakota State University
* BSE Information Center - Iowa State University
* The Origins of BSE - Mark Purdey

Beef/cattle industry

* BSE News & Information - American Association of Meat Processors
* Livestock Feed Industry News - American Feed Industry Association
* Economic Impact of BSE on the U.S. Beef Industry

In case you hadn't noticed, Harrison and anyone else whose name came up here, these are not handwritten rants. They're computer generated. Hence the fact that none of the arguments in them make sense (though this fact seems irrelevant to some people) and the points they make seem completely offtopic. Those of us who realized the OP's post was a generated rant joined in with other generated rants, and people who didn't suddenly began wondering why we all became so verbose in our arguments. XD

so yeah.
http://www.pakin.org/complaint/
have fun.

In case you hadn't noticed, Harrison and anyone else whose name came up here, these are not handwritten rants. They're computer generated. Hence the fact that none of the arguments in them make sense (though this fact seems irrelevant to some people) and the points they make seem completely offtopic. Those of us who realized the OP's post was a generated rant joined in with other generated rants, and people who didn't suddenly began wondering why we all became so verbose in our arguments. XD

so yeah.
http://www.pakin.org/complaint/
have fun.

I was wondering if anyone would notice. Seems sicnarf was the first. I was just angry at nexon. Instead of posting my actual anger, I decided to post that. Made me laugh.

In case you hadn't noticed, Harrison and anyone else whose name came up here, these are not handwritten rants. They're computer generated. Hence the fact that none of the arguments in them make sense (though this fact seems irrelevant to some people) and the points they make seem completely offtopic. Those of us who realized the OP's post was a generated rant joined in with other generated rants, and people who didn't suddenly began wondering why we all became so verbose in our arguments. XD

so yeah.
http://www.pakin.org/complaint/
have fun.

Fully quoted Wikipedia is your friend.

Well it's in the fun house now so I guess I can say this:

I FREAKIN TL;DRd AT YOUR WALL OF TXT

In case you hadn't noticed, Harrison and anyone else whose name came up here, these are not handwritten rants. They're computer generated. Hence the fact that none of the arguments in them make sense (though this fact seems irrelevant to some people) and the points they make seem completely offtopic. Those of us who realized the OP's post was a generated rant joined in with other generated rants, and people who didn't suddenly began wondering why we all became so verbose in our arguments. XD

so yeah.
http://www.pakin.org/complaint/
have fun.

The following are simply some random thoughts that have been rattling about my head of late and that I'd like to let out—a little house cleaning, if you will. Let's get down to brass tacks: RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s mind has limited horizons. It is confined to the immediate and simplistic, with the inevitable consequence that everything is made banal and basic and is then leveled down until it is deprived of all spiritual life. What do you think the chances are that RUBBER DUCKIES INC. will eventually stop destroying our moral fiber? I assure you, the likelihood of that is slim to none. The reason is that throughout history, there has been a clash between those who wish to give peace a chance and those who wish to suck up to intransigent cadgers. Naturally, RUBBER DUCKIES INC. belongs to the latter category.

We ought to provide some balance to RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s one-sided epigrams. That'll make RUBBER DUCKIES INC. think once—I would have said "twice" but I don't see any indication that it has previously given any thought to the matter—before trying to suppress people's instinct and intellect. RUBBER DUCKIES INC. has long wanted to prevent anyone from stating publicly that it accepts superstition for science, hokum and magic for medicine, monotone chanting for music, and lethargic passivity in lieu of discovery and inquiry. Why do I bring that up? Because by studying its repression of ideas in its extreme, unambiguous form one may more clearly understand why RUBBER DUCKIES INC. is extraordinarily brazen. We've all known that for a long time. However, its willingness to force us to do things or take stands against our will sets a new record for brazenness.

It's possible that anger is contagious. However, I cannot speculate about that possibility here because I need to devote more space to a description of how finding the best way to catalogue RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s swindles and perversions while remaining true to those beliefs, ideals, and aspirations we hold most dear is a challenging problem indeed. We must therefore tackle this problem with more determination, more tenacity, and more fanaticism than it has ever been tackled before. Only then will people realize that RUBBER DUCKIES INC. thinks we want it to waste hours and hours of our time in fruitless conferences and meetings. Excuse me, but maybe I can honestly suggest how it ought to behave. Ultimately, however, the burden of acting with moral rectitude lies with RUBBER DUCKIES INC. itself. My intention here is not just to say "no" to RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s possession-obsessed modes of thought but also to call a spade a spade.

RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s protests manifest themselves in two phases. Phase one: force us to bow down low before haughty vandals. Phase two: redefine success and obscure failure. RUBBER DUCKIES INC. likes to quote all of the saccharine, sticky moralisms about "human rights" and the evils of egotism. But as soon as we stop paying attention, it invariably instructs its lapdogs to weaken our mental and moral fiber. Then, when someone notices, the pattern repeats from the beginning. Though this game may seem perverse beyond belief to any sane individual it makes perfect sense in light of RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s illogical stratagems.

RUBBER DUCKIES INC. used to be a major proponent of Pyrrhonism. Nowadays, it's putting all of its support behind adversarialism. As they say, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The long and short of it is that there's an important difference between me and RUBBER DUCKIES INC.. Namely, I am willing to die for my cause. RUBBER DUCKIES INC., in contrast, is willing to kill for its—or, if not to kill, at least to jawbone aimlessly.

If RUBBER DUCKIES INC. could have one wish, it'd wish for the ability to desecrate religious objects. Then, people the world over would be too terrified to acknowledge that RUBBER DUCKIES INC. may spit in the face of propriety right after it reads this letter. Let it. In the blink of an eye, I will show RUBBER DUCKIES INC. how it is as wrong as wrong can be. The problem with RUBBER DUCKIES INC. is not that it's petty. It's that it wants to slander those who are most systematically undervalued, underpaid, underemployed, underfinanced, underinsured, underrated, and otherwise underserved and undermined as undeserving and underclass. RUBBER DUCKIES INC. refuses to come to terms with reality. It prefers instead to live in a fantasy world of rationalization and hallucination.

Since most people oppose RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s ethically bankrupt musings, it has had to focus too much on one side of the equation and not enough on the broader perspective of things using every indecent means imaginable. If we are to encourage opportunity, responsibility, and community, then we must be guided by a healthy and progressive ideology, not by the wretched and dotty ideologies that RUBBER DUCKIES INC. promotes. Let me mention again that I cannot believe how many actual, physical, breathing, thinking people have fallen for RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s subterfuge. I'm completely stunned. Did it ever occur to RUBBER DUCKIES INC. that it can't see the forest for the trees? The answer is rather depressing but I'll tell you anyway. The answer begins with the observation that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to detect the subtext of this letter. But just in case it's too subliminal for some, let me thrust it into your face right here: We cannot afford to waste our time, resources, and energy by dwelling upon inequities of the past. Instead, we must shed the light of truth on the evil that is RUBBER DUCKIES INC.. Doing so would be significantly easier if more people were to understand that RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s ideologies were never about tolerance and equality. That was just window dressing for the "innocents". Rather, RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s maudlin preoccupation with cameralism, usually sicklied over with such nonsense words as "internationalization", would make sense if a person's honor were determined strictly by his or her ability to procure explosive devices, gasoline, and detonators for use in an upcoming campaign of terror. As that's not the case, we can conclude only that when RUBBER DUCKIES INC. says that anyone who disagrees with it is ultimately unimaginative, in its mind, that's supposed to end the argument. It's like it believes it has said something very profound.

If you were to tell RUBBER DUCKIES INC. that it has an implacable determination to satisfy its own ambitions and lusts at whatever cost to its cringers, its nation, and even to its own progeny, it'd just pull its security blanket a little tighter around itself and refuse to come out and deal with the real world. If RUBBER DUCKIES INC. sincerely believes that it is entitled to cashier anyone who tries to reinforce what is best in people then it must be smoking something illegal. For the most part, RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s apologists will have to stop shouting "Me, me!" and learn to harmonize on "Us, us!". Still, we must put to rest the animosities that have kept various groups of people from enjoying anything other than superficial unity. Those who claim otherwise do so only to justify their own gormless, apolaustic expedients. RUBBER DUCKIES INC. motivates people to join its den of thieves by using words like "humanity", "compassion", and "unity". This is a great deception. What RUBBER DUCKIES INC. really wants to do is supply the chains that bind the individual to notions of self-loathing and unworthiness. That's why I, for one, want to open students' eyes, minds, hearts, and souls to the world around them. That may seem simple enough, but I recommend paying close attention to the praxeological method developed by the economist Ludwig von Mises and using it as a technique to renew those institutions of civil society—like families, schools, churches, and civic groups—that make RUBBER DUCKIES INC. pay for its crimes against humanity. The praxeological method is useful in this context because it employs praxeology, the general science of human action, to explain why I wonder if RUBBER DUCKIES INC. really believes the things it says. It knows they're not true, doesn't it? Well, if I knew that, I'd be in Stockholm picking up my prize and a sizable check.

What really irks me is that RUBBER DUCKIES INC. has presented us with a Hobson's choice. Either we let it make us too confused, demoralized, and disunited to put up an effective opposition to its tactics or it'll dissolve the bonds that join individuals to their natural communities. RUBBER DUCKIES INC. does not want to declare that it has a duty to conceal the facts and lie to the rest of us, under oath if necessary, perjuring itself to help disseminate the True Faith of misoneism because it is brassbound, libidinous, callous, and ill-bred (though, granted, RUBBER DUCKIES INC. is all of the aforementioned) but rather because we must act against injustice, whether it concerns drunk driving, domestic violence, or even Fabianism. This is a terrible and awesome responsibility—a crushing responsibility. However, if we stick together we can can show the world that I must ask that RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s buddies throw down the gauntlet and challenge RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s dupes to act honorably. I know they'll never do that so here's an alternate proposal: They should, at the very least, back off and quit trying to fleece us. RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s causing all sorts of problems for us. We must grasp these problems with both hands and deal with them in a forthright way.

When I first became aware of RUBBER DUCKIES INC.'s covert invasion into our thought processes, all I could think was how I have observed that those who disagree with me on the next point tend to be unsophisticated and those who recognize the validity of the point to be more educated. The point is that we could opt to sit back and let RUBBER DUCKIES INC. put the prisoners in charge of running the prison. Most people, however, would argue that the cost in people's lives and self-esteem is an extremely high price to pay for such inaction on our part. RUBBER DUCKIES INC. has recently been going around claiming that it is an organization of peace. You really have to tie your brain in knots to be gullible enough to believe that junk. Sorry for babbling so much, but people are looking for answers, not ideology.




[SIZE="4"]This is DELICIOUS[/SIZE]

Fully quoted Wikipedia is your friend.

Indeed it is! I did it first, though




Also, ROFL at Harrisonized.

so yeah.
http://www.pakin.org/complaint/
have fun.

Dammit! I was thought you guys were being super smart and I was living in bliss because of it!