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« Fuck the Big Three The RantsWe Love Christmas...Now Let's Play Cards »

No, Dude, We've Been Hitting Snooze for a Year Now
2008.11.19 (Wed) 19:07
Hit the snooze again

Wow — four years of Two Percent.

Or, well, technically, about two and a half years over the span of four. Which isn't terrible.

We'd love to mark the occasion with some fanfare, some self-congratulatory bullshit, and a wonderful thread where all our regulars drop by to say "Dudes, happy birthday, Allison still really sucks, Bill Napoli's an asshat, Tom Carder's still scary-looking, and...wait, whatever happened to Safari Tom?"

But you know what we're going to do instead? We're going to throw up this quick little declaration of the completion of four years, and we're going to do our best to stop hitting the snooze button on our Rant alarm.

See, four years ago, we started this whole thing because we kept writing to each other about the crazy shit going on around us. We were reading some wonderful bloggers, like Les Jenkins and PZ Myers, Brent Rasmussen and Ed Brayton. We saw so much bullshit out there, and privately Ranted about it...and then we realized: stop wasting time Ranting to each other, and get some material up for others to read. It became a sort of mantra: don't tell me, man — Rant it!

The incredibly nuts past two years have been...well, there isn't a much more apt description than incredibly nuts. And while "apologizing" isn't the right thing to do — you guys don't pay us for this stuff (or, if you have, we still haven't received the checks) — we do wish we had more time for Two Percent stuff.

So here's the deal: with no guarantees (as usual), we're going to try our best to kick our own (and each other's) asses, and get some more Rants up on at least a slightly more frequent schedule. The last few months have seen an up-tick in Rants, and we're going to try to keep that up, and maybe even build on it. We've still got real life shoving red hot pokers up our asses — more offspring are imminent, some great professional developments are demanding a lot of attention, and the usual mish-mash of pesky real life stuff is knocking on our doors every hour of every day. Every so often, we even need to eat and sleep.

But — and here's the kicker — we still find the time to write each other to say: "Dude, did you see this bullshit?"

So it's time to get back to our original Two Percent mantra: Don't tell me, man — Rant it!

Let's see what we can do. And thanks for sticking around — as Heisenberg could attest, this site wouldn't be the same without you reading it.


— • —
[  Filed under: % Two Percent Company  % Two Percent Toons  ]

Comments (20)

stavros, 2008.11.19 (Wed) 19:57 [Link] »

Dudes, happy birthday, Allison still really sucks, Bill Napoli's an asshat, Tom Carder's still scary-looking, and...wait, whatever happened to Safari Tom?



stavros, 2008.11.19 (Wed) 20:00 [Link] »

Seriously though, it would be great to have you guys up to "normal" schedule again.

So: cheers for more Rants in the next four years!



John Morales, 2008.11.19 (Wed) 21:08 [Link] »

Wohoo! Your feed has been silent for ages. Good to see yas back!



Jason Spicer, 2008.11.20 (Thu) 01:25 [Link] »

I'm pretty sure the cat is both alive AND dead. Happy fourth!



Akusai, 2008.11.20 (Thu) 02:12 [Link] »

Hey, it hasn't been that bad lately. The only reason I'd find myself frustrated by your long absences is because of how good your shit is. If nobody cares when you're gone, there's no point in being present. Lots of us care when you're gone, though.

Happy four years, and here's to four more years of breathless, profanity-laden 2% Company Rants.



Apu Illapu, 2008.11.20 (Thu) 03:58 [Link] »

Yay!
Many happy returns of the day. And rants, too!



dikkii, 2008.11.20 (Thu) 04:46 [Link] »

Happy fourth, Two %ers. Even though you're not as prolific these days, you still post. And I still dig it.



Les, 2008.11.20 (Thu) 14:53 [Link] »

I was quite pleased to see you guys showing up in my RSS reader as of late. The promise of more updates more often is a welcomed thing indeed. I often find myself envious of your rants wishing I'd had the presence of mind to write them myself.



euclidschild, 2008.11.20 (Thu) 15:52 [Link] »

IT always brightens my day when i see you guys in my in box. Congrats on completing 4 orbits from some arbitrary starting point.



Adam, 2008.11.22 (Sat) 10:21 [Link] »

Happy birthday again fellas! Thank you. It's impossible to put a price on the value of your tutelage over the past four years. Simply priceless, both educationally and comedically.



Ryan, 2008.11.24 (Mon) 15:03 [Link] »

Hey, at least the last two years haven't required you to go on permanent hiatus like some wannabe rockers I know...

*ba-dum-chick*



Agent X, 2008.11.24 (Mon) 15:19 [Link] »

Fuck me, you ARE all still alive. I guess I lost that bet.



Akusai, 2008.11.25 (Tue) 19:34 [Link] »

It just goes to show that the combined power of all the drunken rednecks in Nebraska cannot kill our Rockstar.



interupt, 2008.11.27 (Thu) 16:26 [Link] »

Hooray, i hoped you guys would stay in it.

Too late about Tom Carder though, hes finished up and had to try and find a 'secular' job. Ah well it was fun while it lasted.



PoolGuy, 2008.12.02 (Tue) 13:52 [Link] »

Congrats and good to see you back.

One suggested topic: Dubya says what he's going to miss most is visiting families that have had a member of the family killed in Dubya's war. I can only imagine the pathology at work there.



Tom Foss, 2008.12.07 (Sun) 15:06 [Link] »

Sorry I missed out on commenting when this was recent. It's great to see you folks writing again. Looks like I'm putting your link up in my toolbar again!



Timothy, 2008.12.08 (Mon) 01:58 [Link] »

Oh good lordy, I've stumbled upon something fierce. As a test of my amateur capabilities of debating [sic], I'd like to argue the cons of this site. I'd also like to pull a Doobwa and state that this is possibly a joke and is only meant to sensationalize the death penalty. Please be nice to me as I realize that this has very little to do with the rant itself.

My friends. I may have a limited vocabulary and a pretty dense scope of wit, but I believe that I can prove to all of you that the Two Percent Company is more an internet franchise of Allison Doobwa's flawed principles than anything else.

My assertion is not nearly as vague as my explanation for it. Actually it's pretty similair, but bear with me.

Allison Doobwa, through her shit-head arrogance, admires the idea of a world where murderers and rapists are gleefully forced into horrific examples of torture and psychological annihilation. A completely unrelated point I feel obligated to make is that she probably is convinced of her own hype, and can't smell the shit falling out of her mouth despite being so sensitive.

My point is this. The Two Percenters have created a website to draw out Doobwa supporters and antagonize them in sadistically scathing ways in an effort to encourage them to try again or invite friends to the social massacre. I acknowledge that some focus is dedicated to the idea of a society without idiots who ignorantly exploit the emotions of others, not alot of focus though since the chance to shred the character of a doobwa supporter is pretty tempting.

I'm not sure if it's been done before, but one has to argue on behalf of what method of exploitation is worse. One one side you have allison doobwa, who through complete fucking stupidity assumes with all of her heart that she is a spiritual emmissary and she provides a service to society by being a holy angel of avenging justice.

On the other side you have the Two Percenters who deliberately focus on the ignorant, doobwa included. The statements made by this site are always carefully factual and make excellent use of the good queen's english. However, I would say that this site is more indirectly an agent of eventual (a couple decades or so) change for our society and more directly an exploitation of the idiotic beliefs of some.

The idea is. Allison Doobwa exploits her image and the people who adore it because she truly does believe what they believe. The Two Percenters exploit human ignorance and arrogance in an intellectual fashion because it's fun to do. The con is that your intended goal is more an effort to dwell on the existences of morons, rather than (I'm assuming) an effort to educate people on the scientific flaws regarding their beliefs.


Please be nice to me, I'm very fragile.



The Two Percent Company, 2008.12.08 (Mon) 10:43 [Link] »

There's very little to say, Timothy, so this shouldn't upset your fragility. Your assertion isn't vague; it's just terrifically flawed. Believe what you like, but you've done little here except decide what you think our motivations are, based on scant data and a complete misrepresentation and/or misinterpretation of simple statistics.

It's incredible to us that we have to point this out to someone yet again, but out of over 450 Rants, less than 20 (somewhere between 15 and 17, depending on how you consider them) are focused on Allison DuBois. That's about 4%.

We mention DuBois (peripherally) in a handful of other articles, and she does crop up in the comments every now and then, especially as she's become an easy shorthand example of the kind of bullshit we often discuss. We also bring her up as a natural function of addressing folks like you, who ask us (or, as in your case, tell us) why we write about her. We're still at about 5% or 6% of our entire collection of Rants, and certainly below 9%.

The fact that so many people arrive at our site in searches for information on DuBois is:

  • Due to her popularity at the time Medium premiered, our timely series on her during the same period, and continued hits maintaining our search rankings.
  • Not remotely something we had "planned" (you didn't seem to pull this one out, but enough people have made this assertion that we're getting a bit tired of it).
  • Refreshing in that, clearly, the word is getting out there. (We don't care if we're the ones to do it, or someone else, but it's out there.)
  • Annoying in that, clearly, credulous and ineducable people feel the need to pout at us without having any actual points or refutations to offer.

If you think we want to be dealing with DuBois zombies (DuBoismbies?) nearly four years after quite thoroughly debunking her insipid crap, then you're having a bit of difficulty parsing what has been said on the subject. Nor do we "enjoy" dealing with the frighteningly unskeptical believers on any number of subjects.

It's a simple pattern, and we're surprised that some folks can't see it. Our harsh writing about our chosen subjects exhibits passion; our harsh writing in response to the people who defend idiocy using more idiocy exhibits annoyance and exhaustion.

It's tiresome. We don't want to be dealing with these creduloids, Timothy. Nor did we expect so much in the way of response when we wrote our original DuBois series in March of 2005. We were quite surprised to become the "go-to guys" on Allison DuBois' pointless crap. Since then, we've written new DuBois Rants only in direct response to new DuBois-related events (acknowledging our unexpected and unwanted status as her unofficial nemeses), in response to Allison's responses to skeptics (which are at least partly inspired by us, her unofficial nemeses — we know you've read our material, Ali), and in response to the usual dimwits who babble about our anger at her without offering any valid points to counter our analysis.

In other words: you (and some of the creduloids — note that we're not assuming you're one of them) have decided that we're "focusing" on DuBois, and "entrapping" her sheepish followers. We'd be happy if they'd all just go away, and Allison herself faded into obscurity. Any statement to the contrary amazes us, and is purely false.

Real life is great these days...and busy. We've limited time and energy to devote to Two Percent, as much as we want to. The last thing we want to do is spend that time and energy fending off morons who can't be bothered to stop and think, which would lead them to one of two obvious conclusions: either that we're right about DuBois, or that they shouldn't try to tell us we're wrong without offering any goddamn valid arguments. Either of these conclusions would prevent them from bothering us with what is, time and time again, the same exact bullshit every fucking time.

We watch trolls leave similar statements to yours on blogs like Pharyngula (again, we're not accusing you of trolling...so far). It's astounding that these folks say: "Hey, whenever someone comes on your blog and acts like an asshole, you call them an asshole, and when they persist, you persist in calling them an asshole — therefore, you must have really set up your blog so you get to call people assholes!" Do you see the remarkably giant gap in the logic, here? If you missed it: we didn't invite them to be assholes. We didn't ask them to show up. And our reaction to them rather plainly indicates irritation rather than exuberance at their presence.

Is a good, deserved smackdown a fun ride? It can be, sure, and we'll certainly admit that. However, for one thing, those are rare (99% of creduloids can't even offer an intelligible comment, let alone a decent "challenge" to our arguments); for another, even a fun smackdown of the latest asinine or apathetic asshole is a rehashing of points we've been over too many times to make us happy; and last, but definitely not least, we created our site to share our views on the issues that interest us, and to discuss those views in an intelligent manner with those who agree and those who disagree.

Incidentally, if you believe that Allison DuBois "assumes with all of her heart that she is a spiritual emmissary and she provides a service to society by being a holy angel of avenging justice," then you're woefully misinformed. Telling the difference between self-delusional fools and willfully deceitful assholes actually isn't all that hard, and Allison is absolutely one of the latter. She knows she's full of shit, and she's doing all this for the "noble" goals of fame and money.

In short, if you really, truly wish to set up the straw man that we do what we do in order to play game after game of Get the Moron, then we have little to say to you. We have very little interest in dealing with those who assign us our positions on any topic (except to clarify our actual positions); we have next to zero interest in dealing with someone who assigns us our motivations in presenting those positions. If you feel like participating, presenting arguments, data, and viewpoints on the topics we discuss, feel free; if you just want to poorly psychoanalyze our motivations while knowing next to nothing of our histories and what drives us to do what we do, then it's probably best for all involved that you just take a hike.



Timothy, 2008.12.08 (Mon) 15:04 [Link] »

Well. I feel a little smarter for reading that.

Lucky for me I live in Arizona where plenty of wonderful hiking can be done. I assure you I'll be slightly less grandiose if I ever comment again, which is pretty likely since I honestly expected the response to be alot more back handed.

My ego is a little more inflated to tell the truth. Even though I was pretty much put into my place, despite denying for twenty years of my life that such a place existed, I managed to pull out a better than average (internet wide I mean) piece of commentary directed at me.

Seriously ya'll, keep up the awesome work.



Katherine, 2010.12.17 (Fri) 04:36 [Link] »

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it but I have only ever even heard of Dubois because of an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills I just watched this evening..which led me to this site.

Not only did Dubois come across (to everyone around her) as a complete whack job, but she also said some incredibly evil shit.




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