ZCT one sixty eight

Mitt Romney Tax Information - At Last

2012-01-24T02:48:00.000-05:00

I've not been watching the Republican debates, because frankly I'd rather stab myself in the face, and because if I want to know what happened in them I can just watch the news where they will regurgitate the main points over and over ad nauseum for 24-48 hours after each debate.

However, I was aware of the issue where Mitt Romney acted shady about his taxes for a while and then made a quip about not earning much from his speaking engagements (over $350,000 a year if you're interested).

Well bowing to pressure from his opponent Newt Gingrich he apparently released his tax information today. While he pays a healthy dollar amount on his vast fortune as his critics suspected his tax percentage is lower than many middle class Americans.

Rather than pay 35% tax, he pays closer to 15% and has money 'invested' in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, which he assures us is NOT a tax shelter.

But more disturbing than his $200+ million dollar fortune, his insane income of $42m a year, for me was the fact that per Mormon tradition he pays some 15% of his income to the Mormon ~~cult~~ church. Yep, that's right, a guy who wants to have his finger on the nukes, and become leader of the free world, is so besotted with the cult leaders at his 'church' he gave them $7m between 2010 and 2011.

I'm all for religious freedom. But when you feel compelled to give SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS to the church every couple of years, you have to wonder what kind of control they have over this man. What decisions would they be guiding him in if he, Joseph Smith forbid, becomes president?

Romney has already shown himself to be a slick salesman. He tells people exactly what they want to hear, moving his position with the changing wind of public opinion. I for one don't believe a word out of his smarmy mouth, and I certainly don't trust anyone who feels the need to continually send millions of dollars to their church.

The last President would keep telling us that God had told him what to do. And that was bad enough. But what's going to happen when Mormon elders are dictating our path to their obedient servant and donor? Pretty scary stuff.

Oh, and for those of you who don't think the Mormon Cult is in fact a cult, consider the opinion of hundreds of ex-Mormons who keep a great recovery site for those who escape the cult here.

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-05T16:43:00.002-05:00

2012 has already started well with the news that some of the scary bat-shit crazy presidential candidates have been forced to drop out of the race.

First Herman Cain stepped down, after giving stupid and ignorant answers (or simply yelling 9-9-9 - which rather aptly in the UK is the emergency services number like 911 in the States).

Now after Iowa, Michelle Bachmann found out the hard way that bat shit crazy wasn't enough to make it in politics. And I'm not just harping on because I'm a liberal, this woman was so crazy, so stupid, and such a fucking bigot, there is no place for her thinking she can run for president of the free world. I wouldn't trust her to run a gas station.

Also good news, Rick Perry, or George W. Bush II, got slammed, polling double what Bachmann managed; a measly 10% of the vote. While he pledges to continue the fight, it's only a matter of time before that dumbass is kicked out of the race.

We've still got a VERY scary field out there, Mitt Romney; the cult member who will say anything or adopt any policy to get elected, and another bigot in the shape of Rick Santorum.

Since he came within 8 votes of beating Romney, I thought I'd share some of his world views:

Says he will annul all same sex marriages since gay marriage 'destabilizes' a society.
Says he will repeal all funding for birth control, and even allow states to ban the sale of birth control.
Says he will reinstate don't ask don't tell, and then made a bunch of homophobic statements about gay people in the military.
Claimed that because obesity rates are high in America, we should do away with food stamps.
Claimed that his child, who was born with a serious medical condition, would have died under socialized medicine. Odd then that our infant mortality figures are in the gutter given how great our system is.
Back in August he said that poor people who 'whine' about affording health care should cut back on 'luxuries' like having a car or phone.
He sided with insurance companies who believe in charging more or denying coverage to people with 'pre-existing conditions.'

It scares me that some radical asshole like this can actually have a real chance at running for President.

I guess it's going to be an interesting and scary year.

CashForSmartPhones.com Review

2011-12-21T12:48:00.000-05:00

I recently admitted that I am now Apple's Bitch. There's no denying it. I have decided to simply buy every new phone Apple make after my horrible AT&T / Android experience. But this leads to a problem, because of the business model of cell phones these days, specifically smart phones, early upgrades tend to cost a lot more money than the price they advertise on TV. And we all know why, and it's no big deal. So what to do with the old phone?

I found a web site called CashForSmartPhones.com (part of the Cash4Laptops.com company) and they seemed to have a very reasonable sales pitch, credible reviews, and decent ratings. You type in the smart phone you have and they give you a quote for what they are willing to buy it for.

So I entered the Samsung Infuse 4G, and my old Apple iPhone 3GS. They quoted me $240 for the Samsung and $80 for the iPhone. Not bad. So I decided to take them up on the offer and filled out my information. Within a few days a box and shipping label arrived at my home. All I had to do is reset my phones back to their factory settings (although this company claim to erase the data themselves upon receipt), and send them in, shipped free via UPS.

A few days later I got an email saying the devices had been inspected, I called and they offered me $220 for both units. I accepted, they PayPal'd the money right away. Easy money.

Now you may notice that the price they offered was lower than what they paid, and I'm fine with that. The iPhone was old and crap, that's why I replaced it. The case was cracked at the back, the battery was in poor shape, and I had neglected to supply the charger or cord with it. And despite the newness of the Infuse, the case was already getting worn thanks to the cheap ass crappy materials Samsung used in the construction.

I probably could have pushed for a bit more money, or tried to sell them on eBay, but then you have to deal with random buyers, the usual eBay bullshit, fees, etc. This was straight up an easy transaction by a company that did what they promised and gave me money for something that frankly would have been left sitting in a drawer if I hadn't found this web site.

It's always exciting to see a company doing business the right way, and really I had no complaints about this whole transaction. The $220 they paid me easily offset the penalty for early upgrade, and when the iPhone 5 comes out, I suspect I'll be doing the same again.

Slutty Cheerleaders

2011-12-14T09:33:00.001-05:00

A cheerleader is as American as apple pie, and for that reason few Americans seem to consider that the sport is little more than the wholesale exploitation of women and girls.

The story begins in school, when the girls are groomed for exploitation and fitted with special custom designed and fitted slut outfits. In the past schools were okay with their girls dressing slutty because hey, it's school pride right?

But what's interesting is that some schools are now beginning to wise up to the problem, for all the wrong reasons. Instead of noting that competitive cheer-leading is dangerous and results in some 30,000 teen injuries per year, or that the whole concept of flipping around in slutty costumes while the men play a real sport is inherently sexist, what's happening in some schools is that the uniforms are deemed so slutty that they violate the dress code.

That's what recently happened in a school in California. The same $300 slut costumes that were mandated by the school, were deemed so utterly inappropriate that girls could face suspension for wearing them in school.

Let me break that down for you. The school designed their slutty cheerleader costumes to be worn by teenage girls. These costumes cost $300, and were so completely inappropriate that the girls were only allowed to wear them when cheer-leading. If they wore them inside the school they had to cover up with sweat pants. And if they were caught just wearing the uniform, chosen by the school, they would be disciplined.

While I hate to rail against such a deep rooted American tradition, I think it's time America took a long hard look at the slutty teen cheerleaders and ask ourselves is this is really fair and reasonable to our youth. What kind of message do we give to young girls when we create the desire in them to cavort semi naked in slut costumes in front of hundreds or thousands of people. But then we tell them that dressing like that during any other time of the day is slutty and will result in their punishment?

The whole concept and execution is pretty disgusting. It's sexist exploitation of teen girls on every level and it helps breed superficial behavior and sexist gender roles. On top of all that tens of thousands of young women are being inured; some permanently. And for what? Some pointless men worshiping gymnastics in a slutty costume? Where is the educational value in that? Why is it necessary? Are American sports so boring that the only way to keep an audience is to have semi naked girls jiggling around?

Just seems like bullshit to me.

Love, Actually

2011-12-12T01:12:00.001-05:00

I noticed that New Year's Eve flopped at the box office this weekend, standing as I write this on a 4.9 rating out of 10 on IMDB.

Last year's rom-com flop was (among others) Valentines Day.

The common denominator is that they are all trying to be Love Actually, albeit set at a different time of the year and with more Americans in it.

But Love Actually was an excellent movie, written by a genius comedy writer and a great cast. It managed to tell multiple stories with a common thread in a funny and clever way that made it an instant classic.

I'm not saying that one day this movie will not be surpassed, but it takes more than putting some famous pretty people together in a room. This type of multi story line movie requires an enormous skill to put together, compelling characters, and a good set of stories that add up to the big picture.

If you want to see a nice romantic comedy that kicks the shit out of Valentines Day and New Year's Eve this Christmas, take a look at Love Actually.

Adam Carolla Rich Rant

2011-12-12T00:17:00.001-05:00

Recently I was unfortunately subjected to a stream of douchebaggery from Adam Carolla, mouthpiece of the jocktards and thought I'd talk about the content of his rant.

In the nine minute rant Carolla begins by reminding us that 1% of Americans pay 50% of the taxes. He then talks about the politics of envy, entitled millennials, and then defends the status quo and uses the whole rant to pat himself on the back for working hard, getting rich, and being better than 50% of Americans who are lazy assholes. Nice.

The obvious counter to the first 'argument' is that while it may be true that the top 1% pay a lot of tax, the deck has been so stacked in this country these days that the bottom 50% of Americans control about 2% of the wealth. So even if we took everything they had in the world, it would still be less than a 4% tax increase on the wealthy.

He moves on to talk about envy. He uses the example of the 'good old days' when a man would be walking down the street with his son, and they would admire the Rolls Royce driving by owned by a CEO. Claiming that now people are taught to hate and envy the Rolls Royce driver, not admire what they have achieved.

But there is glaring difference between the mythical good old days and today. Back then, the man walking down the street with his son, could put in an honest days work at the car factory and come home and feed his wife and family. (We'll ignore the issue of the woman being forced into domestic servitude owing to their gender, as that's a separate issue.) They could probably live comfortably, and the CEO was probably earning just 10-30 times more money than the worker.

In this day and age, the CEO is making millions, probably 200-400 times what the worker is making. Well I say worker, he has probably had his job outsourced to another country, but pretending he hasn't for a second, his income will almost certainly not be enough to live off requiring another family member to work, just to make a living wage. Even if the CEO runs the company into the ground, has to take a government bail out with our tax dollars, he'll still make millions and when he retires he'll help himself to a golden handshake of millions more out of the worker's pension scheme. Then the company will complain they can't afford to pay for worker's 'entitlements' and 'benefits' because some asshole executive just drained the fund designed to pay for all that stuff.

The CEO will have just enjoyed ten years of Bush tax cuts, helping to create an unprecedented gap between the rich and poor. His team of lobbyists, lawyers and accountants will have ensured that the corporation will have paid nothing in taxes. And when Obama talks about letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire, or suggest an extra tax on private jets, he'll scream about redistribution of wealth and class warfare.

About the only thing I can partially agree with Carolla on is the sadness of the millennials. They have indeed been raised in the bizarre world where they have to be 'validated' all the time. We worry about about their self esteem so much we have to constantly praise them for 'trying' even when their efforts suck.

For a time my wife did some contract work for a well known online university. Often when she handed out a low grade, she'd get this indigent email from the student who would assure her that they had 'tried hard' and 'put a lot of effort' into their assignment. The implication being that trying hard should be rewarded, even if the end result sucked. A pretty stupid lesson that millennials have been taught from day one.

Finally Carolla tied his bullshit together by trying to make the right wing argument that anyone who works hard and tries hard can be successful, unless they suck in which case they should just shut up and accept being a loser.

But most of this crap stems from the ego of a celebrity who believes that the millions they have earned in the entertainment industry is because they are special. Many really buy into this fallacy that they are just so talented that they deserve what the industry has given them. This could not be further from the truth though. For most celebrities, there has been one salient moment when they happened to meet a person with the power to change their lives. They may have worked hard to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills, but it still came down to chance.

The person who made Carolla famous might have hated tall people, or people with curly hair, or sexist assholes, or he might have gone out drinking the night before and decided to stay home.

So just because you win the fame lottery, doesn't mean you are special, or magical, or better than the person who cleans your hotel room, or loads your bags on the plane. It just means you got lucky.

If there is one thing that annoys me it is hearing some asshole like this ranting about why he shouldn't pay any more tax, and why the poor need to get some skin in the game. Most of the poor are working their asses off holding down two, three or more jobs down just to exist. Don't tell me they are not working hard. Don't give me this shit about welfare queens.

We've tried the Republican model now for a decade. That's how long the Bush tax cuts have been in place. And what do we have to show for trickle down economics? Hmm. The second biggest recession in US history? The brink of collapse for what was the largest auto maker in the world? The major banks and insurance companies of the US getting ready to file for bankruptcy? 9% unemployment? A massive debt and deficit? A stagnant housing market and falling housing prices.

If the Republican concept of low taxes on the 'job creators' worked so well, where is the evidence of this plan working? And yet ask a Republican what the answer is, and they talk about keeping the tax cuts, adding new tax cuts for corporations who are (despite paying little to no tax) 'afraid' to hire more people because of our 'high' taxes in America? Are you fucking shitting me?

I'm sorry Adam Carolla, but your rant about the rich was just a self serving pat on the back for your fame and fortune. Occupy Wall Street have a very reasonable point which is that government policy has allowed a tiny handful of people to become filthy rich, not pay their fair share, and take billions in government contracts and handouts. Meanwhile other nasty Republican policies have hurt and killed ordinary hard working Americans who never got that lucky break like you did. But I guess it serves those 'losers' right eh?

Apple Own Me

2011-12-11T23:16:00.001-05:00

Back in June I wrote about my break with Apple bondage. After dealing with a bunch of bullshit with Apple and AT&T I decided to try the Android option and purchased a Samsung Infuse 4G which I have been using up until the beginning of December.

Unfortunately, this was a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. AT&T helped screw the phone with their shitty network, but even the crap network doesn't excuse the dropped calls, lack of reception in my study, and several minutes the phone could take to get a GPS lock on anything. The phone would sometimes spontaneously get hot and turn itself off. Really nice if you were expecting a call, only to find your phone had been off for a couple of hours.

AT&T have been promising to release the newer version of the OS for the phone for some time too. But they never did.

And at the end of the day the big screen is pointless because if you have it on full brightness the phone is going to die long before you get a chance to watch that movie or do anything else useful with it.

So it was six months of disappointments and poor functionality. Finally I was sitting in a restaurant in Orlando Florida not 20 minutes from all the famous Disney / Universal / Harry Potter stuff and I could not get a signal (at least not one that worked) and I decided it was time to try something else.

When it came down to it, I don't want to lose my AT&T unlimited family plan. It is pretty competitive price wise. So faced with buying another phone on their network, there really was only one choice. The iPhone feels more solid, better built, and looks cooler than anything out there. And reviews told me that the 4S has the best camera of any iPhone yet.

So I broke down, got me an iCloud, paid the $200 penalty for an early upgrade, purchased the sucker warranty from Apple for $90. And presto, I now own an iPhone, while Apple owns me.

I decided to wait a little while to review it because it's easy to have a honeymoon period with new electronic gadgetry and I didn't want to gush about something I was destined to hate.

The phone itself looks and feels much like the iPhone 4 of course, which is no bad thing. And although I've been used to a 4.5 inch display for the past six months, the sharpness and clarity of the display made it an easy transition back to the smaller display, with the added benefit of a phone that is physically nicer and easier to handle.

Here's a summary of the iPhone 4S experience:

What I love

Okay, so Siri is fun. There's something very science fiction about being able to say, "Siri, play me a U2 song." The voice recognition still isn't Star Trek, but it's coming along. This is just about the most impressive AI/Voice recognition that I've ever seen, and my hat is off to Apple for going down this road.

The camera delivers as promised, and in typical Apple fashion, it just works. There is no F Stop, no ISO, no scene, no this, no that. Point the camera and press the button. The camera takes fabulous pictures, despite the lack of user configuration or control. It beats my Samsung Infuse big time, especially in low light.

The new processor is faster and anything I try and do on the phone just zips along nicely.

GPS is super fast and the most accurate of any smart phone I've used. FourSquare is nice and quick, which is great, because I don't want to spend two minutes checking into a location.

What I like

The battery life is pretty good. On a full charge I can do everything I want to all day, and still have plenty left when I get home. I mean battery life being good is a relative thing on a smart phone. Clearly it's not going to last a week, and you are going to have to charge it every night. But it's the best smart phone I've used.

Despite the substandard AT&T network there is some kind of dual antenna in this phone that makes it work better. So I am getting stronger and more reliable signal with this phone than I did with the iPhone 3GS or my Samsung Infuse.

Minor Grumbles

Configuration was pretty easy. Although the usual corporate pissing match made it harder than it should have been to port my music off my Amazon cloud, my ringtones off my old phone, and my contacts off my Google contacts database. In fact when it came to contacts I eventually gave up and simply retyped them all into the iCloud. Then I got a sync app to pull the pictures from Facebook. Again, I believe that if corporations played better together, this process could have been a lot simpler.

Speaking of the iCloud, again I feel like Apple have tried to over simplify it and as a result lost some of what could have been useful functionality.

Facebook has much improved their standard app, but I've still found a few minor bugs that annoy me.

In an effort to over simplify the sync process, I somehow feel like they have made it more complicated in reality. Because I have an iPad 2 for work, iTunes was trying to push apps from that onto my iPhone in a rather annoying way. Fact is, many of my apps for the iPad are work related, and I don't necessarily want them on my iPhone. Similarly, just because I put it on my iPhone doesn't mean I want it transferred to my iPad. And if I download a 4Gb movie on my iPad, I certainly may not need it downloaded again onto my work laptop.

Overall

Until the competition radically improves their product, I've just decided to stay with Apple. The 4S is an incredible phone, and so far it does all I want it to. Sure, some things are very Apple and you just have to accept control in these areas.

I can't say I'd recommend AT&T, they do after all come in bottom every time Consumer Reports does a survey. But I can't in all honesty tell that I'd be any happier with Verizon. It would take me several months comparing them side by side to know that. I travel a lot with my job, so it's not something I'd know right away.

In the end, if you can't beat them join them. I tried to break away, reject the evil corporate BS of Apple, but I wasn't prepared to accept the price I had to pay in terms of lost features and functionality.

I found one of those websites where you can sell your old phone, and in theory sold the Samsung for more than I bought it for. I'll wait until the money is in the bank before I let you know if that service worked right.

As for the iPhone 5. Now that I am back drinking the Apple Kool-Aid, I'll probably just buy it when it comes out. I mean sure, it will probably cost me the best part of $500, because I am not eligible for a cheap upgrade until 2013. But so what. I understand the business model, and I get that these modern smart phones are worth more than they sell them for with the contract. Just don't expect me to camp out on the day of release. Apple may own me, but I still have some dignity.

The 53%

2011-10-27T23:45:00.000-05:00

When I wrote my last post about the 53% I ended up reading a number of posts that irritated me. A bunch of Republican assholes writing their own summaries of how their hard work and determination saved them and why they are the 53%. Of course we don't get to see the posts from those who worked hard and failed, or maybe they couldn't afford health care and died.

But anyway, here's my contribution. My statement. No I'm not going to write it on paper and photograph it, you can just read it here:

I didn't come from a rich family.

I can still remember walking to the laundrette (laundrymat) with my parents as a kid. They lived within their means and didn't want to take out a loan for a washing machine.

My first school was in low income neighborhood, in the middle of welfare housing. I walked two miles to and from school every day in the sun, rain and snow for six years.

My parents didn't own a car until I was eight, and the car they bought was worth less than $1,000.

My parents sacrificed a lot to scrape together the money for my secondary education at a cheap private school.

I was later educated in a community college, but thanks to the political system in England, I didn't have to pay. Just like I didn't have to pay for health care directly.

I took my first job at 13; a paper round which I did until I turned 16, and took a job working weekends at a Home Depot type of store. I stayed there four years.

I purchased my first car with my life savings of $1,000 at the age of 19. It was crap. But got me to college and my first real job.

Thanks to saving and paying my bills, I was able to buy my first home at 23, with not a dime in assistance from the government, my friends or my family. I did it with my own hard work and good credit.

I built a highly successful career in the health care industry, and have never borrowed money from friends or family.

My wife and I have worked hard for everything we have, but we do not begrudge the government using our tax dollars to ensure that the poor get a fair chance at life.

We are liberals because we are smart enough to understand that just because two Mensa members from ordinary middle class families did okay, doesn't mean that everyone who works hard can achieve what we did.

I do not believe that every CEO, actor, rapper, reality show star, or sports person got where they got because of nothing but skill and hard work, the vast majority were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time when they hit their career lotteries.

It is a Repubican fallacy that the poor are stupid and/or lazy. The poor are just like you or me, but they didn't catch the breaks we did.

They are not there to pour scorn on. Rather than spending trillions on 'defense' and tax breaks for billionaires, I believe we should spend it on our own society. Create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, and make America great for everyone, not just the 1%.

When we invest in America, and hold out a helping hand to those in need we are enriching the whole of society.

I am the 99%. I work hard. I have a job.

I am proud to be a liberal.

I am the 53%?

2011-10-27T22:14:00.000-05:00

Oh America, will I ever understand you?

There is little doubt to those endowed with a brain and enough logic to reject Fox News that the gap between rich and poor in America is getting wider and wider, and has been for some time. The first of the millionaire tax cuts introduced by George W. Bush turn a decade old this year, while further rich people tax gifts become eight years old this year. As the results of Bush's horrific management of the economy continue to come home to roost Republicans keep pushing their brilliant plan of trickle down economics and any other drivel that slid out of the mouth of God's second son, Reagan.

While Republicans continue to disagree with everything Obama says (even if he is simply repeating Republican policies) they keep insisting that if we do anything at all to even hint that rich people should pay their fair share, the four horseman of the Apocalypse will show up.

So we are left with a Republican Congress deadlocking recovery plans, and insisting that the way to correct our economic woes in America is to make painful cuts to education, teachers, police, fire fighters, government workers, and programs designed to stop the poor in America living under bridges.

Then of course there is the whole Wall Street issue. The CEOs stole money, gambled with it, collected fat bonus checks, and when it all went tits up they came to the tax payer with a begging bowl, claiming that government interference into the sacrosanct capitalist system was okay if the government was writing billion dollar checks of our money.

This is the background to some of the anger that has caused people to don V for Vendetta, Guy Fawkes masks and proclaim "We are the 99%."

And to many, this seems like a reasonable position. The top 1% of Americans now control 26% of the wealth and this disparity continues to grow. The same top 1% have seen their incomes rise by 275% in the past 30 years, outpacing the rest of us significantly.

But the right wing in this country have shown that if nothing else they are masters at getting stupid and ignorant people to vote against their own self interests so that they can continue to pursue the same policies that hurt poorer Americans significantly. So they have unveiled their 'grass roots' campaign which is "We are the 53%."

They claim that 47% of Americans are now so poor, controlling as they do less than 2% of the wealth (versus 70% of the wealth controlled by the top 10%), they are not paying taxes. And rather than question how we allowed so many tens of millions to become so poor and disenfranchised, they have repackaged the problem and sold it as the assertion that these people are FUCKING LAZY, and have no one to blame (yes you should be blamed for not being rich) but themselves.

They are poor because they won't get off their ass, get an education, land a nice job and join the ranks of the 53% who pay taxes (but don't climb too high because, you know, there's only so much room at the top).

And this fucked up thinking has finally led to people like our naive young woman pictured above. Proud to be working three jobs and struggling to get an education, and ready to shit on the less fortunate who don't have the wherewithal or capability of entering a college honors program thanks to their shitty education and lack of resources.

The sad fact is when the 2012 election rolls around, these smug assholes who like to feel superior to the poor and are proud of their hard work will probably vote Republican because they just love the idea that when one day they get that high paying CEO job, there will be a party ready to see to it that there will be plenty of loopholes in the tax code for their expensive accountant to find, so they won't have to pay their fair share.

Common sense tells you that not all the 47% of America's poor are just losers who just need to work harder. It's really not hard to consider with even a tiny bit of intelligent thinking that there may be an issue with economic policy when the billionaires are making out like bandits and 50 million Americans cannot get basic health care.

It reminds me of when that shithead W. was President. He was confronted with a voter who proudly claimed to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. In a let them eat cake moment he congratulated her on working herself to death under the illusion that she was following the American dream.

The fact that the woman in the above picture is forced to work three jobs just to get an education should not be considered a badge of honor, it should be considered a sad and cautionary tale about what happens when society doesn't give a flying shit about anyone but themselves. Invest in our future by ensuring easy access to education? Poppycock, fuck them, if they work hard or join the military, maybe then we'll let them get a degree, which will put them in the running for a job that pays $10 an hour 20 hours a week and has no benefits.

And the sick joke these days is that a college degree in America is now so expensive that it will often take 15+ years to pay back the debt. So even though a typical college graduate can command a higher salary for their entire career, if you consider the reality that it can take 4-5 years of very limited earnings and debt building just to get qualified, another year or so to get hired, and 15 years or so to pay back the debt and interest, the poor end up screwed either way, even if they do hold down three jobs and post 53% pictures of themselves on the Internet.

At the end of the day I wish more people would listen to the 99% people and stop trying to be clever with their 53% movement. We have a dire situation in America where we are creating an underclass of extremely poor people who suffer and die, while the wannabe rich middle class Republican Americans keep voting for policies that siphon more and more resources right into the pockets of the millionaires.

We live in the richest country in the world, and if we spent our money in the right way, i.e. in a less selfish manner, we could see to it that people had access to good education, health care and opportunities, and when they fail we could reach out a helping hand rather than turning a blind eye.

I AM THE 99% - I WANT A FAIR SOCIETY THAT RESPECTS PEOPLE

I'd like to end this post with an open letter to the woman who posed for this picture and then posted it online.

First off, given that you were writing that paper for the purpose of the photo, did you really need to point out that you were female? I mean humans are pretty good at telling the difference, that's how we are able to reproduce.

Secondly, how you can you be enrolled in the equivalent (not equivalence, that is a different word, and maybe if you lived in a society that valued education you'd already know the difference or be able to drop two of your jobs and take an English class) of 21 hours? I mean, either you are doing 21 credit hours or you are not, right?

Finally, you really need to understand that it isn't cool that you have to work so hard to get a degree. Being poor or working excessively is not a badge of honor, it is what happens when politicians stack the deck in favor of the rich and leave people like you out in the cold. The 99% protesters are not lazy people who are demanding the right to sit on their ass and get welfare. They are simply taking time out to highlight the huge difference in the quality of life between rich and poor.

There are other countries out there far poorer than the United States that give better access to affordable health care and even college education without forcing people to basically become indentured servants just to get a diploma.

The system you are supporting with your photo is what forces you to work yourself to death and accrue ungodly student loans just to pay the tuition fees. It is the same system that will probably ensure you are still paying on student loans when you hit 30.

Unless people like you understand that the current system is not okay, we are destined to continue to repeat the mistakes of our society. Sincerely, I hope your education includes some classes on critical thinking, logic, and sociology so that you can better understand the world around you.

Good luck.

Review: Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean XL

2011-09-26T22:50:00.003-05:00

In June 2009 I bought my first mechanical watch. It was the Omega Seamaster 300 (2255.80.00), which I blogged about here. It was a great watch but unfortunately it wasn't quite all I was looking for in a watch, and once the shiny bezel became a little scuffed, it looked unsightly. Also in truth, I had always wanted to own the Planet Ocean ever since I first saw one.

In 2011, Omega took their Planet Ocean which was launched in 2005 and made version 2.0 so to speak. The bracelet was given screws, which is watch circles is considered superior to metal pins. The aluminum bezel was replaced with a scratch proof ceramic material, much the same as what Rolex decided to do in 2010. Also a couple of very minor changes were made to the face (applied numerals and a slight font change). But probably the big announcement is the in house movement, complete with a see through exhibition display back enabling the owner to see the movement of the watch.

The original Planet Ocean has a detailed engraving on the back of the watch depicting the Hippocamp; a mythical seahorse-like creature said to draw Poseidon's (Neptune) chariot. According to Omega, this has been a fixture on Seamaster watches in one form or another since 1960 when an artisan was inspired by something he saw in Italy. The connection was said to allude to the waterproof nature of the watch, this model capable of 600m or 2000ft below sea level.

The reason I was prompted to buy this watch right now was the fact that I cannot justify the six thousand or so dollars Omega wishes to charge for their new version. As nice as it is, I have a hard time with the massive price hike. While the original Planet Oceans retail at $4,500, a savvy shopper can find an authorized dealer willing to sell for the low $3K area, which while still not cheap is a lot easier to stomach than five or six grand. If you're willing to just buy off the Internet, I've seen the price as low as $2,700 as of this month. Keep in mind an unofficial Internet purchase will lower the future resale value.

With that preamble out of the way, I'll go ahead and review my new purchase based on my short ownership of it:

Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean XL 45.5mm 2200.50.00

Box

Part of the excitement of getting a new watch is unboxing, but you can read about that just about anywhere. Basically it's the standard Omega red box, enclosed in a white cardboard box. You get an international instruction manual, pictograph card telling you what features the watch has, an international warranty card, and a certification that the watch meets the Swiss chronometer standards (referring to accuracy of the watch, and certifying that specific watch with serial number). It's all pretty standard stuff. A smart person will carefully place this box and content, including receipt, somewhere safe. If you are ever to sell the watch you'll always get more for it with the original packaging and documentation.

Bracelet & Clasp

The bracelet and clasp are brushed stainless steel. Other options are available, but mesh and leather straps do nothing for me. This same watch was given a lot of publicity in the Bond movie Casino Royale where James Bond (Daniel Craig) wore the version of this watch that comes on a rubber strap for about half the movie. It looked good that way, but probably a little too casual for some situations in my opinion, which probably explains why he wears a different Omega Seamaster in the black tie and casino scenes.

Speaking of Bond, I have mixed feelings about the connection. I think it worked great in Casino Royale for example, but the Pierce Brosnan days where his Omega contained magic weapons and communication devices got a bit silly.

In any case, the bracelet feels solid, and comfortable. It doesn't catch hairs or jangle, and it has been nicely smoothed so as not to dig into the skin. The edges are polished, which contrasts nicely with the brushed main surface.

The clasp is engraved with Omega Ω Seamaster Professional Planet Ocean, and the clasp is released by simultaneously pressing two buttons on the sides; an action that is just about impossible to perform by accident.

The only real criticism of the whole bracelet / clasp set up is that the clasp is easy to scratch over time, although supposedly it doesn't take much to brush those scratches out at the jewelers. As to the bracelet there are no minute size adjustments, so you size the bracelet by removing links or using the supplied 'half-link' which gets you pretty close.

I had a similar 'Speedmaster' bracelet on my last watch and found it did the job very well.

Case

The case is solid and imposing at 45.5mm. Subtle it ain't. And apparently the 2011 version is even thicker, which is hard to imagine. But if you are looking for a slim or lightweight watch, you need to look elsewhere.

Omega has brushed and polished different parts of the case beautifully to reflect light in a variety of different ways, adding a lovely texture to the appearance.

On the back of the watch, you'll find the aforementioned Hippocamp engraving. There is also a serial number engraved on the watch, along with a special laser etched symbol that is supposed to be hard to fake. Where the back is removed there is a tiny spot of what looks like red plastic. Like a wax seal, this will fall off if you take the back off the watch, so if you can still see it, you know it has not been opened since it left the factory.

Face

The face is matte black, with twelve applied indices that are coated generously with Super-Luminova that glows fiercely in the dark. Each of these is rhodium plated so look shiny and mirror like, matching the arrow hands, which are also quite shiny. An Omega logo is also applied under the tweleve o'clock spot.

The seconds hand moves seven times a second and is tipped with an orange color.

The numerals are at 12, 9 and 6, and on this model are white, although orange is available on other Planet Ocean configurations.

The date is at the three o'clock spot, white numbers on black, and easily visible. The date flicks from one day to the next around midnight pretty quickly.

Close to the ten o'clock spot you'll see the helium release valve marked with 'He' - the chemical symbol for helium. In theory this can be unscrewed in a diving bell to prevent excess pressure in the watch blowing out the crystal. Since this will affect about 0.01% of people reading this, I'll move on.

At the three o'clock position you'll see a sizable crown. You can unscrew this to wind the watch, pull out once to adjust the date, pull out one more spot to adjust the time and stop the seconds hand while you do that.

Bezel

The bezel is clean and functional. As is typical with a divers watch it only rotates counter clockwise and can be used in theory to time how much oxygen you have left. It looks clean and I like the font choice.

Movement of the bezel is smooth and precise, with 120 clicks for one complete revolution. The 45.5mm version that I have has scalloped tooth finish, whereas the 42mm version is more coin edge in design.

Movement

The watch contains the Omega 2500 caliber movement which is produced by taking the ETA 2892-A2 movement and heavily modifying it to include the co-axial movement invented by famed watch expert George Daniels. There are some watch snobs who point out that this movement is not strictly an in-house movement, since ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse and Omega are both owned by The Swatch Group, Ltd., and so is more in-family as opposed to in-house. But I don't much care. You are talking about a top of the line and well proven movement, enhanced substantially by Omega to include co-axial technology, which allows the watch to operate with little to no lubrication. This in turn means that service intervals are 7-10+ years, much longer than a traditional movement.

This mechanical watch winds itself as you move around, and has 44 hours of power reserve. So if you leave it off for the weekend, you might find it dead on Monday.

As far as accuracy goes, it is an officially certified chronometer, which is always a good start. It seems pretty spot on, with a tendency to run a second or two fast per day. But it's not fair to draw conclusions in the first few days.

Omega 2500C Movement - As seen with the watch back removed

Conclusion

I love the clean looks of this watch. I was sitting on a plane the other day. The guy next to me was wearing a Rolex Submariner that if it were real would probably have cost around six grand. Next to mine the watch looked small, old fashioned, and unremarkable. If it wasn't for the cache of the Rolex name, you wouldn't give it a second look in my opinion.

The attention to detail in the design has me admiring it each time I check the time. To me it is a truly beautiful watch. It is a massive step forward from my original Seamaster, and I don't regret the purchase at all.

As I mentioned earlier it is a heavy and imposing watch, so if you don't like noticing that you have a watch on, you might consider the lighter and smaller 42mm version, especially if you have smaller wrists.

The anti-reflective coating is applied to both the inside and outside of the crystal, which can make finger prints show up more easily, and is allegedly prone to scratching, prompting some people to remove the outer coating, and leaving the crystal bare. Thus far this is the only negative I see.

If you think you might like to get an original Planet Ocean, start looking now. They will not be making any more of these, and you'll be forced to buy second hand or the much more expensive newer version if you want one.

I will probably write an update in a few months and let you know how it's going...

Rolex Submariner = Porsche Boxter

2011-09-20T22:48:00.000-05:00

I like watches. There's something very cool about owning a quality mechanical timepiece. I write this on the eve of making another investment, this time in a Planet Ocean, by Omega. No doubt I'll be blogging about that when I have it in hand.

I've had my eye on the Planet Ocean for some time, and was recently spurred into action by the new 2011 models where several upgrades and changes have been announced, along with a substantial price hike that makes me favor the original PO.

In any case as I did my last minute research and reached a firm conclusion which of the options I was going to select, I found several articles comparing the Omega Planet Ocean to a Rolex Submariner, and suddenly the thought occurred to me why I dislike the Submariner so much. I wasn't sure what it was at first, after all the pictured watch is beautiful, the picture barely does it justice. But then it's around $30,000, so it should clean my fucking house for me a cook meals for that price. Heck it really should transform into a Porsche or something.

The more normal version of this watch is the regular stainless steel Submariner, and that costs around $6,000. Gone is the striking blue dial, in Rolex circles, you have to have a decent amount of gold or white gold to be allowed the privilege of a blue dial. So you are left with a stainless and black divers watch, and therein lies the problem.

These days when I see a person wearing a Rolex Submariner, my first thought is wondering if it is real. My next thought is then a general judgement that the wearer lacks personality, taste, and simply wants to climb on board the Rolex train and show off that he has an expensive watch. After all product recognition of a Rolex is certainly high, and it is synonymous with expensive luxury. But to buy the very cheapest watch they make, kinda screams Porsche Boxster. Yes it IS a Porsche, and yes it is a fine car, but let's be real, if you had the choice you'd buy a 911. The only real market for a Boxster is for people who cannot afford the Porsche of their dreams, but want to say they own a Porsche anyway.

I believe that the entry level Submariner is the same concept. It IS a Rolex, but really, if you could go into a Rolex dealer and buy any Rolex for $6,000 (assuming in this scenario you can never sell it, so residual value is irrelevant) would you really gravitate to the black face, stainless steel Submariner?

It's this reason why I don't ever see myself buying a Rolex. All the Rolex watches I like are over $10,000. Rolex aggressively hike their prices every time a month has the letter Y in it. And on top of all that I find their reluctance to change the designs and improve things rather irritating. Just look how many years they had that cheap feeling, rattly bracelet with the hollow links. Only recently addressing that. How long they refused to buy into the trend of a slightly larger 40mm+ watch size.

So Rolex have my respect. I've seen some lovely Rolex watches out there. But my choice, at least for a while will be Omega. Pioneers in their field, innovation, and not afraid to modernize their collections from time to time. Oh and yeah, half the price.

Obama Despair

2011-07-30T15:31:00.000-05:00

Someone I know, a former soldier, recently posted this on Facebook, and it just made me shake my head in wonder at how stupid people can be.

It seems at times that people who support the Republicans in this day and age have simply removed facts, reality, recent history, information and even knowledge from their thinking and are so doggedly Republican they simply cannot do anything other than attack the President.

When it comes to the relationship with the troops, let's be real here. It was George Bush almost ten years ago, who famously sat like a deer in headlights after he was told our nation was under attack. While Americans were in harms way, the man just sat there and did nothing.

After the worst terrorist attack on American soil, he rounded up tens of thousands of our troops and sent them storming into Afghanistan, with no real game plan or strategy. Not so long later, he blundered into Iraq, in an operation that was supposed to take 'a few months' after being 'greeted as liberators' by Iraqis. Yet here we are in 2011, our economic system at risk of dipping back into a second massive recession, scratching our heads and trying to figure out how to pay the tab run up by Bush and his bloodthirsty wars.

If the Despair poster above resinates with you, I'd love for you to tell me why. Explain how it is that Obama is so ignorant and clueless, whereas Bush was a great sage of our time? Explain how it is Obama's fault that Bush spent all the money and then ran back to his ranch in Texas leaving Obama to figure out how we pay up. Please tell me what all these terrible blunders Obama has made with our troops that could justify this absurdly stupid image.

Often times the scariest thing about America is the sheer number of people that witness events unfold, promptly forget about them, and then hand the keys back to the assholes who just drove the United States off a cliff.

Right now that crying asshole and his band of Tea Bag owned cronies are trying to figure out how to rape the American people, even more to pay for the mistakes of George Bush. They won't consider the logical or obvious, such as asking those billionaires who made out like bandits during the Bush administration to chip in. They won't consider closing loopholes that allow rich people and corporations to avoid paying the taxes they owe. No instead they want to come after their favorite whipping boy; the middle class. Let's cut back on education, cut pensions, cut back on police, teachers, government workers. Let's put a bunch of people out of work, kick old people and children off their health care plans, all so people like Donald Trump won't have to notice a slightly lower balance on their savings accounts.

How anyone can be disrespecting our President, as if we all made a mistake and we should instead have voted in old man McCain, his bimbo sidekick, so the man who announced that the fundamentals of our economy were sound, right before the worst recession in American history, would be doing so much better, is quite beyond me. Talk about some delusional thinking.

As for the picture above, if you are worried about our troops, just remember who put them there in harms way in the first place. And let's also remember who is enacting a plan to bring them home. And finally, if you like that picture, get a fucking clue and learn some critical thinking before Idiocracy is upon us.

Casey Anthony Released

2011-07-18T10:27:00.002-05:00

This weekend Casey Anthony went free from jail, free to live the rest of her life an innocent women. Despite the release being shortly after midnight, there were people who made the effort to travel to the jail, stand out in the rain, and hurl abuse at this person as she walked to the car surrounded by armed guards.

First off, I don't know what derangement possesses someone to travel all that way, and wait around all night hoping to yell at someone who a jury found innocent on all charges (other than lying).

But my comment is simply this, Casey Anthony was destroyed in the media, she had to contend with that vile little bitch Nancy Grace et al telling Americans how she was guilty and how she should be put to death. And now Anthony has to live in society with these crazy people, knowing that threats have been made against her life.

The media, indignant that a jury did not share their thirst for blood, went on the offensive talking about how she will probably make millions doing interviews and a book deal etc. To all this, I say, so what, and leave this poor woman alone.

We have a criminal justice system that is deeply flawed, and clearly racist. Innocent people get thrown in jail all the time, including petty criminals who certainly don't need to be in jail. So even if Casey Anthony deliberately murdered her baby in cold blood, so be it. All the evidence was presented, and the jury couldn't even find her guilty of mistreating or abusing the child, much less killing her. Even if some people think she had a hand in the child's death by being irresponsible, just let it go already. Thanks to our infant mortality rate (46th in the world - GO AMERICA!), dozens of babies will die today in America because we don't make quality affordable health care available to the poor. These dead babies will not get 30 days of blanket media coverage, in fact they won't even make a newspaper headline. It will just be another statistic, another oh well. I suspect in fact that during the time Casey Anthony was in jail, the number of babies that died unnecessarily in America because of our fuck you attitude towards the poor would have hit tens of thousands. How can we as a nation have such an outpouring of emotion over this one kid, but continue to support policies and political ideologies that sentence millions to die prematurely?

This woman is either so unstable she deliberately killed her child, so irresponsible she accidentally killed the child through action or inaction, or just plain unlucky. But in any case she is going to have to live with that fact and the infamy forever. Not a day will ever go by in her life when she will not be haunted by what happened, the death of her child, the three years in jail, the media circus, the death threats, the threat of death row, and the unwanted celebrity status (where you get almost all the bad, and almost none of the good benefits of being a celebrity). She will never be able to lead a normal life, have a normal job, have normal friends and co-workers. What happened will define her entire life in a pretty horrific way. So for these assholes to be talking about what happened as her walking away 'scott free' is just beyond brainless.

As far as I am concerned I am totally okay that she is free. I also could not care less if she makes a few million from what happened, because she isn't going to be able to earn that money in any kind of normal way. Above all else, I really was appalled by the witch hunt and the trial by media. I am further appalled at the despicable and disgusting fucktards who protested the trial, and waited around for hours and days just to hurl abuse at her. It is so uncivilized, and is one step away from stoning people to death. These protestors could have been working a soup kitchen, volunteering for the homeless, fostering an unwanted baby. Any number of things. But instead they were making an already horrific situation worse by being assholes. So if you were one of those people; fuck you.

Speaking of Dead Babies

2011-07-07T09:44:00.000-05:00

In 2006, I first blogged about the issue of our infant mortality here in the United States. I was recently reminded of this in a discussion I was having online regarding the pitiful state of our health care system. But I was further reminded of the issue thanks to the Casey Anthony trial. It wasn't so much the trial, it was the assholes who sent death threats to the Anthony family and went down to the court house to protest, cry, and call out "won't someone think of little Caylee."

First off, I don't know what motivates someone to go and act like an asshole at a court house. Isn't there enough pain and human tragedy in this case, without creating further drama?

Secondly though, the biggie for me is that so many people, and 24 hour 'news' networks have nothing better to do than obsess about this single child dying, when for the fifth straight year that I have been watching this, the infant mortality rate in the United States has fallen again. We now have 45 countries in the world that do a better job of keeping their babies alive than we do.

The radical right has continued to attack women's right to obtain an abortion. Several states are now investigating miscarriages as murders, with potential criminal prosecutions for women who cannot prove that they naturally lost their baby to the satisfaction of the state. Several more states have defunded Planned Parenthood, because you know cutting off women's access to STD screening, reproductive advice, and contraceptives makes the most sense right?

To me it seems like a completely insane logic where we wring our hands over the unfortunate death of a single child, or talk about abortion as if it is routine and taken too lightly by young mothers, yet we as a country are ignoring the fact that we are slipping year on year in our ability to keep our babies alive.

Despite spending more than double what most countries spend per capita on health care, our babies continue to die at an alarming rate thanks to lack of access to health care for all; and the situation is getting worse. Yet no one talks about this sad fact. The 'news' networks continue to spew the emotive crap about 'poor little Caylee' giving us round the clock coverage of the trial, what 'experts' think about the trial, what pundits think, what random members of the public think, and so on. Yet no coverage regarding the thousands of babies who died unnecessarily during the same time period because in our country we don't give a shit about poor people.

Casey Anthony

2011-07-06T00:42:00.001-05:00

I have to start out by saying; I have not watched the trial of Casey Anthony nor have I become a part of the media frenzy surrounding this case. However, as people all over the media and on Facebook tell me their opinion, I feel I should push back with mine.

In my mind there are three likely scenarios in this case:

Murder Most Foul

The young mother had a plethora of reasons for hating her daughter, and decided to terminate her in a very late term abortion. Unfortunately, my understanding is that dozens of witnesses came forward and spoke to a very positive relationship between mother and daughter, so I find this pretty unlikely.

Manslaughter

The lack of sleep, stress of raising a child, and other general pressures caused Casey to snap and kill her child. Possible I guess, but doesn't seem all that likely.

Death By Misadventure

Some terrible accident occurs that may or may not have been the result of negligence on the part of Casey, and the child dies. The parent loses a grip on reality and makes up a series of lies to hide what has happened, with no clue how to make it right.

I don't know what happened, but I do know that I have a very hard time believing that a mother would plot to kill her little daughter and then do so in cold blood in a manner that would qualify her for the death penalty. It just doesn't make any real sense. It is not in keeping with typical human behavior. Also even a stupid person would realize that if you just flat out kill your child, sooner or later someone is going to ask questions or find the body.

If you are going to take the time to plan a murder why not simply make it look like an accident? Let the kid drown in the bath tub, or swimming pool. Let the kid fall from an open window. Putting masking tape over their face and dumping their body in a trash bag is clearly not much of a murder plan.

But I don't want to become just some other pundit expressing a baseless opinion about this case. What I want to talk about first off is America's need for blood. The number of otherwise normal people baying for an execution is really quite disturbing. Even if she actually plotted and actually murdered her own child, do we really need to execute her? Is she going to get released after 30 years in jail, have another kid and then murder them? Execution should be reserved for war crimes, crimes against humanity, serial killers, and utterly heinous acts. Something like this? I don't think so. And let's also be clear, the only countries in the world who still execute people suck. We should not be striving to be like the Middle East, third world counties, or Communist China.

I'm also a little sick of people talking about this woman getting off 'Scott free.' Really? Scott free? In any realistic scenario, she is going to have to live with the death of her child forever. Then the assholes who judge this woman are going to make her life terrible for at least a decade or so. She isn't going to be able to get a real job, so she is just going to have to write an autobiography or sell the movie rights because between that and welfare, is the only likely way she is going to make any kind of money any time soon. And let us not forget she has already served close to three years with a death sentence hanging over her head.

I think what I find most sad about this event is that the media have chosen to spend hundreds of hours of television time milking this story in every possible way. Not interested in the troops dying in our two wars, not interested with trying to fix the economy that the Republicans fucked up, not talking about the gun crimes happening every day in the inner cities of America, not concerned with actual world events. No, instead we are turning the tragic story of this death into headline news for months.

People are so sick, I saw a news story this morning where random people were actually traveling to the spot where the child's body was recovered to see it 'for themselves.' I mean really? What kind of sick fuck travels across the country to see a place where a child's corpse was recovered?

In conclusion, if we are to pretend that people are innocent until proven guilty, we need to put a stop to trial in the media. And as usual, the American media need to get back to the 'good old days' of journalism, and reporting actual news rather than creating a media circus and then reporting on themselves.

Alex and Chloe Sucks

2011-07-05T16:45:00.000-05:00

I recently decided to purchase a necklace by Alex and Chloe because despite what the above picture might have you believe they have some pretty cool designs. However, I got to say when it comes to customer service, they have a lot to learn.

Apparently this fledgling 'fashion house' thinks they can pump out some cool attire, get it on some celebrities or reality show stars and boom, the next Hugo Boss is born.

The piece I ordered arrived broken, and after 48 hours the entire color had just worn off. It was like I had paid $1 and not $100! I tried complaining to them via email because they don't actually publish any phone numbers, and they ignored all my requests for a refund or exchange until I had Pay Pal freeze the cash. This got their attention, whereupon they began lying to Pay Pal saying they were sorry and how they had never received any of my five emails, although oddly they received the email from Pay Pal sent to the exact same email address. Funny how money gets people's attention isn't it?

In the end I gave up dealing with them. Pay Pal would have allowed me to obtain a refund if I sent the item back, but in reality the design is sound, it's just the execution, quality control and workmanship that sucks like an ebola infection.

So I ended up paying a local jeweler to do emergency surgery on the necklace, and I finally have something cool and don't have to deal with these idiots again. But the whole situation left me really perplexed. Why would Alex and Chloe choose to alienate their customers in this way? I might have bought another necklace or two, perhaps something for my wife. I might have published several positive reviews around the Internet to help them gain credibility. Instead though I complained to the BBB, and will use my small corner of the web to publish the reality of what this company thinks of their customers.

It is so sad that their creative talent and design will all be for nothing if they continue down this path. Alex and Chloe are building a reputation by getting celebrities to wear their stuff. But once they get a reputation for shoddy customer service (or simply ignoring complaints and refusing to speak to their customers), along with poor quality workmanship and reliability, celebrities that they covert so much will not want to be associated with them. After all, who wants to wear something noted for being cheap and badly made, while ripping off their consumers?

So that was my Alex and Chloe experience, quick to take the money, slow to deliver, and no interest at all in whether I am a happy customer or not. Couple that with a customer service attitude of 'ignore them and they will go away.' Well, I'll certainly do that. They will never see another dime from me. And when they reach bankruptcy court, they will probably blame it on the economy, fashion being a fickle mistress and so on. I doubt they will ever have the sense to realize that screwing your customer never ends well.

One Year Review: Chevrolet Camaro 2LT RS

2011-07-03T08:53:00.000-05:00

This month is a year since I bought my Chevy Camaro, I've put 15,000 miles on it, and figured it was time for an updated review. The initial review is here.

I'm pleased to report that the first American car I've ever bought new is still trouble free. Other than a couple of oil changes, I've not had to do anything to the car. It starts perfectly every time, including remotely via the keyfob or even via the iPhone or Android OnStar app. It runs smoothly, it's still fun to drive. In essence everything I liked about it is still true, and everything that slightly annoyed me is also still true.

The styling that makes the car so unique in this segment does create a few issues of visibility, and it did take a while to learn to park it properly. With most modern cars you barely have to think about parking, but thanks to the unusual shape of the Camaro you just have to think a bit more and learn to judge the distances. The trunk is still a bit annoying because of its limited aperture, this can make putting a large suitcase in the trunk slightly more of a chore than it should be, although in truth this is partly due to the fact that the car came with a trunk mat that has ridges on it and the wheels on my suitcases can get caught on those.

But the minor niggles about visibility and the trunk are always outweighed by just how well the car does everything else. As I've already said, no warranty or maintenance issues so far. The car is lively and fun yet very well behaved on a run. Last week I had to drive through some of Louisiana and into Texas. I reset the MPG monitor and drove for about 250 miles. I cruised around the speed limit most of the time, and did a few over taking maneuvers with heavy acceleration and 'sport' mode on the gear box. Despite making no efforts whatsoever to save gas, I was achieving 27 MPG on regular gas. With lots of city driving, I still am getting an average of 24 MPG. That's just not bad for a 312 HP car.

As well as being a joy to take on a long run, it gets compliments wherever I go. People make positive comments all the time, and if I take a passenger or colleague, they talk about getting to ride in my car like it was some kind of special trip; like I had let them sit in a Lamborghini or something! Considering this car starts at just $22K, it's surprising how many people are so impressed by it.

I count myself among them, and really have nothing but good things to say about it. I was looking for a sports car experience in a well mannered reliable car, where I could still at a pinch carry a passenger or two in the back seats. And that's exactly what I got, very sporty performance, a comfortable ride, an attractive car, all for a reasonable price tag.

I've also had the opportunity to drive the latest Mustang in both hard top and convertible forms. I won't deny this is a fun car too, with better visibility, a lighter and more nimble demeanor, and arguably a more comprehensive stereo system. But despite the upsides, the Mustang is still so common on the roads, the back lights look stupid when signalling, and I really didn't like the old fashioned automatic box that doesn't have paddle shifters or sports mode, merely the Park, 3, 2, 1 kind of deal which is a bit 1980s. I missed having a HUD too!

So that's about it for my car, I recommend it highly, and hope to enjoy it for a couple more years.

iPhone Bondage

2011-06-25T12:06:00.005-05:00

For the last few years I have silently accepted the control of my dark overlords at Apple in their evil union with AT&T. Their draconian rules, contracts, and crappy customer service and network was kind of worth it to have a state of the art phone, that made other phones turn green with envy. But the latest generation of Android mobile phones have finally allowed me to escape the evil clutches of Apple once and for all, and I tell you, I ain't never going back in there.

I think the iPhone story in the US is an almost perfect example of what happens when two corporations get together in an environment where consumer protection laws are weak and hardly enforced. Two year contracts, penalty fees, a lack of choice, price fixing, DRM and even complete control over the software you are allowed to buy or download onto your phone. Being told I couldn't have insurance, being told if anything went wrong I had to drive out of my way to find an Apple store. My list of grievances was growing longer by the week. And then there is always the carrot Apple dangles as rumors spread of their next great innovation.

Early this month I decided to make the change. My iPhone 3GS was not retaining charge as long as it should, and I was getting sick of having such a crappy camera on the phone. My first plan was to simply buy an iPhone 4, but according to the rules I was a few weeks too early so I was to be charged $250 penalty for the early upgrade, and that simply wasn't going to happen. I thought about going to Verizon, but you're still shackled to all the Apple rules and policies, and don't have simultaneous voice and data. I put in an application to AT&T customer service for special permission for an early upgrade, but after a few days of deliberation my application was rejected; and I was sentenced to a flogging in the village square for my impertinence. Okay, so that last bit isn't true, but they did tell me to take a hike.

Now in fairness to AT&T, they did give me permission to early upgrade to any non-Apple product, and to sweeten the deal they reduced by bill by $10 a month, gave me unlimited free texting, on top of my unlimited data plan. On that basis I started to research the Android phones they carry.

When I took a look at the latest offerings and was pretty impressed with the massive AMOLED screen on the Infuse 4G, and upon more research decided I could probably live with it fairly well given that pretty much every application I used on the iPhone is available on the Android where most apps seem cheaper or free.

Escaping Apple

Escaping the clutches of Apple isn't that easy, especially if you've been a good little minion and have been purchasing all your music from iTunes with that nasty DRM (copy protection) on the music, but thankfully I had long since stopped doing that, and all my recent music purchases have been from Amazon, who use a standard MP3 file format that is completely portable.

My iPhone had somehow confused itself with my contacts, and had taken to duplicating some or all of them when I synced it, and even the application I had purchased to fix the problem had not really cleaned up my contacts properly. So when I purchased my Samsung Infuse 4G, the AT&T staff were not able to copy the data off my SIM card. This proved to be a minor annoyance, but an hour getting my Gmail contact list back in line proved to be all that was necessary to ensure my contacts list was up to date and on my phone.

I have recently started using the excellent Amazon cloud to store my music so pretty much all my music off my computer and iPhone was already on the cloud. There is an Android App that allows you to play your cloud music right off the phone, but so that you can still listen to the music on a plane the same app will sync the cloud to your phone in the background so the music exists locally as well as remotely.

As to the phone itself, I can see now why iPhone rose to greatness so quickly. It is unspeakably simple to use, Apple realized that the key to success was not simply making a kick ass phone, they had to make it simple and intuitive, and in fairness, they achieved that. But like anything you dumb down to the lowest common denominator, that simplicity also translated to a lack of choice and functionality. Android gives you way more choice, and this does make things harder, but for for me ultimately more rewarding.

I spent many hours playing with the phone, configuring it just how I liked it and to my relief it can do just about anything my iPhone could do, but with many advantages that outweigh anything I might have lost.

What I Love

Clearly the screen on the Infuse is just spectacular. At 4.5 inches and in AMOLED glory it is like watching a small HD TV. I've watched TV shows and movies on this thing and actually don't feel like I am looking at an animated postage stamp.

Some of the graphics, animated wallpaper for example, are just incredible; truly beautiful. This graphical prowess also extends to the camera that takes excellent pictures at 8MP and video at 720P.

Together with the graphical loveliness of the phone the CPU delivers smooth and fluid operation. With only a few minor exceptions, the phone doesn't keep me waiting.

This phone is way faster in data speed than the old iPhone, and it seems to have a better signal than my iPhone in most places I have traveled to.

I love the easy connectivity to the Amazon cloud. It's like the iCloud, except some bastard corporation isn't setting draconian copy protection rules and being shitty about where I can keep my data.

I love the customizable nature of the phone. For example the device ships with three different keyboards for text entry, each working very differently from the others. And in fact I purchased an even better one for $1.99, that has incredibly intuitive and AI predictive text.

I think the voice recognition is pretty good, still not good enough to completely replace typing, but good nontheless.

From what I've seen on the Android market place, apps are far more freely available on than at the Apple store where so much stuff costs 99c and up. In fact I pretty much have every app I used to have on the iPhone, and I didn't have to spend a penny to achieve that. Also with Android if you buy and app and hate it, you can uninstall it within 15 minutes and not be charged.

I think the phone is very good looking, shiny black on one side like big iPhone 4, and what they call caviar black on the back, with an interesting texture.

Of course because this phone is not made by Apple, I get to use websites with Flash if I want to.

What I Dislike

I do miss the size of my old phone, clearly though if I want a massive screen like that, common sense tells you it's going to be bigger than an iPhone, although it is only 8.9mm thick. It's not hard to carry the phone in the pocket, but one does have to be a little bit careful when holding it to ensure it is not dropped. Because there are four touch keys on the bottom of the device, you have to be careful where you put your grip too.

The speakerphone is not as good as the iPhone, but only marginally worse. Having said that, the call quality is superior, so I can actually have a normal conversation without using the speakerphone. I found the call quality of the iPhone so poor, I would use speakerphone all the time, and that simply isn't necessary any more.

Some of the Android applications are still not as good as the iPhone. In fact it seems like some of the apps I've used are old versions of iPhone apps that have been ported. But those are few and far between in fairness. I am annoyed that at the time of writing Skype doesn't support video chat, and Netflix has not put out an app for the Android yet (at least not this Android). Let's also not forget too how basic the Facebook app is. Not cool, considering the power of the phone it should be way better.

I keep hearing about the 2.3 operating system, and I hope Samsung gives me an upgrade option down the road. Time will tell on that. I have not really researched what makes it so good, but I do like to have the latest OS as a general rule.

I miss the visual voicemail of the iPhone, and don't really understand why Android/AT&T are not offering that yet. Seems like something they could charge some bullshit fee for, which I'd be (almost) happy to pay.

The phone ships with a cable to attach it to an HDMI cable. Staying in a hotel that can be handy to watch movies or TV shows from services like HBO Go on a bigger screen. Oddly though it wouldn't let me watch shows I had purchased from Samsung (with the gift card they gave me), on the big screen. Unfortunately, the hotel I tried it in had poor WiFi and poor cell reception, so there was some buffering issues. I'll have to assume it works better in other areas.

Conclusion

The Samsung Infuse 4G is awesome. Plain and simple, it's a great phone with only a few minor flaws. Whatever flaw you might pick on though is completely outweighed by what it brings to the table. To me it is wonderful not to be tied to Apple any more. No more DRM, no more syncing, no more being forced to download iTunes with that fucking horrific QuickTime they force you to install. No more not being allowed to sync my phone to both my desktop and laptop PC. No more draconian rules about upgrading, service (forced driving to an Apple store), not being able to have insurance against loss or damage.

I know that by the end of the year there will likely be an iPhone 5, and I'm sure it will be lovely. But despite my former love of the iPhone (it was once arguably the best smartphone on the market), I just don't care what the iPhone 5 can do. I am not willing to trade my soul for it. The price of admission is too high, and my skepticism extends to products like the iCloud that only seek to further lock you in to their world.

In their joint corporate greed for money and control, AT&T and Apple took a great and revolutionary product and made it unpalatable for many people. In the meantime a handful of major corporations began a race to kick Apples ass, and to me they have succeeded. One can never predict the future, maybe one day the iPhone 8 will be so incredible nothing else will be able to touch it. The truth though is that just like Mac vs PC, there are dozens of companies making PCs and similarly a lot of companies that make cell phones. The Android operating system is a powerful weapon that unites the competition against Apple, and it seems hard to imagine that Apple has the power to continually fend off attacks in the long term while staying ahead of the curve.

My 30 day trial on the Samsung Infuse is coming to an end. I am quite happy to hang on to this device for the next 20 months, then we'll see what's out there.

Michelle Bachmann

2011-06-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

I was recently discussing some political issues with a Republican, and they made the statement that Sarah Palin was incredibly smart, which immediately set off some alarm bells given the obvious reality that Sarah Palin is a complete imbecile. But in the way that Republicans do these days the person I was speaking with doubled down with their next statement. "Say what you want about Palin, Michelle Bachmann is the one to watch; she is highly intelligent and Presidential..."

I was pretty floored by that statement, aware as I am of reality, but it made me wonder how many other people are out there harboring this misconception. I decided to dig a little deeper and find some quotes from the woman herself, so we can evaluate her view of the world, her judgement and her fitness to rule over the most powerful country on the planet...

“Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I'm not saying that that's what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, June 2009

This was part of her argument against giving the government census data.

“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009

I wonder if Bachmann would be willing to prove this for us.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, Oct. 2006

In all fairness, I believe she said this on Make Shit Up Thursday...

“We’re in a state of crisis where our nation is literally ripping apart at the seams right now, and lawlessness is occurring from one ocean to the other. And we’re seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time, where every man doing that which is right in his own eyes—in other words, anarchy.” – Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program “Prophetic Views Behind The News”, March 6, 2004.

This is common among radical right wing religious nut jobs, the belief that the world is about to end, and that any kind of progress, change or modernizing of society is proof that such events are happening. It is scary to imagine that someone who believes that the world is about to end, wants to run for office. I wonder if their policies will be guided by that? Slow down global warming? Why try if the world is going to end? Ensure that people retiring in 2030 will have social security available to them? Ah, we'll all be in Heaven by then...

“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president, April 28, 2009.

Who even makes this kind of statement, even if it were historically true? Perhaps someone who thinks that illness is a punishment from God.

“Listeners should rejoice right now, because there are believers all across your listening area that are praying now. And I would say that if you can’t attend the rally, you can pray. And God calls us to fall on our faces and our knees and cry out to Him and confess our sins. And I would just ask your listeners to do that now. Cry out to a Holy God. He wants to hear us, He will hear us if we will confess our sins and cry out to Him. Our children are worth it and obedience to God demands it.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program “Prophetic Views Behind The News”, March 6, 2004.

This was her rational response to a debate on same sex marriage.

“[Talking about gay marriage:] This is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program “Prophetic Views Behind The News”, March 20, 2004.

It's almost impossible to know what to say about this. How can any sane human being care less what happens if two people in love get married consensually and as legal adults?

“And what a bizarre time we’re in, Jan, when a judge will say to little children that you can’t say the pledge of allegiance, but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and you should try it.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program “Prophetic Views Behind The News”, hosted by Jan Markell, KKMS 980-AM, March 6, 2004.

Another common trait among radical fundamentalists in America is the belief they have that the world and the country is out to get them. Like they are being oppressed by forces of Satanism or Atheism and the whole country is going to Hell etc. etc. I mean is any judge at all in this country forcing children to learn about homosexuality and/or try it? Of course not. It's back to the incredibly stupid notion that if you talk about homosexuality people will just turn gay.

“If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, speaking at EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004.

“They aren’t just kind of gay-friendly, they are gay advocates at Proctor and Gamble… Here’s just a few other companies that support the pro-homosexual agenda. They include Levi-Strauss, American Airlines, Sarah Lee Bakery, Jaguar and LandRover.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, speaking at EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004.

“You have a teacher talking about his gayness. (The elementary school student) goes home then and says “Mom! What’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.” The mother says “Well, that’s when a man likes other men, and they don’t like girls.” The boy’s eight. He’s thinking, “Hmm. I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.” And you think, “Oh, that’s, that’s way out there. The kid isn’t gonna think that.” Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that this is intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, speaking at EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004.

Any teacher telling kids what a gay person is, is now committing 'child abuse.'

“Normalization (of gayness) through desensitization. Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of “The Lion King” for instance, and a teacher might say, “Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?” The message is: I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, speaking at EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004.

“Don’t misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgender. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.” — Senator Michele Bachmann, speaking at EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004.

Finally, if you'd like to see more of her craziness, feel free to watch and listen to her telling it how it is:

Like so many of her ilk she talks about the evils of government interference until it comes to all her personal beliefs (religious, social, and political). When it comes to using the government machine like a sledge hammer to drive home her issues, she's all about that. It's okay to use government to impose the 'right' policies and ideas, it's just wrong when liberals are allowing government to do something. At that point it's simply evidence that government "doesn't work."

She objects to a government census in a conspiracy theory even Glen Beck dismissed as crazy, but wants our government to impose their will on something as fundamental as marriage. She opposes sex education, but would probably leap for joy if prayer were in school instead. She thinks Intelligent Design is another 'scientific' option that should be laid out for children to 'decide.' Yet I suspect she would object to climate change being taught, or a religion class that focused on Islam. She has pledged to bring down Planned Parenthood, despite all the valuable services they bring to millions of women that have nothing to do with abortion. And she believes we are in the end times, and the world could end any minute now. And to be be honest, if she were elected President of the United States, I'd be inclined to agree with her.

Political Bumper Stickers

2011-06-04T10:32:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up in England, bumper stickers were fairly popular. "My other car's a Porsche!" and other such 'humor.' But somewhere in the 80s people began to realize that there were something tacky and unpleasant about attaching a piece of plastic to your car, and so the tradition quickly died out.

In America though the bumper sticker lives on, and political bumper stickers are still quite popular. However, the one thing I cannot fathom is what would possess someone, in 2011 to still be driving around with a McCain / Palin sticker on their vehicle other than rank stupidity. I mean it wasn't like that decrepit old man and the bimbo was ever a viable option for President in the first place, but to actually still believe in 2011, that our country would be better off if the old man were in charge is utter craziness.

This is what leaves me so incredulous when I see these stickers still on cars, it's the fact that not only was a person so misguided they would have supported that ticket in the first place, but now after all these years they still think that those couple of tards should have won!

I guess the only good thing about the McCain / Palin sticker on a vehicle is it saves me the bother of trying to spot the morons. After all, if you have a McCain / Palin sticker on your car, you are a moron, plain and simple. You might just as well get a bumper sticker that says, "I lack any kind of good judgement, and I'm a fucking idiot." But I guess McCain / Palin sums it up more succinctly.

Land of the Free? Not for Poker Players

2011-06-01T11:45:00.000-05:00

In 2006 the Bush administration allowed Bill Frist to slip unwanted and unwarranted language into an unrelated anti-terror bill designed to make it harder for legitimate foreign businesses to operate here in the United States.

The language in question made it very difficult for US banks to process transactions involving online gambling sites, including poker sites, yet oddly offering a loophole for horse race better. Even more odd when Frist described his rationale in the context that gambling 'destroys families.' Anyway this piece of law finally took effect recently, and now American banks are forced to spy on account holders and report 'suspicious' activity that may be related to online gaming to the authorities.

Last month all this came to a head when the Department of Justice and the FBI, presumably bored having solved all the crime in this country, decided to seize the domain names of the major online poker sites including Full Tilt and Poker Stars, effectively shutting them out of the US market, perhaps for good.

Online poker players, some of whom had tens of thousands of dollars held with these trusted international companies, found themselves unable to play and unable to access their money.

The fall out from this move was dire to say the least. Millions of people all over America lost their hobby, many lost a valuable source of income, jobs were lost, accounts were frozen, and once again the United States government wasted valuable tax resources for no good reason, all while telling us we are so broke we have to lay off teachers and cut health care benefits from seniors.

After some negotiation Poker Stars obtained permission from the Department of Justice to release players' funds, and as of right now Full Tilt poker has failed to return money to American players. And that's where poker legend Phil Ivey steps in. As a paid spokesperson for Full Tilt, he has received some flak for their lack of effort to pay out. Yesterday Ivey released as statement via Facebook that he was going to sue Full Tilt for failing to return his money, and he was going to sit out of the World Series of Poker this year; a huge sacrifice for a professional poker player.

It's a real clusterfuck, I tells ya. While Republicans talk about less government interference, the fruits of their overbearing right wing crazy now comes back to bite us in the ass. Like so many stupid Republican decisions, here we are paying the price for their ineptitude once again.

It is time to license, regulate and tax online poker. Allow Americans to play the game they invented (okay so sure it's not entirely an American invention, but there is no question poker would not be as big or available in this format if it was not for American inventiveness!). Tap into the real tax revenue available here to help our budget crisis. And for the love of god, stop wasting tax dollars with stupid busts like this, if we are broke as the Republican party would have us believe, conserve money and spend it where it will do us some good, rather than harassing millions of good honest tax paying Americans.

Finally, thank you Phil Ivey for using your celebrity to draw attention to this asinine situation.

President Obama Birth Certificate

2011-04-28T01:15:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to post this image. For far too long we have had to listen to a bunch of fucking morons tell us that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is not like us, what with his dark looking skin, and 'socialist ideals' and 'Marxist tendencies' etc.

These cretins, collectively known as 'birthers,' who make up a disturbingly high percentage of Republicans these days, would do or say anything to remind us that a non-white American was now in charge. "TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK" right?

So how about all you birthers, grow a big pair of balls, and admit that the reason you don't like the President is because he isn't white. You surely have enough of an education to see that his ideals are pretty much center right, hardly extreme liberal that you like to pretend. You surely see that he isn't really a Muslim right? So why not just pull out that Confederate flag, slap a South Will Rise Again bumper sticker on your truck, and call him the 'N word' just like you always wanted to? Stop hiding your racism behind the lie that you 'are not sure' he is 'really American.' Own your racism and bigotry, just like the sheet wearing KKK used to do.

The proof is now here for all to see. Barack Obama is as American as apple pie. Born in the US of A. So how about we move on from this nonsense and talk about how we can fix the mess that W created for us?

Sony PlayStation Network Hacked

2011-04-26T20:19:00.002-05:00

Sony have recently had some egg on their face with the 'illegal network intrusion' that has left over 70 million PlayStation users without a network for several days now.

But annoying as it is not to be able to enjoy Call of Duty or Netflix, while their network is down, I was especially angry today to read the latest press release from Sony about the problem. It was a little while before they even admitted that a hacker had been to blame for the outage. Today though, they went a step further and almost a week after the outage began they mentioned that it is possible that personal data from users may have been compromised, including, name, address, email address, credit card numbers, birth dates, and basically anything we've shared with Sony in recent times. Awesome.

The blog post suggested that the 70 million users be 'vigilant' and check their credit reports for identity theft or phishing scams. Are they fucking kidding?

I used to like Sony a lot, but first they allowed their network to be compromised by a bunch of morons running patches that allow all manner of cheating in major popular games like Modern Warfare 2, ruining the whole game for several weeks. Then they patched that and somehow let a hacker wander in, steal all their confidential customer data, and fuck their network on the way out. Their system is so badly designed that I can't even watch Netflix on the PS3 any more because for some crazy reason I can't just stream like I would if I were watching it on my laptop. It has to use the PSN, which is still offline.

I guess I am ultimately just disappointed that this is yet another failing in a long line of security breaches Sony have allowed, and this time it even involves my personal data that I entrusted to Sony. I expect more than just a lame apology and a warning to be vigilant with my personal information.

UPDATE: Sony just issued another statement 'clarifying' that they didn't realize that personal data had been stolen until some computer forensic experts they hired figured it out. Therefore, they did not sit on this knowledge for an unreasonable amount of time according to them. Just thought I'd mention that.

Donald Trump

2011-04-25T20:59:00.000-05:00

"I want to be a billionaire, so freaking bad." The lines of a catchy, albeit annoying, Travie McCoy song. And on the surface it does seem like it would be fun. But increasingly we are seeing rich celebrity types drunk on their own egos getting completely out of control, and it makes you wonder if there is truth in the saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When a rich and powerful person surrounds themselves with yes men and sycophants, does the line between reality and fiction begin to blur?

Take Donald Trump. Once upon a time he was just another rich asshole, making deals, worshiping at the alter of money, which I'm sure he had gold plated. But back in 2004, Trump decided to be on the telly and The Apprentice was born. When interest in the show wained it was replaced with Celebrity Apprentice, where celebrities from the B thru D list show up and try and raise tax write offs, er I mean charitable donations, for their favorite charity.

To Mr. Trump's credit, he realized that when you are on TV with a reality show, it's a bit like having a 45 minute commercial every week that makes a lot of money for just being on TV, and then a ton of additional money later on in product placement deals and self promotion.

Fast forward to 2011 and it certainly seems as if all that money, power, and celebrity has perhaps taken his ego into the stratosphere. So much so that in the past few weeks Donald Trump has made it increasingly obvious he would consider running for President of the United States.

Oddly though he didn't choose to do this by stating his case, showing his business and financial credentials, instead he did it by acting like the belligerent and obnoxious drunk you see in a bar late at night looking for a fight. Trump began by coming out as a 'birther.' This is the new term for what used to be called a 'racist.' Now racist people simply attack Obama for not being 'like us' and murmur about 'taking our country back.' These same people, love to make wild baseless claims about the birth place of our first non-white President. To me it all seems like code to replace the N word.

Under normal circumstances I would have hoped that intelligence would have prevailed, and people would have dismissed the man as a rich and eccentric lunatic who loves the sound of his own voice. But shockingly all this ranting about Obama's birth certificate in little sound bites on the news and on talk shows, didn't get Trump laughed off the stage, it actually ignited the Republican base, and in just a few weeks, he went from nowhere to the number one choice of polled Republican voters for their favorite presidential candidate in 2012.

I'm not sure if this speaks to the stupidity of Republicans, the weak field of candidates they have to choose from, the underlying racism within the Republican party, or all of the above.

Donald Trump has continued to run his mouth unchecked in the media almost every day now, with the class and sophistication of one of his gold phallic monstrosities he erects around the world. Having just attacked Jerry Seinfeld in the media, he more recently moved on to Robert Di Nero spitting venom after Di Nero dissed him in an interview for his recent boorish behavior.

At this rate Trump is on course to put out a rap record by the end of the year in which he claims that he does in fact have the most bitches and hoes, and the longest penis, and is going to shoot anyone that dissed him recently.

Frankly, I'm sick of it. What this country needs is some TLC to nurse it back to health after Bush raped it and left it for dead in the gutter. The Bush legacy will take years to recover from, and the last thing we need is some retarded bimbo from Alaska telling us who the 'real' Americans are or the blow hard egomaniac telling us all how easy our problems are to fix if you are brilliant at everything, like he is.

I guess I may as well get used to it, because election season is nearly upon us, and it won't be long before the attack ads begin all over again. The bright side for me though is that if Palin, Trump and that Mormon cult member are all the Republicans have to offer, Obama should be a lock for another four years.

Online Poker War

2011-04-20T00:43:00.002-05:00

While politicians bicker about budgetary problems, policy, and economic philosophy, the Department of Justice and the FBI have concentrated their efforts and our tax dollars on an issue that is clearly top of the priority list of most Americans; the scourge of online poker.

Right now, across this free country, millions of Americans are choosing to play poker online. And the government has decided, having learned nothing from Prohibition, that we should be spending millions of our tax dollars attacking a business that is enjoyed freely throughout the free world.

While many Americans worry that big corporations are not paying tax, that they don't have a job, that their health care benefits are becoming more expensive and covering less, the government is apparently worrying that some Americans are choosing to play poker on the Internet. Never mind that poker is a true all-American game, with a rich history in this country, never mind freedom, capitalism, or common sense.

So in a move so disgusting it can only have been pulled from the George W. Bush Douchebook, the DoJ and FBI recently seized the domain names of several leading online poker sites, forcing them to block United States customers from their sites.

It is truly mind blowing that with all the issues we face in this country right now, such a concerted effort should be put into this. Especially given the obvious reality that it is not supported by the majority of Americans.

We live in a country where gambling is a way of life for the vast majority of states. Whether it be horse race betting, the lottery, bingo halls, slots, casinos, card rooms, or dog tracks. Gambling exists legally in one or several forms, in just about every state. In fact some of the largest casinos and gambling competitions are here in the US. And Americans benefit tremendously from this reality. Gambling has brought enormous income that has helped keep taxes lower, and fund programs that benefit our communities.

So why is the government attacking legitimate businesses around the world, that attract law abiding American citizens? Why is it that I can go and spend $100,000 on scratch off tickets this week, but not bet $1 on a hand of online poker? How come I can go to a fucking gas station three hours from my home and put my entire pay check into a slot machine without breaking the law, but I cannot bet 1c on the small blind of a game of online poker?

It's time we had a 'grown up conversation' about this. America has clearly decided that gambling is okay. Only a handful of states outlaw every form of gambling. So on that basis why is the Federal government spending money that could be given to teachers or firemen, to try and create some kind of hypocritical prohibition on gambling, that violates trade agreements America has made around the world, makes no sense whatsoever, and clearly doesn't jive with America's public opinion?

It's time to end this insanity once and for all? Allow online poker (which by the way isn't even gambling compared to the lottery or other legal gaming), regulate it and tax it. Tap into the billions of dollars Americans want to play with, and take a little slice for the Government.

We've been hearing that America is broke for most of 2011. So let's look to issues such as online gambling, and online poker, as potential revenue sources. Because if it's a choice between legalizing online poker, or laying off 10,000 teachers, it is as they say, a no brainer.

Facebook Status Bullshit

2011-04-16T19:15:00.002-05:00

When I was growing up, spam came in the mail, it was called a chain letter. You'd get a letter telling you to send five copies of the letter to people you know, and you should send money to a random person and get good luck, along with threats of bad luck if you 'broke' the chain.

Today the equivalent is the Facebook status bullshit. Usually it begins talking about some terrible disease like cancer, or perhaps something patriotic about the troops. It ends with something along the lines of 97% of people will not put this in their status, because they are evil soulless bastards who are better off dead. Or something like that.

One that has recently been doing the rounds is this one:

When I was a kid I didn't have a XBox, Wii, cell phone or computer. I had a pushbike and a curfew, a.k.a. the street lights. I lived outside, not inside. If I didn't eat what my mom made, I didn't eat. I didn't dare tell my parents no nor talk back. Life wasn't hard, it was Life. And I survived! Repost if you drank water out of a hose and hand sanitizer didn't exist, but u COULD get your mouth washed out with soap!

Now the first time I saw it, it was posted by someone over the age of 45, which makes sense a little bit if you want to look at the past through rose tinted glasses. But recently I saw it posted by someone in their 20s, and thought what the fuck?

I have always thought it was a huge mistake to overly romanticize the past. My own mother does this a lot, and talks of her idyllic childhood with so little crime. Of course she is rather ignoring the reality that millions of the men likely to commit violent crime had just been brutally slaughtered in the world's most horrific and bloody world war!

My problem with this status update is with almost every line of this stupid post, so I'll break it down for you:

"When I was a kid I didn't have a XBox, Wii, cell phone or computer."

- Awesome, and when your grandparents were kids, they didn't have anti-biotics, and kids died needlessly from illnesses we can cure these days. Now sure, they still die needlessly, but that's because our country likes to withhold medicine from the poor kids, so the rich people can get richer.

But hey, if you think it was better before technology, log off Facebook, turn off your fucking computer, and stop using technology to whine about technology like it's a bad thing.

"I had a pushbike and a curfew, a.k.a. the street lights."

- I'm pretty sure that bicycles are still available in this modern era. We have streetlights too.

"I lived outside, not inside."

- That's because there was nothing to do in the house because you lived in a backwards era.

"If I didn't eat what my mom made, I didn't eat. I didn't dare tell my parents no nor talk back."

- So your parents made you live in fear, and starved you if they fed you food you didn't like. Awesome.

"Life wasn't hard, it was Life. And I survived!"

- If life wasn't hard, why talk about 'surviving' it? I never say, I survived watching TV last night. You only use that word if the experience was hard, so that statement is contradictory and stupid.

"Repost if you drank water out of a hose and hand sanitizer didn't exist,"

- Ah yes, the good old days, when bacteria didn't exist.

"...but u COULD get your mouth washed out with soap!"

- I'm guessing you could also get your ass beat for improper grammar and writing 'u' instead of 'you.' I mean seriously don't be telling me about the good old days while using modern 'txt' abbreviations! That's just fucktarded. As is the notion that good parenting involves forcing a child to ingest soap.

Sorry, but the fact is, whoever wrote this tiresome chain letter is an idiot. There was no perfect time, no golden era, it's just the simple reality that for the most part, people look back with fondness as their childhood. But let us never forget that this is just a personal perspective. Life wasn't magical in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or any other time. So let's not try and pretend that when we grew up life was any more special than when kids today grow up.

Right Wing = Duh

2011-03-28T00:59:00.000-05:00

I don't have time for a big post, and it's frankly a little late for my best work, but in watching TV this evening in a hotel room in Austin Texas I observed two particularly stupid opinion pieces A.K.A. 'news' clips on the local TV that to me highlighted again the shocking gulf between right wing thinking and reality.

The first was regarding a program in Texas that has cost the taxpayer around $26m in the past ten years. The program allows prisoners to receive an education, even a degree while inside. Of course, as part of the latest round of cuts and attacks on 'social programs' and 'government waste' this program is now in jeopardy. It's not enough that we slap petty criminals with a record that relegates them to living on welfare, crime or the worst jobs in society for the rest of their life, we are now looking to cut spending on a program that offers inmates a second chance.

On the surface, which is where all Republican thinking tends to exist, this seems like a reasonable cut. After all there are probably some programs for law abiding citizens that should get priority right? But of course, yet again, this is simply stupid logic. In fact, not logic at all.

You cut programs designed to allow prisoners to rehabilitate, reintegrate, and become productive members of society, and you force them into welfare or re-offending once they have been released. So you cut back on a program that has cost on average $2.6m per year for the last decade, but you lose the tax the law abiding and now educated former con may have paid, and you have to pay for police, lawyers, courts, and prisons once the repeat offender bounces back into the system.

I just don't understand how this is rocket science to some people. They want to cut a program to save money, on the grounds that most people don't object when you talk about cutting benefits of criminals. But they completely ignore all the scarcely hidden costs of making such a cut. Their stupid policies waste money, create more criminal acts, more victims, and raise the likelihood of normal law-abiding people becoming a victim of crime.

The second story was about certain politicians in Texas getting mad that companies like Amazon.com don't collect sales tax on their sales. They were touting stupid figures of money they 'should' have collected if sales tax had been charged just like with B&M store.

They were demanding that justice be done and we force these companies to pay their share. Oh if only this were actually the philosophy of American politicians throughout the country! There are companies making billions of dollars who pay little to no tax because of the giant tax loopholes. We're not 'broke' because we didn't force Amazon.com to charge sales tax. We are 'broke' because we keep giving tax gifts to millionaires, billionaires, and powerful corporations.

If we were taxing companies and millionaires at a reasonable level, there'd be plenty of money to go around. But now Republicans want to tax relatively new companies like Amazon.com who are creating employment, and helping the economy of the United States and many other countries where they have a presence. It's almost like Republicans are mad at Amazon for selling books, which allow people to educate themselves.

As we watch Republicans in action in 2011, I am constantly amazed and re-amazed with their smoke and mirror bullshit they constantly use to vilify legitimate reasonable organizations, while ignoring the big herd of elephants in the room that really affect our economy.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. This is the political strategy they have chosen to adopt and they are pursuing it relentlessly. It doesn't make any logical sense, it does not better society. But they are banking on the stupid among us to ignore their actions and support them like a rabid fan supports a sports team.

I just hope that in the next election the intelligent can defeat the stupid who love to vote against their own self interests, and continue to let these assholes fuck our country just for their own personal gain.

Wisconsin Situation

2011-03-06T14:17:00.000-05:00

Some wise words from Michael Moore, talking about the richest 400 Americans who now have more money than 50% of all American people.

Republicans continue to push disgusting policies that will cripple ordinary Americans so that the richest millionaires and billionaires can continue to amass obscene amounts of wealth, at the expense of everyone else.

The piece he reads is entitled, "America is NOT broke!"

Digging Dish!

2011-03-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

At the end of last year I was so disgusted with Consolidated Communications and their third rate cable TV I decided to give DirecTV a try. I had such high hopes, and frankly anything would have been an upgrade over Consolidated. Their service was (and still is) so atrocious it was hard to imagine how it could get worse. A massive lag when using the remote, the ability to only record one channel at a time. Low def looked like 240 most of the time. Their pay for view movies looked like they were pirated with a camcorder. Their HD was just a fucking joke with pixelation and interference so often, I'd argue that even calling it high definition would be a fraudulent claim.

To their credit Consolidated did try repeatedly to make me happy and ended up bribing me with discounts and credits, which made the pain of paying them a little easier to take. But I was still very disappointed when DirecTV came out and told me that they just couldn't quite see their satellite from my balcony, and therefore were unable to offer service.

Time passed, I almost gave up on having satellite TV, especially since the DirecTV installation guys thought that the Dish satellite I would need to use was only standard definition.

At the end of February I was still hating Consolidated service. Their DVR acted like an abusive drunk step parent, that seemed to simply refuse to record shows out of spite. The final straw came when I paid $4.99 to watch a movie, and the image quality looked like an animated GIF file. It was beyond pathetic. So I thought I may as well try calling Dish.

Their eager and polite salesman informed me that they had more satellites in the sky than DirecTV and so there was a much better chance of things working out. I didn't get my hopes up too much, and remained a little skeptical.

They were able to schedule installation the following day, something DirecTV had been unable to do. And unlike DirecTV the installation guy was both early (he called first for permission) and local (the DirecTV guys were from over 1,000 miles away). From the start he was gung-ho about being able to do the installation, and sure enough in an hour or so I was set up.

To say that Dish is about six years or so ahead of Consolidated would be an understatement rather than an exaggeration. I've had the service just under 48 hours, but already I am totally sold. It's really quite amazing.

I only needed service in the main room, with a secondary service in the master bedroom. As a result, Dish only needed to install one controller box. This box feeds both TVs, the primary big screen in glorious HD which is easily 50% better than Consolidated could deliver on their best day. I'd say every channel I watch is in HD too, including BBC America.

The half terabyte DVR works incredibly well, recording up to two shows at a time, which is far more industry standard than Consolidated's one. Not only that I can play back DVR shows in the bedroom now, even though the bedroom TV is SD, and the show was recorded in HD. I can schedule recordings from either room or even my laptop, desktop or iPhone.

Consolidated required two boxes, and they didn't talk to each other, so if I recorded a show in the bedroom, it had to be watched in the bedroom. I guess they were going old school and trying to remind me of a VCR. Certainly their picture quality did.

Dish are very good at keeping me informed, even downloading a welcome to Dish program onto my DVR over night. They've also thanked me for joining their email list, and signing up for paperless billing by sending me five free pay for view movie coupons; and shockingly I can watch them in HD, what a concept.

So far I could not be more impressed. It is everything I hoped it would be and more. Slick customer service, delivering more than I expected, an outstanding service that works flawlessly so far. Did I mention it is CHEAPER than Consolidated too?

I guess if I had to whine, the box they brought me was clearly refurbished, as a scratch had been repaired on the top of it. Personally, I'd have expected new, as a new customer. Although that hasn't affected performance thus far. The box runs a bit hot, is supposedly sensitive to being moved around, and they recommend against putting other components on top of or below it. They had a better box available; one that would allow you to watch TV from anywhere in the world via the Internet, but it would have cost $199, which I am not prepared to pay for right now.

Frankly, my gripes are especially nit picky. So far so good, and I am so glad to be taking my antiquated shitty Consolidated boxes back to their office on Friday and dumping them on the counter. Dish must be laughing out loud at their competition, at least where I live, because the only customers they are going to retain are people who just don't know how much better the alternative is. I'm kicking myself that I didn't do this when I moved in last year.

So thank you Dish. You're wonderful! Please don't ever get shitty and outdated like Consolidated!

Republican Rape Fantasy

2011-02-03T09:56:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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This excellent Daily Show clip highlights another disturbing development in the Republican party. Apparently the 'Jobs are our number one priority' Republican Congress have now found time to try and redefine rape. If successful rape victims will only be viewed as victims if the rape was 'forcible.' In other words if your rapist is gentle, good luck getting any sympathy from a Republican. They probably think it's your fault for leaving the kitchen anyway.

I'm going to put aside the obvious issues with women's rights, the back door attack on abortion rights, and all the other crapulance at play here. One of the many scary things about this move is the clear message that Republicans don't give a fuck about you. They have not changed since the Bush era, they have not grown or even tried to improve since they were booted out of office in 2008. Instead of reigning in the Tea Party fucktards, the religious right, and the other fringe crazies, they have embraced them.

In 2008 we sent them the message to fuck off with their big government, war mongering, hateful money wasting policies, and from that they took the message that they needed to become more crazy. Staggeringly the American people gave them another chance in 2010, and here we are reaping the rewards. They are trying to back peddle on health care so that once again children and poor people can be denied coverage, and now here they are trying to redefine rape and attack a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.

When are these fuckers going to concentrate on helping to mend the economy they destroyed? When are they going to stop kissing up to the lunatic fringe right wingers? What the hell is their next bill going to be? A reevaluation of slavery? A discussion on whether women should really be trusted with the vote?

But until Americans start holding these people accountable, and communicating to them in no uncertain terms that extremist politics is never the answer, the Republicans will continue to attack our rights, while failing to live up to their election promises.

Killing ObamaCare

2011-01-19T10:12:00.002-05:00

It has been said that the Republican party has no new ideas. Today they proved it for us.

Rather than creating jobs, or helping us end the wars they started, or addressing some of the many problems of our society, today they launched an offensive on 'ObamaCare' trying to repeal health care reform, defund it and otherwise kill it before many of its provisions come into effect.

It is this kind of thinking that ensures I will probably always hate Republicans. The fact is the country voted for health care reform 2008, the various branches of government voted for it, and now we have it. But because it doesn't fit with their cut-throat capitalist system where poor people die because they cannot get proper health care, they now want to try and kill it (just like they want to kill poor people by blocking their access to health care).

I swear, I don't have time to address fully why this is so fucked up (if you can't see why, I don't this blog is going to change your mind), but when I see news items like this I just have to shake my head and wonder how America can ever move forward when for every forward step there are people out there demanding we take two steps back.

Even top Republicans who were interviewed said they know that it will be almost impossible to get this past the Senate, and if it did Obama would veto it. But this is still a priority to these fucking idiots nonetheless. Still with any luck these asshole moves will reveal to the public just what the Republicans are about, and in 2012 they will vote accordingly. After all, people always review the facts and then vote in their own self interest right?

Saving Money With Redlaser

2011-01-16T21:51:00.001-05:00

Today I purchased a movie and video game at Best Buy, and saved myself $20. Now you can too with this helpful guide!

If you have an iPhone there is an excellent app available called Redlaser. If you have another smart phone there is no doubt a similar app you can download.

Essentially, what this app does it allows you to scan a bar code on a product using the camera on your phone. Once you have done this the app will then tell you where else the product is sold and at what price. So all you have to do is spend a couple of seconds using this app, and before you go to the checkout you tell an associate that you've found the products cheaper at another store, and the price match guarantee kicks in and you can get excellent discount on all your purchases.

If you don't have a smart phone, the alternative is you can walk over to the laptops and Google the product you like, and then get the staff to match the price that way. You can get some pretty stout savings, especially since if you are persuasive you can even get Best Buy to price match with Amazon.com or other online retailers.

Today was the first time I used the Redlaser app, and it worked perfectly, saving me $20 on just two small items. Sadly one of those items was the horrific new Call of Duty game, which I think is a sick joke. Ah well, at least I didn't pay full price.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

2011-01-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

This weekend I decided to treat myself to Black Ops, the latest in the highly successful Call of Duty franchise. So I went to Best Buy and picked up a copy for my PS3.

There were several issues that concerned me in reading the reviews, not the least of which was the reality that 700 users had given it only three stars on Amazon.com.

Ultimately the game is fucking shit. Not the shit, just shit.

Now some might say that this statement is a little harsh, and well I don't much care. I really feel like I just wasted $50 for no reason. Because the reality of this game is that the ONLY reason it will sell is because of the name. I strongly believe that if it was released on its own merit and with another name, the sales would be 80% less.

The franchise is owned by Activision who had two companies creating alternate versions of the game. So each release to this point (and this is the seventh game in the franchise) has been created either by Infinity Ward (Modern Warfare 1 & 2), and TreyArch (World at War and Black Ops).

Modern Warfare 1 (CoD:4) was where I started playing, and certainly enjoyed that a lot, achieving my gold cross and various gold weapons. Then I tried World at War, which had some serious flaws and a few nice touches. Then Modern Warfare 2 came out and I spent many happy hours reaching prestige level 10. My score ranks in the top 2% of players.

I resisted the latest TreyArch offering since I was worried about the reviews, but eventually curiosity caused me to make a purchase. After an afternoon playing, I feel like TreyArch came and stole $50 from my wallet.

In any freeze frame, the game looks amazing. The graphics are lovely. But in playing the game it is horrifically defective. The engine does render some great images, but once your player is in motion he lumbers around like he has some kind of birth defect. And if the horrific movement isn't bad enough the sound effects of his feet on the ground are laughable. Is he doing a tap dance or fighting a battle? It's hard to say.

My first session left me cold and a little dirty. I feel like I cheated on my wife with a $50 toothless hooker, and now I wish it had never happened.

I don't care that the game has a great new way to buy weapons with their CoD currency, because the weapons sound like shit, and half of them take half a magazine to kill someone. It's so stupid when you start to shoot another player, and they turn around as their body is being riddled with bullets, and shoot you dead.

The maps are okay, although some are just too small. But if they could be loaded into MW2, I wouldn't mind playing them.

In reading the reviews I believe that the single player version of the game is very linear, and the bad guys have stupid AI, and keep re-spawning, making the game utterly unrealistic there too.

The bottom line is that this is just a very average, very ordinary game that doesn't deserve to wear the Call of Duty logo on its case. Activision should be ashamed of themselves putting out such a mediocre game and using the franchise name to sell such an inferior product.

How Many More?

2011-01-09T17:28:00.001-05:00

This weekend, America got to see another fatal shooting of innocent people by a psychotic fucktard who found it so simple and easy to purchase a deadly semi automatic firearm and use it to kill.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is now fighting for her life and six other people (including a child) are dead. Dozens more will suffer the emotional scars for years. And the tax payer will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the trial, incarceration, and who knows, maybe the execution of Jared Loughner, the gunman.

Within a few weeks, the NRA will probably have a rally to remind us that their incorrect interpenetration of the Second Amendment is that God Himself demands that all Americans arm themselves.

My first issue is with Sarah Palin and her band of trigger happy idiots who stir violent rhetoric that pushes psychopaths like Loughner over the edge. Palin used gun crosshairs on a map of America to target the politicians she wanted out of office, and one of the crosshairs was aimed at Giffords' location.

In June of last year Republican opponent Jesse Kelly advertised on his campaign web site to, "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M-16 with Jesse Kelly."

In the backlash over health care reform Giffords received death threats and her office was vandalized. Now she lies in hospital with a gunshot wound to the head.

My question is this, how many more shootings will have to happen before Republicans stop with their dirty tricks, veiled threats, encouragement of violence, and love affair with guns? Or maybe this is their strategy. Rile up the base with threats, use of fear, lies, misinformation, cult like religious fervor, and easy access to guns.

It is truly sick that it is so easy to obtain a gun, and so abhorrent that those who assist in instigating deadly violent attacks are not brought to justice. Jared Loughner did not act alone in this attack, his inner psychopath was encouraged by criminally irresponsible politicians, and armed by laughably lax gun control laws.

Michael Vick

2010-12-15T20:56:00.001-05:00

It's not often you'll catch me reading a sports blog, or commenting on a sports person, but I read an article today that compelled me to make a comment.

It was a sports bloggers response to the statement Michael Vick made recently when he stated that one day he would like the opportunity to own a dog again.

The blogger in question chided Vick for daring to make a statement that was simply (in his opinion) too soon to make, and that he should have waited. Many of the comments on the blog article insulted Vick and made comparisons to letting a pedophile baby sit.

Here's my take, for what it's worth; I think he should be allowed to have a dog or two, and here's why I believe this.

There is a tendency in America to lean towards revenge style punishments rather than rehabilitating criminals and trying to put them back on the path to proper citizenship. Here we have a case of a man who was fired, spent 19 months in jail, spent a fortune on his legal bills, fines etc. A sports person like this could have earned insane amounts of money during those 19 months of jail time and a few good bits of publicity during that time could have led to endorsement deals paying the kind of money most middle class families can only dream of saving for retirement in a lifetime of work.

In short Mr. Vick has paid a heavy heavy price for his transgressions, both in loss of freedom and loss of money. We may never know the true extent of what this man has lost as a result of his conviction.

Now our PETA friends may well point out that this man allowed some horrific animal cruelty to go on, and this should make him ineligible for dog ownership any time soon (or ever depending on who you ask).

But the reality of the situation is that the Pitbull is our nation's favorite dog to kill. The Humane Society believes that some 100,000 Pitbulls are slaughtered every month in this country. So let's not pretend that if those dogs had not been fighting over at Vick's house, they would have been living it up in some fancy mini mansion eating caviar and truffles.

Vick has paid a heavy price for his crimes, and now the next phase of his rehabilitation should be to learn to treat dogs with respect. I'd say he should be allowed to rescue one or two of the Pitbulls that are going to be euthanized in the next month or two and adopt them into his family. He should be forced to pay for the Humane Society to pay regular visits to ensure the dogs are being treated properly, and he should be asked to make some fat donation to a dog related charity.

Under those conditions, I don't see what the problem is. Telling him no, when we are only going to kill the dogs anyway, is completely irrational. I'm pretty sure that given the choice between living with Vick, or certain death, most Pitbulls would take the Vick option.

What Republicans Really Think About 9/11

2010-12-15T00:30:00.004-05:00

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For years Republicans have used 9/11 as a tool to win elections and drive home political points. They have consistently ignored the reality that they were in charge when this atrocity happened. They ignore the reality that their President, George Bush froze like a deer in headlights after the attack. We keep hearing how they 'kept us safe' after 9/11 by starting two random wars and making us take off our shoes at the airport.

Now our friends in the Republican party show us what they really think. For nothing more than political reasons they have blocked a bill designed to provide help to 9/11 first responders. The brave men and women who ran into the towers to rescue people while most people were running away, are now denied financial help, health care, and compassion by the same politicians who shamelessly exploited this disaster for political gain.

And why did they do this? Not just because they don't give a flying fuck about you or me, but because they are blackmailing the White House over the Bush tax cuts. Essentially until the tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans is extended at a cost of several hundred billion dollars, these scumbags are going to block every single new law that they can, including helping the heroes of 9/11.

If this does not help you put into context what Republicans really stand for, then you are beyond help.

Shame on Republicans everywhere for these morally bankrupt and despicable actions. If I believed in Hell, I would suspect that there is a special wing of it for the bastards who act in this way.

Dumping Cable

2010-12-11T19:14:00.001-05:00

When I lived in Tennessee I had Charter cable, and I very much hated it. They had a limited selection of HD programming, an unreliable pay for view movies service, shoddy customer service and various Internet issues that for some reason created some issues with Call of Duty that could never be resolved.

Upon moving to Texas I thought that my proximity to Houston would afford me a state of the art system and waited excitedly for the Consolidated truck to show up and install my service.

To say that I have been disappointed would be a massive understatement. The remote acted like it was drunk. The DVR seems to be determined to find an excuse to not record my favorite shows. There were no HD movies on demand or on pay for view. The customer service was closed at weekends, and ineffective the rest of the time. While they got Internet right (albeit very expensive for the speed they offer), they fucked up just about everything else.

The first cable box they gave me would freeze all the time requiring a reboot that could take up to twenty minutes (yes, that's 20 minutes). All in all they seemed like a phone company that was tinkering with the notion of becoming a cable company. But instead of getting paid to beta test their buggy and substandard product, I was paying them, and paying them far too much.

So this week, I called them up and gave them their marching orders. I retained their Internet service as it is about the only option around here. But I told them to remove cable TV from my bill and promised to return their unspeakably poor boxes to their headquarters.

The replacement I have chosen is Direct TV, in addition to my Netflix account (which I have to say was a wonderful investment - it's little surprise they single-handedly annihilated Blockbuster).

I'm getting the second most expensive package, HD, DVR, HBO, Showtime, movies on demand, insurance against anything getting messed up, and it's going to run about $60 a month. This in turn is going to save me a good $50 a month over what cable was costing me (including the Internet).

Only time will tell if this was a good move. But honestly I can't imagine they could be offering a worse service than Consolidated, and retain 50 million subscribers. Fingers crossed, the install is next weekend, and I'm excited to see the results.

My 2011 Camaro Follow Up

2010-12-11T18:56:00.000-05:00

So I've had my Camaro for four months and six thousand miles now, and I thought I would write a follow up piece after my initial honeymoon period had worn off.

I'm still very much enjoying the car. That's the bottom line. I've been on long trips, short trips, and medium trips. In every way the car has performed incredibly well, especially when you consider that it is just around the average price of a car sold in America today.

I've lost count of how many times people have told me it looks amazing, have asked me how fast it goes, or jokingly implied they would have to steal it. Just today I was parking it and I saw a teenage girl attempt to surreptitiously take a photo of it, before looking embarrassed that I had spotted her doing it.

Despite it being nearly 14 grand cheaper than the BMW it replaced, I have had zero issues with the car so far. If I am being really nit picky there is the faintest of rattle that seems to come from behind the radio at a certain speed, and once the compass refused to work for 24 hours. But mechanically, and in terms of fun factor the car is astonishing.

As far as living with the car is concerned, it's clearly more sports car than family sedan. If you are taking a passenger in the back they had better be small or they are going to have a hard time in that back seat. The trunk opening is stupidly small, so anything bigger than a large suitcase isn't going to fit. The glass in the car is very short from top to bottom so the driver visibility is very much reduced.

But the thing is, I wasn't looking for practical this time around. I wanted a sports car, at a fair price. What I got was a delightful compromise of performance and economy, sporty feel with a nice grand touring persona, great styling without a great price tag, and something I would enjoy driving each time I got behind the wheel.

Some say that the 2011 Mustang is a little quicker off the line or around a track. Some say it is a more nimble drive. But I wouldn't swap my car for a loaded V8 Mustang to be honest.

GM have hit a home run with this car, and have completely demonstrated that they can build a quality car these days. Five years ago I would not have touched an American car with a stick, but now they have mended their ways and upped their game, and as a result I am very pleased to be a Camaro owner.

If you want something that's a lot of fun, and don't want to be killed on the price, this is the way to go. There is a reason this car is now outselling the Mustang for the first time in 25 years.

The Stoning of Soraya M

2010-12-07T01:08:00.000-05:00

In America today there are those who question why we have a separation of Church and State. There are those who ask why can't we have the Ten Commandments in court houses and schools. There are those who believe we need prayer in schools. And there are those who believe in gender discrimination.

To all of those people I'd like to suggest a look at this movie. This is what happens when we allow religion to justify every action we take. This is what happens when the rule of law is perverted by religious figures. This is what our society becomes when we view women as second rate citizens and/or slaves.

This movie was based on actual events, and is a warning beacon for us all here in the United States.

Senator Bernie Sanders

2010-12-04T16:24:00.000-05:00

If only more Americans would understand this, and do something about it.

Right Wing Agenda

2010-11-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

The latest Republican / Tea Party sound bite is that they want to have an "adult conversation" about our debt. They want to reign in our President who they oddly blame for our current financial situation.

So let's have that adult conversation right now. First off, let's be real about how we ended up in this mess. We rampaged around the world getting involved in wars in regions we didn't understand, and rather than taxing citizens to pay for these wars, we gave the richest people tax cuts that we claimed were self financing. Then we borrowed money from China, and at some point they'd like to be paid back with interest.

Obama didn't come to office claiming he wanted to spend a bunch of money, but his first year in office was damage control thanks to all the Bush fuck ups.

Now we hear the clear message from the Republican / Tea Party, that we need small government and lower taxes. Simple, similar to what the so called Libertarians want. Except it isn't quite that simple at all. When asked about health care, they tell us hands off our health care, unless you're a veteran, and then they should get their VA care. When asked about abortion, they do actually want a large invasive government swooping in and forcing women to have babies they don't want, even though so many of them die because they don't want babies to have free access to health care.

They want low taxes, but seem unwilling to cut military spending from the insane levels we have reached; now over a trillion dollars a year. Hands off our guns they say, but they still want a police force to show up when one of their friends gets shot. Prayer in schools? Sure, why is the government 'interfering' and preventing it? Illegal immigrants? We want a nice big government to round up the 12 million illegals and ship them home, and a nice big government patrolling our borders and building massive fences, and lower the taxes! Gays in the military; let's do a study on it, think about it, ask the soldiers what they think (because we ALWAYS ask soldiers what they think right?).

See the issue I have, since we're having an adult conversation, is the reality that you don't get something for nothing. If you want a small government, it includes things like the military, border patrol, police force, etc. You can reduce the size of these organizations to lower tax, but if anything the Right seems to want to increase the size and scope of the military and defense spending, or at least keep the status quo.

It also seems interesting to me that the demands for "small government" are based around every liberal concept of social justice such as social security, health care for seniors or children, tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires based up on the failed principles of trickle down Reaganomics. Yet when it comes to real issues like our trillion dollar military spending, there is no interest in making necessary cuts.

In fact, as best as I can see it, the concept they are promoting is that they would like to simply de-fund anything they don't like, and fund everything they want. They are not really talking about small government at all, merely shuffling the same money we don't have into all their pet projects, while simultaneously cutting taxes. And this is the agenda that makes no sense to a person with a brain. If you want the government to pay for things, then the government has to collect tax to pay for it. It's that simple.

So how about we really have an adult conversation about our economic situation rather than a fake one? Or would that merely uncover the Tea Party for what they are; racist bigots who don't have the balls to join the KKK, and are really just mad that a black man is in the White House. Shame on the Republicans for so easily getting in bed with these assholes.

Regular As Clockwork

2010-11-22T15:39:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I remember reading in the news about Reverend Cedric Miller of New Jersey who made the news after abusing his power. He informed his staff of 50 or so that they had a simple choice; they could delete their Facebook accounts or they could resign. He then explained his actions with a rant about how Facebook is evil, leads to nothing but adulterous affairs, and told his congregation that they too should log off the site.

Now let's face facts; asshole religious leaders are nothing new, but I remember thinking at the time of the story how odd it was that his attacks were so impassioned, and that he was willing to make the national media over his decision.

Well, the truth came out today. Like so many extremist holy men that like to preach fire and brimstone, he is a corrupt hypocritical asshole, and had his own sexual issues he was dealing with, not to mention issues of faith.

Apparently this autocratic preacher was fucking the wife of one of his staff members, and sometimes doing it with her husband present too. These three and four way sexual encounters took place with the pastor's own wife right after Bible study on Thursday and also after Sunday church service.

I wonder if his Bible study classes included Leviticus (20:10):

And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Oops!

I guess I'm just taking it out of context, or the passage is negated by John 8:3-8. Whatever. I'm not actually calling for this man to be executed, but I do believe that the resignation he has offered should be accepted post haste.

I get that some people feel the need to spend their lives preaching about the magic invisible man in the sky, and I have no problem with that. But here is yet another example of some extremist jerk telling his congregation of 1,100 people how to live their lives, and further abusing his position over the 50 staff members he was responsible for to impose his own agenda, all while going against everything he claimed to stand for.

There are hundreds of examples of religious men abusing their position of trust over the course of history. If you must go to church, at least try not to be naive about it.

Stupid Americans

2010-11-11T04:38:00.000-05:00

I read with interest this evening that 53% of Americans want the tax cuts of George Bush to continue, even if this means giving a tax break to people making more than $250,000 a year.

My question is simply this: How can anyone reconcile our current economic reality with the belief that we should continue to cut taxes? I mean, sure, no one likes paying taxes, but we want to educate our kids, have police arrest the bad guys, have troops stationed in 150+ countries around the world, spend stupid amounts of money on defense, and at some point pay back communist China all the money George Bush borrowed for his stupid wars. And all this costs money, and that money needs to be raised from taxes.

When I watch the news these days a few things are beginning to scare me. Not so scared I get a bunker survival kit and an assault rifle, but still I feel like I am watching the American political system disintigrate before my very eyes.

The Tea Party are becoming a potent political force in America, managing to push some really useless candidates into politics on the platform of smaller government and lower taxes. Yet the reality is they are almost universally supporting Republicans who were part of the machine that increased the size and scope of the government almost exponentially under George Bush.

At the same time they seem to be campaigning for the millionaire and billionaire tax cuts that benefit about 1% of Americans. Their logic being that if we keep giving these rich assholes money, eventually it will 'trickle down' to ordinary people. There's no actual logic or evidence to support this concept, but it is still presented as a good idea.

All that said, I'd like to say something to Americans that no politician seems to want to fess up and say: George Bush spent all our money. And when he was done spending a bunch of money we didn't have and increasing the size of our government, he borrowed money from communist China to further his goals. Now at some point we need to pay off our debt. So we have to make some hard choices. We need to increase taxes, or radically decrease spending, which in real terms means slashing pensions for old people or significantly scaling back the military and our ability to invade countries at whim and stay there for years.

I just want to know when the majority of Americans will understand this simple reality and stop talking about tax cuts and evil Obamacare and other nonsense.

The elephant in the room here in America is our stupidly big defense budget, and our love of the idea that we can have our cake and eat it too. If we are going to station our troops in 150+ countries, wage war, have thousands of nuclear weapons, build special border fences to keep out the immigrants, and actively oppose gay marriage and abortion all while prosecuting the pointless and futile war on drugs, we have to RAISE taxes for everyone; especially the wealthy.

Sadly though, no one seems to want to talk about it. The GOP just spout stupid sound bites about efficiency, spending cuts, and fiscal responsibility. But they won't have the intellectual honesty to be real with us and tell us that the only way out of our hole is to raise taxes. And worse, they won't admit it is their irresponsible and failed policies that left us needing this discussion in the first place.

Jennifer Aniston New Movie Shocker

2010-11-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I woke up to check my email this morning, I noticed that Yahoo! was reporting that Jennifer Aniston was trending. Whenever I see a celebrity name trending, I often click just to see what news has caused the celebrity in question to suddenly trend.

To my shock and surprise I found out that Jennifer Aniston has been cast as a quirky and slightly unlikely love interest in a romantic comedy staring Adam Sandler. Astonishing.

Further research surprised me even more when I discovered that Hugh Grant is also going to be in a romantic comedy where he plays a witty bumbling Englishman who can't seem to catch a break.

I tell you, it's little wonder these celebrities make so much money. The time, effort and preparation these people have to go to for their craft puts the rest of us to shame.

Dead Babies?

2010-11-04T12:21:00.001-05:00

I just had a conversation with a friend of mine about abortion, and it made me realize that it's been a while (almost two years) since I've visited the latest figures on infant mortality. [See previous article]

Without rehashing the past, and repeating myself, my stance on abortion in America is very simple. Our infant mortality rate is so shameful and embarrassing in this country, we have no right to force women to have a baby they don't want. If we can't keep our babies alive from the age of 0 to 1, why should we be even talking about a fetus?

So I checked on the latest figures (from the CIA, not some left wing think tank), and it seems that just like last year, we have slipped yet again, we are now 46th in the world for infant mortality.

Not only were our figures embarrassing when I first wrote about this in 2006, but year on year our figures have been deteriorating. In 2006 we were an unimpressive 32nd in the world. By 2009 (the most recent figures available at time of writing) we are now at 46th. Now I concede that some additional countries may now being reported that has affected our ranking, but which ever way you look at it; it's a disgrace. The richest nation on the planet, and we can't provide health care that keeps our children alive? It's not like we're Cuba, oh wait, Cuba is one of the 45 countries kicking our ass in infant mortality statistics, oops.

I'm sure with the outcome of the midterms as they are, Republicans are going to start an aggressive bid for the White House in 2012. And as usual they will trot out the political wedge issues like flag burning, gay marriage and abortion. But the hypocrisy to be 'pro-life' while simultaneously legislating to not give children free and unfettered access to health care is astonishing, and our children are paying with their lives.

Who knows, when the 2010 numbers come out for infant mortality, will America even be in the top 50? Just how far will we slide, and how many babies will die as we 'debate' health care and abortion?

If you are pro-life, you need to support free access to health care for all children, or you are in fact not pro-life at all. You are a hypocrite and an idiot.

Obama's Trip to India

2010-11-04T10:17:00.000-05:00

This morning as I read some sites around the Internet, I see that the latest right wing gripe is that our President is going to be spending 200 million dollars a day on his four day trip to India. This figure has been talked about on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, and on various right wing blogs and forums. In fact I've even seen the trip inflated to $2Bn or 'billions.'

First off, FactCheck.org have proven that there is no evidence whatsoever that the trip will cost this much. The White House has explained that the figures are wildly exaggerated. Yet all around the Internet (and I'm guessing on Fox News at some point), people keep repeating the same lies.

Now I have two issues with this (actually I have more, but two is all I'm prepared to write about). First off, President Obama didn't invent the infrastructure of Presidential visits. Airforce One, the Secret Service, all that stuff was put in place decades ago. So let's not get all sanctimonious about how much it costs for a President to visit a foreign country.

Secondly, what I want to know is why Obama's opponents have to lie to spread dislike for the President? First they told us he did nothing, next they told us he was doing too much. He's been likened to Hitler and various other evil people. We've been told by his detractors that he should be impeached, that he isn't even American, that he's a Muslim and all that other garbage. But my question is this: If Barrack Hussein Obama is indeed such a terrible President, and is hurting our country so much, why don't you present me with FACTS about his wrongdoing? Tell me WHY I should hate this man. Tell me why I should vote against him in the next election.

Seriously, if Obama is as bad as Hitler, shouldn't we have some real dirt on him by now? If he is a Muslim, don't we have some pictures of him praying to Mecca? If the best you can do is make up lies about how much a Presidential trip abroad is costing, doesn't is show an inherent weakness to your argument? Or could it be that you are just a racist fucktard and you don't really have a case to make at all? Just a thought.

Hi, I'm A Tea-Partier

2010-11-03T20:32:00.002-05:00

Win For Retards

2010-11-03T14:50:00.001-05:00

Well the results are in. The stupidest fucktards in America went out and voted to take back our country. As a result more Republicans are now in charge of making decisions for us.

If there is one thing that will always surprise me about America it is how an elitist right wing party that panders only to corporations and millionaires, manages to appeal to some of the most stupid, poorest, and ignorant people in our society.

Back in my home country of England, it's almost impossible to find a poor person who votes Conservative (the closest equivalent to Republicans). Poor people understand that generally the politics of the right wing will do nothing but hurt poor and middle income people. Yet here in America some people just aren't getting the memo.

When you look back over the record of the Republican government (and I'm not talking ancient history, just the last ten years), it is clear that they are a bunch of fuckers. They stood by as our nation came under attack. The Commander in Chief at the time did nothing after he was told we were under attack. Eventually we entered two wars, with party leadership lying to the American people about this being a short and cheap skirmish, and just to go about their everyday lives. We racked the trillion dollar cost of this war on our Chinese credit card, and gave tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest 1-2% of Americans.

Then Republicans did nothing after Katrina except threaten to shoot black people who were 'looting' for food and water to survive. In fact to this day whole neighborhoods are still in ruin.

As Bush's reign of terror came to an end the Republicans steered our country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and jumped ship.

Then as President Obama tried desperately to fix the mess they had left, Republicans tried to block him at every turn, refusing to allow him to appoint key government workers, and blocking just about every law change they could, including voting against Republican policies.

In the meantime the Tea Party sprang up, wanting to take their country back, whatever the fuck that means. Back into a depression? Back into unfinanced wars? Back to slavery and segregation? Back to a time when our President was a fucking idiot?

Finally in the midterms they took back the House, ensuring that President Obama will get even less done in the next two years. The very people who will be hurt by this, helped vote them into office.

Around the world, America has a reputation for having many stupid people living on its shores, and with an outcome like this, it certainly leaves a lot of people scratching their heads.

America is heading down a very dark road, that leads to a very bad place. We seem to be shunning intelligence, education, science and facts, and in their place we are embracing stupidity, ignorance, religious fanaticism, and radicalism. If you want to see where we are headed, take a trip to Iran or Afghanistan.

If there is one lesson we can take from last night it is never underestimate the power of the stupid. But unless we fix our education system our society will continue to dumb itself down and people will happily vote against their own self interests, because they are just too ignorant to know better.

It's a sad day in America today.

Yes Peta

2010-11-01T11:28:00.000-05:00

It's not often I find myself agreeing with Peta. Sadly while their message may be quite right much of the time, there is an extremist faction within the organization that agrees with throwing paint on fur coats and other crazy radical bullshit that alienates normal people.

However, when it comes to making pretty celebrities strip for their beliefs, I can certainly support that. In this ad Olivia Munn gets naked for a very good cause; boycotting the circus.

There are two opposing arguments here; one that a circus can educate kids and make them more likely to demand protections for animals. The other argument is that forcing caged animals to do tricks is abusive and essentially involves significant animal cruelty for the entertainment of humans.

I have to go with the latter here. Elephants are highly intelligent social creatures, and keeping them in little cages and making them do tricks is wholly unacceptable.

Whatever you think of Peta, or Olivia Munn in the nude, I think this cause is one we should all support.

One Track Mind

2010-10-30T03:39:00.000-05:00

Last night while I slept, a suspicious package was retrieved from a cargo plane. I know this because I watch the news from time to time. In fact, given that I was not at work today, I watched the news on several occasions and even flicked from CNN, to MSNBC and even Fox. On each and every channel, at the times I tuned in, there was nothing but blanket coverage of this event.

All because someone in Yemen decided to send something a bit weird in the mail, the media goes into panic mode and instantly ignores all the actual newsworthy events of the world to focus on this.

Focus really may be a bit of an overstatement of what was going on. What really happened is the news stations merely repeated the same story over and over again, and then tried to add their own twist to the story by wheeling out one 'expert' after another and then simply presented one 'theory' after another, which really included no end of unsubstantiated drivel from the presenters trying to fill the time.

I have to say, this is something I've always had quite an issue with in America. Having been raised on a diet of BBC news, the American cable offerings fall a bit flat by comparison. It's all driven by greed, money, and ratings. There's no desire to educate and inform the American public, if it bleeds it leads, as the old saying goes.

The scary thing is that this isn't even a story. This package could have been sent by anyone, and nothing actually happened. And while there is a legitimacy to reporting on the story, does the coverage really have to be absolute?

I watched an old Penn & Teller Bullshit tonight about Ground Zero. Nine years after 9/11 we still can't get our shit together and rebuild the tower(s). And when some retard in the Middle East sends us an unusual package in the mail we shit ourselves and talk about it endlessly for days.

I really wish I could turn on the news, and see some actual journalism. I really wish we'd stop panicking every time someone said the word 'Muslim.' There will always be crazy terrorists out there, and while we continue our meddling in International affairs with our military we will always have enemies. But when one silly package sends the media into a frenzy, we are playing right into the hands of the 'evildoers' who want to hurt us.

Conservative Parents

2010-10-28T02:02:00.001-05:00

I happened to overhear a conversation the other day between two conservative parents, who were still in their twenties. One said to the other, "I've told my kids, they can have a Facebook account when they turn 18..."

It reminded me of a theory I've had for a while now about how conservative parents fuck up their children, despite the best of intentions.

The picture above of course needs no explanation. All over the country right now, tiny children are being dressed as sluts and paraded around stages in front of a bunch of old pervert guys and sad old women who want to live vicariously though their daughters. It's not just the pageant scene either, I've seen young parents on Facebook asking their friends to vote on the cuteness of their (usually) girl, for some school competition.

But while I find the entire concept of teaching girls that their worth is only in their appearance, the issue I specifically wanted to post about is that of overly strict parents. Among conservatives there is the belief that enacting certain laws will magically stop crime. And among this same subset of conservatives, you'll find parents who think that strict rules, spanking, total control of a child's social life, and spying on their kids will produce a well rounded and safe child. Some even take this as far as home schooling their children so they can keep tabs on them 24/7.

The fact is, these ideas are, like most conservative ideologies, okay on the surface. If you only think of the most basic and superficial aspects of your logic, then all this can make wonderful sense. Strict rules build character. Spanking provides a deterrent for bad behavior. A dose of the belt can reinforce a lesson when needed. Organizing all of a child's social interactions will ensure they don't meet with undesirables (people of a different race, social class, religion, sexuality, gender, political leaning). Spying on their children will allow them to monitor the adherence to the path they have been forced to walk. And home schooling will ensure that the right classes are taught, and silly nonsense such as science, gender equality, evolution, and other non-Christian values will be omitted. With the right grades the little dear might make it into a Christian college founded by a former TV evangelist.

Living in Bible belt I've met kids like this. Fortunately, no amount of parental abuse can alter the fact that they are human beings. And at some point, perhaps not today, or even next week, but one day these children will grow up. They will rebel and finally tell their overly controlling parents to go fuck themselves. Prior to this final blow up will be a lot of subterfuge and lying to ensure that certain undesirable behavior will remain hidden from the parents. As a result instead of open lines of communication, honesty and respect, what you have instead is a child who learns pretty quickly that parents cannot be trusted with the truth. This in turn leads to risky behaviors, carried out without knowledge of the parents. Useful discussions about drugs, alcohol and sex, never happen because instead the parent simply tells the child that all such activities are forbidden and sinful, so the child does them anyway without helpful guidance or supervision.

Now having criticized conservative parents I would certainly balance that with the obvious realization that Drew Barrymore clearly could have used some less liberal boundaries during her childhood. Sure, she turned out okay, but that was raw talent and some luck more than good parenting. For every Drew Barrymore there are a slew of other kids who ended up dead thanks to bad parenting.

The only conclusion I can reach is that parents need to be parents. Not in your face controlling assholes, and not hippies who want to be your friend and smoke weed with you. There has to be a middle ground. But whichever path you take, please stop putting little girls into pageants. It's so fucking wrong it isn't even funny.

Vote Democrat

2010-10-26T12:20:00.002-05:00

As we approach the midterm elections I felt a political post was in order. I doubt there are any Republicans who actively read my blog, but just on the off chance I can convince you, I'll give it a shot.

People traditionally have very short political memories. So if you are one of those people, let me help you out.

President George W. Bush was a disaster for this country. As we were attacked on 9/11 partly due to his unwillingness to do his job (remember his record setting vacation count?), he sat there paralyzed with fear, and did nothing. Minutes after the secret service advised him we were under attack, he finally got up and did something. He took us into two unnecessary and expensive wars. Wars he financed by borrowing every penny communist China would agree to lend us. At the same time he cut taxes for the wealthy (and not just well of; the filthy rich), and deregulated corporations so they could plunder the American people in the most greedy and unethical ways possible (think bankrupting cancer patients, for example).

At the end of his horrific presidency, his only real legacy was the fear he and Cheney sold to the American people, and an economy sliding into the second worst recession our country has ever witnessed.

In any normal country you'd think that the opposition party would win by a landslide, yet still tens of millions of people turned out to vote for old man McCain, and the bimbo tardmonkey he had picked as his running mate.

Our President has had to work very hard to try and put the economy back on track, and all the time he faces Republicans deliberately roadblocking everything he tries to achieve. From filibuster threats to blocking important government appointees, the Republicans have acted in a despicable way, focused on one goal; to win back control at all costs, without giving a rats ass about ordinary working people of America who suffer as a direct result of their fuck ups.

The Tea Party gained momentum as the new racist front. The KKK is out of fashion these days, since no one wants to admit freely to being a racist (except the utterly extreme haters). So those who got mad at Obama because he isn't white, joined a group for the haters, losers, racists, bigots, birthers, and idiots, who just want to hide their real agenda behind a fake one that is more palatable.

It seems like many Americans can get behind the notion of paying less tax and having less government waste, but the reality is the Tea Party and Libertarians don't seem to give a shit about taking actual steps to reduce government waste and help American people.

The elephant in the room in this country is defense spending. As a nation we are spending almost half of all military spending in the entire world. That's right, for every dollar spent on the military for every country in the world, our investment is close to 47% of the world military budget. We have dozens of pointless agencies, over 800,000 people with top secret military clearance, and a military presence in over 150 countries.

When these people talk about small government, and lowering taxes, or cutting social programs, the one thing no one seems to have the balls to campaign for is massive cuts to our military spending. And until we start thinking realistically about doing this, we are always going to have a problem with balancing the books.

Our priorities are very wrong, and yet despite all this, many Americans are going to go to the polls and vote for Republicans. These common sense, whiter than white, smiling family men who will cut taxes and government waste and fix our economy.

Of course none of this is really going to work. Giving Republicans more strength will simply road block Obama for the next couple of years. The Republicans don't really have any plans to improve our country. They talk about repealing Obama's laws, pushing for more tax cuts for the wealthy elite, cutting social programs that help Americans get a better life, and returning us to the failures that were the hallmark of the last Republican administration.

Anyone who points out that Republicans caused this problem will be met with a sneer and will be told that we shouldn't live in the past, and that it's now the President's fault. We shouldn't talk about the real causes of our predicament, we should just blame Obama and chase the failed policies of before.

Sadly we don't have real news networks, our education system isn't designed to make people think, so millions of ignorant Americans will head to that polling station and vote Republican, weakening the government for the next couple of years.

America has so much potential, and could return to a position of world inspiration. But we are badly off course right now. We are making life harder than it needs to be. We risk losing so much we will never get it back. Until Americans wake up and realize this we are going to be in a lot of trouble.

So I'd like to ask you right now to vote Democrat in these elections. Let's give Obama a mandate to push for change we so desperately need. Let's show the Tea Party that we don't like hate, and their stupid rhetoric. And let's tell Republicans that we won't vote for them until they come up with some new ideas for actually improving this country, rather than listening to them bleating on about Reaganomics and other failed strategies.

For God's Sake

2010-10-20T10:20:00.000-05:00

Living for ten years in the Bible Belt, I've heard more than my fair share about God, Jesus and all the magic angels. But this post isn't about God particularly, it's about those people who say, "Everything happens for a reason." Those that say it, or post it on Facebook, say the words with conviction, as if they are repeating wise words. My issue is that I do not believe on any level that these are in fact wise words.

Things don't happen for a reason, things just happen. If you start to believe for a moment that a magic invisible man has decided a life plan for everyone, the first question that comes to mind is why God is such a sadistic racist? Did God really plan for millions of brown people to starve to death before they reached adulthood? Did He sit down one night and invent AIDS just so a bunch of kids would catch it before they were born and die in agony as children? How about Ebola, was that just to scare the shit out of us?

If God really is carefully constructing all these life plans for us, what's the point of existence at all? Our whole life is just a pre-planned fairground ride?

Most Christians will tell you that God gave us free will. Freedom to choose to walk in Jesus' footsteps or not. Of course that's not really much in the way of freedom since allegedly the punishment for straying from the path is eternal torture, pain and suffering.

At the end of the day, it's not for me to tell you what to believe when it comes to your chosen deity. For many people said deity is very real to them. But for the love of God, stop claiming that everything that happens in life is some magical life plan; as if you were a pawn in a giant game of God chess. If we are to assume for a moment that God is real, why would He want to pre-determine everyone's lives for them? And if He does do that, does that mean that Original Sin was invented by God and used as an excuse to make our lives miserable?

Well thanks for reading my morning God rant about destiny. All you have to figure out now is whether reading this was part of God's plan.

Geo Ads Die

2010-10-18T12:37:00.000-05:00

If there is one thing that is going to turn off a potential buyer, it's being lied to in the first place. When you start off a business relationship with a lie, it sours the whole deal, even if the ultimate deal ends up a good one.

I remember seeing similar crap on the ads for the dating site True. There some hot chick would pretend to be writing on her lap top while lying on the bed scantily clad. The ad was designed to make you click to 'chat' with her, when in all reality she wasn't real. It's a strange kind of advertising for a site claiming to weed out cheats and liars from its clientele.

In recent times, the latest trend is geo specific ads based on the location of your IP address. You see ads like "Conroe Mom invents new product." Or maybe, "Important message for Texas residents." It's a pathetic attempt to appear local and therefore relevant. After all, is some local mom from my community really going to rip me off?

It just bugs me to think that a company would stoop so low to create a sale that they would lie like this to get a click though. The first time I saw this was some multi level marketing / pyramid scheme, where a web page personalized to your home town would appear, talking about a local man in his 20s who was making tens of thousands of dollars a week from his chosen scheme.

Now it seems slightly more mainstream products are jumping on this bandwagon, and they really need to stop and think what they are doing.

No matter how stupid you think your target audience is, and no matter how smug an executive you might be, the vast majority of people are going to see this bullshit for what it is. So the question is, are the few suckers you attract like this going to be enough to sustain your business? And if so, maybe you are a crook and not a businessman.

Why Hate? Demand Equality

2010-10-09T15:52:00.000-05:00

I was reading an article today about a gang in New York called the Latin King Goonies who recently attacked two teens of 17 and a 30 year old man, all because they decided that these individuals were gay.

The details of the attack are pretty disgusting, beating, torture, sodomy with a small baseball bat and plunger handle, burning people with cigarettes, robbery, false imprisonment, theft etc.

But what really struck me more than anything is that these gang members are so stupid they would risk their lives over a hate crime. I certainly understand why some crime happens, for example, you rob a bank to get money to spend on your drug habit or whatever else floats your boat. In many crimes there is a clear end result where if you avoid capture you have gained something.

In this case, the gang members, most of whom have already been caught, are going to be charged with a series of very serious crimes, and just for good measure the crimes will be noted as 'hate crimes' which ups the ante somewhat in the prison sentencing.

For such a brutal attack that is also a hate crime, some of these 'Goonies' are going to spend the best part of the next ten to twenty years in prison, where they will most likely become a lot more familiar with hanging out with a bunch of men and sodomy.

And that's the bit I find hard to understand. There was never an up side to this crime. A night of hurting another human being (or three), and then many years in prison. Who knows, the fact they were in a gang, and this was such a serious hate crime could see them locked up for life. What a tragic waste of a set of lives.

It is so sad how so many people have so much hate in them that they are literally willing to risk life in prison in exchange for lashing out at a person who is not like them.

Unfortunately, until we learn to accept gay people, and afford them the same rights as EVERY American, this kind of attack will continue. When we take a group of people, and label them as less than human, suddenly almost any kind of action can be justified. Everyone needs to play their part to change society from parents to teachers, police to the government. Religious leaders too need to stop spewing their messages of hate. Most sections of the Bible used to justify anti-gay sentiment also instruct us to stone people to death for various frivolous 'crimes.'

If you're on Facebook consider following this link and spreading awareness for equal rights for all, regardless of sexual identity.

401K

2010-10-09T09:21:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to point out that my last post marks my 400th post since I started this blog in November 2005. I'd like to thank all my many readers for sticking with me, and all the international perverts who find my blog because of the article I wrote about Simpsons Cartoon porn.

Sadly I don't have a record of how many readers I've had, but I do know that I've had 136,000 unique visitors in the past two years. I've seen visitors from 160 countries. The top ten countries are:

United States
Germany
United Kingdom
Canada
France
Australia
Mexico
Italy
Sweden
Argentina

So thanks for reading, I've enjoyed writing it. See you all at post 500!

Consolidated Communications

2010-10-09T08:58:00.001-05:00

So I called Consolidated Communications, my pitiful cable company, because they owe me a massive rebate on their crappy and over-priced service. I simply have not had time to reach them yet, due to my busy work schedule.

Here was my route to wonderful customer service:

Thank you for calling Consolidated Communications...
For English, press one...
To establish new service press one...
For billing, press two...
For customer service press three...
Please note that your call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes. Please have your customer number and PIN available. You will find this information on the top of your bill.
Please enter your ten digit customer number followed by the pound key.
That response is not valid.
Please enter your ten digit customer number followed by the pound key.
That response is not valid.
For business, press one.
For residential, press two.
Thank you for calling residential customer service. Unfortunately, we are a bunch of lazy fucktards that don't open at the weekend. After all, why the fuck would you want customer service on Saturday? It's not like you have a job, I bet you spend your fucking welfare on this $140 cable service don't you? Well you fat couch potato loser, why don't you call back when it is convenient to us, which is 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and never on the fucking weekend. Get it? We hope you fucking die, goodbye.

Now I admit, I made up the bit in italics, but the rest is exactly what happened. I am tasked with punching in a bunch of random buttons on my phone for five minutes, only to be told that these bastards don't even open at the weekend. Call me crazy, but why not mention that at the beginning of the call? Offer me the choice of using the automated service or calling back during business hours. Isn't this common sense? And seriously, who doesn't provide customer service on the very days most Americans get off work?

Maybe next time we move, we'll find a decent cable company. I'm thinking of going Dish...

Wake Up Call

2010-10-08T09:30:00.001-05:00

I took a new job after moving to Texas, and it's a job that involves traveling. So I now get to play the business traveler game of collecting points when I fly and when I stay in hotels, in the hope that down the road I can earn some free nights that my wife and I can enjoy during our non-working lives.

Having stayed at many hotel chains already, I am certainly very taken by Holiday Inn Express, who seem to do a bang up job of taking care of a business traveler. But the reason I am venting here is because I have noticed that some hotels who are not corporate owned, but franchised refuse to give frequent traveler points, if you book through a web site like Hotels.com (as I do). And the interesting fact I have discovered, is that almost universally the hotels that refuse to do this are usually crap.

Now I don't know how it works, but I'm guessing it costs a little bit to give away the points, so some of the franchises would rather save the money and screw the traveler. Sadly, that kind of selfish business attitude is pretty much always reflected in the standard of the accommodation. No HBO, no flat screen TV, shampoo but no conditioner, poorly maintained rooms, dated hotel fixtures and fittings, etc.

I've always hated false economies, and screwing business travelers out of a few points in the loyalty program is just going to piss them off, and deprive your business of thousands of dollars over the long term. In business it's far better to have repeat customers that refer others, than make a one time hit and never see that customer again.

As the expression goes, "You can shear a sheep many times, but you can skin him only once."

Dirty Cash

2010-10-07T19:04:00.002-05:00

Ever since I became an adult, I've hated cash. Money is fun for kids, but as an adult it is a royal pain in the ass. First off you have to get it, which here in America usually involves driving to an ATM, realizing that your vehicle is either too low or too high to reach the buttons easily. Then you get your cash, if you're travelling you usually get screwed some fee for getting your money, and then you get a bunch of filthy bills, covered in bacteria, drugs, and all that is nasty.

Then you get to carry this filthy smelly money around until you need to spend it. At that point, you invariably get more bills, and a bunch of change that jangles around in your pocket, until it eventually pokes a hole in your pocket, or gets stuck in the dryer at some point in the future. The rest of the day you get to walk around sounding like a court jester with bells on his shoes.

Personally, I just toss my change into a jar when I get home that night, and don't think about it until I have enough to take to the CoinStar machine for conversion into an Amazon gift card (yet more hassle and time).

Ultimately I find the whole operation irritating, which is why God invented the Debit Card. Now I get to buy whatever I want either by typing my PIN, or signing a screen (we have yet to catch up with the chip and PIN systems of other countries, but I'm sure we will eventually).

The reason I am talking about all this is because tonight I decided to buy a small bottle of wine from the liquor store next door to the Thai restaurant who was cooking my food. I walked around for a while, selected a cheap bottle of plonk for $8.99, and waited for the woman to ring me up. I had to wait a while, because there was apparently a 'special' on certain wine that day, and they decided it was worth holding me up for a few minutes to discount my purchase.

Sure enough the wine was randomly and for no reason I could understand discounted to $6.99. Even better. I hand over my card, only to be informed that they don't take credit cards. I explained that I was offering to pay with a debit card, only to be told that ALL plastic was forbidden in their store (a sign might have been useful here). Helpfully, the old man behind the counter told me there was an ATM across the street, where I could procure the necessary evil cash, and bring it back to him in his store.

Fuck, while were are at it, why not just have me drive to the supplier, pick up the wine there, and save him the hassle of actually getting the wine delivered to his store, and placed on the shelf. Perhaps he'd also like his fucking car washed too.

I explained that this was 2010, and I'd simply take my business to a store that was aware that it was no longer the 1950s.

I just cannot for the life of me understand what the fuck is wrong with businesses like this. This kind of shit used to be common in England, but they've moved on, and America it seemed was always willing to take your money in any form.

But now, perhaps due to greedy banks, some small businesses are rebelling against fees on credit cards and debit cards, and forcing people to use cash. That's all well and good, but what happened to good old fashioned customer choice? I'd already agreed to pay $8.99 for the wine when I picked it up and walked it to the cash register. I'd have even paid a dollar more to use my debit card, which would have more than covered the bank fees. Instead they wanted to discount the wine to $6.99 and make me walk across the street on a hot and humid Texas evening, pull money out of the ATM, pay $1.50 for the privilege of using the ATM, then travel back to the hotel with jangling coins in my pocket, that I would then have to transfer to my suitcase and remember to put in the jar when I got home.

It's just bullshit. You wanna take issue with the banks about the fees, fine. But in the meantime, how about you just realize what century this is, and give me a choice. I'll pay the damn fees if I have to, just so I don't have to mess with the cash.

Burn Baby Burn

2010-10-05T18:48:00.000-05:00

A house fire in Tennessee has recently lit up the web with left versus right ideological arguments about personal responsibility and other such stupidity that seems to be on the rise in America.

I'm not sure I even have the energy to throw my opinion into the ring here. But basically, some dude lives in a county where there is a $75 fee for fire protection services. The aforementioned dude did not pay this fee, and unfortunately for him, his house caught fire. Fire crews rushed to the scene in response to the 911 call, and once they arrived, they stood there, and watched the house burn to the ground. The only time they turned on their hoses was to protect the neighbors home, because that guy had paid his fire protection fee.

The hose Nazis were not even moved into action when the unfortunate homeowner offered to pay any fees or costs associated with putting out the fire. They simply did nothing, despite having the equipment, tools and ability to stop the fire. They were only following orders.

Right wingers have jumped on this as an example of how personal responsibility is king, and those who do not take responsibility deserve everything they get. The left has described the issue with the obvious human element to this. The fact that the system is okay with this level of indifference to human suffering and personal tragedy is pretty sick in my opinion.

I see it as the encapsulation of what's wrong with America today. The right wing increasingly seem completely ambivalent to the human costs of any argument. Which is especially ironic when so many of them also profess to be Christian. Libertarians and Tea Baggers bleat on about small government and every man for himself, until it comes to a hot button issue like abortion, when they appear to want the government at national, state, and local level to intervene in personal liberty and a woman's right to choose.

The issue, at it's core, is a departure from the state of mind, 'do unto others...' We are in danger of becoming a petty and small society, where everyone cares only about themselves, and no one looks at the bigger picture. We dump trillions of dollars into our military, while our roads fall apart, our schools produce ignorant and uneducated people, and allow stupid small minded people to set up a system whereby a person can lose their home to a fire, because they didn't pay for the fire service to come.

And let's not even get on the subject of health care. As long as people are relatively healthy, and can afford their health insurance, they seem to have little stomach for making the tough decisions necessary to rebuild our failing health care system so that every American can enjoy quality service, and not have to lose their home and everything they have if they get sick.

My big question to America is this. If we are going to campaign for prayer in schools, and have God in the Pledge and on our money, shouldn't we at least begin with REAL valuing of other human beings, and show actual compassion and love for our fellow human beings? Isn't that essentially the message of Christ? Or are we just becoming a nation of selfish hypocrites?

Religiousness & Silliness

2010-10-01T19:11:00.002-05:00

I recently had a discussion about the nature of religion with a person who had a masters degree in divinity. This is the second debate I've had in recent times with a person with those kind of credentials, and on this occasion a thought occurred to me that has been bumping around in the back of my head for quite some time now.

It seems that anyone with a degree in some form of religious studies has been taught the following techniques. If you yourself wish to argue convincingly as a Christian, simply use the following examples, and save yourself the money you would have spent giving to the estate of some TV evangelist who conned so many people out of money they could afford to build a 'college.'

The secret to forming a religious argument is simply to include the supernatural and claim that the opponent doesn't understand. God cannot be understood. God moves in mysterious ways. I've studied the Bible in college for years etc. etc. The person making the incredible claims of the supernatural tries to back foot his or her opponent by calling upon them to disprove their claims, despite the reality that they are the ones making crazy claims in the first place.

***

"The Bible says that..."

"Ah, see, now that's a common misconception. The passage actually means [insert desired meaning], and it was mistranslated from Latin a few centuries ago. Having looked at the original scripture, we see that it actually means the very thing that I want it to."

"But isn't the Bible pretty clear about this? Here it says I should stone my children if they are disobedient..."

"No, you are wrong again. You are taking that word/sentence/paragraph/page/chapter out of context."

"How about here where the Bible says I should beat my kids with a rod? Doesn't that contradict the part that tells me to stone them, and is spanking okay?"

Liberal Christian: "This is a common mistake, the rod of correction is a reference to scripture and is calling the parent to teach their children scripture to correct them."

Conservative Christian: "Yes, this is a clear message from God that we need to beat our children. We don't have a rod handy so we use a belt, paddle, or other implement."

"Doesn't that contradict another part of the Bible that says..."

"Sorry, no it doesn't. The part of the Bible you are referring to was really agreeing with my position, you just have to understand the culture of the time, and the way they write. Man is fallible you know. God didn't write the Bible, He merely inspired it. Humans make mistakes."

"Doesn't the Bible talk about mythical creatures like Unicorns, that never actually existed?"

"Well it does use the word Unicorn sure, but that was a mistranslation which we've just been too lazy to correct in the past few centuries. Oddly the same mistranslation doesn't happen in other parts of the Bible, but that's just one of those pesky human mistakes..."

"How about the Earth being created in six days 6,000-10,000 years ago? You know that unless the laws of physics have changed, including constants like the speed of light, this isn't possible right?"

"Sure, the Bible says six days, but it also makes some vague reference to God existing outside of time and space, so the time specified in the Bible isn't actually a day at all. Even though the Bible does clearly define a day as the total of a day and night combined, it doesn't specify how long those time periods are. The entire universe might have conspired to work differently back then, and perhaps plants didn't need to sunlight to survive. Which would be handy since Genesis tells us that God created the plants before He created the Sun."

"I've just asked you a question which you don't know the answer to and cannot think of the appropriate excuse you were taught in God college, now what?"

"You have to understand, I just KNOW for a FACT that God is real and I have FAITH that I am right. I am going to arrogantly shit on any other religion and call the followers misguided, even those who are part of a religion that predates Christianity. God cannot be questioned, and those that question Him will be punished."

"So God doesn't really give us free will does He? The choice between obeying His every word or being sent to a torture chamber forever is like me holding a gun to your head and telling you that you can choose to hand over your money or have your brains blown out."

"Well that's just how it is. Billions of people who have already died, and billions more who don't believe in the exact same way that I do (including those who believe in Jesus, but don't do so in quite the same way as they do in my church) will burn in Hell with Satan."

"Speaking of Satan, God is infinitely powerful and could simply wish that Satan didn't exist and he would cease to be right? Sure God bet with Satan involving people's lives in the book of Job, but ultimately if God really objected to Satan, why leave him around fucking everything up? If God lets Satan live, isn't He as guilty as Satan when it comes to the 'crimes' of Satan."

"Oh you silly thing, God can't be guilty of a crime, He is perfect. He must be keeping Satan alive for some reason that we don't understand. Perhaps He is testing us."

"Speaking of testing, why does God need to 'test' people or things? God knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen. The only people who need to do tests are people who don't know what is going to happen and do a test to find out or prove a hypothesis. What use has God got with testing?"

"God gave us free will."

"Okay, well that doesn't answer the question."

"One day God will answer the question by destroying the Earth and sending unbelievers to the fiery pits of Hell."

"Isn't He supposed to be a loving God?"

"Only to those who follow Him, otherwise He is vengeful. It says so in the Bible."

"So His love is conditional upon us giving up the free will He granted us?"

"You just don't understand. I may be in a minority with my beliefs but I know I am right and will not change my mind. One day God will grant you the wisdom to seek Him out. I'll pray for you."

"If God knows everything, why pray? Doesn't He already know what you want?"

"I'm tired of this conversation. If I am right, I will get a mansion in Heaven, and if you are wrong, you will be tortured for all eternity for your evil ways."

"How can you be happy in Heaven, if you know I am being burned and tortured in Hell?"

"Well that's your choice..."

Eleanor Rigby

2010-09-14T21:42:00.000-05:00

I think the most interesting news story I read today was out of England. It was the one about the British spy Eileen Nearne who died at age 89 alone in a small house in the south of England.

During World War II she was sent to France because of her excellent linguistic skills, and there she was a radio operator for the French Resistance movement, helping to co-ordinate British weapons deployments. She was captured three times, tortured, and yet on each occasion escaped. Her heroism earned her an MBE.

Unfortunately her incredible story was never publicized. Eileen was never known in her community, she never talked or bragged about her wartime service. She was quite reclusive and had no relatives to arrange her funeral. However, when her home was searched by the council, they discovered her identity and turned her belongings over to MI5.

The unusual nature of her story has changed the funeral arrangements from a sad lonely affair, with comparisons to The Beatles Eleanor Rigby song to something a little more special. Efforts are currently underway to provide some military honor to her passing, which seems only fitting.

3D Girl Saves Lives?

2010-09-09T08:03:00.000-05:00

Scientists in Canada have developed the new answer to a speed bump. It's a special optical illusion that is attached the the floor and at about 100 feet gives the 3D impression of a child playing in the road.

In theory the motorist then slows down, and a speed bump is no longer needed.

I think I'm going to have to suggest that this is a bad idea. While I'm no psychologist, there surely has to be a 'cry wolf' effect here. If I'm driving around and constantly see images of children appearing in the road, after a time, I'm probably going to be less responsive if a real child happens to be in the road.

"Oh it's just one of those new 3D children optical illusion speed bumps that I blogged about," I'll think. Then splat, and I'm cleaning bits of child off my front bumper for the next couple of weeks, and explaining to the judge why I didn't even try to stop.

Seems like this idea might have some flaws.

Craigslist Censored

2010-09-05T07:50:00.000-05:00

Craigslist has voluntarily censored itself after receiving numerous legal threats from various states around the country.

In the usual 'slippery slope' argument various lawmakers from around the country claimed that the adult services section contains ads which pertain to prostitution, which in turn leads to human trafficking, assault, murder, child slavery, and the destruction of the fabric of space and time.

So after being hounded for some time, Craigslist gave up, probably unwilling to waste millions of dollars on a big legal fight, and they replaced the link to the section with the word 'censored.'

Of course they only did this in the land of the free, in other markets, including Canada, the adult section remains open and unchanged.

I find the whole situation pretty sad. It's a well known fact that prostitution has been going on for thousands of years. It's also pretty obvious that much of the negatives associated with prostitution stem from the fact that in most parts of America, prostitution is illegal. This in turn leads to pimps, organized crime, human trafficking, underage prostitutes, drugs, disease, and many other negatives that generally conspire to make women less safe, and more likely to be victims in one form or other.

I think the fact that lawmakers believe this to be a victory of sorts highlights the fundamental stupidity of their position. By bullying and threatening this popular web site, they have simply forced both legal and illegal adult services to advertise elsewhere. The 'crime' of prostitution that they are so worried about is still taking place up and down this country 24/7. So there is no victory here at all. A bunch of people will have to rethink their marketing a little bit, but this is nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Which leads me to this question: What was the point? Why are our lawmakers squandering tax dollars attacking some web site? Have they solved a problem? No. Have they stopped prostitution? Of course not. Have they managed to prevent some of the evils of prostitution such as slavery, organized crime, child sex crimes etc? No.

So really all we see is a typical Republican solution to the problem. Go after the wrong guys, achieve little, and then claim some kind of victory for 'family values.' But let's call it out for what it is: This is censorship, an affront to freedom of speech, and a waste of our tax dollars that does nothing to address any of the real issues relating to prostitution. Thanks for nothing assholes.

Some Say He Is The Stig

2010-09-02T06:41:00.000-05:00

If you're British, or you're a car enthusiast, you've probably heard of the TV show Top Gear. The show began in 1978 on the BBC, reviewing cars, and talking about motoring in general. But the BBC axed it in 2001 due to poor ratings. The presenters at the time signed on with other TV channel and launched Fifth Gear, while arguably one of the most popular past presenters of the show Jeremy Clarkson, approached the BBC with a proposal to re-launch the show with his own creative perspective.

In 2002 the new Top Gear was born, still running successfully to this day thanks to a great revamp. It's been sold to over 100 countries and shows here in America on BBC America.

The show includes a racing driver called The Stig, and his identity has, until now, always been kept a mystery. When The Stig tried to publish the story of his seven years on the show, the BBC tried to file an injunction against the publishers in order to conceal the identity. But apparently, at least according to HarperCollins, there has been a victory for free speech; The Stig's identity is a mystery no more.

The Stig has allegedly been played by racing driver and movie stunt driver Ben Collins for the past seven years, and there seems to be quite an uproar in the British tabloids regarding the release of this information. In fact the previous racing driver played The Stig for a year before being fired when his identity was revealed. It will be interesting, at least for fans of the show, to see how this plays out. It's actually pretty surprising to me that this has remained a secret for seven years. But I'm guessing that a new Stig is going to be born out of this controversy, which is quite a shame.

There Is No Ground Zero Mosque

2010-09-01T09:32:00.000-05:00

A very well worded speech about the reality of the Ground Zero Mosque that racists, right wingers and misguided Republicans are upset about.

The Story of George Hatton Smithey

2010-08-31T17:10:00.005-05:00

It's news no parent wants to hear, but deep down when child psychologists approached the Smithey's about their child George, they were not all that surprised to learn that their son was mentally deficient. The clues were always there; he was slower than the other boys to learn basic skills. Simple things like reading and writing, learning to speak, had all taken far longer than expected. Like many parents they had simply hoped their son would grow out of the problem, or perhaps exhibit some other positive trait.

The results of the testing were pretty conclusive. The well funded public schools were quick to identify potential problems so that appropriate social services could kick in and help those with special needs. Once George had been diagnosed with a very low IQ, educators reacted quickly and transferred the boy to another school, where he could receive more specialized assistance and more face time with educators.

To say that George Smithey was successful at school would be an overstatement. He was easily distracted, and a bit of a trouble maker. But persistence and an abundance of patience on the part of the educators and professionals paid off, and the young boy grew up learning the basic life skills he would need later in life. He learned to read and write, and perform basic math.

When he turned eighteen, a career placement adviser helped him earn an internship at a local hotel. Over the next few years he was mentored by a social worker, and his employers who received a tax break for providing special needs individuals with employment, and he settled in the baggage department where he worked as a bell hop.

George didn't have a remarkable career. He didn't have a lot of ambition for promotion. But unusually, he stayed at his job for close to forty years before retiring on a comfortable pension. Regular guests at the hotel would often ask, "Where's George?" when they checked in. Despite growing feeble and weak in his old age, George would drop by at least once a week and meet the staff who had become like a family to him.

George Smithey passed away in his sleep at the age of 76, alone in his small apartment in the city. His body was found the next day by his most recent social worker who had known him for twenty years. At his funeral most of the hotel staff and several social workers whose lives he had touched showed up to pay tribute.

***

Sadly though, this wasn't what happened at all. Yes, I lied. Sorry.

What actually happened is no one helped George Smithey at all. He grew up without support, a proper education, and quality social services. After dropping out of school he became a drug addict, and with no means to raise money to support his expensive habit he turned to crime. On April 5th, 1988 he broke into a trailer to steal money and attempted to rape the occupant. He killed her while her two children aged four and six played outside. They later discovered her body. She had been stabbed to death.

The defense at his trial was quick to point out that the accused was mentally retarded, but that kind of leftist liberal crap was quickly rejected by the judge who wanted to see some justice in the case.

George Smithey was convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. He was sent to California's notorious San Quentin prison to await execution.

It was a pretty long wait. After serving twenty two years, seventy year old George Smithey had his death sentence commuted to life in prison, without the possibility of parole. Apparently the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that it was unconstitutional to kill a mentally retarded person.

It is not clear if Smithey ever learned that his execution had been revoked. He was recently found in dead in his cell; hanged by his own bed sheets. There was no suicide note.

***

Now call me a bleeding heart liberal, or attack me for not knowing all the details of this case. Perhaps even mention Hitler, Nazis, or a slippery slope. But the reality is that our society creates many of the problems in the criminal justice system, by ineptitude, apathy, and a lack of compassion for human life.

Who's to say what would had become of George Smithey or his victim had he received proper help from the government. Maybe it was always his fate to become a drug addict and kill an innocent person. The problem though is that our society does very little to help anyone at all. Poor people who are lucky enough to have a home are shoveled into the nearest trailer park or projects, where violence and drugs are rife. Poor people who break the law are thrown in jail at an astonishing rate; making us world leaders in incarcerating people.

There's rarely a support system that tries to head off any of these horrific crimes. Just a grieving family calling for the blood of the criminal in question; even if that criminal is mentally retarded. We are fed the right wing lies that killing people will act as a 'deterrent' to other criminals who will supposedly mend their ways if they see some news of executions in the newspapers they don't read.

After 22 years in prison, George Smithey decided to finally end his life. The pain of his existence will probably be felt by all the families concerned for decades to come. My question is whether this pain could have been prevented if we'd spent the same money we spent punishing him, on social services designed to prevent the disadvantaged turning to crime in the first place.

When you treat people like crap and offer no help for those living in grinding poverty or a disability, crime is the inevitable byproduct. I believe that it is better to spend money on crime prevention and social services, rather than the horrific cost in human life and tax dollars on punishing people for crimes they may not have committed in a society designed to protect the vulnerable, rather than cast them into the wilderness.

WTG Denny's!!!

2010-08-30T15:37:00.001-05:00

Maybe it's just me, but it really seems like the fast food chains are getting into a little game of who can kill Americans the quickest. We've seen such gems as the sandwich where the bread was replaced with fried chicken, and more recently a hamburger where the buns were replaced with two grilled cheese sandwiches.

Denny's, not to be outdone, has now brought us the culinary delight that is their $4 Fried Cheese Melt. It's a toasted sandwich containing four cheese sticks. The cheese sticks are surrounded by processed cheese and butter. The side dish is a pile of greasy potato fries, and some marinara sauce.

This bad boy contains over 3,000mg of sodium, or more than is recommended for an adult to consume in 36 hours! There's also 63g of fat (21g saturated). Bon appetit.

Eating this meal is roughly equivalent of eating 18 TGI Friday's frozen potato, cheese and bacon skins.

Tweaking

2010-08-29T15:35:00.002-05:00

Every so often I feel compelled to give this blog an overhaul. Today I decided to experiment with the new blog transforming options provided by Blogger.

On a technical level, I'm not sure it has the sophistication of the previous blog design, but that said, sometimes a more technical template design can cause upset in the Blogger engine and accidentally disable or corrupt certain options.

Anyway, if you see any weirdness happening with this blog over the next few days, it's because I am working to create what I believe to be v4.0.

My 2011 Chevrolet Camero 2LT RS

2010-08-08T15:00:00.008-05:00

I recently seriously surprised myself; I bought an American car. Time will tell if this was the right move or not, but so far I am pleasantly surprised, which appears to be the consensus among the auto journalism community.

My issue with America cars since I moved to America in 2000, was that they were unreliable, depreciated like a rock falling off a cliff, and had insultingly bad warranties. All good reasons to not buy.

What Chevrolet have achieved with their new Camaro is give people a taste of the classic, with the modern features that one would expect in 2010. I opted to purchase the 2011 2LT model, which is the top of the line V6. Now many die hard car 'experts' will immediately start shaking their heads at the mention of the V6, but this is 2010 folks, displacement isn't everything. My engine gets me from 0-60 in under six seconds and outputs 312HP, all while returning 29 MPG of regular gas on the interstate. What's more, I paid right under $30K.

For a sub $30K car, the features are remarkable. I have two decent size informational displays one being what they used to call a trip computer, and the other for the sound system and phone system. In addition to that, new for 2011 Chevy have added a very cool Head Up Display, much like a fighter pilot uses to save them from taking their eyes off the horizon.

I get a USB port that can talk to my iPhone, charge it, and play songs off it. I can even shove a bunch of MP3s on a memory card so I don't have to worry about forgetting my iPhone in the car.

There's no navigation system, but OnStar has a feature where you can press a button on the mirror and tell the operator where you wish to go. The directions are then downloaded into your car, and turn by turn instructions are delivered verbally by the computer and also displayed on one of aforementioned display screens. The catch is that after six months you have to pay them $28.90 a month for that service. A big catch, but it is a sweet service.

In addition to the cool technology, the driving experience is particular stellar too. The comfortable seats are leather, as is the wheel and gear stick. The automatic has a standard 'D' mode for every day use. If you want to get frisky there is a sport mode where the computer causes far more aggressive gas drinking shifts. And if you want to pretend to drive a stick without the hassle of learning or using a clutch, there are paddle shifters on the wheel which allow you to change up or down manually.

The optional RS package adds some sweet 20" rims, some styling improvements that include BMW-like 'Angel Eyes' halos around the upgraded HID headlights.

One of the things that sold me on this car, beyond the great looks, is the ride and handling. No doubt it's a pretty big and heavy car. Critics are quick to point out that the 2011 Mustang feels lighter and more sprightly despite the single rear axle. But for me the ride and handling are excellent. The car feels settled and calm, even when you push it. It's not the razor sharp experience of driving a Nissan 370Z, for example, but I got way more technology, two back seats, and an actual trunk. I also don't have the insane unpleasant tire roar of the Nissan either.

Ask me in two years if going American was the right choice. So far I am very pleased. If you look around the available cars for this kind of price, it's hard to think of something that looks so striking and delivers in so many areas as this car.

Catholic Church Child Rape & Women

2010-07-17T14:04:00.003-05:00

This is my first attempt to create a video blog using the XtraNormal service. It's kinda good for a laugh, much like the early days of text to speech.

The comments contained herein refer to this article at the Guardian web site.

Joga Bonito

2010-06-24T06:47:00.002-05:00

Like many people around the world, I've caught a couple of soccer games over the past week or so, and despite a lack of interest in most sport on TV, I've enjoyed the ride. The World Cup is a massive international event, and it's great to see world class teams competing with mutual respect both for the game, and each other (clearly not referring to France here).

Sadly though I have also been subjected to hearing the occasional disparaging comment from Americans many of whom have commented that soccer is lame, it sucks, it's a wimpy game (seriously, I saw that on Facebook, someone claiming soccer proved European men were not as 'manly' as Americans). I've heard Americans trying to persuade others that the World Cup should be ignored, or otherwise dismissed as unimportant.

I have to say, I find these attitudes pathetic. On the one hand America meddles in the affairs of dozens of countries around the world, maintains a military presence in 150+ countries, yet many seem to believe that when it comes to internationally important events like the World Cup, we should turn our collective noses at the notion of an international competition, and go back to playing games we made up, or games only we play, and then claim to be world champions at.

Now I know that not all Americans feel this way, and that many indeed are very interested by the World Cup, for those that aren't, I have a message for you: Get your head out of your ass, and open your mind to the other six billion people that share our planet. Stop being so fucking insular all the time, and labeling foreign things as 'lame.' If America ever wants to live peacefully in the world, and not constantly live in fear of terrorist attacks, one positive step it could take is at least pretend to give a shit about others.

The World Cup is not just about soccer, it's about nations coming together in healthy competition. So stop whining, take a look at it, accept it for what it is. Soon it will all be over for another four years, and you can go back to playing football with your hands.

Justice For Gaile Owens

2010-05-31T10:13:00.005-05:00

I'm glad I didn't live in America in the 1980's because it seems that back then there was no such thing as justice, a mistake we run the risk of failing to learn from.

The picture is that of Gaile Owens, a woman that the state of Tennessee are getting ready to execute, after 25 years in prison. In the 80's while the rest of us were watching The A-Team and Knight Rider, this woman was being sexually and physically abused by her husband.

Eventually in a bid to protect her children she discussed a hit on her husband. This eventually led to a person killing her husband. She was arrested in 1985 and decided to plead guilty in a deal that would lead to her spending life in prison, something she did to protect her children from hearing the evidence of sexual and physical abuse she had suffered.

But after a series of legal blunders she ended up sentenced to death without ever being able to speak in her own defense, or have the jury know of the physical and sexual abuse.

Fast forward to A-Team The Movie and a failed attempt to rekindle Knight Rider (with a Mustang, seriously?), we have the present day. All her appeals have fallen on deaf ears. Despite the absurdity and horrific miscarriage of justice, no one in the legal / political system can be bothered to put a stop to a potential execution date that is looming. That's right, this battered woman is about to be killed (the first woman killed in Tennessee since the 1800's) by the state for asking someone to kill her abusive husband.

Never mind that she didn't pull the trigger. Never mind that she was trying to protect her children. Never mind that she has already spent 25 years in prison. Time to murder her? Are we really still no better than this?

I say that 25 years is enough. That's a stout sentence and far more than so many other criminals get; even the ones that actually kill people. David Phillips, just reported to jail for his role in killing a high school girl in a 2005 traffic accident, where he was racing on city streets with a youth in a Mustang. The 100 MPH crash left one 17-year-old girl dead and another severely burned. But David and the other driver got just 6 years in jail, which in the real world will probably be less than three years.

In the case of Gaile Owens, she was trying to get out of a horrific situation that was endangering her life and the lives of her children, and she actually serves 25 years, with the likelihood of execution hanging over her.

If you care about justice at all, please inform yourself further about this case, and let's see if we can get the politicians to listen for once, and reverse this horrible miscarriage of justice.

Visit her official supporters web site here, and learn how you can write the State Governor.

American Idol Kicks Bucket

2010-05-27T08:16:00.006-05:00

Like most of this (and previous) seasons of American Idol, I watched the show only because I have a DVR and can fast forward through most of it.

Last night was the grand finale and I was incredibly grateful to be able to condense the 128 minute show into less than an hour.

The show clearly illustrated beyond any reasonable doubt why Simon Cowell decided to quit such a lucrative gig. The aging producers of the show have clearly lost touch with their audience, and it's only a matter of time now before they squeeze the last drop of dignity and taste out of the show and leave it for dead by the side of the entertainment highway.

As usual Ryan Toolcrest was an annoying prick. The supposedly mushy moments for Simon were overdone. Someone made the decision to bring rejected retards onto the show, one of whom grabbed the mic and in an insanity produced delusion started shouting that he was going to take over from Simon, until they cut early to commercial. Perhaps they should have done the same when the train wreck that is Paula Abdul took to the stage for no real reason.

Speaking of the mentally disadvantaged, William Hung was wheeled out for another cringe worthy performance. But the saddest moments of the evening were the aging rockers that, like Dick Clarke on New Years, were wheeled out to rock out one last time, to some tragic anthem that once made them famous, and still keeps them in comfortable retirement.

The one thing that Simon Cowell talks about with up coming stars is relevance. Something that today's youth will enjoy. I guarantee right now that 90% of the teen audience at the Idol finale, would not have been able to identify over half of the geriatric performers that came out on stage last night. I'm as old as two of those audience members put together, and even I couldn't identify most of them, even if I vaguely remember hearing my father listening to some of those songs on the radio when I was a child.

If Simon had been in charge of the finale, he would never have allowed such a crappy show, and I believe this is why he is leaving. Clearly the aging hippies who make Idol have no clue what young people are into these days (vodka eyeballing anyone?) I mean who gives a shit about Janet Jackson or Alice Cooper? And those were the two that were recognizable. Even Christina Aguilera, for all her obvious talent, is yesterdays news; recently cancelling her tour because no one would buy tickets, just like no one is buying her music any more.

As a fan of Simon Cowell, I'm glad he has left now and will distance himself from a franchise that has lost touch, and seems oblivious to its own obsolescence.

As for the winner, it is of no relevance. With the kind of exposure they have both had over the past few weeks, they now have every opportunity to make a fortune in the music business. And for that at least, we should be thankful to the show.

Republicans on Facebook

2010-05-23T09:22:00.004-05:00

Like many people I have made the mistake of friending a few casual acquaintances on Facebook, and this has inevitably exposed me to some fucking idiots who annoy me.

Thankfully, several months ago, I started using the hide option so I don't have to read their crap on my wall.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't mind someone identifying as Republican if they have an intelligent reason for doing so. But among the ones I've met around here, for many it seems like they are merely supporting a football team, or following in the footsteps of their Republican parents.

The latest 'friend' to annoy me this morning posted an app that counts down the days until Barack Obama leaves office. I simply cannot fathom this kind of nonsense.

Initially Republicans mocked the man for doing nothing at all, just as the racist tea baggers began calling him every offensive word they could think of without using the N word. Then Republican politicians began to cock block every single bill the Democrats tried to pass. And now this 'do nothing' President is annoying them by actually trying to do things (successfully, I might add).

The reason I have such a hard time understanding this sentiment is because Barack Obama is about as centrist as you can get. He's hardly a liberal. He's hardly pushing through radical liberal/socialist laws. Just some basic common sense stuff that is needed if we are to have a successful country.

We cannot continue to let people die, just because they are poor. We cannot continue to allow corporations to do whatever the fuck they like without some kind of sensible regulation.

The only conclusion I can come to is that many Republicans are pissed because a black man is telling them what to do. I simply cannot imagine this level of animosity over such bland policies were it to come from some dude that looked like Glen Beck. Yet when it comes from a black guy, there is sudden anger and fear, for no logical reason.

What I find even more sad is that many Republicans and so called Libertarians, seem to want to push the Republican party even further to the right. The Glen Becks of this world get on their radical soap box and suggest incredibly radical positions, that many dumb Americans get all excited about. To me this is one of the truths I have noticed over the years; the typical Republican is stupid.

Okay, it's more complicated than that. But if you look at the average right wing viewpoint, it is overly simplistic, and appeals to the masses (of idiots) because it involves less thinking. To Republicans there are no gray areas, no weighing of facts. It's so easy for Republicans to stymie the efforts of the Democrats, when the whole party can march in lock step, around simple principles that need no real thought:

Abortion = Killing Babies. Yeah, the issue is just that simple.
Murderers should be executed. How easy it is to paint the whole picture Deathwish style, where an innocent family is torn apart by a murderer, and revenge should become part of justice. Of course you have to conveniently ignore the truth that states with the death penalty typically enjoy a higher homicide rate. The other reality that the death penalty is more expensive than life in prison. The racial element of the death penalty, where it seems to 'favor' African Americans (for execution). The real social issues and poverty, created by bad politics, that leads to a lack of value in human life, are also largely ignored (poor people should just pull themselves up by their boot straps).
The government should tax less; we should cut government spending. Sure, that would be nice. No one likes to pay a tax bill. But the same Republicans (and Libertarians) who want a nice small government that doesn't interfere, don't seem to be objecting to 369,000 of our troops being in 150+ countries around the world. And these same people don't seems to realize that the spending that the government is going to cut, is out of social policies that help society. Education programs, programs to get people off welfare and into employment. Programs to keep kids out of gangs, and reduce future crime. In other words, programs that make for a safer, better society.
Trickle down economics. Make the rich people even more rich, and they will simply use that cash to create jobs and help everyone get rich. Of course that concept is total crap; it never happens that way. Mr. Ritchie Rich simply stashes his extra cash in some off shore investment account where he can pay even less tax, but go to sleep happy that his net worth just went up 0.837%.
Maintaining the sanctity of marriage. By discriminating against homosexuals, we can follow what the Bible tells us and aim for that 1950s utopia that Republicans pretend existed. We can also try and claim that being gay is a 'lifestyle choice.'
Common sense. One of my favorites! Republicans present a highly complex issue in an extremely simplistic manner, and then QED, problem solved. All it took was some 'common sense.' Of course the solution proffered is actually a dumbass solution, that doesn't address the complexities of a problem, but to a stupid person it seems to make sense, and can therefore be sold to them as common sense.

I could go on, but I don't have all day.

In conclusion, Republican politics saddens me. There are so many problems with America including grinding poverty, a lack of a safety net for poor people, intolerance, violence, out of control gun ownership, poor education, the widening rich/poor divide, crumbling infrastructure, trying to maintain an empire, drugs, obesity and horrific food choices, lack of access to health care and so on. Many of these issues could be solved with intelligent social policies and a caring attitude towards our fellow human beings. But instead, racists, idiots and rednecks are counting the days until Sarah Palin takes office and drags this country further to the right, pursuing the same failed policies of Bush and Regan that created so many of these problems to begin with.

And yes my Republican friends, I did just put Regan in the same category as George W. Bush. He may be your poster child, but I think he was an idiot, just like W.

Does Your Church Do This?

2010-05-22T19:36:00.006-05:00

A church near where I live (not pictured) recently got one of those large color digital LED signs that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Now, every day that I drive by I get to see 'important' information about how Jesus is going to save me in glorious high definition color.

I just gotta say, if you go to a church that does this, they are ripping you off. Using the Bible, guilt and peer pressure to coerce you into giving your hard earned money to them so they can afford the fancy sign whose sole purpose is to attract new members who they can exploit financially (and in many other ways) in a similar fashion.

Just before I wrote this blog article, I Googled church signs and visited over a dozen different sign manufactures, and noted that there was not a price in sight. It was all about call or email for a quote so that a smooth talking salesman can have a shot at making that big sale.

In any case, by the time a church has amassed the kind of money for a sign like this, they are in my opinion, totally out of control. Much like a spoiled heiress with daddy's credit card. Traditionally church donations were merely to give the preacher a meager living, and pay for basic repairs and upkeep. Now though, this kind of expensive digital media is pushing things into another dimension with sophisticated lures to attract more followers and make more money.

I'm all for people worshiping whatever magic invisible deity they choose to. But I do have a problem with churches actively recruiting the gullible to their flock.

Two Tales of Abercrombie & Fitch

2010-04-18T07:47:00.008-05:00

I just read an interesting article in Time Magazine about the failing CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries, who appears to be trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

In 2007 the teen stores, with their racy advertising and overpriced crappy clothes was making a profit of $476m. In 2008, this profit dropped to $273m. When the recession hit, they essentially broke even with a profit of around quarter of a million dollars. But in typical CEO style, Mike Jeffries milked the company as much as he could, taking $76m in personal compensation in 2008, just as his failed policies and bad strategies caused same store sales figures to plummet 23%, and stock price to drop 56%. He was also listed as one of highest paid, worst performing CEOs in 2008.

Jeffries not only likes his big fat paychecks, even when he sucks, but he also has a thing for the company jet. His personal travel cost some $1.3m in 2008. Now that the company is hitting some hard times, the board decided to end his love affair with the jet, but in exchange gave him $4m by way of apology.

What I find interesting is the reality that CEOs haven't learned. The recession was, for most of them, just something that happened to the peasants. As the mortgage crisis hit middle America, CEOs like Jeffries were taking multi million dollar bonuses in exchange for curtailing their travel expenses. And in CEO land, if you fuck up, and make bad decisions that cost a company millions of dollars, it doesn't matter. You still make millions of dollars personally. Essentially the price of failure is no different from the price of success. So just fly around on the company jet destroying the company that pays you millions, and then eventually take a golden multi-million dollar handshake and head to the yacht for a vacation.

This kind of corporate stupidity, and greed, is seriously going to bring America to its knees. When you have people completely unconcerned about company profits, putting themselves so far ahead of the employees and the customers, it simply cannot end well.

***

After I had read that article I noticed another one from the end of last year that kind of annoyed me.

It seems that some Muslim teen, forced to wear a hijab by her oppressive religion, was turned down for a job at the store allegedly because the hijab is against their dress code (which includes no black clothing and no head covering).

Of course she is suing over the alleged discrimination and will probably end up with some settlement. But this has to be the height of bull shit doesn't it? Abercrombie & Fitch is famous for their dark stores containing massive posters of half naked models (such as the one above). Please explain to me how it is that you can be part of a religion so strict that showing your hair to people is offensive, yet hanging out among half naked sexualized images all day is okay?

I'm all for religious freedom. If people want to worship magic invisible deities, that's up to them (so long as it doesn't hurt others, or involve raping children). But I certainly have a problem with the oppression of women, even if they have been conditioned to 'like' wearing the oppressive garments. We live in a country where most states can fire people for almost any reason, so they should certainly be allowed to make a judgment call when it comes to a hiring decision. Do you really think that Abercrombie would not fire an employee who refused to follow the dress code because of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

If you believe that your god is offended by women showing parts of their face or hair in public, then you cannot tell me that this same god is going to be okay with you standing around in a dimly lit store surrounded by images of naked people, and young teens in skimpy over priced outfits.

This entire lawsuit seems like an elaborate ruse to me. Conservative Muslim teen tries to get a job at of all places Abercrombie and Fitch. Just happens to have a friend who already works there, who just happens to leak that the only reason she wasn't hired was because of her hijab. Okay, sure.

Asking About Life?

2010-04-08T06:59:00.005-05:00

A Knoxville man is trying to get a biology text book banned from this son's school, because when mentioning creationism it refers to, "the biblical myth that the universe was created by the Judeo-Christian God in 7 days."

Kurt Zimmerman, a concerned parent and Sunday School teacher, who just appeared on Fox News this morning to state his case, claims that the use of the word 'myth' is offensive to Christians.

Well sorry Mr. Zimmerman, but this sentence is accurate and reasonable, and you are being a moron.

The dictionary defines the word myth as, "a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature"

The Bible is indeed a traditional and legendary story, it contains a god (and hero), and describes events that cannot be scientifically proven that are by their very nature supernatural.

So yes, it is indeed a myth that the world was created in seven days by a deity. Just because YOU believe it, doesn't make it any more true than a Harry Potter book. There is a mountain of scientific evidence that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the Earth was not created in seven days.

Thankfully so far the school board, and now the appeals board have refused to take steps to ban this book. Let's hope they continue to make the right decision. And if Mr. Zimmerman wishes to fill his child's head with stupid shit, then he should home school. After all, that does seem to be the appropriate venue for right wing religious extremists to toss out education and cram in the word of God.

Jamie Oliver in America

2010-03-28T09:20:00.004-05:00

Jamie Oliver is a famous British chef, who's been on TV and writing cook books for many years now. He has come to America to discuss food and nutrition with parents and kids.

I watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution last night for the first time, and have to say I was completely shocked by what is going on in America. Now in all fairness, Jamie was visiting a part of the country said to be the worst in America (for these issues). But nevertheless, the results were scary.

McNugget Experiment Goes Wrong

Jamie took a bunch of kids aged six into his kitchen. He showed them a chicken and proceeded to cut off all the nice bits of meat. He then took the carcass, ground it up with some chemicals and artificial flavors, all the while explaining how nasty this was. He then cooked the slop into a chicken nugget and asked the kids if they would eat it. Historically, when you do this kind of demonstration for kids they reject the nasty food. These kids however, upon seeing the friendly shape of a chicken nugget instantly volunteered to eat it.

Name the Vegetable

Jamie went into a class of six year olds, and held up various vegetables. The kids were asked to identify them. The kids were unable to identify tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower, and a wide range of other common food items. They didn't even understand how French Fries were made, what vegetable created them, or what vegetable was in tomato ketchup.

Diet

The kids at this school in West Virginia were on a school diet of frozen, fried and processed food. We're talking breakfast and lunch, pizza, pasta, nachos, fries, burgers, chicken nuggets, you name it. Massive intakes of fat and sodium every single day, leading to a shocking obesity rate. All meals washed down with sugary drinks.

Silverware

The school prepared food that could easily be eaten with fingers, and maybe a spoon. As a result, the kids at the school were never taught to use a knife and fork to eat their food. This simple skill, never learned by kids as old as 10.

It's an eye opening show, and certainly highlights just what is going wrong in America. Once again greed, stupidity, and cutting corners to save money have led to a horrible system that will cause unimaginable pain and suffering for decades to come.

The show highlighted just how badly we have our priorities wrong in this country. Children are obviously the future, and yet they are often denied basic health care, basic food and nutrition, and lack the most basic education. How are we ever going to improve this country, when we continue to squander our resources on wars, guns, bombs, and keeping our troops in over 150 countries for no reason? America needs to wake up to these massive social problems before we destroy ourselves.

Me Love You Long Time

2010-03-28T08:57:00.005-05:00

I have an email address that I use to collect my spam. Any time I am forced to give an email address, and don't want to, I have a special account for that. As a result, that account is constantly filled with spam. Offers from Nigerian royalty to deposit a fortune into my bank account, notifications that I've won the Microsoft lottery, low cost penis enlargement, cheap Viagra, you name it. Needless to say I rarely check the account, but today when I did I had received a sample from a supposedly legitimate dating site showing me compatible girls in my area.

The following is the description allegedly written by Natalya, a 28-year-old woman from Kentucky. Something about her writing leads me to think this girl ain't from Kentucky!

"My name Natalya, I the young, harmonous beautiful girl. Has decided to create the structure to find the man of my dream. I adore children, but I do not have them. I like to read, especially Romantic products as I like to listen to music during free time from work. It is brought up in good family, make cleaning on the house, I love cleanliness and the order, and so I am able to prepare for the stunned dishes, it turns out it is very tasty and it is nourishing. Often I buy fruit because I very much love them, well in fact it is necessary keep up myself and to hold a beautiful harmonous figure as I like myself. Probably will suffice about myself, now tell about myself if I am interesting to you."

"Men happen different, but not everyone can achieve my heart, as for me the main thing In the man it not his appearance, and his internal beauty and sincerity. In fact in the person,As I count, there should be a honesty, a clean soul and kindly. Therefore, if you search for the same most, as I can write to me."

This is a Big Fucking Deal

2010-03-23T16:44:00.003-05:00

Today when Barrack Obama signed health care reform into law, he was introduced by Joe Biden. As Joe stepped away from the lectern he said to Obama, "This is a big fucking deal." Unfortunately, he was a few inches too close to the microphone and the video has been running in the media and online for much of the afternoon.

But here's the thing. Health care reform IS a big fucking deal. The use of that language was not intentional, or at least it was not intentional that it be picked up by an overly sensitive mic. And the bottom line is that the use of the F word is not a big deal.

In America we seem to have reached a point where we have to pretend to be offended by just about everything. The real news today is that Obama signed health care reform. I don't give a flying fuck if the VP uttered the F word so quietly that you really have to play it back over and over, and be listening to the one specific recording where his remark is clear.

And what really annoys me more than anything here is this childish use of the term 'F-Bomb.' I mean really? A bomb? The device used to blow people up, maim people, kill hundreds or thousands of people? Isn't it really just a word? Do we really have to hit DEFCON 1 over a word now?

It's become a widespread concept in the media, referring to the word fuck in this manner, and I am sick of it. It's like a five year old child who has just heard a word she knows is bad, and widens her eyes before running off to tell the teacher of the horrible incident of cussing, in the hopes that she can see her child like version of justice meted out against the culprit.

So I say this to America: Grow the fuck up. Adults use adult language at times, and once in a while a child may hear it. I'd be more concerned about their lack of health care or quality of their education, than the chance over hearing of a private adult conversation where the F word could barely be heard.