Why I'm Hopeful

Call it hyperbole if ya want but Obama has done more good in his first couple weeks than the Shrub did in 8 years. I will say that Bush was an incredibly influential president, but then again Osama Bin Laden was influential too. Anyway I want to focus on the positive, and Obama has been dishin' it out in spades. Closing Guantanamo, Ending Torture, Equal Pay, funding foreign org's that teach family planning even if they support abortion (gasp).

Shit gotta do some work. Oh I should point out I'm in a good mood today, going to lunch with a beautiful co-worker who wants to set me up with a friend, after work I'm going out for a beer with a different beautiful co-worker (ok so shes more than twice my age but shes cool) and after that I might be meeting up with another lady that seems promising. Yup I'm just that simple.

Peace

Fuck Wall Street

I suddenly have a little man crush on Joe Biden, you'll understand when you get to the end of the article. Obama is going after the CEO's for handing out 18 billion in bonuses, unfortunately because of the lack of regulations on that money they haven't actually committed any crimes therefore all Obama can do is bitch at them. Our local fortune 500 company, Corning Inc. gets mentioned. Like I said I particularly liked Biden's comment,"I'd like to throw these guys in the brig,"

Clean(er) Coal

I'll try to be a realist here for a minute. Clean coal technology, it's not clean, but it is cleaner. Basically its the same way we've been making power from coal for a hundred fifty years, what they are doing now is capturing the CO2 cooling it to -19 degrees so its a liquid shipping it to an old natural gas site and pumping the CO2 into the ground. First thing I would say is that if you're going to build a "clean coal" power plant, why not build it on the site of an old natural gas well? How much energy are we using chillin' that shit and shipping it? Anyway the article is pretty honest, we already have a shit load of coal power plants, of we can retrofit these collectors on them and sequester the CO2 then it buys us some time to come up with long term solutions. Basically were fucked and we need to do what we can. This is not a solution, not at all, but it might just be a viable band aid until we can create sustainable power. Pretty much the same as ethanol in that regard.

I hate stupid

Call me a bigot if you will, but I fucking hate stupid people. I'm not talking about like MR folks, they can't help it, or even the folks on the lower half of the bell curve in general, I mean the willfully stupid. The people who at one point or another actually woke up and decided, ya know what, I think I'll be a fucking idiot today, maybe forever. Oh wait I shouldn't have used the word "think" in there, I really doubt theres a whole lot of thought in these minds, and thats the real problem.

Sorry I should explain what just made my brain hurt. The ACLU is suing a school district, you might ask why, but I'll warn you it may cause your brain to explode, you've been warned. They are forced to sue the school because the school kicked a kid out of school for, and I can't believe I'm writing this, because the school district claims the kid put a hex on their teacher and made the teacher sick.... It would be funny if it wasn't for the poor kid who's now a total outcast at school. Ok its still a little funny.

"It's hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am walking into court to defend my daughter against charges of witchcraft brought by her own school,"

Ok so this isn't exactly breaking news, but still, wtf people. Tippin' the hat to PZ.

Saddlebacking

Wow, I have nothing to add to this. Well one little comment, I love that the phrase "santorum" needs no explanation.

Priorities

So I am losing half of my job because New York has decided that preventive services aren't important enough to pay for. It sucks but it's no big deal. Until you then get this kick in the nuts, they are going to continue to pay 750,000 a year to raise pheasants for hunters to shoot. Yup.

It seems to me that hunters are the single biggest bunch of whinny crybabies in this fucking country. I want to bitch about them some more but I have homework to do so I'll bitch some other time.

He heard about the vengence

So the brilliant CEO realized that there were some repercussions to being an idiot with taxpayers money and has repaid the 1.2 million out of his own pocket. So now when you kick his ass, you can say you're sorry afterwards.

Beatin' of the Week

If you see this man, whoop his ass and take his money.Which isn't even stealing considering it's your money in his wallet. His name is John Thain and this walking ego was so good at his job that his company only lost 56 billion fucking dollars and had to go crying to uncle sam to save his ass, but apparently having the government bail you out took some serious skills, cause he then gave billions in bonuses to execs while slashing the workforce. Awesome. Some would have thought that was enough spitting in the face of the people losing their homes because of your business practices who also happen to be paying your bonuses, but no oh no, not for this douche nozzle. He then decided to have his office remodeled by the same guy who just did the white house, to the tune of 1.2 million dollars. For one fucking office. I love how Bloomberg, a relatively liberal paper by the standards of financial papers sorta justifies this saying that in the big picture a million dollars is insignificant and shouldn't matter. To all of us who haven't been living in a fantasy world a million dollars is still a significant chunk of change. In my town thats a home for a dozen families or more. This guy spent more on rugs than many homes in this town cost, and it wasn't even wall to wall!! The article also makes a weak attempt at justification by saying that because they are antiques they will maintain their value, at least it does give the other side by saying yeah but antiques aren't used in offices because they're too fragile.

So what can we do? He's broken no laws on the books but he has broken the law of living ethically in a civilized society. We can't send him to jail, so lets play it his way. He doesn't want to respect the idea of living within a society then lets show him what happens when society turns on you. I initially wanted straight up vigilante justice on this piece of fuck, but I've just gotten back from a nice conversation with a co-worker about the Inauguration and what not so I'm feeling a little less vengeful. What if we turned on him by simply refusing to accept his money? If we simply stopped accepting his (and other rich people's) money then suddenly they would realize just how imaginary their wealth really is. Yeah I realize its not going to happen but it's a nice thought. So because it's not going to happen lets just stick with vigilante justice and let the blood of the thief's run rivers through the streets.

Image from Boston.com, thanks!
BTW he's only been at ML since '07 after the last guy lost a paltry 7.9 billion in one quarter, Thain knew he could do better and lost 15 billion in the same amount of time, booya!

Title and type of justice I'm looking for come from this classic SNL Sketch called "Good Morning Brooklyn" unfortunately I couldn't find a video.

SG on Evolution

I'm just saving this till I get a chance to read it, but be warned its on the Suicide Girls website which is like weird semi-softcore porn so if your work is stricter than mine it could be blocked, there's no actual nudity on that page but you've been warned. And if you're into tattooed chicks with little or no clothing then you might want to try the rest of the site.


Heres the article.

Being There When History is Made

I only have a few minutes so this will be a very brief description of what was an absolutely unbelievable event. The first time I saw Obama there were about 6 people and 15 feet between where I stood and where he stood. This time there was at least a million people and a mile and a half between where he stood and where I did. Guess his popularity has grown a bit.

I'm really not even sure where to begin with this. It was incredible but the most lasting impression was the attitude of the crowd itself. At one point tension was high where we were as we got stuck just off the side of the mall unable to move while the ceremony was just kicking off. Everyone wanted to move, to get to where they could see something, anything, but none of us could move. We had to hop over a barrier (again) and once again a few men stood there helping older women and children over, complete strangers with a common bond. I saw a person drop a scarf, and the stranger behind them picked it up and handed it to her, later I reached down to pick up a glove someone had just dropped when someone grabbed it up faster than I could and gave it to the owner. It was these small gestures that impressed me, it was the man from Ohio who we rode on the subway with. He and his family were also heading to the Smithsonian museums on the day before the big day. People were just happy, their really was a profound sense of hope running through the crowd. My only fear is that we are resting the hopes and dreams of an entire nation on the shoulders of one man, and while I am convinced that he is a great man, that is more burden than one human should be asked to bear, even if he did ask to bear it. He has told the truth that we will all have to make sacrifices, these are the times that try men's souls, we all support him now, I hope we can continue to do what needs to be done when things are at their bleakest.

Just How Much Can We Let Reality Destroy Our Ideals Before We Beocme What WE Despise?

Sadly this is not a philosophical question, well it is but not in the abstract or hypothetical, I am face with a moral dilemma.

My employer has just lost a massive amount of funding thanks to Gov. Patterson blindly hacking his way through the NY State budget. He not only cut the COPS program, which is Community Option Preventive Services or something like that which basically means that money was given by the state to the counties to use for preventive services as they saw fit. What Patterson didn't realize was that this isn't just fluff, for many counties it's essential services. It's also 3/5ths'of my job. But to really be a dick about it he didn't just cut funding, he retroactively cut funding. The State wants its money back since October, asphinctersayswhat? The county at least realizes that non-profits can't give money back so the county is fucked. So as of the first of the month I'm only working two days a week. So where's the moral dilemma?

The problem is theres no work in this town, with one very notable exception. Actually my county is apparently the only county in the state that brought in more money in sales tax in last year, because of one new business. Sikorsky. I know they are hiring, I even have a friend who's father is a big shot there and is probably going to go work there himself soon. But can I really go and build military weapons for a living and not hate myself? To me this is the final kick in the nuts from Bush and the neocons. Their last act was to empty the treasury ensuring that the few would be kept safe from the turmoil of the little people. We heard about it an gasped then went on with our lives because it didn't hit us instantly. But unlike wealth which never trickles down, debt absolutely trickles down, trickles like an avalanche. Or as they say in the plumbing world, shit runs down hill.

This is Bush and the neocons final kick in the face to a people gasping for air as we struggle to keep our heads above the water. They emptied the treasury and no one seems to know what happened to the 850 billion that went to the banks, oh well they know where the 150 billion in pork went. We complain about the auto industry asking for a hand-job after getting anally raped by the banking industry. So now the rest of us are left to fight like dogs in the streets for the leftover scraps. Sure they lost the election their ideology will never hold sway again, and yet they won. They took a strong and proud people and turned them into whimpering bitches, terrified of imaginary threats while ignoring the foxes in the hen house. In this city, like many others, the options are an endless string of McJobs, become a prison guard, sell drugs and end up in said prison, or the previously mentioned jobs building weapons for terrorists, er the army. Although not necessarily our army. Wage slave or whore. That is the legacy bush has left for americans, along with the contempt of the world.

I need a drink.

So Long and Fairwell to the 4th Ammendment

Evidence gathered illegally now admissible in court. Thunk, Thunk, Thunk. Oh don't mind that, it's just the founding fathers rolling over in their graves.

Thanks Supreme Court.

Good Astronomy

Great little video posted over at Bad Astronomy.
Watch it, be afraid and laugh at the same time. It's basically Phil's book (Death from the Skies) in a 25 minute speech.

Vaccines

Theres a growing trend of families not vaccinating their children out of fear of autism, theres just one tiny little problem, well two really, vaccines don't cause autism but they do prevent some pretty nasty diseases. So now said nasty diseases are on the rise. This post for Orac on the subject is supposed to be quite good, I'm only at the start now but Phil says its good so I'll post it.

Hehe, ok this really has nothing to do with anything but it's still quite funny. Some guy had a whole rant because on Obama's Website Change.org there was a quote, "Recovery from autism is neither possible, nor desirable" so they dude goes on about how they have recovered people and how does the soon to be president feel about that huh? Just one lil problem with that, Change.org where that quote came from is like a social networking site for causes and has nothing to do with Change.GOV which is Obama's website, er one of em. Orac is not very kind to the fool, but he could have been worse.

End of the year lists

We all see a million of these best of (or worst of) the year lists, but this one amused me. So here it is.

The Beast 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2008.

And yeah the first one on the list is Obama, but his reasoning is sound, and it's not like I don't plan on trashing on the duded when he fucks up. I'm already pissed at him for inviting Rick Fucking Warren to the inauguration. Anyway the list is good, hope you enjoy.

Oh Well

KSGf is at least temporarily out of the picture. Probably for the best. It was fun but too much stress for the very little time we got together. So it goes

Monday Update:
I told ya so. To say she was "using me for sex" might have been a little much but I was basically right with my cynical assessment of what was going on.

Inauguration!

Guess where I'll be on the 20th bitches! Hell to the yeah I'll be in that District known as Columbia. AKA Washington!

My aunt lives there and so after trying to get a few different ladies to go I finally went with the safe pick. It's the girl I went to Scranton to see Obama speak during the primaries with. Actually thats the only time I have met her. Shes a very good friend of a very good friend and she has a serious BF. No big deal, means I don't have to try to hit on her and all that awkwardness. Plus as the last few posts have shown, I really don't need any more complications in my romantic life.

Oh and she is cool as shit, we had a ton to talk about going to the rally, I mean total strangers going to a political rally, obviously we had shit to talk about. I can't wait. I'm really excited, I'll be able to look back and say, I was there.

One Track Mind

This blog talks about all sorts of issues, politics, religion, science, music, books and generally whatever is going on in the world at the time. Or thats what I talk about when the only thing I really care about isn't active in my life. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who reads this regularly that if theres any glimmer of hope for a relationship in my life then it pretty much consumes my thoughts. What can I say I love women. Things are still a little odd with the KSGF, and I have no idea if she's figured out that I have a blog where I vent everything in my life that she can get to from my myspace page, but right now I'm hoping she hasn't noticed. I do like her, but I just don't foresee that ever being a really serious relationship. She can't be too mad about that considering she still lives with her ex, is planning on buying a car with him and even told me that she suspects she'll end up marrying the dude at some point even though she doesn't think she wants to. I think she just wants to play the field a little before settling down, I would think that if you married the first person you were ever with then you would always be curious what else was out there. Thats not why I hope she doesn't read this.

The reason I hope she doesn't read this is because while I've stopped fooling around with the one girl from my study group, and I stopped crushin' on the other one, and I'm trying not to have sex with the booty call anymore there is still this other girl from school. Shes really cute, but she's very religious. Basically we had a class together and I thought she was cute, then we had a minor little project together in class and I thought she was annoying, now I know she was messing with me even then. Then I was looking for someone else from school online and found her instead. I said hello and we started talking, but based on her myspace I thought she was some sort of fundamentalist but I figured we could at least have some interesting conversations. I slowly realized that shes very spiritual but totally agrees that organized religion causes many many problems. We actually agree on quite a bit with that stuff despite coming at the questions for exact opposite directions. Then it turned out that she is a very sexual person, which I don't for a moment mean as any sort of insult or calling her a slut or anything like that. She is a committed person, she just likes sex. Some people like to have sex on occasion others want to fuck morning noon and night, theres no right or wrong to how horny you are its just a scale that you fall on somewhere. The important thing as far as that goes is that I think were at a pretty similar spot on that scale. But none of that really mattered because like I said, there was a mutual attraction but she wouldn't date me cause of the religious stuff, so she started dating someone else who was in a similar place spiritually. This happened early on and I still figured we were too different so I wasn't concerned with her relationships. Then as I got to know her I slowly became interested in her, and at the same time were both pretty open and she told me about her relationship and she was venting so she just told me all the bad shit. For such a new relationship there sure was a lot to vent and everything she said raised huge red flags that she was being used by this guy. That wasn't a good spot for me, I like her and she knows it, then she tells me about her relationship problems. I did eventually tell her that I though she was being used but only after much coaxing. This probably sounds pretty normal, I guess I haven't mentioned that theres been a ton of sexual jokes and comments going back and forth between us. Talk about favorite positions, what sort of underwear I wear, size of the bed, even asking for nude photos. She said she was a huge flirt and that she liked that I could talk about that shit without getting fixated on it. So we said plenty of dirty shit without thinking it was serious, and it wasn't. Then about a week ago we watched a movie and so my surprise we ended up kissing a little but we both agreed that it couldn't go too far. Then after I went home she said she regretted it and how she loved the other dude. I said well I wanted you before and you knew it, I still want you and you know it so I don't see how anything has changed. We kept talking as friends and then the other day she said she has a feeling her BF is using her for sex. All I could really say is that I had felt that way for a while. I did start thinking that after we had made out and shit she said it was wrong because of her BF, and not because of the religious crap. Previously she had made it very clear that this was a hurdle I was not going to clear. I don't know if thats still the case or not, I hope not.

I must say that I realized a little bit ago with all my hi jinx when ever I would mention the hot but religious girl they would tend to assume I was just trying to sleep with her. And every time I've smiled and said, actually I think I like that one.

Theres still the very real possibility that she still won't date me even if shes single again, but I'm not going to ask. Then there is still the current KSGF (in case you didn't read the other post, thats Kinda Sorta Girl Friend) and the whole thing with this other girl could be nothing so I don't want to throw this away over a great big maybe. It's pretty dirty to keep her on the hook while I test the waters on the side but hey I've been the nice guy for a long time and if I have to do some asshole shit then so be it. Plus like I've said even the KSGF might be just testing the water with me while intending to get back with her ex so I really don't feel that bad about it.

Now you can see why I hope KSGF doesn't read this. I do like her, I just don't know if I'll ever really love her. The other one, who I still need to make up an anonymous name for, it's been a challenge trying not to fall in love with.

I may have over reacted

So it turns out my KSGF (kinda sorta girlfriend) had simply lost her phone. Which I did have listed as my mundane answer to the situation the other day. As for not responding to AIM she says her account is screwed up and didn't get my messages. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. So my freaking out and ranting was unnecessary. Oops, sorry babe. I still need to clarify exactly what our relationship is, maybe I can even knock a letter or two off her acronym.

women

just when things were starting to look up they get real confusing. My last post was jubilant about how I met this nice young lady who seems quite interested in me. Like I said, she works too much so we haven't even been on a real date yet, actually like I said before it had turned into a defacto booty call, but I guess I didn't make it clear that I don't want just a booty call, sex is great but theres a lot more to a relationship which is what I'm looking for. The real problem is that now I haven't spoken to her in a couple days, we'd been texting a few times a day and then yesterday she just stopped responding. Then today she's online so I say hello on AIM and.... nothing. WTF?

Theres basically three options. One is that her phone was dead, she's had issues with her charger or some such shit and she's not ignoring me. Another is that she's mad cause when she asked where our relationship was I said it was a defacto booty call because she doesn't have time for anything more. I thought I made it clear that I want more than that she just doesn't have time right now. If thats the case then no big deal we can work that out easily. The option I worry about is that she's made a few mentions of her ex, who she still lives with. She dated him for a long time, they broke up, but neither could afford to move out so they still live together. Then she talked one day about how she'll probably marry him someday even though he drives her nuts, and totally mooches off her. Umm... K. Now she calls him her ex but she told me that he got upset when she told him about sleeping with me, and since then I've only seen her for an hour or two at a time. Then she tells me they might buy a car together even though he doesn't have a job, oh and it'll be in his name.... Combine that shit with her talk of how she had made a plan to have sex with me like 2 months ago, which is right around when we first started talking again.
And I don't think I'm crazy to think that she just wanted to make her ex jealous. I'm half thinking the only reason she keeps coming around is cause she says I'm the best she's ever had. Maybe I'm wrong, hopefully I'm wrong. And I can be optimistic that I'm wrong because she was trying to arrange for me to meet some of her family, of course I would have been very curious to hear how she introduced me to them. But right now I just have no fucking clue whats going on because she isn't talking to me and thats just driving me nuts.