Secrets / Family / Rant

I've just read a bunch of stuff at Post Secret and I cant help but think of one for myself. Guess its not really a secret but here goes.

I wonder if my friends know how depressed I am?
But I'm sure they know the reason.

I wonder if my family even knows the reason.

Sorry "D" I'm feelin' a little emo today. It'll pass.
It's not just rejection that gets me down, its the fact that I never even get a fucking chance. Ok the one thats driving me insane at the moment is stupid because I knew it was nothing, that it could never be anything and I still let myself get attached and subsequently hurt. I'm just desperately sick of being single and it's tearing me up inside. I know that without self confidence I'm never going to get anywhere with women, this makes total sense, but what if I really don't like myself because I don't know who the fuck I am? I think of the advice of looking at the persons family before getting into a long term relationship, I think of how great my own family is, but of how I wonder what they would think of anyone I brought to meet them (they would probably love anyone I brought to meet them), then I wonder when they'll get to meet me. My family is awesome they really are, but for me they are the most judgmental people in my life. I'm never comfortable around them because I always feel the need to put up a front. I try to engage them in my life and they look at me like I'm crazy. I was the manager for my friends band for a few years and I didn't really expect them to show but my fucking sister had the audacity to not only blow me off, but to blow me off by going to a bar a block away. After being genuinely pissed at her for that stunt she finally showed up for one a bit later on, late, and didn't even see the band. Which wasn't the point, I didn't expect any of them to like the band, I just wanted them to be a part of my life. Because they have no idea who I am. My sister recently wrote part of a book about No Child Left Behind. I tried to ask her about it, she gave pathetic little answers and had no interest in talking about it with me. Then she has to tell me about all the shit I need to do to fix my life, the part about getting insurance for the car she gave me is fine, but as far as always telling me what to do with my life, go fuck yourself, maybe if you had any idea who I am you'd have the right to talk but you don't so go fuck yourself. The worst part is that she gives good advice and knows how much I'm capable of, but she always says it in a manner that just makes me want to defy her, she makes me want to go in the completely wrong direction just to prove that I can.

Damn I'm a simple bastard. I was getting pissed as I wrote parts of that. Then the lovely lady in the office next door, the one I've got a thing for who really is gorgeous and sweet and funny and has very similar interest but doesn't seem the least bit interested in me and I'm going to accept that, came over to talk to me about our new intern, who by the way is also really cute, but shes a freshmen, meaning awfully young. Anyway the main guy at work is a little bit of a creep, which suits me fine as theres usually cute women here, is currently having a little talk with the intern concerning her affect. It's her first day and all she needs to do is observe, shut the fuck up dude! So she's probably going to be...
Ok now I actually talked to them and I hope I put her at ease a bit. Anyway the simple bastard comment is to the fact that a beautiful woman talking to me is pretty much all it took to make me, maybe not happy, but considerably happier. I don't know anymore. I've got to finalize things with the girl from study group that I'm not interested in. I'm pretty sure we are on the same page, er maybe not. I was just warned that I need to talk to her.

Shit I gotta go.

All Work and No Play

Makes Tim a dull boy
All work and no play makes tim a dull boy
All work and no play makes tim a dull boy
All work and on play makes tima dull boy
all work and no play makes tim an angry boy
all work and no play make me angry

WTF- IE doesn't even want to let me cut and paste!?!?!
trying to make me do repetative work in order to bitch about the repetativeness of my work!
fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck

Sarah Palin

Yeah I'm late but I still need to throw in my two cents. First I'll say, awesome job by Obama to take the high road and avoid bringing up Palin daughter, even including what I would call encouragement by reminding everyone that his own mother was only 18 when she had Barack. (I ramble for a bit, but theres some good links at towards the bottom)

But I don't work for Obama, they found someone better, so I don't have to take the high road, although I do work with teen mothers so this seems like an opportunity to talk about a serious issue that this country simply doesn't want to talk about. There's a fair number of problems in this country that stem directly from the fact that we have a very immature attitude towards Sex and Drugs (probably other shit too). There is currently debate about lowering the drinking age (alcohol is a drug, a rather dangerous one at that) but the resistance comes from people who think 18 year olds are too immature on the subject. I think the whole fucking country is too immature on the subject. If a 14 year old would occasionally have a glass of wine with their parents at dinner, then by the time they could drink in public it wouldn't be a big deal. Just to make that perfectly clear, I support PARENTS giving alcohol to minors in order for them to learn, and so they too can enjoy a nice beverage. Same goes for sex, but a much less hands on approach, that would be weird. If sex was not kept as such a taboo then maybe we wouldn't be so damn uncomfortable talking about it. The penis goes into the vagina, try it, it's nice, and if you don't wrap it with a condom first you'll end up with a kid. Whats the big deal? As a species we've been fucking since the start, why is that a fact we try to keep hidden? Shit heres a stupid example, there was a whole big deal about GTA San Andreas because there was a way to see nudity, mind you this is one of the most violent games you can buy, and highly entertaining. Killing anyone and everyone, thats fine, show a computer generated nipple and suddenly its vile? Seriously we have our priorities fucked up.

Ok so back to Palin. I'm not going to take the low road in the sense that I'll question her parenting simply because her kid got knocked up, that shit happens. People fuck and sometimes that leads to more people, no big deal. What I will question is her support for abstinence only education, even if she didn't have kids I would question that stance. The fact that her own daughter is proof of the failure of abstinence only education is something I'm not sure I could ignore. I'm honestly not sure if that would be considered an attack against her family or not. If I was part of the Obama crew I wouldn't use it, but I'd strongly go after her stance and let the public make the connection in their minds.

I am curious about her stance on Abortion, I know that her public stance is no-way no-how no-exceptions you get raped by your father, guess what you're gunna be a mommy now! That way the kid will have a father and a grandfather in the picture. Yeah, not cool, but there was one little comment that had me curious. I don't have the exact text or the source right now but essentially Sarah Palin was saying she was happy that her daughter made the right choice... Hmm... what choice might that be? Is she saying that it was a possibility that her daughter might be allowed to make a choice about her own body? Better fix that law.

Like everyone else I feel the nomination of Palin is a crass insult to women who support/ supported Hillary. Does the GOP really think women are that stupid? Yeah Sarah Palin has two X chromosomes, that does NOT mean she supports womens rights at all. I hope Hillary's supporters listened to her during the DNC, anyone who cares about womens issues cannot vote for McCain, especially with Palin as running mate.

I don't think I've really explained just how bad she is. I'm not going to get into her lack of experience because honestly that doesn't bother me. Although I do love the back flips republicans are doing in order to justify how a year and a half as Governor of the 47th most populous state is adequate experience. I don't mind, but shut the fuck up about Obama, not that they will, cause you know Governor is executive experience. Not only that but Alaska is near Russia, RUSSIA! Not that the governor has any control over all the military shit that goes on protecting us from the commies.... the fact that some people could even begin to use that argument makes me think of that famous quote by (or at least attributed to) Churchill, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

Shit that wasn't going to be about experience, this one really won't be. How about the fact that she's a right wing nut job? Go here for video goodness, er well not exactly good.... Thanks PZ. Seriously our education system is fucked, the last thing we can afford as a nation is falling even further behind due to some psychos that think knowledge is evil. For example, shes a creationist and thinks it should be taught in school.

Want some more Palin Haterade from people who actually study shit instead of relying on old fairly tales? You know its bad when Phil ventures in from the stars and takes a jab at politicians. His views aren't exactly hidden, but unlike PZ he does generally tries to avoid getting caught up in politics. I generally find that when people who prefer to keep silent feel the need to be heard, its because someone has given them good reason to be angry. Although in this case he simply points you towards others who have already ripped into Palin, so thats more like a link to other links.

More video love, I haven't watched it yet but I'm assuming its amusing. Again from PZ, this time we've got a song about Palin from Roy Zimmerman.

But who knows, maybe he didn't pick her because he wanted the support of former Hillary supporters. Maybe its something much simpler. Maybe John McCain simply likes younger attractive women....

The First Fucking Ammendment / DNC protests

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Wanna see me get real angry? Fuck with my rights. Theres some shit going down outside the DNC that matters a whole lot more to me than the hot air coming out of the rich folks inside the DNC (although I heard Kucinich was good, from the Rude Pundit)

Ok I'm rewriting this, it was written originally with a lot of emotion and verbed versions of four letter words. Lets just take it slow, first off is the article that got me fired up in the first place. READ THIS SHIT PZ is a lot calmer than I would be if someone sent this letter to me.

Then there is the AP version of the story. Now this claims that the protesters were video taped charging the police, that does change matters significantly, then it is no longer a peaceful protest and the cops have the right to disperse it. I want to see the video.

So here is an example of a tense situation a couple days ago that did not end so badly, it gives a good idea of what the guy in the Pharyngula post was doing. It's worth a read.

And here is the same papers take on the events of that evening, while not nearly as harsh as the first account, it still sounds like the police were at fault. One important note here, eyewitness are not particularly credible, especially in an emotional situation, or when blinded by pepper spray. But if I was the guy who was pepper sprayed while trying to get to the bus, I would bring assault charges against the police. Then I'd probably want to move to a new town.

Here is a persons pictures from this event, they don't really tell much but they're interesting. Heres some pics from a person who agrees with the arrests. Pics from a protest without arrests.

A national Anarchist group, that's protesting at the DNC and other places. Apparently people are also pissed about the local secret prison, nick named "Gitmo on the Platte."

Heres some more, now this was a different event there was only one (or two) arrest. They claim the guy who was arrested hit a counter protester, if thats the case then fine, you can't hit people. The only problem being that the guy who was hit doesn't know if he was or not.

“If he hit me, I didn’t feel it,” Israel said. “But then again, I have a hard head.”

He is a bible thumper... nah that joke is too easy. Since its unclear if the guy hit him or not I'll just leave that alone. The more interesting question is the shouting match that led to the confrontation. Does freedom of speech include amplified speech? A normal shouting match is annoying and unproductive but perfectly legal and pretty much expected when you have protesters and counter protesters. But what about scouting matches with bullhorns? If I want to sit on the sidewalk with a freaking PA and scream about, well whatever, do I have that right? I'm really not sure. Then again I do know that the guy who cut the cord of bullhorn man was in the wrong, destruction of property, but should or can the cops tell bullhorn man to put away the bullhorn? Probably citing noise ordinances, or the need for the police to be able to be heard. I'm not really sure.

Heres a guys pics from this event, including the "assault" which the comments claim was friendly, a claim that I would doubt. Those two don't look like buddies, although there is a huge difference between touching an assault, it might be a loud place with bullhorn guy going, maybe he touched the other guys arm to get his attention so they could have a calm discussion, or maybe he swatted him, its a still photo. Actually in the picture both guys have there arms out almost to the other persons chest, to me it looks like people who talk with their hands, their obviously people passionate about their beliefs or they wouldn't be there, so they get going and their arms flail, lots of people do this, but who knows.

The cops did let people know what their rights are and what they can be arrested for, thats actually a really good idea. Some people think it was meant to discourage protesters but without reading the wording of it I'll just say that an outline of what will get you arrested is pretty handy. I wonder if it included walking past a protest en route to work? Theres one line in this that seems highly suspect to me,

Police are distributing a pamphlet reminding protesters of where they have a right to demonstrate but also warning them they can be arrested if they refuse a lawful order to disperse, even if they aren't breaking any laws.

So in other words the cops actually wrote a pamphlet that says you can be arrested even if you aren't breaking the law.... the founding fathers, real patriots, overthrew a government for shit like this.



Seattle Was A Riot - Anti Flag

Seattle was a riot, they tried to pin on us
But we didn't show up, with gas and billy clubs
An un-armed mass of thousands, just trying to be heard

Shhhhhhhh, be vewwwy, vewwwy quiet; we're hunting tewwowists

Damn them terrorist is sneaky. Just look at these recent news reports, this one includes a a young american who was apparently recruited while he was five years old, have they no mercy? When asked if he was a terrorist the boy, James Robinson, now 8 responded cryptically, "I don't know." Savage. But it gets even worse, they also recruited another man, also named James Robinson, who's a lawyer and to no surprise used to work for the Clinton Administration. I'm not sure which way the cause and effect goes on that one. More shocking still is the case of James Robinson, who's an Airline Pilot! Not only that but this pilot is licensed by the TSA to carry a gun On The Plane!!! The terrorist probably got to him back when he was a brigadier general in the Air National Guard. I told you they're sneaky, but I'm not sure why they keep training people with the same name.

Heres another would be terrorist, also a pilot. It's hard to tell if they got to him while he was living in the middle east, he's a veteran of the first gulf war, or if its just a part of the conversion process. Don't let his whiteness confuse you, he's a Muslim. He's even getting help from those freedom haters over at the ACLU, something about how his pilot job requires him not to be on the "Do Not Fly" list. Guess he should have thought of that before he became a terrorist.

I'm sure all (both) my readers know that this is sarcasm but I want to point that out in case someone else ends up here somehow.

The illusion of security.

Patriotism

Our next president, and hopefully my new boss, just talked about it so now I'm going to real quickly. First I'll go off subject and say that I'm in talks with the Obama campaign and if that happens I might be really really busy until November. Now back to patriotism, also known as the last refuge of scoundrels. In order to define patriotism I personally believe its important to think about who the patriots were, before they won the Superbowl. Admittedly the ones we think of first Washington, Jefferson, Adams and the rest of the posse were upper class, but like always they were held up by a mass of average people who were willing to die so their children could be free from tyranny. So at least my vision of a patriot, a true patriot is any person who will fight, by any means necessary to protect the ideals of this country. We could then get into what those ideals are, but again my view at least is that those ideals were laid out quite eloquently in the nations first document, which due to a coincidence was signed on Independence Day. They were then refined a bit into the constitution. Those ideals are what defines America, not out borders but our dreams. This is why when taking office the president does not swear to protect the citizens but to protect the constitution. But a patriot has an even greater creed yet, he or she does not simply defend the constitution but must ensure that our ideals are defended for even our constitution is not immune from bad ideals from time to time, like prohibition. This is why the patriot must defend against all enemies foreign or domestic, the original patriots knew that freedom cannot survive if power is allowed to be too tightly concentrated. That is why we have an elected government and not a King, although it is interesting to note that originally only the house was directly elected by the people. Now senators are too, the president is still not elected by the people and I'm convinced thats a bad thing, until I talk to voters who help to structure national policy with their vote and know nothing about either candidate. Scary. Anyway the job of the patriot is critical and I think this entire nation has been so busy waving flags and supporting the troops to notice that there's hardly a true patriot left among us. How many of us have truly challenged the attacks on the constitution by this administration? Who has laid it all on the line to say that the patriot act is illegal? Or the many other illegal acts. Oh sure we march in protests after getting permission from the police, despite the fact that we already have the right by the constitution while the police do NOT have the right to stop a peaceful public gathering. We also write or call our senators, we harass our mayors and our representatives but then we go back to our jobs, our cars and live our lives we may grumble a bit but we've all gone soft. If there were a true patriot alive today they would probably be rotting away in jail right now, maybe they are. I do not mean to challenge what we call the patriotism of any one, I want to challenge what we call patriotism, and I want to challenge us all to live up to that most honorable duty.

Or we could just say that patriotism is defined by lapel pins.

Hypocrites

We all hate 'em, they preach about sins before they commit them, they tell you the company is in great shape while selling off their own stocks, but how about abortion clinic protesters? Yup, it happens.

I had to go up and ask her if her daughter’s situation had caused her to change her mind. ‘I don’t expect you to understand my daughter’s situation!’ she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to ‘murder their babies.’”

The thoughts in my head are probably already raging around in yours so I won't even state the obvious, so it goes.

The Good, The Bad, and The Stupid

So as you probably know theres about a 50/50 chance that for the first time in recorded history the arctic may be without ice this summer. Alarm bells should be going off. The biggest concern is the fact that this is happening far faster than predicted. Scientists are fairly conservative when they make announcements to the public, they don't want to seem like fools if they give dire warnings only to have them be wrong. So this give conservative estimates, and throw in that it might be worse. If I remember right they predicted this could happen by 2050 in Al's movie, and here it is two years latter happening. What scares me the most is the comments afterwards, those who say that this is just a normal part of the cycle and that nothing we do has any affect on it, and hey there might be oil under that ice! The stupid refers to those who get confused when their drink doesn't over flow when the ice melts. If the ice melts then all the coastal cities should be underwater, and they are so this is a lie.... No offense to anyone with legitimate mental handicaps but are these folks retarded? Listen up, its pretty simple, ice floating on water doesn't affect the sea level when it melts. The Arctic OCEAN is water so when that ice melts the sea level stays the same. Ice on land that melts obviously affects the sea level. Places like Antarctica and Greenland are the most critical land based ice. So no one who pays attention should have any confusion about how the ice can melt and the cities don't drown. Ok I'm outta time, I'll talk more shit later.

More Angst: SCOTUS edition

I've got another little rant about how fucked up parts of this country are, and the media's culpability in it all. I'd like to start by saying that Stephen Colbert pretty much summed up this whole situation in one line, (roughly) "Where does the Constitution get off thinking it can tell the government what it can do?" Amazing, but I'll be a little more longwinded than that.

Ok so in spite of all that Bush has done to load the court with ideologues, and the fact that the supreme court usually rules with the administration during times of war the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution isn't to be used as a coaster. Habeas Corpus is not some crazy rule invented by leftist commies to help spring terrorists from jail as some asshats would like you to think. So first a quick bit of history on what we're talking about here. It was first used in 1305 but was part of the Magna Carta of 1215 and was common law even before that. Here's what the Magna Carta says about it.

Article 39: "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him except upon the lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land."

I can see why people would be scared to have a law like that around. Who would want a law that stops people from being detained without cause?

I also find it interesting that when the UK suspended Habeas Corpus so they could go after the IRA they latter realized that it actually increased the strength of the IRA, but I'm sure that's not the case when the US does it...

Essentially the Supreme Court has said that you cannot simply create a loophole where a person has no standing in any court of law. Conservatives will press that this decision will mean that terrorists will now be tried in civilian court instead of military court where the belong, this is true, what they fail to mention time and time again is that if the administration had allowed these people to be tried by military courts years ago then we wouldn't be in this situation. The Administration said these people can't be tried as enemy soldiers not the court, the court simply said they have the right to a trial and to know what they have been accused of. The most basic of right a prisoner can hope for. There are times when Habeas Corpus can be lifted and those times are outlined in the Constitution.

What concerns me isn't that the administration has held people without trial or even being accused of a crime for 7 years, ok that does concern me but sadly I've essential come to accept that the country I live in is not the country that I was taught about as a child. Our fantastic ideals about how bad countries would torture people and put up walls around their countries while ours was a nation devoted to peace and would never do such things. Those delusions are a part of my history as well as our nations.

No my real concern is that there are people in this country who think this ruling was wrong. The ignorant masses who watch Bill O'Reilly would annoy me but there are some serious players in the US who think this ruling was wrong including 4 supreme court judges, a presidential candidate (guess which) along with a whole shit load of talking heads that think their opinions matter (and sadly they do). I really wanted to get into how fucked up the four supreme court judges are but it's suddenly occured to me the horrible irony of McCain thinking this ruling was wrong. Here we have a man who was once a POW, who now thinks that its ok to capture people and hold them indefinitely without trial. I wonder what 1972 McCain would think of this? 2008 McCain is essentially saying that his captors had the right to hold him for five and a half years, because how can you say its wrong of them if its acceptable for us? But really its worse than that. See McCain was a POW, meaning wither or not the Viet-Cong acknowledged his rights he did have legal rights in the eyes of the world. What this administration has tried to do, and McCain plans to continue, is that somehow the fighters in this war are different and should have no human rights at all. I'm not even going to get into the fact that many of these people were not soldiers and how the vast majority were not fighters, although I wouldn't blame them if they were feeling a little Jihadish these days. I'm very concerned about the morals of this country, there are the "values voters" which is such a stupid term, who votes based on anything but their values? But the ones labels values voters because they think that banning abortion, keeping they guns, and hatin some queers are the only morals a country needs, oh and ya gots ta love some baby jesus too, can't leave that out. What about my morals? Treat people with respect, violence is wrong (exceptions granted on a case by case basis), equality, protecting the innocent, protecting the environment, and generally protecting those who can't defend themselves, avoiding tyranny. Obviously I have no sense of right and wrong. How can indefinite detention of people without a day in court not be considered a moral issue?

Anyway I gotta run, I hope this is ranttastic enough.

Lara Logan

That last post makes for a good lead in to this one. Last night I saw an incredible interview, and it made me incredibly angry. Lara Logan was on The Daily Show, shes a journalist who's been in Iraq since the start, she's also hot. More importantly she says what needs to be said in no uncertain terms. She's been there, shes lived it and she's not going to take any shit from anybody. I think I'm in love.... anyway watch the vid.




Told you didn't I? Now this makes me sad for a number of reasons. First because she is right. We've become bored with the war and we've become numb to the pain and suffering that we've inflicted. That is a horrible situation. Korea has been called the forgotten war, at least that war wasn't forgotten about until after it was over.

The other thing that makes me sad is the fact that this incredible interview had to be on a comedy show. Yes she works for CBS and has been on O'Reilly and other places but this is the kind of candor we need on a regular basis if we want to have any clue whats going on with the wars that we started.

I'm not really sure what else to say....

Where to start.....

I point out that I've been slacking every time I write nowadays, mostly cause it's true. But today I've got some words that need to get out there. Some of this is old news but I want to say it anyway. I'll start with something old and trivial.

I was at the gym where I don't have control of the TV and Pravda... er Fox News was on, it was a few weeks ago and the devastation in China was still being talked about, well sorta. Instead of focusing on this massive catastrophe they focused on a remark by a celebrity , Sharon Stone I think, who said something rude while on the red carpet. She said that maybe the earthquake was Karma for China's treatment of Tibet. Yeah not a comment I would make while they are still sifting through the rubble, but I don't see how they are any different then Falwell and Robertson blaming 9/11 on liberals and gays. One says god punished us for our "immoral" actions, the other said some other god punished other people for legitimately immoral actions. But really none of that matters. The real question is, who gives a shit what Sharon Stone's opinion is of a natural disaster? Sure the Chinese have every right to be pissed but why does this warrant any more than a 15 second blip on a national news program? Were in the middle of two wars, China had just been rocked by the massive earthquake that was the cause of this incident, Burma was and is in a humanitarian crisis following the cyclone, food riots in Mexico and other places, the never ending horrors in Africa, global climate change, AIDS, the looming TB epidemic, Israel-Palestine, tensions with Iran, tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan, theres also a fairly important election coming up, and I could continue with issues more important than the opinions of a has-been hollywood actress but whats the point? The media cares more about entertainment than well than anything else, ratings over content. Of course we the people are to blame for the fact that content doesn't lead to ratings, entertainment does.

Fuck Yo Captcha!

Ok I'm getting sick and tired of the fucked up Captcha on blogger. Hey I write a quick little post now lets publish, ok well i doesn't matter what I type the first time because it fails the first time no matter what, been that way for a while now. So I try it again, I can barely decipher what it says because unlike some other's that use multiple colors and slashes to confuse computers but help people, google had the bright idea, how about we just squish the fucking letters together so close that no one real or not has more than a wild ass guess as to what the squiggles are. Great fucking plan. then I tried again. And again. Then I got more pissed, then I tried again. I think it was somewhere around the 6th attempt before I happened to get lucky. I wonder how many tries this one will take, I also wonder if it might not be worth moving to a new domain?

Inconsiderate bastards

Ok this minor little story came from a while ago but I need to point it out anyway. I'm at the laundromat havin' a good ol' time watching some daily show goodness and Colbert is up next. I had to throw stuff in the drier and at about that point a couple other people walk in. One says something about how long its going to take and then the other says well if were going to be here then we might as well be entertained and changes the channel. Now ever other time I've seen people come into the place when others were there and try to change the channel they started by asking, hey are you watching this? I've been asked that while reading a book with the tv volume almost off, but thats what polite people do. These assholes couldn't have cared less that someone else was there first. Then to add insult to injury what did they make me miss the finest satire on TV for? America's Next Top Model. Grrrr......
So what does one do in this situation? I could have said, Excuse me I was watching that. I could have simply changed it back. I could have gone to the other side of the place and read the book I had brought, I went a different route. Get them back without doing a thing. There are three chairs near the TV, and a couple more on the far side, I simply sat back down where I had been put my headphones in and read my book while sitting in the middle chair of the three under the TV. They kept me from watching my show, I kept them from watching theres, and I had my own entertainment anyway. I should have just changed it back but I'm too passive. Oh well.

Oh and fuck them bitches.

Then today I'm driving, I head onto the highway and theres a little construction going on and theres just one travel lane and a stop at the merge. No big deal its not that terribly busy a highway. Wait till there a good size gap and don't be stingy with thee throttle when you hop into the travel lane, simple right? The other option that I hadn't thought of but apparently several people ahead of me did was to stop at the sign the slowly pull out right in front of a car traveling at 60+ mph forcing them to brake rapidly to avoid a collision, my personal fav being the city buss that pulled out in front of the tractor trailer, great plan asshole. I was impressed there wasn't a crash, well done mr. (or mrs.) trucker.

I had another uber-asshole move that I saw at about the same time as the laundromat, now I've forgotten what it was, but fuck that jerk too.

Politics

Want to see why no one pays attention to politics? Heres a standard campaign feud, this time the battle ground is the recent energy bill. Pretty simple Republican in congress votes against it, Democratic candidate (who I support) is going after him for not voting for it. The problem is that they both make it sound like such a clear cut case. Kuhl (R-NY-29) claims that there was too much pork and not enough help to actual families. Massa (D-hopefully soon to be NY-29) says that the main purpose was to stop subsidizing the oil companies that are setting record profits. Both seem like reasonable positions, and rather than get into the details of this specific case I want to look at why this way of doing politics is flawed. Well flawed in a democratic sense. The problem is this is bill is over a thousand pages long. The truth is going to be far far more complex than either is able to talk about to a reporter or during a debate. So those who are highly informed don't care what they have to say because they know what the vote meant. Those who are not informed but have a strong opinion will simply agree with the person they already like because they make good points and will ignore the other or claim the other is a liar. And then finally the uninformed, without a preset notion of who they like, this is who everything is for, they listen and go, yeah they both make good points but they're both lying. So who is really swayed at all by debates? Are debates really about swaying public opinion at all? Is our whole political process really intended to encourage voter participation? Or has it slowly evolved into the multi-year mess that we see today where apathy is the most popular political stance? There are so many scandals going on right now that I've given up trying to keep track. The presidential races have become a clusterfuck, the republican options are disturbing to say the least, I mean shit Huckabee is surging in the polls, a man who pardoned a rapist-murderer who then proceded to rape and murder again, thanks Huck, and people like this guy. Then there is is frightening religious rhetoric which I'm not even going to bother insulting. Guliani would be a disgrace to a student council meeting, although I did respect the one honest moment when he said why yes of course the presidents mistresses should have secret service protection too. Then there's Romney, I've met child molesters that are less creepy. And I love how everyone touted his "JFK" speech, other than you know JFK said there should be absolute separation between church and state and Romney said hey its cool be any sort of christian you want, hell we'll even let the jews in, and those treacherous muslims but we'll be keeping an eye on them. As for easter religions well they're ignored, but at least they were slighted the way the second largest "religious" group was, you know, none at all. Yeah he told us to go fuck ourselves. On the other side we've got Hillary, yup. Shes a woman that would shake things up, otherwise shes just business as usual. I don't think she'd be a bad president the way bush is a bad president, I just don't think she'll be anything special, other than the whole first with a vagina thing. Obama, he's decent. I like 'em but nothing to get terribly excited about. He's only half white, so that would be something new. Edwards, yup he's there too, again he'd be alright probably shake things up a little more than Hillary but still nothing amazing. Kucinich would be awesome which means he has no chance. So there you have it, mediocrity on one side, near evil on the other. Sweet. That might be another reason why everyone hates politics. This rant changed course, I had something else entirely when I started it but that was a few days ago and I never finished. So take it for what it is. Just a stupid rant against a stupid fucked up system.

Vile Parenting

This is just sick. I'm pretty sure if this had happened to my kid (if I had one) the whole town would know exactly who did this. I see no reason to protect the innocent, the innocent party is dead. Had this been a typical quarrel between friends that ended tragically then fine protect the kid, but when consenting adults get into the fray then no, fuck them. I hope every person in that town knows exactly what happened so those parents feel the ironic pain of being insulted everywhere they turn. It was all fun and games when you did it too a child, it's not so fun when it gets turned around is it? I hope the town turns against them until they are driven out. Not forcibly, but because they are shunned everywhere they go. As for a law to protect children, well first off the child that died was too young to be on that site in the first place, second its open and anonymous, I'm not sure there is anyway to really protect kids without some overbearing nannny laws which I also despise. The sick parents who decided the only way to help their daughter was to initially cyber-stalk their child's friend need to be taught how to parent. I think most parents could use some lessons, it's not an insult no-one knows everything. OH sure our basic parenting instincts are pretty good but why is it so insulting to say that parents should get some education on the matter. In the end I'm not sure I can suggest anything to absolutely prevent this from happening again, but following the minimum age requirement is probably a reasonable start. Not being an asshole to a little kid is probably another reasonable step. This is when I wish I was a judge, there is no punishment that can bring back that child, but at least I could do my part to make sure those parents knew what if felt like to be humiliated, to be laughed at by everyone. I don't blame them for the suicide, I do blame them for being assholes.

Fuck the Colorado Rockies

Not cause I want Boston to win (isn't that who's playing?) or because I give a rats ass about baseball at all (obviously) but because some twit thinks they can trademark "Rocktober" because people have been using it lately in the context of the colorado rockies. Just because some walking bag of douche figured out he could make a profit trademarking threepeet a while back does not mean that every time a fucking sports team goes to the playoffs they get to trademark a phrase. Especially one that's been used for a long time having nothing to do with fucking baseball. I've heard Rocktober plenty of times this month, usually in reference to fucking rock music you asshole. The basic premise of trademarking a word so that anyone who uses that word has to pay for it seems fucked up to me. I want to trademark the word the, anytime someone uses the word The I want to get paid. See how that could be trouble? Baseball sucks anyway.

Fuck NYSEG (warning many fucking obsenities)

For those non-upstate NYers NYSEG is New York State Electric and Gas, its a monopoly and they suck. The other day I get home late after working then running to the hospital to see my sister then go see some friends by the time I got home it was after midnight I walk in and flip the light switch and nothing. WTF? so I try a few more, nothing. I had seen lights on at neighbors so I knew it wasn't an outage. Oh shit when did I last pay that? Ok so I can't be upset about turning off a service because I forgot to pay. What I am upset about is the fact that the last time I was late with payment they put a 72 hour notice on my door. It seems reasonable that they would give you a warning before cutting off a rather critical utility. So I went to the NYSEG HQ in the next town over to pay my bill. They told what I owed, it wasn't all that much I'm a single guy, so I handed them my card. "oh we don't take credit cards." Fuck you, you have a monopoly on the electric and gas utilities and you're trying to tell me that your financial system is behind every gas station in the country? They say you can pay by phone or online, clearly that shit isn't done with cash or check you twit. Luckily before any of that actually came out, but the look on my face might have said it anyway, the person at the next teller said oh I can do that over here. You're damn right you can, so after one more dirty look at the first person I turned and smiled at helpful teller. Then she says oh their is a $6.50 processing fee for using a credit card. My smile was gone. Six fucking dollar and fifty fucking cents? But what the fuck can I do about it but bend over and take it. I'm going to switch to... oh wait its a monopoly so if they feel like it they'll bend me over and drive it home any time they want and theres not a damn thing I can do about it. As for why I wasn't notified, their response, oh we only do that in the winter, thanks assholes. Oh and when I got home last night, still no power. Fucking Assholes. If I don't have power tonight, well there isn't a damn thing I can do about it now is there? Fuck

Rantastic!

Now this is how you're supposed to rant! Thank You Greta Christina. It's about the stereotype of the angry atheist, she starts by stating why shes angry, and thats quite a few pages, then explains why anger isn't a bad thing, in fact its critical. It goes on and on but it never drops off into inane rambling, so if you can stand reading my pointless banter then seriously click the link.

And Thank you PZ for pointing out this fantastic piece of work.

Reason to hate humanity

A friend of mine showed me a video last night that reminded me why I like the theory of mankind much better than some of its individuals. It was called ghetto fights, and I do not in any way recommend this movie. I need to clear the air of one thing first, this video is almost exclusively black people fighting, the same group also produces wildest street brawls it appears to be the same thing but with white people. I happened to see the other one but I'm sure my reaction would have been the same. I just want to clear the air that this honestly has nothing to do with race although it is the most times I've ever heard the N word.

First off I am biased, I hate fights, they rarely seem to solve anything but if two people decide that they can settle their dispute with fists then who am I to tell them they are wrong? On the other hand an all too common scene in this film to two people fighting then as soon as one goes down four more people start kicking the guy in the face. WTF? One issue I will say is that with a film like this its hard to know why they are fighting, sometimes its obvious but not usually. The scene that angered me the most appeared to be a white or possibly asian I can't recall now guy who pulled up to a store and was told by guys out front to leave. The guy wasn't from the area, that much was clear, so rather than let the man buy his beer and leave some guy starts punching him in the face. WTF? It gets worse, the guy gets dragged from the car and at this point I lost track of what was goin on but some how the white guy gets his hands on a pipe wrench and goes after the guy who punched him in the face, he misses the other guy get back a little ways so the white guy take the wrench and breaks the back window out of the punchers BMW X5. Then numerous people jump him and kick him in the face until he is unconscious half under a car with his face mangled to the point that I'm unsure what his ethnicity was. And from what we could tell it all started because he wanted to buy some beer.

Another disgraceful part was near the end when these guys kept being cruel to some old man, in their defense he was probably a crack-head so he's already cruel to himself. That does not give you the right to be cruel to a man who has done nothing to you. They dump anti-freeze on him while sleeping, they dump soda on his shirt while standing on a street corner, they repeatedly sprayed water in his face, they steal his flip-flops and throw them in the sewer, jab at his feet with an umbrella, then hit him in the back with a milk crate knocking him straight to the ground. It's watching shit like that which makes me wish I believed in hell so I could know that ultimately they get punished, but I don't. Actually I'd prefer they life a nice long life so they can end up as poor men standing on the corner being harassed by young assholes, they probably wouldn't notice the irony. Oh there's also guys fighting girls at the end, which gets into an awkward spot when a woman runs up and start swinging at a guy, he keeps running away but eventually pops her once or twice in self defense, is that wrong?

I guess I can't hate humanity because of a few pieces of shit out at the end of the bell curve.

bitching about other people's bitching

I'm getting annoyed today. It's abnormally cool today, currently its in the low 60's. But I can only hear people bitch about the weather for so long before I just want to scream, shut the fuck up you whiny bitch no one cares! A week ago you bitched because it way 85 now you bitch cause its 65. It's one thing when theres two feet of snow and its 10 degrees below zero and you walk in with icicles in your facial hair to walk in and say, damn its cold. Or if its 95 to mention the heat, but when you work inside an office and its 2:30 meaning you haven't been outside in a few hours then shut the fuck up, it's not cold in here. It's not even cold outside your just looking for a reason to bitch. Oh in case you can't tell I've heard several people mention that it's cool in here, usually I hear it once from a person so I might here it a few times from different people but whatever, its the one person in particular who has said it at least half a dozen times that I just want to beat with a three-hole punch, straight up Herbert Kornfeld style.

So that I don't sound like a raving lunatic, this is a person who simply always has something they feel they need to complain about. It gets old, very very quickly. I guess we all need to vent sometimes, personally I vent right here, where people can read my rants if they want, or they can skip it I don't care. Anyway when ever I hear someone complain about weather I think of this line from the classic song "I'm an Asshole" by Dennis Leary,

I use public toilets
And I piss on the seat
I walk around in the summer time sayin', "How about this heat?"

I'm an asshole
(he's an asshole, what an asshole)