Oh Shit Grasshopper

who loves me?
Cause I just found out what I want for christmas. Miyagi Dojo (Karate Kid) adult footed pajamas. I don't even wear PJ's but I'd rock this.

Close-minded, Opinionated and Judgemental

My first proper post in a while....

My sister loves to call me close-minded and it really annoys me. Not because I think I'm completely and totally open-minded, but because she thinks I should be. Yes I am opinionated, and I'm ok with that because all the opinions that I hold strongly I've thought about a great deal, usually done research and then came to my conclusion. Once I've done all of that it's true that I can be rather close-minded to arguments from people who have not. Why is that a bad thing? I'll listen intently to someone wants to talk about the problems with Obama's fiscal policy. I'll completely ignore or possibly berate and belittle anyone who says Obama is a muslim socialist terrorist. If being open-minded means I need to listen when stupid people say stupid things over and over then I don't want to be open-minded. I can't call that a straw-man but it is picking on an easy target, so lets keep going. I also seem (am) rather arrogant when it comes to religion vs. science. I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have a scientific mindset and I have half a clue about standards of logic and evidence. For some reason if you ask for hard evidence of super-natural shit people get all uppity as if you were the one making an unreasonable demand. If you say that an all powerful omnipotent all loving magic sky daddy created the world including and an evil henchman to cause pain and suffering then sent his son, which is really him, to die to erase the evil from the henchman, and now all ya gotta do to be happy forever after you die is to love the son, which is really sky daddy, and the only proof you can present is a book written thousands of years ago that sounds exactly many many other books written at the same time, and I have piles and piles of archaeological evidence, incredible DNA evidence, and countless attempts to refute the idea, all of which have failed, then excuse me for seeming close minded when I laugh at your superstitions. Open minded is the way to approach a situation, its not the way you need to remain forever on a subject. Never slam the door entirely mind you, always be willing to hear out a good argument thats a huge part of the scientific mindset, but so if evidence. Not all views deserve equal standing, out of habit I almost said "I'm sorry but not all views deserve equal standing" but why should I be the least bit sorry about knowing that some arguments are far more robust than others? Just because you can find two sides to an issue doesn't mean they are equal. I think this is an major problem with journalism, they like to show both sides which is good, but lets say something like the autism-vaccine link, you know the one that doesn't exist, then fine show both sides but before the discusion they should have to briefly explain what their views are based on. First you can have the mother (or father) of an autistic child with her sob story and how she started an organization to stop the use of vaccines, then have the medical doctor who has spent years searching for a link between autism and vaccines, the exhaustive research thats gone into their side of the story. They don't do this because the discussion would be over at this point, once you show the incredible disparity between truth and truthiness then how can the discussion continue? Once you see that one side has actually put huge amounts of effort into finding the cause of autism, and have learned in no uncertain terms that they can rule out vaccines as the cause. While the other side is simply angry and in need of something or someone to blame. Then it would quickly get turned around to show the harm, the people who are dying because of parents who think that vaccines cause problems and forget that vaccines do prevent deadly diseases that are nearly eradicated but can quickly come back if people stop getting vaccinated. So to follow the thesis of this post, when I first heard about autism and vaccines, I thought it was interesting, its a terribly disease thats quickly on the rise and maybe they've found the problem. So I looked into it, check out the CDC website, do some googlin' and quickly find out that people blamed it on the mercury in vaccines. We know mercury is is bad so injecting it into children can't be good, so thats a good hypothesis, but then you find out that others agreed so they stopped putting mercury in the vaccines since (i think) 1996 and it had no affect on autism rates. Thats a good indicator that mercury wasn't the problem. Keep searching and find out that considerable research has been done to try to find the link, and none of the research can find any correlation between the two. So then when someone from work asks me to look this stuff up because a client is talking about it, I say that yeah I'll print out the info, but there is no link, vaccines don't cause autism but not getting vaccinated could kill your kid. I don't think thats close minded, but if you want to say that it is that fine cause I probably don't care about your opinion anyway. The problem comes when its my sister that says it and I do care about her opinion, at least a little bit.

Another friend thinks I'm very judgmental, and I'm really not sure if I am or not. Personally I think everyone is judgmental and I'm not sure why we try to pretend we aren't or even why we think we shouldn't be judgmental. Don't judge based on stereotypes, thats obviously bad, and don't be quick to judge but once you know the person a bit you decide if you like them, if they're a good person or not, thats judgment and it's a good thing. Personally I think I'm bad about only seeing the good in too many people and ignoring their glaring faults. I don't discriminate, and I'm nice to almost everyone, but if someone does something I don't like then hell yeah I'm going to judge that person by their actions. The flip side of that is judging people as nice or friendly or whatever based on their positive actions. Again whats wrong with that?

Actually I think the real reason that she calls me judgmental is that she thinks I look down on everyone, which isn't an entirely false charge. I can be an arrogant prick, I know that. But the specific thing that I do that I know pisses her off really isn't meant to be an arrogant thing at all. When a friend says something that isn't true I correct them, and this annoys people. In my head I'm trying to teach them so that the next time around they are talking about the subject they can have more knowledge on the subject. I'm really not trying to be insulting or belittling at all, I'm not even trying to show off, but I know it comes off that way.

So as for being close-minded, if I don't know about the subject I'm very open, once I know about it you damn well better have some evidence if you want to try to change my mind, and if you want to call me close minded for not listening to an uninformed opinion, then go fuck yourself. As for judgmental, well again I think the other part is the real issue and I should work on letting minor shit go. But an Ant and all other insects are still animals motherfuckers (inside jokes aren't a good idea on a blog btw)

ugh

What the fuck did I do to my shoulder? And my ribcage? I did move a few things for people at work yesterday, including a big cabinet thing but that shouldn't have cause anything. I did do other, um.... aerobic exercises for a few hours last night. I'm also a little concerned about possible carpel tunnel, a few times lately it's just felt like I've pulled something in the area below my wrist. I do type a bit, I guess its possible. I will feel so pathetic if I get injured typing.

optical illisions

Fun with flaws in our brains!
I suddenly want to paint a room like this....

Happy Thanksgiving

I haven't been doing much blogging lately, so to my loyal follower, I'm sorry. I've just been really busy of late with school and work and the old QR has suffered for it. I might be buying a laptop pretty cheap off a friend so maybe I'll be on more. Either way enjoy the holiday of gluttony, er thanksgiving.

Juxtaposition on Guns

I find a very cruel irony about two recent headlines in my local paper. One was a whole thing about the rise in guns sales because idiots think that Obama is going to take away their guns. Yeah if we're lucky he is going to get rid of assault rifles and put safeguards on handgun purchases, background checks and shit. I call them idiots because I live in NY which already has some gun control laws and I'm willing to bet that if Obama could get the whole country to the same level as NY he'd be a happy man. Thats it, prove who you are and where you live to buy a shot gun or a rifle, and a through background check for handguns.

The horrible irony is that the day before this article about people buying thousands of rounds of ammo was the story of a 12 year old boy and his 10 year old friend who were playing with dads gun, got it out of the safe and accidentally killed himself.

Fuck the NRA

Ugh

I have something of a one tract mind. So seeing as I've had to do all this research on torture it's been the topic of conversation far far too often of late. I'm not sure if you've noticed but torture just doesn't lead to pleasant conversations.

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

Torture

(Warning: I'm using shitty ass IE so I don't have spell check, oh no's)

So I finally got around to starting my psych paper on torture. It's amazing how common one of the cruelest forms of torture really is for prisoners of all types, isolation.

I read a report from Physicians for Human Rights about the stuff going on at Gitmo and other places. Pretty horrible stuff. Now I'm starting in on the US torture instruction manual. Ok so its not called that, its called "The Manipulation of Human Behavior." What it is is a book from 1961 that lays out the most "modern" use of psychological knowledge for the purposes of interogation. I'm willing to bet that at the time they didn't realize the long term effects of such interogation. They thought of it simply as techniques, not torture. Oh and in the report I found it interesting that one of their major sources of info about the goings on at Gitmo et all besides the Red Cross was the FBI that was a bit stunned by what they saw, not so much because it was cruel and illegal, it is the FBI after all, but because it's not an effective way to get information. What I didn't see in the report is the real purpose of torture (admittedly I'm only 50 pages into that report) which is intimidation. Pure and simple, you don't torture people for intelligence purposes, you torture people to scare the shit out of everyone aligned against you, its the bully mentality of showing that you're the baddest motherfucker on the block. What the fuck has happened to this country when we need to flex like that? There was a time when you wanted to be our friend cause we'd help you out when you needed it, hook you up with shit if we really liked you, even fight wars for ya, and you didn't want to be our enemy cause we had the ability to crush anything that moved. Now (although not for much longer) we kinda sorta help our friends (other than Israel who's still our friend with benefits), and lets face it no one is nearly as scared of our military as they once were. Don't get me wrong, army vs. army, no country is stupid enough to face us. I made this point in the last post, but partially because of that, we don't see "real" wars anymore. Countries don't dare fight, instead they have to turn to ideological mad men, aka the enemy or terrorists or patriots or freedom fighters depending on the time and which side you're on. So whats my point? I have no idea anymore. I've been stuck doing fucking data entry for way to long and my mind has turned to mush. I'm a little surprised that we haven't started inflicting forced data entry onto prisoners, guess theres still some things that are just too cruel.

But on that note I need to get back to work on this evil ass paper.

Not So Fast Mr. Zinn

I'm generally in pretty close agreement with Howard Zinn, but there is one maybe two important points in his latest article that I must take issue with. First off heres what he wrote.

Obama's Historic Victory

by Howard Zinn

Those of us on the Left who have criticized Obama, as I have, for his failure to take bold positions on the war and on the economy, must join the exultation of those Americans, black and white, who shouted and wept Tuesday night as they were informed that Barack Obama had won the presidential election. It is truly a historic moment, that a black man will lead our country. The enthusiasm of the young, black and white, the hopes of their elders, cannot simply be ignored.

There was a similar moment a century and a half ago, in the year 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln had been criticized harshly by the abolitionists, the anti-slavery movement, for his failure to take a clear, bold stand against slavery, for acting as a shrewd politician rather than a moral force. But when he was elected, the abolitionist leader Wendell Phillips, who had been an angry critic of Lincoln's cautiousness, recognized the possibility in his election.

Phillips wrote that for the first time in the nation's history "the slave has chosen a President of the United States." Lincoln, he said, was not an abolitionist, but he in some way "consents to represent an antislavery position." Like a pawn on the chessboard, Lincoln had the potential, if the American people acted vigorously, to be moved across the board, converted into a queen, and, as Phillips said, "sweep the board."

Obama, like Lincoln, tends to look first at his political fortunes instead of making his decisions on moral grounds. But, as the first African American in the White House, elected by an enthusiastic citizenry which expects a decisive move towards peace and social justice, he presents a possibility for important change.

Obama becomes president in a situation which cries out for such change. The nation has been engaged in two futile and immoral wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the American people have turned decisively against those wars. The economy is shaken by tremendous blows, and is in danger of collapsing, as families lose their homes and working people, including those in the middle class, lose their jobs, So the population is ready for change, indeed, desperate for change, and "change" was the word most used by Obama in his campaign.

What kind of change is needed? First, to announce the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and to renounce the Bush doctrine of preventive war as well as the Carter doctrine of military action to control Mideast oil. He needs to radically change the direction of U.S. foreign policy, declare that the U.S. is a peace loving country which will not intervene militarily in other parts of the world, and start dismantling the military bases we have in over a hundred countries. Also he must begin meeting with Medvedev, the Russian leader, to reach agreement on the dismantling of the nuclear arsenals, in keeping with the Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty.

This turn-around from militarism will free hundreds of billions of dollars. A tax program which will sharply increase taxes on the richest 1% of the nation, and will tax their wealth as well as their income, will yield more hundreds of billions of dollars.

With all that saved money, the government will be able to give free health care to everyone, put millions of people to work (which the so-called free market has not been able to do. In short, emulate the New Deal program, in which millions were given jobs by the government. This is just an outline of a program which could transform the United States and make it a good neighbor to the world

Good shit for sure, tax the rich, cut the military, give people jobs not checks. But oddly enough its the military part I disagree with, sorta. First off Iraq, we want out and they want us out. Lets work with there government and get out as soon as we can. I'm sure the pull-out won't be nearly quick enough, but were all in basic agreement on that one. Afghanistan, I have no idea. I just don't hear enough news coming out of that place to have any clue what is going on let alone what the solution is. If we can't be seen as a helping force there and we can't find Bin Laden then we need to get the fuck out. If on the other hand there are still useful goals to be accomplished there then I'm not entirely opposed to increased numbers there. If we can take all our troops out of Iraq and put them into Afghanistan for 6 months to capture Bin Laden then fine lets do it. This is all assuming that guy hasn't died from kidney failure as a free man years ago. I need to learn more about the situation in Afghanistan before I commit myself fully to a position on that. Maybe I should back off on Howard because I bet he's done the research. Then again backing off isn't really my style.

The other point of contention is with the idea of closing all our foreign military bases. Closing some, hell yeah, Guantanamo comes to mind quick like a bunny. But I disagree with this on two counts. First off I don't think its a good idea. Second Obama is not going to do it, period. There is nothing the left can do to get Obama to close a significant portion of our oversees bases. It's political suicide for one, and as Zinn likes to point out, Obama for all his good is still a politician first. More importantly in Audacity of Hope Obama talks about growing up in Indonesia where despite being half-way around the world he still felt the long arm of American military influence. Someone planning to commit a crime is going to think a little harder before they target an American because America might just decide to fuck some shit up. It's like having a Schizophrenic pit bull with you at all times. Sometimes you can punch the guy in the face and the dog will lick ya, think USS Liberty. The next time though that same dog might rip your arm off, Afghanistan, then maul an entire neighborhood for no apparent reason other than it's developed a taste for blood, Iraq. So now you're that criminal, looking for a target, you see an American, but in the back of your mind you see that crazy ass pit bull and have no idea how its going to react but you know if its bad its going to be really bad. Maybe I'll wait for a Canadian or something.

Thats my early morning, not fully away take on our military. That all being said that still leaves many billions of dollars worth of waste in the military, my favorite example was in Time magazine talking about cost overruns. The Osprey was on the list some other stuff and a new series of nuclear subs that cost some outrageous price, but ended up costing even more. But tell me this real quick, what the fuck do we need nuclear subs for? when was the last time we fought a country with a real navy? WWII I'm thinkin. Oh sure if we want to keep some of our subs around for intimidation fine, but do we really need to spend billions on new ones that have no real purpose? The work on new weapons that make sense for the modern battle field isn't a bad thing, but lets make sure we aren't wasting our money on weapons that only make sense in a bygone era.

But lets not take this lightly, there is a reason there won't be a traditional war anymore. The US Military has become sort of like the alien from "The Day The Earth Stood Still" anyone wants to fight a real war and we will wipe them off the face of the earth. Thats a role we can fill, but lately we've slipped. Russia and Georgia can get a bit frisky without fear of American backlash because we're chained to Iraq. And cause realistically we still want to avoid a war with Russia. Willing to bet they want to avoid our wrath too.

The Onion is a little too accurate....

Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Progress.

It suddenly occurred to me that Naomi Klein is right, in the Shock Doctrine. But it's true in both directions, but I don't think to the same degree. She railed against using natural or man-made disasters to further economic and political ideas. Don't we liberals do the same thing? FDR never would have the new deal without the great depression. Then again we wouldn't have needed it without the depression. Actually now that I have said this I'm not so sure it's true after all. Would Obama have been elected without the financial collapse? Probably, but it sure wouldn't have been a landslide. There was a point to this. I was going to say how liberals also use crisis to further their goals and its true, if you've read the Shock Doctrine than you know there's many examples of the conservatives doing this, cough cough 9/11 cough, then I was going to say how we use it to better lives while they do it for money, but thats just a matter of perspective. Ultimately I think this really just shows that the nature of society is to protect the statue quo. We fear change, unless things get so bad that we fear the path we are on more than the unknown. But we all know that.

Bwahahahahaha!!!!!

The Aliance of the radical liberal socialist demi-muslim's has finally taken control!!!!! Bwahahahahah!!!
Feel the wrath of a decent living for all!
Redistribution of wealth, fuck the rich!
Peace!
Other evil un-american shit.....
Uh....

BTW. Wow,.... shitty timing. just at the moment when I was going to say I've neer been happier Rob's QOMU says, "Ted Stevens is winning..." Ugh... Well I'm still fuckin' happy right now, and maybe ever so slightly tipsy. Oh yeah and I'm at Rob's house. Hello Rob 4 feet away!

I'm still only half convinced that I'm going to wake up in a moment to my alarm saying November 4th, this all being simply a dream.

And to all a good night.

P.S. Obama's good. He reminds me what a president is supposed to sound like. And I'm not sure what more I can say about that.
And if that McCain had been in this election it would have been a much tougher race. That's the McCain I once respected. Oh well.

Happy Election Day!

I'm so happy to have finally voted for a President and not against the other guy.

Ok so here's my personal predictions. Obama at 320+ in the Electoral College, 56 seats in Senate (57 if you count Lieberman and I don't, but Sanders is cool) and pick up some number of seats in the House. Sorry, but it's hard to follow all the house races.

I'm like a kid at christmas right now. I want to watch as the map starts lighting up blue. Oh and it looks like I'm heading to Robs house to watch the results come in. Bwahahaha! See ya tonight!

So much to say

Hey in case you haven't noticed its Election Day! But I'll get into that later so its at the top of the page.

Das Halloween

A fuckin' roller coaster of a Halloween. I'll write this up real brief cause I have a lot to say and not much time. First off I went as a PEZ Dispenser, or specifically an Obama PREZ Dispenser. Corny, yes, but it was amusing and apparently liked by enough. I threw a small Obama sticker on the back just to make it clear it wasn't meant to insult our next president. I got one snide comment about the sticker, oh well. This all went on at a big party at the holiday inn, where I met up with some friends I haven't seen in a really long time. One downside to my costume, its hard to pull a beautiful woman in close to dance when you're wearing a cardboard box. Still had a blast, danced like a fool and then with the help of my friends I won the Most Original Costume Contest. The judges narrowed it down to three then at the end of the night the crowd picks the winner. My friends were like a religious cult band, they could have been an SNL skit, but they were the only ones of the top three still there. So the MC told Where's Waldo and the PREZ dispenser to come up. My friends actually got booed by the crowd, I'm not sure why but they were out. So they screamed for me and I jumped around like an idiot and got the loudest cheers. Pretty sweet. Won a hundred bucks too! So that much of the night was great.

Then went back to my friends party where everyone was pretty drunk, and apparently feeling frisky. Three of my female friends are on a couch with another girl laying across them repeatedly lifting her shirt for the amusement of all. Pictures were taken and nipples were sucked. Almost all of us found it hilarious, the one who didn't will become significant later on. Another female friend decided it would be a good idea to make out with most of the guys at the party, I can't say it was bad idea. I have always mentioned that my friends are a little crazy right? It was all in good fun. We find a couple of sober drivers and head back to where we started the night (I didn't mention that part as it was just getting costumes ready), as we left in high spirits a spotlight shines on us from the porch of the house we're leaving, telling us to move along. We shout back naturally, then the light goes out, oh thats not our friend, thats a cop. He told us to get moving. I did think it was odd that the crowd of drunks piling into cars and the cops didn't even ask if we had sober drivers, which we did. Apparently in the other car the shenanigans continued between one friends wife and another friends girlfriend, again most just thought it was funny, most. That stuff continued until two wifes decided to kiss each other while siting on my lap. Thats when one husband finally flipped out, ironically my lap wasn't the problem. My friends trust me, shit one friend told me that if he walked in and I was in bed with his girl he'd still assume nothing was going on. They've probably just seen me hit on women and know how bad I am at it. But anyway he flipped out and started screaming, then it gets weird, another friend was flipping out on the other wife who responded with even more screaming. We assumed the cops would be on their way by this point. At this point the two that were really screaming I wasn't concerned about, they fight when they drink, and they (she) had drank a LOT. The important thing about their fights is that they're just verbal. So we all thought we had seen the drama of the evening, it was probably 4 am by this point so I head for the couch and the others head to bed. I'm not sure I should really tell this next part, but I think I've implied enough already that if I don't tell it you'll assume worse than it was. I don't like airing dirty laundry like this but this blog is how I vent, and this was some very heavy shit and I need to get it out.

There's still yelling from downstairs as I turn off the light. As my head hits the couch I hear, "Help!" Oh fuck. I run down the stairs, think twice, run back up the stairs to get my other friend, and run back down, and mind you I don't run. I'm ashamed of two things that happen here, one is that when we got to the door we hesitated, it wasn't for more than a few seconds but I'm still ashamed that it wasn't instant. We go in, and he's screaming at us. Something gets thrown and the glass lamp shade smashes on the floor. The glass under my bare feet is no where near as sharp as the razors edge were standing on, I really and truly expected to get punched at this point as we backed him up towards where his wife was crying on the floor. It should be clear to anyone who reads this that by nature I am not a fighter, but I've got an easy 60 lbs on him and more importantly he's still recovering from a badly broken leg. At the same time I know there was a time when he got in a lot of fights and I know that if this goes down it won't be pretty for anyone, but I can honestly say that my own well being wasn't being factored into the equation. Far too much adrenaline coursing through my veins to be worried about petty things like that. When my friend, his wife, is crying on the floor with a fat lip the only thought in my head is, "Do I kill him?" My life has never had me in a situation like this before, it's common enough in movies that you think about it and you think you know how you'll react. But when suddenly its a close friend who you're expecting to clock you it's a very different thing. If he'd threw a fist then it was a wrap, but as long as he didn't my pacifist side kept me held back, barely. I'm so glad that I hadn't drank very much and was able to take control of the situation, I eventually got everyone calmed down a bit. Got him to sit on the couch, she went upstairs. I probably reacted correctly, but I have to admit that friend or not, a part of me wishes I had beaten the shit out of him.

Eventually they calmed down a bit and she agrees to go back downstairs, and I went with them. I laid on the love seat with two pitbulls and listened to way way more than any friend should about marital problems coming from their room, but there was no more screaming. There was more I could add but I think you get the point. I was so angry that I skipped what was probably an awesome Halloween party the next night.

So that was my roller coaster, or swan dive I suppose, of a night. Hope everyone else had a fun Halloween. Oh and if the person who this is about happens to read this and has a problem with it, fuck you don't slap your wife, and I'll probably see ya later.

Happy Halloween!

What can I say, I love Halloween. It's a simple holiday where you dress up and have fun if thats your style and if you're not into it who cares? It's an excuse to throw a great party, and its one of the only times when you can play a character in real life. For one day out of the year you can be anyone, or anything that you want and it's almost always going to be socially acceptable. I say almost because as a couple of friends were sitting around last night, still trying to figure out what they want to be this year, another friend couldn't help but rattle off a list of the most offensive costumes he could possibly come up with. But for the most part anything goes. I might just put up some pictures of my costume this year... I think it's pretty good.

Have fun this weekend!

Evangelicals aren't so bad...

Eh this was going to be a jokingly perverted post about how evangelicals have sex younger than almost any other religious group. Note to self, never get an idea for a post in your head based on the Fark Headline. It is a fairly interesting article though, about how Liberals are all for real sex-ed and are fine with pre-marital sex, but an unplanned pregnancy is a big deal. And Conservatives want abstinence only education, are not cool with premarital sex, but if you get knocked up it's no big deal, your keepin' the kid and ya might want to marry the fella but other wise it's fine. Interesting, at first glance it's hard for me to imagine being nonchalant about unplanned pregnancy, and I'm sure it's not exactly nonchalant if your the teen about to go tell daddy to "put down the shotgun pa I've got something to tell you." From the evangelical perspective it's all part of god's plan so I guess it makes sense to not flip out too much over bad choices. I don't agree with the view, but I can try my best to understand them.

Slacktober

Damn I haven't written anything for a week! I'm sorry.

My usual topic of politics is pretty much all wrapped up other than the formalities in a week where it becomes official that Obama is the next president. I know a lot of people that are still worried that there are too many people with deep seated racism that will vote for McCain even after saying they were for Obama for months. Personally I just don't by it.

Actually, here is my prediction. Obama will win, not a landslide but pretty damn big, 325 Electoral votes or more. Then he will get in office, along with a pretty good majority of Dems in both the House and the Senate, Leiberman will no longer have the Dems by the nuts, and..... not much. We have no money. He won't be able to do shit, he wont be able to get us out of Iraq quickly He'll end up escalating Afghanistan in order to finish what should have been done in '02 spending the money we save as we draw down from Iraq. There won't be any universal health care, our economy is still going to be fucked, we're still going to be fighting an idea and all we will be able to cheer about is that we stopped going in the wrong direction, but I really don't think the democratic party has the will to do what needs to be done right now. It's going to take some hard love. Obama is going to have to stare down america and say we've been writing checks our asses can't cash. We've been living way beyond our means, and it can't continue. The government is going to return to the pay-go system and I highly recommend that we as a people do the same, if you can't afford it, DON'T BUY IT! One that really sucks is that I guarantee we don't get universal health care, which is too bad cause it'll probably be cheaper in the long run. Companies can bitch about getting taxed but imagine if no company had to worry about health care for its employees. That would help businesses of all sizes, but it won't happen because I'm sure it will cost a lot of money to implement and guess what between the trillion in bailouts and the trillion in tax cuts for the rich we are fucking broke and we gotta be nearing the limit on our credit. For the same reason its bad to take out a loan to pay off your credit cards, this constant reliance on borrowed money has to end eventually. Of course we could easily slash billions out of the pentagons budget but thats not allowed. Do you realize we are still building new submarines? Seriously, I think it was $200 billion on new Subs. Umm... Subs are used to stealthily destroy boats or the big ones are for launching nuclear missiles. We better not be doing any nuking and we should have enough old subs for taking out the Al-Qeada's Navy. This sort of stuff is fucking stupid. Fight the war with the army we have, not the one that looks cool in the movie- Do you concur captain? I do concur.

As for me, well life keeps goin'. I think I'm going to be an Obama Pez Dispenser for Halloween. Or should that be a Prez dispenser? Too corny?

An Interesting Time

These are great days my friends, or at least very interesting. The economic troubles make me wonder if our country and the world might finally come to grasp with the fact that the industrial revolution has forever changed the face of society, rugged individualism no longer works. No one lives self-sustained in a cabin in the woods anymore. The days of the skilled craftsman working from his home/shop is gone as well. Even the family farm is almost gone. Society like everything else has evolved, unfortunately the industrial revolution means that we need fewer people to do the same amount of work. That leaves people without meaningful employment. The medical revolution means that people don't die so much anymore and so we have way way more people than the world can sustain, but thats not a topic I'm going to cover this time. I just think it's very important that as a people we realize that some of our old ideals are fantastic and need to be cherished, but others ideals are simply not realistic anymore. We need to get rid of these 19th century notions that hard work is all thats needed to prosper. Toss aside the silly idea that free markets solve all problems. I really hope that this failure will finally let people understand that modern business alone has a terrible secret, without the help of the government it cannot survive, your tax dollars prop up companies, not just under the bailout but always. We've had minor amounts of socialism since at least the 1830's Clay's American System (history class sorry) so people just need to shut the fuck up about it being unamerican. My hope is that we will realize that socialism isn't evil, its also not a complete picture, we need to take the best of socialism and the best of capitalism and create a functional system.

Ok I swear I'm going to get to my point!

Another reason it's an interesting time to be alive is this fuckin' election. Can you believe that we're actually going to have a black president? Which reminds me, of a shirt I want, "I was going to vote for Obama, till I heard he was half white." Which brings me to racism. What other time than now could you possibly hear this story?

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

I honestly am not sure how to respond. Assuming it's true, and that the people really are planning on voting for Obama it's a pretty crazy story. I'm glossing over the fact that the woman asks her husband who she is voting for because thats a whole other mess that I don't feel like getting into, but I really think that within my generation there are very few who don't put men and women as equals. So what's my point? Well quite simply that the world has suddenly become an interesting place again. I think that we're taking huge steps towards erasing racism and sexism, not in the ways that our parents did in the sixty's by taking to the streets but by living in a post 60's world where men and women of all colors are quite simply treated the same. My parents generation have to consciously push racism out of their lives, my generation was raised by people who didn't want to be racist, thats quite an advantage. I look at my town, actually it was a friend of a friend who really drove this home, he started rattling off the names of all the kids he knew, then finishes with and they're all mixed. We ain't gunna have racism because there aren't gunna to be any race's left! The world is changing around us, not by force like it need to be done initially, now were simply swept up in the currents that are slowly moving us towards what I'm hopeful to think is going to be a brighter future. I'm not so idealistic as to think that we might not flow over a few waterfalls along the way with this economic shit but if thats what it's going to take to save us then so be it. I look forward to what tomorrow brings.... Oh wait no I don't I have a history test tomorrow. Clay's American System! Woo!

Spore

So I have a new roommate and she brought her computer, and its way better than my old POS. I laughed when she had all of three games for it and one happened to be Spore, a game I was about as curious about as anyone who had no expectations of playing a new computer game anytime soon. I spent way way too long playing it the last couple of days. It seems to be mostly focused on the end part of the game which is in space, lots of trading, forming alliances and stuff like that. The concept for the beginning is neat but I can't decide if it was worth it or not. You start off as a small simple creature which you get to "evolve" into ever larger and more interesting creatures. You eventually head to dry land, "evolve" some more and once you get smart enough you form a tribe, which eventually becomes a civilization and once you have united the whole planet either by force or by alliances or whatever you head to space. How you play the game affects you're specially abilities. Being the first time I played I just killed everything in sight and became a military powerhouse. Now that I'm in space though that doesn't seem to be helping me much. Its an addicting game for sure, but I can't decide if its really a good game or not. Guess I'll just have to keep going before I can answer that. It also seems really easy, but I do have it on easy because I'd never played before, which is often a big mistake, you get into bad habits because you can get away with them on easy then you move on with all the wrong strategies in your head. Oh well.

Like I said I get the impression that the part I'm in now is the main part of the game so I should probably hold off till I've gotten further, but so far my one line review would be, "It's caused me to loose sleep." Last two nights I've looked up at the clock eventually only to say oh crap it's two am and I've got a test tomorrow, last night it was only one am. So I guess I like it well enough so far.

The Express

Confused as to why I would want to go see a football movie? Well first of all I went to Ernie Davis Jr. High here in Elmira, although I don't think it was called that then. Actually that building would have been Elmira Free Academy, in the movie I guess they just called it Elmira High so people don't think it was a private school, it's not. Anyway I want to see this for that reason but his story is practically made for the big screen. And it's about more than just football.

The movie coming out got me wondering if people outside of this area know the story of Ernie Davis? Maybe some die-hard sports buffs but I would guess not too many. If you really want to know then go see the flick, it really should be good. Lets see heres the uber quick version, oh and if you know nothing about the guy, then theres a bit of a spoiler about how the story ends. He grew up here in Elmira, went to Syracuse University a couple hours away, was the best football player of the day, won the freaking Heisman Trophy, and he was black at a time when that a wasn't socially acceptable. So it should be a moving story about overcoming diversity and racism. So it'll have the usual up's and downs of any good drama, the low's when they flay the confederate flag in his face and drop N-bombs like it was Vietnam, but then highs when he scores the winning touchdown in their faces, that sorta shit. But this story does have one final twist, one that I've been told they only briefly mention in the movie. Now for the Spoiler Alert, if you don't know Ernie Davis's story and plan to see the movie, stop now.

For those still reading, how is it that the first black Heisman Trophy winner is someone you've never heard of? I mean this kid was good, he signed on with the Cleveland Browns and Jim Brown took him under his wing and expected him to be amazing, but it didn't happen. He was never able to play a single pro-game. He died of Leukemia, but the story goes that at one of the first games of the season he came to the stadium, and when he walked onto the field the entire stadium stood up and gave him a ten minute standing ovation. I hope they were able to incorporate that part into the film.

The Dark Knight

I finally got to see this flick and it's pretty damn good. Not even just sorta, hey it's good for a comic book movie but like actually a good film, I'm impressed. The dead guy played a great joker, he seemed more like a very disturbed person who had something terrible or many terrible things happen to him, completely insane but human, vs the old joker who just seemed like a the bad guy from a cartoon, or a comic.... So yeah this isn't exactly news to anyone but hey I'm cheap, I don't go to the theater unless it's something fuckin' special, or a chick wants to go, then I'll go watch National Treasure 2... true story, and that bitch just wanted to be friends. Which reminds me I gotta do a shout out for another movie that I might just go see in the theater.

FAIL

Fail, because schadenfreude is hard to spell.

And this picture is frickin' amazing.Yeah thats Paulson in the foreground during the big senate hearing.

If you'd like to know where the whole FAIL meme came from then read this from Slate (also where the pic is from), if you'd rather simply enjoy other people's fuck-up's then go to FailBlog.com.

Much Betta

A few days ago I did a bit of bitching, woe is me and all that shit. Lets face it I go through my swings like everyone, theres good times and there are bad, and yeah maybe my swings are more severe than my life really justifies. My life is pretty damn stable, but I'm not. Maybe I just want change so badly that my emotions swing so it seems like my life is changing even when its not. But who cares about that Freudian bullshit? I basically said recently that I'm going to stop being a little emo bitch and ya know what, I feel a whole lot better. I also took a couple days off work, I said I was sick, which was true, of course it was the sort of sickness that has more to do with the chemicals of the brain (not added ones) than viruses or bacteria but so what? The important thing is that I feel better now. I will admit that much of my recent downward spiral was the new girl at work, shes quite easy to fall for. But I fucked that up real quick as is my M.O. and then partially because of that I was down all last week and hardly spoke to her or the other lady friends at the office. I wasn't trying to pay it cool or any of that I just had the distinct impression that she didn't want to talk to me, and seeing as she shares an office with the other girl I usually bullshit with I was pretty bored at work which just left me with more introspective wallowing. So what happens today when I finally head back to work? She stands at my door for half an hour bullshitting with me. Then I kicked her out saying I had to get some work done. So yeah I think I'll stick with being slightly cold, which I don't think is a bad thing. I think most people do it, I've been too open, too easy, and it's no good for anyone. It's not the way I would like things to be, I wish we could all be honest with each other and have life have fairytale endings but this is reality and I'm realizing that Machiavelli was right, there's the way things should be and the way things are. If I want to be happy in the real world then I need to wake up to that reality and stop being so damn nice all the time. Hmmm... maybe I'll try some new pick-up lines.

McCain's Crowds

Ok so McCain has been saying that abusive comments have been hurled at him during Obama rallies, just like how people keep yelling "Terrorist" at his and Palin's events. Now I've only been to one Obama rally and it's true that people yell things, this was during the primary so it was also directed at Hillary but the important thing was Obama's reaction. When people simply Boo'ed he would stop them and say, "McCain has done great service for our country blah blah respect and shit." (not an exact quote) And thats the important part, Obama would not allow us to show our disdain for his opponents, anger should not be a part of decision making. McCain and Palin simply ignore these insults and continue on, plus their constant reminders that Obama has worked with a guy who was a domestic terrorist when Obama was what like 4? This seems to create an air where such outbursts are at least acceptable if not encouraged. I actually thought it was a little weird at the time that Barack was so insistent that we not boo his opponents, but now I understand why. So yeah maybe McCain has heard some nasty shouts from the crowds, but how did Obama address them?

Mood Swing

Well we just had some random kid (late teens maybe early 20's) come into the office to ask to use the phone, he calls his mom and is crying. The secretary motions me to stand near-by I'm not paying much attention prior to this so I figure she's worried about him flipping out or something, just assume she wanted me as security. Nope, she then asked if our crisis counselor was still here and I said he just left, turns out he had asked his mom to get him before he kills himself. At my agency we take that pretty seriously... except she was waving me to help. Fuck that. Thats not really my forte' to begin with, but I'm pretty much emotionally blank today and I really really don't think I could have helped the situation. So you just got outta jail and went to see your girl friend only to find out that she has a new boyfriend? Kiss my ass, at least you had a girlfriend. I'm older than you, smarter than you and probably an all around better person than you (I did say I was going to keep the arrogance) and I'm perpetually single so go fuck yourself if you're looking for empathy here. Live, die, whatever, just remember that suicide fucks up you whole family and is a total dick move, and seeing as you're crying to your mom right now, I'm guessing you're family matters to you.

But then I got a couple of comments on here from Kristi who has apparently spent about 2 hours (as of the last comment) reading my blog. It's funny but it actually cheered me up a little. Apparently my writing has brought a little joy to someone I don't even know, so that's pretty cool.

So Kristi, I want to say thanks. Oh and I told you I was a simple bastard.

Just Fuck It A Little

Yeah I was in a bad mood and I can see why you guys thought I meant that I hate everything or whatever. I didn't mean that I was going to be cold and detached from my friends, although I have realized that I really can't verbalize my problems with more than a very few friends, and they aren't even my closest of friends. Plus not surprisingly I can't say anything to my guy friends. I should make it clear that my friends are the shit and they'd listen if I talked, its me, I just can't do it. So when I have a bad day I do what any man is supposed to do with his problems, drowned them in a pool of alcohol. Is it the right answer? Hell no. But sometimes it easier to just forget. To let it all go, and good old fashion alcohol seems to be the best way I've found to get my brain to just shut up for a while. So when I said fuck it all I really mean is that I'm going to try to stop letting myself fall for every woman who speaks with me. I'm never going to be truly cold, well it's possible, there really was a time when I hurt people because I'd say whatever I wanted with no concern for others feelings because I just didn't think anyone cared enough about my opinions to be hurt by them.

But I can say anything I want, it doesn't mean I'm going to be able to follow through with any of it. I'd like to find a middle ground between the two poles of me, I don't want to be a cold bastard, but I also don't want to be the softie that gets crushed on a weekly basis. School is helping with that, test coming up hey would anyone like to study? It's just a coincidence that I always seem to study with ladies, usually the cute ones. Plus it's the perfect way to get to sit around and bullshit with a chick without any pretense. The fact that I'm one of the top students in every class also means that the cute girls are happy to study with me.

So I guess that just like the stock market, I had a bit of a fall, but I've rebounded a bit. Now I'm thinking that I just need to find that happy medium between the cold arrogant bastard, and the warm push-over, maybe thats what they refer to as cool. I might hang on to the arrogance though, humility gets you know where.

Fuck It All

Maybe it's time for me to go back to the way I once was, indifferent towards everyone. Cold and alone hurts, but in love with everyone and alone hurts even more. At least when I was cold and bitter behind my wall I could pretend that it was my choice to keep everyone else out. With the wall gone it becomes painfully clear that my wall wasn't keeping them out, they had no interest in climbing over.

Bailed

So they passed the bailout bill....
The stock market is still in a free fall....
What should I be for Halloween?

Forgot the Milk

California lawmakers passed a bill to have a little day of remembrance for Harvey Milk, who was killed in his office back in 1978. The fact that he was gay is probably what got him killed and what drove Arnold to veto this bill. In thirty years we've gone from killing prominent gays to simply ignoring them, we still have a long way to go.

For me the story of Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk will forever be tied to "I fought the law" by the Dead Kennedys.

I read EVERY newspaper and magazine

Booya! Those nasty left wing lettuce eaters, they think I don't know about stuff, but when asked what magazines and newspapers I read to stay current. I said "all of 'em" shiiiit try ta beat that sucka! Ok so some haters might say thats impossible and that my answer makes it sound like I don't read any, but their just east coast elitist with their hoidy toidy printin' presses an shit. I mean come on if they just wanted some name droppin' I coulda, I do have a degree in journalism. But when big momma S-Rahh is in the hizzie y'all know the only shit gettin' spit be tha trufh. Holla!

I have no idea why I wrote this like this, guess I still miss Tha H-Dog, if anyone wants to buy me this shirt then you'll be my besttist friend forever...ish .