A line in the sand is its own irony.

Freedom and Equality

2011-08-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to chew through this Tocqueville reading assignment and I wish I could read it with others, I know this course has a discussion section but an official class for discussion always seems to screw up the point of discussion, there's some clearly hammered out objective with standardized assignments and the 'discussion' must always be tailored to fit the confines. Not only that you put a guy in the front of the room and thus becomes a presumption that this person is more knowledgeable in the matter, not saying I think I am, I'm saying it makes any discussion off kilter. Discussions are by their design supposed to be among "equals" or at least among people with a common interest in hearing each other's opinions.

Tocqueville in his Democracy in America brings up a number of contentious issues, the first one that's really stuck in my craw is democracy itself. From what I've read he clearly understands its literal and more liberal definitions. Literally democracy is all the people of a state voting on laws. He makes a point that this did occur in America in New England in the 1600s. More broadly his use of democracy is the liberal social (and neither of these words mean what I normally mean them to mean) concept; democracy as a generic concept of rejecting autocratic or aristocratic rule while still maintaining order through law with a great emphasis on individualism. What bothers me about it is really tied in with what I want to rant about here, the concepts of "equality" and "freedom".

Through my life it has come to my understanding that equality and freedom have two different definitions in common usage. At the heart of each of these definitions are two opposing social-political ideologies. The version of equality and freedom that Tocqueville refers to, when he says America is more free and equal than any European state, is the version that props up the individual as the most important factor in state issues. The alternate version is a more communist version (literally communist) that refers to the freedom and equality via the state's control of the people. This is a problem of modern American politics. Communists and those who believe in authoritarianism to a lesser extent use their version of these words to subvert the dialog. Changing the definitions of words, rather than dealing honestly with their intended goals.

Another reason this issue is sparking up with me is that in Tocqueville's intro he argues that this democratization is inevitable, that no action either for it or against it is stopping the inevitable, though he doesn't necessarily judge the goodness of this inevitability. Karl Marx had a similar attitude about Communism, which I was told stems from an older German philosopher Hegel who argued that humans (and pretty much everything else) would reach an ultimate state of existence. And Marx's idea doesn't necessarily conflict with Tocqueville, as Marx saw capitalism and democracy as a step along the way.

What brings this all together are these words freedom and equality. Equality is used much more by Tocqueville, but I've personally seen both used in dual roles and I'm sticking them together, there are other words too but I'm not thinking of them off the top of my head. Tocqueville began his intro writing "Of all the things that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me more forcibly than the equality of social conditions." the first thing I thought of (being so well bred and raised by public education in our quasi-socialist America) is 'What about slavery? What about Native Americans? What about women? Not to mention America clearly had super wealthy and powerful elites, as well as dirt poor subsistence farmers and indentured servants.' Well through context and his moving on to specifically condemn slavery and other subjects I realized partially much of my initial contention with his assessment is an unfair look back. He's judging America more equal and free than Europe in the early 1800s at the height of European monarchies. However lopsided American equality was at the time, his fond look back from the 1600s-1800s was revolutionary for individual liberty and equality, despite the numerous continuing issues.

For Tocqueville (and me) freedom and equality are tied in with individual liberty. When he gave examples of equality, he didn't mean that everyone was in a similar social status, he meant that people had a chance to better themselves. His (and my) idea of equality is equality under the law, to treat people equally, to not subjugate people or demand them to be in a social status. His example for Europe illustrates this, "The clergy opened its ranks to all, rich and poor alike, commoner and lord alike; by means of the Church, equality began to permeate the government and the man who might have vegetated in eternal enlsavement as a serf was elevated to the heart of the nobility". Later came social equality through education opportunities, and financial equality through industrial opportunities, but at no time does "equality" = "mandated social status".

This is the realm of the Communist. Equality to a Communist stems from Marx and Engels' argument that people won't be "free" until all people are "equal". Only by "free" he means entirely controlled by law, and by "equal" they meant literally murdering the wealthy class and under threat of death forced the bottom feeders to start working. Thus creating an "equal" society where everyone works and no one takes the profits, which are "equally" distributed. The freedom in this way is actually "freedom from" which is why, as much as an Atheist as I am, it hurts to hear people claim the 1st Amendment is also "Freedom from religion". "Freedom from" to me is a gateway to misinterpretation and ultimate usurpation of the original idea. "Freedom from" is not the same thing as "Freedom of" in fact they can be quite opposing. And this is the opposition of the liberty seeker and the communist. The liberty seeker wants the "of" and the Communist wants the "from".

Simple direct examples of what I'm aruging: Liberty seeker wants "Freedom of social status" the Communist wants "Freedom from social status". How does a liberty seeker get his freedom? It occurs on its own. How does the Communist get his freedom? Kill anyone who doesn't fit. But to be fair, following the Hegel idea of a natural development to a highest point, Marx believed even if you didn't kill your way to Communism, it would natually occur eventually.

And this is what brought me into this discussion. Because both Tocqueville and Marx talk about this natural and unavoidable progression. I don't know if either of them is wrong. Although I am certain that there is no necessary "ultimate" level Hegel believed in, I think evolution disproves this theory completely. I actually wrote my final in a Philosophy course arguing against this eventual final form (which I don't remember if it was Hegel or my teacher who harked back to Plato on this very ancient idea of perfection.) I think that circumstance trumps the notion of perfection every time. A perfect example of what I mean is the frog. Frogs are sometimes (if this were Wikipedia, a little "by whom?" would appear here) said to be "perfectly adapted" to their environment. I could go into great detail with examples of this "perfection" because I love frogs and I've been obsessed with them for a long time. But that's another story. It is because of this "perfection" that frogs are called an "indicator species". That is, when something happens to their environment, because they are so specifically adapted to it, they are greatly effected by very minor changes. All over America frogs species are dying off. In places of pollution, they are making freak babies with too many/too few limbs etc. This is the best argument against an "ultimate form", the very nature of nature is change. I argued then and still believe the opposite is the route nature must take, humans are on this opposite side, our great advantage, our great "adaptation" is that we do not adapt. We are terribly physically under equipped to survive anywhere on Earth. Even if we originally evolved to live in temperate climate with abundance of fruit and stupid slow moving animals, we still suck at adapting. Our greatness is not in adaptation, it is in adapting nature to meet our demands. We don't adapt to the cold, we make clothing. We don't adapt to droughts, we make irrigation. We don't adapt to fast predators, we kill them. We don't adapt to fast prey, we farm. (in the grand scheme of course, the meantime is always "make do").

The Communist idea of humanity is from Hegel's theory, that we are destined for a static and finite existence. This was the crux of Marx's argument. That we need only "so much" technology and wealth, and all the proletariat have to do is wait, and when we've got enough wealth, kill the bourgeoisie and take it all and live happily ever after. However the liberty minded idea is that the wealthy are those who best adapted the world to fit their wants and needs. To kill of the best of us to slightly boost the rest of us is both evil and self defeating. That's what bugs me the most. If we really are unavoidably heading for absolute Communism, then we are unavoidably heading towards a system that promotes its own stagnation, we are heading towards our own self-fulfilling extinction.

If this were to occur, society would be a progression from government mandated status (under autocrats and aristocrats where birth defines status) with a spectrum of "classes". Next is individual mandated status and general equality in opportunity (under the "democratic" government run by the people). The final stage is similar to the first and second, a return to government mandated status, however with a new idea of equality where instead of government mandated social separation, it is a government mandated singular class(Communism). Mathematically and poetically it fits. It's a song that is easily played. 1.2.3. It hits from both directions first rule by a small group, with no freedom, then freedom of the people however they are free to enslave themselves, and third the people have effectively eliminated the separation of government and people, created the ultimate authoritarianism, while simultaneously creating the ultimate democracy.

I just have one problem with it. I reject the entire process. Authoritarianism the common thread among all these things. Only in passing and "yin to yang" does my dream government and society have any sway in these stages. I hope for a government that elevates every individual to that of a king. Instead of an authoritarian progression to make all people government, I want an individualist progression to eliminate authoritarianism completely. Not anarchy, because I am not speaking of an absence of government, but truly self defined governance. Something more honest and more just than a static "social contract" or "best interest of" government.

In the old governments of autocrats and aristocrats (dictators and kings) the average person was afforded many civil liberties that have been wiped out by this so-called "democracy". While a commoner couldn't hold office, he could tell his son to be a better man. He could find a piece of land and work it and make his own way (many people chose to work as serfs, but there had always been the option to just make your own way). A commoner wasn't told how much he could drink, or what drugs he could or couldn't use, or who he talked to, or how he traveled. He was free to build his own home to his own standards and work for whatever rate he demanded. None of these micro-managing laws "democracy" has brought us like permits to operate a taxi, limits on alcohol content in booze, or infinitely long bureaucratic dragons to get permission from the state to build a shed on your own property existed back then because no autocrat or aristocrat has the time or patience to so thoroughly micro-manage every person's life. It was only when we gave "everyone" the reigns to law that "everyone" began leaping at the opportunity to tell everyone else how to live.

However it is in stage 2 that we see the emergence of the concept of individual rights. Presumably these rights are held to be higher than common will of the people. So while a man was generally free most of his life to do what he wanted under the auto and aristocrats, if a nobleman wanted to put your son in his personal army, or have his way with your wife, or use your house as his stables, he could do it. And you had no recourse save violence. In the "democratic" world you have "rights" that prevent the polity from voting away your son's freedom, your wife's body, or your personal property. Although I must applaud these "rights" for going on paper and showing up in official documents. I must also chastise all of humanity and this notion of democracy as a whole because no one ever respects these "rights" and they effectively become place-holder privileges to be removed at the convenience of the state. Our "rights" I could list for you have been removed repeatedly and those violations have throughout America's existence have been thoroughly upheld. Every right in the Constitution has been usurped, some more than others, but at no time has any judge stopped and simply declared "no further may government intercede" despite their original wording demanding such response immediately. Though again to be fair sex has never been forced upon people by the American government, in strong part due to the opposite culturally bound draconian laws to the contrary that cause anyone with a sexuality to suffer at some point, from laws against anything but heterosexuality, to laws forbidding heterosexuality in every way but between a man and a woman who are married and alone and in a secluded place and in the missionary position (and I'm not even far enough, let alone exaggerating, I don't have room to bring up drugs, alcohol, insurance, age, intelligence, mental competency etc.)

Stage 3 again offers a mutually excluding liberty that is merely a backdrop of absolute authoritarianism. That is the liberty of social interaction, the kind of interaction that was forbidden in aristocracy between classes, no social exchange was allowed, no education amongst equals. It is strictly forbidden to a T in many instances within the democracies, disallowing people from interacting based on race, religion, sex, gender, sexuality, age, intelligence, pretty much everything that can divide people has been divided by law in America and other democratic states. Communist influences more than appeals to liberty have changed much of that in America as we drift into Communism. Again there is an underlying hypocrisy in Communism when they extol how the black man and the white woman and the poor ignorant farmer and the homosexual are all equally able to interact as adults, and that's because in these Communist states, as freely as they may interact across what would be social divides elsewhere Communism introduces a monumental set of restrictions that are certainly "colorblind" but happily screw everyone "equally". Great, the poor man and the rich woman "can" interact. The homosexual and the polygamist can have their sexual freedom. However the system destroys notions of individuality, there is no rich woman, there is no homosexual, there is only the state, the 'us', the 'we'and sure you are "free" to try, but you better not, because you should be thinking about 'us' and not yourself.

I see the subversion of the words "freedom" and "equality" all the time in America. From both major political parties who tend to seek authoritarianism in different ways. The Republicans with their efforts of aristocratic and theological authoritarianism, and the Democratics with their efforts at Communist authoritarianism. Both use democracy as their tool and neither necessarily want to go "all the way" in the directions, that is, a Republican may be accused of wanting social ordered laws of old or religious doctrine in the courts, but I doubt many Republicans are absolutist, the same goes for Democratics who attempt to pass Communistic laws while crying that people are crying wolf about Communism, to this point that simply using the term Communism or Socialism seems archaic and out of style. But you can't really define it any other way when you hear a Republican talk about "family values" and putting them into "effect" (i.e. turning social goals into laws, like mandating stores close on Sundays for Christianity's sake) or when a Democratic representative has spent her entire career introducing legislation to regulate or eliminate guns or people being able to possess or carry them, while saying she "supports" the Second Amendment and "responsible gun ownership".

My argument is that for most of our history, and especially today. Government in all its forms relies particularly on wool, and the ability to pull it over as many people's eyes as possible.

I know there are authoritarians. I know many people love and desire authority, in any and all forms. However I believe that if people spoke plainly in their desires, if the subversiveness were eliminated, I think liberty seekers would have a stronger foothold. It is an unfortunate reality that humans are great liars, and authoritarian states rely on lies, while it is the hallmark of liberty and individualism to be as honest and forthcoming as possible. This puts liberty at an inherent disadvantage. However the main advantage this does give to individualists is that humans learn eventually that lying sucks, and it's hard to trust, and perhaps if it could be done, it might be better to have a form of government that punishes liars and demands honesty in the most honest way possible.

If you were presented with the two definitions in their most bold and realistic ways, which would you choose?

Definition A:

Freedom - Each person chooses his or her own life, to act on his or he own accord and make the best decision he or she desires.

Equality - Every person has equal treatment under the law. No person is afforded privilege or prejudice based on any quality they possess other than the exact matter at hand, no amount of wealth, fame, or influence is weighed, only the intrinsic value of human life.

Definition B:

Freedom - The people can pass any law they desire. No old custom or archaic beliefs can block the will of the majority. The state may do what is necessary to secure its continued existence and maintain order among the people.

Equality - No one may be different.

This lonely asshole.

2011-08-22T05:42:00.000-07:00

I'm not the most social person. But I don't like being alone. Alone is just my default. So I've moved to Berkeley to go to school, and honestly I'm about as lonely as I've ever been. I've been here over a month. I have met with people 3 times in these 5 weeks. I'm about to start school, and I just don't feel ready.

I wanted one cool day with friends or family this summer. I asked people over and over to come visit, told them I'd pick them up, I'd pay for everything. All I want is some company. I'm not agoraphobic, but I do have trouble enjoying going to new places alone. I don't like eating out alone, I don't like visiting places alone. Biking I suppose is one activity I love doing alone, but I don't have a bike.

Anyway, nevermind anything else. I am feeling like absolute shit right now because I begged my brother to come visit for a month, tried to negotiate my friend who's only a couple towns over to come by, and it's just not happening.

Am I really that big an asshole? I tried reconnecting with a lot of people via Facebook. In the last few weeks I've been having bad luck. I would see one of my cousins joking with her friends all the time and when I tried to joke with her a little she got really offended. I couldn't rectify it. No matter what I wrote she just kept jumping on me and getting offended even when I apologized repeatedly for a bad joke. My other cousin refused to even communicate. Another person I reconnected with took offense with something (maybe my Facebook posts) decided to just drop me instead of saying anything. I understand if people have nothing to say to each other, but to end things like that. To end things the way my best friend did, I don't understand that.

I suppose it all goes back to my best friend. One day he just dropped me. No explanation. Maybe in his mind I should understand why. But I don't know, in a long string of me wondering how insane I must be, we were friends since 1st grade. How can you just poof! drop someone. Not even a warning. The rift was not a new one. We'd have theology debates. These weren't one sided, he would call me up, with his wife, and debate me on the phone. I pointed out something which I think is horrific in the bible, and bam he drops me. Maybe I was out of line. But really a 20 year friendship ended without a fucking chance of redemption over a biblical quote?

I wonder, I must be the insane one because no one seems to be willing to call me the asshole. They just walk away. Maybe it takes an asshole to call someone an asshole, and even then usually two assholes who get along don't bother to point that kind of shit out. I know I've pissed my father off to no end. But this is rather unique. And my dad has never been silent on the issue.

To me, it just doesn't seem fair. A lot of these situations seem to stem from people being insecure, and involve me being too overbearing, or too forward, or too something, I don't know, people won't tell me. The reason I say it seems unfair is because I don't know anyone with lower self esteem or social insecurity than myself. I know people say they're insecure. A lot of people say that while being the most social, overt, popular. These people are morons. And we all know they're dead wrong. Everyone experiences anxiety, and honestly I can see how someone extremely social and popular might have more social anxiety by gross weight, but like Einstein sort of said, their problems aren't like my problems.

I just wish I could talk to someone intellectually. I feel like shit right now. Man. I gave up thinking I'd ever been some "normal" social being but I never thought I'd become a pariah.

Obviously school's about to start, but school for me has never been a social benefit. I just finished up at community college only having talked to 4 or 5 people. Seriously. Maybe 6 people. Short conversations. I'm just not good socially at all. It is a great struggle. And I've come to realize the more silent I am, the fewer enemies I make.

Before I went off to bootcamp many years ago, my former life long best friend's mom said something to me that one might have taken as an insult, certainly if I wrote it to anyone on Facebook they'd drop me like so many have. She said "You always think you're right." It was a warning. That in the military even when I think I'm right, I need to learn to take orders, follow orders, and not give people shit.

It's true. Often times I get into that "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude. I was glad she said that to me. I got through 6 years of military only on extreme occasions defying authority, but never enough to get in any trouble. I always followed orders without question. And the many times I was yelled at for this or that, I never argued, I never fought back. I took my licks. I know I can do it. I learned to check my ego (read: contentious inclinations and cynicism, I have no ego) in some instances and around some people. I haven't defeated that character flaw (probably never will considering how often I'm right anyway) but it isn't glaring. It isn't something people who only know me professionally or over Facebook would have any idea about.

I can say without a doubt when it comes to socializing, when it comes to friends and acquaintances, I know I know much less than anyone, and I've fully had my ear open to the subject for years now. I try to make sense of things, I apologize my way through it. But I just can't resolve why no one will cut me any fucking slack, or be more vocal. Maybe it's too obvious. But again one of those "Am I the crazy one?" moments is that I was raised with a concept of good manners. Good manners includes telling people when they are behaving poorly. It's not good to be rude, but it's also not good to go on letting the asshole stomp out the party.

But there's no one. And so I am this lonely asshole. All I want to do is cry. All I do is sleep and shove media down my receptors. Of course the classic rebuttal to this kind of despair is to take a harsh "swallow your medicine" attitude. I've noticed this strongly in the I-get-what-I-want-never-known-despair-department of society. I'm really not looking for pity, and I'm damn sure not looking for the neo-feminist "you don't know how good you have it, I have a cursed vagina" argument. Oh the plight of the hot popular successful chick, how her song is never fully sung. No one will know how truly lonely she is. Ha. Ok that's probably my #1 problem. It's not that people don't get when I'm joking, they probably just hate my jokes.

One Date

2011-05-03T02:40:00.000-07:00

The way I tally it, I've only ever been on one date in my life, and the girl had asked me out. We were in junior college. I found her very attractive for reasons I can't remember. She was in my Economics class. I wanted to know her name. Attendence wasn't taken verbally, and no one had a chance to socialize in class, so I grabbed the sign-in sheet and counted back the names until I found hers. But being the socio-sexually repressed person I am, I didn't do anything with her name. Leastways talk to her.

I turned 19 years old. This would be a long year. After class the day after my birthday I was about to go drive to a bank and cash my birthday money from my grandparents when she stopped me. She asked me to go to lunch with her, and If I hadn't already oddly been interested in her; If it had been any other girl in the world, I would have said no. I've rejected every advance every girl has ever made. It took me a long time to even realize this.

I will now list for you every one of those times (because Baby, there aren't that many).

In 4th grade a cute girl I really liked and talked with alot dispatched her friend to ask her if I liked her. I said no. Pretty muched killed things there.

In 5th grade this beautiful girl I'd tease/joke with and talk to all day really obviously liked me and I was completely oblivious, it would be a chapter in itself listing all the ways she tried to get me to show any reciprocity.

In 6th grade another cute girl dispatched a friend to say she had a crush on me. I ignored the information and never talked to her. Until, well, things were much worse socially for me.

In 8th grade a gorgeous and lovely new girl to school asked me if I would go to the school dance with her. I literally laughed in her face while telling her no.

Now at this point you must be thinking A. What the hell is wrong with this guy? and/or B. What a dick.

But the story is a bit more complicated. Certainly my actions were stupid, but I didn't know this at the time.

Jump to high school and by then I was a social wreck. I made no new good friends. I played water polo, I socialized at lunch, but otherwise I was completely withdrawn. Most teens were becoming social beings, learning their "place" in society. All I knew was that I didn't feel comfortable existing.

I had crushes of my own. One girl I held a crush from 3rd grade until 8th grade. She was as smart, if not smarter than me (which is unsual in a human, not bragging by any means, this whole story is about how much I suck as a human. But I have a relatively high IQ, a decent memory, and enough wit to weave myself a facade of a genius. However I am often too stubborn to ever be wrong, to my own detriment). Laura was her name. By 5th grade I was infatuated with her. She asked me to "couple's skate" once at a class trip to the skating rink. I held her hand while skating in a circle, and that my friends is the most sexual contact I had with a girl until I was 23. Sexual not even being remotely the right word, more like held hands as classmates, not even friends. I meant to ask Laura to dance with me once in 6th grade, but the opportunity never arose. A couple years later Laura went off to another school and stories trailed back of her turning into a boozey slut. While this wouldn't be the last time a girl chose liquor and cheap sex over me, the nature of school rumors must temper that claim to be being only "probably true". And I do have to give a bit of leeway in that she technically didn't choose "over me"'rather "beside me" as I was little more than a stump as far as I or she was concerned.

After Laura left there was a void and I filled it with a couple other smart cute girls as my default "crush". A girl named Allison took top spot eventually and by default held that title throughout high school, as I really was dead inside by then. By sheer coincidence Ally's boyfriend in high school became a friend of mine. He didn't know I knew her; and he'd tell me all about his continually unsuccessful attempts to have sex with her. All he ever got by the end of sophmore year was making out and some breast play. Kind of a hallmark of what a dipshit I was (probably still am) when Ally asked me to sign her yearbook in 8th grade I wrote (this was 15 years ago, and I still remember) "I don't know you, do I?" Two years later when her boyfriend asked me the same thing, on the spot I wrote him a short story about Vikings and Viagra.

It wasn't until college that I began to feel some self confidence. First of all I managed to graduate high school, a daunting task considering my fucked up family life that I'll have to get into to tie all this crazy shit together. Secondly I had my own car I paid for from a job I'd been working at since I was 13. Third I was a college student, free to succeed or fail at my choosing. Finally I was pretty good looking, having been on a swim team and then getting on a good diet. I was literally self made from head to toe. Yet all that gave me just about enough confidence to only talk to a few people in the quad, and rail about politics and philosophy which I was increasingly interested in.

Back to this girl I liked asking me to lunch. I said ok and we start walking to her car. On the way it comes up that I had just turned 19. She proceeded to punch me in the arm 19 times. This was a ritual I was unfamiliar with, but it was also the most a girl had touched me in my life (except holding hands, which is more like one long touch).

The One Date In My Life

We go to Chilis. I order a burger, but I was too self conscious of looking gross eating it so I let it sit there and I talked instead. But let me back this up, make it more real, she ordered the burger, I was too self conscious to even read the menu, I looked at it, but I couldn't read it. I just ordered what she did. I have good table manners, or more precisely I am capable of fine etiquitte. My French Canadian grandmother and my hyper-intelligent social butterfly mother both embedded me with the necessities of good table manners and how to not gross out a dinner date. But burgers, American to their messy core, are like a middle finger to good manners. The only proper way to handle a burger is to not. No food in hand, no shoving all my food at my mouth at once, no letting dripping ingredients spill about, no having to put down what I couldn't finish, no food on my face, and oh lord no crunchy squishy chewing sounds of a half dozen ingredients at once.

She mercifully went to the restroom and I quickly ate most of the burger in a matter of a minute. Of course when she returned she pointed this out, and I was even more embarassed than I could have imagined. Things went only downhill from here. She insightfully pointed out that I never asked her for her name. And like a lamb to the slaughter I told her why I already knew it. Then for the love of God I tried to steer the discussion away from pointing out all the stupid shit I was doing, and proceeded to get into a tirade about gun control.

She never talked to me again.

While there have been times in my life that I have gone places and done things with women with which I had romantic interest/sex with/one night stand/deep feelings of love/etc. There were never 'dates' proper, that is that much lauded cultural practice of courting. I hardly think post coital meals, or snacks between girls I just met, or elaborate evenings with women I loved who entirely had no idea I was doing my absolute best to show affection could possibly count as "dates". Dates are something definable, they are in pursuit of getting to know someone, often someone practically or completely a stranger, where each can examine the other. Well borne acquaintances, and cheap meetings with lustful and brief interludes just can't fit the bill.

Baby Steps and Strange Bedfellows

2011-04-25T14:34:00.001-07:00

I've been staring down the barrel of political ideologies for quite awhile now. I want to report back a few things. First I'd like to point out that most people are mostly right with the stereotypes about the various ideological goals. The problem is very little of those 'most people' have an understanding of the functionality or outcome of those ideological goals. Secondly I'd like to point out that the more one learns about political ideologies, the more one learns they don't exist. No matter what you say about a political ideology, someone is going to say you're wrong. You think you've been told you're generalizing and using hyperbole calling a politician a socialist? Wait until you're steeped chin deep in a political ideology, and to use one misplaced letter you'll be ostracized as exactly the opposite of everything those people believe in. Or to put it simply, people are unreasonable, and they don't actually know what their own ideology is.

Anarchism

Anarchism, in a simple definition, is the goal of having a stateless (no government)society. No private ownership of land, no laws, no voting, no officials, just people agreeing to deal with each other.

Where it gets murky: The issue of crime. While not having laws means there can't technically be a criminal,many anarchists(you see how easy it is to slip into "hyperbole" and this is why Wikipedia flat out doesn't allow words like this) believe in a concept of individual rights. The solution to a person violating these rights is a collective appeal. How this would work, I don't know. Speculation varies wildly.

Socialism/Communism

When Marx and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto there were many different kinds of socialism, so they came up with the term "Communism" to differentiate their socialism. They considered the terms interchangeable, as I gathered from Engels explicitly stating that in the Manifesto. The fact that there is now an ideology called "Marxism" should be enough to let you know the shit gets thick from here.

One common definition distinguishing the two is saying socialism is an economic ideology, and Communism a social ideology. Either way, they are quite intertwined.

Basically, generally, simplistically, Communism seeks to have all people in the world united, all means of production belong collectively to everyone, the transition from status quo will be to eliminate everyone in power, eliminate all governments, and ultimately have a united global body of people who are in charge of themselves. The state is all the people, so all the people will have the power and the money, universal everything (healthcare, education, etc.). Socialism if it is to be distinguished as an economic ideology, is the process of eliminating business owners. Putting the power of all the money into the hands of the people, effectively this is by giving the government authority over all the money.

Where it gets murky: When your ultimate goal is a global collective detailing exactly how all people and money and leadership and society is controlled, there's bound to be disagreements on fine details. Thus you not only have dozens of broad definitions of each ideology, you have a plethora of various titles.

Why Anarchists work with Communists

Watch any G4, G8, G12, WTO meeting held anywhere in the world. Tons of protesters. Notice their flags. Communists and Anarchists hand and hand. This isn't hyperbole. Since the days of union busting in the turn of the century Anarchists and Communists have been working together. It took me awhile to understand why.

It is in chaos where they unite. Communism and Anarchism both seek the elimination of the state. And when you get down to it, long past all the process and "means" the end goal of Communism and Anarchy are very similar. Both end goals wish for a world of no government, no individuals vested with authority, everyone working together collectively to deal with problems. Societies bound together socially with no tiers or classes or private property. In fact, altogether all I can think of that differentiates Communism with Anarchism is how people are dealt with by the collective. In Anarchy a person wouldn't be forced to do anything unless they've done wrong to a person/people. In Communism you really won't have any choices.

Every lane but yours is moving

2011-04-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

I was listening to the semi-scientific Podcast for howstuffworks.com on "Murphy's Law" and they mentioned the psychological belief that while you are driving, you might find that every other lane around you is moving but yours seems to stand still.

I know people believe this, and some of them are those jerks that have to cut into any lane that is moving. But to claim that all lanes move equally, or that there aren't slower lanes is simply wrong. Having driven up and down California in the the hearts of the worst traffic America has to offer I have gained a great personal understanding of how traffic flows.

The allusion that this idea is on par with "the grass is always greener on the other side." fails to acknowledge that grass is greener on someone's lawn. It's either yours or your neighbors, on average if you have two neighbors there's a 66.66% chance the grass is greener on the other side. With that in mind, I would like to list a few real-world conditions that might elicit this supposed false psychological condition.

Rubbernecking I hate you rubberneckers. Really I do. Combine rubberneckers, with most driver's moronic propensity to tailgate even on the highway, and you get a ripple effect. The ripple appears in the form of a slow-down. And if there are enough cars coming steadily, the slow-down will ripple on for hours long after whatever on the side of the road has left. What annoys me the most is that having a car simply pulled over to the side will cause a slow-down as every person has to look at the car.

How it slows down one lane more than another: Rubbernecking requires actually being able to see what's so interesting. I've found that if a slow-down occurs on the right, then the right lane(s) will slow more than the left lanes, and if an event occurs on the left, the right will less likely be affected. So you might find that you're just driving along, both lanes moving smoothly, then for no damn reason you have to slow down because the car in front of you is slowing down. The other lane(s) might just keep going, after a period of slower driving, sometimes for a few miles, you'll reach some magic point, and be able to speed up again.

How to avoid, solve this problem:
1. STOP RUBBERNECKING!!!
2. If you see a car off to the side of the road in the distance, get in the farthest lane from it.
3. Keep at least two car lengths from the car in front of you while you're at a good speed. If you see the car in front of you starting to slowly brake, don't brake, take your foot off the gas for as long as you safely can. This will create a buffer that will help to ease the slow-down. I have a theory that would require actual science or testing, but I believe if enough cars kept a decent buffer the occasional moron rubbernecker could be negated and a slow-down ripple could be eliminated.

4. While lurking about I found another blog with someone else's funny and rather detailed idea on how to break up a rubbernecking jam. Basically his idea is for a person to slow down even more than the rest of the group, forcing a large gap to form, then speeding up and getting out of the jam, hopefully setting the line of deceleration back far enough that people won't want to slow down to rubberneck. http://www.cockeyed.com/science/rubbernecking/rubbernecking.php

Highway Exits When you're on a highway that has critical exits and high traffic, you will hate this. Basically a lot of drivers want to get off the highway, perhaps in one of a series of important exits, and the traffic starts piling up. The best example of this is coming off the Bay Bridge going into San Francisco. San Francisco has an almost non-existent highway system. And all of downtown encompasses only a few quick exits. If you miss them, you're next exit is going to be literally across the street from Daly City.

How it slows down one lane more than another: All the downtown exits are on the right. Most people coming in to the city know this. So they preemptively get in the right lane. So as more people get into the right lane, the more it slows down. The more it slows down, the more people want to get into the right lane. The other lanes stay at a normal speed, and the right lane comes to a crawl. What's worse is those who want to come into the lane at the last second. They have to stop dead in their lane, causing cars to quickly stop and back up, and they require the already slow lane to come to a complete stop to let them in. If you're in right lane, and you don't have any plans of exiting any time soon, you are in hell, the only thing you're thinking about is getting out. The problem for you is, now you're going 5 miles per hour, and the lane next to you is doing 65. You have to risk life and limb flooring the vehicle to just change lanes.

How to avoid, solve this problem: The best thing you can do is time your entrance into the exit lane. Maybe 1 or 2 exits before your exit you should start trying to get in. This way you won't be that asshole blocking two lanes at your exit, nor will you spend 30 extra minutes sitting in the slow lane. I believe if most people followed this, then the exit lane wouldn't be as plugged up as it gets, but there's no social intelligence on the road except perhaps most red lights being followed and people usually driving in the right direction. You have to act on your own best interest.

Slow Drivers Whether it's a big rig, or an old lady, slow drivers have created an entire subculture in the long empty roads of this country. They serve to ensure every poor bastard who's ever driven on a highway has been forced to slow to some arbitrary speed like 59 in a 65 making each person question their choices in life as some asshole 50 feet in front of them has managed to take hours of their life.

How it slows down one lane more than another: Big rigs tend to stay in the slow lane. They are professionals, they don't hope to ruin your day, but if you let them they will. Slow drivers tend to be bad drivers. One has to be fairly oblivious as a human to drive too slow on the highway, and thus more often than not, you will find these morons sticking to the fast lane. I can tell you on a number of occasions I've had to stay in the slow lane going 80 passing up a row of them doing 50 in the fast lane. The concurrence of douchebag slow driver in the fast lane, big rig in the slow lane does occur regularly. Basically if you're on a highway with two or fewer lanes you will get screwed every so often, it isn't so much that they only effect one lane, but they only affect a small region of a highway. They create a pack of cars that is led and trailed by open road.

How to avoid, solve this problem: I mentioned that a subculture has spawned from slow drivers. It's really fascinating actually, because I've never heard anyone else talk about it, and I didn't realize it existed until I had driven a route across California nearly 500 miles about 5 or 6 times. In general when slow cars hover around big rigs, or you get that convoy of big rigs where they take turns passing each other, you end up with a pack of cars all going 54 miles an hour in the 65. The slow drivers don't care, they'll do this their entire life. The average driver doesn't enjoy this, but they'll wait it out. The speeder really hates this, he'll either be speeding up and then dropping back repeatedly, cutting people off trying to find the better lane, or just tailgating the hell out of people like that's going to convince the entire pack to speed up.

Then there are the lane changers. These are the true professionals. They don't get mad or complacent in a pack, they get good. The lane changer doesn't speed, they don't have to. The lane changer doesn't cut people off, nor will the lane changer willingly slow anyone down. The lane changer is the alpha driver on the highway. You must become one if you ever want to get out of these packs. To be a lane changer is very simple. Whenever you find yourself slowed down by a car, you get in another lane. If there's a car slowing you down there too, get in the next lane, repeat. If there are cars blocking all the lanes, look to the one that is going slightly faster, get behind that car and continue. Soon enough you'll be able to work your way through an entire pack of cars until you get in front of them. You will find it was just two assholes staying about the same slow speed, and everyone else unwilling to pass them up. While in the pack it may appear like the highway is just bumper to bumper full of traffic, as soon as you get out, you'll realize it's open for miles. Of course the longer you drive the more of these packs you'll run into. And that's how you'll realize you're part of a community of special drivers. As you work your way from pack to pack, you'll notice a few other cars are doing the same thing you are. You'll end up cutting about 1/6 off your drive or about 10 minutes per hour, this really adds up on long drives, it also helps you keep focused, as you have to actually think while driving where your next move in changing lanes is going to be. Another benefit is that you'll be spending most of the time in open roads, rather than being cramped in a pack of cars, subsequently you'll statistically less likely to be in a car accident.

Now it's important to make a fine point on the speeding. I find a hard speed limit to be a bullshit number. Whether it be 65 or 80. The DMV and the law is enough of a bureaucratic smartass system that they acknowledge road conditions determine actual safe speed. And while driving 50 in heavy fog and rain in the night is a stupid idea, the speed limit doesn't magically dictate the "safe" speed during sunny clear days with no one else around or any road hazards whatsoever. If you're in the middle of a valley with visual range 100 miles in every direction and there's no car for 10 miles around you and it's perfectly sunny and clear and the road is in great condition and you have a good safe car, you should be able to drive 250 miles per hour without the police giving you shit. Obviously that's not how it works out though. They're so logical when implementing max speeds during poor conditions, but when the conditions are good, all of a sudden we have to adhere to an inflexible number hammered out by lobbyists and politicians. Despite popular belief, if the speed limit says 65, then 66 is speeding. By that logic we're all criminals; almost every driver speeds every time they drive. I don't even know how no one has put a check on that. The number on the sign should not be the mathematical dividing line between "safe" and being pulled over and paying hundreds of dollars. If they want people going no higher than 65, the sign should say "Speed Range 55" and say you can manipulate your way up or down 10 mph based on conditions. But no, that would be A. assuming people have any self responsibility, and B. it would cut into ticket revenue, which is the real reason all vehicle and driving infractions exist at this point.

So when I say a lane changer doesn't speed, I'm not talking about the state's police version of speeding, I mean the lane changer isn't doing 90 around cars doing 60. It's not safe. Lane changers are decidedly safe. And that I want to hammer in. Because you probably never notice the Lane Changer proper, most people notice the shitty driver who has to do no less than 90 like their life is the movie Speed 3. Those psychos will kill someone, they speed too damn fast for the cars around them, they are forced to make rapid and dangerous lane changes simply to prevent from colliding with other vehicles, and they don't give a crap about cutting you off. I'm also not talking about those dipshit overly aggressive drivers who feel that if they aren't cutting in front of you, you're somehow wronging them, those are the people who will flip you off while nearly smashing into you getting in front of you. I've seen them when they get in front of everyone, they don't go any faster, they just wait for more cars to screw with. Those aren't lane changers, those are assholes, and I wish they would be sent to jail or fined their car for that.

When I first started changing lanes, when I'd get out of a pack I'd speed up to about 90 in the open road, and have to come back down to 60 when I'd reach the next group. After going through several packs, I noticed I wasn't shaking the other lane changers who were doing about 70 in the open road. There I realized speeding does very little for cutting down the hours. It does help somewhat, but as a practical matter there's no point risking the ticket when the guys not topping off 20 mph slower than me are sticking with me because by the time I reach 90 I have to slow down again for another pack. Of course I did drive fast as hell a couple times getting lucky with the traffic and managed to make a good 8 hour drive (with no traffic, no stops) become a 6 hour drive literally averaging 80 mph even after making a couple stops. I was about to beat the 6 hour on the return making about a 5 1/2 hour run (averaging 87 MPH over 480 miles) but a cop car came up beside me flashed its light, and the guy gestured for me to slow down, so I slowed to 65 the rest of the way and still did it in 6 hours. When I get up to this speed, it becomes increasingly harder to shave off hours. 8 to 6 is great, and I'm moving the average from 60mph to 80mph which is pushing it like a beast, but to go from 6 to 5 hours I'd have to jump up to average 96 mph which simply isn't happening. Even If I floored it across the entire state of California going 110 whenever I could, the traffic would force me back down to 60 or 55 every few miles and there's no way to make that up. So I have learned from thousands of miles of driving across thousands of miles of California through the biggest cities and the emptiest valleys that the most efficient long distance driving is to just ride that safe comfortable high speed limit, occasionally taking advantage of opportunities to go maybe 5 to 10 over, and popping out of every pack trying to get me to go 60 or less.

That's my wisdom for those who don't want to always be the guy in the slowest lane. One final point, if you're in a real traffic jam. Not like the false ones I've listed, but one like where the only highway to the Bay Area is literally backed up two valleys inland about 70 miles from the actual shorline, there's no trick. At least not one that I've seen. You can try lane changing, but you're never getting out of the pack. And ultimately if you keep lane changing in bumper to bumper, you're going to piss yourself and others off needlessly as you come to realize the futility of your efforts. The best thing to do is just take the opportunity to relax. Don't be that one crazy asshole who snaps and drives on the shoulder at about 80 trying to weave into traffic 100 cars per bound. Of course if you're late for something that won't forgive you, meh I can't deride you unless you're unsafe. The worst I had it was one time I had a job in San Francisco working a Fleet Foxes concert, I left extra early just so I might get a chance to enjoy the city for a little while, and lo a jam backed me up on the Bay Bridge for 40 minutes. 40 MINUTES ON THE BRIDGE! If you've ever crossed it you know it takes 5 minutes even in heavy traffic. And what would have been the worst traffic jam I've ever seen took place in San Diego after the Warped Tour. I was at the Coor's Amphitheater which is located in the middle of the desert, the parking area has ONE EXIT for thousands of cars. We left before the concert was over, in fact the biggest band of the night, the Dead Kennedys had just got on stage when we left. But even then with only ONE FREAKING EXIT FOR THE PARKING LOT OF THE BIGGEST THEATER AREA ANYWHERE NEAR SAN DIEGO it was a pure roadblock. Long story short my friend was driving, we waited nearly an hour just to be able to back out of our parking spot, no exaggeration, and then he just said fuck it, moved some traffic cones, and floored it, cut in front of a thousand cars by plowing through the center cone area and popped out in seconds. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do. But come on man, really? You're in the fucking desert, there's literally nothing else out there, the parking lot is surrounded by 4 roads, and there's only 1 god damn exit, which actually faces the road with all the loading/unloading traffic right in front of the amphitheater. They bring this on themselves. That's what you have to realize. Be safe, try not to get ticketed and fund their idiocy, but otherwise take every opportunity to get out of the pack. They might say the idea of thinking you're always in the slowest lane is a psychological fallacy, but that's because those sons of bitches are always in the slowest lane, and they have no clue there's a way out.

Pineapple on Pizza

2011-03-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying out new Podcasts, and I decide to listen to an episode of "Fresh Air" an NPR show hosted by Terry Gross. The guest is an American author named John Marianai, plugging his newest book How Italian Food Conquered the World . Immediately I'm annoyed by this asshole. He has this Peggy Hill way of over exerting himself pronouncing Italian words. In general trying to pronounce words correctly doesn't annoy me, what was annoying is that he'd stress the hell out the words, like each "parmigiano" was like climbing a mountain. To make it worse he kept saying Naples. Naples. Naples. THE CITY IS CALLED NAPOLI. If you want to insist on calling parmesan cheese "par-May-giiiiiiii-Aaaaa-nooooo" like you were just dragged out of a fucking vineyard in Sicily, you might want to call the Italian cities by their god damn actual Italian names. What made things even stranger, to the point I knew I had to tell someone, was that every so often during the interview he would break into Italian accent on completely English words. Now this guy is not Italian, his parents are not Italian, he's clearly not fluent, why the hell is he breaking into an accent he doesn't have?

What's got me in a huff is what this interview culminated into. Marianai admitted that Italian food proper didn't conquer the world, real Italian food hasn't even conquered Italy, each region has its own dishes. It was Italian-American food that has spread globally. The very nature of Italian-American food is a modification on the original. Particularly bigger portions, with more and new ingredients. Not one damn item called "Italian" in America is pure to its Italian origins. And let's not begin to get into how tomatoes, an Italian staple, are originally from the Americas. So this guy has acknowledged that the food has evolved, and has continued to evolve. He specifically praises Wolfgang Puck for his innovative pizzas, like a "Jewish style" with caviar, salmon, and sour cream. Then this New York liberal host Terry Gross asks him "like I don't understand pineapple on pizza and things like that, um could you explain that?" (really, you don't "like um" understand pineapples? are you living in a fucking pimeapple? it tastes good that's the long and short of most food, and when it doesn't taste good there's 2 other options 1. only choice, 2. Need the vitamins, I've solved all your inane food questions till kingdom come).

This fauxtalian dipshit's response is incredibly more snooty than the bitch's question "Well that is very typically American...corporate" and proceeds to rip into California Pizza Kitchen. Again, fucking tomatoes are American, you're cool with that. Puck puts fish eggs on a pizza, that's art. But pineapple goes too far!!!! In fact pineapple can't simply be an odd divergence, no it's a corporate America concoction. And we all know from being Americans that there's nothing more evil, disingenuous, and deplorable as that which is developed by American corporations. I would contend that even if he were right, what difference does it make who married pineapples with pizza? But there's a problem, he's dead fucking wrong, not only were Hawaiian pizzas not invented in America, they're NOT FUCKING CORPORATE you socialist self hating American wannabe Italian moron!

Hawaiian pizza was created in 1962 in Ontario Canada by a regular restaurant owner loooong before your precious Puck came along and started really making shit up.

He continues "let's as you say call it a Hawaiian pizza and put on pineapple, and I think at a certain point a pizza stops being a pizza, or at least stops being a good pizza, or anything like a good pizza." (emphasis mine)

Wow. 30 seconds later this "purist" says to use canned tomatoes to make marinara.

So altogether I don't think this would have set me off except it's at least the third time in the last couple weeks were I've heard somone say Hawaiian pizza isn't real pizza. I heard Adam Carolla going off about it too. Pizza, in America is a dough base, usually roundish, usually a tomato based sauce on it, often pesto or a cheese mix, cheese is usually a main ingredient, then you put on top WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. Certainly if you broach a new level like putting entire sandwiches or lasagna on top it might gain a "hybrid" status based on bulk weight, but otherwise it's all fucking pizza. You want "pure"? It doesn't fucking exist! At this point people usually chime in with the Margherita style pizza, it's often called a "classic" "true" Italian pizza. While yes it was created in Italy, it was created as a GIMMICK!! A publicity stunt! Pizzas were already well established, the margherita was made just as a gift to the Queen of Italy, intentionally only using 3 toppings that matched the colors of the new flag of Italy. That's about as fake an origin as one can get! The Hawaiian has a more natural and honest origin than the hailed Margherita.

Another Old Memory

2011-01-02T03:15:00.000-08:00

I wrote about this for an English assignment in 2008. But I didn't like getting up at 6ish, and that crusty old asshole teacher kept giving me shit grades so I stopped attending, and so I didn't pass English until 2009.

This isn't what I wrote back then, I still have that story, but it was truncated. I want to talk about the time I defeated an old enemy.

When I was in kindergarten I was the happiest most social fucking kid in the world. I literally personally knew every human who lived on my street, and many elsewhere. My parents gave only 1 shit about my whereabouts at most times, and so I was usually free to just ride around on my bike meeting people. I would also get to know kids in the vicinity of relatives. I ended up good friends with the next door neighbor to my grandparents. He was 1 year younger than me, but 1 grade ahead of me. Little did I know by 1st grade my world would come crashing down.

In first grade my parents sent me to live with my grandparents. They lived in the same town, so it wasn't too far, but I was 6 fucking years old. The reasoning was that living with my grandparents would enable me to attend a better school. As it was now I only knew one person, the kid next door. However a family moved in across from me the day before 1st grade started, and I became fast friends with the new kid on the block. My old friend next door didn't like him. He told me his family didn't like the new family because they were Mormons. For this my old friend beat up my new friend. And I made a choice. I left my old friend.

I suppose looking in the third person it's kind of cute imagining a 6 year old chosing between a couple 5 year olds who to be friends with. But that was a pivot point in my life. As my personal life fell apart, I withdrew. the new friend became my only friend for, well, most of my life. And my old friend became my rival.

He was a bully, and he would still beat up my new friend. I was a fighter back then, but I never had an illusion of playing fair. He was a year younger than me, but he had always been bigger and stronger than me. I remember the last fight we had, I broke a clipboard over his head. It wasn't a solid wood one, it was plastic lined with cardboard inside, but it was a gift to me and I broke it over his head all the same. It wasn't the worst fight I'd had with him. He and his other friends would taunt me from time to time, but I guess that one stuck with him, because almost 10 years later he tried to get some kid to beat me up for it, when I told the kid that the clipboard incident ocured when we were children, he laughed and told my old friend turned rival he wouldn't fight me for some old shit like that.

I suppose it took a lot of ego crushing for him to find someone to beat me up, because as I said, he was bigger than me, until I hit puberty in 1995. We had both joined the same local swim team The Belmont Bullets for years. He had always been bigger, he had always been faster. But when I was 12 my body changed we were finally, and briefly, on the same physical level, I was as big and strong as him. However I showed up to practice twice a day, and he didn't show up at all. At the first swim meet, he finally came. We had a race together. For the first time in 5 seasons of swimming, I won. I beat him in pure physical capacity and skill. I knew immediately how important that was. He did too, I overheard his friends saying "dude you got beat by..." and him just looking pissed. He never showed up again. That's no joke. The motherfucker quit the team after I beat him in a race. He remained my neighbor, quietly hating me until I left for San Francisco 12 years after first meeting him. That's a long time for bad blood.

Airline Sexual Assault

2010-11-15T18:40:00.000-08:00

I've flown many times in my life. Not million mile club levels, but enough. I remember the pre 9/11/01 "Did you pack your own bags?" question. People joked about that. Things have become terrible since then. Honestly I felt violated when they would take out all my belongings and rummage through them. I would feel bad when I'd have to put everything on those plastic trays and take my shoes off. I received the old individual screening, I didn't like the time it took, but it wasn't invasive.

One time I flew from Japan to San Francisco taking nothing but a couple shirts, socks, and underwear, what surprised me was that it seemed my lack of anything made me more suspicious (this might seem logical, unless like me you'd experienced 10 years of them making you feel like shit for taking things on a plane, excessive checks, throwing personal shit around in public, questioning you very soul). The woman who checked my bag in Japan took 5 minutes to look through my 6 pieces of clothing, all the while asking me "Is this all?" When I got to SF, the customs guy seemed pissed that all I had was a little clothing, he actually started interrogating me about where my toothbrush was, how I could possibly get away with such little clothing (in case you're curious now, you can suck my dick and I'll tell you).

But now that TSA agents are sexually assaulting passengers, and taking nude photos, rubbing down babies, massaging teen girls tits under bra, juggling guys balls, fingering women's snatchs and so forth. I really thought this would be the tipping point. There are a couple stories on the news, there is one popular video of rebellion, but overall not much else. Federal issues are a bitch to solve. Without direct order from the president, a retraction of this policy would have to be brought out through legislation or a federal court battle.

Essentially these sexual assaults will likely carry on. And if a guy is caught, yet again by the passengers (as all these recent terrorists have been stopped by passengers NOT by security) and if he happens to shove a bomb up his ass, well you can expect passengers to get fists right up in there. Is there a breaking point? I expect not. I don't think the Department of Homeland Security has any limit to what they're willing to do. Even if in protest enough people stopped flying, check 2001, or 2008, the federal government will just bail out the airlines.

There's no winning this issue financially, but we can support ground travel, give bullet trains a boost. Though the first time someone brings a bomb on a train the fistings and fingerings will soon follow.

Old Memories

2010-10-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

There was a popular rich girl at my elementary school. The kind of popular you couldn't even reproach because lesser popular kids, yet still much superior to you, would ruin your life. To say I was unpopular would be like saying Charlie Sheen has enjoyed alcoholic beverages on occasion. Anyway she was also ridiculously beautiful. All the girls were beautiful at my elementary. I just thought all people except me were beautiful until I got to high school, and everywhere else on earth. In fact, I'll point this out now, this girl I'm talking about today is absofuckinglutely hot as fuck. They all still are, at least the ones I could internet spy track down, cause you know, no human would ever keep contact with me by choice.

Anyway, she would always run for student body president, and she would always win. I remember being annoyed at how stupid her campaign speeches would be, it had literally nothing to do with whatever the hell it is school presidents do (which I eventually realized was nothing, nothing at all, not even college student governments do anything). I remember one time she actually brought in novelty props like a giant pencil like she was doing a fucking Carrot Top routine. She'd also always have some glittery poster that two of her friends would hold up, and it always made me think two things, 1. Damn she has good penmanship, and 2. I don't have 2 friends, let alone 2 people that would ever be in the same room and willing to hold a poster for me. This is how pathetic I am, I had a crush on her for years. When she gave me her yearbook to sign in 8th grade I wrote "I don't know you, do I?" Which was true, but even at the time I thought it seemed a little more harsh than necessary, but I was a depressed continuously suicidal entirely lonely kid in a broken home with no parents and an alcoholic depressed abusive grandfather overseeing my waste of life.

In spite of all that, I actually planned to run for student body president in 8th grade, simply because I was tired of that bitch running unopposed, I knew I wouldn't get the 8th grade vote, because they all detested me, but I had a brother and sister in other grades and I really could have worked the younger crowds. As it happened, my brother, sister, and I flew to Colorado to visit my dad for a week. I found out when I came back that the entire electoral process had occurred during that week, and the girl who ran unopposed was president once again.

Her boyfriend ended up being one of my only friends in my Sophomore year, he was in Spanish class with me, and incidentally he'd tell me about all the sexual interactions he'd have with her. I say "interactions" because he was always complaining that she wouldn't outright fuck him. But he'd go to all these parties and get drunk and he was just the happiest asshole on that fucking campus. I knew him 1 year and I wrote an entire short story about Vikings and Viagra in his yearbook (I was actually pretty hip writing about Viagra in May '98, when it had just been approved by the FDA in March '98). I never had yearbooks. I was too fucking poor.

So in our Sophomore year of High School, now believing she was entitled to the popularity, this girl ran for student body president. I assumed she allowed Freshman year to give her credibility before she completely took over high school, not that she was ever "the most popular" but she was always "one of".

Meanwhile I played Water Polo in high school. I didn't even know what the hell the sport was before I joined, but back in 8th grade Mr. McGregor who used to be a teacher at TCK came back to give scoliosis tests, he had seen me on the Belmont Bullets Swim Team in the summer when we played against the team he coached, the Brookside Mallards. He said, (why the fuck am I remembering all this?) in his scratchy voice "If you like swimming, you might like to try out for Water Polo when you get to high school." I replied "ok", which I was wont to do at any statement back then, and he said "Well, you don't have to just because I suggested it." I showed up for the first practice, liked it, skipped on football, I had found my sport.

I loved the sport, and our team was great, but we didn't have many people, or any recognition, or any money, so we set about changing that. We raised a shitload of money, and won a shitload of games, we went recruiting (going back to our local pools during the summer and picking up Freshman) and by my Sophomore year our team had like 22 people on it. Now only 6 and a goalie can play at a time, and I was the goalie, so that was 6 positions for 21 people to fight for, our team was great, didn't get tired at least, though we were rookies and didn't know much. There was one guy on the team who was flagrantly gay, I only note this for its "underdog appeal" I'm leading up to. He was overweight, wasn't a great player, 2 out of 3 like me, and a scheduling issue with him being in some band or club or something led him to practice with the girl's team. Yep, we had a girls Water Polo team, JV and Varsity, This was Lincoln High School, do the research, Lincoln's original Water Polo coach was our coach's coach, he was basically the godfather of California Water Polo, he helped establish the sport in the state, of course building up to 2008 when America's Water Polo team had all but 1 guy from California and took on Hungary as the best winning Olympic Water Polo team in US history. Anyway, so this guy was like me, a freak. Though he wasn't quite as hated or detested, and he seemed much happier.

So I'm gathered in the high school's loving cradle for football, with the rest of the school to see Allison, this girl I've lusted for and never talked to, though quite positive she disdained and/or pitied my existence, as any reasonable person should have back then. She gave the same kind of bullshit speech she's been giving for 10 years. And we're not old people in this story, that's a long time to make bullshit speeches. She even had a glittery poster with her.

Now I am not a cynical person (pause for laughter),(trollish ;) smirk) but there was no way in hell I was voting for her. It wasn't personal, to be sure, on a personal level I would have done anything for her I suppose. But she was so comically fake when I think of high school movies, I only think of her and her kind. Then, out of the fucking blue, with no campaigning, no stupid clothing or glittery signs, just regular ass clothes, this overweight flaming homosexual walks across the field, gets up on the stage, and said, "I don't have a nice speech, or fancy accessories, I don't have any signs or crazy promises. I'm just a regular guy, and if you vote for me, I'll do my best." Thunderous applause. The people fucking loved it. And he won. But I moved to San Francisco before he assumed his throne and I never saw any of those people again in person so fuck all what happened next.

Time travel's only course

2010-08-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

People continually dismiss or outright argue with me when I tell them about the nature of time. Simultaneously my knowledge of time isn't represented in any big theories as far as I know, and Wikipedia certainly doesn't have anything about it. So I'm going to post here something I figured out when I was 12 years old. The nature of time and its application to time travel. If there's something wrong with what I say, please point it out, if you have a question, please ask. If it makes sense to you, ponder about why this information is wholly unavailable to the public. Is this novel information, have I put together something new for the world?

First I want to dispel the "common" views of time and time travel. I just read what Wikipedia had to say about theories of time travel (back in time) and they were put together in a couple general categories.

=Alternate Dimensions=

These are touted as "paradox proof" theories because they completely ignore "time travel" and propose the ability to enter an alternate "dimension" that may coincidentally look exactly like the past. Essentially these theories rely on an unknown and entirely imaginary view of the universe. Similar to Russell's Teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the design is based on the lack of evidence, not actual evidence, thereby ensuring the theory can't be proven wrong. There may be alternate dimensions, but there's literally no evidence of it. However this is irrelevant and basically a cop-out to the question "Is it possible to move back in time?" with the customized add-on "In the same dimension".

=Paradoxes prevent certain events from occuring=

Admitting that certain actions taken by travelling back in time would be paradoxical (like killing your grandfather before he gets your grandma pregnant) these theories suggest you can still go back in time, but somehow those paradoxes won't happen. Theories along this line don't entirely dodge the theoretical paradoxes of time travel (like the dimension theories), they try to contain them. Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder simply and inexplicably declares since you are one person, you can't go back and meet yourself, so if you do go back to some distant past, you'll pass yourself returning. This fit in the narrow confines of the short story but didn't even begin to address what would happen if you went back to your own childhood. Interesting to note that this short story is where the term "butterfly effect" originates. In the story, the main character accidentally steps on a butterfly during the age of dinosaurs, comes back to his time and finds there's a different president, words are spelled different, etc. The movie Time Cop suggested you could see your past self, but not touch. Again, this is really a limited explanation, saying the same matter can't occupy the same space, but no person is ever "the same" all people are at all times in motion and changing, and in Time Cop there's like a 20 year age difference, certainly by then their skin wouldn't even be of the same cells. The latest big budget adaptation of The Time Machine delt with the paradox of taking actions in the past that would prevent the time machine from being invented. The guy builds a time machine to save his love, but if he saves her, he won't build the machine, so when he does save her, something else just kills her. Kinda like that inexplicable series of films "Final Destination", there's no explanation for "who" is making people die, and even if people are meant to die, isn't extending their life for even a fraction of a second already a negation of necessity? I mean, if you were going to die by mugger, instead get hit by a car, won't there be implicit unavoidable side effects, like a good driver feeling bad for the rest of his life, and an evil mugger just killing someone else? Basically all these variations imply that you can change some things but not others, but the very ability to change anything, makes everything possible. If you can save someone's life for a minute, you've saved them nonetheless. Do it a thousand, or a hundred thousand times, and you'll have bought your time paradox. Or to put it in another way, these theories give a moralisitc quality to time. As if time gives a shit if someone dies, but also doesn't care if someone from the wrong time is just walking around. If there were a force that could force events to occur, why would it let you do anything at all? This is elemental theism, like in old Greek myths where mortals "fight" universal forces.

=There's no going forward=

I'm using movie references, because the theories aren't any more complicated, and at least films try to hammer out the kinks. A good one is the idea that you can only go back, not forward. Because forward doesn't exist yet. I love this kernal of conception because if you build on it, it reveals the flaws in all these theories. But I won't get ahead of myself. Time Cop sort of followed this, but the movie opens with guys from the future killing Van Damme's wife. So the question would be, if people can come from your future, then if you hop into their time machine and go to their present, then haven't you just gone into the future? The "Terminator" films try to cover up this flaw by saying only human tissue can go through, and that their machine only goes back in time. But again, it doesn't really solve anything. Because if at any time anyone can come from any future, then at all times, the future is just an open door.

Overall these theories create as many paradoxes as they try to negate. Who was the father of the first John Connor (infinite time loop paradox, although I came up with a smart-ass answer to this, the first John Connor, the one we see as an adult in the first movie had no idea that his buddy would nail his mom, in his time line his dad is just some random guy. Sending back his buddy broke his continuum, and he stopped existing, however his buddy got Sarah Connor pregnant, and 50/50 chance it was a boy, she wrongly assumed this was THE John Connor, and so names this boy, essentially the real Connor's half brother, John Connor, and this kid has to live up to the real Connor's legacy, paradox averted. But I've really digressed here).

=The Intentional Paradox=

I flat out don't like time travel stories with this attitude. The Terminator is one of these, trying to claim that John Connor could only exist after his adult friend from the future bangs his mom. That's probably why I came up with that alternate possibility. Another one of these is Professor Peabody and his Wayback Machine, I don't know where the hell that cartoon came from but when I was younger it was attached to episodes of Underdog. Anyway so Peabody is a dog, and there's a stupid boy who's is assistant or something and they keep going back in time to make things that already turned out fine, turn out fine. The way it's presented is that if they hadn't gone back, things would have been different than what we know them to be, as if the past was waiting for Peabody and the idiot to fix it. The television series Heroes pulled this shit too, a time-travelling "Hiro" goes back to the age of Samurai, and finds out his hero from history is an immortal douchebag alcoholic Limey. Seeing that the drunk couldn't pull off the legendary acts he was known for, Hiro fills in for him...but then how could Hiro ever hear the story in the first place? Intentional Paradox, that's how. Bullshit. The newest time travel movie, Hot Tub Time Machine, among other insane, impossible, and absurd ideas about time travel, did its own intentional paradox, when a kid goes into the past, and is then reborn as the same person but with a different dad, right after said different dad altered the time line to destroy the kid. Jesus that was stupidity at its finest. Still a funny movie, on DVD or BluRay now.

=Misc=

The fun of time travel stories is that they pretty much just make up rules without any factual reasoning to fit the plot. Back to the Future had a ball with the idea that if you change the past, you can view its effects while it's happening, like seeing photographs or people disappear, or words in newspapers change, equally speculatory are films that suggest you won't see the changes until you get back, like Time Cop, and The Butterfly Effect, however even between those two films there's a huge difference, when Time Cop Van Damme went back to the future, he was surprised to see how things were changed and had no memory of the alternate timeline (this is a common assumption) in The Butterfly, when Ashton goes back to the future, he immediately acquires all the memories. Another common one in many stories, even if not overty acknowledged is that even after someone goes to the past, the present continues. Sometimes this is an extremely important plot point, as it was in Star Trek: TNG's series finale, 3 ships from 3 times had to go to the same place in space at the same time, yeah, how could it be the same "time" if they're definitively separate times? Most of the other examples I can't think of off the top of my head but they are all tv/cartoon interpretations, where the "ticking clock" somehow keeps ticking even with the ability to travel through time. By the way, I hate that so many entire series' of cartoons rely solely on the "ticking clock" for plot drive.

=Why time travel theories are created=

People imagine a past that doesn't exist, but because it did exist at one point they conceive of a way to return to it. The time machine, is really just a manifestation of memories. It is a projection in narrative, that is a recreation of the human mind. The cultural perception of a time machine allows one to revisit the past, as a present self (this is memory incarnate) this machine also allows a person to see the future (our mortality and daily grind suck the fun out of our regular path to the future), or change a past event (desire and regret). The best proof I can offer that the common portrayal of time travel is purely self-serving wish fulfillment is that in all stories of time travel, the method of travel is accessible to only a very small number of people. If time travel were possible in the way it's portrayed in all science and stories, why wouldn't there be millions of time travellers? Why wouldn't there be a total collapse of society and functional reality? A while back I addressed this by writing a short story that takes place in a world where anyone can travel through time, so "reality" becomes as fleeting as a flicker from a match.

I love time travel stories, not for their science fiction, but the underlying goal of the story, to seek answers that can never be had in our real lives (what will the distant future be like or what if a different choice had been made) and to allow people a second chance at something that burns inside them, an everlasting regret. The "Back to the Future" films deal with this, amidst all the bitching about affecting past/present/future, by the end every character's life has been completely altered to their satisfaction. So it is the narrative, and journey of imagination, that I love in time travel stories, but they are all wrong. And now I will tell you how.

=Joshua's epiphany in 7th grade=

So I was at my house and the brother of my friend comes to the door. I see him through the screen door, and I walk towards it. Bam! The nature of time hits me. Almost a "Eureka" moment, but to this day I don't know what the trigger was exactly. I didn't shout eureka, I calmy said aloud "This is it, there is only now".

I had realized that our common perception of time is that it is a place. That there is a now, and a then. That we actually "pass through" time. Whether it's conceptially continuous or fragmented, it doesn't matter. The common portrayal is that there is a past just waiting for someone to visit.

But time is not space. Time is a measurement and a function of motion. That is, if there were no motion in this universe, even if it were full of matter, then time would not exist. Time is effectively the acknowledgement that the arrangement of the universe alters. And this is what most time travel theories get wrong.

To put it bluntly, you can't build a machine to "go" into the past, because there is no past. This world IS the past. There is no duel 1985/1955 this is 1985 and 1955, and all other time, past present and future. What most humans regard as "the past" is psychologically another world. But in terms of true functionality, there is only one time, now. It has always been now, and it will always be now. Time is a measurement of objects just rearranging themselves. Every atom of your childhood puppy is still in this world. Every atom of your future grandchildren is in this world right now, maybe some of it is in a tree, much of it is in the soil, in the sun, in the air. There is only now, but your childhood puppy suffered the effects of mechanical breakdown, and lost the ability to manipulate existing matter in its image. Eventually, things you are stepping on, mowing, breathing, drinking, will be pieces of your great great grandchildren. They are here now, as is your dog, but not in the forms of your paychological conception. Human minds create a chronology to make thinking easier. Imagine seeing a cup of tea, as both plants and mud, a satisfying drink, and broken glass, urine, and a breath of energy in a person. Past, present, and future. I know I'm teetering on Buddhism at this point, but Buddha was right in this regard. The nature of existence is motion, yet our minds tend to create stagnant perceptions.

Reality is quite different. There is no 1257 that can just be dialed up in a phonebooth, no 1985 that can be "returned" to in a car. There is always now, and now is always.

But, alas, this does allow for one way to "time travel" provided the technology existed, if you had the power, however that may be, to rearrange all energy in the universe, AND, if you had some blueprint, or tracing method of the arrangement of all energy, matter, etc. from a fixed point, and providing for the matter necessary to both create this world, and put yourself in it (thus requiring some compromise) you could effectively travel "back in time". But it is in this requirement that you might realize a few things, 1. All those paradoxes about time travel are bullshit. If you could recreate the past with yourself in it, then it is, by definition not really the past, so if you happened to kill your grandfather, there is no paradox, your real grandfather was destroyed the moment you manipulated the entire universe, and this recreation of your grandfather might have produced a child like your father, and that man might have produced a child like you, but it isn't you, because the only way to "go back" in the past, and "be" in the past requires keeping yourself with you, essentially stealing those atoms and molecules from the wind and trees and shit, so it can never be "your" past, as time is always now, and this recreation can't be 100% accurate if you're not dismantled in the process. Those aren't your atoms, you're borrowing them, and some of what you call you, was a part of your mother and father and other parts were in other arrangements, so that to ever truly recreate the past, no one, and no thing could "visit" or observe or "travel" there. Well, as long as we assume energy can neither be created nor destroyed, otherwise that would be one of those teapot unanswerables.

I beg anyone to tell me why I'm wrong. Although I'm not looking for theories. Because, you know, teapot again, I don't care what the teapot has to say. What I have written is just a blunt observation of how energy transfers get labelled as eras.

=Random=

I mentioned Time Cop a lot, probably because there aren't a lot of stories that take as many liberties with time travel, most films use time travel as a pretext to create a "fish out of water" or redemption story, Time Cop didn't play that noise, the time travel was the story. It was Van Damme's most successful film earning over $100 million globally in '94. The movie takes place with the "present" set in 1994 and 2004.

I alluded to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, making a total of 2 written stories, 1 tv show, and 6 films not counting sequels. I'm sure I could have pulled out many more, every incarnation of Star Trek, and many of the films use time travel in various ways. I didn't even want to get into Bill and Ted's version, where it's more like the anti-butterfly effect, and was it Bogus Journey where they just keep dropping time travel cages on each other? That was ridiculous. But Bogus Journey was all fucked up, instead of just time travel, it had aliens, God, heaven, hell, the Grimm Reaper, mother fucking evil robots, Jesus, oh and excessive yet mundane time travel.

Monster.com waste of time

2010-07-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

I've had at least 1 serious resume' on monster.com since 2006. I have NEVER received a job offer. I do have a valid resume. It's just that no company has ever actually looked for a good employee. That's not how the system works. It's more like with women, they just wait for guys to hit on them, and they choose from among that group. Even if a chick gets wet just looking at a guy, 99% of the time she would not ask him to ever do anything. She'd flirt. But in the long run flirting is worthless, even bitches in long term relationships who would never date a guy would still flirt.

Anyway, a couple years ago I added a less serious resume' realizing no one reads those things anyway. I was right, my
2 current resumes on monster have been viewed a combined less than 20 times in 2 years. Fuck you monster.

Here's my funny resume.

No one is interested in my years of expertise and accomplishments. You are cowards, and you want safe hires. You're burned out from online apps, so no businesses actually hire online anymore, you guys just leave your information up here because your boss says you need it. So I'm just going to tell you the truth. I am the hardest working son of a bitch I have ever met. I started working when I was 12. By age 13 I was on my third job. I paid for all my food and clothing from that point on. I've worked in auto shops, I've painted houses, I've laid cement, I've torn up cement. I've spent 8 hours a day in 100 degree weather pulling weeds with my bare hands. I've torn down pallets with crowbars, and I've built sheds. Have you ever torn up non skid? No you haven't, I have, for days. I've weed-whacked mountain sides. You think I'm kidding? I don't even care. No one will hire me, you are cowards and I am too qualified. I'm smarter than you, I have a better education than your boss. You are threatened by my skills. I remember working 18 hours a day for months at a time, doing anything from washing pots in a huge kitchen, to fixing pipes, to cleaning filters in ventilation. I solder microcircuitry when I'm bored. In my spare time I study the other two languages I speak, I work on my writing skills, which are better than yours. I have a security clearance from the Federal government higher than your business knows about. I had a higher reading comprehension level when I was 9 than you ever will. I don't even know how I could exaggerate, I haven't even mentioned all the careers I'm already an expert at. I honestly don't think there's a more qualified person than me, anywhere. Maybe if you brought Ben Franklin or Tesla back from the dead, I could slap them around a bit. I'm better than you. And you wouldn't even consider hiring me.

Things no one gave me credit for

2010-07-16T23:15:00.000-07:00

I'm in the mood to Rodney Dangerfield a bit. I get no respect.

- In 1994 I pulled my brother's ass out of the ocean while he was being swept away by a rip-current.

- In 2003 I recruited a winning team of sailors for a tug-a-rope tourney.

- In 2006 a fire on the bridge of the USS Fitzgerald knocked out the nav lights for the ship. It was nighttime and the Fitz was in the middle of Tokyo Bay, a crowded waterway to be sure. All the electricians were busy with the fire damaged circuits, and apparantly eveyone else had their heads up their ass. For no logical reason it fell to me to fix the situation. I mobilized my team and got port/starboard/aft lights up just in time. Just seconds after setting up the port and starboards I was heading aft and on the fantail I watched as a huge ass cruise ship barely turned to avoid us. They were about 50 feet off port heading aft. Although technically later on the Captain did get back on the 1MC after thanking everyone else and said "Oh yeah and thanks to the EWs for helping out". I just like telling that story, because when you look at
it, obviously I wasn't the only person doing anything, rather it was because our division wasn't doing anything that we could mobilize.

- In 2007 douchebags ran San Diego's world famous "Street Scene" concert right into the ground. All these morons kept bitching that Street Scene was "too popular" to be held downtown. And that it was getting in downtown's way. You can look this up if you don't believe me, but Street Scene was THE ONLY REASON downtown San Diego was revitilized. It turned literal crack houses into world class restaurants because the concert brought so much money downtown. Anyway these fuckers, including most San Diegans and the media railed against the Street Scene, like fucking Jews against Christ, they killed their savior. Then along came me. I went on a fucking one man crusade when I found out they had ruined Street Scene. I sent every asshole in the industry a piece of my mind. The next fucking year they held the concert exactly where I told them to, which was in East Village a block from my apartment. It was a fucking epic success for them. Only problem for me, I didn't live there anymore, and nobody has sent me a fucking thank you.

-2010 I helped two women pass Biology class by studying with them and tutoring them. As soon as the semester ended, they completely blew me off and wouldn't even talk to me. Bitches. I also helped a guy with his Economics final, he said thanks. That's all I'd ever hope for. Fuck.

I better think up some more or I'll be out done. Seriously most people are very appreciative. I wouldn't ever claim I've given more than I've got. It just sucks when the big stuff I do goes unthanked.

Updating

2010-05-16T13:59:00.001-07:00

I've been really "busy" with school. So I haven't done much of anything else in months. I'll be done in a week or so, for a week or so, before summer school. In the meantime, I'm going to try to make a blog just about Stockton.

Serious Gold Panning

2010-03-31T00:50:00.001-07:00

My father and I went north-east from Stockton, over the first mountains of the Sierras, north-west of Lake Tahoe. High high up. There was snow on the ground, all we could see for miles was mountains and valleys with thousands of pines. We drove down down into a valley, to a town on the edge of nowhere, Washington California, population about 200. They all stared at us. We continued on to the one lane road that serves two way travel, it hugged the mountain side, and believe me, that's fantastically exciting on its own. Hairpin turns with no guarantee there isn't another car coming your direction on this one lane road next to a steep cliff with no rails. We came to a fork of the Yuba River and parked the car. We had to walk from there. Down down, to the river's edge. There had been water shooting out of the sides of the rock everywhere we drove, but now, up close, scaling this steep edge to the river below, it was much more fascinating. We could see where springs had come and gone, leaving loose rocks all roughly pointing riverwards. At the top, there were giant, maybe 15 foot high, hundreds of feet wide piles of stones, remnants of the 1849 gold rush. It was only a couple years after the gold rush that these massive piles of rocks were made, left over from the massive industrial operations on these mountains and rivers extracting gold. It was only a few years after that that California banned massive gold mining tactics like blasting and dredging, preserving the Sierras (unlike some now much uglier parts of America) and ending the gold rush. Yeah, I bet you didn't know that, the government ended the gold rush, they didn't run out of gold.

Finally we came to the river's edge. Just for the hell of it, I grabbed some loose rocks, and I panned them, using a spring that was shooting out perfect clean/clear water. I planned on just diving in the river. This water was crystal clear, and I thought the better panning area might be on the other side. Some parts of the river were about 10 feet deep, and I could clearly see the bottom. But caution got the better of me, and I checked the water first. It was ludicrously cold. I started panning close to the bank. I found gold in nearly every pan. Although it was very very little gold. Fingerprinters I called them, because they could fit between the ridges of my fingerprint when I picked them up. I came up with various names to call my gold if I should find anything larger.

Bill-payer: about $100 worth of gold. It would be enough to pay a bill.
Pay-checker: about $1200 worth of gold. This much could survive me a month.
Year-wager: $35-38K this was the first value I came up with, 1 Kilogram of gold is about $35-38,000 and would be about a year's wage.

After an hour of panning, I ate some lunch out of my pan. My lunch was a Lunchable.

I cooled off my Capri-Sun in the ice-cold river.

So at some point I was thinking, this river is too cold for frogs. If there was a frog that could tolerate this river, it'd be one hardcore fucking frog. Then I looked over and saw a small pool near the river made by one of the springs. Because it was much more shallow it was obviously a bit warmer, and it was full of moss and mold etc. I thought, now there's a place for a frog. Then I saw a frog, so I grabbed it.

Anyway, back to the river, I decided to cross it. By the time I had explored the other side and come back I was relatively wet from the waist down. I decided why not go all the way? So I jumped in the river and let it carry me downstream. I reached a broad area, where it branched. The river was shallow here, but slow, one part of the river took an extremely sharp turn, becoming very rapid, and the other part just went to a pool of moss with a couple very beautiful waterfalls coming out of the rocks.

Ice cold, and probably dying, I started swimming back. I finnally came out and warmed up a bit. Then I went back to panning. I found a rock that had gold color in it. I thought it was gold. My dad wasn't so sure.

After another hour, we were fairly worn out and unlucky. We packed up and climbed out of there.

When we got home, my father tried further techniques to identify the gold color, and couldn't. I still think it's gold. I stated that if it is gold, it would be a Sam's Breakfaster: about $3-4 worth of gold, enough for a Sam's Cafe' ham and eggs breakfast.

So altogether, we had a great time. I brought home snow and threw some at my brother, we brought home gold. I'm convinced I have a little nugget of gold. I have an unidentified species of frog. We got some photos, so I'll be putting them up here.

The Supreme Law

2010-03-27T23:35:00.000-07:00

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding"..."A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.."

- U.S. Constitution; supremacy clause, and Second Amendment.

I just read into the D.C. vs. Heller Supreme Court case. Although it is absymally anti-gun in its commentary, it did have one positive effect. It made it official in American law that what's clearly written in the Constitution might apply.

I think it's sad though, that with all the provisions in the ruling, they simply agreed that outright prohibition was wrong, but anything less than that, like D.C.'s unchallenged ban on magazine fed ammunition (read: ban on most handguns) is perfectly alright.

I've seen the stats, and I know that it's near on impossible to prove cause and effect, but I just wanted to point out this one fact:

The supreme court ruled that handguns cannot be completely banned in D.C. in 2008. By 2009, homicides dropped 23%.

What I don't know

2010-03-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

I don't write or talk about things I don't know about or understand. Or, at least what I don't know about, or think I don't understand. Or maybe what I don't think I understand.

Isn't digital its own analog? Fundamentally even analog follows patterns, bumps, digits if you very so kindly would accept? But even then I suppose digital would still be a subset of analog, as it is characteristically quantifiable in integers.

So I started noticing the number 255 everywhere, and it was annoying me, because I knew it meant something in hexadecimal. So I looked it up, and lo, it is the highest number used in hexadecimal coding for colors (this can be used in html and CSS to indicate what color something should be, for example, if I designated this page to be blue: 255, red: 0, and green:0, this page would be completely as blue as could be displayed. Note: 255 in Hex is written "FF". If you want an easy example, open MSPaint and make a custom color, you'll see the color values go up to 255.

While looking up hexadecimal I noticed a joke on Wikipedia using Hex.

"If only dead people know hexadecimal, then how many people know heaidecimal?"

This reminded me of a binary joke I learned in binary class. "There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Anyway the whole reason I wrote this is because I don't know what "tort" is. I looked it up, and I'm still confusd. Why would "tort reform" be on the mouths of people like Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart daily, when no one gives a fuck, and never has? It is simply a too encompassing term for what they really mean, which is a trillionth of what they imply. They don't want to reform the entire justice system. They want frivolous lawsuits to stop. That's like calling a grain of sand a beach.

History channel told me today that the word "pepper" is sanskrit in origin. That's cool.

To horse, you gallant princes! Straight to horse!

2010-03-23T23:16:00.000-07:00

Stockton California. Named the second most miserable city in America this year by Forbes. It was #1 last year, and #2 the year before. It's also the only city to have such a high ranking streak. Stockton California, top of every list, violent crime, car thefts, illiteracy, home foreclosures, unemployment, etc. Stockton California, the great boiling-over melting-pot;

% of Population Foreign Born

Stockton - 31%
LA - 29.6%
San Francisco - 28.3%
New York - 22.8%

And only 1/3 of the foriegners in Stockton are citizens. Not to suggest that Stockton is bad because it has more foreigners, as I explained in much more detail in a previous blog, it's that Stockton is a storm, and California seems to just dump all its problems into this storm, and hope nothing escapes.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, 70% of Stockton's murders go unsolved. I have lost count of how many people have been murdered in 2010, but here's some news from just the past week.

There were at least 6 shootings in Stockton from Saturday to Sunday this week. 6 shootings, in 2 days. And there were many many more crimes in those 2 days, and more shootings throughout the week.

So here's Sat-Sun in Stockton California:

1. "an 18-year-old, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was shot while sitting in a parked car"

2-3. "A home in the 1700 block of West Lane was targeted by gunfire twice. Police report as many as 10 people may have been inside the home at the time of the shootings."

4. "Another shooting occurred around 8:50 p.m. Saturday. Two teenaged girls were walking on the 700 block of Sutter Street when they were approached by a black male teenager, about 17 years old, wearing a maroon hooded sweat shirt and baggy dark blue denim pants. He asked to borrow a cell phone and they complied. When the victim asked for the phone back, the suspect took a handgun from his waistband and shot her. She was struck in the lower body and taken to the hospital, where she was listed in stable condition."

5. "A 22-year-old man told police he was walking into an apartment complex when he was approached from behind by another man who asked, "what you got?"

The victim said he didn't have anything and continued walking. The second man then pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired a shot in the air before shooting the victim in the foot, police said."

6. "Later that day police responded to a report of a drive-by shooting in the 1300 block of East Harding Way. The victim told police he was walking in the area at about 10 p.m. Sunday when a car containing three men drove past. He said he then heard gunshots and was wounded in his hand."

Now what's interesting is how quick the police (and everyone else) are to write off every shooting as gang related. There is a prevailing attitude in Stockton that if you get shot, it's your fault. While Police can't solve 70% of murders, and they've solved nothing them I'm going to mention in this blog, they immediately released that two of the people shot were brothers, and therefore were probably in trouble with a gang, so of course they deserve it.

Here's some more love in Stockton:

"Three McDonald’s restaurants were robbed Monday night and Tuesday in apparently related robberies." "by a man who claimed he had a gun."

"A 49-year-old man was shot in the face Thursday night near an east Stockton liquor store." "the assailant was riding a kick scooter and was wearing a white T-shirt with bones and a cross on it. He was carrying a black backpack."

Of course Stocktonians don't just keep their fun in Stockton, increasingly I've noticed Stockton is tied in with crime all around northern California.

More recent news:

"Two teenagers were shot at the Jackson Rancheria early Sunday morning in what officials say was a gang related incident." "The shooter is reportedly associated with the Norteno gang and based out of Stockton. His name has not been released."

"Two people have been arrested in connection with two separate shootings in Concord overnight in which one man was injured, Concord police Lt. Jim Lardieri said." The gun police believe was used in the two shootings was recovered and had been reported stolen out of Stockton, Lardieri said."

==Notice here, that it took an outside force to bring in a couple Stocktonians. Left to their own accord, the Stockton Police do not do so well.==

All of these events occured in the last 2 weeks, all the events in Stockton were this week. This is not a comprehensive list of recent crimes, just what I could find in a couple minutes. This is by no means a crime wave by Stockton's standards, it is Stockton standard.

And yet, I don't have a right to protect myself? I want to be able to bear arms here. But California law demands that if I open-carry (conceal carry is illegal) the weapon needs to be unloaded. So basically I would have to advertise that I'm armed, without actually being armed. Wonderful, who do you think a criminal would shoot first? Also, the entire state of California has been experiencing a bullet shortage for over a year. And Schwarzenegger just passed a law that will make bullets extremely hard to obtain, for law abiding citizens. So while I still can, I ordered 300 rounds of ammunition online, and I'll probably order another 1,000. This is just short term though. I'm doing what I can to convince my family to get out of this city. I plan on leaving the state and/or country as soon as I'm done with college. I'm done with Stockton, and California.

In the mean time, just in case you have some illusion there are safe parts of Stockton, here is a map from Google Earth, I added red dots showing where just these most recent events occured. If you want a more comprehensive map of major crime locations, people have tried to do that, but they can't keep up with the crime. Basically it's just a completely covered map of Stockton.

Click on map to view larger. I displayed Stockton with the north to the left to fit the screen.

*All data and quotes stolen from other websites.

spacing blogs

2010-03-07T02:06:00.000-08:00

Except for 3 wayward months. I have at least one blog post here from every month since September 2004. So that's 64 of the last 67 months. I think this is a decent, (albeit not nearly comprehensive) timestamping of my life and writing.

This is really good considering all the 3-4 months I spent at sea at a time. Many of my blogs have been written in various foreign nations, though I usually don't mention them, except rarely in an offhanded manor.

Redistricting.

2010-03-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

One argument against term limits for congressmen is that people should be allowed to chose when their representative leaves office. Unfortunately in California, ha ha, it is not your choice! A practice so diabolical it has two names, gerrymandering, or redistricting.

Basically, political parties have become more powerful than actual elected representatives, and the parties work together, at the expense of voters, and their representatives.

In California, the Democratics and Republicans get together, and cut up California into congressional districts that give each party secured positions. The Democratics will give some conservative leaning areas to Republicans, and the Republicans give over liberal leaning areas. In this way, they draw districts that guarantee wins for both parties.

Of course they don't absolute power, and they have to sacrifice some representatives in order to achieve this. If you've ever looked up the history of a congressional district, you'll see every few years, the district is somewhere else, and this usually puts a new party in power.

I was looking up my current congressional district, the 11th, and I wanted to point out some of its travelled history.

Currently the 11th encompasses East-Bay, and swoops south then east, then swoops back up to San Joaquin County into Stockton. I should also mention, all you have to do is look at district boundaries to see they are politically drawn, not logically, in nature.

In 1912 the 11th District encompassed Imperial, Inyo, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego Counties, basically most of southern California. From 1933-1943 it was the district for Los Angeles County. Then it jumped to northern California and bounced back and forth for decades, until it came to where it is now in 2003.

Congressman Leo Ryan represented the 11th district in San Mateo in 1978, when he went down to Jonestown in Guyana because of the stories about people being forced to stay in the cult. He was ambushed at the airport and murdered by Jones' thugs. Congressman Ryan was the first and only Congressman killed in the line of duty in U.S. history.

The current Congressman, Jerry McNerney has held the seat since 2007. He is likely to win again in 2010. There was a really good challenger but he dropped out for family reasons. There are a lot of challengers on the Republican side, but no one stands out for me.

What is most likely to oust McNerney? Nothing. Fixed!

Case Closed.

Palm and Arm

2010-02-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

California's State Song Sucks

2010-02-18T15:20:00.000-08:00

Most everything about California is awesome, or at least better than you. This is a scientific fact.

But California does have its issues too.

I think the most obvious is that we let Mexico keep Baja California. This is just wrong. Until 1846, Baja and Alta California were united. Just throwing that out there, in case any new filibusters were being planned.

Anyway I remember learning the song "California, Here I Come" in first grade. It's a catchy showtune. I sang it everytime I was coming back to California from parts unknown. I suppose I assumed it was the state song. Nope.

California's state song is "I love you, California"

I love you, California, you're the greatest state of all.
I love you in the winter, summer, spring and in the fall.
I love your fertile valleys; your dear mountains I adore.
I love your grand old ocean and I love her rugged shore.
Chorus
Where the snow crowned Golden Sierras
Keep their watch o'er the valleys bloom,
It is there I would be in our land by the sea,
Every breeze bearing rich perfume.
It is here nature gives of her rarest. It is Home Sweet Home to me,
And I know when I die I shall breathe my last sigh
For my sunny California.

I love your red-wood forests - love your fields of yellow grain.
I love your summer breezes and I love your winter rain.
I love you, land of flowers; land of honey, fruit and wine.
I love you, California; you have won this heart of mine.

I love your old gray Missions - love your vineyards stretching far.
I love you, California, with your Golden Gate ajar.
I love your purple sun-sets, love your skies of azure blue.
I love you, California; I just can't help loving you.

I love you, Catalina, you are very dear to me.
I love you, Tamalpais, and I love Yosemite.
I love you, Land of Sunshine, Half your beauties are untold.
I loved you in my childhood, and I'll love you when I'm old.

They're great lyrics, or at least they're lyrics reminding us of how great California is, but the song is unsingable. I don't know if it can be made to sound good. I think at best it comes off as sounding like an eastern European propaganda song.

Here's the absolute best version on YouTube.

Now compare it to "California, Here I Come" sung by Al Jolson in 1924

But not all our "official" things suck. Most of them are decent. California was the first state to have an official insect. The California Dogface Butterfly.

And our state soil is the San Joaquin.

-All facts and photos stolen from the internet.

Perpetual Motion

2010-02-18T01:05:00.000-08:00

I was reading about perpetual motion machines, and basically how they have been completely dismissed as they don't fit the laws of thermodynamics. But. I was thinking, who actually needs created or infinitely re-used energy?

Perpetual Motion, in it's name doesn't explicitly demand the same energy perpetually moves, it is simply a description of a reaction.

One would only need to create something that runs continuously, by it's own actions, not continuously with a finite set of energy. And it isn't the continued functioning that is against the law of nature, it's the re-used or imagined energy that can't be harnessed.

Looking at the goal of Perpetual Motion, I realize the standard has been set way too high for practicality. And the true desire for Perpetual Motion is not about what energy is used, but rather if it is costly to people.

A realistic goal could be set in two lengths, and as far as technicalities are concerned would be "perpetual".

1. Create a machine that requires no more input to function once it is built, that will last a life time.

2. Create a machine that requires no more input to function once it is built, that will last for as long as its energy source exists.

Both of these goals were met hundreds of years ago. Clocks have been designed that run on temperature changes. Earth's temperature always changes, the clocks continue to run hundreds of years later.

Now some energy has to be put in them to maintain their accuracy (setting the correct time), but this isn't the source of the power for the clock, and perhaps, already proof of concept in themselves, if you simply look at the device, not as a clock, but as a machine that moves parts powered by temperature, it has worked continuously for hundreds of years.

When you up the desired results, before the technology exists, sure you might need human input. Now maybe someone needs to make one of these clocks, but make it so the clock is also able to correct its own time (like storing excess energy in a battery, use a memory chip and have it readjust when it needs to, or something like that).

In the meantime, no one gives a shit about inventing a machine that needs no new energy, we just want machines that don't need human energy.

Solar Power, wind power, water power are all renewable and will outlast 1,000 human generations. I'd say that is sufficient to call it "perpetual".

Of course everything breaks down too. But I'm sure there can be ways to solve this when you have the energy continuously backing you up. It's hard to believe there's no perpetual motion, when you think no life could exist on this planet if water itself wasn't in a perpetual state of motion. Water turns to gas, becomes liquid again (or solid) comes back to earth. Water's motion gives resource of perpetual motion to feed plants, which in turn feed animals (who also need water). If water couldn't cycle in this atmosphere, the nature of our bodies could not function.

Anyway. So I was looking at one supposed non-functional example of Perpetual Motion called a "SMOT" where the T is for "toy" meaning it is useless.

Basically you can make a ball roll up an incline if you align magnets on either side. It is argued that this only works because the magnets help "convert" the potential energy of the ball into kinetic energy.

But electro-magnetism is its own force. It is energy. Thinking you can't convert it to kinetic energy is downright idiotic.

Now whether or not the SMOT can be made into a perpetual motion machine remains to be shown, as everyone seems to only make them straight.

But I was thinking, if the magnets can raise the ball on an incline, why not make an incline, have the ball roll up, but have a hole in the incline, the ball will drop, but have another SMOT placed right underneath, each SMOT would be set in a curve, each time the ball would move maybe a few inches up, then drop down, then a few inches up then drop down, SMOT to SMOT to SMOT until it comes full circle, and that would be perpetual motion. (people then argue that might work, but it would drain the magnets power, which doesn't count, but I disagree, I think the whol point of perpetual motion is finding ways of tapping into alternate energy sources).

SMOT

Perpetual Motion? lol. That is how an electric motor works though, converting electo-magnetic energy into kinetic energy through the motion of attracting and repelling magnets.

Absence of heat is absence of friction, thus "perfect" energy transfer.

The last video isn't about Perpetual Motion, but it does make me wonder, you see at the threshold, the rules change, and energy depleting liquid nitrogen actually becomes fuel for the levitation. If absence of energy, is a source of energy, if a system could drain energy completely, and then use it, it would be Perpetual Motion. And again, no one cares where the new energy comes from.

If you want to look at it in the big picture, if no energy can be created or destroyed, no source of energy is really an "outside" source. Call it Universal Perpetual Motion and you've jumped the technicality bridge.

Good and bad for the Olympics so far

2010-02-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

I live in California. The Olympics are being held in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver is about dead north from where I am. Time zones are longitudinal. If anyone should be able to see these Olympic games live, it should be us here in Pacific. But no. Ever since who knows when, the assholes in the TV industry have decided Pacific Standard Time will NEVER be live. You know they show all the games live in Japan? Yeah. Way to go America.

Really the only reason I wanted to post this was because I just saw a Japanese downhill skier and I realized they all get to have music playing when they go down. Her's was "Around the World" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. They do love their RCHP in Japan. Me too.

I'm going to tell you a little dream I had back then. I wanted to get my Colombian woman, dress her up in white trash clothing, and go to the Fuji Fest (which hasn't been held near Fuji since there was a big earthquake years ago.) only problems were the price (many hundreds per person) and the location (I was near Fuji, it was on the other end of Honshu).

Anyway.

I really like the music, don't like the not live.

Other stuff, it was awesome seeing those two Koreans wipe out at the last second in the speed skating putting Americans in 2nd and 3rd.

I told you so

2010-02-11T16:53:00.000-08:00

In one of my previous rants I mentioned people only engage me when they want something from me and nothing in return (but of course that part doesn't apply to vendors).

So this morning I was eating breakfast at school and a woman sits down in front of me, staring at me with those "I'm going to engage you because I want something for nothing" eyes.

Her: How much did you pay for that burrito?
Me: Uhh. I don't know. About 4 or 5 dollars?
Her: Why are you so hungry?
Me: This is my breakfast.
Her: Can I have some of your potatoes?
Me: No. Who are you?
Her: You're racist. You won't give me anything because I'm Filipino (she scowls at me).
Me: Are you serious?! Do you even go here?
Her: (mumbles something, looks at me nasty, gets up and walks away).

I saw her pacing by several more times after that and I planned on threatening her with police if she started anything. Not that I want to involve police in anything, but the campus doesn't have security, instead they have their own licensed police force. Then I started thinking, if any college can get its own legal police, and a private company like BART can have its own legal police. Can anyone make up a police force? Can I just sign some papers with the state and make myself a legal California police officer? (California has no "state" police, but any officer in California can lawfully arrest anyone in the state, including the Keystone Kops at my college).

I would make myself a police force. Then I could sidestep all the commie laws about bearing arms.

Lewis Carroll, mediocre writer, notorious pedophile

2010-02-10T23:15:00.000-08:00

I read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass several years ago. Alice has been embedded in our culture through multitudinous repetitions and homages. What I realized reading the books, was that Lewis Carroll was a flagrant pedophile, and he wasn't that great of a writer.

I'll start with the bad writing first. You see, I've read references about the "deep" meanings of Alice's Adventures, and I've read about the complex math problems and philosophical dilemmas in the story.

Reading the books, I quickly realized they were very much "children's" stories. They were not deep. There was almost no character development. The story just shuffled from one scene to the next with no coherent progression and then it was over. I was very much let down. I realized a lot of the 'depth' and intrigue of Alice has actually been added on through the years. It isn't in the books.

Now, as for the seemingly serious accusation. Certainly pedophillia is serious, but it isn't much for an accusation, as I was to find out.

I first got suspicious while reading the book. It just seemed to focus on Alice the wrong way. But that wouldn't have raised any flags, had I not read the introduction. I don't ever read intros before I read books, because I've found intros try to lead a reader in a certain direction, and it's always written by someone who's already read the book (or wrote it) and assume you have too. So I read the intro after the 10 minutes it took me to read the book and I'll be damned if it didn't reveal his true nature. Alice was a real girl. Carroll actually wrote the books based on stories he would tell Alice. Although he was a priest, and a "family" friend, eventually he just started taking Alice out alone on trips. The intro mentions some unknown event caused the Liddell family (Alice Liddell's family) to forbid Carroll from ever seeing Alice again.

Now why does a parent need to ban a priest from taking their preteen daughter on trips? I don't know, can't think of any reason... except that he was molesting her.

Just reading his own books, and the intros to his books I was certain Carroll was a pedo. But then a couple years later I looked further into the matter. And this is some fucked up shit.

Carroll was a photographer. And he took lots of photos of naked preteen girls. Don't believe me? Google search it. They're online. Don't worry, if society decides child porn is "art" it's perfectly legal. Or don't search it and believe the hell out of me.

What's interesting is that I'm not the first person to realize this about Carrol. In fact books have been written about this issue. Even Wikipedia mentions the controversy, but somehow manages to dismiss it with "NPOV" (their magic word that allow Wikipedia articles to be completely biased as long as they do it in a certain way).

Anyway enjoy the latest movie version of a story created to woo a little girl into sex.

Songs that tell you to do stupid shit

2010-02-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

I figure it's the epitome of collectivism, this ideal of producing a song, that is intended to not be enjoyed, but to get a bunch of people to make idiotic motions together.

A lot of them simply start with "Do the" followed by the dumbshit name they gave their dumb shit commands.

Here are some great examples, old and new.

The Hustle by Van McCoy

This one is simply called "The hustle" but makes sure to say absolutely nothing but "Do it" and "Do the hustle" for 4 godforsaken minutes. At least I assume the lyrics never change, as I am physically unable to listen past 2 minutes. And the idea of looking up the lyrics seems downright insane. You know what, fuck it, here's the lyrics to "The Hustle"

Do It

Do It

Do The Hustle

DO THE HUSTLE

Do The Hustle

Do The Hustle
Do The Hustle

Do The Hustle

Do It

Do It

DO THE HUSTLE

Do The Hustle

DO THE HUSTLE

Do The Hustle

Do the Ricky Bobby by B-Hamp

This song seems to be a 4 minutes of samples. But the songs it is sampling, were samples of covers, so most of the music just sounds like electronic failure.

Interestingly, from what I gather, the "Ricky Bobby" seems to be just making a pose, as opposed to doing any dance, so this is probably the least demanding of the social command songs.

Do Da Stanky Legg by G-Spot

ROFL

Humpty Dance by Digital Underground

I listened to a lot of hip hop in the late 80s early 90s, but it was mostly stuff like Run DMC, Beastie Boys, followed by Coolio and Snoop Doggy Dog, then eventually down the terrible path of gangsta rap towards Biggie, Tupac, Warren G, Nate Dogg. Shit I remember memorizing songs like "Regulate" "Keep their heads ringing" "Murder was the case" as a young tween. This particular artist eluded until the 21st century, although I do remember the line "The humpty dance is your chance to do the hump" from Weird Al's "Off the Deep End" album. Weird Al really introduced me to a lot of different music. I completely missed the "grunge" era until about '94 when I started actually realizing other people liked music too, and I got a flood of Nirvana, Aerosmith, B-52s, Cranberries, REM, from people like my mom, dad, and friends.

Anyway. Nostalgiagasm over.

Do the Bartman by Michael Jackson

Never heard of this song until 5 minutes ago. And I've always loved the Simpsons. Apparently this song was ridiculously popular when it came out. It was mostly written and produced by Michael Jackson, who was a huge fan of the show, but he couldn't take any credit because the song went on a different label.

Walk it out by Unk

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is shitty command music at its most shitty and commanding.

Lean like a Cholo by Kilo

This homemade video has 800,000 views. Jesus Christ. This song came out when I lived in San Diego, it has a special place in my heart, mostly because I've always liked calling people "Homes" "cholo" and "vato".

The Twist by Chubby Checker

It really took radio and records to change the music world, to make the music "industry". Certainly there were folk songs, world famous musicians, and composers, but it wasn't until you could print music and play it in perpetuity, that shitty pop music really took hold of this planet. It wasted no time, and amazingly even with so much modern technology, much of it still boils down to its origins. Pop music is the heartbeat of the unthinking unquestioning masses. That so many songs simply expect people (usually millions of them) to make bad motions with their body in celebration of communal activity blows my mind.

I'm not against dancing. I'm very much for dancing, but I think if you're going to dance by yourself, you should follow your own moves, and if your going to dance with other people, it shouldn't be to the commands of the macarena, or Beck's waltzing, or whatever the shit the Monster Mash actually expected of us. If people want to dance with each other, it shouldn't veil that communal dancing in invariably about sex, and with that, I wholly support two people getting really close and holding each other, and seeing if they can literally move together, as so often metaphors and reality link, and if you can't keep in step with your partner, you might need to find a new partner, and there's no better place to do that than on a dance floor.

Just a regular guy

2010-02-08T23:22:00.000-08:00

On Friday a woman walked up to me and asked me why I was not going to class. I vaguely recognized her as someone in my biology class. I'm rather dismissive of people as I know my worth on this planet, and it's not very high. Only people who want something from me for nothing in return, ever engage me.

Somehow she controlled this conversation into her explaining that she's been going to college forever, but that she had a head injury that had put her in a coma. I remarked it was good she recovered (as opposed to being in a permanent vegitative state) and she assured me she had not recovered, as in severe memory loss, problems learning, and has to take buckets of drugs everyday. On top of that she had problems with English, and the school was somehow screwing her in credits.

I really didn't fucking care. Especially when she mentioned she was married I pretty much tuned her out. Not that I had any superficial interest in her, rather, I've never even had a girlfriend. Love is all that matters in life, and no coma, no head injury will ever take away the fact that she got married. The way I see it, you get married you win. Doesn't matter after that. You won life.

So anyway she mentions that she's struggling in this class. I know what it's like trying to get out of this school, and knowing only 6% of students graduate, I know there's precious few people who are even trying. So I gave her my email. Nothing too special, I've already exchanged emails with people I don't know in 3 other classes, just in case there's critical information that I or they need.

I tell her if she has any questions I'd be happy to help.

Then she told me how everyone else had blown her off, and how nice I was to offer to help her. She started crying.

I hate people. Also I think I have the gout now, or arthritis or something, but I've been in constant pulsating pain and barely able to walk for 3 days now. I've gone past my limit on ibuprofen and I'm wondering what will hurt worse, this non stop pain in my foot, or vomiting blood when the drug wears a whole in my stomach? I'm thinking the stomach blood will be much less painful or inconvenient.

It took me 15 minutes to walk between classes today. Then I had to take the bus home, and walk about a mile limping in excrutiaing pain the whole time.

Reminded me of when I was in high school in San Francisco. I sprained my ankle. The day after I sprained it, I realized after class that I had no money for a bus, and I didn't really have the strength to walk up two hills on cruches anyway, so I just sat on the steps of the school and waited.

No one was coming to pick me up, but I figured maybe after my mom got home from work, maybe a few hours later she'd drive by. Or I could just sit on the steps until school the next day. Either way, I had no money,no friends, or any physical capacity to go anywhere in the city of hills on a sprained ankle.

About an hour later with few people left at that school a teacher came out. She saw I was in a bad situation and offered me a ride home.

I suppose a positive person would say "see, even when the chips are down..."

But that's fucking nonsense. Suffer long enough, someone'll come by eventually. That message sucks.

Suffer long enough, the bullet won't seem quite so sacrificial.

Bullying

2010-02-04T18:23:00.001-08:00

It breaks my heart when I hear about these kids that commit suicide from being bullied. The most recent being Phoebe Prince. Having only come to America months ago, apparently she caught the ire of some vicious people and she was bullied physically and emotionally ceaselessly until she killed herself. Even in death the people that were destroying her have continued their rampage.

I was thinking, this probably pisses a lot of people off because it taps into the heart of our society. Everyone who claims some "care" for this world must talk about "the children". When young teenagers are driving each other into suicide, that hope for the future comes crashing down. Your society has a gaping wound.

Anyway, I was thinking about what one could do to help people in such a situation, then I remembered, I've been shit on and ostracized by society since I was 10. Fuck you people.

Fuck Toyota

2010-02-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

I first heard about the gas pedal issue a few months ago. I heard the audio of the family that called 911 to report their pedal stuck, the phone call ending moments before their death.

Repeatedly Toyota denied every claim that the pedals would rev-up and accelerate without the driver's action. They claimed that it was the floormat, even when people reported removing their floormat and still having their vehicle accelerate without their control.

In the case of the family that died, a series of electronic systems, set up to improve convenience, and protect the car from user mistakes caused the vehicle to become a death trap.

Here is the problem, the acceleration is now electronic, so if a rogue signal is sent to the engine, it can accelerate without the pedal being depressed.

Combine this with all these modern technologies that assume the driver is a moron, and make decisions for them (the dead family couldn't simply just turn the car off, because it is started electronically, and requires specific steps to turn off).

I am becoming increasingly disgusted with these technologies; cars that automatically force you back in your lane, cars that automatically put your seat belt on, cars that automatically lock your door, cars that automatically arm your alarm.

Every technology is put out with the assumption that people are bad drivers, and that the cars know better. Now this policy has literally killed people.

Now I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an employee of the government, nor Toyota, nor anyone for that matter. Reading that people are dying because of Toyota's lies and shitty technology I was pretty much helpless. I only thought, maybe Toyota is somehow right. The fact that they have finally admitted they were wrong, and are doing the recall (I hear it was under government pressure) now I see how fantastically evil they were being.

I thought in the 21st Century this kind of shit was no more. What's worse, no one seems to give a fuck. A major global corporation was literally selling faulty products that killed people AND NO ONE FUCKING CARES. Where's the outcry? A few decades ago a couple people got poisoned by Tylenol and the fucking nation came to a standstill. It wasn't even Tylenol doing the poisoning. Toyota literally knowingly killed people with their cars.

Crickets chirping. The time is ripe for great and varied evil.

Audio of last minutes of people killed by their car:

(http://www.entertonement.com/clips/mrkdpgncbs--Toyota-911-Call-Of-Family's-Fatal-Lexus-Crash-Due-To-Gas-Pedal-Stuck-On-Floormats-The-Consumerist-911-Call)

GM and eBay might be criminals.

2010-01-16T07:46:00.000-08:00

I have been the biggest reporter on this news since it broke many months ago. This is both odd and scary to me, as I'm not a reporter.

The program, GM selling new cars over eBay ceased at the end of October.

Now, me reporting this to you is completely old and not news. But as has been the case from day 1, I'm not the top reporter for timeliness; I've been the top reporter because NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THIS AND I'M THE ONLY ONE ACTUALLY PUTTING ANY EFFORT INTO THIS.

If you haven't read my previous blogs, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. Basically I did an in depth analysis of eBay and GM's plans, and used actual data that the media seems to be ignoring.

Hilariously enough, they've left the conclusion for me too.

You'd think one person in all of the media might have looked into this whole program. After all, millions were spent, and it was an industry first.

Sadly, what I've seen, one guy got a few official statements from eBay, GM dealers, and one customer, and wrote a puff piece for the NY Times. I looked around, and every other report on the close of the GM eBay alliance was just plagiarized from the NY Times article. Absolutely no original work across the global media.

What really annoyed me was that they all 'speculated' on the success of the program. They seemed completely unable to provide actual stats. Some people actually concluding that eBay and GM were "hiding" their results.

DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY USE EBAY?? All I had to do was look up the "yourgmdealer" profile and I could see every vehicle they sold and the feedback from the customers.

Grand Total: 24 vehicles transactions through eBay. Note, I didn't say vehicles sold, because if you read the feedback, many of the sales fell through when dealers refused to honor their deals.

With only 15 positive reviews (and one of them recanted) This company, bailed out by America, owned by all Americans, a multibillion dollar global century old corporation completely fucking sucked on eBay. Their feedback score was 7. Motherfucking 7. With only 68.4% of feedback positive (less considering the recanted one).

This program from day one was written to screw customers. The way it was set up, no "deals" could be had, eBay and GM conspired to set up the decks in their favor, and apparently people realized this. The worst part, reading what GM and eBay had to say, I don't think they learned a god damn thing. The only reason they would admit any drawbacks, was that THEY COULDN'T SELL ENOUGH CARS ACROSS THE ENTIRE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO FILL A PARKING LOT!!

HERE IS A LIST OF SOME OF THE BULLSHIT THEY EMPLOYED THAT ULTIMATELY GUARANTEED THIS VENTURE WITH TAX PAYER MONEY WOULD FAIL:

-"Buy it Now" prices were above sticker. Needless to say, nobody fell for it.

-eBay gave GM "Power Seller" status, essentially selling out their own standards for an accolade GM didn't earn.

-GM used a dummy account to give themselves more "e-cred" by changing some asshole's account from "bighouse0001" to "yourgmdealer" they did this to make it look like GM has been on eBay since the end of 2007, when they actually just got some guy to hand it over to them and changed the name a couple days before the program started.

-GM was given privilege to do "closed" auctions, something almost never used on eBay, it is completely the antithesis of open auctions people expect when they go to eBay. This way, it's like getting the credibility of a company like eBay, but going around their time-honored tried and loved system. The closed auctions gave the buyer no advantage (or even incentive) whatsoever compared to some shlub walking into a dealership.

-All deals made through eBay aren't guaranteed. Multiple feedback occasions showed the dealers changed the price, the car, or simply left the eBay customer ass-out in the end. When all is said and done, nothing on eBay is contractual, and therefore it is akin to window shopping. No deals could actually be made online, thus entirely negating any advantage, however small, to the buyer. Even if the buyer just didn't want to get hassled, tough shit, they still had to negotiate after the deal, then go into the dealership, negotiate again, then sign the real paperwork.

-eBay and GM did all they could to hide their failing venture. Listings only lasted a few days to a week. Even now, if you go to "yourgmdealer"'s profile, you can see eBay is violating its own rules, hiding information on the last 3 transactions. They claim the information is available for 90 days, but the last 3 transactions are less than 90 days old, and their information has been removed.

In addition to all these verifiable facts above, I have one theory, that I'm currently investigating. It would be nearly impossible for me to prove, but if I can, it would blow the fucking lid off this whole thing. I believe GM used a stooge to boost their ratings (that are still incredibly low). This is an absolute flagrant violation of eBay policy, because it is a crime in the United States to misrepresent a business transaction to dupe customers.

The easiest way to spot a stooge is if they don't bother leaving any other tracks. You see, usually people don't create accounts right before an event, then participate in said event, leaving a positive impact, and then vanish from a website forever.

So if you look at eBay user "661henryglen" who signed up for eBay June 30 2009, bought TWO CARS ON THE SAME DAY August 20, 2009 (being the second and third positive feedbacks) all the while NEVER DID ANYTHING ELSE ON EBAY FROM SIGN UP UNTIL NOW. It looks really suspicious. It is similar to the cheating card dealer on the side of the street who has a friend come bet a round and let him win to dupe the marks.

This kind of stooge work actually reminds me of the Balloon Boy, as most people know, the whole family took part in as much attention whoring as possible, and they had released a children's film. When I heard about the film I went on IMDb to check it out, and I found a couple suspicious positive reviews from two separate accounts. Both accounts had been opened within days of each other, both accounts left a positive review for the movie, and both accounts never logged on again, nor left any comments for any other movies. That was another clear Richard Heene scam, though on a much lower level, and oddly once again, I'm the only one reporting on it. Though if you go to the IMDb board for the movie, I left a comment explaining this, so any person who came after me would know about it.

Ultimately the company we own did a bunch of stupid shit at our expense, and everyone; government, media, customers, has looked the other way. I don't know why I'm the only person reporting it. It feels weird, like American news dropped the ball. But I suppose this is an indicator of the big change in American media. As the newspapers fall out, as news becomes increasingly less lucrative, reporters stop reporting, investigators stop investigating, and we get Twitter.

Previous post on GM/eBay: http://promontorium.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html

Official GM eBay Feedback page: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=yourgmdealer&ftab=AllFeedback&items=25

Richard Heene Movie IMDb page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387889/

Stockton Killings Up, Underreported and Unsolved

2010-01-10T03:10:00.000-08:00

I try to tell people, in this city with an underreported population by tens of thousands of legal residents, the true number of killings is never acknowledged.

Stockton officially had 35 homicides in 2009, which is lower than average in the past, but more than in 2008. The Record's report admitted they cut out many deaths for these numbers,

No one the police kill are ever tallied, even if the death hasn't been ruled "justifiable homicide", no "justifiable homicides" are counted, and no DUI killings are counted.

Seems to me, death by cop, justifiable homicide, and car crashes would be three of the biggest sources of death tolls, I mean, at this point we're just talking about cold blooded murder, involving no law enforcement, and no vehicles, and still, Stockton can get up to 1 a week, like in 2006, 2005, 2004, where 40 plus people fit the category.

For regional comparison, Stockon in 2009 was 35, the entire county was 52, with the second highest city Tracy with 5.

2009 saw some of the worst rates for law enforcement, only 10 of the 35 cold blooded, unjustified, non police, non vehicle murders led to any arrests.

So in Stockton, if you're murdered, there's a 71.5% chance the police will completley fail in catching the criminal.

My contetion is this, if the police can't solve over 70% of the murders, and Stockton is actually much larger in population than anyone will admit, with or without the illegal encampments I know exist, and can show you on a map. How can we trust the number is actually 35? If someone is killed, and you don't find the body, and the person never officially existed in Stockton to begin with, there is no stat, that person was and will ever remain a ghost.

And it is precisely those people on the fringe who are most likely to be involved in shady operations, who are most likely to be murdered. The undocumented illegal brothers, sisters, cousins, of documented legal immigrants. The ones who couldn't get legal status, so they can't work legally, living either in the encampments or with their legal relatives. Either way, they must work, so they do it illegally. And once one crosses the legality threshold, once the threat goes straight to deportation, there is no limit, and here come the drugs, prostitution, slave labor, sex slavery, and with these criminals, all ghosts in the machine, murder goes unnoticed, unchecked, undocumented, and unsolved, or perhaps obvious to those who knew the victim, but never officially reported.

I have recently been in discussion about the subjectivity of focusing on blocks of time such as years and decades, so to throw in one more unhappy stat, 16 of 2009's murders in San Joaquin county were in November and December, 8 each. This is double the average. 2010 isn't looking good.

The Death of Liberty

2009-12-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

Too many words have been written by too many people on too many subjects. Saturation is complete.

Nobody is noticing this grand overstepping of authority by the U.S. government.

Nevermind the politics. Whether you are for or against national healthcare, or universal healthcare. This isn't the issue.

Mandatory health insurance is what I consider a coffin nail to American liberty.

There is nothing, nowhere, in the United States government that is mandatory for all citizens. Some things get close, like registering for the draft, which has a lot of baggage behind it. Another is Social Security, which every person who works must pay into.

This is 100% mandatory for all Americans. If the health care bill passes, I guarantee you it will be in it, because NO ONE IS PUTTING UP A FIGHT.

You apathetic, pathetic American voters put these corrupted people into office, and they act in your will, to subvert the concept of individualism, and natural human ritghts. Things you have lost concept of. None of you know why the Bill of Rights exists. It isn't a list of all our rights it is a list of intentionally designed commands to the government. Your rights don't exist on paper, except in the words of the founding fathers who believed they were obvious, and inalienable. Inalienable means INHERENT, ABSOLUTE, UNASSAILABLE. Yet you have managed to fuck it up.

This isn't about small concessions anymore, and that's what I'm talking about when I say we have reached saturation. This isn't some nitpicking about welfare, or public transportation, or traffic laws. This is the fundamental nature of government being altered, and the INHERENT RIGHT OF MAN BEING USURPED.

This is not a small step. It is not a death of a thousand paper cuts. It is a frontal assault, and all we have is dead silence from all political factions.

The health insurance bill will pass. No one will stop this. And for the first time in this nation's history, every person will be mandated under threat of PRISON to pay money for health insurance.

This is the death of liberty.

YOU ARE GOING TO LITERALLY PAY YOUR GOVERNMENT FOR THE PRIVILIGE TO LIVE, OR BE SENT TO PRISON.

"just like car insurance" 'living is not a right, it's a privilige.'

You have just destroyed your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Whiskey in my life

2009-12-09T23:49:00.000-08:00

I've heard Whiskey is currently experiencing a popularity boom unlike ever before. It probably has something to do with me coming to enjoy it.

I've always loved whiskey. Long before I ever drank any alcohol. Maybe because it originated in Ireland, I'm not sure. No one in my alcoholic family ever drank whiskey. It was always my default idea of alcohol.

I'm not going to go all wikipedia, or drink expert here, I just want to lay out my opinion on the matter.

The first whole glass of liquor I ever drank was some Jim Beam. I was 21 years old, it was about the end of 2003 and I was in Stockton on leave from the Navy. I had never been drunk before so I told my dad I wanted to see what it was like. He let me drink his Jim Beam, but it was only about a glass and it didn't actually get me drunk. I wouldn't have another sip of alcohol for 2 years.

I love the process of making whiskey. The charred oak barrel aging is actually where most of the flavor comes from, though whiskey is never distilled to pure alcohol, so it retains the flavor of its grain origin as well. Like pretty much everything else on earth, there are hundreds of ways to make it, and many variants. I would like to note one in particular, Bourbon, which I recently learned, is found in almost all major foreign bottles. Scotland, Ireland, Canada, etc? get their barrels from Kentucky (namely Jim Beam) and reuse the barrels, so most Irish, Scotch, and Canadian whiskeys have a certain percentage of Bourbon in them (and it isn't as little as you might think). Now how can you get snooty knowing that?

Coming in usually around 80 proof (40%) whiskey is mid range in the liquors, above the girly drinks, and below the mixers.

I'm going to list here most of the whiskeys I'm rather familiar with, with a snippet of opinion and rating.

Good Whiskey

Glenlivet I drank this for the first time a little over a week ago. Tony got me to go to a boring party in Ukiah, which was a 4 hour drive, I should do a blog about that. In fact, I will. It was the first single malt I've ever had, and it was very fine. It had a burn to it, so It's not as miraculous as I oddly assumed single malts were, in fact, tasting it, let me know single malt doesn't necessarily mean anything at all. I enjoyed it neat and that's about as good as it gets for me and whiskey.

Jameson This may be my second favorite whiskey, purely by its taste. Jameson sure doesn't have what Budweiser calls "drinkability" it has a harsh burn to it, but it does taste and smell very good. It also isn't anywhere near as syrupy as most whiskeys, which makes it easy going down. I like Jameson because it lets me get drunk very quickly. When I was in San Diego I did security for about 8 months. Work started at 5am, and I had no vehicle. So I would go to my ship the night before and sleep there. The thing about not having a car and being stationed on a ship on Coronado is you have to walk a lot. I have literally walked the entire length of Coronado many times. It's over a 20 minute walk to the ship just from the front gate of the base.

So each night before work, around 8-9pm, I would go to my freezer, pull out my bottle of Jameson, and drink straight from the bottle for awhile. Enough to guarantee I was drunk. Then I would begin the long bullshit process of getting to my rack. I had to walk to 5th avenue from my apartment, then I'd get in a cab, ride to the front gate of Coronado and walk to the ship. By the time I got to the ship, I'd be sober again. It took that fucking long. I'd usually be just buzzed enough to sleep soundly, which was important for having to get up at 4 am with 6 hours (max) sleep.

Jim Beam I already said this was my first drink. It was also the only time I ever had Jim Beam. My dad taught me how to drink whiskey correctly, and this alcohol didn't fail, if drunk right, very little burn, decent taste.

Knob Creek This is a premiem Bourbon by Jim Beam. It is 100 proof, so it is exceptionally more alcoholic than most other whiskeys. You can smell it in someone's glass, especially if they've mixed it with soda. I bought one bottle a few weeks ago thinking it would have a premium taste. with 50% alcohol, it is a little much for a sipping whiskey. It has a good flavor, but neat is less enjoyable than mixed with coke.

Mediocre Whiskey

Jack Daniels Oh I know I'm breaking the heart of every frat boy wannabe from the 90s until 2015 with this, but Jack is mediocre, and you know it. That's why you always put it in coke frat boy wannabe. Or you're just a tool. Either way, the stuff has a good flavor, but it actually tastes watered down. I can't explain that.

Johnny Walker Red This is the only Johnny Walker label I've had, so I can't say anything about the better ones. Red is their bottom of the barrel label, their "stuff got mixed in this and we're not sure what, but it's only been aging since you put your swim shorts away for the season so who cares" quality brand. It burns, it smells awful, and it tastes worse. It is possible to drink though. So it stays here in mediocre land.

Absolutely Vile (aka Canadian whiskey that comes in plastic jugs)

Canadian Mist It wasn't until I was long out of the Navy, long out of spending money. Long into retreat and no longer caring about anything but getting drunk, when I decided to purchase this liquor, based on price. Oh good lord. You can buy the shitiest vodka, and you're still somewhat safe for mixing, but this taught me a serious lesson. Whiskey can be offensively bad. This smells like vomit, it tastes like vomit. If you mix it with anything, it can lose alcoholic potency in dilution, but its stink, itsdisgusting flavor will never go away. Let it be a great testament that this shit sat unfinished in my poor kitchen for months before one particularly desparate day I chugged it and had to forcefully prevent myself from blowing it all back up.

Black Velvet After Canadian Mist, I swore to never buy cheap whiskey again. Give the story a few months and Danny comes over to eat drink and be merry. He brings as "gift" a mostly drunk bottle of Black Velvet. It is exactly as bad as Canadian Mist.

Great Whiskey

Chivas Regal This is my absolute favorite. Maybe it's just my subjective good memories of drinking this in foreign lands with my friend Sean (it was his favorite) but Chivas does have a lot going for it. It tastes great. I usually drink it room temperature, neat. I like to smell it first, just sticking my nose in the glass and swirl it around. It is so smooth and delicious, I pour some in my mouth and swish it around and smack it and taste and taste and oh jesus. It's seriously good. If you can't imagine a whiskey so smooth that you can drink it this way, you haven't had any good whiskey.

I want my forums back

2009-11-17T03:44:00.000-08:00

The Stockton Record had a really stupid method for commenting on articles, but at least it had something. They got rid of them a couple months ago, promising to come out with something better, but I suppose to them, dead silence might be better. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Angry literate Stocktonians bitching.

Hey you know what's bullshit? When I start typing keywords (here on this blog), it starts listing suggestions, if I hit the comma button, which is vital to enter another keyword, it automatically replaces my keyword with one of the suggestions. How the fuck am I supposed to get past this? Great, I have to keep typing like a moron, then go back and add the comma when the suggestions aren't looking, then I can delete the other stuff. Seriously wtf Google? Fix that shit. Comma isn't supposed to function as the enter key. Fuckers.

Kentucky Race: Rand Paul leads Grayson in Recent Survey USA poll; And will Senate Conservatives Endorse Rand Paul?

2009-11-04T00:48:00.000-08:00

Kentucky Race: Rand Paul leads Grayson in Recent Survey USA poll; And will Senate Conservatives Endorse Rand Paul?

Language

2009-10-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

I always thought English was a Latin based language.

Then one day I was watching some video that said "English, a germanic language..." What the hell? I was pissed. Don't you krauts be takin away mah English!

Well. Fuck if I didn't know the Angles and Saxons were Germans!

English are considered Anglo-Saxon, which were the two primary invaders from Germany, some 1,000 years ago.

It amazed the hell out of me, learning about their invasion. As they completely succeeded and destroyed the old British (Even the name England come from the Angles "Angleland").

Britain, pre Anglo-Saxon invasion, was Roman. They spoke Latin. Except of course for the roudy Celtic bastards who had been there for maybe 1000 years before that, and still didn't like their new neighbors. When the Roman Empire receded from Britain, it created a power vaccuum. And so the King of Britain, called in for mercinary forces to help against the invaders. The British king gave the Anglo-Saxon mercs some land in the south-east of England. Well, some payments were missed, and before the old Roman Brits knew it, the Saxons invaded their lands, and drove them out, taking over England.

As soon as word spread of this to the German tribes in the east, hordes came over, and populated the island.

Even more interesting, even though most of the Roman Britains were wiped out, England became highly Latinized again when the Normans invaded. Which actually invalidates the claim that modern English is a Germanic language. Linguistically, English is as Germanic, as it is Latin, as it is Celtic, as it is Norse, as it is French tribal, as it is Polish, as it is, etc. etc. etc.

Latino in America

2009-10-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

HERE IT IS!

I am a lover of the world. I am a lover of individual enterprise, personal accountability and success. I'm going to tackle a bit of what I think about immigration in America.

Past: America is notorious for its history of immigrant hating. It's pretty much the reason the colonies formed so far from each other. Many later immigration spurts were tightly controlled, delineated, or completely cut off.

Apology: Every nation worth its salt has some form of immigration control. Even the nations that bitch about American immigration laws, have immigration restrictions themselves. This isn't an America-centric issue, and in many cases, America is nowhere as restrictive as other nations. In fact, that's really the big argument. The people who want no law, vs. the people who want the current laws enforced.

Present: You can walk into America. You can drive into America. You can fly into America. You can work, and vacation, and learn in America. Legally. No matter where you are from.

Becoming a citizen is a bit more complicated.

My opinion: I think there should be a logical and fairly rapid process to become a citizen.

Anyone that the military accepts into their ranks should immediately become a citizen.

Anyone who has no criminal record, should be able to become a citizen.

Anyone who has a job in-line, or a critical skill, should be able to become a citizen.

Anyone born in America should be able to become a citizen.

And many more...

On the other side, I think a criminal, with no job, and no skills, should have some way of becoming a citizen.

Problems:

As America becomes progressively more like a welfare state, the issue of nationality is critical.

You want some more of my opinions?

There should be no welfare, social security, or free health care. Period. It's ruining this nation.

Back on track.

Mexico is the primary source of immigrants. And millions come over illegally. And Mexico, being in the sad socialist way it is, does not have a wealthy or educated populace.

This wouldn't be a problem, but combined with America's welfare state, and basically American workers, are paying to support people who came here illegally and don't make enough to live on their own.

So you get angry people, who take out their frustrations on the immigrants.

Once again America's bullshit mixed economy is to blame.

Welfare State, with open borders = poverty for everyone.

Notice in truly socialist nations, borders are tightly controlled, both ways.

Even Mexico has serious border control, just not on the American border.

ohhh

2009-10-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I used to make weapons. I made a lot of bows and arrows, I made spears, etc. I always wondered how the hell people made blow dart guns out of bamboo. Bamboo grows in cells, although it is mostly hollow, there are walls on the inside. I thought, even if you stuck a tool down the bamboo shaft, it would never make a clean straight barrel. Also, bamboo is really too wide. I learned from shooting spit balls out of straws that you need a tight fit. Darts from dart guns are always small. How do you shoot a small dart out of a big barrel with any force?

Well, like a million other questions in life, I just forgot about it and went about my business.

Today, decades later, I finally have the answer.

To make a blow dart gun from bamboo, you cut the bamboo in half, then meticulously cut a small straight grove into both sides of the bamboo halves. Then you tie the two halves together again. In this way you should have a straight, small barrel, running through the center of the bamboo shaft. Perfect for tiny darts.

Schwarzenegger finally disappoints me :(

2009-10-12T23:47:00.000-07:00

I have been an outspoken supporter of Arnold since he threw in his hat for the governorship of California. When everyone else turned on him, I supported him. He has been a champion for Californians against the stranglehold of special interest groups and this bumbling idiotic assembly.

So it was a great disappointment for me that while Arnold nears the end of his heroic governorship, he is caving. Arnold recently passed a slew of bills in a midnight tussle with the assembly.

I could agree with much of what he past, but one thing in particular is really depressing me.

Now he has signed into law a requirement that any person who buys handgun bullets in this state must provide all their personal information for a document, signed by them, certified through identification, and fingerprints, so it can be put on file with the state government.

If you don't live in California, and/or you don't own a gun, you probably don't know California is one of the strictest gun law states in the U.S. Whether you agree or not with the laws is somewhat irrelevant to my current gripe.

Whether you like it or not, the Second Amendment gives the people the right to bear arms. I understand that this new law is not eliminating that right, but it is putting a great hindrance on it.

If they can so thoroughly trash one right, what legal ground does anyone have to defend any others? If they make it mandatory for anyone who wants to speak in public to provide their ID, fingerprints, and submit their information to the government, would that make sense to you?

You may argue that words can't hurt people. And you'd be a moron do so. One of the easiest ways of controlling free speech would be right here on the internet. Imagine having to submit all your personal information to the government every time you wanted to make a blog post; just in case terrorists get the idea they can exchange their information and ideas freely, they put a lock down on internet communication. Would that make sense? It's perfectly winable, if rights aren't really rights as soon as someone might hurt someone else.

Criminals don't even obtain their guns legally. Do you really think this law has a damn thing to do with stopping criminals? You could ID the bullet all you want, you'll find the guy who bought the bullets legally and was robbed. Or you'll find homemade shells, or shell decoys, or "clean" shells.

But even if this did solve a crime, or at least point to another crime (as a criminal would probably at the least pay someone else who legally obtains bullets) it is at such a cost, that I can not see an overall benefit.

Certainly, if we were all forced to live in cages, the murder rate would disappear. This is not how humanity is supposed to work.

This is the disarming of law abiding citizens. It is the same back door technique employed by Mexico. Make the bullets unatainably expensive through regulations.

Some people think that's a good idea. The new adage "If a bullet cost (insert a lot of money here) people would think twice before they shot someone." True. And if bullets were that expensive, no one would have any practice, except the criminals who would just make their own, or smuggle them in, so that would be one more point against any law abiding citizen ever able to defend themselves.

The California prison population has increased over 73% since 1990. That is 3 times faster than the population of adults has grown.

Are Californians becoming worse people, in dire need of authoritarian rule?
Or is the system broken, and in a perpetual cycle of imprisonment and punishment?

Is the solution to crime, disarming noncriminals?

Is the solution to social issues, imprisoning minorities disproportionately, and coming up with new ways of doing it?

Even if you are for strong gun control, don't you see the terrifying issue at hand, California is throwing people away! And there's no sign it's getting better. More ways to put people away is going to further this prison system that the state can not even afford now.

Obama's gay rights efforts

2009-10-10T22:12:00.001-07:00

I really hope Obama does end the "don't ask, don't tell policy". I hope he doesn't replace it with some other 2 class system. I know the ill effects of this policy. I've watched how it affected great American servicemembers.

But even if Obama does pull off this wonderful promise, it wouldn't be the end.

Without recognizing gay marriage, homosexual service members will never be equal. A gay friend of mine who I served with had a husband, legal in his state, not a "union", but a marriage. The state acknowledges the marriage, but the military is a federal entity, and the federal government only acknowledges heterosexual marriage. So when my friend's legal husband got sick, and was dying, he could not go visit him. No, instead he was discharged, because he "told".

Even if being openly gay isn't grounds for immediate removal from the military, gay marriages still won't be recognized. So while heterosexual marriages will enjoy higher pay, family separation pay, better insurance, better housing, homosexual marriages won't mean anything, even if your loved one is dying half a planet away. At least you won't get fired.

Now you might wonder, if Obama can get the "don't ask don't tell" policy repealed, couldn't he help promote gay marriage? Perhaps. But gay marriage is a whole other issue, a much tougher issue. And one he does not support.

Most Obama lovers created this fantasy version of the man in their minds, a man who wanted exactly whatever they wanted for this country. That's because those people are tools. I can't understand how you people consider issue dodging as being akin to "agreeing wholeheartedly" with you. Obama's entire presidential campaign was about using generic words like "hope" and "change" without any real specifics. But he was cornered and forced to answer a few times, mostly in debates. One of these issues was whether Obama supported gay marriage. He absolutely does not. Period.

I do hope he repeals "don't ask, don't tell". It would be a morally right thing, and I would be very happy. But I wouldn't have illusions about full individual rights for all humans from this president.

FEMA's Revenge

2009-09-27T23:26:00.000-07:00

So FEMA's credibility was annihilated in 2005. They became the laughing stock of the world. Their ability to do anything useful was more than called into question.

Now, I see they are getting their revenge.

I'm sure FEMA has been plotting this for years, but it is only now about to come to fruition. Mandatory flood insurance, for any and all property owners who have even a 1% chance of a flood each year(known as a 100 year flood, because if you have 1%/year, it would be 100 years before there would statistically be 1 flood).

100 years!

Why not go all out, and require continental shift insurance (aka earthquake insurance) if there's a 1% chance per year for a minor earthquake, require hurricane insurance, lightning insurance, tornado insurace? Hell, Obama wants to make breathing insurance mandatory (aka forced health insurance for all who breathe), why not just make every property owner in America just hand over their fucking paychecks to the government? If they can't pay, make the land public, then give it to drug dealers and prostitutes, and make those left with private property pay for that too.

In case anyone is wondering what the hell I'm ranting about, here is a link to a map that shows all the houses that need mandatory flood insurance in my area. It's most of the City of Stockton, the map covers San Joaquin County.

http://www.sjmap.org/floodzoneviewer/Disclaimer.htm

Terrorism

2009-09-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

Remember back in 2001, when everyone was coming up with scenarios where "the terrorists win". It was a curious social meme.

"If we don't keep living out normal lives, the terrorists win".

I think that's an important one. It's the only one that seems to explain America's blind ignorant stumbling from 2001-until now.

We haven't had any more terrorist attacks in the United States. This is true. But we have had many attempts. It isn't for lack of effort that no one has attacked.

And September 11, 2001 wasn't anywhere near the first attempted attack, nor the first successful attack.

I think it is amazing, that people can so easily disregard attempted attacks, and take successful ones so seriously.

Intent to cause harm was present in either case. It is usually not a failure of the terrorists that they got caught, but rather a success of security, at some point along the way.

The British have saved us from a huge attack. Our border security stopped a huge attack, the FBI has stopped huge attacks. Even regular people stopped the 'shoe bomber' when all measures of security failed.

Right now, we have suspects in custody, who may have been planning to bomb New York. This has not ended.

Do not let people tell you the threats are long since over.

Cups

2009-09-20T00:03:00.009-07:00

What the hell is wrong with cups?

First, why do any cups, let alone most disposable cups expand from bottom to top? I can't buy a soda from a fast food restaurant or from a festival, or I don't know Dixie, without it having a diameter at the bottom maybe 1/2 of the top. I mean, isn't that the definition of 'top heavy'?

Also, with all the business at the top end of the cup, you'd think it were a conspiracy. If you get your soda filled up for you, the top end, which is the most voluminous, will be mostly fizz. It also makes it more 'open' for shit to fall into it, and for it to spill. Never mind the durability, I mean, if you squeeze the cup, just a little, that big honking top pops the plastic cover right off and all the soda just waiting up there spills out.

I assume the pro argument would be that with an increasing circumference from bottom to top, it better allows for a cup to fit any cup holder, but who the hell cares about that shit? Cup holders are pretty much standardized at this point (<- except whatever that is). Oh, and apparently from this amazing online infomercial, factory cup holders cause drinks to spill anyway.

If I haven't put enough emphasis on the overall failure of modern cup technology yet, let me then fall down to the bottom of the cup. That weak, pathetic bottom. Why is it, that with most paper cups, the bottom is the weakest part? The bottom is under the most pressure, it should be the strongest! And if this were only a relative comparison, and not a fatal flaw, I wouldn't mind it. But the simple truth is, if you use a paper cup, the bottom will get wet, and it will collapse. It's like a timer for anyone wanting a cool drink... how long do I have to drink this delicious drink, before the bottom starts buckling under the massive weight of several ounces?

Imagine if you will, some scenario where people have gathered out in a remote location, maybe miles from a water fountain, and said people have chosen to bring a big cooler of water, and paper cups for quenching natural thirst. Now, use your thinking noggin to imagine what its like, on this hot dry day, as the cups begin breaking from reuse. Sure, it's just some cheap paper cup, there's plenty. But they wear down. More and more people want water, and more and more cups are used up. Eventually, your stuck with using two or three breached cups, hoping you can down the life giving water faster than it can leak its way out onto the unappreciative ground. This very horrid scenario is actually based on a true story. I was stuck collecting other people's used, and ruined cups and putting them under my tiny cup, to get sips of life giving water, while moored out in Tokyo Bay during a 5 hour deck watch. The horror. The horror.

All I'm talking about here is paper, or plastic, holding liquid for a day, at best. Are we really so pathetic a species, that we can't hold some water for a day? I've seen plants do a better job!

Lessons Learned:

1. Do not google image search "McDonald's cup" with safe search off. Then again, if you roll without "safe search", you've probably seen worse.

2. Blogger spell check says "location" is spelled wrong. It suggests (no joke) "lo cat ion".

3. I swear I had more complaints about cups, but this blog took a lot longer than I imagined. The later at night it gets, the slower and dumber I get.

eBay and GM

2009-08-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

uugggh, remember when everything had to have the letter e put in front of it? Holy crap was that annoying. I think email is the only one to really stick, besides the few websites that survived the big "dot com" burst of 2000.

It reminds me of that new show "Tosh 2.0" which has a horribly out of date name, for a show about the internet. The whole "2.0" joke was old before the internet was even popular. People who are adults now, weren't even born when 2.0 was old. Yeah. It's that old. I'm that old for thinking this.

Anyway, eBay has managed to not only stay relevant, it is still one of the best used item sources on the internet. I would say Craigslist is a great contender, but Craigslist and eBay do not entirely overlap. Where eBay won't even allow you to sell a fucking pocket knife, Craigslist has whores listed 24/7 365, every city in America.

Note I said eBay is one of the best used item sellers. New stuff is usually better served at a source. It's the auction that doesn't align correctly. An auction presumes some measure of scarcity. Having a room full of people bid on something usually implies that the entire room can't have it. Something that is new, and still in production can most certainly be sold to an entire room, so there's no buyer or seller advantage to auction.

Enter GM and eBay. I found out about their little experiment mere minutes before it went "online" so to speak. Now weeks have passed, and I think there's a pertinent assessment to be made (that's right folks, you won't read about this anywhere else).

If you haven't heard about this, here is a summary:

GM is experimenting with selling new cars "through" eBay. The cars are listed directly by each individual dealership, the GM overlords aren't doing any of the actual selling. This is only available in California right now.

The first thing I noticed was that eBay gave GM special privilege that they wouldn't give any other seller on their website. They granted GM "Power Seller" status before the first cars had even been put on sale. Being an eBay Power Seller is supposed to be an accolade, it shows one has made many business transactions over eBay, and remains in good standing. It also affords the seller special privileges and advantages against other sellers and buyers.

Next I noticed that the account "yourgmdealer" was listed as being from back in Dec. 2007. The page shows an automated notice that the account had actually changed its name on August 3 (a few days before they went online) from bighouse0001, to yourgmdealer. There's a term for this in the internet world but I can't remember it right now. What GM was doing was trying to give themselves "e cred"(lol) by making it look like they've had that account for 2 years.

Most importantly, is the matter of the auctions themselves. They are not, as one might think from the ads, or the fact that this is on eBay, open auctions. These are actually a version of "closed auctions" that only people like "Power Sellers" are allowed to perform. Basically you can't get into a bidding war, nor can you get a great deal.

These closed bids are specifically tailored to guarantee that the cars will not be sold for less than a secret amount, but buyers can foolishly overbid and have to pay. I actually bid $100, then $1,000 for a new Impala, and I was automatically rejected both times.

From what I've read, the listed "Buy it now" prices are on average 2% above normal sticker price at a dealership. But the website claims the "Buy it Now" prices are a couple thousand under MSRP. I'm not really sure if that's a conflict though. The secret bid minimums are actually automated. That is, if you make a bid under their secret minimum bid, it will automatically reject your offer. If you make a bid above their minimum, you will be put on hold. In the mean time the dealer can wait for better offers to come in. If they don't get a better offer, they can still chose whether or not to accept your offer. So, in this context, the buyer actually has no advantage whatsoever on the pricing of the car.

This is where it gets all bullshitty. Up until this point, I've pointed out minor crap, but what I think is newsworthy (and isn't being reported anywhere) is how fundamentally screwed up this scheme is, and how it isn't panning out.

1. No one's using it (this is news on its own). When I say no one, I mean there are 8 feedback comments on GM's page. I have 16 feedback comments on my account. And I've only very casually used eBay throughout the past 7 years. Everyone is compelled to leave feedback. It's not something people forget, because eBay won't let you. Any regular user would leave feedback. So I would have to see numbers showing in this one instance people aren't leaving feedback (but for such a huge purchase, it would be counter-intuitive).

2. The few people that have purchased through eBay, haven't been the happiest eBayers. Right now, with 8 people, 6 are positive, 2 are negative. This gives GM a rating of 47%, which is horrible for a seller. I have a 100% rating. Sell enough, buy enough, you will get negative reviews, but most good eBayers will stay in the 99% range. None would have a 47%. Hell, as far as I can gather, the bad rating has forced GM out of the special "Power Seller" status. They currently have a cumulative "2" (which statistically weighs positive against negative), you have to make 10 just to get to the first tier in the eBay "star" scale.

3. You still have to deal with a dealer. This is the only news that should ever have been reported. Ultimately, there is fundamentally no advantage to the buyer to go through eBay. Imagining that a buyer manages not to bid too high, but still high enough to be "worthy" of a sale, assuming the buyer isn't already paying more than if he had just walked into the showroom and been robbed blind, this isn't a clean win for the buyer. You see, as soon as you make a deal for a price, the dealer will try to raise it. The eBay "win" in this case means absolutely nothing. You still have to negotiate for the car, negotiate for options, negotiate for all the shit people negotiate for in person. Then you have to show up in person at the dealership, and at this point, the deal still isn't "done".

Like some disgusting hybrid, where you "win" a bid on eBay, then have to meet the seller in person a la Craigslist, only to have the seller change the deal on the spot. In fact, a better analogy would be to stick to what this is, just another scam by car salesmen to get you in the door. Considering nothing you do before they get you in meant anything, this is in effect, a big ass publicity stunt, with one purpose, tricking semi serious buyers to go to the dealership.

One of the negative comments made this glaringly obvious, even its ungrammatical brevity. "BAIT AND SWITCH. POST BIN RAISED PRICE BY 950 FOR "TRUE COAT" ALA FARGO."

If GM would deal directly through eBay, not through dealerships and eBay, this might have worked. If eBay had actually used an open auction, this might have worked (for the buyer anyway).

I think this issue is doubly important considering we are part owners in this company, and we shouldn't be putting up with these shenanigans.

Kim Jong Ill

2009-07-09T01:31:00.000-07:00

Ok so I was thinking of having the title "Earth Sucks" but I think I'll save that one for another day.

(stole this photo from another blog)

I don't think this photo does justice as to how disgustingly old King Kim has aged since last time he made an appearance. He's reminding me of the movie "Forever Young", which by the way was a really ironic name for a movie about a guy who gets frozen and then ages to become like 80 years old when he's mentally only in his late 20s, or early 30s. How is that "forever"? HE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO BE YOUNG FOR AS LONG AS MOST PEOPLE!

Here's a better one I just stole from the AP off YouTube:

Here's the problem. Kim is not simply a dictator, he's a monarch. There will be nothing to rejoice about when he dies, because you can bet his son won't be any better.

Kim did nothing to ascend into power. That was pops, Kim Il Sung, famous tool of one of the worst humans in the 20th century, Josef Stalin.

Worse yet, like in the book 1984, there doesn't really need to be an actual "big brother" to keep people in line. If Kim dies and his son isn't quite ready, the henchmen that Jong Il has surrounded himself with will do well enough to keep North Korea in its permanent state of ruination until grandson Kim is evil enough to ascend to full power.

Why does this matter? It's just a piece of the overall reason why Earth (particularly humans) suck right now.

Back in the day, there'd be revolution over taxes. There'd be usurpations over arguments. There'd be world wars over one man's death.

That was back when people didn't live and die like pathetic lumps of meat.

What do we have now? Terrorism. THE BIGGEST SCAM IN GLOBAL HISTORY.

Terrorism NEVER ACCOMPLISHES GOVERNMENT COLLAPSE. Terrorism only strengthens governments. It only gives leaders resolve, and carte blanche to become dictators. Maybe that's exactly what they want, for surely they too promote a totalitarian government. Seriously, let's look at some famous incidents of terrorism.

Northern Ireland. Dominated mostly by Limeys due to the British's method of conquest (similar to the American method used in western states) Ulster chose to remain a part of Britain when Ireland became independent. That's right, CHOSE. What the Irish attempted (and still attempt) would be akin to Native Americans trying to terrorize Americans into handing back their land. Wait. That did happen. How did that work out? It didn't. Curiously enough I was just watching a show about it on the History Channel. When Andrew Jackson told the Cherokee to get off their land to make way for more Americans, the Cherokee sued him! And they won! The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that President Jackson had no right to force Cherokee off their land. What was Jackson's response? "Try and stop me." Thus began what became known as the "Trail of Tears". That's right, one of the most violent, heartless evil things the United States has ever done was done by a president directly violating the United States Supreme Court. He should have been fired for that, but I'll get back to this.

Another good example of terrorism is in Israel. Muslims blow themselves up all the time, and what does Israel do? KILL THEIR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND LOCK THEM UP IN A GIANT PROVINCE SIZED PRISON. Didn't quite work out for you, did it Palestinians?

Or how about the terrorists in Pakistan, there, for once, they are all the same religion, still terrorists were blowing up Pakistani buildings and killing people. What did Pakistan do? ALLOW AMERICA TO COME IN MORE OFTEN AND KILL MORE. Didn't quite work out for them either.

Terrorism is worthless. It could easily be a scheme by big governments to guarantee big governments if it didn't involve such devout brave idiots. Politicians, especially totalitarians are usually the exact opposite, devout to nothing, cowards at the core, but crafty like foxes.

So Earth, we have plenty of terrorism. That's old news, but it's getting worse, so it's still news.

Next up: Rebellion

Used to be, when a people rebelled, it was for a purpose, or if it wasn't, it became one, and they didn't let it slip away, they made something of it, they'd knock down a government, or at least get something to change. America is full of stories of protesters changing the country. We were founded on rebellion. Nations would rise and fall like the tides. Lately it seems no one is allowed to topple countries.

Don't you know the preamble to the US Constitution "in order to form a more perfect union"? Bottom line, lots of nations around the word need to be toppled before humanity finds a better union.

Nations rising and falling was as natural as businesses rising and falling. That's how ethnicities came to be separate from nationalities. The people didn't go anywhere, but the governments did.

Now we have humorous efforts at revolution. Iran is the primo example. All these poor Iranians; marching and protesting like they aren't going to be executed or dragged off in the middle of the night from their homes, never to be seen again.

Many of them were anti-Muslim authority. That blew my mind. But whether they were the against the government whole, or simply the farce election, they didn't do anything worthwhile. They didn't storm the government buildings. They didn't go on strike and halt the system. I don't think they tried anything but yelling in the streets. It can be just as bloody, with absolutely nothing for it.

And finally: Self Determinism

America, especially now, is effectively enemy #1 to any nation trying to do its own thing. One such issue for me, is the right to bear arms. And if people can bear arms, and a nation exists to serve and protect people, then how can you say a nation can't bear arms? How can you say a nation can't have nukes? I hate Iran's government, but we most definitely do not need another war. America, THE ONLY NATION IN HISTORY TO NUKE PEOPLE, has no footing to demand other nations disarm.

South Ossetia is an ancient land. It has its own people. Its own language, and its own culture. It had enjoyed freedom for many centuries until recently, gobbled up by empires and the USSR. When the USSR fell, South Ossetia immediately petitioned for independence, but to no avail. South Ossetia was gobbled up again; this time by the horrible government of Georgia. South Ossetia has spent over a decade peacefully trying to get independence, but every once in a while, Georgia picks a fight. Most recently Georgia invaded South Ossetia. Russia, being the only nation on earth that recognizes South Ossetian independence, went in and protected them. What was Americas response? "Georgia invaded by Russia". America, not having a clue about the politics in Ossetia condemned Russia, and sent in the UN for a fight. Excuse me good sirs, but where were you when talks were taking place? Where were you when Ossetia begged for reason and court? You have no trouble sending Americans, French, English, Brazilian, Japanese, whoever is available, in to fight and die against Russians, but you find it impossible to consider a peaceful option? You'll kill and die to preserve union's hold on a people. For what purpose? If Georgia were a decent nation, I might agree, but Georgia sucks. They are weak, they provide no good to their people. The only reason they are supported by America, is because they don't like Russia. That may be the only reason Russia supports South Ossetia. But wars shouldn't be fought on the premise of preventing wars. It's evil, and it's all America has been doing since Vietnam.

With a few exceptions. The majority of Americans who have died in combat from now back to Vietnam, were dying to prevent a war. It makes no sense. Vietnam was fought to stop the commie spread, why? Because we assumed if we had to fight the commies one day, we wanted more allies than them. The Iraq war was started because Iraq was a "threat", it might have attacked us. That was the only justification. The whole "WMD" issue stemmed from that. If it were Britain with the WMDs, it wouldn't have been an issue.

So we come to Honduras. 2/3rds of the Honduran government determined to fire the president. By their constitution, they have that authority. here is a link to the Honduras Supreme Court's official ruling against their president: http://www.poderjudicial.gob.hn/NR/rdonlyres/87E2BFFC-AF4D-44EA-BFC5-D93730D8D81C/2413/ExpedienteJudicial1.pdf.

Honduras's Congress also decided against the president, and appointed a new president, who is a member of the SAME POLITICAL PARTY as the fired president.

According to the left wing media, Hugo Chavez, and Obama, this was a Coup D’état. The media refuses to even acknowledge that everyone but the president is still in the government. The definition of a Coup "is the sudden, unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, by a small group of the State Establishment — usually the military — to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military".

Here is what I need you to consider. President Zelaya is not, and never was "THE" government of Honduras. In fact, the people who fired him are also a part of the government. It is fundamentally impossible to define a coup as a majority of government firing a minority.

The media reports over and over that the military took him out of power. This is a lie. The military took him out of the country. Constitutional authority by the government of Honduras took Zelaya out of power. The military just did the foot work. Which makes sense to me.

How can you call it a coup, when the only change is one employee? The firing might be determined "unjust", maybe. It might be determined unlawful. It might even be overturned. But it was not a coup, for the "government" wasn't removed, the employee was, not even his political party! Come on. Seriously. If the U.S. Congress impeached Obama, then the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Obama to be removed from power as well, and Joe Biden was put in his place, WOULD YOU CALL THAT A COUP??????????????????????

And despite what Hugo Chavez, and Obama think about presidential authority, they are not the overlords of humanity, they have no say in the self determinism of the nation of Honduras.

No American should die fighting to preserve this would-be dictator's authority. The fact that Obama and Chavez are blood brothers on this issue scares me.

It's all fun and games until Obama gets up and is like "Ha ha, you knew who I was and you still elected me, you have no chance to survive make your time. I really don't know how to even begin to argue against these policies. The Founding Fathers intentionally, and very specifically tailored the US government to make the president as weak as possible. They were so certain that the president would be weak, and that congress would be the true seat of power, that they tried to put on extra restrictions to congress to prevent imbalance. If you want a good read check out the speeches made by the founding fathers while the constitution was still still being written, they reveal much of the attitudes of the day. The president isn't supposed to be a king. The president isn't supposed to be a god, and in America, the president isn't supposed to be able to do what Obama and Bush and Clinton and Bush (I could go on for awhile) etc. have done.

I'm disappointed. That's pretty much it. People are still dying. People are still being oppressed, ruined, destroyed, enslaved. But humans have taken on this attitude where despite this, the nation must be preserved. The president must be worshipped. And the only people who do topple nations, do it with an insane reasoning to prevent other wars.

Great reply?

2009-07-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I visit a website called Shortnews.com. It's a place where people try their best to post news that they are simultaneously required to gather from a source, but in no way plagiarize the source. So it's news from real news sites, repeated by a bunch of chumps, and everyone else gets to comment on it. Hilarity ensues.

99% of the people on this website are hardcore liberals. They come from all over the world, lots of British, some Germans, many south Americans, etc. Needless to say, my opinion is often contentious.

So I went on today and there was an article titled “Arizona Goes Back to the Wild Wild West” http://shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=79448

Of course, being the liberals they are, this wasn’t some performance, or some spike in crime, or change in police style. Nope. It’s an article about concealed guns being allowed in bars.

So there of course was comment after comment of these liberal assholes talking about how they were ashamed to be human, ashamed of America, disgusted by the NRA blah blah blah because the Second Amendment was being supported. Of course most other nations have outright banned gun ownership, so a moderate from England or Australia would sound like an anti-gun psycho in America, but these people aren’t even moderates in their own country.

This was my response:

I am a man who believes if something is truly right, its status as right or wrong should not hinge on the failures of men. That if one truly believes in something, they may die for that belief, without compromise, and they would have lived a good and honorable life. After all, every human will die. This isn't important. How a person lives is what matters.

I know that for a rational and reasonable society to exist, every individual needs to have the right to personal property, and the right to protect themselves. This is fundamentally critical. For if we cannot value the rights of others to keep themselves, then we are essentially ascribing them to be slaves of society.

Society is merely a collection of individuals. As soon as you try to put some "value" of a "people" over an individual, the "people" are no longer free.

I believe it is a great injustice when a majority (or a minority in power) forces its will upon individuals in manners that only apply to personal livelihood.

This transcends "parties" or whatever people try to lump together in politics. This is a fundamental respect of the individual's right to exist by their standards, so long as they do not harm others.

Examples of this are all over in politics, and I find the political system to be a joke because of this. For how can you support one binding, and not another?

Some examples would be:

A woman's right to control her body, to have an abortion if she desires.

A human's right to get high, get drunk, kill themselves, have assisted suicide, anything unhealthy but entirely personal.

An adult's right to have a relationship with another consenting adult, or multitudes of consenting adults, and to engage in their relationship(s) in any manner they agree upon.

And another example would be for a person to be able to carry a gun.

I see these as fundamental rights. Whether or not a woman kills her children or leaves them in dumpsters is not a case against abortion. Whether or not a man gets drunk and kills another man, or ODs, or has their suicide taped and released are not arguments against a person's right to be healthy or unhealthy.

Whether or not a gay man will go to hell, or if a polygamist will take all the hot chicks in town are not arguments against adult relationships.

Taking one thing (an individual's right to chose their path in life) then adding on a criminal act (where a person may hurt someone else, or show disregard for life and put others or even their property in danger) are completely separate issues.

Either we are free to act on our own accord, as free humans we should be, or we are slaves to opinion and emotion. There is a rational boundary, if you hurt another person through reckless or malicious behavior, if you cause damage, these are overt acts that ARE explicitly matters for society. The boundaries are easy to draw, if you get drunk or high, then you cannot drive. If you choose to have a child, then you may not harm them, if you want to have sex with multiple partners, you can't be giving them the clap on purpose. And should you choose to be ask ever so nicely to be judged by a sheriff in your county, to be permitted by the United States Government to be able to simply carry a weapon which is your personal right to do so, then you may not just start shooting things or people.

Taking responsibility from the individual, is literally removing their rights as well. With rights come responsibilities, and you cannot have it both ways. You cannot tell someone they are simultaneously responsible and unable to act. Every law that is passed taking responsibilities from people, and giving them to the police, and the courts, is a little bit less freedom.

It is a very clear cut philosophy. Freedom or slavery. But you people somehow manage to pick and choose which laws you want enforced to suit your life, your mind, your circumstance. And it is this attitude, that the majority of humans possess, that is the ultimate failing of humanity. You want freedom, by your personal opinionated standard, and when enough opinions come together, no one is free.

Now I'm Pissed

2009-06-26T01:44:00.000-07:00

So I was recently told about the University of the Pacific having its own REAL police force. And I found out that the Stockton Unified School District has its own REAL police force, and my college, Delta, has its own REAL police department. Right now Stockton is shitting itself because they have no money, and the federal government is giving the city up to and including NOTHING.

That's right, Stockton CA, #1 most miserable city in America, official center of the housing collapse, highest unemployment in the the most broke state in the union will receive ---->$0<----- dollars from the federal government in their big "bail out". Stockton, completely ignored by Obama, is going to fire about 55 police officers.

Everyone can't stop talking about all the cops that are getting fired.

A Stocktonian promised that if they do get fired, he'll start a city militia, which made national news.

I'm wondering, how many fucking cops do we really have?

We have the Stockton PD, and everyone is crying because some are getting fired. Sure, 55 out of 441 cops is signifcant, but if they just shift their desk jobs around a little, it will be like nothing happened, but let's pretend it is a bad thing.

We also have in Stockton:

Stockton Unified School District Police Department
University of the Pacific Police Department
Delta College Police Department
California Highway Patrol
San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department
Various branches of the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE
FBI
Department of Justice
I won't list all the specialty enforcers like fish and wildlife or IRS or things like that because it would take forever.

And btw, finding out the cops on campus at Delta are REAL certified law enforcement, I'm now backwards pissed for 9/11/01, the day my stereo was stolen from my car at Delta. A cop (apparently a REAL cop) witnessed the event, saw the little hoodlum bitches, and didn't even chase them. I know this, because I talked to him afterwards and he was like "dems the breaks".

So with all this police, I don't know what people are bitching about. I don't think Stockton's problem is that we don't have enough cops. I think the problem is, Stockton is full of fucking criminals.

I don't think they grew up here either. It just doesn't make sense logistically.

The reason I'm posting this is because I was looking around SUSDPD's website and I noticed a link to the Megan's Law database.

FYI:

# of Convicted Sex offenders

San Francisco: 573, population: 808,000

Oakland: 595, Population: 397,000

Stockton: 775, Population: 290,000

San Diego: 947, Population: 1,354,000

Sacramento: 1599, Population: 1,394,000

San Francisco, and Oakland have significantly MORE people, yet far FEWER sex offenders. San Diego and Sacramento have fantastically more people, (San Diego 4.6X and 4.8X respectively) with hardly any more sex offenders (1.22X and 2.06X).

I'm not made of infinite research here, I don't mean to be deceptive, but I haven't found a city with more rapists and child fuckers per capita than Stockton, and the only
way to beat out Stockton in sheer numbers appears to require at least 4 times the population to work with.

America doesn't track any other criminals the way they do sex criminals, I don't think Stockton has an inordinately higher percentage of sex criminals compared to others, so I will without any further evidence conclude Stockton simply has more criminals overall per capita than anywhere else in this state.

Why does Stockton have more criminals? Are we truly a dumping ground? Are other cities simply meaner to criminals? Does Stockton do too much to welcome them? Is Stockton simply homegowing all these criminals?

These questions and many more can only be answered by Actual research. Which is something I'm not willing to do with 2 readers and negative $ output from this blog.

Somebody get on this. It's a true story, Why is the most miserable city in America so fucked up? Seriously, right now, while bad places and economies is the "in" thing, a book about Stockton might sell like Michael Jackson albums. <--- short term joke.

Valencia Oranges

2009-05-15T08:41:00.001-07:00

We all know California is the greatest country on Earth, and by the grace of God it shall never fall or be torn asunder.

But did you know California is responsible for the greatest oranges on Earth?

In the 1800s a Californian, and Hero of the people, William Wolfskill created the Valencia orange, the greatest orange ever, on his ranch in Santa Ana California. He named it after Valencia Spain, a land rich in oranges.

The Valencia Orange was a success, and spread across the globe. The California orange industry was born, and Orange County got its name.

Eventually Sunkist, the greatest orange soda ever, was born as an offshoot of the Valencia orange company.

Years later lots of rich assholes from around America moved into Orange County, thinking that by moving to the greatest land on Earth their souls would be lifted.

Unfortunately as the assholes came in droves, they pushed out the groves. Land in heaven became too expensive for the heavenly fruit. So it was outsourced to Florida, which wasn't doing anything anyway.

So now, 50% of all Florida oranges, are actually Valencia oranges. But don't take my word for it. Florida admits they are California's backyard.

Yay, do I wish upon this world that all lands bear the fruits of the Republic.
Florida is doing its part. What about your state(country)?

I think I should write a big ass coffee table book called "California: Why it just nailed your sister and bought up your debts." or maybe "California: Better than you"
I'm just going to keep listing books that need to be written.

"California: Why your life means nothing without it"
"California: The only place that matters"
"California: Can't Hear You Over All Its Awesomeness"
"Cool Places That Aren't California: Just Kidding"
"California: The only place that filthy bums and the disgustingly rich flock to"
"California: Put Some Stuff In The Soil, Or Pull Some Out, Either Way, It's Gold."
"California: Everything good "America" ever made was invented here."
"California: Why everyone who sucks needs to GTFO and go back to the east coast."
"California: Fuck You, Well Take Baja Back Before We Split."
Someone get on this. I'm busy.

World Premier of Dave Brubeck's newest music "Ansel Adams: America"

2009-05-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

World famous Jazz Musician Dave Brubeck and Chris Brubeck Premiered their symphonic tribute to Ansel Adams at my college in Stockton. Chris Brubeck was there, as well as the family of Ansel Adams, but Dave was sick in a hospital so he couldn't come. The piece was performed by the Stockton Symphony accompanied by photographs by Adams that alternated with the music perfectly.I got to see it!

You might wonder why Dave Brubeck would choose Stockton, it's because he was born in Concord and went to the University of the Pacific here when he was a teenager. It was here in Stockton at college that he decided to become a professional musician. He has since performed in Stockton many times.

Dave was scheduled to perform his album "Time Out" in its entirety (the first time ever fully performed live)50 years after releasing it, including the most awesome "Take Five". Hopefully he'll get well.

I first learned about Dave Brubeck through his song "Take Five". I was at Kadena Air Force base in Okinawa and a recording of a Dave Brubeck concert was being used as the demo for the TVs for sale. When "Take Five" played I recognized the song and told my friend it has always been my absolute favorite jazz song, I just had no idea what it was called or who was playing it. Months later my friend went home to Illinois and was able to find out through his dad what the song was. It wasn't until I came back to Stockton out of the Navy that I found out Dave Brubeck was one of my grandfather's favorite musicians growing up, and my dad and brother both had some of his albums.

There's a street named after him a few blocks from my house that runs along UOP and the Dave Brubeck Jazz Festival put on by the Dave Brubeck Institute was held around the corner from my house last weekend.

lol.

Just to put icing on the "music near my house" cake, Street Scene in San Diego, that was nearing bankruptcy because they stopped actually doing the concerts in San Diego, finally went back downtown. Local San Diegans know that it was entirely because of the Street Scene concert that downtown and the Gas Lamp were revitalized. When Street Scene first held its concerts on 5th avenue, all the businesses were rundown, there were crackheads on every corner, nothing but slum. The concerts brought people back to the center of San Dog and money came with them, a couple decades later downtown San Diego has become one of the biggest tourist attractions on Earth. I lobbied hard a few years ago when Street Scene left San Diego. I wrote to whoever I could contact that was a part of Street Scene. Back then every idiot in charge, and the general public had this attitude that Street Scene was "too big" and "in the way" of downtown. Well once the "too big" Street Scene moved out of the city it nearly went bankrupt, and the A - list performers stopped coming. I thought it was a tragedy that the concert that made Gas Lamp what it was, was being driven away and killed. Well, either my lobbying helped, or they just came to their senses, because Street Scene last year went back to downtown, not only that, it was held literally one block from where I used to live. Unfortunately I was here in Stockton, but I'm comforted just by its return. San Diego may be a city full of smug douchebags, but I like it anyway, it's beautiful, it has anything you want, it is California at its finest.

Yay California. Made from the best stuff on Earth.

What it is

2009-05-03T02:31:00.005-07:00

So when I started this blog profile, I had just come back to Yokosuka, Japan from 4 months in San Diego. Before Japan (back in 2003) I had been in Florida, before that, Illinois (2002), before that, my hometown of Stockton CA. So from 2004-2006 I lived in Japan. I had a nice house, I did what I did. In the meantime I was able to see many other places including Hong Kong, pretty much all of Korea, Australia, Guam, Saipan. In 2006 I went back to San Diego and lived in a super awesome brand new apartment right on Market street downtown. I lived in San Diego until about March 2008, then I moved back to my hometown of Stockton CA, where I currently occupy space.

So I need to update my profile a bit.

The Stockton Armed Militia

2009-05-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

A man in stockton declared a few months ago that if the police get fired, he's going to activate a militia to patrol the city. Well, 55 cops are being fired. Through technicalities, not all will end up "fired" but rather "early retired" but the figures will be the same. Stockton only has about 400 police as is.

The idea of a militia sparked liberal bitching across the country. The epitome of ignorance "wonkette" had around 100 comments describing Stockton in every derogatory manner they could imagine, having absolutely no knowledge of where Stockton even is, or pretty much anything else, some even confusing it with Stockholm. They still managed to declare everything cliche' white trash, kkk, nazi, they could imagine, and I pretty much almost cried at how fucking stupid these people are.

I like the idea of a citizen force picking up the cop's slack. But there's no room for reason in this issue it seems.

On the one side, you have all the dumbshits who think no one but the police should be allowed to have weapons, including our own fucking mayor. On the other hand, you have hundreds of untrained people who might be missing the point, but will all go out shooting if necessary.
Where's the informed middleground? I'm thinking I need to fucking talk to this guy before something tragic happens.

Let me lay this out. I am 100% pro gun. I think babies should be allowed to own machine guns. I don't mince words. I think Iran should be allowed to point nukes at us and talk shit. I think people should be allowed to work on death rays. I think every human should be allowed as many weapons of global destruction as they want, until they prove they aren't responsible enough to possess them. I had to make that clear.

That being said, I don't trust these guys to do proper law enforcement. It's one thing to have a gun to protect yourself, or people around you. It's a whole different realm to go out looking for shit to get into. Bad training can kill as much as any gun can.

I'm not a police officer, I don't feel qualified to patrol the streets in a law enforcement capacity. Yet I have worn a badge that said "police" on it. I have been trained in many aspects of law enforcement. I am an expert with several weapons, including the 9mm and the expandable baton. I am well trained an experienced with verbal commands, detaining suspects (handcuffing), arm bar techniques, the levels of force, and the circumstances for deadly force. For the small piece of land I patrolled as a military law enforcement, I was experienced, I knew what I could and could not do. But this is Stockton, and the rules are different.

That's the problem. There are so many dynamics to law enforcement. Security (and self protection) is easy, you protect something, you know what you're protecting. Law enforcement means getting involved in really confusing shit that you might not have any right to diffuse.

I won't feel comfortable about this Stockton Armed Militia unless they have positive support from the police, as well as training. I think if Stockton has a militia, it should serve in an official capacity, and it should break down like a volunteer branch of the police department. Volunteer, because the only reason Stockton might need a militia, there's no money to pay police.

I also think they need to take focus away from the guns. I can appreciate good citizens armed, but if that's the militia's only goal, to be an armed presence, they won't help 1/100th of the problems of not having police. If they only spring to action in a gun fight, they won't be springing to action very often. Cops are needed for so much more than that.

Imagine a scenario where the militia witnesses a man beating up a woman, so they swoop in, but they have no training for anything but gun play. What can they do? Pull out their guns. Great, someone's not going home that night.

Cops have "levels of force" at least in the utopia version of law enforcement I was trained into we did. Militia need to consider carrying more than guns, like pepper spray, batons, handcuffs, tasers, basically things that can solve a problem with no one dying.

Definition Is Only The Beginning

2009-04-22T18:13:00.001-07:00

"Bad Words"

I'm not going to reinvent the wheel on this subject. Penn and Teller's Bullshit on Showtime covered the issue thoroughly, and I think others have as well (though not South Park, I think their episode on 'curse words' was contradictory).

I will summarize; words have meaning because they are given meaning. A word is “bad” through intent. Ultimately it is the ideas of the people, and their ability to transfer them to other humans that is the gauge. And if a word can become “bad”, it is not necessarily a bad thing, or at least in usage.

If I say “Well fuckity shit.” I have used the two “worst” words in the English language. I do actually say this sometimes. Although I’m using the two worst words, the transliteration could be “Gee golly”, or simply “oh” (with particular inflection to designate disappointment in the surprise).

Half of our spoken language is inflection. The same words, or sentences can have multiple meanings based on how the words are pronounced.

This complexity leads to some interesting truths about the society. Some words become “bad”, not by their definition, not by their intent, but by what the word is describing. That is, if people hold “bad” or degrading ideas about the actual concept or idea, or whatever the word applies to, the word itself becomes “bad”.

Best example:

Hostess/Stewardess/Flight Attendant – (safety instructor and service attendant on a plane)

It is the odd nature of trying to regain prestige through verbiage that causes words to be tossed and new ones put in. Hostess (in common understanding, and original intention) is a term for a woman who is the package deal of friendliness and accommodation welcoming guests to her place. The male version ‘host’ has the same implication. So I can see it was with great honor to give the title hostess to women who gave people pillows on airplanes. But the word became sour, and eventually offensive to the women, so it was changed to Stewardess.

Steward/stewardess is an ancient word applying to the highest level of service the surname ‘Stewart’ came from Scottish Stewards. Stewards worked for royalty, often lords, they were the keepers of the land, conceptually the same as a lieutenant to a military, one who is capable and called upon to act in full authority but is only doing so while the superior ranked person is incapable. Basically the steward is the person who does all the work, has all the knowledge, and controls all the assets, but gets very little credit. Like a modern day Assistant Manager, or Vice Principal. Suffice it to say, hostess to stewardess is a step up. It’s going from welcoming someone to a home, to welcoming someone to a lordship. But even this word too fell into “profanity”.

Thus came “flight attendant”. The child of modern political correctness and corporate efficiency, it no longer seeks to inflate the implication, but rather take it to its lowest common denominator (how much higher could you go from Stewardess anyway? Lord? Queen?). Flight Attendant denotes no sex (hence pc) and defines the job, not the person (business minded). But even this word is becoming “bad”, or perhaps I should say, derogatory.

The reason is because the job sucks. It involves bitching at people, and listening to people bitch. It involves telling idiots how to put on a seat belt, and giving people pillows and soda. It is the lowest level of work possible that still serves people, and is legal in all 50 states (I’m looking at you Nevada). The shitty job will always have shitty connotations. No matter how much you polish it with uniforms and sweet titles, you’re still resolving issues of fat people taking up two seats, and inconsiderate people with crying babies (DRUG THE BABY) or sleeping on other people. No matter what word you give that job, it will become “insulting”. The job is bad, so the word that applies to it will become “bad”.

Another much more controversial example:

Nigger/Negro/Black/African American – (I don’t know what it means actually. Maybe people who are from certain loosely defined areas of Africa, or are descended from such people, maybe, or simply have dark skin, but know for certain they aren’t Indian but possibly Australian)?

Nigger/Negro/Black all meant black or was implying the color ‘black’ originally. Like Flight Attendants, but on a much worse scale. Men held captive indefinitely, not as humans, but as objects. The worst treatment of an individual possible, thus the word itself has become the worst thing you can directly call someone. Each time the word was changed to try to drop all the baggage of the previous treatment. The first word applied to slaves. The second word applied to victims of segregation. The third word applied to people subjected to continued racism.

African-American is the most recent, and most PC of them, but it doesn’t possess the “corporate-minded technical accuracy” of ‘Flight Attendant”. First it has some built-in issues. If someone is called ‘African-American’ to replace the word ‘black’, then it can’t apply to 1/100th the number of people. Someone born in Africa isn’t ‘African-American’ for example, but they probably would have fallen under the previous word ‘black’. I say probably because there’s so much more to this knot. Someone who is Egyptian is most definitely African, but probably not black, yet if an Egyptian descendant is born in America, they are “African-American” (though they would probably be labeled ‘Middle-Eastern’. Australian Aborigines are black, but not African, and they are descended from Indians who are still black but once again not African.

The real problem is that people who aren’t rich white Christian men get the ‘bad’ end of the language stick, and the descendants of their slaves are in a bad position culturally. As long as there are rifts in culture, practice or thought, the words applied will express that.

Something Penn mentioned I found out on my own in writing this, there are more words to describe “bad” words, then there are “bad” words. But when I went to look up the definitions, I found something more interesting.

I argued that many “bad” words weren’t themselves intended to be bad; they became bad as a result of the culture around their usage. That is, they weren’t meant to belittle or degrade, and they were neutral. By the definition of ‘derogatory’ these words do not apply. A derogatory word is one that belittles, or “lessens the merits or reputation”. There are other words that I thought meant “bad” but have a completely different definition.

Profane- Dictionary.com gives 5 definitions:

1.
characterized by irreverence or contempt for God or sacred principles or things; irreligious.
2.
not devoted to holy or religious purposes; unconsecrated; secular (opposed to sacred ).
3.
unholy; heathen; pagan: profane rites.
4.
not initiated into religious rites or mysteries, as persons.
5.
common or vulgar.

Of these 5 definitions only the 5th shows any promise of something other than me! But let’s pick that apart next. Definitions 1-4 basically reveal that the intent of the word “profane” is to describe that which goes against Christianity (I know it doesn’t specifically mention Christianity, but come on, this is English).

By definitions 1-4 I am profane. Not just by words, but by breath. Being Atheist means 100% of everything I say and do will be profane. Just thought I’d like to put that into perspective. If I help an old lady cross the street, I’m being profane. So the word means absolutely nothing to me, and in fact is just an insult to my existence. So profane is even more of a “bad” word to me than what people would define as ‘profanity’.

Definition 5 gave some hope that there was a deeper meaning to ‘profane’ than simply “not doing what the lord tells you.’ “common or vulgar”. Common is common, it means being average is profane. Literally. And we’ll see more of that when I get into vulgar, which sadly means the same thing, but with more hatred of the poor.

Vulgar- Dictionary.com gives 7 definitions for vulgar, hopefully that will be enough to break free from Christ and commonality (one might hope).

1.
characterized by ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste: vulgar ostentation.
2.
indecent; obscene; lewd: a vulgar work; a vulgar gesture.
3.
crude; coarse; unrefined: a vulgar peasant.
4.
of, pertaining to, or constituting the ordinary people in a society: the vulgar masses.
5.
current; popular; common: a vulgar success; vulgar beliefs.
6.
spoken by, or being in the language spoken by, the people generally; vernacular: vulgar tongue.
7.
lacking in distinction, aesthetic value, or charm; banal; ordinary: a vulgar painting.

There we go, ignorance, indecent, obscene, lewd, crude, popular, current, spoken by the people generally, wait what? Vulgar is both ignorance and popularity? They’re the same thing? Obscene and common? Unrefined and ordinary? WHAT THE HELL? Vulgar is basically anything not a part of rich people’s lives? Vulgarity is synonymous with common speech?

This is amazingly offensive in itself. The word vulgar presupposes that the “common” man is inherently ignorant, obscene, unrefined, without charm or distinction. This is straight out of aristocratic Europe! I thought we killed the English for less than this! I am completely offended by both the words ‘vulgar’ and ‘profane’! These words define me as lacking anything of value and possessing so many negative traits BECAUSE I am a poor Atheist. By these word's definitions everything I say or do is evil and ignorant and corrupt and without value. And they both say ‘common’. Essentially they apply to the majority of all humans. How can we hope to heal old wounds when our very language defines the “truth eternal” the rich white Christian man is in control, and he will always be in control.

Obviously that is an amalgam, giving that Obama is only rich, half white, Christian, male, and it was HISTORIC that ANYONE got elected while missing a PORTION of the criteria. The same would have been said if Clinton had won, being rich, white, Christian, Female. HISTORIC!

That’s where we’re at. Language is honest, people are not. Look at the words. They tell you what’s really going on. They reflect perfectly the underlying truths of this society.

Some words will always have a negative connotation as long as the word describes something perceived as negative. And other words will continue to be oppressive as they represent a fundamental ignorance in their usage. forget about worrying what to call the man or woman getting you a pillow, just appreciate that the job is necessary, and that a person can take pride in anything they do, if what they do is beneficial. I think flight crew (most recent term that has already started replacing 'flight attendant') workers are doing a necessary job. It is ignorant to try to "look down" on them personally, but if you don't know why, that would take me pages to explain logically. And stop looking to find an "acceptable word for "black" or African-American" people. They are simply people. As long as people are categorized by arbitrary means, the ignorance will not cease. As long as a concept of "black" and "white" exist, racism will exist. This is why "celebrating diversity" and other liberal fucktardery are the most racist ideals of them all. WE ARE INDIVIDUALS. NO PERSON SHOULD OR CAN BE DEFINED BY ARBITRARY METHODS THAT GROUP UNNATURALLY. There is no such thing as black. There is no such thing as African American. Any words that come to replace those words will be just as inherently wrong.
There really is so much more that could be written about this, I didn’t even get into fundamental sexism (male - feMALE, man - woMAN and especially Mr. - MRs.) but even there might lie a fundamental truth about humans (XY - XX!). I didn't cover allegory, and I’ve left all the issues Penn and Teller covered completely out of this. But I’ve definitely written enough for now. Communication has a rule of diminishing returns. Twitter really is for the people. Vulgar and Profane alike.

The Tea Parties

2009-04-16T01:54:00.000-07:00

So there has been a lot of reporting on the tea parties. Fox had been hyping it non-stop, and MSNBC had been deriding it just as much. I spent most April 15 getting ready for the Fleet Foxes concert Joel and I worked at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, but the brief chance I had I tried to watch anything about it on tv, funny thing, Fox wasn't reporting anything on it, and MSNBC was.

As usual there's two sides to an issue reported by the media, and they are usually both wrong. The detractors (namely all of MSNBC) argued two points 1. It isn't grass roots because some rich people got involved, thus invalidating it. 2. "Where were they during the Bush years?"

Sparing you the explanation as to how these are both childish and ignorant arguments, I'll just leave it at that.

The other side (Fox, and for God's sake, Sean Hannity)is promoting it as a great rebellion and some sort of reawakening.

Here's the truth, the people doing these tea parties, regardless of their wealth, are Bush lovers who probably voted for Bush 2.0, aka McCain. They're all butthurt about losing, but they're dumb, so they couldn't come up with anything better.

Simultaneously, all the nay saying about the events, declaring them hypocritical, that no "conservatives" did during the Bush administration is just another slap in the face.

Here's what both sides are missing.

Ron Paul was doing this shit back when it mattered.

For the love of God watch this video. Not only does it show true conservatives rejecting the Bush way, it has Ron Paul predicting the economic collapse that would occur a year later.

Ron Paul was called an extremist. He was called insane. He was called every insult under the sun by the likes of Fox News and ESPECIALLY Sean Hannity. I don't want to put up all the videos, just search them if you want.

Few listened to Ron Paul. Most outright insulted him on air for almost 2 years. Who disagrees with him now? His economic policies are all anyone (but the Bush/Obama fail team)is promoting now. His foreign policies mirrored Obama's.

I tried to tell you people back in 2007. Ron Paul was the only shot Republicans had to win the election, but they chose to fucking crucify him.

Please just watch this video, and think about what you were doing in 2007. Think about who the leading candidates were back then (Giuliani and Clinton). You know who you were supporting. As they spat in Ron Paul's face. You had your chance America. There's no turning back. You elected fail for another 4 years. But you won't realize it. You have no idea what's happening, or why it's entirely your fault. You will not learn. The Democrats and Republicans will continue to control you. You don't deserve any better than a Democrat elected on "Change" doing exactly what Bush did, and Republicans who piss on Ron Paul, pretending to care about taxes with their silly tea parties only after ruining their chances at actually changing things. Remember this, everyone who said Ron Paul was "unelectable" also said Giuliani and Clinton were impossible to beat. Things could have been different.

Ron Paul's Tea Party included events across America, including a full re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party at Boston Harbor. It raised over $6 million by pure grassroots efforts. And was relatively ignored by the media.

XXX again, XYY, X, XXY, XXXY and who knows what else

2009-03-05T04:25:00.000-08:00

Having the Y chromosome makes you a male, for the most part. No matter how many Xs you have. But if you happen to have two or three Xs, and a Y, you have Klinefelter syndrome. About 1 in 1000 people have this. Humans with Klinefelter syndrome tend to have learning disabilities, especially with language. But this is something they usually grow out of. At puberty other affects are revealed, tallness, small testicles, breast development, female body contours, and sparse body hair. Most of this from lower levels of testosterone. Sperm counts are also low because the body has trouble processing all the extra Xs, so without technology, they are usually infertile.

A Person with no Ys is a female for the most part. If she has only 1 X, she has Turner syndrome. This affects 1 in 4,000 people. Having only one X prevents full "female" development. The girl may not go through puberty, may never develop ovaries, won't grow tall, won't grow breasts, basically without technology will live to be a permanent child.

Having lots of Xs like XXX is known as Triple-X syndrome. It affects 1 in 2000 births. People with this may have cognitive deficits and low fertility. Otherwise they are mostly unremarkable.

Finally there's XYY syndrome. Having one Y makes you a man. Having more just screws you up. Men with 2 Ys are shown to be lower in intelligence than average, have low fertility, and some have genital anomalies. Studies have shown that men with XYY are more likely to be criminals, possibly because of the lower intelligence.

Instances where incomplete or compromised Xs and Ys can result in other mixtures of the sexes. Hermaphrodites are my example of choice.

One thing I want to get clear, South Park is completely wrong, and so is 99% of people's concept of a "True Hermaphrodite". There is no such thing as a person with male and female sex parts capable of becoming pregnant, and making others pregnant. Hermaphrodites develop partially male sex organs, and partially female. The extreme majority are completely incapable of reproducing. Only one hermaphrodite has ever been known to father a child, and only several have become pregnant. This only becomes possible if enough of the sex organs develop, which is unusual, and never completely male and female. Usually a deformed hybrid of gonads and female external genitalia develops. People with ambiguous sexuality are "intersex".

Obviously human development isn't perfect. It is a whole lot of things mostly going right, and some going wrong that make up most people. Sometimes the part that goes wrong is minute, but catastrophic. Sometimes it may never be noticed. Considering that the very idea of there being only MAN and WOMAN is flawed, that we are indeed one species that usually goes to those poles, but finds room in between and off to the sides, how can you in good moral conscious condemn these people?

A man who thinks he is a woman, a woman who thinks she is a man, often times on a genetic level truly are what they think they are, to an extent. There are so many variants, so many issues. Can you righteously declare that their birth is subhuman? Should they die for their existence? Is their natural and common development a sin?

Can you justify on ANY grounds that declaring a woman is a sinner if she desires other women, even when WOMAN CAN BE CAPABLE OF MAKING ANOTHER WOMAN PREGNANT? Can you JUSTIFY PUNISHING BY THE WORD OF GOD A MAN for loving another man, when man is capable of becoming a woman, growing breasts, taking form, growing ovaries, and becoming pregnant? All by their very birth, handed down to them by God or by nature, they exist intrinsically.

I say to you that there is only the individual. race, sexuality, sexual development, gender is justification for oppression, or punishment, or barrier in a land of the "free"? How free can man be, when it is illegal to be born for some,but not for others? How can birth be the descent into sin for some, but not for others?

I say to you that it does not matter if two men can reproduce with each other. They are individuals, and aught be righted at birth, not wronged by your faith. But that a man and a woman who cannot become pregnant is proof of your hatred and hypocrisy. That a man CAN make another man pregnant, by RIGHT OF NATURE, you would still deny REALTY and cast them off as FREAKS deserving only pity or scorn depending on what side of the church door you stand.

1 in 1,000. 1 in 1,000 your government doesn't consider a human, just a sinner from birth. 1 in 1,000 your god forsakes in his book as a crime against him worthy of only death. 1 in 1,000 is in every crowd you have ever seen. 1 in 1,000 is more than you see in a day, that you would STOMP to the ground with your vile words, making them hate themselves for existing.

But if we added up all the numbers. All the people who are less, who don't count, I'm sure the odds would be a bit higher, to this government 99% of Earth's populace is "Un-American" and deserving a turned back, or a full metal jacket in the guts. 99% of Earth's populace has been condemned to eternal hell by your God, as all who do not believe, or have sinned, or have been born and have never heard.

These are not exaggerations. You condemn HUMANITY in your mind before you set foot out your door. You demand HELL WITH A BULLET for almost all of humanity. Except for the few. The precious few. Depending on who exactly you are, they may be anyone, usually XY, they may be anywhere, usually your country, they may believe anything, usually your religion.

What's stopping you from acting? Fear. Fear of reality. Fear of failure. This whole of Earth, held together by fear of retribution by the whole of Earth. Some bonding glue we have no?

Is it breaking apart? Do you feel the old bonds cracking in the dry sun? Will humans need to die?

XXX

2009-02-26T22:41:00.000-08:00

The movie xXx came out in 2002. I remember watching it in Pensacola with Michael. The character's name was Xander, so that alone could explain the tattoo which in course explains the movie title, but the movie tried to make it deeper, and mysterious. I remember someone saying Vin Diesel was becoming the American 007. But Vin Skipped out on the sequel, and seems to have skipped out on every other franchise (though with Riddick, the new Fast and Furious, and a potential xxx3 it seems he might just like waiting a really long time between sequels.).

So Ice Cube played the starring role in xxx2:State of the Union , uugggh. In xXx, Xander (Diesel) had XXX as a nickname. the Sequel without him makes no sense. Even worse, the line "You're the new XXX" was uttered, and the movie actually tried to turn "XXX" into an equivalent of "007". That's fucking stupid. I'm not going to mince words on that.

But did Ice Cube really steal the name from Vin? I submit to you new evidence that has been brought to my attention (only by mental connection). In the 1998 song "Children of the Korn" by Korn, the line "generation XXX" can be clearly heard. What's the significance? Ice Cube recorded with Korn on that song.

This shows that 4 years before Vin dabbled in spy work, Korn and Ice Cube professed to be a part of an entire generation "XXX". So I guess there's a little XXX in all of us.

But what is XXX? First thing to come to my mind is the jugs of liquor in old Warner Bros. Cartoons.

I'd look up the history of XXX on jugs but the INTERNET IS FOR PORN. Which brings me to the second idea of XXX.

Back in the ancient times, before the internet, porn could only be watched via tapes, or in theaters. Because of the nature of porn (independent, low budget, specific adult audience) porn movies usually didn't have MPAA ratings. The original rating "X" was innocuous and applied to any movie that was especially graphic. In the 70s, porn took over the rating, as it was never an official rating, and made it a signature of the industry. In a game of oneupmanship promoters began giving their movie more xs to signify more extreme content, this is where the XXX-rated movie came from. Though it was never official, and the internet has made ratings (especially for porn) completely pointless the term still remains prominent. You can't do a Google search for "XXX" in any capacity without porn as the chief result. My image search for "XXX bottle" got 90% porn and one or two actual bottles with XXX on them. XXX has become so casually related to porn that one of the results for "XXX bottle" was someone on a website saying they had played a "XXX game of spin the bottle" apparently in this context, XXX didn't even have a remote application to a loosely defined rating of actors in a movie engaging in sex, only that the spin the bottle game involved nudity, not sex, not filmed nudity for distribution, just flashing friends. I'd call that Pg-13, R at best.

Mental Trappings

2009-01-27T16:12:00.000-08:00

"consider a situation in which a father and his son are driving down the road. The car collides with a tree and the father is killed. The boy is rushed to the nearest hospital where he is prepared for emergency surgery. On entering the surgery suite, the surgeon says, "I can't operate on this boy. He's my son."
The apparent paradox is caused by a hasty generalization. The reader, upon seeing the word surgeon, applies a poll of their knowledge of surgeons (regardless of its depth) and reasons that since the majority of surgeons are male, the surgeon is a man, hence the contradiction: the father of the child, a man, was killed in the crash."

- Wikipedia

This is a common one, it goes around claiming to be "proof" that we're sexist and assume only men are surgeons. So sexist in fact, that even faced with the (supposed) choice of the surgeon either being a mother or the same man from the crash, we assume it's impossible.

But I don't think so. I think it's just a trick question. Assume if you can, that a person has a neutral view of the sexuality of most surgeons going into the story. Then faced with 4 sentences, altogether containing the words 'father' twice, 'son' twice, 'he' twice, and 'boy' twice. With no other sexuality mentioned. That's 8 references to males, and zero to women in 4 sentences. This trick can be used in many different ways, to subtly suggest that the wrong answer. If you've ever heard a person ask you "Say "10" ten times." You say it. "Ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten." You'll probably use your fingers to count (I'm psychic) and then the person asks "What's an aluminum can made out of?" Then more often than not, the response is "tin". The person is persuaded to the answer "tin" even though not only is the real answer obvious, it's GIVEN in the question! Are we then to assume, by the logic of those who claim sexism, that people who say "tin" thought in their minds all the aluminum cans they've seen and concluded objectively that most of them were made of tin? The truth is, you don't think the surgeon can't be the mother, you simply have been led into a mental trap of only male options.

I only posted this rant because I read this crap on Wikipedia in the article about paradoxes. It's bullshit. Wikipedia isn't hard fact, it's collective opinion. I would like to point out, the first time I heard this riddle, was in a game aptly called "Mind Trap". Then I saw it in "Tin Cup" where the woman asserts the men are sexist for thinking the surgeon was a man, and apparently that's what Wikipedia thinks too. That and people think aluminum cans are made of tin.

My Bad Japanese Teacher

2009-01-02T01:54:00.000-08:00

Normally I wouldn't knock anyone. I might bitch about things, but I keep my shit talking to a minimum and usually don't begin conversations by trashing people. Caveats aside, I will be an asshole here and rip on my Japanese teacher.

The story begins about half an hour ago when I was reading Time's "50 best websites of 2008". One of the websites was "ratemyprofessors.com" which simply enough lets people bitch about their teachers. So I immediately thought of my Japanese teacher and looked her up. She was on there. She was on there for 2 colleges. And both colleges had 6 pages of negative comments from students. According to the website's boasting, there's an average of 8 comments per listed professor, my teacher had somewhere around 30 comments total, I don't know I lost count. Almost every comment was the same, the same issues I had with her. I'm not even sure if I should list the issues, because I'm sure no one who isn't actually in her class, or going to be, or is thinking about taking Japanese in Stockton would care at all. I'll just say she classically sucks. All the classiclly bad things a teacher could do to make sure a student not only hates the class, but fails or drops out and never takes it again, is her forte'.

I remember by mid term she was bragging about how many students had dropped out. She'd drop people out even when they were still there. She was about to drop me, just because she didn't see me behind someone one day. Not one thing I ever learned actually living in Japan helped me out in this Chinese woman's class.

Just amazed that whenever I'd say my Japanese teacher sucked, my family wouldn't believe me. Just checking out this site proves that my opinion is actually astoundingly on the mark for this website.

As a control I checked out some of my other teachers

Econ Teacher - negative shit storm. I didn't have much of an opinion of his teaching ability one way or the other beause I find his notes entirely useful and I had the highest grade in the class almost the whole time.

English Teacher - generally positive reviews. He was my favorite of the bunch even though he graded me like I was retarded. Definitely lost all hope in becoming a writer taking his class. If I can't impress everyone, then I'll impress no one. But I loved his spirit, he was smart and dove deep into the material.

So things seem to be about even. I imagine most people who go on that site do it to complain so it should be tough to get mostly positive reviews. Amazing how many Delta students have already been to that site.

Maybe online college isn't a bad way to go.

Iraq

2008-12-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

When everyone knew America was going to Iraq by the summer of 2002, I knew it was a farce. Simply by the fact that you're not supposed to know 8 months ahead of time that Iraq would "violate" this or that and justify their invasion.

I was pissed. I said, "Fine, if America is going to invade Iraq, I want cameramen to be there, to film every human die. Show every dead baby. Show everything." - paraphrased. Michael is my witness on this "early" resolve.

If you believe people have the right to bear arms, then you have no justification for war with Iraq. The only reason, the only reason in the world Bush used, was that they were armed. Certainly there were better reasons, but they weren't Bush's reasons. You could rationalize in your mind that the other reasons justified the invasion, but because those reasons were not the invaders reason, they would never be respected.

Let me give you an example that I believe is fair, but won't elicit any patriotic knee jerk. Imagine if the president decides that drug dealers shouldn't have guns. Certainly that seems to fall in line with just reasoning, and American law. But who are the drug dealers? If they are already known, shouldn't they be in prison, or already served time, or at least counseled? You would think to yourself, they could justifiably be arrested because they are drug dealers. BUT, that isn't what the president's goal is, that's your "justification". So federal police begin kicking in the doors, and shooting the dogs of every known or suspected drug dealers in America, but after awhile, the waters are murky, things are rushed, the goal of the president isn't to prosecute drug dealers, it's to take guns. In that respect, he won't need proof the person is a drug dealer, just suspicion, so fairly soon, the police are just kicking in the doors of anyone that's ever done anything. Parking ticket holders will have their doors kicked in, and their dogs shot. Sure, some people will get killed trying to defend themselves, but such anarchy is all the more justification to keep kicking in doors, and shooting dogs, and taking the guns. Soon enough drug dealers will find a way to continue their deeds without being the subject of a door kicking-in and a dog killing, they'll go underground, but the feds will continue kicking in doors, regardless of whose doors. While the Feds are wasting tax payer money killing tax payer dogs, the drug dealing will continue, and the fear generated from the invasion will cause drug dealers to kill more. The point is you have to look at the true goal, not your hope of what will come of the goals of others.

Invading Iraq, because they have weapons was an evil enterprise. Iraq has more weapons than it did before, and the fact that the U.S. military went in and took all the weapons from law abiding individuals has only made things worse. The U.S. military has no trouble disarming the good citizens, so the criminals are the only ones who are armed.

Often people say that Iraq was better off with Saddam. I can't agree with that, at least now they have a chance. Not a great chance, but a chance. The problem is that America's intentions are making it harder for things to get better. Weapons aren't the problem. Conflict is the problem, and Americans are the conflict now.

There's a saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I'm not arguing that. I'm literally saying the intentions were wrong, they made hell on purpose. People bought into it for peripheral benefits, but those benefits haven't come to fruition, and they never will.

I've talked a long time with an Objectivist, and one of the issues was the morality of intention. Does it matter why a person acts? Is the reason for a good action important? And we both agreed that it absolutely matters. Even if an outsider could only guess to the reasoning, the reasoning will always matter. Iraq is a perfect example. Even if you saw the invasion as a good thing, because the reasoning behind it was different, the outcome won't be the same, because at some point there will be a fork in the road, where you would go one direction, the person with the alterior motives will choose the other. The fork was long ago.

Sometimes kicking in a door is necessary, but if your thinking it's good because there's a criminal on the other side, and the government thinks it's good, because there's an armed man on the other side, eventually there will be a conflict. Not all armed men are criminals, and the government will not care. That is Iraq. That is pretty much all the current conflicts in America, maybe even humanity.

People see this need to categorize people. Whether it's "liberal" vs. "Conservative" or "American" vs. "other" or "white" vs. "other" it really doesn't matter. The borders are artificial. Once the intention of the borders becomes altered, the border can become an evil in itself. For example, if you categorize people by American or other, it makes sense when talking about taxes, or laws, or participation in government, but when it becomes an issue about a person's rights to themselves, that's when it becomes evil. To assert that only Americans should bear arms in Iraq is one example. To assert that all Africans should be slaves is another example. "white" vs. "other" could be applied to learning genealogy, studying language, or custom, or history makes sense, but to use it to imprison Jew or Japanese descendants is wrong. People take things to extremes, and fight it out in these corners, either we have genetic variations, and we should kill those who aren't us, or there are no genetic variations and everyone is exactly the same. Both positions are wrong, yet those become the lines. The conflicts of man seem to be childish in this regard. These absolutes where both parties are wrong. Intention is a factor. If you intend to distinguish nationality, or national purposes, that's logical, but if you distinguish nationality to opress one group, or help another, that's evil. Unfortunately not enough people regard intentions, and seem to only respect action. Never the 'why', only the 'what'. 'Why' distinguish nationality, sex, religion, isn't asked. Only an abosolutist, 'what' sex, either no difference, or one must be superior, no nationalities, unless one is superior to the other. That's not how reality works, and that's why people die. War is not inevitable, but as long as people demand absolutes that are lies, there will be war. There will be death. That is the immediate result to their immorality. It is swift. Immorality isn't just, and neither is the punishment for it. War will never be just in this regard. As long as conflict is for lies.

I could rant all day.

Fast Food

2008-12-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

Little Caesars used to give you two pizzas for the price of one, in one big box. Also I only remember the square pizzas, all throughout the 80s and 90s the big box of square pizzas was the only thing I know of or thought of about Little Caesars. After coming back to Stockton this I realized they got rid of them. But they did have the $5 large one topping for awhile, but now that's gone too, though Pepperonies down the street has $5 large one toppings and they are better quality.

Round Table has the highest quality pizzas for a big chain, but Stockton has better places like Michael's. Recently ads for CiCi's pizza have been showing up in California, which shocked me at first because I thought CiCi's was only in Pensacola Florida. CiCi's has average quality, but for $5 it's all you can eat/drink including a nice salad bar and dessert pizzas. Round Table has started their own affordable lunch buffet but the one near my house sucks and any other time round table is expensive enough to make a man cry.

So. Since my having no money has run long I've been following Joel's path of shooting right for the dollar menu at fast food places. It's like we're cheating them. I can't believe some of that stuff is a dollar, while they charge 3 or 4 dollars for something slightly fancier. A good example is Wendy's, you can get a double bacon cheeseburger for $1, but a freaking mushroom cheeseburger is $4. You can get a small soda for a $1, you can get a 5 piece nuggets for $1 (and those nuggets kick McDonald's ass) I can't even believe how good Wendy's nuggets are, spiced, juicy, crunchy. You could get a small soda, small fries and 2 sandwhiches for $4! Meanwhile one 2 patty cheeseburger meal will run you into the $6 range.

Taco Bell has a few good things on their ".79 .89 .99" menu. Depending on the location, prices vary, but you can get a "Cheesy Double Beef Burrito" for under $1 or a "Half Pound Bean and Cheese Burrito", and they're both filling. The triple layer nachos (the 3 layers are hot sauce, cheese, and beans) are good themselves and are usually the cheapest thing on the menu. Though the sodas will kill you. Jack in the box has a few good $1 items, the chicken sandwhich, two tacos, or a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. Though once again the soda is ridiculous. Sodas at fast food restaurants are straight up scams. They make more profit on the soda than anything else. It's the cheapest to provide, and costs the most. I'm just glad in the 90s restaurants started allowing free refills. Although there are still some places that won't do refills, like the McDonald's on the corner of Haight Street next to the Golden Gate Park, because 3 in every 4 people there is a filthy bum, really really filthy bum and they all want their McDonald's cups refilled.

For a while in the 21 century soda machines in California dropped prices and you could get a .35 can of Coke (unlike the 90s and 80s where they were .60 and above), but I think they've risen again, all the soda prices have risen back to their inconvenient prices, seriously, I haven't seen a good $5 24 pack price in a couple years. Is corn to blame? Maybe they should go back to using real sugar. I'm getting tired of $5 12 packs and $2.79 2 liters. 2 liters SHOULD BE .99!!!!

Why is it that with increased farming technology, increased storage and transport technology, and increased wealth, the quality of food has gone to shit? Seriously. Why can't food use real ingredients anymore. I don't care how much growth hormones you use, I just want real natural ingredients. WHEN THE HELL DID EATING REAL FOOD BECOME A SOCIALIST IDEA??????????? All the real ingredients have been replaced with chemicals and manufacturing. Why do only hippies and vegetarians shopping at Trader Joe's get grains in their fucking bread and cereal? Milk and cream in their ice cream? Why is bread bleached? EVER? IT'S DISGUSTING. Bland bland bland. Almost every fast food place uses bleached bread for buns. Thank God Subway EVENTUALLY started offering breads that weren't completely void of nature. Whole grain crunchy flaky bread tastes 100 times better than bleached starched whatevered white bread. I'm not a hippy for thinking this. I'm not even someone who cares about eating healthy, and I agree with the health nuts. This food we call American sucks. Why has "Capitalism" eliminated variety? Why do all sodas have the same ingredients? Why is there only 1 variety of cow and chicken used in all meat products in America? Why is there only one milk cow? Why is milk only from cows? There are litterally thousands of kinds of delicious sea life we could eat, but instead we eat 1 lobster, maybe 2 or 3 kinds of crab, 3 or 4 clam type creatures, and maybe 4 kinds of fish for 300 Million people. Why don't Americans eat anything more than chicken cow and pig??????? Goat, Lamb, Deer, Buffalo, Giraffe, Monkey, Dog, Cat, Turtle, WE COULD HAVE ANYTHING. WE COULD FARM ANYTHING. Instead everything everywhere tastes the same. Every city in America serves the same food, from the animals, and probably the same supplier. Washing away all variety is the hallmark of the 20th and 21st Century for America.

Cheese butter cream are replaced with oil
sugar in all its delicious variants, glucose, fructose, sucrose, etc. all replaced with high fructose corn syrup.
Nothing is flavored anymore, cherry flavoring, is high fructose corn syrup, and chemicals. Strawberry flavoring, high fructose corn syup, and some more chemicals. Apple, banana, watermelon, orange, lime, grapefruit, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP AND CHEMICALS. WHY WHY WHY CAN'T THEY JUST USE THE REAL THING? FOR GOD'S SAKE IF THEY HAD IT IN THE 19TH CENTURY WHY CAN'T WE HAVE IT NOW????

I don't want to go to another country. I don't want to go to a place where they have yet to spread the ideas of refridgeration, or safe handling, or cooking food thoroughly. This place. Here. America is suppose to be the best.

I recently watched this ad battle take place on TV. Progresso took a shot at Campbell's because Campbell's had some number of soups with MSG and Progresso had some number of soups without. Campbell's came back with an ad showing they had more soups without MSG than Progresso did, and that Progresso has MSG too, and they promised to remove MSG in all their soups. Progresso ran an ad where a woman taste tested two soups and said one was MSG (Campbell's) and the other was all natural, so Campbell's ran THE SAME FREAKING AD with a woman taste testing soup and saying Progresso's was full of MSG and when she tasted the Campbell's she identified what fucking farm the vegetables where from. My only question is WHY THE FUCK IS THERE MSG IN ANY GOD DAMN SOUP IN AMERICA???? I THOUGHT THAT SHIT WAS ILLEGAL! MSG chemicaly melts a few layers off your tongue, making your tongue more receptive to flavor, making good food taste better, but it also goes into your stomach and melts away your stomach lining, which can give you an ulcer and kill you. THE BIGGEST SOUP COMPANIES IN AMERICA ARE MELTING YOUR FUCKING STOMACH LINING TO BOOST SALES. FOR SHIT FUCKS SAKE WHY WOULD THEY ONLY BE CALLING EACH OTHER OUT ON IT NOW? FOR THAT MATTER, WHY DID IT TAKE THEMSELVES TO DO IT? HOW MANY DECADES HAVE THEY BEEN POISONING US???? HOW MANY OTHER PRODUCTS USE MSG? Old people eat soup. Old people have weak stomach lining, and are more prone to ulcer. Soup is full of ulcer causing MSG. Campbell's is mm mm KILLS OLD PEOPLE. I just looked into it and found that yep. Pretty much everything uses MSG except Chinese food now-a-days. I'm not old enough to remember a time when Chinese food restaurants didn't advertise "no MSG" so the fact that they still advertise it seems really odd by comparison, oh those evil Chinese, they were doing the same thing Doritos is STILL DOING, but they stopped 30 years ago and are still paying the consequences while all your chips are dripping with ulcer powder.

That's my rant.

If I could have a restaurant, I would serve shit you couldn't get anywhere else in town. Then I'd go out of business.

Just as a little bonus tidbit, I looked up MSG on Wikipedia, the first company to market MSG was Aji No Moto in Japan in 1909. The asians pioneered MSG use in cooking long before that by extracting it from seaweed, but Aji No Moto were the first to purify it and sell it. When I was in Japan I bought a bottle of Aji No Moto brand MSG thinking it was salt. It tasted horrible by itself, but I found that when it was mixed into some rice it made the rice taste great. I didn't realize it was MSG until a couple years later when I learned what MSG looked like. Aji no Moto means "essence of taste" and the company was completely founded on selling MSG.

MSG does occur naturally too, which all the more disturbed me in my researching reading people's forum discussions about how they ALWAYS use MSG and if they leave it out, they add extra natural formations of MSG to make up for it. Come on now. If there's to be one product in the entire universe that you would want in all your food all the time, wouldn't you want it to be at least inert? Or maybe beneficial to your body? Seriously, some people are fucked up, MSG all the way in American food. And it isn't inert, and it provides nothing beneficial.

soooooo

2008-11-24T22:11:00.002-08:00

I haven't logged in since 2005. lol. It took 15 minutes for me to be able to log in to the "new" blogger. It just kept doing loops of the same 3 pages over and over until I was about to post on the issues forum and then it magically worked.

Japan's Name

2008-11-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

Japan
日本 which is pronounced "Nihon" or "Nippon" is the proper name of Japan.
日本 is made up of two "Kanji". Kanji is the Japanese usage of Chinese characters. The rules are slightly different in translation, and the spoken languages are completely different but because Kanji uses symbology rather than direct phonetics sometimes the meaning is the same even when the pronunciations are different.
Now I'm going to tell you something I figured out all by myself and I don't care what anyone else says.
Japan is known as "Land of the Rising Sun". Which is supposed to imply the day begins in Japan, as Japan is the eastern-most land in Asia.
Japan is just a bunch of mountains and Valleys, so I can tell you from experience it is hard to actually see a sunrise in Japan.

日= "Nichi" means 'day' and 'sun'. Like in the adoption of the concept of 'Sunday' Japan took it literal and made it 'sun day' or 'nichiyobi' and shows up twice 日曜日.
本 = "Hon" means 'book'. It also means 'origin'.
日本 = "Nihon" could literally be understood as 'sun origin'.
"Land of the Rising Sun" doesn't refer to 'sunrise' but rather the actual sun's beginning.
So, "Land of the Rising Sun" isn't just the nickname, it's a transliteration of the actual name of the country.
(now for some unoriginal research)
If America were to adopt a similar "nickname" it might be "Land of Master Workmen" or "Land of Work Rulers". America came from Amerigo, Amerigo came from Amalrich which is Gothic for "work ruler". Other names that have descended are Amery, Emeric, Emery, and the feminine forms which are more common in America; Amelia and Emily.

よりよい

2008-11-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

I can see why Ayn idolized inventors/producers. I'd like to think when I came to comprehension of the systems in place, that I would understand why they are the way they are, and why that way is so effective. But look at the people scramble for answers to obvious issues. Look at the American Government/Media/populace shitting themselves over minor economic problems. It makes America look sad and pathetic. What do we have then? Well we have industry. And no one can fake that. We make good computers and there's no denying that, so I can see why industrialists can seem to be the saviors. Very literally it is industry and people's willingness to stick to their jobs that keeps America running, and winning. Our government sucks. Our media is run by idiots, this means our information is bad, and our leaders couldn't make the right decisions even if they had good info. But you have the companies building them bombs and airplanes, and you have people willing to fly the planes, and refuel the planes, and you have hard working tax-payers willing to foot the bill. So really the only weak link is the government.

You'd think by now that they'd be better. I'm now almost resolute in considering two paths from here. Either I continue through college, and try to get myself in a position where I can try to change America, or when I finish college, I'm leaving America for good. Seeing the American government so bad, and so hurtful and so dumb is like continuing to be around someone that hurts you all the time and takes advantage of you, but you pity them.

Obama and Biden want to tax the shit out of the wealthy. But have they mentioned not SPENDING THE SHIT OUT OF OUR MONEY? No. They will spend. McCain talks about lowering taxes, but has he mentioned not spending the shit out of our money like Bush has done?

You bail out a company, then the taxpayer is essentially paying for a product that they did not want, and will not receive. It would be as if I started a billion dollar company and hired thousands and sold 'punches in the face'. Nobody wanted any, so I went bankrupt, but the government bails me out and I continue to not provide punches and I'm being paid by everyone. That makes sense.

You know what shouldn't make sense? A childhood fantasy of having my own country, but as I get older, it only makes more sense. Only two things make sense, either change the system, or stop caring. I know if I leave America, I will stop caring. I also found that while in love, I was incapable of caring about politics, so not to infer on others, but I can say the more I care about politics, the less happy I am.

=======================================================

So I showed up to one meeting of the Veteran Student Alliance at Delta. I didn't say anything, I didn't promise anything. The meeting was 3 hours after my last class and I was tired and bored by the time it started, the one hour meeting went on to two hours and almost nothing got done. The only plans for the future they had were to do more nothing, or to do a lot of work, to make money, to do more nothing. I honestly don't have a fucking clue how that's supposed to help me. I guess clubs and alliances don't think like that. So someone leaves an answering machine message telling me I need to pick up a shirt today or tomorrow so I will have it ready for a wine tasting event I never agreed to attend. Now, this wine tasting event isn't even for veterans, or even for students. I don't know who the hell it is for, but I do know that the only thing I would be doing is catering. Fuck you. I am not going to cater without reason or pay. Now I had planned on showing up for tomorrow's meeting, but that message tears it. Sign me up for bullshit without my consent? This is absurd.

And I grow further away from people. I signed up for a writing club too. But the whole issue of fundraising again detered me, as well as that whole wait after school 3 hours thing. Maybe I should change my schedule next semester. Have all my classes start after 10:00 am and finish around 2pm.

WHY CAN'T YOU HAVE A CLUB WHERE YOU SHOW UP AND DO FUN THINGS? WHY IS IT ALL ABOUT FUNDRAISING? WHY CAN'T WE JUST AGREE TO NOT CHARGE EACH OTHER FOR OUR TIME, AND WE CAN CONTINUE TO MEET INDEFINITELY? A club should be a formation of people meeting for the discussion or participation in a common interest. A writing club should meet and talk about writing and read each other's work, NOT FUNDRAISE. And a union should be for the benefit of the the members for a specific goal. For example a veteran student union should exist to help veteran students complete schooling in various ways using any available resources. Instead I show up and it seems the only goals are to A. "Make ourselves known" WTF? and B. Make more money to help further objective A.

I don't give a fuck who knows me. I don't care if nobody in the god damn universe gives a fuck who I am or what I've ever done, leastways that I'm a "veteran student" in a union. But if I show up to a Veteran Student Association meeting I expect to participate by helping other veterans, maybe tell stories, maybe help with homework, maybe discuss culture, maybe learn about how I can best ultilize available benefits and network, and other's can do the same. Considering Delta is a 2 year school there should be a 50% turnover rate, so people would have to step up each year and keep the momentum, and maybe someone would be inclined to get a little political in keeping that going, but to do catering for wine testing? What the shit does that fuck have to do with my math test? What does it have to do with my essay in Econ? How does that get me money for rent while I'm a student? It doesn't have any relevance, and it never will. It's like busy work. A self perpetuating system that's only function is to perpetuate itself, my worst enemy. I swear to god if I had a white whale, it would be systems that only serve to continue and have no ultimate goals. I hate them violently whenever I discover them, whether they be religions that raise up people who die who raise up people who die, or Eminem who only raps about rapping, or governments that would do anything to anyone to continue their existence. If it serves no purpose, it is my worst nightmare. Ultimately I accept that humanity is the salvation of the cycles, for we can define our own purposes, and if nothing else, we can accept that our happiness, is a universal peculiarity, and that if we pursue our happiness, the universe is pursuing our happiness, and if it can spread, more can be known, and more awareness can be manifested. Consciousness can grow. To know enough that we don't know much is enough to know that we need to continue to learn. And that isn't self perpetuating without reason, knowledge is the product, and it is constantly springing up.

I understand that everything that came before us, served to put us into existence. That a cyclical planet with spiraling life development was working towards the inevitable domination by life that can control the outcome. It is an insult to our existence to try to recreate the old way. To try to recreate the cycles and laws that worked so long to create us, the destroyers of chaos, the bringers of order is to make meaningless the efforts of the universe, to make meaningless the capabilities you posess in yourself. You can instead constantly improve yourself, and that can not be achieved by only serving to continue what only serves to continue.

Make things better. You should know how. If you don't, you can find out. Don't just accept status quo and try to force it to stay in motion with a spin.

More of the Same

2008-11-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

Looks like Prop 1 is passing. This will give California a high speed rail in 30 years. There couldn't be better thing for this state than being able to move from San Francisco to LA in 2 hours.

What surprises me is Prop 4 got shot down. Maybe it's because it reads "Abortion limits" and "Minor Abortion" in some locations. It actually hasn't a damn thing to do with the legality of abortion. It was only a bill to require that a doctor notify parents if an underage kid wants an abortion (not even ask their permission, just notifying that they're going into surgery). I think it's disgusting that you voted no. But you've voted no before.

I'm glad props 7 and 10 got shot down, but I didn't expect it. 7 would have forced energy companies to use more clean energy, maybe you guys remember 2000 when Enron raped California with energy bills and don't want a return of forced costs. Prop 10 would give rich hippies a rebate for buying energy effecient cars, I can see why you'd vote against that.

WHY DID YOU VOTE NO ON 5???? It would have made possession of a small amount of marijuana an infraction rather than a misdemeanor, which means you'd only get a fine, not go to jail. It also had more options for drug rehab over prison time. What the fuck? Really? Fine, you like overcrowded prisons and the war on drugs, well at least one of those because you also voted no on Prop 6 which would have given more money to law enforcement. This is a strange toss up, you voted to both keep drug users as criminals, but also keep the police for unfunded.

I was personally against the veterans bond because it sought to give what veterans are supposedly already guaranteed. It puts up a bunch of tax payer dollars to help give loans to veterans for homes or farms. This doesn't sit right with me because A. There's already the VA Home Loan Guarantee and B. Loans forced by the government are what caused the current economic collapse. What's a poor veteran going to do with a loan for a house from the state? Get a house. Sure that's nice, but nobody hires veterans, and the state isn't GIVING this money away, it's still a loan. Basically you voted for a bill that seeks to profit off of poor veterans. Because you know damn well the state will get it's money back with interest. All this bill will do is fuck over veterans. Even if it was written well and fair, it still ends up being the state profitting on veterans. How is that good? Well anyway you guys passed it.

And last but most importantly, YOU FUCKERS REALLY FUCKING HATE GAYS DON'T YOU! Prop 8 looks like it's passing.

As for the presidency

I found it interesting looking up some of the old elections. Most of the key players today have been around forever. Sure tonights election ended the Bush/Clinton reign that wanted to go on for a few more decades, but there's more than them if you go back to '88, the last election year before the Bush/Clinton era took hold. Back then, Bush was only a VP. Bush ran, Bob Dole ran, Donald Rumsfeld ran, Joe Biden ran, Jesse Jackson ran, Al Gore ran, MIND YOU THIS IS 20 YEARS AGO, and of course Saint Ron Paul ran, on the anti bailout of communists, and anti foreign drug war ticket which are 2 big distinctions from him and Reagan, who was actually the perpetrator of communist bailouts and secret drug murderings in foreign nations.

Notable events in the election include the Democrats accusing Quayle of not being experienced enough (only being in Congress 12 years) Quayle compared himself in this way to Kennedy who was also inexperienced (only 14 years in Congress) and Dukakis (the eventual Dem ticket winner) famously responded "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Of course he was right, Quayle was inexperienced, and the Democrats went on to run campaign ads saying this inexperienced man was "just a heartbeat away" from the presidency (note the Democrats did the same thing this year with Palin, except that Obama has almost zero years experience himself so ridiculously so that his inexperience makes a mockery of everything the Democrats have ever stood for and even trumps their own mockery of Palin, but in a good Communist faith, you can use doublespeak, and actually believe two things at the same time, that's what Democrats did this election year)

Another thing to note is that in '88 Jesse Jackson did extremely well. He barely got beat out by Dukakis, he had won 11 contests and a majority of delegates and votes until right at the end. (I would think that election proved a black man could win, all things considered, but apparently people are fucking morons and completely forgot that Jesse Jackson did better then than even Hillary did this year). Gore did well too but fell short. Joe Biden dropped out in disgrace when ads were ran against him showing he had been giving speeches written by a British politician almost word for word. Although he had credited the writer several times, the implications that he had plagarized persisted.

So Biden dropped out in disgrace, but is our next VP.

Obama has no experience at all. About 1/6th the experience of an "inexperienced" politician, but got elected under the party that set the standard for shitting on the "inexperienced".

1992 would mark the end of the open elections. Certainly there was already a Bush in Power, and this was the begining of a legacy, but at the time it was one of the freest elections in the 20th Century. Things were looking up.

A woman ran as VP, you already had Jesse Jackson prove a black man could win, Ralph Nader began his campaign - but he didn't run, he only promoted people vote "None of the above" though people still voted for him, interestingly enough, more Republicans voted for Nader in '92 than Democrats. Truly these were good times for democracy. The front runner up until June was an Independent. That's right. Can you imagine this fantasy world where almost come election time someone who WASN'T DEM OR REP was the leader in the polls? Ross Perot was the man, and he was proving America still kicked ass, but then he dropped out. I remember when that happened. My Mom was pissed. She still ended up voting for him, but she thought it was dishonest to drop out, and when Perot can back, many people called him a coward, and his popularity plumeted, so in '92, it was an independ's shit baggery that lead to the end of America. It sealed the fate, as no one from then on would even have a shot, unless they were a Dem or a Rep, and if they were named Clinton or Bush, or were the VP of either. Bush began to take the lead, but a failing economy, and the constant ads saying "Read my lips, no new taxes" ( I remember those ads, even I at age 10 was pissed at Bush for that) So Clinton won, kind of like how the economic collapse right near this election sealed the fate for McCain, except where Perot would have been a third wheel, Ron Paul, having lost faith in the possibility of anyone in a 3rd party having a shot, due partially to his own '88 run, due partially to Perot's run, and due mostly to the Bush/Clinton reign, Ron Paul who would have been the perfect 3rd party man, with supporters from both sides, instead went Republican, and this took him out of the game in the primaries. Back in '92 Clinton was the "new" guy. The nobody third string player, all the big Dems had chosen not to go up against Bush who was supposed to win. Clinton won, but with only 43% of the vote. Bush got 37.7% and Perot got 18.9%

Basically, all the front runners and their buddies were the same people 20 years ago. Nothing new. Only Barry is the new guy instead of Clinton, so if Barry wins 4 years from now too, it will be a complete repeat, especially if the Republicans put up a loser like Bob Dole was, loser in '76, loser in '88, loser in '96, so if the predictions are right, it could easily be Palin, loser '08, loser '12.

I guess what also surprised me was finding how much none of this crap is new. A woman ran as VP 20 years ago. Jesse Jackson came very close to winning twice 16 and 20 years ago. A black woman, Shirley Chisholm, ran as a Democrat in '72, and a woman also ran as a VP that year, Tonie Nathan, Libertarian Party, who became the first woman in history to get an electoral vote. I would like to point out at this time that the Libertarian Party was founded almost entirely because of Ayn Rand, though it wasn't directly, all the founders of the Libertarian Party were fans of Ayn Rand, and only later grew apart, as many drifted into various political ideals including Anarcho-Capitalism branching off of Libertarianism, and Anarcho-Capitalism itself splitting off in two major ways.

In conclusion, you can suck my ass California for voting for stupid shit.

You can suck my ass America for electing more of the same.

You got what you deserved McCain, you think you're so hip for crapping all over Ron Paul and picking Palin. Fuck that, Palin voiced her support for Ron Paul long before you rolled into mediocrity. McCain only won the nomination by default, the other candidates had much bigger bases, but McCain just hummed along as they knocked each other out. And though you may have thought you were hip with your Palin, Ayn Rand's children had already broke down that barrier with a woman in the 70s, and the closest we had this year to an Ayn Rand supporter was Ron Paul. It should have been Ron Paul / Sarah Palin, or my dream election Ron Paul / Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Arnold wasn't born in America. Which brings me to my next rant.

Fuck you Obama, America deserves you. They want inexperience, they got you. They don't want inexperience, they got you. You're almost an American too, you were born in what some consider America, and although you were raised in Pacific islands and far away Muslim controlled countries, and half your family was illegal immigrants and Africans, hey, you're somewhat American. Hell, maybe you've spent as many years in America as Schwarzenegger has, he came here in the late 60s, wait, you didn't move to America until about 1980. Ok nevermind. But I suppose you beat out McCain who was born in Panama, and spent his youth trying to get away from America.

So here you are America. You all voted this time around. All branches of the government are controlled by lefties. I hope you socialists shut the fuck up for at least the next 2 years. And god be praised if the Republican Party completely collapses in its own hypocrisy.

The Housing Crisis; Today’s Market Crash

2008-10-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

It's funny that I was pissed enough about the Mortgage/Housing Crisis that I ranted about it, and now today, the stock market has crashed, and more HUGE long time Wall Street businesses are bankrupt due to the housing and mortgage collapse. Premier Bush was quick to announce that his Dictatorship will not stand for businesses losing money, so he announced he will snap the backs of the American people to pay off the debts of these failed companies.

Socialist Obama, and McCain (who Ron Paul proved doesn't know crap about economics, see video below) have already condemned Bush's policies, but note that McCain won't actually name Bush as the problem, and Obama is still a Socialist. These aren't the men with solutions, and I don't mean to say that a president should be an expert on every subject, that's absurd, but the president must know the basics, and if they aren't experts, get experts, not opinions. There is a solution to this problem. In fact there are many solutions, but you have to have a solid, rational philosophy about how you will approach the problem.

Mixed economies can't work. You can't act like it's a free market, and then bail people out with tax payer money, you can't have a controlled economy, and then allow small businesses to fail. A company CEO won't know what to do. Sometimes America decides you're too successful, and you get split, like Microsoft. Sometimes America decides you're not allowed to break down, and they dump billions of tax-payer dollars to bail you out, but your ship will only sink more slowly, like the airlines. And sometimes America decides that they want to be bigger and so they buy out failing businesses making them federal property like they did with the previous mortgage collapsed companies Fannie and Freddie. But there are few rules. There is no all encompassing official policy, the first example was under Clinton, and the other two were executed by Bush, but many years in the making. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were both invented by the government, and have always known that if they were to fail in their ventures, their contracts promised the American taxpayer would bail them out. Even when companies illegally screw over America, sometimes they get punished, and sometimes they don't, look at Enron. They robbed California blind when power deregulation hit and we had rolling black-outs. Just two years later, after having reported company record setting profits, they declared bankruptcy, the heads of Enron, took their money and ran. And I'm not saying they took their earnings and ran, I mean they gouged California, lied about their profits, and TOOK EVERYTHING. They cashed in their stocks, they screwed over all their employees. Did America do anything? No. Maybe they should go back to Microsoft and fine them some more to make up the costs. Do you see? You can't argue that both acts were just, either you're hands on, or you're hands off, but look how it plays out, Microsoft, who never did any bad, only good, was destroyed by the government. Enron, who lied and stole, no punishment.

I don't want to blame any president for a bad economy. It should not be the president's job, nor should the president have the authority to control the economy, but I can tell you, meddling with the economy can have negative consequences. Bush wants to bail out these companies. SOMEBODY has to pay. Who do you think it will be?

There are of course many more issues, and I'm sure I don't understand half of them. One obvious issue is the budget and taxes. Bush promised to lower taxes, and he did, but then he spent even more money than Clinton! Because it is impossible to force money into existence by decree, the cost had to come from somewhere, obviously the government is over spending without paying back, so who is paying for it? One direct result of spending money that doesn't exist is a "national debt" basically it's the government spending more than it owns, so it's in debt to itself. Since it is a constantly moving system, the debt doesn't just collect somewhere waiting to be paid, it is taken from the economy, the value of the dollar goes down, compared to other nations. Because the dollar is worth less, companies can't sell their products overseas for the same profits, and individuals can't buy foreign products with the same money. So we are paying for the debt, it's worse than just raising the taxes, but nowhere near as good as lowering taxes and having a government not overspend. And it's just like those bad debts people get into on their own, if we don't pay it off, if we don't budget, we can't just let it pay itself out. We will only get deeper and deeper in debt.

There are piles of problems, just give a google search and let the economists all over the internet give you a crash course on any number of issues and their history. Neither candidate is talking about these issues. Not really. So don't expect either to solve any of these issues, not really.

McCain Attacks Ron Paul, and Ron Paul owns him:

The Housing Crisis

2008-09-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

The future elected folks want to tell you they have solutions for the housing crisis. But why is it that none of their plans include the victims? None. Really. There is no plan by anyone to help out people who have ALREADY lost their homes. There is no plan by anyone to help people who ALREADY lost their bank accounts trying to get out alive. The only plans they have are to bail out the big companies that have eventually taken a blow from coming up short on their tireless efforts to screw people over. They intentionally try to screw people with skyrocketing mortgages that were time sensitive, and now they're paying for it, because they've already sucked up all the blood they could. Now the government want to give them more blood, because they want the vampire to survive. Not that they care about you, they are using the blood of EVERYONE, ALL TAXPAYERS TO SUBSIDIZE THE VAMPIRES WHO HAVE RUN OUT OF VICTIMS. Does that make sense? I lost $25,000 to this shitty housing market. Will I get bailed out by the government? No. Fuck me, they'll take my tax money too, and give it to those weasily fucks who fucked the market in the first place. COMMUNISM LOOKS LIKE A GOOD IDEA FROM THIS VIEW. THIS IS WHY THE RED REVOLUTION CAME TO RUSSIA! DON'T YOU SEE? This is not a capitalist venture. This is the act of a bad dictatorship. And yes, Socialist states are better off than dictatorships, so I guess that's a good choice now. Good job America. Good job.

Ron Paul

2008-09-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

You don't get to think you know anything about current American politics if you haven't heard Ron Paul speak. His latest speech was at the "Rally For the Republic" which sold out to more than 18,000 people just to see Ron Paul. One man, who represents only himself and the ideal of individuality. It was held near the Republican convention which couldn't pull down those numbers even though they supposedly represent half of America. The one of the nations only 2 political parties; that snubbed Ron Paul, the party that lied about Ron Paul's popularity by supressing the 1.2 million votes he received. The party that insulted him and refused him admittance to their debates. The party that is currently in power in this nation GOT ITS ASS HANDED TO IT BY ONE MAN. RON PAUL BY HIMSELF IS BETTER AND MORE IMPORTANT TO MORE PEOPLE THAN THE ENTIRE REPUBLICAN PARTY EXCLUDING HIM. Does that register? Probably not. You don't get it. If the romantic "you" "got it" then Ron Paul wouldn't be treated like a criminal by the power forces of the media and government. But many individuals support him. More active duty military support Ron Paul than any other candidate. John McCain invoked the name of the military in his convention, but when the military expressed their true support, he SHIT ON THEM AND LIED. Republicans hate the military and have no respect for them. Where Ron Paul supported the new GI Bill to help veterans, John McCain fought against it. Where John McCain had his college education paid by the GI Bill, Ron Paul was already a self made Doctor when he went into the military. Doctor/ Officer/ Congressman for 10 terms/ Ron Paul is more experienced than all the people you've ever met or thought of combined. He's old as hell yet still sharp as a tack. He's Ayn Rand off her period. He's Thomas Jefferson without slaves. He's better than Jesus in every way that matters. And if you think Jesus died for our sins, Ron Paul is fighting for everything good in man, to try to preserve everything humanity has worked for, and if no man can ever surpass Jesus, then Jesus died for nothing.

People follow Ron Paul, because Ron Paul wants you to lead yourself. And if your self isn't worth your time, you don't deserve to live. Other candidates would have you follow them for what they promise to do for others. Ron Paul promises to only do what he must to prevent those others from robbing you of your liberty.

I'm not saying you have to care. I don't think every human should give a crap about politics. But you should at least care about yourself. And I honestly can't understand from the depths of my mind why when election time comes around, it isn't an individualist vs. an individualist. What we have is a man who is telling you how to spend your money, and the money he steals from you. While he passes laws to prevent you from making more money, or obtaining individual goals. And on the other side we have a man who is telling you how to spend your money, and the money he steals from you; while he passes laws to prevent you from making more money, or obtaining individual goals. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? OH YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHAT IT IS EXACTLY THAT THEY STEAL FROM YOU THIS TIME. YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHERE THE MONEY THEY STOLE FROM YOU WILL BE WASTED. YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHICH MEANINGLESS FUCKING LAWS THEY WILL PASS IN THE NAME OF THEIR GOD VARIANT TO DESTROY YOU IN BOTH BODY AND MIND. THAT IS YOUR CHOICE AMERICA: HOW WILL YOU CHOOSE TO SLOWLY DIE? And the individualist, he's mocked, to the bitter end, by the thieves of your mind. And you mock him too, but your mind is gone. And no one takes you seriously.

Who Did you Vote for With your Wallet?

2008-08-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname

Check it out. You can see every person who donated to every candidate (through legal channels only I suppose). If you type in my name, you will see I donated to Ron Paul. It even gives you the addressed I lived at when I donated! It provides all the information that was asked of me when I donated, that is, name, occupation, industry. You can use the map on the page to see who other people around you donated to.

What blew my mind was how quickly I could see illegal activity. There is a campaign contribution limit, I notice one guy sent the maximum to Hillary, then a week later sent the maximum again, but used a slight variation on his name and occupation, he was at the same address, it was so obvious!

There were $352,872 in donations from my old zip code (92101) which takes up only a portion of downtown San Diego. $70,147 was donated by my current zip code which I think is impressive enough for central Stockton.

Give it a try, you can go find out what your favorite celebrities support. I looked up Ron Paul, he donated $325 to the Republican Party of Texas. Maria Shriver donated $2,452 to Barrack Obama.

Anyway. I think it's cool.

Department of Homeland Security and Mafia Wars

2008-07-24T00:58:00.000-07:00

I got drunk last night and started applying for federal jobs. I'm usually more outgoing and motivated when I'm drunk, but this was a first. One of the jobs I applied for was Bond Specialist for the Department of Homeland Security. I blame the usajobs.gov website primarily. They have these simplistic brief job descriptions and then when I get to the meat and potatoes of the application I realize I'm completely unqualified. But at that point I don't care, and I complete the application anyway. I did this a couple times. One of them really tricked me. It was a job for the park service, tending historic maritime museums and/or locations in San Francisco. The entire job description made it seem like they wanted an intelligent well versed historian and orator. I could pull that off in spades. But as soon as I start the real application I'm bombarded with carpentry questions. Asking if I know how to build an exhibit? What the hell? The Federal Government is obnoxiously inefficient. How are real people supposed to get jobs from them? They can't obviously. But maybe that's the point.

At the begining of each job application it asked me if I was a "dislocated Federal employee". Does the Federal Government really have roving bands of employees that remain "employed" despite NOT HAVING JOBS? I want that job. I want some politician to decide my office shouldn't exist, shut me down, but for me to continue to receive pay from the government.

I've seen all these sweet useless jobs that I know must have required mountains of cock sucking to acquire. These awesome obscure jobs that just make my mouth water. A job that has no boss, only a duty. A job that I could excel at. Where I set my own schedule, and I run the place better than any other. Oh god. I saw it so much in the Navy. I saw how it worked. It's all a favoritism thing. It's disgusting. It's Atlas Shrugged shit. But I don't want the job to look good, I want the job because for once it will be something I can fix. Nearly the entire time I worked for the Navy I thought up ways of making things better, more efficient, more productive, more morally conscious, more enticing, more effective. But knowing how to make things better means nothing when all the people who have the jobs that can make differences are complete asshole douchebag morons. So many times I found myself in offices where I wasn't welcome, trying to pry a little bit of support from people whose sole job description was "supporting the fleet". Supposed experts, that when I turned to them in my hour of need would either a. blow me off, or b. start harassing me about shit that's neither hither nor thither. Entire buildings devoted to people who have the easiest cakiest taxpayer wastiest jobs just laughing and prancing. And when I step in for a fucking washer, a washer! I get nothing but crap. So many times, so many stories. I always wanted to make a difference in the military. I really wanted to have the freedom to fix things. But I was never afforded the opportunity. Only to maintain where they set the bar.

Every time I'd hear a Captain or an Admiril talk about how great the Navy is and how much we mean to them I'd fucking get all tear eyed and God bless America-y but around the literally thousandth time I'd be sweeping the same fucking floor, or wiping down the same clean bulkhead while forsaking actual necessary tasks I stopped caring, one way or the other, how things turn out. The people who work on shore to do nothing but process a couple requests and maybe stamp some products get paid premiums just for having to be on land in the locations I was forced to live at sea, and I received no such premium. Do you hear me? In some cicumstances people with the exact same job title and paygrade as me were paid $800 a month more to do less work and never go to sea. And fuck me if I should mention that military pay is a joke compared to Federal Civillian employee pay.

All I've ever wanted was to do something that I could feel proud to do. And there have been instances where it happened. And those were the best days of my life. But they make it hard. They certainly do. They make those times few and far between.

Sometimes I think only a government job could satisfy my thirst. But the bitter taste is still in my mouth. I started doing full days of manual labor at below minimum wage when I was 13. Don't even fucking start with me on an "honest hard days work" I was doing tedious manual fucking heat stroking finger bleeding clothes ruining back breaking work for years before I was in high school, or even legally allowed to. That's why I'm already half way to retirement as far as the Social Security Administration is concerned. I'm just tired of it. I don't think I'm too good for it, hell I've never turned a shitty paying time wasting labor job down, and I did plenty of manual labor in the Navy, I if I just want more. More. My brain needs more. And I can't have it. There's no purpose for me. I'm obviously not meant to ever have love or kindness around me. Even the deepest ditch digger can get a fucking girlfriend. No, I'm not meant to be happy. But satisfied would be enough. If I could just do SOMETHING that would make things better for people, then I would feel satisfied. Everything good I did in the Navy was made evil or nullified. I need something pure. I need something to mold.

As I spend a few minutes a day playing the meaningless void of a game called Mafia Wars here on Myspace, I think about who came up with it, and how much money it has made them. I think about how much it has boosted Myspace in the process. Such a sweeping change, so much, from so very little.

The Federal Government thinks they're too good for me (as most people do). They don't even have the decency to put up real information on their own hiring pages. Because they know exactly where they will hire from. There's an endless supply of happenstance soulless cocksuckers who are of a higher caste than me. They are born with money and friends and they will phone in their whole life. They will simply tell a friend, and the job will no longer be open. And when some poor bastard hard working scum employee lower than them walks in for a little help, they will fucking shit all over them.

It's all set in place. There is no free enterprise here. There is no capitalism in America anymore. There is no concept of individualism among the majority. Every viable political candidate must be a mouth. A product. And nothing more. Just like in Pink Floyd's "The Wall" That is America now. I have watched as the hearts and souls of thousands of individuals greater than I will ever be get crushed like dead leaves under the tanks of this system. What the fuck else can I hope for but a job working for the system and setting my own hours? Nothing sir. There is nothing more.

Going Back

2008-07-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

I walk across the base. All my money is being sucked down a drain in Stockton, so I can't drive. I want to spend more time at home, so I don't ride my bike. 20,000+ people live and/ or work on this base everyday, but I am the only one who walks out the gate. I am the only one without a car or a boyfriend.

After several miles I am out. Walking into a rich neighborhood. I walk the busy road, alone. The cars tearing past don't know this neighborhood. I know this neighborhood, its past, its present, and its lives. I have walked every street. I have been to museum, the library, and the parks. I have read books; I have drunk with the locals. I have eaten all they offered. I have lain on their beach. I have been in the hotels and motels and dreamed of living out my days there. I walk this familiar neighborhood alone. I have corrected a taxi driver who thought the land owned by the Spanish decedents, because those were his primary customers. I explained to him that Coronado was built by 2 Americans. The Spanish and Mexicans had never used the land but for hunting jack rabbits. Jack rabbits that still control the night in North Island Jack rabbits that only I ever see. I the only one of 20,000 to walk the fields in the dark of the morning hours returning from ever fruitless efforts to obtain even the remotest human contacts, failing even the remotest rudimentary means of pleasure and satisfaction. I explained to the cabbie that those with money, do not ride cabs. I ride cabs, the Mexican servants he drives around may be dressed sharply, but only as a living. I walk the road until I come to the bus stop.

It has now been over an hour since I got off work. The sun is setting. It is past 7. I sit on the bench waiting to pay $2.25. The cheapest I can pay without going it on my own. The cheapest I can pay and return home before late night. I once rode the distance. The ferry that ever eludes teased me and I sought vengeance. I kept riding. I rode off the base. I rode the peninsula. Cars screamed past me at 70 miles and hour, and I rode in the dirt next to restricted areas for miles with no place to stop. One long strip of dirt and cars. I kept riding. Until the bay turned to piles of salt, salt several feet deep as far as I could see in that direction. In another, Mexico; if not by name than by all other means. I kept riding past the highways up the hill and down again, for miles through cities I had never seen before. I moved until in the depths of the barrio I could see tall buildings on the horizon. I rode until I was home. But I have no bike now. I could try to take the ferry. It is about a dollar more, but it is more consistent. The bus comes rarely.

.. ..

I sit and wait for the bus. On the bench I see the same faces. I see them everyday, and they see me. They look at me, knowingly. They know I do not belong. I listen to my iPod. I play games on my phone. Music that helps me avoid the silence of loneliness. Terrible overpriced under-programmed games on a phone just to look like I have something to do with a phone.

.. ..

Sometime in the evening a bus arrives. I get on and hope to have a seat. I have been awake for about 16 hours now, and 12 of them I was on watch wearing a gun and a bullet proof vest. The people on this bus are always different and new. I find I hear a new language being spoken each time. Korean, Japanese, German, Spanish, some kind of north European language I couldn't identify. I don't know why these people are on this bus. I don't know where they spent their day. I ride it over the bridge and into the city. It takes the barrio path to 12th. I get off surrounded by bums and tourists and cops. I am across the street from the ball park. I am a block from the convention center. I walk away from that and up the street. There are homeless masses in the streets and on the grass and in the alleys. Every time I wonder my fate, but only in passing. Up I walk past the half way homes and low cost housing and retirement home. At Albertsons I stop and purchase alcohol. I purchase food, and drink. Usually a jar of that Pom tea, usually a pizza, usually some meat and various TV dinners. I ride the elevator up to my room. The weight of my purchases tearing into my hands. I quickly enter my apartment. It is now around 8pm. I put on the TV, I turn up the AC, I make up some food and I drink. I drink. I drink until I am no longer coherent. Then I get in bed and sleep for a long time. Eventually I wake. Eventually I move around, eat, go out, drink, and make the day. Eventually. But soon that is over and I must return to work. I want to spend as much time as I can at home, so I don't ride my bike. I wait until it is 7 or 8 I start chugging whiskey straight out of the bottle for awhile, and then I walk to 5th avenue I live on 14th so this isn't too far. Eventually there is a taxi. I pay to have them drop me off at the gate, and I walk across the base.

.. ..

This was 8 months of my life. Save the girl, I did not.

Timeless (This is a fictional story I just wrote in 30 minutes or less)

2008-06-27T02:49:00.000-07:00

My name is Alex and I feel I need to write this down, even if it won't happen. I thought it would be fun. But I've lost all concept of joy. I am gripped with an unending fear. My time between, if you could call it that, is my only respite. I haven't slept in days, I think. I lost all concept of time as soon as I began. All I know is what I am right now. And right now I am tired, and terrified.

..

....

If I sleep, will I wake? If I don't sleep, will I see it? Will I even know? I can see what I've written here, so I know I've done this. I remember this. Maybe that's all there is. Maybe that's the only truth. Maybe I don't need to know if this is the ten thousandth or first time. Maybe if I'm suddenly no longer writing this, that won't matter either. But that's where the terror comes from. I want it to matter. I want to have a solid course. A beginning, a middle, and an end.

....

Have I lived an infinite number of lives? Have they? I watch them come and go, and it all stays the same for me, at least I think it does. That of course is until I go myself, and then I've made everything different.

....

People always looked at it from a singular perspective, their own. As if the whole world happily went on hold for them, and returned for them when they came back. Who comes here anyway? Why here? Why now? What do they know that I don't?

....

Communication has ceased. There is no news. There are reporters. There is some measure of stability I suppose, not everyone could afford to go. But I don't care anymore. The news can't be right, how could they be? And even if they are right, for how long? Only now. Only now. Only now. That's all that matters.

....

We can move as fast and far as we want, but only our perception of now makes us whole. And no matter how much we move, we will still die. You can't run from old age. Well, at least I assume so. Might have to wait to find that one out.

....

I used to find it amusing when people would come here from before. To see the look on their faces, when they saw the unimagined overwhelm them. I suppose it's a good place to blow your mind. Downtown. It's why I used to come here, when coming mattered. I think other people find comfort here too. I would like to say the crime has ceased since people were able to leave. But I know that can't be true. If not here, then everywhere else. Anarchy. People can't even help themselves. They lose what I've lost, and they struggle to hold on to what they valued before. But what they valued is gone. Now they can only fixate on satisfying what they wanted before. Wants and values, normally they could co-exist. I can no longer have anything I valued. Maybe love. I can't imagine it's any harder now finding a girl than it was before. And I do see people together. They come and go together. Somehow I find it ironic, or at least a little self defeating. Maybe only on a grand scale. If you have what you wanted, what does it matter where you are? If you are with who you want to be, wouldn't staying put, or at least following a goal make sense? This meandering I'm doing is only an ebb in the raging river that has consumed everything we humans thought to be real.

....

Well I suppose no matter what I do, I'm doing it. I know I wrote what I've just written, but maybe I just started to know this. Maybe I have changed in the meantime. What if I go now? What if I can keep this with me? If it stays with me, I'll know I have some stability in this universe. If I can just keep this in my pocket. If I lose it, I might not ever know, or maybe I'll lose it a thousand times and get it right back a thousand more. Or maybe it will say something different each time. I guess it really doesn't matter. What's in my head is on this paper, and either is just as easily replaced. Wonderful. But I think I've only written this to know what I do. I may have no more middle, but I think I do, and I am tired. Maybe I'll wake up tired, maybe I won't wake up, but I have to at least try. I must continue to act. I must survive. Well. Maybe I'll die a thousand times in my sleep. But if I wake up, or at least I think I wake up, and I feel better, then I can continue. Continue this timeless existence.

INTERNET TIPS AND TRICKS VOL. 2

2008-06-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

Note: This whole thing is about language and etymology on the internet. I promise you it's informative and relatively accurate. If you already know about a word, go ahead and skip it. This is a long one. I do realize there are probably a dozen websites that have all these words defined, most notably www.urbandicitionary.com but this is more tailored specifically to the basic words of the internet. I think you might enjoy it.

Language: It is the nature of language to branch and develop and change. It is this beautiful and oftimes confusing element of communication that can cause conflict and misunderstanding more than anything else humans encounter. I recently found a 1991 hacker's dictionary that made this glaringly obvious. Back before the World Wide Web, the only people who had internets were "hackers", who were essentially people who wrote their own ways to each other. These students of MIT and other tech schools, as well as random technophiles were communicating in a manner that only exists in subcultures. As people in a specific field of study, and work, they came up with their own dialect. As doctors speak to doctors or, more closely to me, sailors speak to sailors. "Chief, NIPR'S OOC. SKED's down, and PMS is gundecked." You understand that? If you missed one thing in that quote, you're not a sailor. Entiendes? It's English as it were, but not your English. Modern day internet is full of this. I won't go on for days comprehensively defining internetspeak; you have to learn your specific local lounges. I will list words/phrases/symbols that have become common amongst the internets, specifically in the most popular sites that get mentioned everyday in the ancient Medias, newspapers, TV, and radio.

1. Symbols of enjoyment:

Lol: laughing out loud; or simply, "ha" the minimalist method of expressing positive reaction even if you are nowhere near actually 'laughing out loud'.

Rofl: Rolling on floor laughing; or actually becoming somewhat happier from whatever the subject is.

Lmao: Laughing my ass off; also used harshly as sarcasm, or a lead into a "flame".

Lmfao: Laughing my fucking ass off; someone actually laughed. Yeah, it takes this much.

Ja (Ja): Ha; written primarily by people whose first language is Spanish or Portuguese, as in those languages the "j" is pronounced like the English "h". As far as I know, there is no "lol" equivalent in Spanish beyond the "ja ja".

Corrupted and possibly evil symbols of enjoyment:

Lolerskates: lol combined with roller skates. As if the laughing is continuing.

Lolercoaster: lol combined with rollercoaster, dueling meaning a group of funny things that vary in funny levels, up and down, or simply very funny.

Lulz: Pure evil. Anyone that uses this word likes excessive and exploitive pornography and/or is a racist, or is simply an idiot. The word itself implies a derived pleasure, that is usually through a means of said porn, racism, violence, or in the often media reported misery of other humans. Sadly this isn't a joke. :)

a. emoticons: all the symbols of "emotion"; although many different emotions can be expressed through 'emoticons', it is impossible to actually feel those emotions and use the emoticons. Anyone using emoticons isn't really anything but either happy, or slightly annoyed. Emoticons in practice are the very basic key entries, but many websites automatically force images to replace your text, (insanely enough, my own Microsoft Word has done such a thing) : ) happy : ( sad ;) wink etc. The Japanese have taken it to an art form. My old prepaid Japanese cell phone I bought in 2005 has more emoticons built-in than any 15 year old girl could possibly imagine.

2. Bad English: much of what is common on the internets is simply illiteracy. People who couldn't "speel" for the life of them and instead write what ignorant dumbshit symbolic representation of English makes them feel communicative.

a. Prolly: probably. Probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably, probably.

There you go. 85% of all the correctly spelled "probablys" on the entire web are just above this sentence.

3. Other words/symbols:

"/": e.g. /thread, /argument, /conversation, /sanity, /happiness; pronounced "end", a simplified form of a representation of actual html (see vol. 1). In html when you type ".. (quick note, I did type what I was saying would be html, so it actually acted as html and made what I typed invisible lol so I used parenthesis to break it up)

"(<)(/)" what follows is a command to end a previously written rule. When you want to frame the entire body of your subject, be it text, or images, you start with "(<)(a)(>)" (without quotes, and case is irrelevant) and you finish the "body" with "(<)(/)(a)(>)" (without quotes, blah blah). If someone writes "/thread" or "/argument" or "/discussion" they are saying in cordial internetspeak that the subject should, for politeness or rationality's sake, be discontinued.

Gtfo: Get the fuck out/off; a demand for a person to leave. It may be unwarranted, and is always ignored, therefore simply becomes an insult and a declaration that the person told to "gtfo" has less of a right to be wherever you are than the claimant.

Omg/ omfg: Oh my (fucking) god; this is like having an exclamation mark at the beginning of your sentence. Because English claims no use for such a symbolic warning, internet communicators were forced to come up with a "back door" method. Even though in person to person real life contact, English speakers use an exclamation before they speak in the form of facial expressions, hand gestures, and or vocal reactions like gasping. Whereas the superior (in this instance) language of Spanish, the sentence simply begins with an upside-down exclamation mark.

Noob/ newb/ noobie/ newbie: A person who is inexperienced; there are other definitions, but they are wrong. No one who actually tries to learn something will be a "noob" for very long. Thus many people become highly offended when they are compelled to spend any amount of time helping someone with issues that only a noob would incur. In the real world noobs can remain so despite effort for many months/years. On the internet, which functions for idiots and gets nothing done, to remain a newb makes you worthless.

IM: Instant Message; it's chat, but with one other person, and no "room". Also like email, but with no formality or memory. Also, most IMs let you know when someone you know is signed on. Myspace has an IM, but most people don't use it. I have one IM relationship with a dude named Brian; he's on my friend's list. He's a good guy, eh writes what he thinks and doesn't afraid of anything.

PM: Private Message; IM that people don't get around to much, as most "forums" have PM and most people don't check the forum daily. Also, PMs are always recorded, so like email that only people who sign up on a specific website can use. Myspace has a PM, though they call it "Message". I had a PM relationship with a 16 year old girl once, but she probably killed herself.

Forum: (aka bbs from back in the hacker days) a collection of "threads" on a website; usually possessing an overall theme; www.ronpaulforum.com is a forum that maintains a theme of Ron Paul, but each individual "thread" can encompass a different, or many different subjects. Often forums are categorized with multiple threads in each category, and sometimes each category is referred to as a separate forum, which is technically unimportant.

Thread: A line of commentary provided by one or more people; the "OP" (original poster) physically creates the thread which (usually) appears as its own web page. The only exception I have noted in the entire internet is www.collegehumor.com where each "reply" to a video is considered a separate thread, and each reply to a reply is considered "in thread response". It is considered an act of idiocy and noobishness if a person were to "reply" to the video instead of an "OP" while making a direct comment to a previous individual's reply. This is a special circumstance to the rest of the internet as all replies in all formats appear on the same page as the original video. A contrasted view of terminology is the similar formatted www.youtube.com where all replies are "comments" and there are no "threads". This has altered slightly as youtube has recently made it possible to 'directly' reply to someone's comment instead of the video itself, but has yet to correctly format their webpages or html to make this alteration obvious or comprehensible. In fact, youtube's formatting make conversation tedious and repetitive, making the aspect of "commenting" often times offensive and confusing, which in turn inspires the video 'posters' to disable the ability to comment on their video. Considering most people who comment on youtube videos are idiots to begin with, not much is questioned.

A good example is to see a video on youtube that features a somewhat attractive female, and 1,000 different men actually trying to "hit on" the video in the comment section. If they don't even realize it isn't a live webcam, and this is real life, not their fantasy land, then how can you expect them to understand formatting issues?

OP: Original poster; this person has set the mood for a discussion. Anyone intending to stay on topic will refer to the OP and comment on the OP's subject. Most internet conversations actually stay more on topic than real life conversations. There is no such thing as an "OP" in real life. If someone starts a conversation, or makes a statement in real life, it may inspire others to speak as well, but no one will appreciate the original subject or subject starter within minutes (unless of course the real life OP continues to manipulate the conversation, much as a teacher, or inquisitive person would).

Troll: douchebag; someone who acts with intention to evoke an emotional (usually negative) response from others. A troll may accomplish their goal in many ways, but their purpose is consistent, they do not respect other people, and wouldn't even be allowed near other people in real life. A troll would go to a Christian forum, and start a thread calling Jesus a fag. They may or may not believe in Jesus, and this is moot. They only seek to hurt/anger others. Usually trolls make their trolling statements, and never return. If they do return, it's only to fan the flames. Trolls never provide actual reasoning, nor employ any logic; they will only write what is necessary to achieve said emotional disruption. Sometimes trolls are discovered or are too obvious and no one takes the bait, but more often troll arguments are more successful in starting long meaningful passionate debates than concise, logical statements. This is primarily due to the internet appealing to morons.

Flames/flaming: Arguments/arguing devoid of reason and based primarily on emotion; In real life a "flamer" likes butt sex. On the internet, a flamer is one who 'ignites' other's emotion's specifically through insults. While a flamer can be a troll, and a troll can be a flamer, flaming tends to be "micro" and trolling tends to be "macro". Flaming, or flame warring is a series of insults hurled between 2 or more people over a thread or sometimes an entire forum. Most websites discourage this, and delete the comments and threaten the flamers with banning.

Meme: Cultural gene; the word applies to anything that passes as cultural "knowledge". The idiots of the internet would kill kittens to prove that meme has another definition; "pictures and phrases that are spread throughout the internet". This of course is still the original definition of meme. Though the kind of memes originally thought up were on a grander, more affecting scale, they are all memes. Common memes of a much more ancient manner are idioms. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" "That's like the pot calling the kettle black" these idioms are obviously old. Most people have never even touched a horse, and if they had they certainly didn't get to lead it anywhere. Most people don't catch birds; most people don't have any idea why a pot would be worried about being black. But they know what the phrase means, the phrase conjures a concept within them, effectively communicating uses a means other than direct, pertinent language. With the internet, new memes can be passed, rather quickly. The "I can has cheezburger?" meme is legendary, and it spawned entire websites devoted to image concepts based on that one picture. Even after that cat has passed, he has lived on as a cultural gene, a meme.

4. leet (1337) : Leet is a derivative of 'elite'. It in itself is a term used for "hackers" but pretty much isn't properly used. Every computer nerd with some script writing wishes he were a hacker. In fact, this has always been the case, when I was reading the hacker's dictionary; they mentioned that most hackers wished they were more than they actually were. They wanted notoriety. In a system (the old internets) that required actual skill to be able to work/communicate/jest and had many varying levels of difficulty, it became logical that one would want to be known by many. People had to study, and work hard to communicate and use the internets. They were all hackers. No one fed them anything. Since getting in required skills, communicating required skills, it created an environment of people fighting to be the first to do something, or make something. This is why the computer/internet age advanced so quickly. These people wanted internet communication to be on par with real life communication.

In the new generation, there is no such thing as a "good" hacker. No need to innovate, no need to conquer, using the old ways. So there is little incentive to becoming a hacker. We are spoon fed the spoils of the previous generation. In this easy going world, the new concept of hacker became fruitful. Basically, being a douchebag and knowing some binary now makes you a hacker or "haxx0r", in leet.

Hackers take credit for everything. They claim to have reorganized the very foundations of written and spoken English, long before the world wide web. And they possessed so many internal words that they consider it their own language (mostly because they're self absorbed and intellectually lacking in anything beyond electronics, for instance Cultural Anthropology). Modern day wannabe haxx0rs have made up their own language too. But it is so far removed from old hacker language as to be only a long running joke on the internet.

Leet is the language of derivative ignorance. Its simplistic reformation of English serves no purpose save a self claimed superiority and method of higher communication. Leet essentially breaks down to replacing normal English letters with symbols.

Examples: a= 4, b= 8, c= x , o = 0 There really are no rules, and anything normal people start doing on the internet, leet users will adopt to further it's self-defeatist cause. 1337 or l33t = leet, haxx0r = hacker. There are many more and I don't care.

Something to note is that because the old hacker language was so culturally specific, it died. And because leet is so meaningless, it often attains new meaning as it is adopted into common usage. The TV show numb3rs uses the leet letter for 'e', I have never seen the show, but if there are sexy model/nerds and computers involved I wouldn't be surprised.

My absolute favorite is one instance of leet corruption. "pwn" or "pw3d" is leet for "own" and "owned". To be "owned" in internet speak is to have something overcome you in a ridiculous manner. For example when I try to write out blogs on Myspace, I am frequently owned by the shitty "post" function that auto deletes everything I write, if it's particularly long. The corruption is this; most people don't know or care about leet, so when they started seeing "pwn3d" and "pwn" everywhere in some of the first common "memes" on the interwebz, they automatically assumed that the "p" is pronounced like an English "p". This is of course a complete re-corruption. Leet took "p" and used it for an "o" because it still has the circle in it, and that's the essence of leet. People who didn't know pr0n from prawn assumed they should pronounce the p as a p, and THUS ENGLISH RETOOK A LEET WORD. OMFGROFLOLERCOASTER! So everyone that said "powned" out loud is an idiot. But if enough people say it, the rules change. I could say in this instance, leet got owned by its own idiotic language.

INTERNET TIPS, TRICKS, AND CODES

2008-06-07T03:35:00.000-07:00

You might already know everything I post here. But some aren't as hip as you. I'm going to lay out some of the cool stuff I've learned riding the interwebz.

1. html: (hyper text markup link) is what controls the internet, literally. In fact the internet wouldn't exist without it, it was created by the same guy who invented the world wide web (www.) and hyper text transfer protocol (http:) back in the early 90's. There are many websites that can teach you to write html, like here. I used sweet html to make that hidden link to the website.

2. Taking pictures of your screen: You can take a "screenshot" of anything you're computer sees simply by pressing the "prt sc" or "print screen" button. After pressing the button, once, open up mspaint, click the "edit" window and then "paste" the screenshot will then show up in mspaint. You can save it, and use it to proove to people you saw something amazing.

3. Stealing photos: Most images on the internet can be saved by right clicking and saving, making it fast and easy to have an instant porn collection, gore collection, comic collection, dead baby photo collection, etc. But some douche websites have the tenacity to use their html skillz to disable your right clicking right. To defeat their futile attempt to stop your copyright violations you can either; a) take a screenshot, then use a photo editor to cut out the image you wanted, or b) go to the "page" menu and click save as. Save it to somewhere convenient, then find that file, right click on it and choose "edit" if you haven't screwed up so far, you will open the webpage you've just saved, but with the ability to rearrange everything, and right click and save the images on the page. Now some websites have advanced html coding that embeds itself like an evil detective, further trying to stop you from right clicking. If this happens, you're going to have to get creative. You will need to start breaking up the coding, file names, etc. Do whatever you can, save as and change the file names, go crazy. I've only encountered this a couple times in my adventures, and I was always able to defeat the website. Basically if you can see it, you can have it.

4. Saving videos from photobucket to your computer: For legal reasons, photobucket cannot let anyone save videos from their site, even if it's your video. But here's how you can do it anyway; find the video you want. click on it so you bring it to it's own window or whatever, when you see the stack of confusing html below or beside the video left click on "direct link" it will automatically copy the text. Now open a new widow, and paste the text into the url area. Delete the part of the text that reads "?action=view¤t=" (without the quotes) and hit enter, or "return" for you old schoolers. Your computer will then pop up with a message asking if you want to "open or save". Choose save and there you have it. To watch the videos, you'll need a ".flv" player. "Real Player" is a popular and free example, if you don't have it, download it, and open your .flv files with it.

5. Saving other kinds of videos: Often you can right click, and choose "save target as" over the text below videos on websites. Some websites even tell you to do so if you wish. Other times the text is elswhere (like on another page), but the "save target as" still works, because the text is an html embeded direct link to the video file.

Youtube is a bit trickier, because they don't have the "direct link" over to the side, just the "url" and "embed" and because it displays videos in flash, right clicking on the video will get you nowhere. As of yet, I haven't cracked the youtube genome, so if you know how let me know.

There are also programs you can downlod that take video of what your screen sees, which can then effectively (though not cleanly) capture anything you see animated on the nets. These come in handy when you want to hijack webcam footage, and then send copies to all the "camwhore's" friends and family (not that I condone such things). This is just a heads up. If people can see it, no matter how they see it, they can save it, so use discretion on the net.

6. Tab, the wonder button: Most people don't use tab very much, but on the internet, it's a very helpful little tool. You old schoolers might have a good understanding of Tab's usefullness in word processing, here's how it transitions; it highlights things. Tab will move your activity around. For example, if you're on one of the hundreds of pages you'll encounter in your internet travels that's asking for row after row of info, just use tab to move from section to section. In many instances, tab replaces your mouse, and can actually get you where you wanted to go faster. In fact, if you lose your mouse, or it breaks, you can still navigate, and do all basic functions on your computer with tab instead. If you get a malicious pop up, or you're playing a video game that takes up your whole screen with no "close" or "minimize" buttons in sight hold the buttons "alt" and "tab" and whatever you were looking at will be minimized. On some computers, you'll get a choice sometimes of what you want to maximize after pressing the buttons, which will present themselves in symbolic form (for example the option to maximize your Internet Explorer over your video game will appear as the "E" symbol you're familiar with). If all this is getting to complicated, just push tab alot, all over the place, you'll get the idea quickly, and it won't hurt anything.

7.Uploading stuff: Since 2004, uploading has become a common practice for many internet visitors. Before the coming of websites like photobucket, youtube, myspace, and Deviant Art, there was little reason for the common man to ever upload anything. The only people that would were website builders, and content submitters (like animations to Newgrounds.com, independent films to atomfilms.com). Now that people can have their own personal internet space everyone is uploading.

Of course how to upload varies from website to website, but almost universally there will be a button that reads "Brouse" on it, and when you click it, it will access your computer. Each website allows only certain file types and sizes, and each website is different. The first thing to do is read the websites guidelines. Now lets say you want to upload a video to youtube. Youtube has a (I'm pretty sure) a 100mb file size limit. Depending on the file type, the amount of video that fits in 100mb varies. If the video is off your camera, it's probably going to take up a lot of space, but if you process it through a program (any free home video program) you can reduce the filesize if needed. Windows Movie Maker is a good one, about all the videos you see on youtube that look homemade, but with a halfassed effort to look professional were made with "WMM". If you don't have it on your computer, look for it. You can do a lot of easy editing, adding music, moving scenes, cutting scenes, adding text, subtitles, in fact check out my youtube video http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bl_-alLeefA for a good example.

If you wish to upload photographs to a website, the first thing you want to do is edit the photo to a smaller size. Typical digital cameras today have way too many pixels for their own good. Anything over 1 megapixels is going to piss off the website you're uploading to. Even if they say they have a 4mb file limit, there's no reason to do that. Simply open up a photo editor program, (I use MS Office Picture Manager) and compress the photo. I typically compress the file size to 270kb which is very small, and yet retains the size and quality you desire in internet photos. All my myspace photos have been compressed or were small to begin with, and you may notice they are plenty big enough. (If you're uploading cell phone photos, chances are they're already really small, and no compressing is necessary).

If you think this list was cool, let a comment, I'll make a second volume. If nobody reads this, I'll be a sad panda, cause this took me a couple hours.

Lost, shipwrecked, cast away, blah blah

2008-05-31T00:52:00.000-07:00

Why are so many people so completely obsessed with the concept of being stranded somewhere?

This love of the lonely goes back farther than Robinson Crusoe which was published in 1719. The manifestation of this idea appears repeatedly. I could name without thinking too hard many more examples than just the three in my title (Really? yes) ok: "Three", "Swiss family Robinson" (yeah cheap one) "6 days, 7 nights", "Island of the Blue Dolphins" (oooh bet you didn't see that one coming) "Ren and Stimpy" "Mad Magazine", "Saturday Night Live", uuhh almost thinking now, Tailspin, that commercial where the monkeys live with that dude and they get a computer, ok now I'm thinking, how about nearly every cartoon, sketch comedy show, and sci fi show, has at one time or another played on the idea of people stuck in a small area and forced to live with nature and each other.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't hate the concept, it enamors me too. I'd love to be stuck on an island with some hot girl. Of course the survivor theme, oh duh, "Survivor", anyway it doesn't stop at deserted isles, oh yeah "Gilligan's Island" it also works on apocalypse themes where the actual demise of humanity takes a back seat to a couple people stuck together alone and with only their relationships keeping them alive, i.e. every zombie movie ever including Resident Evil's .Also that movie "Night of the Comet" where those girls wake up to find all of humanity vanished. It's all the same. This fixation on a few people dealing with each other mostly out of absolute necessity.

Why does this seem to be such an inate desire? To conceptualize the island. While I don't so thoroughly question most aspects of our culture, this one gets me. Simply for the fact that it NEVER HAPPENS. Aside from the one Scottish dude 300 years ago that inspired "Robinson Crusoe" and those Japanese soldiers in the Pacific Islands, nobody gets stuck on tropical islands. It isn't one of the normal aspects of human sociological development. We are forever bombarded by uncontrollable change and new characters come in all the time.

You might try to take the easy way out and suggest that it is because it never happens that we dream about it so much. Well, by that logic, there should also be thousands more stories about utopias relative to stories of dystopias. But it isn't true. We are realists. Even our fantasies hold on to our most basic social sets. Name one story about a good government and happy people, and I'll name 50 about horrible governments, and miserable people. Horrible governments and miserable people is our history, and we assume our future. Why then so fixated on a nearly impossible situation of being forced to stick with people you probably didn't know that you will come to love mutually or kill, and must work together to survive, no other option? Or that there are always the resources for you, so you can stay, until you mind decides to leave? (not counting Steven King's take, which really had nothing to do with sociology and everything to do with perserverance).

One could say it is oft repeated because it is the nature of the story ( a couple people, and no illogical complications) that makes it easy to copy. Any shitty writer can get away with a survivor story. There only needs be one story arch. There only needs be 2 to 3 character stories. There needs to be only one relationship. Easy to write. Sure, but then why do we fantasize about it too? I mean, we don't fantasize about shitty "parody" movies, yet every year we get another one. Obviously there is more to it than just the easy money.

My best guess as to why this entire society dreams of being put in a life or death situation with douchebags who will be 50/50 on trying to kill you is that we want our minds to be it. We want our relationships to be THE relationships. We want to be islands, but no man is an island. The island fantasy has nothing to do with getting away and having a bad time, it's just our comparitve visual presentation of a psychological desire to keep things to ourselves, and simultaneously be able to make others understand us. How can this person you love know how you truly feel? What you truly would do for them? Island. How can you ever believe you won't be left for another, or become obsolete at your job, or otherwise replaced? Island. How can you both go on, when everyone around you tries to break you apart? Island. How will any human get to know the real you, without all this pretense bullshit, the part of you that matters, the part that isn't about looking good or telling jokes or hurting others? Island.

Anyway. That's my guess. But if you read this maybe you have a better idea. I just wanted to test the waters, cause I know for a fact how much the island concept means to "us". I wonder how many other people actually realize it too.