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.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
Fast Food
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.
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.
Monday, November 24, 2008
soooooo
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.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Japan's Name
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
よりよい
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
More of the Same
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Housing Crisis; Today’s Market Crash
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:
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:
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Housing Crisis
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.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Ron Paul
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Who Did you Vote for With your Wallet?
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.
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.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Department of Homeland Security and Mafia Wars
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.
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.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Going Back
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.
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.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Timeless (This is a fictional story I just wrote in 30 minutes or less)
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.
..
....
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.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
INTERNET TIPS AND TRICKS VOL. 2
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.
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.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
INTERNET TIPS, TRICKS, AND CODES
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.
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.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Lost, shipwrecked, cast away, blah blah
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.
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.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Charlton Heston: Hero Of The People
Charlton Heston was a hero by the strictest Ayn Rand standards. His bravery in WW2. His portrayl of heroic men in movies and refusal to compromise in lesser roles. His greatness as a solid husband and father. And his great leadership in many organizations including the SAG, AFI, and of course NRA. "You will get my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." -Chuck Heston
Don’t worry Mr. Heston, I’ve got a gun in each hand, and they’ll only be prying bullets from those who’d take them from me.
I’ve been a hardcore supporter of the 2nd ammendment for many years now. I joined the California Rifle and Pistol Association in 2001. I bought my first gun, a 1944 Turkish Mauser in January 2002. I bought my second gun, a brand spanking new Glock 36, which is like the smallest most powerfull, badass, handgun in existence. In fact I’ll devote this next paragraph to the Glock.
The Glock 36 sells for about $700 retail which is about the same price as most Glocks, and is incredibly more expensive than most other guns, to give an example a 90% condition Smith and Wesson revolver from the 1860s which is the first pistol on earth to have self contained bullets in a revolving chamber (first modern gun) sells for about $600 today. So national treasure- $600, my Glock - $700. The Glock 36 has an inline magazine making the grip smaller than every other .45 magazine pistol. It is a sub-compact design, so it fits in my pocket. Normally small guns are not very powerful or accurate, but this is a .45 which can kill anyone from pretty much any distance, and I have tried it out on the range many times and I just annihilate the bullseye. Even if a .45 doesn’t kill you, the bullet is so damn big whatever it hits won’t function properly.
Most of the socialist world has banned the right to bear arms, and they are brain washed to think this is the right way of things, so you may find at all times a pro-gun position to be a minority. Especially here on the internet. Even if every American were pro-gun, that would still be an extreme minority on the internet. So if you read this and feel the same way I do about the constitution, know that this isn’t a common belief and we have to stick to together. The Socialists hate individual authority, and that is exactly what a gun represents.
I was reading The L.A. Times obituary on Mr. Heston and in the comments section I noticed a lot of devilish remarks about him simply because he believed in defending the Constitution. They made repeated reference to "babies dying in the streets" which is so absurd that there really can’t be any brain functioning in there.
I don’t know how to put this succinctly because it requires such a background establishment, but I will say this, there is a reason every founding father went out of their way to specifically state why the right for civillians to have guns, and the need for civillians to have guns was so imperitive. And it wasn’t for defense against "the King of England" as lefty Simpsons implied or is oft mis reported. We have the right to bear arms, so we can literally kill our leaders. Our founding fathers knew bullshit evil dicators come about, and they said the need for Americans to have a gun to kill them was priority, to defend all other rights. Without the fourth ammendment, no other rights are possible, without the second ammendment, no rights are guaranteed.
Charlton Heston is as much famous for his acting as he is for his support of the second ammendment, but is much more hated for this than loved. This is a scary thing to me. Only criminals keep guns when guns are outlawed. There are just as many murders in countries without guns as countries with guns. No amount of regulation can remove knives, which kill waaay more people. No amount of regulation can remove cars, which kill compounded exponents of more people. No amount of regulation can remove buckets of water that kill 10-1 kids, vs. guns. No amount of socialism can stop people from dying. Only people who have actually lived can be killed, if you value the life you can’t limit it. A man forced into a box for his own protection will never die unjustly, but he will never justly live either. There can be no compromise about an individual's rights. DON’T FUCK WITH MY LIBERTY.
Charlton Heston was a hero. He made a profound impact on humanity, and will be remembered.
Don’t worry Mr. Heston, I’ve got a gun in each hand, and they’ll only be prying bullets from those who’d take them from me.
I’ve been a hardcore supporter of the 2nd ammendment for many years now. I joined the California Rifle and Pistol Association in 2001. I bought my first gun, a 1944 Turkish Mauser in January 2002. I bought my second gun, a brand spanking new Glock 36, which is like the smallest most powerfull, badass, handgun in existence. In fact I’ll devote this next paragraph to the Glock.
The Glock 36 sells for about $700 retail which is about the same price as most Glocks, and is incredibly more expensive than most other guns, to give an example a 90% condition Smith and Wesson revolver from the 1860s which is the first pistol on earth to have self contained bullets in a revolving chamber (first modern gun) sells for about $600 today. So national treasure- $600, my Glock - $700. The Glock 36 has an inline magazine making the grip smaller than every other .45 magazine pistol. It is a sub-compact design, so it fits in my pocket. Normally small guns are not very powerful or accurate, but this is a .45 which can kill anyone from pretty much any distance, and I have tried it out on the range many times and I just annihilate the bullseye. Even if a .45 doesn’t kill you, the bullet is so damn big whatever it hits won’t function properly.
Most of the socialist world has banned the right to bear arms, and they are brain washed to think this is the right way of things, so you may find at all times a pro-gun position to be a minority. Especially here on the internet. Even if every American were pro-gun, that would still be an extreme minority on the internet. So if you read this and feel the same way I do about the constitution, know that this isn’t a common belief and we have to stick to together. The Socialists hate individual authority, and that is exactly what a gun represents.
I was reading The L.A. Times obituary on Mr. Heston and in the comments section I noticed a lot of devilish remarks about him simply because he believed in defending the Constitution. They made repeated reference to "babies dying in the streets" which is so absurd that there really can’t be any brain functioning in there.
I don’t know how to put this succinctly because it requires such a background establishment, but I will say this, there is a reason every founding father went out of their way to specifically state why the right for civillians to have guns, and the need for civillians to have guns was so imperitive. And it wasn’t for defense against "the King of England" as lefty Simpsons implied or is oft mis reported. We have the right to bear arms, so we can literally kill our leaders. Our founding fathers knew bullshit evil dicators come about, and they said the need for Americans to have a gun to kill them was priority, to defend all other rights. Without the fourth ammendment, no other rights are possible, without the second ammendment, no rights are guaranteed.
Charlton Heston is as much famous for his acting as he is for his support of the second ammendment, but is much more hated for this than loved. This is a scary thing to me. Only criminals keep guns when guns are outlawed. There are just as many murders in countries without guns as countries with guns. No amount of regulation can remove knives, which kill waaay more people. No amount of regulation can remove cars, which kill compounded exponents of more people. No amount of regulation can remove buckets of water that kill 10-1 kids, vs. guns. No amount of socialism can stop people from dying. Only people who have actually lived can be killed, if you value the life you can’t limit it. A man forced into a box for his own protection will never die unjustly, but he will never justly live either. There can be no compromise about an individual's rights. DON’T FUCK WITH MY LIBERTY.
Charlton Heston was a hero. He made a profound impact on humanity, and will be remembered.
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