The Rant

NDAA, the politicians Christmas present to you - a police state

2011-12-30T21:30:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot already out there on the abortion of a bill, this years National Defense Authorization Act. Jennifer Abel blogs about it here.

With the stoke of a pen, the politicians have taken a diarrhea shit all over the constitution. The major rot in this bill is contained in Subtitle D--Counterterrorism, Section 1021 specifically the clause:

(a) "In General- Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war."

Why is this so odious? To understand, the next section explains just who a "covered person" is.

A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

If you read this there is NO EXEMPTION for U.S. citizens, INCLUDING those on U.S. soil. The really ugly part of this bill is contained in the next section.

(c) Disposition Under Law of War- The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following:
Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111-84)).

Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.

Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.

Note, while section 1022 exempts U.S. citizens from military trials, and clause 4 above is for non citizens, the most odious, clause 1 CAN BE APPLIED TO U.S. CITIZENS! Read it again: "Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities".

So what this all boils down to is this gives the power to the government to indefinitely detain with no trial U.S. citizens accused of being a part of, or even "substantially supporting", "al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces". A modification to exempt U.S. citizens from indefinite detention was rejected by congress.

The forefathers in writing the constitution were VERY clear that citizens accused of crimes be granted a trial.
Here is the 5th amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

So the relevant section here is that citizens not in the armed forces are specifically not to be held by the government without a "presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury".

This alone should be enough to make this bill unconstitutional, but there is more.
Here is the 6th amendment

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

I'm not a lawyer, but the text here is crystal clear, the government is required to give the accused a "speedy and public" trial, NOT hold them indefinitely.

Here is the 8th amendment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

While "cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" was intended for sentencing at trials end, I would state that indefinite detention of U.S. citizens with no trial could be construed as "cruel and unusual punishment".

As I read about this monstrosity that the politicians shit forth I asked myself "who asked for this"? A lot of unpalatable anti freedom bills can be traced back to corporate interests. SOPA is a great example of this, it has a long list of corporate sponsorship. I dislike SOPA intensely, but I understand it's origins; corporations, probably headed by RIAA/MPAA MAFIAA groups poured money into congress to get a bill giving them and the government control over the internet when it comes to copyright issues.

But who is supporting an indefinite detention for U.S. citizens provision of the NDAA? You might think that government agencies may have been pushing for this, but that seems not to be the case, as the detention provision is opposed by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, CIA Director David Petraeus, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, White House Advisor for Counterterrorism John Brennan, and DOJ National Security Division head Lisa Monaco.

So who supports this? So far all I've been able to dig up are a small group of companies involved in defense contracts. Note the article does NOT say if any of these companies pushed for or support section 1021 of the NDAA, it is still NOT CLEAR to me where this came from. I'm going to field a guess on this, and I stand by it. I'm guessing that this did NOT emanate from corporations, but rather from a naked lust for power coming from the politicians. The constitution was specifically written to limit the power of government and many politicians don't like this at all. If section 1021 of this bill goes unchallenged, or worse, is upheld by the supreme court, the politicians will have gutted the constitution and replaced it with a police state.

Here is a list of the scum in the Senate who voted for this.
Here are the House members who voted for this.

Urban Survivalism

2011-11-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

Is survivalism for you? I'd say just about 100% of liberals, as well as ANYONE living in the city would probably say no to that question. The word always brings to mind visions of a Mad Max post apocalyptic world with no law and insane people murdering everything they see.

Hardcore survivalists prepare for this by stockpiling years of food, guns, ammo and other supplies. They may live in a remote area, or have a hideaway shelter in such an area they think they can get to if they feel things are about to go bad.

This really isn't for most people, liberals HAAATE guns so they are not going to be able to protect anything they've stockpiled if things went sour, which they obviously feel is not likely, and probably isn't. For others it's just not practical; how are you going to get to work from your remote location? If you have a separate hideaway place it will be tough to get there post disaster. Nuke event, well you get about 8 minutes warning for that, so forget it, you ain't makin' it to the hideaway shelter. Even if you DO make it to that shelter if others have found it they aren't leaving and it's unlikely they will let you in, even if you show them the paperwork proving you are the owner.

So, for the above reasons, hardcore survivalism just does not suit Joe Sixpack, even conservative Joe Sixpack who may not be adverse to the concept. But people should think about survivalism. Not a cataclysm such as post nuke or complete societal collapse, which as I already mentioned most people CAN'T prepare for and is unlikely anyway. But they should prepare for another enemy.

Mother Nature. She IS a bitch. For weather disasters, even in the city you CAN practice some basic "urban survivalism". What got me thinking about this was a recent, freak snowstorm in October. It wasn't that bad, and the snow melted quickly but it DID take out the power in part of the Northeast U.S. Power companies in some areas were SLOW to restore power, some people didn't get it back for over a week. If you don't have gas this means no hot food for that time period. It means after a day or so, when what you had in the fridge is eaten or spoiled what you can eat is limited to what is in a can. Do you have enough canned food for a week? You are already cold, maybe even freezing, does frosty cold canned food sound yummy to you? This is where, for want of a better word, what I call "urban survivalism" comes in.

The goal here is not to be prepared for years of post apocalyptic misery, but to be prepared to survive for two weeks. So ya want hot food with no 'lectricity, waddaya do? The answer to that is pretty simple. Get a camping stove. It's a VERY cheap investment, I've seen them go from $10.00 to $40 bucks. I'm sure you can pay more, but part of my urban survival philosophy is NOT breaking your bank account. The stove not only allows you to heat up canned food, but to prepare freeze dried food like ramen, knorr etc, stuff that does NOT take up a lot of space, is cheap, and lasts forever. Hot coco powder isn't a bad thing to have either.

There may be more(I'm NOT an expert on this, do your OWN research!!!) but from my research there seem to be three basic types. Alcohol, propane/butane and fuel cans(sterno). From what I read I DO NOT recommend the alcohol, as they do NOT work when it gets too cold, and a reviewer wrote about a "flareup" if you vary the height of your cooking utensil above it. The goal here is hot food, NOT burning your place down!!

I'm not sure which of the remaining two, propane/butane or fuel cans is better, like I said before I'm NOT an expert. The advantage of the gas units is they burn hotter, reviews state most seem to take only a few minutes to boil water. If you get one of these be sure to get the RIGHT fuel bottle, most of them seem to use a squat gas cannister that does NOT have the same threads as the small propane bottles you see sold everywhere.

I bought this stove which uses fuel cans(sterno). I opted for this because I like the absolute simplicity. No mechanism to fiddle with, possibly break, throw a match into the fuel can and you are ready to go. A reviewer wrote that the design has "been around since the 30's" so it has certainly withstood the test of time. It came well reviewed overall. I'm not saying it's better than the butane/propane stoves, if you like those buy one. It is certainly better than NO stove when the power goes out and you don't have gas. (note, sometimes gas lines DO break, so even if you have gas the $20 - $50 bucks a camping stove will cost won't break you).

Whatever stove you buy, make sure you have enough fuel for it to cook 2 meals a day for two weeks. Don't assume you can "buy more" as panic buyers during weather disasters have been known to clean stores out. The same goes for food, make sure you have two weeks worth. It doesn't have to be expensive, cheap ramen and knorr freeze dried stuff will keep you going, throw in some cans of chili, stew, and whatever else appeals to you to break it up.

Water, water WATER, without it you will shrivel up and die, not to mention NOT being able to use any of that freeze dried food I advised you to buy. Hopefully it won't happen, but sometimes during a weather event water pipes burst. Someone in a small apartment doesn't have the space to keep 5 gallons of water on hand regularly, but if you KNOW a storm is coming then fill up some gallon jugs. I don't know if it's practical to keep two weeks worth, this may be an item you will wind up having to scrounge for if the pipes don't get fixed soon enough, hopefully not. In any event, store up as much as you can when you hear the shit is about to go down.

Blankies!!!! Bad shit tends to happen in winter, where in much of the country it's FREEZING COLD. What you have with the heat on probably will NOT be enough with no heat. Can't go wrong with some extra wool blankets and or comforters, a sleeping bag rated for extreme cold may even be a better idea if you have the space for it. Have to admit I'm not well prepared in this area. Don't be me.

No power = no light, so of course be sure to have a decent supply of stuff people DO think of, batteries, slow burning candles, matches, etc..

Well, can't think of anything else, if I missed anything feel free to add it in a comment.

mic check - shut the FUCK up you assholes

2011-11-11T19:49:00.000-08:00

There is a new form of protest called a "mic check". How it works is a crowd of people disrupt a speech by yelling "mic check" and then delivering a speech of their own, drowning out the original speaker. You can see this in action here and here.

This is a cheap and dirty way for a group to get the media to report on their point, as of course they only do this when cameras are rolling. I love protest. I'm a huge fan of the 60's and the anti Vietnam and pro civil rights demonstrations that went on back then.

So why then, as a fan of protest and dissent, do I find this form so repellent? Because if you observe what is going on, if you THINK about it, what these protesters are REALLY doing is engaging in censorship. They are denying a persons 1st amendment right of free speech in order to make their own. They no doubt feel cute and slick, as not only are they getting their own speech out to the media, they are denying the speech of someone they don't like.

I find this behavior despicable and repulsive. Censorship is the OPPOSITE of freedom no matter what party puts it to use. In a free society ALL parties MUST be allowed to speak. If the speaker is unpopular no one is required to listen to them, although it is a good idea to listen to people you disagree with, NOT shout them down, as it gives you a more solid foundation to argue against them.

The internet is the greatest medium of free speech ever. That is what needs to be used to propagate dissenting views. Anyone can stand up and be an asshole disrupting a speech, it's NOT impressive and garners little sympathy for a cause. No matter what the cause is, the 1st amendment doesn't just apply to you, it applies to everyone.

Voltaire: "I disagree strongly with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

To the Occupy movement - wake up and smell the constitution

2011-10-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

I like the concept of the Occupy movement. It started in NYC as Occupy Wall St., the purpose to send a message to the rich and politicians that enough is enough. No more bailouts for "too big to fail" banks and insurance companies with tax money, end corporate welfare, bring back Glass-Steagall, maybe even try to get the ball rolling on a REAL recovery, not a "jobless" recovery where people are still not working while the rich get fatter and fatter.

I think both the original Occupy Wall street movement in NYC and Occupy Boston have done a good job illustrating this. Despite a persistent lack of coverage from the mainstream media the independent media got the word out, thanks to the www and the blogosphere. Instead of just blowing over, which the mainstream media and their corporate masters had hoped, the movement gained popularity and grew. Now many cities have occupy movements within them.

But, something happened on the way to the forum. Some, not all, but some of the Occupy movement groups have gotten downright nasty to the very people who are spreading their message across the country and world.
Some of the Occupy movement groups that have shown hostility to the media(independent and/or mainstream) are:
Occupy DC x 2
Occupy Miami
Occupy Oakland - a mention of yet ANOTHER Occupy Miami incident also here. Annnnd again.
Occupy Portland
Occupy San Diego
Occupy Eureka
Occupy LA Scroll down to bottom.

Robert Lyles in the news report about Occupy Oakland did a great job pointing out the hypocrisy of the assholes from Occupy Oakland, one of whom even allowed his dog to assault a reporter.
Sara Mizner, who asked reporters point cameras toward city hall and not toward the tents was asked this: "Are you picking and choosing which constitutional rights to uphold?"
This was her answer:"Right now in this moment it was the safest decision that we felt that we could make."
I'd really like to know how reporters are threatening their safety. Not that it matters, as the constitution doesn't suddenly lose effect because the Occupy Oakland douche bags feel "unsafe".
Update - more BS from the pretentious fucks at Occupy Oakland.
Update2 - Ahahahahahahaha! Karma at work here, suck it down BITCHES!

None of these people, and justifiable so, like the cops trying to interfere with their constitutional rights. So why do they turn into instant assholes as soon as they see a camera? They are in a public place, where they have NO expectation of privacy and the constitution is VERY clear about the freedom of the press.

Seriously, if you want to conduct secret meetings, rent a hall someplace. Then you can control who gets in and what kind of behavior is allowed. Otherwise STFU and stop treading on other peoples constitutional rights while insisting everyone respects yours.

Note: Since I wrote this article in October the number of unpleasant and sometimes violent incidences at some of the Occupy locations, ESPECIALLY Occupy Oakland have been increasing. Carlos Miller, owner of the blog Photography is Not a Crime has done an excellent job of documenting this, most of my links are from him. While most of the people in the Occupy movement ARE peaceful, a MAJOR beef I have is the FAILURE of the majority of peaceful people there to push the assholes out of the movement. This CAN be done Sara Robinson explains how

The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.

This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual “we” statements that reflect the observations of the group. “We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.”

When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic assholes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with “I” messages. “I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave.” Every statement needs to end with that demand — “We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back.” No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.

Replace "smoking weed" with "Throwing paint at cops, smashing windows, and threatening media people" and you get the idea of who really needs to be pushed out of the occupy movement.

I don't buy the "31%" willing to commit violence figure, but this rap sheet shows that the movement has a LOT of work to do cleaning the shitheads out of it.

The medical profession and tech.

2011-10-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

One thing I have noticed is that while the medical profession is quick to adopt the latest medical gadget they tend to remain in the stone age when it comes to computers and digital devices. Just think about the now common digital camera. It cost NOTHING to take a picture with one yet doctors are NOT using them to take pictures of patients injuries.

You would think in some circumstances this would be an invaluable tool, as the picture could be added to the patients medical record. With a ruler next to it in the picture it would also be easy to see if the injury has gotten bigger or not. Changes, like whether the injury has gotten more red, purple, whatever could also be observed over time in a succession of pictures.

I can understand in the days of film cameras this not being done as development is both time consuming and costly but both of those factors are eliminated with digicams.

Government debt

2011-10-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Just go here. I don't need to add anything.

You don't own anything

2011-10-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

Imagine going to a school with two bullies. Two BIG, merciless bullies. They have no scruples. If they like your lunch, they take it. If they like your jewelry, they take it. If they want the shirt off your back, they will yank it off you. You can try going to school authorities, but the bullies retaliate by delivering punishing beatings and taking even more of your stuff while the glacially slow school justice system drags on. Talking to the principle doesn't work, nor does suspension. They merely catch you on the way home and beat you up then. Sound like a shitty situation to be in? Well guess what, you ARE in it.

The two bullies are big corporations and the government. And if you have what they want they are going to take it away from you. Of the two, the bigger, badder bully is the government. It already takes your lunch money every paycheck in the form of taxes.

Some people love taxes. But no one on the receiving end loves asset forfeiture. This is cute government legal tactic where the property is declared as being acquired by illegal means(usually drug sales) and the government takes it. The government is NOT required to prosecute the property owner, and the owner is put in the position where he/she has to take the government to court to get his property back.

Once the government establishes probable cause that the property is subject to forfeiture, the owner must prove on a "preponderance of the evidence" that it is not. The owner need not be judged guilty of any crime.

Needless to say, asset forfeiture has become a VERY popular tool of government bully.

A tool used by both government and corporate bullies to separate you from your property is eminent domain. This used to be only for use by government, and limited to what was deemed "the greater public good", which usually meant government could only take your property for public works projects such as hydroelectric power dams and roads. Corporate bully didn't like being left out of this, LOUDLY shouted "ME TOO!!" and thanks to the Kelo decision by the supreme court he got his wish! So now Walmart or any other big corporation can use eminent domain to take your house. All they have to do is prove they can generate more tax revenue than you do, which of course, they can.

"I've got a web site! And golly gee, I own a domain with my VERY own name"!

No you don't. Just like a rug, that too can get yanked out from under you by either government or corporate bully. In this case, even when government bully takes it, it's at the instigation of corporate bully.

It works like this. Corporate bully goes to government bully, hands wringing, head hung low, tears beginning to well up in his sad, wide round eyes. "Government bully, I need your help, those bad old pirates are giving away my copyrighted material on their web site!" Now copyright infringement is a CIVIL matter, so in this case government bully should have told corporate bully to man up and deal with it himself, but government bully LOVES corporate bully, so instead had ICE seize over 80 internet domains.

Corporate bully grows a pair when he wants your web domain for himself. "How does this happen"; you ask? Well lets say Joe Sixpack gets his very own web site, and buys the domain name joesixpack.com. It's his family web site and he's had it for 15 years. Then along comes corporate bully, in the form of a multimillion dollar beer company named, not surprisingly, Joe Sixpack™. They want a web site but OOOOOPS!, it's taken already. They make Joe Sixpack the person a crappy offer, which he refuses.

"Oh ho", says corporate bully Joe Sixpack™, and accuses Joe Sixpack of cybersquatting, using that as an excuse to drag Joe Sixpack into court and have the judge force him to hand the domain over to Joe Sixpack™. Even with no real legal basis corporate bully has a LOT of money and can jerk Joe Sixpack through the court system, costing him a LOT of money. Money, most likely, he doesn't have. An example of this kind of bad behavior by corporate bully can be found here. Although in this case apparently Mr. Uzi Nissan had enough money to deal with the court system, so for once corporate bully Nissan™ had to eat shit. Most people however DO NOT have the money it takes to battle it out all the way to the supreme court and will wind up losing their domain name, which they paid for in good faith.

So there you have it, between government bully and corporate bully you don't own a thing, not even the shirt on your back. If government bully claims it was purchased with drug money or you owe taxes, he'll take that too.

Monkey House, the nets ugliest p2p news site, is back!

2011-09-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

Monkey House, my p2p news blog is back up. It's new url is: http://monkey.byethost17.com
I was only able to save a few of the old posts, but at least it is up and running again.

Religious Fanaticism - SUCKS

2011-09-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

A relative posted this on Facebook. I have a pretty thick skin but I found it offensive.

A college professor stood up on his chair and said "If GOD really exists then GOD knock me off this chair." Nothing happened. The class silently watched as an Army Veteran stood up and punched him in the face knocking him out and off the chair, then sat back down. As the Professor came to he looked at his student and said "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" He said "GOD was busy protecting my buddies still fighting for your right to say and do stupid shit like that, so HE SENT ME. Amen.

I was the only one who objected, everyone else thought it was wonderful. Here are my two responses to this crud below.

Guess it's just me, but I REALLY don't trust people who hear voices in their heads, claiming to be god telling them what to do

I could rewrite that as the professor being a christian talking about Jesus and guy who punched him being a Muslim, who felt that HIS god was being insulted/denied. Exactly the same mentality, but I bet no one would be cheering for Abdul.

I so despise religious fanaticism, no matter WHAT flavor it comes in. The funny thing is, the professor in the story's argument isn't really all that good. I can beat it down and I'm an agnostic-atheist.
Essentially the professor is trying to force god to prove his existence by saying nah nah, look at me, prove you are out there by knocking me off this chair. Well if you read the bible or even just watched Charlton Heston as Moses you will know that god as portrayed in the bible doesn't operate like that. While all knowing of everything, god operates on HIS time and does what HE wants.
According to the bible the Jews were tortured by the thousands for YEARS before god decided to send out Moses to rescue them in his name. Sodom and Gomorrah's citizens sinned for years before god got sick of it and sent his angels to destroy the cities. So one professor standing up in a chair NOT being knocked out of it by god is in no way contradictory to the bibles teachings.

I guess you can't make an argument like that if your mind is all fogged up and confused with fanatic religious rage, at that point all you can do is face fist someone for expressing a viewpoint that conflicts with your theology.
Mr. Army douche has it wrong. Nazis, KGB thugs, Islamic fanatics and other people from dystopian police states smash people to the ground for disagreeing with their philosophy. By punching the professor THAT's what he is defending

The Government's undeclared war

2011-09-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about 20th century history, from the 50's till now, and have come to a conclusion. The U.S. government has been engaged in a war. The war it has been engaged in is against its own people. The government never admits this, but it is so.

It started with the "war on communism", in the 50's. Sure you had the cold war conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, but there was also a conflict going on at home. By flag waving and fear mongering the government was able to frighten people about "communist" infiltrators, who were trying to destroy the American way. Who were these people? Anyone the government said they were. Belong to a group the government didn't like. Guess what, you were a communist! Push forward a viewpoint the government didn't like? COMMIE! Hollywood got hit particularly hard, with actors and directors careers ruined over the governments accusing them of communism.

People started getting wise to this bullshit in the 60's, you could see it in the activism and protests about Vietnam and other government stupidity. The people weren't buying the old commie bs anymore, so the government had to come up with a new excuse in order to continue to conduct it's war against it's own people. Enter the war on drugs!!! Ushered in by that scion of virtue, Richard Millhouse Nixon the war on drugs has been longtime and still ongoing justification for the government to wage war against its citizens.

Part of any war is the acquisition of territory and with the RICO laws the government has seized millions, if not billions of dollars worth of peoples property under the auspice it was bought with "drug money". In wartime the loser doesn't get a trial first, and neither do RICO victims. If an asset forfeiture victim wishes to get their stuff back, they have to take the GOVERNMENT to court. It is the complete opposite of the way U.S. justice is supposed to be, where the government needs to collect evidence them prove you guilty under a presumption of innocence. Instead, you are PRESUMED guilty and have to attempt to prove innocence in order to have your seized property returned. Mimsey were the Borogroves!!!

No knock raids, "stop and search"(a PC new name for an old cop tactic formerly known as "rousting the niggers"), a massive escalation in the size and armament of SWAT teams, the war on drugs has definitely allowed the government to escalate the war on its own people to the next level.

When you are conducting a war, sometimes attacking from just one front isn't enough. You want to catch the enemy in a pincher movement, flank him, wrap him up, finish him.

Enter post 9-11 and the war on terrorism. I'm not saying retaliation wasn't necessary, but the government has peddled fear and used it to convince people it's OK for it to make an end run against the constitution. The Patriot act, TSA gate rape, treating photographers like terrorists.

All wars end; its been LONG overdue for the government to end its war against it's own people. When John Lennon sang give peace a chance he was talking about the governments idiotic war in Vietnam. It was good advice then, its still good advice now.

Taxes, who should pay?

2011-09-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

Why when it comes to tax increases is it ALWAYS the working guy who has to bend over and take it? I can recall years ago BEGGING my employer, who had a wage freeze, to just give me enough of a raise to compensate for the state tax increase so that I could at LEAST be making the same money and not be handed a pay cut. The answer of course, was no.
Democrats LOVE to talk about taxing the rich, but there is a problem with this. Corporations and rich people lobby politicians. They make large scale political contributions. Joe six pack doesn't have have the money to lobby the politicians and his contribution, if any, is a joke in comparison to what the rich give. So when all the bloviating is done, guess who winds up with the tax increase?
There is a HUGE vein of untapped tax revenue out there. It is NOT the rich, as even if they don't pay enough, they are at least paying something. I'm talking about so called "non profits". You know, churches, universities, hospitals, and charities all squatting on acres of land and not paying a dime in property or income tax.
Lets start with the churches. Does the Catholic church seem poor to you? The Vatican is literally dripping with gold, yet pays no taxes in the U.S. There may be some small churches not making any profit, but the large ones rolling in money need to start paying taxes.
Now we come to the Universities. Rah rah go team go! Love that college football! If a school can afford a multi-million dollar football team AND raises tuition well above the inflation rate year after year they need to stop crying non profit poormouth and pay taxes.
Feeling sick? Uninsured? So sad, if you need any surgery you'll be paying that hospital bill for the rest of your life. I'm not quite as down on the hospitals as I am on the churches and universities, but I do think there are some hospitals with administrative bloat and overpaid management. Hospitals like this need to be given the option of shaping up or paying the tax man.
Last but so very not least are the so called "charities". So sorry chums, but any charity paying out a six figure salary to its CEO should not only lose non profit status and have to pay taxes, it should have to pay them RETROACTIVELY.
These moochers have been getting a free ride for far too long; it's time for them to shoulder the same tax burden everyone else has to.

Why the right to bear arms is important

2011-09-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

If you live in a decent neighborhood, odds are you will never need a gun for self defense. Limousine liberals who's most dangerous experiences were a few fist fights in prep school don't have a clue what it's like if you DON'T live in a nice neighborhood. They, and unfortunately some misguided community leaders as well, seem to think strict gun control is some kind of magic that will make a bad neighborhood less dangerous.
I never understood that. Are the hoods still there? The drug dealers and the pimps still there? Gangs still there? Poverty still there? With all other conditions the same, the only thing gun control does is make life easier for the hoods, many who can still get guns from the same people they get illegal drugs from.
Liberals argue: "need help, just call the police, it's their job".
Is it? Really? Actually, it isn't. Putting aside the axiom "when seconds count, police are only minutes away",it has been ruled that police have no duty to protect you.
The state of Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun controls in the nation, yet it is codified in Mass state law that police are NOT obligated to protect you. A Massachusetts statute spells out the rule there: the government has no legal duty “to provide adequate police protection, prevent the commission of crimes, investigate, detect or solve crimes, identify or apprehend criminals or suspects, arrest or detain suspects, or enforce any law.” Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. Ch. 258 § 10(h).
More recently, the supreme court in Castle Rock v. Gonzales has upheld the precedent that authorities are under no obligation to protect you, even in the case of a restraining order.
So when you call the police if they show up it is because they chose to, not because they had to. By restricting gun ownership via tough gun laws, the state is replacing the right to self defense with a police force which has no obligation to protect you. Sorry to sound like a redneck, but personally I'd trust the functionality of a shotgun over the benevolence of the police.

Massachusetts wiretapping laws, it's time for a change

2011-08-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Video cameras. They are everywhere. Most cell phones now come with one, and most people have cell phones. Even if you don't have a cell phone, or a camera equipped cell phone digital video cameras are small and cheap, and most point and shoot still cameras have an option to record video, with sound. With all these cameras around, is it not natural that people will well... use them? Not surprisingly, since the Rodney King incident on March 2, 1991 more and more people have used video cameras to record police. Cops don't like this and have retaliated by arresting the people filming them under a variety of charges, failure to comply with lawful order(cop illegally demands camera turned over), obstruction of investigation, basically contempt of cop charges with little or no legal grounding. Most states are one party consent, meaning that in public places there is no expectation of privacy for public officials. Hence the bullshit contempt of cop charges because police can't actually charge people for filming them. In most states. Massachusetts is a 2 party consent state. Police have interpreted this to mean anyone filming them with audio requires the officer(s) being filmed consent, which of course is never given. Arrests have been made under this statute, in Greenfield MA Pete Eyre and Ademo Freeman, andSimon Glik. The Glick case is particularly noteworthy in that Glik upon beating the case turned around and sued the police. He won in the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, part of the decision reading: "The First Amendment issue here is, as the parties frame it, fairly narrow: is there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative."
So what does this mean for Massachusetts citizens wishing to film cops? I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong here, but from what I have read here and there if the cop SEES you filming him it is NOT considered wiretapping. From what I understand to be sure they can't charge you with wiretapping you have to inform the police you are recording them if they don't already see you. It seems like a big victory, but is it? What if a citizen witnesses a pumped up roid rage cop beating the living shit out of someone? So in this situation he's supposed to walk up to the already enraged officer and say "excuse me sir, I'm going to film you"? Oh THATs going to go over well. Over like a lead Zeppelin.
Clearly, what needs to be done is the law itself needs to be changed, so that two party consent is in NO WAY required to record public officials in public places. Ideally, the Mass legislature could get the law changed, but that is not very likely to happen. That insane clown posse is much more interested in passing seat belt laws and pushing through boondoggle multi-billion dollar projects like the big dig. There is another way, although it's a tough row to hoe. Massachusetts has a Initiative Petition process where citizens can get laws passed if they first get enough signatures on the petition and then get a majority of people to vote for it when election time comes around. As stated before, this is NOT easy, it currently requires that "the initiative petition must be signed by a minimum of 68,911 certified voters. No more than one-quarter of the certified signatures may come from any one county (until the results of the 2014 state election are certified by the Governor's Council, this figure is 17,228)."
To accomplish this requires a person or persons with both some legal knowledge to write out the law change so that the cops can't worm around it and enough connections to be able to collect the large amount of signatures needed just to get it on the ballot, THEN publicize it positively to counter the no doubt negative press that law enforcement will put out in opposition. I have neither the legal knowledge nor the influence, but I'm putting out the idea anyway in hope that someone else does.

Edit: According to this precedent, audio recording of police in secret is not legal Right to record has an interesting article on the Glik case.
"Curiously, Lisa Skehill Maki, the author of the brief for the City of Boston, wrote her student note on how the Massachusetts law was wrong."
For those who feel my post was not highbrow enough, her dissertation can be downloaded in pdf format here.

Bye Bye Monkey House (for now)

2011-08-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

Just a short post to mourn the death of my other, and I think better blog Monkey House. It was more specialized, dealing with copyright issues and the music industry. The server I was piggy backing on got shut down, and dummy me not being used to how CMS's work, had not backed up the file the posts were on. It was more than just a blog in that it had a forum and chat room as well. Forum posts too are gone. :(

Fuck You

2011-03-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

I, like many, detested and loathed George Bush. I hated him for his stupidity, his obstinacy, and refusal to admit he was wrong or change direction even in the face of overwhelming evidence. George W. Bush was a man who never let the facts confuse him.
Then you got in, President Obama, the great black hope who was going to right all the wrongs perpetrated on us by Bush. From all the glowing articles written by a lapdog press, one of whom, Chris Matthews even admitting to getting a "tingle" down his leg when thinking about you, it would appear as if Jesus Christ himself was again walking the earth, bestowing his blessings upon lower mortals. While I was never dancing in the streets over your victory I did have some hopes that you would undo SOME of the damage Bush has done. You have done a little. You undid Bush's moronic ban on stem cell research. But there was so much more to do, and you you haven't done any of it. So without further adieu, Mr. President, fuck you.

Fuck You - For not getting us out of Iraq. I believe if Hillery Clinton had been elected instead of you we would have been long gone from there by now.
Fuck You - For continuing Bush's bailout with taxpayer money of banks and insurance companies, while not requiring them to have open books so the public could see how they were spending the money. You gave them public money with no demand for public accountability.
Fuck You - For giving Americans a so called "national health plan" that is the insurance industries wet dream. With NO public option, it essentially forces individuals to buy their health insurance from private companies or face fines.
Fuck You - For filling up Department of Justice positions with RIAA flacs.
Fuck You - For extending provisions of the Patriot Act, which many people thought you would at the least sunset, if not get rid of immediately.
Fuck You - For giving us the TSA disco ball x-ray, ball grab tittie squeeze porno show.
Fuck You - For using ICE to seize internet domain names without even a trial first.
Fuck You - For creating the position of IP Czar.

The sad thing is, I can't picture a republican administration doing any better, just about all my criticism here is for Obama not being liberal enough. It's doubtful some neocon successor to Obama would scale back the patriot act or do anything to reign in corporate abuse, or promote internet freedom.

Ejaculate Conception

2010-11-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

Ahh Christmas, the birth of HOLY Jesus!! Where Christians everywhere celebrate the miracle of immaculate conception. This is where Jesus's mother, the holy virgin, managed to become pregnant without ever being soiled by a man's penis. Do you believe this? Really? Contact me, I have a bridge for sale. I'll give you a great deal on it too.
What really happened is most likely something like this, so here is my holiday gift to you, the Theory of Ejaculate Conception.
Women back then were sometimes subject to arranged marriages. From some accounts, Joseph, Marys husband, was an older fellow. So hear she is, young Mary, married to an old cuck she's really not all that interested in to begin with. So the night of the wedding, without further adieu, he pulls out his withered, limp old prick. Mary is underwhelmed by this and tells him, in the words of women past, present, and future "Ickk, there is no WAY you are putting that in me!!" To which Joseph sighs and does what he has always done before marriage - rolls over, jerks off, and goes to sleep. Mary is a Shepherdess, her job is to go into nowheresville with a flock of sheep, graze them, and bring them back to town for safe keeping at night. One day she runs into a Sheppard. And he is not an old man. He is young, and very comely to look upon. She runs into him often in the fields, where the only eye witnesses to anything are the sheep, and they aren't talking. Things get close, and Mary learns that the young Sheppard's penis is neither wrinkled nor limp. Indeed, it is like a pile driver, the young Sheppard brags he can pound stakes with it, but what it winds up pounding is Mary, frequently. Being in ancient times, the worlds first condom shop has not yet opened so not surprisingly Mary gets pregnant. Now these days in such a situation there would most likely be a lot of yelling, with the word "slut" repeated about a hundred times, followed by an expensive and acrimonious divorce. Back in the day, Mary's day that is, they did things differently. Women got stoned to death for adultery. So Mary isn't about to say, "Oh yeah, I LOVED every second of it when my young stud boyfriend pumped his man-juice into me", because while the truth, such an admission would get her killed. From he frequent complaints at the marketplace everyone already knows Joseph hasn't been getting any so she can't claim him as the father. What to do, what to do?? Mary is no slouch, she concocts a story of god, miraculously impregnating her with no sex!! Immaculate Conception!!!!
So she sold this bill of goods to enough of the ignorant not only to avoid being stoned, but to wind up becoming an enduring superstar who's fame has lasted to this day. You go girl!!!!

ET vs God

2010-09-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

I used to call myself an agnostic, but according to this, I would be an agnostic atheist IE disbelieving in any gods, but open to the possibility they might exist. What does this have to do with ET and God? Well, it shows the same philosophy need not just be applied to religion, but fits well with little green( or grey ) men too. Both have their adherents, and personally I doubt flying saucers are whizzing around just as I doubt God sat on a cloud dictating to Moses how to live right. I do however, think even though it is very unlikely, the possibility of little space aliens visiting earth is a lot greater than God telling Noah to build in ark, with nowhere near enough genetic diversity to repopulate the animal kingdom.
The Christian god is based of a book, the bible, Christians are supposed to take on "faith" without any evidence or proof that what it says is true. Indeed, much of it goes against modern scientific theory, which unlike religion, has to undergo peer review. An example of this would be the age of the earth, which differ greatly according to the bible and scientists. So there is not much, (if any) proof of God whipping up the earth in seven days, then spending the rest of his time berating his favorite creation, man for bad behavior. Same goes for the little grey fellows, just a bunch of fuzzy, fake looking pictures and peoples claims to have seen them. Looks the same as far as evidence goes, however when you delve into possibility(although again, can't repeat this enough, both are unlikely) it gets interesting. There is just no precedent, or example for God, we can't say, look at that creature, we saw him through a telescope whipping up a world in seven days. There is, however, a race that went from grubbing in the dirt and throwing rocks to going into space. That's us, of course. While we can't currently get to other stars, there is a possibility that with better technology it could get done, although it would be a long, slow voyage requiring either a generation ship or some sort of Cryopreservation. There are millions of stars, so the possibility some other species could have evolved intelligence is pretty good. If they were older, or their civilization lacked a Dark Age there is a possibility their science would be more advanced, allowing them to build a starship. Notice I have NOT suggested a faster than light ship, as physics has proved that to be impossible. The Enterprise belongs with Jesus, you need FAITH to make that bad boy go! So while there are no budding examples to show God, human evolution and advancement at least shows that another race, capable of space travel is possible. Due to the enormous cost of building such a ship, and the fact that the Earth is located at pretty much the end of the Galaxy, make any such contact extremely unlikely. More possible than God, but still unlikely.

UPS - What can brown do for you?

2010-08-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

I know what they can NOT do for me. How about starting by NOT SMASHING MY PACKAGES!!! I ordered a video card and not only was the outer box banged up, but the box inside of that one was too.

This in not the first time this shit has happened, I had ordered a router and that box was beat to shit even worse. I understand working for UPS sucks, I was told that for the guys who load the truck they have a dude standing near them with a stop watch, whose only job is to shit on them if they don't load the truck fast enough. I'm sure the drivers have to go through similar bullshit, they probably get shit on if delivery takes too long, even if they get stuck in rotten traffic. I can't confirm this but I was also told they get fired if they get in an accident. But here's the deal. I'm not the asshole standing behind them with a stop watch, nor am I the dickhead writing them up for being late when they get stuck in traffic jams. If the economy didn't suck so bad I'd say do yourselves AND me a favor and quit. Since most people in this economic suckathon are pretty much stuck with their jobs unless they don't mind the prospect of long term unemployment, I can only ask the impossible. Stop being douche bags. Your asshole bosses don't get punished when you smash my packages in a postal rage, the only person who gets fucked is me, and I have NOTHING to do with management policy at UPS.

Utah list of 1300 illegals, where is it?

2010-07-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Source: USA Today

A list of 1300 alleged illegal aliens has been mailed anonymously to federal and state agencies, legislators, and news media. There is now an all out manhunt. For those who mailed out the list, of course. Nowhere have I read that there will be any investigation as to whether the people named on the list are illegal or not. The list itself has remained unpublished, so it can't be verified by anyone whether any, or all of them are illegal. This has not concerned the news media, which has been monolithic in it's reporting on this, bloviating about how the list is "frightening Hispanics", as well as reporting complaints about it from "Hispanic advocacy" (read "illegal alien") groups complaining about how awful it is. In all the inane babble coming from the media there has so far been no speculation as to whether these people on the list are illegal or not. From the wall of silence on this matter coming from the press I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess most, if not all, are indeed illegals. The one thing the media HAS speculated about is that the list came from government workers. Here is a question I'd like to ask. Just how is it that a government agency has a list of illegals, and they are NOT being rounded up and deported? Here is another question for you. Now that the list has been released, why is there no talk ANYWHERE of deporting these people if they are, as I strongly suspect, illegals? I would like to ask just why is there such outrage against people releasing a list of what are, essentially, criminals? This is no different than releasing a list of deadbeat parents or any other criminal group. I'd like to make a prediction as to what will happen. The people who released this list will be tracked down, and prosecuted relentlessly, as well as be lambasted by the media. They will probably do some hard time in prison. Meanwhile, NONE of the illegals named on the list will be investigated or deported. I have some advice for anyone in the future thinking about sending out such a list. Don't just send it to politicians and the media. Send it to bloggers as well. If you send it to enough of them one of them will publish it online and it will spread like wildfire.

Good old days?

2010-04-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

To be honest, a LOT of things from "the good old days" sucked ass. Pens are still here, but thank god 99.99% of the worlds typewriters are rotting at the bottom of landfills. Short, fat, fingers and keyboards don't mix well, I can't get a sentence out without a damn typo. Annoying from a computer, excruciatingly painful on a typewriter. Mario was OK, but killing zombies in l4d2 is better. One thing that WAS better in the old days was TV. That is, before TV canceled every show with even a hint of violence in it and replaced them all with sitcoms. You went from having cop shows, westerns, sci fi, horror, and mystery shows, as well as sitcoms to NOTHING but sitcoms. It was like Mr. Rodgers took over the TV networks. New sat cartoons sucked ass too, they even had a "new Popeye" where Popeye and Bluto didn't fight anymore. Same with Tom and Jerry, they stopped fighting. UGGGGHHHH!!!! The only good cartoons were the old Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker shows, as well as the occasional Anime ( I recall Star Blazers ). I think that started in the late 70's, and the endless sitcom droneathon lasted for years and years and years….Zzzzzzzz. The Renaissance started with two very good shows, Tour of Duty, a series about Vietnam, and Star Trek, Next Generation, both of these series started in 1987. Now it seems like the best and most creative shows are mostly on cable networks, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, The Wire and The Shield(both over, but still fit the bill). While the era of endless shitcoms (and even if you LOVE sitcoms, it was just too fucking much) is gone, I'd still say you had a LOT more variety of shows on 6 broadcast channels than you get now on over 100 channels on cable. And wtf with EVERYTHING, even so called "classic" movies having to be post 80's these days? I used to LOVE the old gangster movies with Bogart and Cagney, you NEVER see those anymore.

Toyota's woes provide opportunity for U.S. car companies

2010-02-24T19:40:00.000-08:00

Toyota's quality issues could not have come at a better time for the Big three U.S. car companies. This article was pretty interesting.
One of the things they mentioned were the "bad carpets". Just my opinion, but I don't think there was ever anything wrong with the carpets, That was Toyota either not knowing or refusing to admit they had mechanical problems with the accelerators, which I'm sure are far more expensive to replace than the carpets. It was not mentioned by the article, but from what I have read elsewhere, the predominant problems seem to be emanating from the Japanese trying to cut costs by using cheap shit parts from third party suppliers in the U.S. and worse, Mexico. Christ, if I wanted transportation from Mexico I would have bought a donkey.

Up till now the U.S. car companies have never been able to compete with the Japanese in the small car market because on one side you had a car like the Corolla, which was known to hit the 200+ K mark, while being an infrequent visitor to the mechanic, while on the U.S. side you had the Pinto, the Gremlin, the Chevette, the Escort - just an endless suck-session of junky cars that not only didn't last long, but saw the mechanic frequently from cradle to grave. This soured (and rightly so) most peoples opinion of American made small cars, and made it almost impossible for Detroit to break into the small car market, for even if they came out with a great small car, who would believe it?

I'd say that now with Toyota's woes, it would be a great time for a U.S. car company to come out with a great, high quality small car that does NOT have a myriad of safety issues or mechanical problems, announced by an aggressive ad campaign. Unfortunately I doubt very much that will happen, the bone head CEO's of the U.S. car companies are far more likely to try introducing some new enormous SUV, even though gas is still expensive and is going up again.

Room Mates still suck

2010-02-20T20:34:00.000-08:00

A while back I made this post about how bad room mates suck. This guys post confirms everything I said and then some...

From reddit:

First, a little background on me.

A while back, some of you may remember my roommate killed my cat.

I had the roommate move out and filed charges. He is still at large with a state jail felony warrant out for his arrest. I do not know where he lives, but I recently discovered where he works.

A couple of weeks ago, my fiance and I discover that both of our cars have flat tires. Two flats each, both on the right side of the car. Our cars were not parked next to each other, and no other car was vandalized in the parking lot. Logic dictates that it was done by someone who knew both of our cars and had a grudge, so I naturally concluded that it was the ex roommate.

I filed a police report and never heard anything else about it. My fiance and I also made the decision to move. We move on Wednesday.

Well, two days ago, my fiance went to get gas. She discovered that her gas cap was missing and that the inside of the gas tank's mouth there was... some sort of sealant. We still haven't figured out exactly what it is. I checked my car, and sure enough, same thing.

I'm positive that it was the ex roommate, but the cops don't seem to care. I've told them where he works, but he has yet to be picked up.

What would you do in this situation?

Edit: So I was just checking the cars again, and got my finger stuck in gas thing... you know where you actually put the nozzle in when you are filling up? Yeah. Stuck, bleeding. Had to get the ice cream truck guy to call 911. There were 3 fire trucks and an ambulance. Now I get to go get a tetanus shot. How embarrassing.

Sooooo glad I live ALONE in an apartment now, but I bet not nearly as glad as the guy who made the above post!

ACTA - Just say NO!!

2010-01-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

What is ACTA?
From wikipedia:
"The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement for establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement throughout the participating countries. It's described by its proponents as a response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works." The scope of ACTA is broad, including counterfeit goods, as well as "piracy over the Internet"."
That is just the introduction, I suggest you read the rest of it here.

Who should oppose ACTA? Everyone. That's right, you heard me, I said everyone. Even if you think a three strikes law is the greatest idea ever proposed, you should be standing up, screaming in opposition. ACTA is everything freedom isn't. It's behind closed doors, with a few people from huge corporations allowed to observe the negotiations, all of whom had to sign a non disclosure agreement to make sure the facts didn't get out to the great unwashed. I understand secrecy, if a government is building a new weapon they don't want potential enemies to get ahold of the plans for it. But ACTA isn't a weapon, ACTA is a trade agreement. The only reason to keep it secret is because the guilty have something to hide. They think enough of the worlds populous won't like part, or all of it, so they want to hide from the light, and force it through quickly once it's finished. If the treaty was (as it should be) posted on the web, and subject to public scrutiny it's unlikely the more odious provisions would survive.
Supporters of strong copyright laws need to wake up and smell the coffee regarding ACTA. See, what we are talking about here is PRECEDENCE! Essentially a group of countries got together in secret to negotiate international law. Lets say this gets ram-rodded through, this will become the norm for international law making; why let those pesky interfering peons know what your up to when you don't have to!? ACTA is anathema to the concept of public participation in government. It is a jack boot, fascist, "we say, you do" method of lawmaking that should have went out with Hitler and Stalin.

Jammie Thomas - ridiculous award from tard jury

2010-01-22T21:39:00.000-08:00

This is about the jury verdict in Capitol v. Thomas, where a jury awarded 2 million dollars to the plaintiff for for infringing 24 songs. More details are here: Capitol v. Thomas
The original decision was typical of the American jury system, best described as collective retardism, where the total IQ for the jury rarely exceeds 600. Why is this? Think of jury duty as an IQ test, the smarter you are the more likely it is you will talk your way out of it. “But it’s your civic duty” some say. Here’s the deal. The judge get’s paid 70 – 100+k, the lawyer gets whatever he can squeeze out of the client, I would guess the prosecutor makes between 35-45k(maybe more, I don’t know), and all the court officers get paid too. Do you know how much people get paid for serving on a Minnesota jury? Ten bucks a day, plus round trip mileage for an additional whopping sum of 27 cents a mile.
http://www.courts.mn.gov/?page=1341#WillIBePaid
Most trials are short, but what if you win the shit lottery and get stuck on jury duty for a trial that lasts for months? I think it’s fairly safe to say most people can’t make rent on that, let alone pay other bills, like car payments, insurance, electric, ect… So the reward for being a “good citizen” is to get evicted and have your car repossessed if you win the long trial shit lottery. Yeah, I’d say that pretty much weeds out 99% of the smart people, as they will run screaming from a “civic duty” which could leave them homeless. On the other hand, if you are on welfare, or an alcoholic bum not looking for work, why NOT serve on a jury? So there you have it, that’s why you wind up with idiotic verdicts like $80,000 per song, a decision with no grounding in civil law, criminal law, or any other law, just a bunch of idiots who wanted to punish the big bad pirate.

It's good for you

2010-01-22T20:04:00.000-08:00

Did you ever notice, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that's "good for you" sucks. Lets start with food. Of all the food groups, what is the very best for you? Green vegetables. BLECCCCHH!!!!!! Green vegetables taste like CRUD, and one of most nutritious, Broccoli smells like old bum piss too. Waiter, WAITER, can I have a side of dog shit with that!!! Of course for every yin there is a yang and it's the same here, as everything good for you sucks, everything bad for you rocks! Lets go back to food, bypassing the green crap, we arrive at the meat section. Here we have mouth watering fatty steak, deep fried chicken, batter soaked fish, POOOORK!!! Hell yeah I'll take fatty fries with that!! Of course it's all fattening, artery clog city, but it's one heaping plateful of AWESOME!!!!

Now lets get to exercise. Exercise sucks. Bigtime. I guess if you are one of those people who can go for 40min running/biking hard, while barely breaking a sweat it's less odious, but if you are not so fortunate it's like walking into a swamp, truly a loathsome endeavor, and no, a short walk doesn't do shit, at least not for me. If I'm not exercising like Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket with Sgt. Hartman up his ass I get zero and I mean zero benefit from it. Thanks, but no thanks. Of course, doing something actually FUN, like playing video games or watching a great movie, or maybe reading a book are all bad for you, after eating the fatty meat and fries there is nothing like a nice, passive group of uber fun hobbys for weight gain.

Then you have rubbers. If your a guy I don't need to explain why rubbers suck, of course they are good for you as they prevent unwanted children and aids.

Is winter good for you? Considering how high a suck factor it has, it probably is.

Nerd food pyramid yummmmmm!

Nokia e61's software certificate system

2009-12-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

There is only one thing to say about this "security" feature the e61 has. It blows cock. It blows enormous 16 inch porn star cock. See, if the date on the certificate is too far behind what your phones date is, the app won't install. So I guess whoever wrote the program is supposed to keep updating the certificate, even if he changes nothing else in the program. Then if you need to reinstall it, you are supposed to download the new version, which is the same as the old version, except for the certificate being updated. Total bullshit. There is, of course, a workaround. Since there is no way to see the date of the certificate, you have to play musical dates with the phone settings. When you guess the right year, HURRAAHH, your app installs!! JOY JOY!!! I don't know how this is supposed to make your phone more "secure", are you only supposed to install new/updated apps? Programmers are usually pretty bright guys, but whoever came up with this system rode the short bus to school.

Online Ordering

2009-12-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

There are two main places I order online from. Amazon, and Newegg(computer parts). The reason is two fold. They have decent deals, and to me even more important my orders get processed without difficulty. Once in a while I can't find what I want on Amazon or Newegg. That's when the fun begins. Because some places have incredibly picky and/or buggy credit card processing software. You can't just input your address that the card is under, no, no, no!!! It has to be fucking EXACTLY as the bank has it!!! This means if the bank has your addy as say APT 56, you have to make damn sure you type out APT 56, and not Apt. 56, Apt# 56, or any other variation thereof. Also, if the bank has the address all on one line, it has to be filled out that way too, none of this:
STREET NO
APT 56
allowed NO NO NO!!! Now here is where it get's real cute. What you don't know is you are playing wheel of fortune because after so many tries, usually three, the fucking credit card goes into lockdown. A phone call won't fix this, you have to shlep to the bank to get it unlocked again. I had this shit happen to me so many times I went to the bank in a rage and had them print out exactly what they had on their computer. And you know what. I fucking STILL had a problem today, because even though the bank has the zip code in long form, and most places take that, paypal no longer does as the first time I tried to push an order through it got rejected. Fortunetely I DO still have the credit card user address exactly as the bank has it, so I was able to avoid the wheel of fortune shutdown, as everything else was spot on, the only thing I could think to do was change the zip from long form to short form which worked.
I fucking KNOW this picky ass rejection shit is not coming from the banks end, as I have been able to order from newegg and Amazon without an exact format duplicate of what the bank has, as long as the address matches, orders from them go through.

Bailouts and Stimulus

2009-11-22T20:12:00.000-08:00

In 2008, Banks and insurance companies perpetrated the greatest scam ever upon the American people. They essentially took America hostage and held a gun to it's head, boldly stating: "give us the money or we'll go bankrupt and kill the economy." Their mouthpiece was Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury secretary who "coincidentally" just happened to be an ex partner for Goldman Sachs, a bank holding company that stood to receive a nice, large chunk of any bailout money given out. This puke had the audacity to go down on one knee and beg Nancy Pelosi not to "blow it up" as he mistakenly feared the Democrats would do the right thing and send him packing. The cost in taxpayer money for this abomination was US$700 billion.

There is an easy way to smell out sleaze, either government or corporate; it's lack of public accountability. The Securities and Exchange Commission has denied a recent Freedom of Information request, seeking more information about the federal government’s bailout of American International Group.
Why is this secret? We are not talking about plans for the next nuclear sub, this a bailout of a private company with taxpayer funds, there is NO excuse for any secrecy.

Not surprisingly the bailout recipients have also been closemouthed, as the following quotes from this article point out.
From USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2008-12-22-bailout-money-where_N.htm

"After receiving billions in aid from taxpayers, the USA's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending it. Some won't even talk about it. "We're choosing not to disclose that," said Kevin Heine, spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon (BK), which received $3 billion."
Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase (JPM), which received $25 billion in bailout money, said that while some of it was lent, some was not, and the bank won't say exactly how the money is being used. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to," he said."

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings? And what's the plan for the rest? None of the banks provided specific answers.

"We're not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking," said Barry Koling, a spokesman for SunTrust Banks (STI), which got $3.5 billion."

How can these companies get away with taking taxpayer money, and then refuse any accountability for what they are doing with it? The answer is simple, the government gave out 700 billion dollars with almost no conditions attached. This, if nothing else, should show this scam for what it is, the biggest cash giveaway to giant corporations in American history. Think on that the next time some asshole politician tells you to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps".

Of course the argument from the other side was that these companies were "too big to fail". Let me play devils advocate and for the moment assume that is true. If they are too big to fail, then they are just too big and it's time to bust the trusts. If public money had to have been spent, any company receiving it should have had the CEO fired and been broken up into smaller companies. Furthermore strict public accountability provisions should have been attached to any funds disbursed.

Government cash giveaway part 2, the "stimulus".

I guess the U.S. really isn't running a deficit, as now we have government giveaway part two, this time to the tune of $787 Billion dollars. Unlike the bailout before it, the dispersion of funds from this are far more diverse. There doesn't seem to be the same level of secrecy with this as there has been with the bank/insurance company bailout, but the sheer scope of this makes tracing where all the money goes somewhat difficult. It's not all bad, but it does look like, as usual small business is getting the short end of the stick in favor of large corporations.

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-chapman/obama-stimulus-plan-fails_b_349235.html

Firms with 20 or fewer employees are responsible for over 97 percent of all net new jobs, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data. http://www.inc.com/news/articles/200708/data.html To date the Obama Administration has awarded less than one percent of all funds allocated under the stimulus to those firms.

I'll end this with a simple question; "what's next?" With no accountability required of them, what happens when the banks and insurance companies run through the bailout money? Are they going to come back for another 700 billion?
The economy is continuing to remain sour, what happens if in spite of the stimulus plan it gets worse?

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson#U.S._government_economic_bailout_of_2008
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/09/26/what-was-paulson-begging-for/
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/wall_street_news_blog/archives/2009/02/bailout_secrecy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus_plan

The digital revolution - the other end

2009-10-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows that digital music distribution is a way to cut out the
middlemen, you don't need to have a record company contract in order
to disseminate music to fans, thanks to mp3's and the internet. The
other end of this, not really discussed much, is the production end.
To produce decent sounding songs suitable for radio play it used to be
musicians had to go to a recording studio, which was not cheap. That,
in addition to distribution, gave the recording industry a
stranglehold on musicians. An essential part of any record deal was an
advance, which was a loan to the musicians to pay for the studio time.
It was a gamble for the record companies, as a band who's album didn't
sell could not afford to pay back the advance but considering the
money recording companies have brought in throughout the years it has
worked well for them. Home studio's became available for musicians, in
the form of 4 track cassette recorders by Fostex and TASCAM. The
quality of these was not very good(I had one), so musicians still
needed to go to a recording studio if they wanted a high quality
recording. Fast forward to 2009, and now you have high quality,
affordable digital multitrack recorders, as well as software you can
run on your computer to turn it into a multitrack recording machine. A
home recording studio capable of producing professional sounding
recordings has now become affordable, for less than it would cost to
go into a professional studio musicians can now buy their own. What
this means is that not only don't musicians need the recording
industry for distribution, unless they require some really fancy(and
expensive) sound effects, they don't need them for music production
either.

Room Mates

2009-10-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Room mates suck. No ands ifs or buts about it. Let's start off with a couple I had. I'll refer to them as Asshole and Fuckboy. Of the two, Fuckboy was definitely the lesser of two evils. He was a self centered Casanova type. Living in the room next to his was like being next to a porno shoot, and no that is NOT fun when it goes on day after day at 3:00AM work nights. The other room mate was a more than decent guy, so the situation was annoying but tolerable. Then, of the two of them of COURSE the decent room mate moved out, and Asshole moved in. I had met Asshole once before, as he was a friend of the home owner, when he bragged about how much he LOVED to stomp on people heads once he got them on the ground. I suspected he would not be a fun room mate to have around, but the homeowner wanted him in, and at first he seemed decent. Then Fuckboy asked him to do something really minor, like leave the shower curtain closed so it would dry better. Assholes response was "fuck you", and that was his response to anything asked of him, no matter how reasonable it was. Asshole loved the cold, and he made sure everyone got to share that love by jacking open every window in the house even when it was in the 30's. As everyone had to share the bathroom, this really sucked. Close the windows and Asshole would be jacking them open again 10 seconds later. Asshole could do anything he wanted and not care, but if anyone did anything HE didn't like, there was immediate and harsh retaliation. If Fuckboy shaved and didn't rinse out the sink, Asshole would shave his pubic hairs and throw them in the sink. One of Fuckboy's girlfriends made Asshole late for work one morning by hogging the shower, so Asshole pissed in Fuckboy's trash, which was in the hallway. Asshole could do whatever HE wanted to do, but the reverse was not the same. Complaining to the home owner was useless, when the homeowner finally forced Asshole to stop jacking the windows up when it was freezing outside, he started playing rap at rock concert volume at 5:00AM every morning. When he was told to stop doing that he started writing nasty notes on the condensation of the windows. The homeowner LOVED Asshole, so he was never going to get kicked out no matter what he did. I made damn sure to rent a self contained studio with a private bathroom when I moved out, which was not long after Asshole's latest escapade.
I've had some friends and they have had sour experiences with room mates too. Eric was living with a Joe Hardballs type even more unreasonable than Asshole. Joe Hardballs threw Eric out, and then wouldn't even let him back in to collect his things. Eric had to call the cops. The cop showed up and told Eric he had 10 min to clear his stuff out. It wasn't enough time so Eric wound up losing his guitar and a few other things to Joe Hardballs. My other friend Kevin had a fun room mate too. He was recommended by a friend of Kevin's, so Kevin thought he was OK. As it turns out, the roomie had a habit. A crack habit. Kevin came back from a days work and all the walls were covered in whipped cream, because his room mate thought that would be fun after smoking crack. The problem was self repairing, as the crackhead paid his dealer but not his share of the rent, so they both got evicted and Kevin was living on the street.
My co-worker has room mates where he lives. They are nowhere near as malicious as the ones I described, but they still suck. They are vegetarians with 0 disease resistance, they are always getting sick. Then my co worker gets sick, then I get sick. So even without living with any, room mates are still sucking for me.

Cars

2009-09-25T17:43:00.000-07:00

Everyone loves cars right? Going to the beach on a hot summer day, cruising down the road, fun fun fun till daddy takes the T bird away. The truth is, cars suck, for multiple reasons. I'm not even going into the environmental aspect, that's been well covered. Cars are expen$ive, really expensive. If you want a halfway decent one, you need to shell out 7 - 12k, and that is for a used car. Then, if you live in a tax hungry state like Massachusetts, you not only have to pay sales tax, but a yearly excise tax as well. Then you have registration fee, drivers license fee, and auto inspection fee. Massachusetts has mandatory auto insurance, and it's EXPENSIVE! The insurance companies have you by the balls and know it, as no insurance = no driving. The fun doesn't end there. Lets say you are late for work, so you drive a little too fast. Get pinched by a cop, and not only are you assessed a fine based off how much over the speed limit you were, but your insurance get's jacked up for years, as they rate you as a "risk". Now you can even get pulled over for not wearing a seat belt, as this is a moving offense your insurance gets jacked up for that too. Think your done shitting out $$$ yet? Think again. Cars break down, and the new ones are extremely complicated. So now you are forced to go to the auto mechanic, who is not cheap. If you are lucky you know an honest mechanic, if you don't then it becomes a crap shoot. The car business is LOADED with sleazeballs, from new and used car salesmen to dishonest, scum bag mechanics. Even after ripping you off for thousands of dollars your car can STILL come back not fixed right. Then you have the fun of going back and forth arguing with thug greasemonkeys. The joys of car ownership just never end.

Valve

2009-09-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.valvesoftware.com/

These guys have made some great games, and they have also made it very easy to host multiplayer games online, no router config bullshit required. Having said that, I do have a beef with them. As they have grown larger they seem to be far less friendly to modders than they used to. This is unfortunate, especially since a mod called Counterstrike help to make them huge. If you take an old game, say Day of Defeat, that game had TONS of different mods. Cigarette bazookas, RC cola grenades, custom player models like Jesus, Hitler, Daffy Duck, a flamethrower, the hook, it just goes on and on. You could also get bots for it, which was great for unpopular maps or playing it off line. Then they came out with DOD Source. Better graphics, but far less modder friendly. Not to mention, every time steam updates, it fucks up the few mods people have made for it. It also has no bots, as they coded it so it's almost impossible for anyone to make bots for it. For a while they were working with someone on a tfc2 bot, but suddenly stopped speaking with that person and now just say "we don't think bots are good for multiplayer games". Pardon me, but that's just arrogant. Why won't Valve let the modders and gamers decide that? Gamers won't play on servers they don't like, so bot servers would be rare if everyone hated them. In addition to that, you can configure the server so that bots get kicked as real players join in. So when you get a decent amount of players, there are no longer any bots on that server. If the server clears out, the bots come back, so if just one guy wants to play on that server, he can. Please, someone tell me why this is a BAD thing? Just a pipe dream, but I wish Valve would remember their roots.

Health Scare

2009-09-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

Have you heard the latest health care news? The politicians went from having a public option, meaning cheap insurance from the government, to x-ing that out, and instead now they want to fine people 3- 4K a year if they don't have health insurance. So now some shmo making $5.00 an hour is supposed to come up with the money for his health insurance if the employer doesn't put into it. With the economy sucking, gas and food having gone way up, rents having gone up, and no cheap government insurance option, where is this dude supposed to come up with the money? This sounds like another plan from people who have always had money and don't have a clue what a low budget is. Their idea of thrift is they bought a Bentley instead of a Rolls. Not to mention the politicians have the very best health and retirement benefits, financed on the backs of the taxpayers of course. How about we start off any "reform", by making the politicians buy their own health care, with no cost of living increase in their salaries to pay for it. They should just leave the system as it is if all they can do is try to strongarm working poor people into buying expensive private health insurance.

Case Logic

2009-09-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

OK, so you want an uber cool gaming case. So you of course get the clear plastic side panel, or ever BETTER an all plastic case. Then in addition to your components, you fill it up with LOTS of blinky lights. BAKA!! (Japanese for idiot ) All those components inside the computer generate heat. Then the funky blinking lights that look so pretty add even MORE heat. In addition to strength, steel and aluminum are good heat sinks. Plastic has no such quality. So to compensate for the loss of heat sinking from the plastic, and the additional heat from the cool looking blinky lights, you now need to add more case fans to deal with the excess heat build up. Of course the fans themselves add more heat too. Your new, pimpin' machine is truly a monument to inefficiency and stupidity.

Anti Nuclear Manifesto

2009-08-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Let me give you my anti nuclear manifesto. The problem with nuclear power is two fold. First, no one has EVER given a reasonable answer as to what to do with the waste that lasts forever, and no, burying it in rusty steel barrels is NOT acceptable. The other problem is people. Nuclear power will always be inherently unsafe because people have an unerring propensity to fuck up. When designing a nuke plant, there is not a lot of room for design mistakes. I have worked with engineers, they make mistakes all the time. Lets assume that the engineers come up with the perfect design(unlikely). That is just the first phase of the atomic circus. Now it is time to actually build it. Of course the engineers have specified the very best quality grade A+ concrete and steel. Who is going to build this, Haliburton? Look at the big dig, can you picture those assholes building a nuke plant? No matter how much legit profit is being made you can guarantee the construction douche bags will cheat on materials to fatten the profit margin, where grade A+ cement is called for they will use grade D, the same with the steel and other materials. You will wind up with a plant that is safe on paper, and would have been OK if built the way it was supposed to be that is a time bomb. Wait, last but not least, now it is built and it is time to actually run it.
So now you have the possibility of design defects, the absolute surety of shoddy construction and Homer Simpson shows up for work. Of course Homer isn't scared, didn't they show him how safe the plant was? I have never seen a situation where people failed to fuck up whenever the opportunity presented itself, what makes matters much worse is that Homer Simpson thinks the safety margin is much higher than it actually is, as grade A+ steel and cement can take a lot more abuse than the shitty grade D materials the construction assholes used. So there you have it, the three stooges, the Engineers, the construction company, and the people running the plant.

Fire Alarms

2009-08-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

Fire alarm, whaaaat? You must think I'm fucking insane to do a rant about fire alarms. Fire alarms are good, right? They save lives, right? Who wouldn't want the friendly firemen to show up when their house is burning? For the most part fire alarms ARE a good thing, but sometimes there are exceptions. The exception is when the fire alarm is either designed and/or installed by complete fucking idiots.

Let's take, say, the fire alarm where I work. Some new sensors were installed,
and they must be VERY sensitive indeed, as the alarm now goes off every day. This isn't your daddy's fire alarm either, it's ear piercing, rock concert loud, guaranteed by it's maker to give hearing damage every time it goes off, which recently, did I mention this already, is every fucking day. This is not just useless, it is actually harmful. Ever hear the story of the little boy who cried wolf? Just in case you were born under a rock and haven't heard this one it goes like this. There was a little boy who LOVED attention, which he would get by yelling "WOLF, WOLF, WOLF" at which all the villagers would run out looking for the wolf, who was not there as the boy was lying. Well one day, who shows up but the big, bad wolf himself, and he has little boy on his dinner menu. Apon seeing him the little boy cries out "WOLF, WOLF, WOLF", but by this time the villagers have had more than enough of his bullshit and ignore him. At the end of this sad but cautionary tale, the only thing left of the little boy who cried wolf is a giant, stinking turd, left by the big bad wolf as a good bye memento for the villagers.
What has all this to do with a defective fire alarm you say? Think about it, if that alarm continues to go off when there is no fire, the firemen may have to show up, but their enthusiasm, and rush to get to the office is going to diminish. Lets just say that if this keeps up, and there is ever a real fire, response time may be on the slow side.

Guitar Techs

2009-08-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

Ever have to deal with repair people? You know, like the auto mechanic, or maybe computer techs? Was it good for you? It hasn't always been fun for me. Especially regarding guitar techs. It's always the same thing. Me: "my guitar has fret buzz, can you get rid of it?" Guitar tech: "Sure, no problem." A week to over a month later the guitar comes back and still has fret buzz. If I'm lucky it's been reduced somewhat, I've had guys make it worse. What the fuck is it with those guys anyway; I didn't ask to have fret buzz reduced, I asked to have it GONE!! Sure, I can hand it back, and have my guitar gone for another week to month, but if they couldn't get it right the first time, I just don't have any confidence a second try will give me better results. I've played guitars with no fret buzz, my Schecter C1 Classic doesn't have it so I KNOW it's possible to set up a guitar to eliminate it. I have a theory on this. There are essentially two types of guitar techs. Mediocre, and highly competent but busy. The mediocre guys just don't have the skills to get rid of fret buzz, at least on some guitars. The highly skilled guys can, but they tend to be backed up with work, so if your name isn't Joe Perry from Aerosmith or Eddie Van Halen, they are not going to take the time to do it right. With these guys the fret buzz will be reduced, but not eliminated. I suppose if you hound them you can get the job done right, but these are the guys that typically have a month turn around, so good luck there. I've heard of people who have had good experiences with guitar techs, but I never have and I'm sick of them.

Immigration

2009-08-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

It seems to me this is not the single issue it's often presented as, but a multi-faceted one. I'm going to attempt to break it up a bit.

Illegal vs Legal immigration

An argument I hear a lot is "we have to pass amnesty, because we need more people for low pay, menial jobs". This country already has a green card system allowing legal immigrant residency. If we truly need to have more people here to pick fruit or do other manual labor it seems to me it would make a lot more sense to issue out more green cards to people who are obeying the law and waiting to enter the U.S., than giving amnesty to people who have broken U.S. immigration law to get here. Those people should NOT be getting work preference over people waiting for green cards, and amnesty allowing them to stay here would do just that.

Illegal Alien Felons

I don't understand why there is even a debate about this. Illegal aliens convicted of a felony need to be GONE the second their jail sentence is served. Their feet should not even hit the pavement outside of the jail, they should be placed on a bus and deported back to their home country, or taken to the airport and flown out if they come from overseas. Even if we instituted an amnesty program, illegal alien felons should not be eligible for it. The same goes for any so called "sanctuary cities", if they are found to be harboring illegal alien felons federal funding should be cut off until the policy of sheltering them is halted. It needs to be made clear to them they are banned from re entry in the U.S., and any attempts to return will be rewarded by a mandatory prison sentence. The U.S. has more than it's fair share of native crooks, it doesn't need to import any.

Port Forwarding Sucks

2009-08-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

Nothing pisses me off faster when trying to get something to work online than to read "you have to configure your router's port forwarding". This has to be done with bittorrent clients, and some games if you want to run a game server. Note I said SOME games as every Valve game I've ever played has NOT required this! To all the douche bag game programmers who code games that require this - NOT EVERYONE HAS ROUTER ACCESS!!!!! That's right you fucking nerds, people living in apartments and college dorms don't have router access, and the admins there aren't going to custom configure the router for one persons game play. If you program games that require port forwarding for net play please do me and everyone else who doesn't have router access a favor and get a job bagging groceries.