Ok, I have a confession to make.

I have spent almost my whole life– 31 years–  caring far too much about offending people, worrying if I’m cool enough for them, or asking myself if they are judging me.

I can’t take it anymore. It’s stupid, and it’s not good for my well being. It has made me a punching bag–  a flighty, nervous wuss. But worse than that, it has made me someone who doesn’t take a stand for anything. It has made me someone who stood in the middle, far too often, and not where I cared to stand, for fear of alienating others. No more. Not today.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, is different.

We’re going to talk about the cure. We’re going to talk about what’s necessary. We’re going to talk about the truth.

Do you wonder if someone is talking shit about you? Whether your friends will approve? Have you become conflict-avoidant? Spineless?

Well, it’s time you started not giving a fuck.

FACT NUMBER 1. People are judging you right now.

Yes, it’s really happening right at this moment. Some people don’t like you, and guess what? There’s nothing you can do about it. No amount of coercion, toadying, or pandering to their interests will help. In fact, the opposite is often true; the more you stand for something, the more they respect you, whether it’s grudgingly or not.

What people truly respect is when you draw the line and say “you will go no further.” They may not like this behaviour, but so what? These are people don’t like you anyway, why should you attempt to please people who don’t care for you in the first place?

Right. Then, there’s Internet trolls. That’s a whole other thing.

Regular people are fine– you don’t actually hear it when they’re talking behind your back. But on the web, you do see it, which changes the dynamic drastically. They have an impact because they know you have your vanity searches, etc. But the real problem with Internet haters is that they confirm your paranoid delusion that everyone out there secretly hates you.

Thankfully, that’s not actually true. So the first noble truth is that most people don’t even care that you’re alive. Embrace this, my friends, for it is true freedom. The world is vast and you are small, and therefore you may do as you wish and cast your thoughts of those who dislike it to the side.

FACT NUMBER 2. You don’t need everyone to like you.

This stuff is crazy, I know, but it’s cool, you’ll get used to it. Here’s the next thing: not only do most people not know that you exist, and some are judging you, but it totally does not matter even if they are.

How liberating this is may not even hit you yet, but it will. Check this out: when people don’t like you, nothing actually happens. The world does not end. You don’t feel them breathing down your neck. In fact, the more you ignore them and just go about your business, the better off you are.

You know when they say “the best revenge is a life well lived”? Well, this is true, but it isn’t the whole truth. A life well lived is great, yes, but it cannot happen while you are sweating about who your detractors are and what they think. What you have to do, what you have no choice but to do, is accept it and move on.

So not giving a fuck is actually a necessary precedent to create a good life for yourself. It can’t happen without it. That’s why you have to begin today.

FACT NUMBER 3. It’s your people that matter.

Ok, so you’ve adjusted to the fact that most people in the world are barely aware of your existence, and you’re also conscious of the fact that those who don’t like you are in the obscenely small minority and don’t actually matter. Awesome. Next you need to realize that the people who do care about you, and no one else, are those you need to focus on.

Relationships are weird. Once we’re in one (with family, a spouse, whatever), we promptly begin to take the other person for granted and move on to impressing strangers instead– say, our boss. Then, once we’ve impressed our boss, we start taking him for granted too, and so on, in an endless cycle of apathy. It’s like we always prefer to impress and charm the new than to work on what we already have.

But these people– your champions– they understand your quest or your cause. They make you feel good when you’re around them, make you laugh or make you feel like you can just be yourself. They make you feel relaxed or at ease. You’ve shared things with them. They’re important. Focus on them instead.

FACT NUMBER 4. Those who don’t give a fuck change the world. The rest do not.

So I’m reading this horrible book right now by Stephen King called the Long Walk. It’s a contest where people walk without sleeping or resting, and if they do stop, they are killed. (That’s actually every Stephen King book– “there’s a clown, but it kills!” “There’s a car, but it kills!” etc.)

I suspect this book is a metaphor for war, but it also captures perseverance very well. What it takes to move past anything is to simply realize that your obstacle is unimportant, and that it can be dismissed. This is true whether you’re running a marathon or trying to get to Mars.

If you dismiss the things that do not matter; if you remove those things from your mind and focus on what must be done; if you understand that your time is limited and decide to work now; only then will you be able to get to the finish line. Otherwise, you will be dissuaded into living a life you aren’t interested in.

Side note: You need to handle failure and obscurity better. You may be in a tough place right now where you feel lonely or like a loser. No worries, we’ve all been there. But it’s time for you to realize how common these things are, and that they’re experienced by even the most successful and happiest people in the world. Those people get past them, and you will too.

The eye is watching

You want to know something? This actually has nothing to do with anyone else. It has everything to do with you.

I had a discussion with Jonathan Fields the other week that was about the use of swearing (and “true voice”) on blogs. I watched him on a Skype video as we did this, and I could actually pinpoint the moment where he was about to say “fuck” but almost stopped himself. It was amazing. So I called him out on it. “You felt it just now, didn’t you?”

Everyone has an internetal eye. It always watching. It has been slowly constructed by society at large and by your friends and family, and it checks you for unacceptable behaviour. If you have had it around for long enough, you actually start to believe that the eye is you, and that you’re “being reasonable” or some other rationalization.

But the eye isn’t you at all. It is a prison, and you have justified its existence by obeying it. It’s strong because you let it be strong.

But the secret, the part that’s amazing, is that it can’t do anything to stop you, even if it wanted to. It’s an eye. It can only watch. The rest of you is free to act as you wish.

How to get back your self-respect in five easy steps

STEP 1. Do things that you consider embarrassing.

My girlfriend and I have been breaking in Vibram Fivefingers in preparation for the massive walk we are doing. Have you ever seen these shoes? They’re amazing for you knees and give you no blisters, but they are the ugliest thing imaginable. Yesterday, I wore them with a sweet bowtie I put on for Easter. I looked like a crazy person.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I am deeply aware and can become quite upset by people’s judgment– I think a lot of people are, but don’t admit it. But as I walked by people in my techno-clown outfit, not a single person looked at me. Nobody cared, and it slowly dawned on me that even if people did look at me weird, they just walked by. Later, they would forget about me entirely.

You must try this. Find your internal filters and break them, one at a time. Notice how society, like an ocean, smoothes over the waves you make, until what you do gets eliminated, or becomes the status quo. Work with this.

STEP 2. Accept, or deal with, awkwardness.

It’s widely known that interviewers get their best material by being quiet and allowing silence to force words out of a politician or celebrity.

You may be uncomfortable with silence. I know I still am. But I have been working on it and have to say that it is a much more serene state to be in than trying to cover it up with random babbling just to fill up the air. This is one type of awkwardness, a kind that you should feel comfortable about and learn to live with.

Another kind of social awkwardness is this in-between space where you might have done something wrong or been wronged, but don’t say anything. I’ve been given a few harsh lessons in my time and come away realizing that the freedom that comes from talking about an uncomfortable truth is better than the comfort of avoiding that talk altogether.

Someone told me recently that the Clintons’ method for earning respect in politics is this: if someone pushes you, push back twice as hard. This is much better than awkwardness. It’s clear, it’s not passive aggressive, and you know where you stand. Start doing this immediately.

STEP 3. Refuse boundaries.

The video above was taken in 1970, right when the Front de Libération du Québec had killed Premier Pierre Laporte and put his body in the trunk of a car. Trudeau’s “Just watch me” is one of the most famous phrases in Canadian political history. The journalists are trying to trap him into choosing on-camera between a safety/police-state and civil liberties/freedom but Trudeau refuses their boxes.

The Liberal Party of Canada no longer has any balls, but for us, there’s still hope. Walk where you want to walk. Don’t accept false choices. Don’t let people dictate how you should live your life. Definitely don’t listen to the eye.

STEP 4. Tell the truth.

You don’t need to be an asshole, but the world does not need another conflict-avoidant, evasive person. No one wants another individual who steps in line with everyone else. The status quo is doing fine without you, so it’s up to you to call bullshit if you see it.

Don’t mind-read either. Telling the truth means seeing the truth, not adding your own layer of sugar coating or suspected emotion on top of it.

STEP 5. Begin your new life.

This step can’t happen without the others, but once you’ve gotten here, you can safely begin to explore a whole new world– one where anything you do is fine as long as it isn’t seriously hurting anyone else. Wanna explore old abandoned buildings? No problem, as long as you’re ready to live with the consequences. Feel like hanging from hooks or get whipped by a dominatrix? Go ahead, but be safe about it.

Once you begin on this path, you start to discover that practically everyone is capable of understanding the weird things that you do. In fact, it makes you interesting and worth paying attention to, further feeding into your plans of world domination, should you have any.

But none of this fun can happen without you recognizing, and walking past, the eye. Doing this is a powerful act of control which builds momentum and makes you strong.

Take back your self respect. Do it today– try it right now. Wear something ugly. Do something stupid. Tell someone the truth.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

Shared by Larry

Well said.

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) — Should ignorant people be allowed to vote?

A provocative question for sure; however, I’m not bringing it up for shock value, but rather to give us all pause.

If I were to ask you to ingest an unknown medicine from someone who knew nothing about the medical field, you probably wouldn’t do it. And I doubt many of us would feel comfortable as a shareholder in a company that asked people who knew nothing about business to hire its next CEO?

Yet we all know people who gleefully admit they know nothing about politics, don’t have time to find out what the current issues are or even know how the government works, but go out and vote. Want to know why it seems Washington is run by a bunch of idiots? Blame this hiccup in our political system for starters. What’s a solution? Weed out some of the ignorant by making people who want to vote first pass a test modeled on the one given to those who want to become citizens.

In an effort to win over ignorant voters, political campaigns are no longer targeting the movable middle as much as the easily misled. Instead of intelligent debates about important topics such as health care reform and cash-strapped states, we have an exchange of easy to remember catchphrases such as “Obamacare” and “War on Unions” — all in the race to pander to people who can’t explain what Congress does.

Or have a firm grasp of how tax dollars are spent.

In a recent CNN poll, more than a third of the people questioned wanted to see cuts in military spending, which is a good debate to have. The problem is the poll also revealed most Americans think the military takes up 30 percent of the budget when in reality it’s 19 percent. If we don’t know how much money is being spent, how can we intelligently say it’s too much? And what to make of the 20 percent of folks polled who believe public broadcasting represents 10 percent of the budget, when it’s more like a 10th of 1 percent?

I’m not suggesting someone needs to be a Rhodes scholar to vote.
But voters should at least be able to name the three branches of government. Voters should understand what a “trade deficit” is and how laws are made.

Before getting all bent out of shape by my assertion that you or someone you love is ignorant, please know I am not referring to the dictionary’s first definition of the word, which typically means an uneducated or unsophisticated person. I am operating with the second usage, defined as a lack of knowledge in a specific area.

No one is omniscient; we’re all ignorant about something.

I know close to nothing about the inner workings of my car, and so I come to my mechanic, ignorant — but not stupid. As this relates to voting, if people don’t know much about current government and politics, they too are ignorant, not necessarily stupid. The difference is that naively paying too much for repairs on a car is not nearly as damaging to foreign policy as a bunch of ignorant voters hitting the polls.

Am I advocating for some sort of elitism?

You betcha.

One of the more counterproductive byproducts of having our political system hijacked by campaigns obsessed with ignorant voters is that the word “elite” has been saddled with terrible PR. True, one boilerplate definition essentially means “rich snobs” but another — and the one more central to my point — means the best or most skilled in a group. We don’t seem to have a problem understanding the importance of having elite athletes on our favorite sports team, but some of us have been trained to have a gag reflex at the very mention of the country’s elite thinkers running the country.

The Founding Fathers were not a bunch of average Joes with gripes about England; they were elite thinkers and philosophers. James Madison attended what is now Princeton. John Hancock went to Harvard. Thomas Jefferson enrolled at the College of William and Mary when he was 16. Today it seems the more education a candidate has, the harder he or she has to work to distance him or herself from it.

So how do we weed out ignorant voters without harking back to the days of poll taxes and Jim Crow? I would start by making the U.S. Naturalization Test — given to immigrants who want to become citizens — part of the voter registration process.

If knowing the number of years a senator is elected to serve is required of anyone who wants to become a U.S. citizen, is it too much to expect that information to be common knowledge for those of us who already are? This has nothing to do with who a person is or how they may vote but everything to do with a person voting as an informed citizen, not a sound bite regurgitator. Having a grasp of current events would be ideal, but if we could at least raise the required investment to engage in the political system, perhaps the tone of the rhetoric surrounding it can be elevated as well.

We wouldn’t issue a driver’s license to someone unable to pass the written test, knowing the potential damage that person could do behind the wheel. Why do we look at voting differently?

While the Constitution lists the reasons why a citizen cannot be denied the right to vote, it does not explicitly say it is a federal right. This is why felon disenfranchisement and mental competency laws, as they pertain to voting, vary from state to state.

I’m not suggesting we kick people out of the political process, only that we require them to have an agreed upon understanding of what that process is. If people are too busy to read up on the government, the Department of Homeland Security is not going to escort them out of the country — or take away away their citizenship. At any point in which ignorant voters are fed up with being on the outside looking in, they can go to the post office, pick up a brochure with all of the questions and answers in it, and study free of charge.

Sounds harsh?

It is.

But at this crucial juncture with at least two wars, a budding energy crisis, a growing trade deficit, etc., do we really have the luxury of hand-holding? There simply needs to be more required of us as responsible voters than being born 18 years ago. Perhaps if we weed out the ignorant voters, politicians will no longer feel the need to dumb down the conversation in hopes of getting their attention.

And then if we’re really lucky, maybe the ignorant politicians will go away as well.

At least one can dream.

I am that madman.

I’m working my last week for Northrop Grumman as a CDC Contractor this week.  I’m not unhappy at CDC, in fact, it was a very tough decision to leave.  So why am I doing it?

There are occasions in a person’s life when that person has an opportunity to “leap forward”.  When Internet Security Systems hired me away from AirTouch 13 years ago, I went from a “safe, corporate job” to a company that had just gone public and was growing by leaps and bounds.  It was one of the happiest and most rewarding experiences in my career despite the fact that it ended a bit worse than I had intended.

10 years later, with lessons learned, I have such an opportunity again, a chance to expand my skills and professional horizons that doesn’t occur in larger companies.

Something that goes along with such a change, I am re-evaluating a lot of the things in my life.  I’m deciding what is important and what can be left behind.  There is something healing about leaving behind some of the baggage that you carry around in your soul, and not all of the jettisoned “cargo” is bad.  Sometimes you have to give up/leave behind some things that have run their course, even though you enjoyed them.  You have to unpack your bags from time to time to make room for new stuff.

I’m looking forward to discovering what new “stuff” is out there for me.

Now there are times when sacrificing your own life may be the best option… Protecting your family, or an idea that is bigger than yourself.  But killing yourself because of depression is a failure.  A failure to seek help. A failure to reach out to the people who love you.  A failure of faith.  Faith in God.  Faith in yourself.  Faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Whatever it is that you might have faith in.  Carrying on even when you don’t have a reason to do so is the ultimate test of a human being.

I haven’t spoken to this person in nearly a decade, and we weren’t particularly close even then.  But hearing the news today shocked me just the same.  I grieve.  Not as much for him, but for his family.  For the friends and loved ones he left behind.  I grieve for all those people who are left behind asking “Why?”  We look for reasons because the truth that is staring us in the face is too unpleasant to face.  He failed.  At some basic level of his existence, he could not handle what it means to live and took the selfish and easy way out.

I don’t say this out of malice.  I think it sucks.  I think that he forgot that there are people who could have reminded him that he is loved and that there are people in the world who care.  Hell, *I* care.  I wish I had the opportunity to remind him that there are people who love him and want to help him.  I think it is that love that will reach into the depths of hell and pull even the most wretched soul out of the abyss.

Some of you may think that “failure” is too harsh a word to use, or at the very least think it is an indelicate choice of word.  Stop fearing failure!  Failure teaches us.  Failure makes success that much sweeter.  We all fail.  We are all imperfect. Failure reminds us that we have more work to do.  If nothing else, his failure is a reminder to the rest of us that we are not alone.  Remind yourselves that you are loved.  Remind others that you love them.

And to anyone who might read these words…

If you reach the point in your life where you think suicide is an option.  If you feel that there is nobody on this Earth who gives a damn that you’re alive.  Look me up.  I care.  Consider it a blank check to humanity, but if there is nobody else on this planet who you think can talk you down from that ledge.  I’ll do my best.  I’m not a psychologist or a pshrink, and my ordination as a minister is barely worth the paper it is printed on, but I’ll do my best to remind you that there is ALWAYS a reason to carry on even if it is just contempt for the things in this world that are beating you down.

Short Version:

• Wife and kids are great. (Yes, I said kids… #2 is on the way!)
• My mother is a psychopath who has proven most of my father’s last words absolutely freaking accurate.  Thankfully, my in-laws and step-mother do a wonderful job of taking up the slack.
• Health is as good as it has been in years.  I’m back in the gym and enjoying the hell out of it.
• Jobs are going great. (technically… 3 of them.  I keep busy)
• Even raiding in World of Warcraft is… going great. =)
• Life is pretty much peachy f’ing keen.

So why am I resurrecting a blog that is home to most of my rantings and ravings?  Because I need some place to say all of the stuff that scandalizes “decent folks”.  Things like…

• It’s not Sarah Palin’s fault that some whackjob in Arizona shot up all those people, no matter how much I think Sarah Palin is a malignant force in this country who should shut the hell up.
• Obama is a typical politician, and while I think he’s doing a fair job, he is in trouble next year if the GOP runs the right candidate. (Yes, I have an opinion on who that candidate is… Ron Paul.)
• Congress is, top-to-bottom, the largest collection of scum and villainy seen since the Mos Eisley cantina.
• The TSA is staffed by a bunch of mouth-breathing morons who give government employees a bad name.
• If nobody else will say it.  I will.   You want to balance the budget?  Take a good hard look at Defense spending.  I could cut the military’s budget in half without sacrificing the safety, effectiveness, or quantity of troops one iota.  If I can do it, those assholes in Congress should be able to figure it out.
• I hope the NBA and NFL have labor stoppages… and stay that way for at least 2 years, then people might realize that not only are sports not life-or-death, but there is a lot out there to watch that isn’t mass produced mediocrity.  I wish sports in this country would adopt the promotion/relegation model so that cheap-ass owners who don’t spend money to put a good team on the field don’t get to split revenue with the teams that go out and work for it by signing the best players and putting the best team on the field.
• Ricky Gervais is a freakin’ genius and I was thrilled to see him skewer all those celebrities on yet another bullshit Hollywood Awards show.  Can he host all of them?  I might actually watch.

More to come.. I’m out.

-Grim

——–

As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:

When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.

Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That’s where the stupid started.

First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.

It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.

The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo–just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:

TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.

Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.

TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.

Soldier: Why?

TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.

Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.

TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.

Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?

TSA Guy: [awkward silence]

Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.

Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

The Economy

It’s funny how things don’t seem so bad when you turn off the TV and stop listening to yammering talking heads screaming about how bad things are.  Sure, we’re being a little more cost conscious than we were a couple of years ago but on the other hand, I have a two year old.  Kids cost money.   We have no significant debt aside from our mortgage, and the value of our investments and savings is climbing slowly but surely.  Would I like a return to the dot-com-boom days of the late 90′s?  You betcha.  However, I don’t think the world is going to end anytime soon.  Stop listening to all of the “experts” who get paid to spit shine their opinions and foist them on a relatively uneducated public.  If you’re in debt up to your eyeballs, then whose fault is it?   I have no love for credit card companies and other money lenders who prey on folks who could use a few extra bucks each month, truly I don’t.  However, at some point you have to look at the huge sheaf of paper that they’re asking you to sign and say “Wait a minute, how hard is it to say ‘If you loan me X, I’ll pay Y back to you over Z months’?”

Pretty hardcore ranting, eh?

Stick around, that was just the warm up course.

Politics

Where, oh where do I begin?  I have claimed before that “We The People” are too freaking stupid to survive as a republic.  It has gotten worse.  I can appreciate the high-minded sentiment from the Teabaggers that “We just want government to leave us alone”.  Yeah, I get that.  Believe me, I do.

So why the FUCK are these same people protesting that “The Gub’mint” is “allowing” a “Mosque” to be built two blocks away from the “Hallowed Ground” of “Ground Zero”? (A lot of scare quotes to be sure, but have you read their arguments on this issue?)  If it isn’t the government’s business to decide how many guns you can own or how you practice your religion, then how is it even remotely their business to tell someone where they can build a community center? (Not a Mosque, you illiterate fucktards…)

And Sarah F. Palin… Yes, I know her maiden name is Heath, and her given middle name is Louise… The F stands for something else.  Rub those two braincells of yours together and see if you can figure out what it is.  This dumb bitch is Dan Quayle with better legs.  No, strike that, even Dan Quayle served out his elected term.  Sarah Palin is the walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with the modern Republican Party.  Hell, I used to be somewhat of a fan of Newt Gingrich until he started toeing the line that this crazy bitch drew in the sand.  Otherwise intelligent Republicans are so afraid of alienating the lunatic fringe of the party that they are starting to look like Democrats in the 1980′s.  That is a disservice to the entire country as I will always believe that we need “Loyal Opposition” in Washington.

Which brings me to Obama.  Heaven forbid that we have a President who actually uses his brain before making a decision that can (and does) get people killed.  Heaven forbid that we have a President that actually speaks about what the LAW says rather than how he feels about something.  Of course, his own party is turning on him since they have a re-election campaign this fall and Obamachrist hasn’t turned around 8 years of bad economy in a year and a half.  Let’s look at what he HAS done, shall we?

Pulled out of Iraq

Looks like the last of our combat troops will be home by the end of this month, and our remaining “advisors” will be home, as agreed, by the end of next year.  Mission Accomplished.

Stepped up in Afghanistan

Not always a popular move, but he did call his shot on this one, and he’s sticking to his guns.

The Economy

Things are improving.  Not fast enough for some, but we didn’t end up in the toilet overnight.  Quick fixes aren’t the answer here.

Taxes

Yep, I was right.  My taxes DID go down this year.

Turning the United States into a Fundamentalist Muslim Nation

Still waiting on this one.  Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen in the first term.

Honestly, I’d give Obama a B- so far.  I think he needs to be a little more assertive at times, but that is just a personality thing.  I also understand that he would be dignifying the arguments of all those lunatics out there if he took the time to address them all.  On the other hand, I’d love to see him call Palin a “Fucking Moron” in a speech from the Oval Office.  That’s why he’s President, and I’m just a smartass with a blog.

One final note.  Polticians and “power in high places” have only as much control over your life as you let them have.  The very worst they can do to you is make whatever you are doing illegal.  Considering that this very country was founded by a bunch of folks giving the thumb to King George, it is an important thing to realize that a fundamental part of our national character is our willingness to ignore the law when a greater good is at stake.  How you live your life is something that politicians can’t take away or give to you.  It’s your choice, now and always.  I tell you this because there is a lot of whining about passing this law or that law… Fuck the law.  Obey the dictates of your own conscience whether or not it is “legal”.  Don’t forget the 11th commandment, though.  “Thou shalt not get caught”. (courtesy of R.A. Heinlein)

That concludes the political part of this rant.  Let’s continue on to the personal shit, shall we?  I’ll use bullet points because if you’ve read this far, the last thing you want is another novel.

Wife and kids are doing great, so take anything said after this point with a grain of salt.  Life is good, but bitching about it is fun too.

• Mom and I aren’t speaking (again).
• My grandmother fell and broke a whole bunch of things.  I love you very much Nana.  I hope you are back on your feet quickly.
• Work has taken 2 years to get this reorganization done, and it’s a little frustrating.  Can’t complain otherwise, I love my job.
• Dragon*Con kicks ass, but my staff is sick to death of having such a Manic Boss.
• Weight is staying fairly constant (which is OK since I’ve been eating like total crap) and I’m feeling pretty good physically.

Moral of this story?  Stop wasting time worrying about the state of the entire damned world and focus on the things that are most important to you.  Family, career, personal interests.  Politicians and talking heads have been decrying the end of the world for centuries now and we’re still here.  If you’re so worried about the world blowing up, maybe you should just LET IT BLOW UP.  Then you’ll realize that the world keeps turning, and you still have the things that are truly important to you.  Life goes on, endlessly, and inexorably.  How you spend it is, was, and always will be up to you.

74 PLEX, at a cost of $14.95 per month of game time, were destroyed by Method Of Destruction players. That amount of PLEX could have been used for six years, two months of EVE subscription time and cost $1106.30 US to whomever purchased the game time initially. All 74 PLEX cards were destroyed in the PvP battle, leaving CCP the benefactor of $1106.30 worth of unrecoverable destroyed virtual goods.

What this represents is a fundamental shift in the way certain PvP activities must be considered. Before, you could attempt to attribute a real dollar value to destroyed virtual assets, but it involved a lot of hocus pocus. Now, you can actually know the exact dollar value of certain destroyed virtual assets, because they were purchased for real currency.

I’m not accusing CCP of destroying the 74 PLEX in the conflagration (though their loot code needs some work), but it’s still interesting to watch player reaction to an unprecedented event in MMOs, and it’s a decision I certainly would never have made as a game designer (that said, CCP makes a lot of decisions with EVE that I would never make, such as making it literally impossible to catch up with other players if you didn’t start playing EVE on day 1 and maintain a permanent subscription).

Source: Massively

According to The Register,  the Cardell Media Family “claims copyright over any use of the name Chris Cardell and warns about “your website’s post ‘Junk Mail by Chris Cardell’ which unlawfully infringes upon the intellectual property of rights of the Cardell Media Family”.”

Really?  Reporting news while using someone’s name is an infringement of intellectual property rights?

Suck it, Chris Cardell.  While our British cousins may not have the luxury of falling back on the 1st Amendment like we do in the US, I’m reasonably certain that the legal system in the UK isn’t “bollocksed up” (yes, I know… not really a term) enough to let your threats of legal action stand up.  I’d like to congratulate the Cardell Family for spawning such a shining example of douchebaggery in an age where professional athletes threaten to corner that market. (Hi LeBron!)  Maybe you could hire John Fitzgerald Page to head up your PR department?

An Iranian cleric said that earthquakes are caused by promiscuous and immodestly dressed women.  To test this out, feminist and all American girl Jen McCreight organized boobquake.  Harnessing the power of social media Jen organized a Twitter and Facebook experiment to see if he was right.  The objective was for women to dress immodestly on the same day and see if there was an earthquake.  Over 185,000 people said they would participate in the Facebook event.

How did it turn out?  There was a very small earthquake in Taiwan which was because Asian women are so awesome.  No, the world didn’t shake apart and apparently the cleric was wrong.

Now our favorite cleric says that it is all part of God’s plan that nothing happened.

Sedighi notes that some might ask why there aren’t more earthquakes and storms striking Western nations that are “up to their necks” in immorality.

He says the answer is that God allows some of those who “provoke His wrath” to continue sinning “so that they (eventually) go to the bottom of Hell.”

You have to wonder who would want to take sides with a god that will send you to hell for being straight?  This further adds evidence to my hypothesis that Allah is a gay man or a drag queen who is jealous of hot western women.  That has to be why he tells his followers to cover their women in a burka.  He doesn’t want to be compared to real women when he goes on Ru Paul’s Drag Races.

So many Islamic clerics proclaim western society and values are Satanic.  Is that such a bad thing?

Satanism condones any type of sexual activity which properly satisfies your individual desires
- be it heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or even asexual, if you choose. Satanism also
sanctions any fetish or deviation which will enhance your sex-life, so long as it involves no
one who does not wish to be involved.

Satanism does not encourage orgiastic activity or extramarital affairs for those to whom they
do not come naturally. For many, it would be very unnatural and detrimental to be unfaithful
to their chosen mates.

Once again the clerics have demonstrated that Satanic western culture is far more desirable than following their vengeful, dragqueen, god.

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Lori Deschene of Tiny Buddha.

If there’s one thing we all have in common it’s that we want to feel happy; and on the other side of that coin, we want to avoid hurting. Yet we consistently put ourselves in situations that set us up for pain.

We pin our happiness to people, circumstances, and things and hold onto them for dear life. We stress about the possibility of losing them when something seems amiss. Then we melt into grief when something changes—a lay off, a break up, a transfer.

We attach to feelings as if they define us, and ironically, not just positive ones. If you’ve wallowed in regret or disappointment for years, it can seem safe and even comforting to suffer.

In trying to hold on to what’s familiar, we limit our ability to experience joy in the present.  A moment can’t possibly radiate fully when you’re suffocating it in fear.

When you stop trying to grasp, own, and control the world around you, you give it the freedom to fulfill you without the power to destroy you. That’s why letting go is so important: letting go is letting happiness in.

It’s no simple undertaking to let go of attachment—not a one-time decision, like pulling off a band-aid. Instead, it’s a day-to-day, moment-to-moment commitment that involves changing the way you experience and interact with everything you instinctively want to grasp.

The best approach is to start simple, at the beginning, and work your way to Zen.

Experiencing Without Attachment

Accept the moment for what it is. Don’t try to turn it into yesterday; that moment’s gone. Don’t plot about how you can make the moment last forever. Just seep into the moment and enjoy it because it will eventually pass. Nothing is permanent. Fighting that reality will only cause you pain.

Believe now is enough. It’s true—tomorrow may not look the same as today, no matter how much you try to control it. A relationship might end. You might have to move. You’ll deal with those moments when they come. All you need right now is to appreciate and enjoy what you have. It’s enough.

Call yourself out. Learn what it looks like to grasp at people, things, or circumstances so you can redirect your thoughts when they veer toward attachment. When you dwell on keeping, controlling, manipulating, or losing something instead of simply experiencing it.

Define yourself in fluid terms. We are all constantly evolving and growing. Define yourself in terms that can withstand change. Defining yourself by possessions, roles, and relationships breeds attachment because loss entails losing not just what you have, but also who you are.

Enjoy now fully. No matter how much time you have in an experience or with someone you love, it will never feel like enough. So don’t think about it in terms of quantity—aim for quality, instead. Attach to the idea of living well moment-to-moment. That’s an attachment that can do you no harm.

Letting Go of Attachment to People

Friend yourself. It will be harder to let people go when necessary if you depend on them for your sense of worth. Believe you’re worthy whether someone else tells you or not. This way, you relate to people—not just how they make you feel about yourself.

Go it alone sometimes. Take time to foster your own interests, ones that nothing and no one can take away. Don’t let them hinge on anyone or anything other than your values and passion.

Hold lightly. This one isn’t just about releasing attachments—it’s also about maintaining healthy relationships. Contrary to romantic notions, you are not someone’s other half. You’re separate and whole. You can still hold someone to close to your heart; just remember, if you squeeze too tightly, you’ll both be suffocated.

Interact with lots of people. If you limit yourself to one or two relationships they will seem like your lifelines. Everyone needs people, and there are billions on the planet. Stay open to new connections. Accept the possibility your future involves a lot of love whether you cling to a select few people or not.

Justify less. I can’t let him go—I’ll be miserable without him. I’d die if I lost her—she’s all that I have. These thoughts reinforce beliefs that are not fact, even if they feel like it. The only way to let go and feel less pain is to believe you’re strong enough to carry on if and when things change.

Letting Go of Attachment to the Past

Know you can’t change the past. Even if you think about over and over again. Even if you punish yourself. Even if you refuse to accept it. It’s done. The only way to relieve your pain about what happened is to give yourself relief. No one and nothing else can create peace in your head for you.

Love instead of fearing. When you hold onto the past, it often has to do with fear: fear you messed up your chance at happiness, or fear you’ll never know such happiness again. Focus on what you love and you’ll create happiness instead of worrying about it.  

Make now count. Instead of thinking of what you did or didn’t do, the type of person you were or weren’t, do something worthwhile now. Be someone worthwhile now. Take a class. Join a group. Help someone who needs it. Make today so full and meaningful there’s no room to dwell on yesterday.

Narrate calmly. How we experience the world is largely a result of how we internalize it. Instead of telling yourself dramatic stories about the past—how hurt you were or how hard it was—challenge your emotions and focus on lessons learned.  That’s all you really need from yesterday.

Open your mind. We often cling to things, situations or people because we’re comfortable with them. We know how they’ll make us feel, whether it’s happy or safe. Consider that new things, situations and people may affect you the same. The only way to find out is to let go of what’s come and gone.

Letting Go of Attachment to Outcomes

Practice letting things be. That doesn’t mean you can’t actively work to create a different tomorrow. It just means you make peace with the moment as it is, without worrying that something’s wrong with you or your life, and then operate from a place of acceptance.

Question your attachment. If you’re attached to a specific outcome—a dream job, the perfect relationship—you may be indulging an illusion about some day when everything will be lined up for happiness. No moment will ever be worthier of your joy than now because that’s all there ever is.

Release the need to know. Life entails uncertainty, no matter how strong your intention. Obsessing about tomorrow wastes your life because there will always be a tomorrow on the horizon. There are no guarantees about how it will play out. Just know it hinges on how well you live today.

Serve your purpose now. You don’t need to have x-amount of money in the bank to live a meaningful life right now. Figure out what matters to you, and fill pockets of time indulging it. Audition for community theater. Volunteer with animals. Whatever you love, do it. Don’t wait—do it now.

Teach others. It’s human nature to hope for things in the future. Even the most enlightened people fall into the habit from time to time. Remind yourself to stay open to possibilities by sharing the idea with other people. Blog about it. Talk about it. Tweet about it. Opening up helps keep you open.

Letting Go of Attachment to Feelings

Understand that pain is unavoidable. No matter how well you do everything on this list, or on your own short list for peace, you will lose things that matter and feel some level of pain. But it doesn’t have to be as bad as you think. As the saying goes, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Vocalize your feelings. Feel them, acknowledge them, express them, and then let them naturally transform. Even if you want to dwell in anger, sadness or frustration—especially if you feel like dwelling—save yourself the pain and commit to working through them.

Write it down. Then toss it out. You won’t always have the opportunity to express your feelings to the people who inspired them. That doesn’t mean you need to swallow them. Write in a journal. Write a letter and burn it. Anything that helps you let go.

Xie Xie. It means thank you in Chinese. Fully embrace your happy moments—love with abandon; be so passionate it’s contagious. If a darker moment follows, remember: it will teach you something, and soon enough you’ll be in another happy moment to appreciate. Everything is cyclical.

Yield to peace. The ultimate desire is to feel happy and peaceful. Even if you think you want to stay angry, what you really want is to be at peace with what happened or will happen. It takes a conscious choice. Make it.

Zen your now. Experience, appreciate, enjoy, and let go to welcome another experience.

It won’t always be easy. Sometimes you’ll feel compelled to attach yourself physically and mentally to people and ideas—as if it gives you some sense of control or security. You may even strongly believe you’ll be happy if you struggle to hold onto what you have. That’s OK. It’s human nature.

Just know you have the power to choose from moment to moment how you experience things you enjoy: with a sense of ownership, anxiety, and fear, or with a sense of freedom, peace and love.

The most important question: what do you choose right now?

Read more from Lori at Tiny Buddha, providing simple wisdom for complex lives. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha’s feed or follow Tiny Buddha on Twitter for daily quotes.

—

Fellow Bloggers

You might be interested in a couple things I’m doing:

• A free report: Lessons from Zen Habits. You’ll need to sign up for the A-List Blogging Bootcamps mailing list to get the free report, and you’ll also get a copy of my other report, How I got 100K Subscribers in 2 Years. Disclosure: the mailing list is for news & updates about our blogger bootcamps, but if you don’t like the emails, you can always unsubscribe.
• Awesome bootcamp: How to Make Your Blog Pay the Bills. We’ll look at the most effective strategies for making an income off your blog, while still keeping your reader’s trust and your own integrity. This is going to be really fun, and sign-up ends soon!

After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She has declared May 20th “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”

Time to get out the Photoshop and Illustrator.  We can all have fatwas now!

I personally don’t observe Lent, as I’m not Catholic, or Methodist, or any other of a vast number of dogmas that recognize this period; I can however appreciate the sentiment of reflection and introspection. Sacrifice. From the Latin root “Sacra” meaning “sacred rites” and “facere” “to do, perform, make”. Literally, “to make sacred”. Preparation to cleanse oneself of impurities. Such is the reason for people “giving up” things for Lent.

In Google trends, “what should I give up for lent?” is the 64th most searched phrase as I type this. Bishops in Britain are urging people to give up iPods for Lent, as well as lowering their carbon footprint by eating dinner by candlelight, then sending the money savings at the end of Lent to the poor. I’ve seen stories of people giving up Facebook, or a favorite sweater, even masturbation for 40 days….Hollywood even chimed in with a movie about Josh Hartnett um, not gelling his hair or something, I didn’t watch it, but point is that there are an infinite number of trivial things one can do without for 40 days, but I think that to really sacrifice, is to purify your body and mind, by giving up things that are detrimental to health or sanity. It doesn’t have to be a big item, but it does have to be a big commitment.

My many one vice is soft drinks.  I drink entirely too many of them.  I can’t stop myself, if there is a soda in the house it will not be there come morning.  I drink liters of soda a day.  The last time I actually counted, it was 8 or 9 20oz. bottles or glasses a day.  I have gone through 3 two liter bottles of Dr. Pepper in a little over 18 hours before.  I love my soft drinks.

In each of those delectable bottles, there is 17 tablespoons of sugar.  Bees could pollinate my blood right now.  I am overweight, generally lethargic, and addicted to things that make my body continue to pickle and give me the attention span of an ADHD fifth grader in a room full of shiny.

Which brings us, dear reader, full circle.  Starting today, Ash Wednesday, until sundown on Easter Sunday, I will not have a drink of soda.  I will use this time to reflect on myself, my health, and my family; I will try not to lose my mind as I go through the sugar withdrawal; and I will report back on my status.  I will use this forum as my own personal sounding board, so bear with me during the next 6 weeks.  My hope is that I will emerge on the other side cleansed, purged, made sacred.

• The weight loss effort has hit a definite stall.  Not losing any ground, but not gaining any either.  Very frustrating.  Yes, I know it will pass in time, but it still sucks.

• Haiti.  Am I the only guy that can’t tell much of a difference in the “Before” and “After photos of that country?  Don’t get me wrong, I have strong sympathy for the people of that country.  Like nearly everyone else on the planet, I’ve made a donation or two because Lord knows those folks need all the help they can get.  However, it wasn’t exactly paradise before the earthquake hit.  I think most of the blame can be assigned to the corrupt, ineffectual leadership in Haiti.

And speaking of corrupt, ineffectual leadership…

*pause while I unlock the mental barrier which has been containing my anger*

• This country is doomed.

The ‘American Experiment’ is a failure.  “We The People” are too short-sighted, too self-righteous, and too uneducated to make a Constitutional Republic succeed.   Unlike many of the voters who voted for Barack Obama, I don’t think he’s the second coming of Christ.   I actually believe that if he got everything he wanted passed through Congress it would be a Bad Thing.  On the other hand, the Republican Party has gone from Clown Shoes to the completely absurd.

In government’s zeal to confer rights and privileges on their corporate supporters that individual humans do not enjoy, this country has become run by ‘The Highest Bidder’. (We can thank the Supreme Court, and the Republican-appointed majority, for this one…)

The Republican Party has become content to be the kid in the back of the classroom who shouts “nuh-uh!” whenever someone else tries to make a point.  If they can stop Obama from doing anything until the mid-term elections next year, all they will do during the campaign is say “See? Obama can’t do anything!” and ask the voters to put them back in charge.  And “We The People” will fall for it.  If you are one of those people who takes Limbaugh, Beck, or O’Reilly seriously, please… shoot yourself.   I’ll be the first to admit that they can be fun to listen to sometimes.  I am a big fan of Rush’s “Demonstrate Absurdity by Being Absurd” routine.  However, if you don’t realize that they bend and distort facts in order to support their own skewed world view then you lack the mental faculties necessary for effective exercise of your sovereign responsibilities in the political process.  (Translation: You’re too fucking stupid to vote.)

And the Democrats…  How, exactly, can you be so ineffective when you have a 60-40 majority in the Senate and a clear majority in the House?  Are you that scared of a filibuster?  Call their bluff and make them do it!  Make them stand on the floor of Congress for 48 hours and read a phone book or something.  Use some tricks of parliamentary procedure and force cloture.  For god’s sake don’t back down from a fight!  You want to know why voters are becoming upset with you?  Because you are the spineless cretins that your political opponents say you are.  Brew a few dozen pots of coffee, and camp out in the Senate chambers until the GOP runs out of steam on their filibuster.  Make them talk for a week if you have to.  Congressionally speaking, there isn’t one Democrat in either house with the will, leadership, or charisma to take the fight to the GOP.  Obama is the balls, brains, heart, and soul of the Democratic party right now, and would-be Presidential candidates would be well served by getting out there and kicking some butt right now.

Oh yeah, one more group…

Libertarians/Ron Paul-ites/None of the Above’rs

The reason that nobody votes for you is that you don’t run a candidate who can play the game.  I’m not saying you have to play by “their” rules, but you should at least know enough about how things are done in Washington to avoid tripping on yourselves once you get there.  Find a candidate who can engage people and has a touch of charisma, then hire the best political strategists you can find.  Wade in to the muck in Washington and get something done.  Otherwise, you’re a bunch of dilettante debaters whose Ivory Tower theories will never have the chance to be proven right or wrong.  Raise some money and win an election or two, then maybe you’ll be taken seriously enough to get your ideas into the minds of voters on a more regular basis than “Some pissed off techno-dweeb’s blog of rage” (you know… like mine.)

I am not sitting in front of my TV watching politicians talk about their latest plan to “save us”.   The only thing I ask of our political leadership is to keep things fair for all of us so that I can succeed on my own merits.   I don’t want to hear phrases like “Too Big To Fail” in the future.  I don’t want to hear politicians talk about “what’s fair for…” anyone that isn’t an individual (preferably ALL individuals) in our country.  “They” are spending way too much time and energy defending and serving interests other than the people of this country.  Why do I tell you this?

Because “They” are all crooks.  Every single one of them.  The whole rotten structure of our government is run by a bunch of opportunistic whores who would shoot their own kids if it would get them the votes they would need to stay in power.  Do you know whose fault it is that they are still there?

Ours…

and that is why we’re doomed.

One of the great things about baseball is that you can look through a mountain of statistics and still have arguments about who the greatest players of all time are.   I can imagine that there are a few baseball writers out there who think “Sure, Dawson was really good, but this isn’t the ‘Hall of Really Good’.  I can think of several other players in his era who were better.”

As much as I believe that Andre Dawson belongs in the Hall of Fame, I could understand that there might be an argument on the issue.

Maybe some writers think that only players who are in the discussion of “Best Player of All Time” belong in the hall?

I’m going to pick a list off the top of my head of the “generally considered” best baseball players who ever lived.  I’m going to include 5 hitters and 5 pitchers.

For hitters, how about…

• Ty Cobb
• Babe Ruth
• Hank Aaron
• Ted Williams
• Joe DiMaggio

I’d say that is a pretty good list of “Best Ever” candidates, wouldn’t you?  You have the former all-time hits leader, 2 former all-time home run leaders, the last man to hit .400, and a guy who hit in 56 straight games while winning a metric fuckton of World Series titles and was frequently introduced as “Baseball’s Greatest Living Player” (which is not even close to true at any given point in his life, see examples: Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, etc) while banging Marilyn Monroe.

For pitchers?

• Walter Johnson
• Cy Young
• Grover Cleveland Alexander
• Christy Matthewson
• Warren Spahn

I don’t think there is any argument on any of these players, do you?  In a game where 300 wins is considered “automatic”, we have a 400 game winner, a 500 game winner, and 3 350 game winners.  All won World Series titles.  4 of the 5 were named to baseball’s “All Century Team”.

What do all of these men have in common?  Not one of them was a unanimous choice for selection to the Hall of Fame.

Somewhere out there, there was a sportswriter who thought “You know?  Babe Ruth was pretty good, but I’m just not sure he’s Hall of Fame material.”

Somewhere out there, there was a sportswriter who looked at Cy Young and said “Sure, he won 511 games, and they named the award for best pitcher in the league after the guy, but I’m not quite sure he can cut it on my Hall of Fame ballot.”

I think I know why there was a sportswriter or two who looked at Hank Aaron and said “Yeah, he’s the all-time Home Run champ, but I ain’t voting for him for Cooperstown.” and I hope those people are rotting in a special place in hell.

And lest you think that it’s the “old fogeys” who had it wrong, let’s take a look at a few “no-brainers” from recent years.  Again, just picking 5 off the top of my head…

• Cal Ripken Jr.
• Rickey Henderson
• Johnny Bench
• Nolan Ryan
• Ozzie Smith

Ok, we have “Mr. Ironman”, the all-time stolen base champ, the best catcher in the last 50 years, the all-time strikeouts leader, and the generally acknowledged best fielding shortstop of all time.  All were elected on the first ballot.  All received over 90% of the votes available… but not 100%.

In fact, there has not been one player in the history of baseball who was a unanimous selection for the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Really?  There’s not one guy out there who every voter could get behind?  Lou Gehrig?  Willie Mays?  Mickey Mantle?  Nobody?

What’s worse, is now some idiot is going to claim “tradition” when he refuses to vote for Randy Johnson, or Greg Maddux, or Pedro Martinez, or Ken Griffey Jr, or *Alex Rodriguez.  If Cy Young wasn’t unanimous, then how could Greg Maddux be voted in with 100% of the vote?  If Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron couldn’t draw every vote, how can you justify voting in Albert Pujols unanimously?

*A-Rod, with the steroid/HGH/PED thing might get a few nay-sayers who refuse to vote for anyone connected to that controversy, and I totally get that. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it.

But here is the final straw for me…

I’m going to show the statistics for two players…

Player A:

• 15 year career
• 224 HR
• 1068 RBI
• .317 AVG

Player B:

• 18 year career
• 219 HR
• 1326 RBI
• .303 AVG

Neither player has won an MVP.  Player A has never led his league in any of the above offensive categories.  Player B has led the league in RBI and batting average once. (same year… guy wins 2/3 of the Triple Crown and didn’t win the MVP that year.)

One of these players is generally considered by sports writers to be a “No brainer, sure fire, first ballot, no-doubt-about-it Hall of Famer”  the other was dropped from the ballot after only getting 4.3% of the vote in his first year of eligibility. (You have to get at least 5% to stay on the ballot from year to year.)

So which of these players is Derek Jeter and which one is Al Oliver?

(Answer:  Jeter is “Player A”)

After looking at all of the evidence, I am forced to conclude that sportswriters, particularly baseball writers, are a bunch of self-righteous, sanctimonious, self-important jerkoffs who let their own egos and sensibilities get in the way of any semblance of objectivity.

Unfortunately, this lack of professionalism hurts the game industry. We need more real game journalists who do a good job covering the industry and showing what is really going on. Sadly, this is all too rare and most game “journalism” fails spectacularly.

Why journalism matters

Why get all worked up over game journalism? It’s my old friend legitimacy again. Without real journalists and critics, we don’t move forward as fast as we might otherwise to gain more acceptance as an expressive medium. If we have too many “journalists” that just read press releases and gives unfaltering praise to big games (reserving scorn for smaller games with little advertising budget), then we reinforce the same patterns that already dominate the industry.

This is also the reason why it’s not entirely hypocritical for a crass game developer to point at a journalist and ask them to be professional. What I sometimes lack in decorum I make up for by trying to move the industry forward in other ways.

And, I don’t believe journalism can be completely replaced by blogging. As much as I love bloggers (being one myself), we just don’t have the impetus to do the real work needed. Blogs are often good at lightly covering topics, or being quick to pick up on an interesting story. Real journalism digs deeper into the story and verifies facts.

I think that everyone, especially game developers, need to start appreciating good journalists more in order to move the industry forward. Real journalism takes time and effort, and has a potentially lower return on investment if we don’t give them support. It might be nice to have a popular site willing to regurgitate press releases, but it’s better to have critical insight. While I don’t appreciate Roger Ebert’s perspectives on video games, it’s not hard to see that critics like him have had a tremendously positive influence on movies.

The culprit

So, let’s look at an example of “game journalism” over at Joystiq about NDS closing down. Here are some of the inaccuracies in a two-paragraph blurb:

“We don’t blame you if you can’t remember Near Death Studios…“
Except that the company is newsworthy enough to get coverage on the front page of a major news site.

“…which today announced…“
Actually, the blog post referenced was dated the 31st of December, while this article was posted on the 5th of January.

“…nine years spent trying (and failing) to make money…“
Actually, we made a fair amount of money. Enough to pay five full-time employees at once time. Not luxurious wages, but about what my blue-collar father made when I was growing up. The problem is that we stopped making money just this last year and I didn’t want to put the game in financial risk.

“The now-ironically named developer…“
That’s not what “ironic” means. Unless you’re talking about dramatic irony, in which case we got the joke because we picked the name in the first place.

“We can’t help but wonder if changing the company name might have helped “Near Death” earn more confidence from prospective financial partners.“
Let me end your wondering: No. Just like nobody turns away from Blizzard because they’re afraid of being buried in snow. Coming from the Midwest, “blizzard” is most definitely a negative term for me.

And this is an article posted on the front page of one of the largest game sites. What’s really unfortunate here is that this reflects typical attitude for large sites toward small developers: smaller developers get thinly veiled contempt. A topic that some other sites have handled with some delicacy becomes the target of mockery. It doesn’t matter because I’m not likely to make a huge ad buy from a site like Joystiq. (Compare the tone of a story the previous day about EA shutting down multiplayer servers for old sports games. Less mocking there probably because EA will buy a large amount of ads when a new game they want to hype is coming up.)

A bitterly funny interlude

It sure is interesting that NDS is getting all sorts of attention these days now that it’s ending. Few people took so much interest when it was still running. Props to the people out there who did pay attention and give it coverage before this announcement.

All is not hopeless

Let me give a counterexample about why we shouldn’t give up on game journalists entirely. One journalist from GamePro actually contacted me by email to clarify some of the information for a story being written. Although the email got most of the information right, it was nice to see a journalist actually trying to do a good job. the article posted is pretty accurate and even includes a nice quote at the end from me. I appreciate the extra time it took to send an email before rushing to get a story out. Again, we should take time to appreciate people who do actual work to investigate a story.

A call to action

So, let’s start putting this into action. Post in the comments if you’ve seen any particularly great or poor examples of game journalism out there. Let’s start recognizing and rewarding the good people and sites with positive attention and shunning the poor ones. We may not be able to do much individually, but together we might have an influence, and that influence can spread.

Post copyright Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Game Journalism Fail

According to Rush Limbaugh, the health care reform that may be passed by Congress is socialism. Yet, it bears a striking resemblance to the universal healthcare system that just treated him in Hawaii that prompted his remark: “there is nothing wrong with the American health care system. I received no special treatment.”

Yes, Rush. That’s the point! American medicine is superb–for those who can get it. And, in Hawaii, no one gets special treatment, because everyone can get it.

[Er, by the way, just to help you out, Rush, a fair percentage of your listeners do not know Hawaii is part of the United States, so clarify that for them...otherwise, they will wonder about you]

By accepting socialist medical treatment in Hawaii, therefore, Rush Limbaugh has shown that, when one is ill, what matters is the availability of quality health care, even if it is socialist.

Rush follows a long litany of conservatives, such as all Members of Congress that have a medical office paid for by taxpayers available in the Capitol, by Dick Cheney who had socialist pacemakers implanted paid for by the government, and George W who had a government-paid socialist colonoscopy while in office. Members of Congress over 65 get single-payer socialist medical care from Medicare.

Hawaii has had nearly-universal employer-mandated health insurance since 1974. Although its Pacific Island location makes the costs of everything–from gasoline to milk to ice cream to housing–the highest in the nation, health care premiums in Hawaii, for comprehensive care with small co-pays and deductibles, are nearly the lowest and their costs per medicare beneficiary are the lowest in the nation.

Why? There are a variety of reasons, most traceable to universality. With everyone covered by primary care, emergency room visits tend to be for real emergencies, not the non-emergent care mainland ERs dispense for people without coverage. That reduces the costs of ERs and the costs of non-emergent medicine since patients can be handled less expensively and more effectively by their primary docs. Hospitals have not overbuilt, acquiring expensive machines to compete with their neighbors for patients. Insurance companies have instituted screening and other measures to improve wellness among their covered populations.

We can all be pleased that Rush appears to have survived his encounter with socialist medical care. He seems to be very happy himself, commenting on the results of a socialist angiogram that showed no disease in the arteries that feed his heart muscle.

Now, of course, Rush does not live in Hawaii and so his costs are not covered by the Hawaiian insurance system, but having that “socialist” system for more than 3 decades has not reduced the quality of the care he received. Who would have thunk it!

If Hawaii-style medical care is good enough for Rush Limbaugh, it is good enough for me.

Thanks Rush, and with it my hopes that your medical insurance covers all your costs and that the greatest country in the world can make that same care available to everyone.

Happy New Year!

More on Dick Cheney

As always, read after the jump if you are interested in details.

Results:

• Current Weight:  307
• Start Weight: 310
• Goal Weight by 3/1/2010 (12 weeks): 290
• Weight Loss to Date: 3 pounds
• Weight loss by 3/1/2010 at current pace (12 week total): 9 pounds

As if this isn’t wrong enough, now according to Fox News, thieves have stolen the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign from the entrance to Auschwitz.  For those of you not up to date on your “Nazi Death Camp History”, Arbeit Macht Frei is German for “Work makes Freedom” and the sign (seen above) was the first thing Jews saw when they arrived at the camp.  Of course, for many of them, the next thing they saw was a gas chamber, making Arbeit Macht Frei perhaps the most cynical Nazi slogan of all.

I could understand stealing priceless works of art or archaeological treasures from antiquity, but is there really some sort of black market for this?!?  Is some Nazi sympathizer or racist moron out there thinking “Ya know?  I’d pay me a couple million bucks for that sign from Auschwitz.”  I can’t imagine anyone remotely sympathetic to the plight of Jews (or gypsies, or homosexuals, or Communists) in WW II thinking “Gee, I’d sure love to have that sign.” or even wish to see it destroyed since it is such a visible and well-known reminder of what happens when intolerance and racism run amok.

This definitely belongs in the “WTF” file.

UPDATE:  According the BBC News, Polish police are questioning suspects and the sign has been recovered.  The thieves cut the sign into 3 pieces and just walked off with it.  No word on if they’ll be asked to screw in a lightbulb anytime soon. (Sorry, that’s just too easy.)

“While we support the freedom of religion and the right to free speech, we feel strongly that if the city of Raleigh is going to allow an overtly Christian display to be erected in our public square, other points of view should be represented as well,” noted Mark Zumbach, President of TFS. “Not doing so would have given the appearance that our city government is endorsing Christianity.”

Their display is a explanation of why we celebrate this time of year:

I think it’s positive without being disparaging — kudos to the TFS for the nice wording.

Even more positive is the fact that during the unveiling celebration earlier today, attendees were told to bring non-perishable canned goods or to make a financial donation for the Food Bank of Central Carolina.

(Thanks to Todd for the link!)

Since you probably don’t have the slightest idea what you said, seeing as how it’s now several hours after the interview, let me refresh what little is left of your memory: You claimed that Barack Obama has fostered a “more partisan” environment than the one that existed during the Clinton administration. You said:

“At least under ‘Hillarycare’ they tried seriously to negotiate with Republicans. There’s been — there has been no effort that I know of that — serious across-the-table negotiations, such as I have engaged in with Democrats and with other administrations. And that was the commitment that the president made.”

Wow — really? Really?

That’s interesting there, John, because I could’ve sworn that just a few months ago I watched Obama give a health care address on national television and speak in nothing but the most conciliatory and respectful tones toward the opposing party — that would be yours — only to have some disrespectful asshole from that party shout “YOU LIE!” at him like a drunk at a fucking redneck bar.

And you know something? Obama continues to reach out to Republicans. He continues to try to compromise with them and appease them — to his own detriment, if we’re being honest. This guy is still trying to make nice with the people who, since before he even won the election, have called him a dangerous, terrorist-sympathizing, socialist who wants to kill our grandmothers and who wasn’t even born in this country. You fucking lunatics literally paint him as some kind of illegitimate pretender to the office — you’re so beavershit terrified that your precious country is slipping away from the control of white, Christian oligarchs and oligarch-enablers like yourselves. Your True Believers organize hilariously bombastic celebrations of willful ignorance and provincial know-nothingness — you call them “tea parties” — where they hold up signs declaring “Obama is a Nazi!” They bring guns to places where the President of the Fucking United States is speaking, tacitly threatening him and his supporters with “violent revolution,” irresponsible nonsense that’s consistently stoked by Republican lawmakers both on Fox News and, occasionally, in person. All this — all this — and you have the fucking gall to say that Obama’s the one creating a toxic political climate?

Have you been mixing your anti-depressants with Cindy’s Demerol?

Look, I get that after being stomped like a kid at a Cincinnati Who concert last year, you decided that it was time to get on your knees, open wide and start swallowing load after load of the GOP Kool-Aid again — otherwise you’d have no friends — but you can’t really believe the horseshit you’re shoveling. Obama’s gone so far out of his way to make a group of people who are never going to like him happy that he’s actually losing the support of a lot of people who thought they could like him no matter what he did. Even the spineless twerps across the aisle from you in Congress cede both the floor and their testicles to you every chance they get.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve got two words for you: Sarah Goddamned Palin.

Yeah — this morning’s little pearl of wisdom comes from the guy who unleashed the Retard Kraken onto the world. Sorry, but I’m not giving credence to one fucking thing you say until you apologize for taking a cynical political gamble that would’ve put a petty, feckless ex-beauty queen — Idealogue Barbie; someone with more shameless, naked ambition than brains — just one of your steadily faltering heartbeats away from the highest office in the free world. You wanna talk about somebody who’s really fostered partisan enmity — even in her current role as, well, a fucking reality TV star? Sarah Palin.

And you shot her into the American political system’s veins like so much bad smack.

Thanks for that, John. Oh, and fuck you very much for emphatically embracing your party’s current ethic of shitloads of hypocritical psycho-projection. You guys are right: It’s everyone else’s fault. Do yourself a favor, pal. The next time you think that, instead of announcing it on Fox, just go take a look in the mirror and address that person.

But first eat your oatmeal, then it’s good-night for you. 5 o’clock. Way past your bed time.

Because you’re old.

South Park WIN

Dig Wins? Check out Epic Win FTW

Picture by: RubsNL Submitted by: RubsNL via Fail Uploader

In a drastic move to tighten regulations of the Internet, individuals can no longer register domain names in China, and those who already have personal websites could lose them.

According to a statement on The China Internet Network Information Centre, as of this week, the only people who can register new domains will be businessmen or organizations, and all those new registrants will need to have both written application materials as well as copies of their enterprise’s business license or organization code certificate.

The China Internet Network Information Centre, which supervises domain name registration, says that the measure stemmed from concern over widespread pornographic content on personal websites.

Existing individual domains could also be in trouble. Website owners in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Henan, Zhejiang and Jiangxi said their sites were no longer accessible.

The Next Web

Two more parties this week, and of course, the big week next week with at least 3 Christmas dinners.  Workouts are key, so I’m going to cut this short and hit the weights right now.

Results:

• Current Weight:  310
• Start Weight: 310
• Goal Weight by 3/1/2010 (12 weeks): 290
• Weight Loss to Date: 0 pounds
• Weight loss by 3/1/2010 at current pace (13 week total): 0 pounds

Most folks don’t have the stones to do something like this during the holidays since most of Western Civilization has made an institution of overeating during the holiday season.  In my case, I plan on “More turkey, lesss mashed potatoes and other carbs” and hoping for the best.  Between that and all the travel, I hope to minimize the damage done.

Aside from that, my workout plans involve Kettlebells 3 days/week, and strict adherence to a diet plan for folks like me who have “insulin issues”. (According to my doc, I’m a “managed” diabetic, which would technically be true no matter what I weighed.  I just don’t have to deal with the constant blood sugar monitoring and strict diet.  It is, more or less, a “Sword of Damocles” that I’ll have to live with, courtesy of genetics.)

For my week 1 numbers… Well, you know what to do.  Suffice to say that I do not expect to maintain this kind of weight loss over 13 weeks.

Results:

• Current Weight:  307
• Start Weight: 310
• Goal Weight by 3/1/2010 (12 weeks): 290
• Weight Loss to Date: 3 pounds
• Weight loss by 3/1/2010 at current pace (13 week total): 39 pounds

An Associated Press feed reads:

Police arrested a vice president from Bieber’s record label, Island Def Jam Records, saying he wasn’t cooperating with attempts to disperse the crowd. James Roppo, 44, of Hoboken, N.J., was charged with a series of misdemeanours, including endangering the welfare of children and obstructing governmental administration.

“We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message,” said Nassau County Police Det. Lt. Kevin Smith. “By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk.”

Now what group of teenagers is going to follow some VP at Def Jam on Twitter?  Note that the police didn’t ask Justin Bieber, the celebrity at the mall to send the tweet.  This shows that the police are getting out of control in Nassau County.  They could have just tasered Roppo like most cops do, but instead they decide to arrest him.

Get in shape or pay a price.

That’s a message more Americans could hear if the health care reform bills passed by the Senate Finance and Health committees become law.

This is CHANGE we can believe in.  The Senate is proposing that not everyone is equal in the health care debate.  Pressure will be on the workers to live a healthy lifestyle, or their employer can raise their insurance rate.  That’s right people it’s time to lose weight, stop smoking, and lower your cholesterol.

The proposal is backed by the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.  Opposition includes unions, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association.  No surprise that the unions are against the proposal.  Have you seen all the fat GM workers that were on television when the bail out was at its peak?

The incentives could attack a national epidemic of obesity. They also cut to a philosophical core of the health care debate. Should health insurance be like auto insurance, in which good drivers earn discounts and reckless ones pay a price, thereby encouraging better habits? Or should it be a safety net in which the young and healthy support the old and sick with the understanding that youth and good health are transitory?

Health insurance should definitely be like auto insurance.  It is a hedge against a potential bad outcome. If you are doing all the right things then you should be rewarded.    Instituting a system where those who are contributing to society and not over consuming are rewarded will make for a better world.

Valeo is a company that has some good ideas with regard to implementation of health standards.  You may get an insurance discount if you submit to tests proving your health.  If you choose to be anonymous then you pay a higher premium.  This concept is no different than drivers who allow their insurer to put a GPS in the car for a discounted premium.  Basically the message is everyone pays a certain price, but if you jump through hoops then you get a discount.

We are facing 10% unemployment, along with the rise of robotic factories, and information technology that reduces the need for manual labor.  A few less people would bring the labor market back into equilibrium. It would continue transforming the world workforce into intellectual laborers.  This would be progress from the industrial revolution where everyone labored in dirty factories.

What about the safety net for the old and the sick?  Since death is inevitable it would be illogical to expend resources on individuals where there would not be significant benefit.  The old have had their time in the spotlight and need to step off the stage of life and let a new generation take over.  The world belongs to the young and the ambitious, not the old, fat, and lazy.  This is not to say that we should stop research into life extending technologies.  If new technologies can extend the useful lifespan of the brain and body, thereby extending productive life years, then such research is welcome.  Research has shown that obesity and Alzheimer’s disease are related.  This shows that fat people will continue to be a drain on the system by taking up space in nursing homes at an earlier age.

What kind of world would your eyes prefer?

There should be some benefits for the obese.  We need a biodiesel commodity on the futures markets so that fat people can sell futures contracts to deliver a quantity of blubber for processing.  Considering that these people are irresponsible with how they live their lives today, they would probably sell more futures than they could deliver safely.  Which would mean that we would have to send some repo men to “collect” on the contract so the rest of us can drive our fine German or Japanese automobiles.  This is a good way to reduce unemployment, carbon emissions, and Alzheimer’s disease in one simple step.

There would be economic benefit from a futures market in fat.  Funeral homes could be transformed into biodiesel reclamation stations to provide our future energy sources.  This would be an economic shift and allow petroleum companies to get into a new market, thus creating jobs.  We could have Valvoline Haus or The Penzoil Home for the Obese as nursing homes for our large friends.  Monsanto could buy McDonald’s to create a new form of genetically engineered fast food for our livestock that will fuel the economies of the future.

McDonald’s macht Kraftstoff!

We must stand with our German allies because when the Taliban came for Oktoberfest, I said nothing.  When the Taliban came for Budweiser, I said nothing.  When the Taliban came for Milwaukee’s Best, I said nothing and then the Taliban had the best beer in the world.

On a more serious note the Tool that is head of the Songwriters Guild of America says,

“We make 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money,” said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters’ Guild of America. “Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I’m not kidding. People think we’re making a fortune off the Web, but it’s a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn’t going to work.”

It sounds like Rick has a serious problem.  They’re suffering from a pricing model that undermines their success.  This happens in many industries before they go under.  If Rick were Asian he might be figuring out a solution to the problem by coming up with a new business model.  Unfortunately he’s choosing to whine about needing multiple revenue streams rather than finding the home run revenue stream that will enable them to drop all the little ones.  Songwriters will find new ways to profit without the guild or the music industry will, god forbid, consist of people who enjoy writing music.  Maybe banning music is going too far, but making sure that the crap is off the shelves might be a nice side effect of this upset in the market.  Think of a world without Britney Spears or The Backstreet Boys.  Ok, we’ll have to figure out what to do with all the Top 40 radio stations, but surely some smart Asian will have an idea.

First it was the knee injury, then doctor’s orders to stop working out until we get my BP under control. (much better now…)  Suffice to say I didn’t get much working out done.  That said, I still managed to maintain a steady 2 pounds/week weight loss pace. (I had a small blip in the middle when I went to Florida with the family, but I buckled down after that.)  I’m sure I will continue this plan after I return from Dragon*Con, and I’m not exactly eager to eat a bunch of sugary crap food, but I’m not going to fret over it for a few days.  The doctor checked me out last week and said that I’m on the right track and to keep it up.  That’s a pretty nice vote of confidence.

Details:

• BP is coming down to acceptable levels, but we’re still figuring out the right cocktail of drugs to get it perfect.
• Body is adjusting to new BP meds, but it’s not too bad.

Results:

• Current Weight:  310
• Start Weight: 334
• Goal Weight by 9/1/2009 (DONE): 300
• Weight Loss to Date: 24 pounds (2 pounds per week)
• Weight loss by 9/1/2009 at current pace (12 week total): 24 pounds

Plan for this week:

• More walking (Dragon*Con… I’m sure I’ll get more walking in.)
• Stay on diet plan, but understand that meals will be irregular, like everything else at D*C)
• Take a break for a week or so, and then set a new goal. (300 is only 10 pounds away, so I’m thinking 280 pounds by the end of the year)

Continue reading Breaking: Turbine sues Atari over Dungeons and Dragons Online

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If you’re out there and come across any more of these gems shoot us a line. If they’re good enough you may even see them up on the Certified Sound Board.

Went to the doc and had my blood pressure checked, and it was “holy shit!” high.  High enough that I am temporarily restricted from lifting weights, and must confine my workouts to walking and tennis.  The good news is, it is trending downward, and with continued weight loss, I should be fine.  I’ve been told to “forget that salt exists” but that “a drink or two per day with caffeine isn’t the end of the world for you.”  Doc says that my current diet is fine, and that I am heading in the right direction.

Details:

• Did well on the diet, but need to do better on between-meal snacks. (cannot miss them)
• Must keep exercise “low intensity” for a few weeks due to BP.
• BP Medication is playing a few tricks with my energy levels, but I feel fine overall.

Results:

• Current Weight:  316
• Start Weight: 334
• Goal Weight by 9/1/2009 (2 weeks): 300
• Weight Loss to Date: 18 pounds (1.8 pounds per week)
• Weight loss by 9/1/2009 at current pace (12 week total): 22 pounds

Plan for this week:

• More walking
• Stay on diet plan.

Or are you willing to rein in anarcho-capitalism long enough to come up with a solution that works for everyone? People who rail against “Socialized Medicine” live in constant fear of having medical decisions made by government bureaucrats, but would you rather live at the whim of insurance company executives who see you as nothing more than an account ID? Choose your poison folks.

Ironically he cites a life expectancy graph that has Japanese at the longest lived.  First of all, there is no comparing Japanese society to American society.  Diet is typically cited as the reason Japanese people live so long, not the kind of health care they have. As a matter of fact the Japanese system is more privatized than the US according to Professor Naoki Ikegami with 80% of hospitals being truly private with no government subsidy or subsidized workers.  Americans need to drop the burgers for some rice, tofu, and fish.  Then hit the gym more than they do to get the effect of walking everywhere like the French and Japanese do.

On the topic of which is better for you, the government plan or the plan of the big corporate insurance providers, we can take a look at the pros and cons of each.  Brother Grim says that the corporations will treat you like an account ID.  Well the government will treat you like a social security account ID, so there’s no difference with regard to identifying you.  Government is also a less trustworthy due to remarks that ignoring constituents because “they are just people” and the partisan closing of GM and Chrysler dealers.  It would appear that viability of the dealership was not a criteria, but who the owners donated to was.  This shows that government does not look at numbers only when making decisions, which is bad.  You know that the decisions made by government will be to the political benefit of who is in power.  Unlike China where there is only one party, you are at the mercy of your party being out of power when you have to depend on government.  So a government system is automatically stacked against 49% based on the consensus of the popular results of the general election.

How are the corporations superior to the government system?  Both identify you by some number and treat you like a number.  Where does the corporate system have greater benefit?  First, you get to choose which entity you want to go with.  I’m also including HSAs in the mix for young people who want to be self insured.  This lets the population choose which plan suits their lifestyle.  The next area that insurance companies excel at is data.  Actuarial tables and the Statistical Value of Life (SVL) can be used to calculate an appropriate payout.  This is superior to the government solution which relies on humans to make the decisions and puts these decisions in the hands of economists, mathematicians, and programmers.  If the formulas used by an insurance company are under change control and auditable then the consumer knows what circumstances they can expect the insurance company to pay and what circumstances the insured is better left to their fate.

This serves to enhance marginal private benefit by letting the formulas decide for families the appropriate time to stop throwing good money after bad.  There is no single formula for SVL, but many take into account occupation, education, hereditary diseases, current age, and other factors.  There are also general flat rate formulas such as the US DOT’s Treatment of the Economic Value of a Statistical Life.  If you’re in a plane crash you’re worth $6million.  Any way you calculate it, you can determine what is the best solution for your family.

How does this benefit a family?  If you have ever had to serve under medical power of attorney, you know that it is illogical to run a family into bankruptcy expending resources on someone where the computations indicate a lack of equlibrium between cost and benefit.  Americans unwisely bankrupt themselves on spending for end of life care.   If it makes little numerical sense to put grandma’s house on the auction block to pay for 6 months of chemo or dialysis then why do it? Another area is nursing home care which costs approximately $6000 per month according to the 2007 Genworth Cost of Care Survey.  It may may more sense to ship grandma to Portland Oregon or Beijing China where an honorable assisted suicide is legal, rather than wasting the family’s money on a futile effort or worse, allowing the government to seize grandma’s estate to cover her care costs, thus depriving the clan of resources.

That resource could be used to fund the college education of the children of the clan then why undertake such “heroic” measures as the medical care field says.  This leaves fewer resources to pour into a dynasty trust which in turn leaves fewer resources for education and betterment of the clan unit.  In one generation a clan can go from blue collar and poor to white collar through education.  We can also apply the same principals to child care as well.  If a very young child has a terminal disease the parents can always make another one.  This would be logical if the family has more than one child to care for.  With a minimum of $200,000 of child raising expenses, it’s better to reboot early on than spend a ton of money then lose out and have to reboot.

The corporate alternative provides us with a logical and auditable solution that doesn’t put families in the poor house, and maximizes marginal private benefit without the introduction of subsidies, taxes, and dead weight loss.  It also benefits the individual by creating the positive externality of reducing marginal social benefit that a government plan would introduce, thereby reducing competition for resources and enabling the individual to obtain said scarce resources in a more accessible fashion.

What makes this ten times funnier is that the GOP is seriously considering running a moron like Palin for President in 3 years.

Oh, and you’ve already heard my go off on the Health Care system in this country, but I thought I’d throw in a gratuitous chart which might make my point a little clearer.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to this. “Do you want to live a longer, healthier life?” Or do you think it’s going to be ok to hear “Sorry that you can’t afford proper medical care. You’re going to die.”? Is “Tough Shit” a good enough answer for you? Or are you willing to rein in anarcho-capitalism long enough to come up with a solution that works for everyone? People who rail against “Socialized Medicine” live in constant fear of having medical decisions made by government bureaucrats, but would you rather live at the whim of insurance company executives who see you as nothing more than an account ID? Choose your poison folks.

While trying to get past my general level of disgust for the Richardson and the “Good Samaritan” (TM) that turned the harlot Mercado in I’ve come up with a few quips. This is what happens when Conservative Family Values and Political Correctness fuck each other and spit out some horribly deformed assbaby. Also, come on, there are Boobs and Food, surely no man in the world can find something wrong with that.

Look joking aside, if you are reading this and are in a position to help Jacqueline Mercado and Johnny Fernandez or know someone who can please don’t sit by the sidelines. If nothing else, spread the word and help make sure people out there know what’s going on.

Here are a few other images of child pornography according to Texas.

I like Henry V for the same reason most others do; the inspirational tones, the mounting suspense of battle, and the dance numbers. Ok I made that last part up, but still.

I like to draw parallels to my own life and often quote the play as the situation demands. Often I can be heard walking through the office exclaiming “Once more into the breach, dear friends…” But nothing inspires me against the overwhelming forces we all deal with every day like hearing or reading the famous St. Crispin’s Day speech. The French outnumber the English 5 to 1, they are veteran troops and fresh, unlike Harry’s bag of tired sore soldiers. No one would mock them if they just packed it up and came home, but the rallying cry of Henry steels his men and tempers that steel with swagger and off to win the Battle of Agincourt they go behind their inspiring leader.

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

God Save the King.

(P.S. If you haven’t seen Kenneth Branaugh’s Henry V do yourself a favor and watch it immediately. The following is a scene from that film which has one of the greatest choral arrangements I have heard in a long time.)

The Dow Jones Islamic Market International Index Fund (JVS) seeks performance that corresponds to a benchmark index that measures investment return on “Shari’ah compliant securities. JETS notes that certain businesses are incompatible with Islamic law and therefore excluded from the fund. These sectors include alcohol, conventional financial services (banking, insurance, etc.), casinos, firearms, and pork-related products.

That last part doesn’t sound very fun.  To many people investing is not fun, so let’s get down to basics.  The JVS fund opened up on July 1, 2009.  The opening price per share was $399.99.  In less than a week the fund as fallen down to $38.85 per share.  Sharia doesn’t appear to be a good investment.

The stock market works through good old supply and demand.  Let’s take a look at the JVS fund in depth and see what it looks like.

This looks very pitiful.  There were only 100 shares of the Sharia fund traded today.  It’s not that popular compared to other picks.  Let’s take a look at the Level II screen to see how many shares are for sale.  A Level II Quote lets you see all the buyers and sellers along with their prices.

The Ask price is what a seller wants to get rid of his shares.  If you’re a buyer you typically buy from a seller at the Ask price.  Here we have someone with 800 shares of the Sharia fund and they are Asking $399.99 for each share.  If you want to buy 1000 shares, you’re out of luck because there are only 800 shares for sale right now.

The Bid or Offer price is what a Buyer is offering to take the stock off someone’s hands.  There is a buyer out there and he’s wanting to buy 800 share of the Sharia fund, but he’s only willing to pay $0.15 for each share.  He obviously doesn’t think these things are worth that much.

What this means is, if you want to buy some Sharia fund shares you can put an order in to buy at the Ask price of $399.99 per share.  You could set your Bid price lower than the Ask price to see if the seller will lower his price.  If you Bid price is higher than the currently listed $0.15 your order will appear above the one pictured.  This goes on and on until both parties enter the same price for the stock if you don’t offer the Ask price up front.  But it gets even better folks.  Let’s say that you bought 800 shares of the Sharia fund for $399.99 and now you decide you don’t want them.  There’s a buyer out there offering $0.15 per share.  You can either lose $399.84 per share and take him up on his offer price, or you can name your price and it will appear in the Ask column.  Then you hope and pray to Allah that someone will buy those shares at your Ask price.

Now let’s look at a more exciting example, the Direxion 3x Daily Financial Bear (FAZ)

This fund also has a good example in it to illustrate price moves with a volume of over 185 Million shares traded today.  There are a total of 22400 shares for sale between the NASDAQ and PACX at 5.07.  What happens if someone buys all those shares from these two sellers?  The price next price listed is 5.08 with 3500 shares.  That is what happens behind the scenes when a stock price goes up.  Unfortunately the Sharia fund is unlikely to go up since it only has one seller who will probably never close a deal at $399.99.

This fund (FAZ) is not Sharia compliant.  This is a fund that performs opposite to the traditional financial sector we all know and love to hate (Citigroup, AIG, Bank of America, etc).  This is a 3x short fund so it basically means when the stock market goes down, this thing goes up at 3x the rate.  If the banking sector is down 5%, this fund goes up 15%.  And that’s how you make money when the market is going down.  Unlike the Sharia fund.  This puppy has had over 185 million shares traded today.  The Sharia fund on the other hand only traded 100 shares today.  Finance is hot, Sharia is not.

If you aren’t feeling very Sharia, then the Vice Fund (VICEX) might be worth taking a look at.  It is a traditional mutual fund and not an ETF.  The fund managers invest in tobacco, alcohol, and casino companies.  In a recession vice companies tend to do better than regular companies . I don’t own any VICEX shares, but it may be something worth researching if you don’t find the Sharia funds to be that profitable or fun.

Now most journalism professionals or bloggers who get paid for their trouble will take the time to temporize or moderate their words out of a sense of respect for the topic or person in question.

I am neither, nor do I have any respect for the person in question.

Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska on the 4th of July weekend.  Did she think we wouldn’t notice?  She quits her job only 2 1/2 years into her first term as Alaska’s governor, with her only other executive experience being Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of 7,000 people.  Let’s put this in perspective.  As a director at Dragon*Con, *I* have experience managing a community with more people than that!

From the Washington Post:

Palin offered few clues about her ambitions but said she arrived at her decision in part to protect her family, which has faced withering criticism and occasional mockery, and to escape ethics probes that have drained her family’s finances and hampered her ability to govern. She said leaving office is in the best interest of the state and will allow her to more effectively advocate for issues of importance to her, including energy independence and national security.

Hey, bitch!  Who was it that decided to have their pregnant-unwed-teenage daughter tour as a spokesman for “abstinence education” in the first place?  Who was it that engaged in unethical behavior?  Who, exactly, is going to give a damn what you think about anything now that you hold no office and no realistic chance of regaining one?  How is it our fault that you have managed to fuck up everything in your life from your family to your state?

More importantly, why would any sane human being give you another chance to do it again?

And now you’re talking about suing a blogger because she has reported some of the various rumors surrounding you and your administration?

Oh, PLEASE give me a piece of that action!

In fact, I’ll make it easy for you.  Here is a laundry list of all of the rumors, none of which have been asserted as fact, that have given you cause not only to sue bloggers in a clear violation of everything that the 1st Amendment stands for, but also have given you cause to quit your job after 2.5 years, most of which was spent on the McCain’s campaign trail.

Naturally, with the overwhelming doubt in the minds of the public that these could possibly be the real reasons she was stepping down, questions were asked. Phones started ringing in Alaska from friends and relatives who wanted the “real story.” Alaskans were even asking each other what they thought was really going on. Questions were many and answers were few.

There seemed to be dozens of rumors circulating about the governor at any given point in time, and this week was no different. People were muttering about personal family problems, about new ethics complaints, about legal cases involving her use of personal off-the-radar Yahoo email accounts to conduct state business. Then there was talk about the legality of her legal defense fund which is currently being questioned, or maybe even personal illness. But the ones that seems to have gotten under the governor’s skin were reports involving rumors floating about town that there was some kind of shenanigans going on with the simultaneous building of the governor’s house, and the Wasilla Sports Complex, and a supposed IRS investigation. Was this the infamous rumor of an “iceberg” that could sink the S.S. Palin as had been reported on another Alaskan blog? Are any of these rumors actually true? Who knows. Are they being talked about in open conversation at holiday barbeques all over the state today? Oh, yes.

There it is, I’m blogging about it too.  Sue me.  I fucking DARE you.

In fact, I’ll make it even easier!

Here are some other instances where I have blogged about you.  Surely you can find something to sue me over.

• Sarah Palin’s connections to Scientology
• Sarah Palin is full of it alright…
• Sarah Palin, You’ve got FAIL!
• Sarah Palin, the ultimate hypocrite.
• Sarah Palin, The Master Debater *snicker*
• How I am more qualified to be Vice President than Sarah Palin

Somewhere in that twisted mind of Palin’s, she is seriously considering running for President in 3 years.  Let’s take a look at just some of the strategic missteps that she has made.

1. She has quit the only significant elected office that she has ever held. (Sorry dear, Mayor of Dogpatch doesn’t make you qualified to be President.)
2. She has stated as one of her reasons for quitting the aforementioned job that the press’s “withering criticism” and “mockery” were too much for her to handle.  Really?  If you think the reporters on the political beat in Anchorage are a riot, just WAIT till you meet the Washington Press Corps.  Oh, that’s right.  You did, and they had a field day with you.
3. She is catering to the nutbag-conservative-Christian base, but has an unwed teenage daughter with a child of her own who is going around preaching the virtues of abstinence.  (Sorry, but this cracks me up every time.)
4. Her husband makes Larry The Cable Guy look like Noam Chomsky.

I don’t know how many of you remember when the Clinton’s came to Washington, but the endless “Here come the Clampett’s” references were a staple of early 90′s comedy.  How the GOP managed to find an even more inbred, unsophisticated, simple-minded clan to foist on the American electorate is still a mystery to me.  At least the Clinton’s belied their image and proved to be remarkably sophisticated operators in Washington.  Could you even fathom the possibility of Todd Palin becoming Secretary of State someday?

I think I just cracked a rib.

So please, Sarah… Add me to your list of bloggers that are going to be hit with a lawsuit for reporting rumors about you and your administration.  I’m begging you.

The thing is, what Chez is feeling is hardly unique.  Songs are written, poems are composed, suicide notes are scrawled with many of the same feelings, they just aren’t as eloquently written in most cases.  We are constantly bombarded with the word “Love” in the course of talking about relationships, especially with our spouses or significant others, but ask someone to define the word.  Seriously, find 5 people you know and ask them “What does love mean?”

I’ll give you 10-1 odds that their answer is a mish-mash of Hallmark Card sentimentality and touchy-feely nonsense.

Leave it to the crankiest sonofabitch that ever trod shoeleather to give you all an explanation which will work for you, and probably help you in your relationships to boot.  First, let me provide some points on what “Love” is not.

• “Love” is not something that humans possess in finite quality.  You not only can love more than one person, you probably do.
• “Love” has not a damn thing to do with sex or desire.  The love you have for your parents or children is THE EXACT SAME (seriously, I can’t emphasize this enough) as the love you have for a spouse.
• “Love” may make a relationship work, but it is far from the only ingredient.  Love is not “all you need”.
• As nauseating as the “Love is patient. Love is kind.” speech from I Corinthians is, there is fundamental truth there.
• “Love” is not about mutual possession.  Two people can love each other regardless of the time or distance that separates them.
• Hate is not the opposite of Love.  They are two sides of the same emotion, and once you read my definition of “Love”, you’ll understand why.

First, to show you how messed up we have become with respect to this word, here is the Random House Dictionary definition of the word.

Srsly? Whatever happened to not using a word to define itself?  “To love is… to have love or affection”  Really, genius?

Robert Heinlein, via his most famous character, Lazarus Long, once came up with a definition of love that has worked for me over the years.

“Love” is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own… Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.

Not bad, eh?  When you take the time to think about all of the people you truly love, and the people who truly love you, how many times do you think of phrases such as “I just want you to be happy” or “I just want what’s best for you.“  By way of contrast, let’s look at something like a high school crush where the predominant feeling may be described as “I just want so-and-so to like me“  Desire?  Lust?  Probably.  Love?   Definitely not.  Here’s where “Love” has to be put in the proper place in a relationship.  It is quite possible to love someone, but be better off without them in your life.  How, you ask?

• Have you ever been in a relationship where you are constantly demonstrating love for another person, but the other person isn’t reciprocating?
• Have you ever been an “enabler” for someone you love who is engaging in self-destructive behavior?
• Have you ever heard the phrase “If you REALLY loved me…” and felt manipulated?
• Have you ever loved someone that you can’t trust?

Getting away from these people doesn’t mean that you no longer love them.  It means that you understand that your relationship with them is unsustainable for other reasons.  The opposite of love is not hate.  Hate is just a polarity shift.  Hate means that your feelings are just as strong.  The opposite of love is indifference.  If you no longer care, you no longer love.  It is important for your own self-esteem (and self-preservation) to stay away from those who would use your love against you in order to serve their own selfish needs.  It hurts, but it is necessary.

What makes me qualified to pontificate on the meaning of love?  For starters, I enjoy a very stable and happy relationship with my wife, and my definition works very well in the context of our relationship.  Our relationship is built more more than love.  We trust each other.  We know, despite everything that has happened in our relationship, that at the end of the day, she’ll be there for me and I will be there for her.  If that trust were to disappear, so would our relationship, but I’d still love her with all my heart.

Chez, I hope things turn out well for you.  I know that what you are going through isn’t easy, but understand that there are a lot of people out there who love you and want you to be happy.

Lasala, 33, is one of 10 young employees and interns at the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center who are collecting videos, photos and news reports as they wait to arrange interviews with eyewitnesses to the violence.

Killed and Detained Since 12 June.

They also said that they plan to clear the country of hooligans.  Which is pretty easy to do when you don’t have a serviceable soccer team anymore.  I had no idea there were that many British soccer fans in Iran, but if the Supreme Leader doesn’t like them trashing his stadium then he’s well within his right to make a losing soccer team so the Brits don’t destroy the place after they lose the match.

Poor planning is one many reasons Iran will fail and Asians will end up ruling that part of the world.  We understand the value of building a winning team at all levels.  We also understand that winning at all levels is important.  But Iran has yet to produce a Supreme Leader that rivals the skills of Mao Zedong or Ho Chi Minh.  Not that the current Supreme Leader has any math skills to speak of since he only realized this week that more than 100% voter turn out is not normal.

Back straight, relax your arms, use your hips… I pick up the 53 pound kettlebell, and it feels a lot damn heavier than 53 pounds.

I’m not going to overdo it today, just a few swings to make sure I can use proper form without the knee hurting.  Just a few halos to make sure my shoulders are still up for this.  Something I haven’t noticed in previous workouts.  After only 10 reps on each side, I’m breathing heavy.  Nothing hurts.  I don’t feel fatigue, but my heart rate is definitely elevated.  A “normal” workout for a kettlebell beginner is 12 minutes of swings one one day, 5 minutes of “get ups” on the next.  Take a day off, then repeat the first two days. (10 minutes of stretching exercises (pumps and halos) before each workout)

I think I’m going to cut that in half for the next week or so until I’m sure I’ve got my wind back, or maybe work in an extra stretching break  in the middle of each set.  I’m still going to use the 35 pounder for get-ups, but I feel strong enough to give the 53 pounder a shot soon.

Enjoy.

By the way, this clown (Benny Hinn), is the same Jesus-huckster who convinced Evander Holyfield to write a check for a quarter million bucks.  I guess it should be no surprise, given Holyfield’s masterful job at managing money, that Evander not only had his house foreclosed but is a deadbeat dad to boot.

P.T. Barnum was right…

What those people don’t realize is that it’s intentional, and I think it’s healthy. It’s a balance I’ve created between my family life with my wife, my work life at 38 Studios, and my play (video games being one of several activities). In my world, my family comes first, work comes next, and my entertainment comes last.

A lot of people assume that someone dedicated to their work will spend double-digit hours there every day, working through lunch and taking no breaks. That’s certainly a sign that such a person is dedicated to work, but it doesn’t mean they lead a balanced life or that someone who doesn’t do that isn’t dedicated to their job.

The truth is, I love my job. I get to wake up every weekday and take on new, intellectually stimulating challenges as a game designer at 38 Studios. I get to work closely with people of every discipline, socializing with them while we work, playing ping pong, or getting in a game of ultimate frisbee at lunch (hooray I can play again after many months of wrist problems!). I get to be creative and solve problems. I get to be on time, bust my ass, and make it not suck (that’s for you, Curt).

But work comes second for me. I love my wife, Deanna, even more than I love my work. So, I’ve made a very intentional, conscious effort to ensure that she stays first. No, I don’t wake up early by nature; I’d rather sleep until noon. But, my wife gets home early (she’s a special education teacher), and I want to spend as much time with her as possible. So, I come in as early as I can, and I leave work as early as I can as well.

That said, I’m not imbalanced toward my wife. I take providing for my family very seriously, and think of working hard as part of the family equation. I bust my ass and work very efficiently while at the office in part because I really care about Copernicus and in part because I want to ensure that I can provide for my family in the future.

Finally, we come to play. It’s the last thing on my list, but it’s a necessary one. My play consists of hockey (when my wrist is fully healed), reading, watching TV/movies, listening to music, video games (duh!), and a random assortment of other activities. I get a little bit of playtime every day by myself. It’s usually video games or reading a book on the average day, but all play helps me to achieve balance in my daily life.

All work and no play makes Ryan a dull boy. All play and no work makes Ryan a dull boy. Without a balance of all three things in my life–Family, Work, and Play–I eventually start to notice that imbalance and its side effects.

Note that I also worked pretty hard on this even when I wasn’t married, and even when my wife was still in school in Colorado and I was in San Diego. Back then, “Family” was good friends. My family in San Diego consisted of people like Marlon, aka BBQ, and other good friends I hung out with. I did work a little too hard sometimes (or play a little hard, as the case may have been), but it lead me down the right path to find the proper balance of Life, Work, and Play.

In my circle of friends, we do a fair amount of abuse to one another.  We insult, we snark, we deal with it pretty well most of the time.  Not long ago, it got ugly.  I was never particularly fond of fat jokes, but with most of my friends, whether the have spelling issues that lead me to call them “illiterate” among other names, or dance like the worst cliche of “White Man’s Disease” you’ve ever seen, or have something else going on that is “fair game” for the rest of us, I’ve learned to deal with it, and not let it bother me too much.

That all changed the day one of my friend’s kid said “Kevin, you’re fat.” and started laughing.

If this had been an adult and not a 6 year old child, I would have broken his jaw.  I was so mad, I was literally shaking.  I can’t really hold it against the kid, he’s 6.  He doesn’t know better.  I guess I could hold it against his parents, but I’m reasonably sure that they would be mortified had I decided to make an issue of it.  I let it go, figuring that I’d get over it.

I didn’t.  Every time my friends even get close to that particular topic of discussion, I went silent.  The kind of silence that screams to anyone who knows me. “Don’t go here… You really don’t want to go here.”

In fact, several months later, it makes me just as angry today as it did then.  So much so that my friendship with this little boy’s father has suffered.  So much so that I am loathe to speak to him, lest I say something unkind about a child who had no idea what he was saying, or how much it hurt.

What it has also done, is motivated me.  Not because I’m trying to impress anyone, but because 10 years ago, it would have taken a bold man, indeed, to make such a comment in my presence.  The idea that my own friends don’t respect me because of this problem is nearly unbearable.

I’m seriously pissed about it, enough that I am shutting myself away from my own friends in order to do something about it.  I guess, at the end of the day, I’m most mad at myself, and that’s as safe a target for my anger as anyone.  The hell of it is, most of my friends talk often of their own struggles with losing weight, but for some reason, I wound up as the punching bag.  I can take it, that’s not the issue.  The problem is that I have enough pride not to want to even be mentioned in such a discussion.  Anger and pride can be a powerful motivator if used correctly.

And *that’s* where the drive comes from.

Last night, I hit my brink, and cruised right over into the abyss.

The next person who gives me unsolicited weight management advice is going to get a punch in the fucking mouth.  The last thing I need to hear is some 185 pound gym rat give me yet another lecture on health and fitness.  I’m 6’4 and 325 pounds.  I can throw a beer keg almost 50 feet and play 3 sets of doubles tennis in 90 degree heat.  I took that “100 pushup challenge” and squeezed out 70 pushups before getting bored on my first attempt (finishing the last 30 just on general principle).  I am built like a freakin’ grizzly bear and just about as strong as one.  I’m not a couch-potato, but at 37 years of age, I’d like to be in better shape.  I don’t need to be built like a power lifter, and I’m not trying to “get huge”.  I want to lose some pounds not because I look terrible, but because I want to improve.   Yet all sorts of “educated” people look at the numbers 3-2-5 and think “raging lard ass”.  These are usually the same people who meet me in person and say “You don’t LOOK like you weigh 325.”  A couple of weeks ago, some moron started cracking fat jokes when I mentioned that I weighed 325 pounds, right before I pointed out that he and I have the same waist size.

It aggravates me to no end to hear people refer to BMI and charts that were developed 30 years ago in order to determine if someone is “fit” or not.  I am sick of hearing all about “lifestyle changes” and “new ways of living” for anyone who can’t shop off the rack at Banana Republic.

I don’t WANT to look like an Pimpercrombie & Bitch model.  I just want to make the transition into middle age in a little bit better shape.

Yet to achieve these goals, I am exposed to a constant litany of advice such as

• Work out every day for at least an hour (Who has this kind of time?  Do you have a job?)
• Don’t eat carbohydrates (I understand low carb dieting, and the fact that it sheds weight, but let’s face it.  Bread has been a staple of the human diet since the dawn of time.  Now you’re saying that it’s unhealthy?)
• Don’t eat fat (Oh, explain to me how everyone else on the planet PREFERS fat in their diet as a delicacy, but the US of low fat A is getting fatter by the day?)
• Don’t eat sugar (Which one? Sucrose, Fructose, Dextrose, Sucralose, Upyernose?  You telling me that the sugar in a piece of fruit is just as bad for you as a Twinkie?)
• Take our magic diet pill and the pounds will just fall right off. (Along with your liver, kidneys, and maybe even heart.)
• Try our all-natural Acai-berry-and-ant-fart smoothie… (Because if that fat bitch, Oprah, says it then it MUST be true.)

Weight Watchers, of all groups, has figured it out better than a lot of folks.  There is no magic pill.  There is no “Amazing Fat Loss Secret”.  Watch what you eat, get some exercise, and don’t expect to lose weight that took you 30 years to gain in 30 days.

The hell of it is, I’m not in terrible shape.  My most recent physical showed that my heart is healthy, my cholesterol is just slightly above normal, and my blood pressure is borderline.  In the words of my own physician, “nothing that losing a little more weight won’t cure.”

So why did I tell my wife “Fuck it, it’s easier to get fat and die” last night?

Because my doctor sent me a “diet plan” that was not much more than:

• Don’t eat white starches (rice, pasta, potatoes, white bread)
• Don’t eat sugar
• Eat lots of veggies
• Eat lean meat

No information on portion control, caloric intake, nutrient intake or even exercise.  Don’t get me wrong, I sincerely hope that it’s just this easy, but in an effort to look into “Low Carb diet” (which was the heading on the “diet plan” that the doc sent me), I ran into the biggest problem in the information age.

Too much crap, not enough useful information.

30 minutes of Google-surfing just about made me want to scream.  I saw plans that ranged from the dangerous (Eat no carbs… ever.) to the merely draconian (<40 grams of carbohydrates/day).  My wife, who was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes when she was pregnant with our daughter, went to a dietician who put her on a regimen of 6 meals per day, with no more than 30 grams of carbohydrates per meal.  It balanced out her blood sugar, and she actually dropped 30 pounds during her pregnancy. (not counting the baby, of course)  Now I’m pretty sure her situation is different than my own, but that said, her diet plan seemed to consist of

• Don’t eat too many carbohydrates (with specifics on how much is allowed)
• Eat as much protein as you can
• Avoid sugar when possible

Look familiar?  Doc may be on to something here.

This week, we’re putting together the shopping list and diet plan.  I started my workout regimen this week. For those of you who are interested, take a good long look at Kettlebells.  I started with a 53-pounder, and you can get an impressively tiring workout in a short time with these. (Average workout might take 15-20 minutes/day)

That takes care of the diet and exercise plan.  Here’s the final important part.  Get a support group (again, Weight Watchers is really good at this) of people who can motivate you to keep going when your own self-discipline is flagging a bit.  If you need someone to talk you through a rough patch, drop ME a note.  I’ll help however I can.   You’ve taken your entire life to get to the point where you are today.  Don’t expect to undo all of the damage in a month or two.

I avoid doctors like the plague.  If I ain’t bleeding to death or in serious pain, I figure I’ll be alright with or without the doctor’s advice to rest and take whatever chemical brew that Big Pharma is paying them to push on unsuspecting patients this week.   That said, I have a cordial relationship with my doctor.  I bite the bullet and take a physical whenever my wife’s nagging gets to the point where I feel like shutting her up about the subject.  I know the following medical facts about myself.

I am 6’4 and weigh approximately 330 pounds.  This is considered “heavy” or “obese” by whatever chart was written 30 years ago as the official reference for such things.  These same experts say that I should weigh 185 pounds despite the fact that any physiologist who knows how to measure body fat will tell you that my lean body weight  is 230 pounds.

My bloodpressure is guaranteed to be close to 140/90, which isn’t awesome, but it’s nothing to worry about.

I can play 3 sets of competitive (ALTA, B-5) tennis in summer, and while I might be grumpy, I’ll survive the experience.

My liver function has been abnormal since I was a teenager.  Some enzymes are a little over the “high” mark, but I’ve had several ultrasounds and the diagnosis has always been “fatty liver”.

All in all, I am not exactly a Spartan, but I’m strong as an ox, and smell nearly as bad.

It all started with a simple blood test.  My wife and I were expecting our first child, and her doctor wanted me to get tested to make sure our (soon-to-be) daughter would be free from any genetic gotchas.

My doctor, knowing that I am an incorrigible smart-ass, goes through the usual routine…

“When are you coming in for a physical?”

Soon…

“You know you need to…”

Lose a few pounds, doc… Got it.

“Your liver…”

…function is a little abnormal, nothing to worry about.

You get the idea.

The Doc turns me over to his team of vampires who take a couple of gallons of blood and send them off to the lab.  A week later, I get a call to come to his office to pick up the forms to send to my wife’s doc. (Clever trap, doc… you could have faxed them yourself.)  While I’m there…

What’s up, Doc? (And yes, I really do start my conversations with him this way.  He rolls his eyes and groans like an appreciative audience.)

“How about Diabetes?”

*sound of a record needle scratching*

Well, fuck me running.  That’s a new one.  He says “I’d like to do a fasting glucose test on you to make sure, but your A1C number is way outta whack.“  Long story short, my blood sugar would have had Dracula bouncing off the walls like a 6-year-old with his first Mountain Dew.  The Doc pulls me in to his office for “The Big Sitdown”.

I get a prescription for Metformin.

I get told to lose weight… or else.

Now some of you, intellectually, may think you understand “or else”.  Let me go ahead and tell you that it has a whole new range of color and texture when you are the target of those words.

I went on Weight Watchers that very day.  I took my medicine and started putting together an exercise plan.  I was the very picture of motivation.

Oh, but “They” weren’t through motivating me yet.

I told a good friend of mine at the office about my predicament.  He grabbed my arm and marched me to his desk.  He pulled out a backpack and handed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“Open it…”

It was his “Diabetes Kit”.  All 11 prescriptions he had to take, his blood sugar measuring gear, and enough other stuff to completely fill the backpack.

“You want to take all this?  Then listen to your doc and do what he says.”

It did not escape my notice that one of the prescriptions was for Viagra.

“Oh yeah, one of the side effects of taking all these other drugs… Good thing I already have 3 kids.”

It was at that moment when I felt real fear for the first time.  Not “Oh lord, this is going to hurt…” fear.  This was the first time I ever felt “I’m going to die if I don’t handle this.”

Over the next 6 months, I dropped nearly 30 pounds. (I had weighed in at 348 when I got tested)  I was feeling better than I had felt in a long time.  I went back to the doc, and got the best news I could have imagined.

• No more drugs.
• “Pre-diabetic, managed with diet and exercise”  (It turns out that my family history indicates a tendency towards diabetes.  It ain’t ever going away completely.  That’s just cold hard genetics.)
• Keep dropping weight, and you’ll have a clean bill of health.

A little while later, my wife and I welcomed our daughter into the world, and my diet went pretty much straight to hell.  I gained 10-15 pounds back over the next 8-9 months, but I was exercising more.  I went back to the doc for my physical (because now I knew that it would be anything but routine from now on.)

• Blood Pressure 130/80
• A1C number still high, but just barely.
• Cholesterol numbers just slightly outside of normal.
• Liver and Kidney functions are normal. (!!! That’s a first…)

Oh but wait…

It seems that there was an irregularity in my EKG. (That’s “heart” for those of you who don’t sling medical lingo)  There was a possibility that there was a small blockage near my heart.

Here we go again.

So the doc signs me up for a stress test, and I go get the radioactive shot.  Long story short, it came up clean, but there was that reminder again.

“or else.”

The Doc, also noticing that the Metformin had helped with my weight loss, put me back on the medication, and added some blood pressure meds along with a cholesterol pill.  I believe that it is probably overkill considering the numbers, and said as much.

“Hey, if you’ll go ahead and lose the rest of that weight, we won’t have to worry about these pills anymore.”

I’d like to say that all of this has been enough motivation to get me to stick to a diet & exercise plan and drop the pounds, but there’s more…

But that is a post for a later date.  Suffice to say that I am ready to do something about this, and the first step is challenging myself by putting all this out there for others to see, and for me to go back and review from time to time.  I want to lose 75 pounds by the end of this year.   Maybe that goal is a little too ambitious, but even getting partway there would represent a victory of sorts.

• Goal:  255 pounds by the end of the year.
• Start Weight:  330 pounds. (Monday, 5/25/2009)
  
• Current Progress: 0 pounds.

“I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest,” Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. “They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities’ attention to their appeals.”

Unfortunately Chen survived the fall, so this means he is going to have to try again later.  Lai should be getting a medal from the police for quickly resolving a situation that could have impeded commerce for a long time.  We should take Lai’s example in the US and legalize pushing jumpers off their objects.  After all it is being a good samaritan when you help others attain their goals.

Sexy mascot can stay if curves covered.

Seriously, has any political movement gone from “Majority Party” to “Clown Shoes” so quickly?

Here are some of the choicest tidbits from President Obama’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

• “Dick Cheney was supposed to be here, but he is very busy working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, ‘How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People.’”

• On House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), whose apparent fake tan has long been the butt of jokes inside the Beltway,  “We have a lot in common: He is a person of color,” Obama joked. “Although not a color that appears in the natural world.”

But the line of the night had to be this gem from Wanda Sykes on Rush Limbaugh…

• “I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight,”

The Republican Party has become a complete shambles.  When your party’s guiding lights are talk radio hosts, and some of your oldest and most established members are jumping ship to the other party, perhaps it is time to think about how disconnected you have become from “Mainstream America”.  Seriously, these clowns are seriously entertaining the notion of running Sarah Palin for President in 3 more years.  It might be more dignified, and certainly less expensive to just say “We give up” and let Obama have his second term without a fight.

As a parting shot, I’ll leave you with this little nugget to think about.  The same “Conservatives” who decry Obama’s spending bills and invoke the “holy name” of Ayn Rand when espousing their preferred economic philosophies are the same bozos who voted for Bush’s bailout bill back in December and managed to turn a budget surplus into record deficits in only a few short years.   Hypocrite much?

Not only was my ear ringing so loud that it sounded like I was at a rock concert, but for some reason my jaw wouldn’t close. Did I mention the pain?

I make an appointment with my dentist, because TMJ and I are old friends. The doc takes one look at me and says “Dislocated Jaw… I can’t treat this, we need to get you to an oral surgeon”. So my jaw and I, apparently we are not on speaking terms any more, head to the surgeon’s office (he had a slot open that same day, thank god). He pokes (ow), he prods (Ow!), and he twists (OW! GODDAMMIT!) my jaw and says “yep, you’re dislocated alright. Only problem is that there is so much swelling behind your left ear that we can’t set it back in place. I’ll give you some muscle relaxers for the time being, but you need to see your doctor.

So I see my doctor, who says “Oh yeah, you definitely have TMJ, and your jaw is definitely dislocated (gee, thanks doc). Your ear is so swollen that I can’t even see your eardrum. Your ear canal is completely closed.” Now we add antibiotics and hydrocortizone to the list of things I get to take.

You can imagine how much fun I was as my wife and I drove to Charlotte on Wednesday…

So now we’re to Thursday, my ear is still swollen shut, but at least I can touch my teeth together for the first time in 4 days. (Still not aligned right, but getting there.) I get to sit with a room full of fellow auditioneers and try out for Jeopardy. “Hey, Kevin, tell us about yourself.. Mmpph mmmmm mmm phmmmmph”

Miraculously, I manage to survive the audition process and am now in the contestant pool for Jeopardy, jaw and all.

Here it is, one week later. I can close my jaw just fine and my dislocation is a thing of the past (thank god), but my ear is still ringing, and the swelling is now to the point where I can hear for a few seconds, then my ear stops up again… rinse and repeat all day long.

Just in time to return to work next week  and deal with all of my stressed out co-workers who think that I have been on vacation for a week while they were in the office dealing with Swine Flu.  If it weren’t for my wife, I would be a very scary person to be around right now.

What the f, seriously? Please tell me who is responsible for the current advertising you have deemed appropriate enough to peddle to children your kids’ meal. You know the one I’m talking about, in which the King is rapping with all the gusto of a strung out white boy, in front of some hoochies pop-locking with square asses. Aw hell, here, it’s this one.

Some douche in your marketing department was sitting around, smoking up and watching Spongebob when he thought, “How can I combine the two things children love the most; sex and cartoons?” Well, mission accomplished. Never mind the fact that if children continually eat your greasy, cholesterol inventions, they will end up with butts more in line with Sir Mix-A-Lot’s original song, namely “round and big.”

Incidentally, I just love the fact that you had to make each one of your dancers a different race, so that she can appeal to a broader genre of future pole dancers. Hell, I’m almost sure in the still shot above that I can trace the outline of a vagina. Why give them shorts at all? Just have some naked bitches straddling the Burger King riding on his giant french fry and shouting “Buy our Kid’s Meal! Get a free Dora the Explorer butt plug!”

Damn, now I’ve given you your next commercial.

Sincerely,
Millamber

As always, when such big news spread all over the world, the rumor mills in the Arab world start to work around the clock. The most popular rumor in this regard is that the Muslims themselves created this swine flu virus with the aim reducing the world’s Christian population….

“I believe that it’s indecent. I guess it would categorized as soft porn. If there is a definition of that I would call it soft porn,” said Father Edward Commolly.

The statue is more dressed than people at the beach.  Apparently Father Commolly has not been outside of his church too often or he simply thinks that there is a lot of soft porn out there.  This is where you end up creating idiots like District Attorney George Skumanick.  The misguided belief that not being covered up 100% is pornographic is another slippery slope that threatens to turn our culture into that of the Taliban.  Father Commolly and Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali have too much in common and too much against what makes America great.  Watch the video and see if you think the statue needs a burka.

According to Ars Technica, DA George Skumanick decided to protect young people by threatening to charge them with child pornography unless they submitted to reeducation programs and go on probation. So basically he’s attempting to shake down people and make money for his district by collecting probation fees and by charging $100 to attend a reeducation program. He’s also attempting to copy the Vietnamese by ripping off our reeducation camps. Sorry but nobody does reeducation like Charlie.

What is silly about the whole thing is these girls took pictures of themselves in their underwear. No full frontal nudity at all.

But the parents of Marissa Miller and Grace Kelly were less than scandalized when they saw the snapshot for which their daughters had posed: both were shown wearing opaque white bras no more revealing than a bikini top—one on the phone, the other flashing a peace sign. Skumanick averred that it was nevertheless child pornography because the girls were posed “provocatively.” The pseudonymous Nancy Roe was a bit more exposed in her photo, which showed her fresh from the shower with a towel wrapped around her torso, below her breasts. But her mother doubted whether a bit of nudity was all it took to make a picture “pornographic.”

From the ACLU complaint filed in court excerpt from the INTRODUCTION

One photo shows Marissa and Grace, from the waist up, lying side by side in their bras, with one talking on a telephone and the other making a peace sign. The other photo shows Nancy Doe standing upright, just emerged from the shower, with a white towel wrapped tightly around her body just below the breasts. The two photographs, which depict no sexual activity or display of pubic area, are not illegal under Pennsylvania’s crimes code and, indeed, are images protected by the First Amendment.

Skumanick nevertheless persists in threatening to prosecute the girls because he has deemed the photos “provocative.” Since there is no basis to prosecute the girls for posing in photographs that plainly are not child pornography, in terms of content or production, Skumanick’s threat to prosecute the girls must be considered retaliation against the plaintiffs for asserting their constitutional rights – the parents’ right to direct their children’s upbringing and the girls’ rights both to free expression and against compelled speech – in refusing Skumanick’s demands. Accordingly, plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to enjoin Skumanick from bringing the retaliatory criminal charges against plaintiffs based on their refusal to accede to his demand that they submit to probation and participate in the re-education program.

It gets even more interesting on page 8 where the ACLU alleges that Skumanick did not pursue those who distributed the photographs, but only those who were in the pictures or who possessed them. That’s like saying it’s ok to traffic cocaine, but you can’t produce it or consume it. Way to go idiot Skumanick. To show what an asshat this guy really is check out page 10.

29. One parent stood up during the meeting and asked how Skumanick could be prosecuting his daughter because, according to him, she was in the photograph wearing a bathing suit. Skumanick told the assembled crowd that she was posed “provocatively,” which made her subject to a childpornography charge.

30. In response to Skumanick’s comment, Marissa’s father stood up and asked who was deciding what was provocative. Skumanick replied that he was not going to argue and that he could charge all of the minors there that night but was instead offering them a plea deal. Skumanick also told Mr. Miller

This jerk is a real winner. He doesn’t have to provide any reason or justification beyond “because I said so”. He apparently has the mentality of a 5-year old. He also rubbed it in their faces that minors are not eligible for jury trial. I would assume that the juvenile judge is a good golf buddy of his would be the sole juror, judge, and executioner in such a situation.

Does the ACLU have a good case against this guy?

48. The three plaintiff minors have committed no crime by simply having allowed themselves to be photographed, either in their underwear or topless.

49. The provisions of 18 P.S. § 6312 prohibit depicting, possessing or disseminating images of “sexual intercourse…., masturbation, sadism, masochism, bestiality, fellatio, cunnilingus, lewd exhibition of the genitals or nudity if such nudity is depicted for the purpose of sexual stimulation orgratification of any person who might view such depiction.”

50. The images of plaintiffs do not fall within the definition of the materials prohibited by § 6312.

It seems to be pretty straight forward to me. I wonder how he could have messed that up. Oh, wait. We had come to the conclusion based on evidence at hand that he has the mentality of a 5-year old. Silly us!

The other nice thing the ACLU went on to say is that :

55. Moreover, Skumanick’s decision to prosecute the subjects of the photographs, the three plaintiff minors, is unprecedented and stands anti-child-pornography laws on their head. Anti-child-pornography laws are intended to protect the children shown in the photos and videos, and plaintiffs’ counsel has found no published Pennsylvania or federal court decision sustaining such a prosecution against minors shown in such pictures.

In case you missed it earlier, Skumanick has done nothing to find out who took the pictures and who distributed them. Yes, that’s right. Based on everything in the media and the court papers I can find nothing that shows he expended any effort at all. At least the ACLU has some logic here. How can you be a perp and a victim at the same time? I guess if you appear to have the mentality of a 5-year old you don’t have logic as evidenced by Judge Munley’s smack down on Attorney Hailstone who is representing Skumanick

“It seems like the children seemed to be the victims and the perpetrators here,” the judge, James M. Munley, told a lawyer for the district attorney, George P. Skumanick of Wyoming County. “How does that make sense?”

The lawyer, A. James Hailstone, said state law “doesn’t distinguish between who took the picture and who was in it.”

Hats off to Judge Munley for detecting use of the Chewbacca Defense.  I guess this explains even more. Apparently Skumanick is a mindless automaton who only knows how to follow literal directions. So in fact our assumption that he has the mental capabilities of a 5-year old was vastly out of bounds.

Skumanick must also have some problem against free speech, swimming pools, cameras, and swimwear.

57. Skumanick’s threatened prosecution chills Plaintiffs’ First Amendment right of expression, causing them concern about whether they may photograph their daughters, or whether the girls may allow themselves to be photographed, wearing a two-piece bathing suit.

58. The plaintiff minors will in the near future want to be photographed in their bathing suits, for instance during the summer when they go to a swimming pool or the beach, to which the respective parents have no objection. They are, however, chilled in their ability to take such photographs because of concern whether Skumanick will find them “provocative.”

Mr. Skumanick is now our personal nanny. YAY! I’m sure he’s going to go far under John Ashcroft with the Bush Administration’s PATRIOT ACT to help him. Oh wait!

60. Skumanick’s demand that the girls participate in the re-education program, which requires them to write a homework paper explaining “how [their] actions were wrong,” violates the plaintiff minors’ right to be free from compelled speech.

65. Skumanick’s threat to file felony charges against the plaintiff minors, charges for which there is absolutely no evidence or cause, unless the girls participate in a program that requires them to write a paper explaining “how [their] actions were wrong,” constitutes retaliation against the girls for exercising their right to be free from compelled speech, a right protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Can’t argue with any of the First Amendment points the ACLU is making here. But it gets even better

THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION (RETALIATION AGAINST PLAINTIFF PARENTS FOR EXERCISING THEIR FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS RIGHT AS PARENTS TO DIRECT THEIR CHILDREN’S UPBRINGING)

66. Skumanick’s illegitimate use of government authority to coerce the plaintiff parents to send their daughters to a re-education course that, among other things, would direct the girls to “[g]ain an understanding of how [their] actions were wrong,” “gain an understanding of what it means to be a girl in today’s society,” and “[i]dentify non-traditional societal and job roles,”
infringes on the plaintiff parents’ Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right to direct and control their children’s upbringing.

Skumanick must have some strange male inferiority issues, which makes him a prime candidate for a job with the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan. From reading the entire ACLU complaint this guy seems to have a problem with freedom and liberty and he abuses his authority in a way that allows him to become moral dictator.

From the not so bright department comes this statement from Skumanick

On the other hand, Skumanick stated he will fight the lawsuit. He said, “Frankly, we just wanted to protect these kids, and say, ‘Doing this is not right.’ We wanted to offer this course to educate them, and make them understand the long-term ramifications of having photos like this out there.”

And another

Skumanick, however, remains unfazed. The New York Times quotes the campaigning crusader as saying: “I’m simply giving them an option. We’re not forcing anybody to do anything. Frankly, it’s sad to me that their parents don’t realize this is wrong and they should be encouraging them to take the classes.”

Much like the idiot PIG in Dallas Texas who killed Ryan Moats mother this moron believes that putting teenage girls in jail for 20 years on child pornography unless they agree to be coerced into a reeducation camp is the right thing to do. If his intentions were genuine he would have made attendance at the reeducation camp an option rather than forcing it at the point of a gun.

According to the records from Wyoming County this idiot makes $157,127.88 a year. The detective makes $39,862 and the Assistant DA makes $71,294.28. The parts that don’t look right are the fact that the line item titled Secretaries is $30,667 and Paralegal is $22770.00. Since I could only turn up one Assistant DA on the website, one would assume that you only need one secretary and one paralegal. So why is the secretary making more money than the paralegal? The second largest item is Ins. Fraud Tsk. Force (REIMB) at $92,000. What expenses does the Insurance Fraud Task Force have that need reimbursing that costs more than the Assistant DA’s salary? His entire budget is $467,253.22. He doesn’t have a lot to spend on prosecuting violent criminals so he’s aiming for low hanging fruit by targeting teenagers. This brings into question what is really going on in the Wyoming County DA’s Office and since he was going to pawn off 3 girls to the prison system for a minimum of 20 years each at an estimated $50,000 per year that comes to $3,000,000 that he would inflict on the taxpayers because he wants to make a point. All things considered I would think he has failed in his fiduciary duty to the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.

The good news is that he has opposition in the 2009 election. So head on over to Deborah Albert-Heise’s website and make a campaign contribution. I have chipped in to make sure this ass hat doesn’t have a job and to make sure that Paralegals get fair pay in the future.

Oh PLEASE make Scientology part of the 2012 campaign.  I can’t wait to hear the following phrases uttered during the campaign in all of their delicious irony.

• “Hollywood Elites“
• “He’s not a Christian!” (or any of the various variants of NonXtianphobia)
• “Traditional Values”

Palin doesn’t have a snowballs chance of beating Obama in 4 years, 14 years, 40 years, or 400 years.  She’s stupid, corrupt, and completely beholden to the very worst parts of the Republican party.  Catering to that base will lose elections.  Sound fiscal and regulatory policies are the only thing that will win an election in the foreseeable future, and a platform of “return to the past” isn’t going to win her any votes.

• Lower taxes, but balance the budget.
• Reduce needless regulation, but enforce the regulations you do have.
• Promote both sides of Laissez-Faire capitalism and allow unsuccessful businesses to fail and allow new talent to enter the markets. (Are you listening, AIG?)

Here’s the thing, and you heard it here first.  If Obama accomplishes even half of all of the things he has said that he will do (condensed list “Get us out of Iraq”, “Health care reform”, “Energy independence, no foreign oil”, “Cut deficit in half in 4 years”, “Get Bin Laden”, “Education reform”) you could run Jesus H. Christ, Himself, as a candidate in 4 years and he wouldn’t stand a chance.  The economy could still be in the toilet in four years, but it won’t matter if Obama is successful in building the foundation that he has promised.  Bad times are completely tolerable IF (and this is a big, HUGE, if…) people see that relief is coming.  I’m not talking about empty promises.  I mean real, tangible signs that things are heading in the right direction.

Of course, if the Republicans insist on running Lady Chuzzlewit in 3 years, Obama could win a debate simply by managing not to shit himself while on stage.

Expect Us.

“I can screw you over,” he said at one point in the videotaped incident. When another officer came with word that Moats’ mother-in-law was indeed dying, Powell’s response was: “All right. I’m almost done.”

Even after another COP (notice that good policemen are COPS and bad ones are PIGS) pointed out that there was a problem, the retarded PIG continued to write a ticket while this woman was dying.

In a statement to the press DPD Chief Knuckle demonstrated his ability in understatement

“When we at the command staff reviewed the tape, we were embarrassed, disappointed,” Kunkle said. “It’s hard to find the right word and still be professional in my role as the police chief. But the behavior was not appropriate.”

“His behavior, in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, the discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit,” Kunkle said.

Not appropriate? Lack of common sense? When you have a dying woman in the car you tell the driver,

“Shut your mouth,” the officer said. “You can either settle down and cooperate or I can just take you to jail for running a red light.”

When the exchange was at its most contentious, Powell said he could tow Moats’ SUV if he didn’t have insurance and that he could arrest him for fleeing because he didn’t immediately stop when Powell turned on his sirens. The pursuit lasted a little more than a minute.

That’s just bull that a case like this would be considered fleeing.  This guy obviously forgot his training where people are allowed to not stop until they get to a safe location.  Maybe he also likes to help rapists out as well as kill innocent mothers.

The scary thing to keep in mind is this excerpt from the article.

Police officials said Powell told his commanders he believed he was doing his job,

That’s right ladies and gentlemen. This PIG thought that murdering a woman was part of his job. This PIG believed that revenue was more important than a person’s life. Do you really want these people protecting you? For the record I am using the word murder since he continued to deny the dying woman medical care after a real police officer, who is sworn to tell the truth, informed him that the woman was dying. If it didn’t cross the line from negligence into premeditated murder before that point it certainly did after.

This isn’t the first time a Texas PIG has caused the death of a loved family member through detaining a driver seeking medical care.

After some other fuck ups where cops break into people’s home and shoot family members in the back and then realize they got the wrong address, I believe it’s time to correct this problem with some serious legislation. I’m calling for the death penalty for any police officer who willingly allows his gun and badge to extend his inadequate manhood where it results in the death of a person or harm to any member of their family. This may be a burden on good COPS, but we need some serious weeding out of the undesirables. The collateral damage from creating a shortage of police officers and the risk to good COPS is far more than acceptable. It is needed to only have people who put their lives on the line for others wearing that badge. If you don’t want to do that, then you really don’t understand what it is to be a police officer or a firefighter.

I think we have finally settled the question “Who is the biggest asshole on the planet?“

Officer Robert Powell of Plano Texas, COME ON DOWN!

What kind of extraordinary douche bag stops a car in the Emergency Room parking lot of a hospital, then holds up a panicky family for 20 minutes while, according to nurses on the scene, the man’s mother is “blue coding for the third time”?  For those of you without a background in medical drama or comedy TV, “Code Blue” means that the patient (again, this man’s mother) is dying.  “Code Blue” is when George Clooney gets out the shock paddles and has a concerned look on his face as he screams “CLEAR!!!”

Now I might consider understanding the officer’s point of view if the suspect in question were drunk, drug addled, or waving a gun around.  We’re talking about a man, with his family, in the parking lot of the hospital.  Could a reasonable human being even consider the possibility that this family somehow poses a risk to public safety?

For Christ’s sake, even the other officer on the scene said “Hey, let him go!” but NOOOOOOOOOooo.  Officer Powell just HAD to have that insurance paperwork “rightthehellnow”.

“I can screw you over… your attitude sucks.”

This is what an officer says to a man who’s mother is dying?

What’s worse is that he did just that.  When the young man and his family finally made it upstairs to his mother’s room, she was gone. (Oh, and he was toting a fresh new traffic ticket, courtesy of Officer Douche Bag.)

The Dallas police department, when informed of the incident, formally apologized and dropped all charges against the young man, Ryan Moats.  An investigation is underway, but I’m not sure anyone in Internal Affairs wants to plumb to the bottom of the rabbit hole that is Officer Powell’s psyche.

I am normally not a big fan of professional athletes using their fame, fortune, and position to throw their weight around with the authorities, but as it happens, Mr. Moats is a running back for the Houston Texans.  It is my sincere hope that this young man uses every means at his disposal to ruin Officer Powell’s life as much as is humanly possible.  Powell shouldn’t be in charge of a stamp collection, much less have a badge and a gun.

Hey Powell.  it’s overblown, self-important bullies like you who give real cops a bad name.  If there is any justice in the world, you’ll be drinking from a brown paper bag in a few weeks and living on the street.  I’d rather have the cast of Reno 911 defending my streets than see you continue to hide behind a badge, you fucking coward.

Now the brilliant people on FoxNews are saying that, hey “we” own 80% of them and don’t we get a say?  Well, did the Federal Government call a board meeting to say “We’re the new owners and the new policy is no bonuses or stock options until we say so”?  No, they didn’t.  Though to be slightly fair I bet they didn’t think they needed to call an emergency board meeting to get that point across.

The other dilemma that the people at FoxNews are facing is that the Board has a fiduciary duty to perform.  I doubt it would be legal for any Board of Directors of a public company to simply say, we’re not paying our contractual obligations in terms of bonuses or to foreign creditors (German and French banks) that we owe money to because it’s the American people who own this joint now.  The new stock holders (the government) should have proactively gone to all of the banks that AIG owes money to in order to get a better rate or defer payment until things stabilize.  It’s too late for that now, but Geitner should have a great To Do list.

The other rant I have is about all the Las Vegas parties that the financial industry haven’t canceled.  I’m not up to date on Nevada law, but in Georgia you are not entitled to a refund if you pay in advance.  If you pay your gym membership up front, you get a form that tells you under state law you have no recourse if the other party fails to perform because you are paying in advance and that the seller will not issue refunds for any reason even if the business closes.  You are entering into a 1-year or 2-year contract with payment in full in advance after all.  If I’m running a resort and I have some big wall street types, or small business types or a wedding party, wanting to rent the place out, you can sure bet I’m going to stick them with the non-refundable contract under state law.  They can either cancel their party and I keep their money, or they can throw the party and I can keep their money.  So, don’t be mad at Wall Street for continuing to party.  They’re just doing business with ordinary people who have a facility to rent.

StumbleUpon has carried many web surfers deep in the night, into the wee hours of many mornings by offering a never ending stream of interesting randomness that is always just a click away.

It’s an adventure. Your clicks bring you to visuals and sounds you never would have expected to find on the internet. Before stumbling existed, web surfing consisted of search engines and links given to you on web forums or by friends on IM. Surfing used to be a mundane process where you knew what you were looking for and only needed to find a way to get to it.

Stumbling has brought us unseen destinations, exciting vistas of information and opinion and stupidity, the exotic dangers of a random NSFW page, and the mindless time wasting flash games we would never have found otherwise. StumbleUpon has given people a reason for being on the internet when they have nothing else to do but explore.

Parents have always told their children that it is best to take things in moderation, this also applies to the click of StumbleUpon. Most stumble addicts out there know who they are, and that’s a good first step. No more stumbling through papers and meals, no more stumbling until the crack of dawn scares you into your bed. We can enjoy StumbleUpon, but we must not abuse it. The world misses you, and we only want to see you again and we hope you are doing well.

It is the evolution of the web. We’ve moved past railways and roadways and are now flying through the internet, teleporting from destination to destination. There is a new world to explore, and its all at your fingertips, just one more click away…

The bill declares that “any organism with the genome of homo sapiens” is a person protected by rights granted by the North Dakota Constitution and state laws.

The bill passed 51-41 and is sponsored  Republican Dan Ruby.  Like many Republicans he attempts to get votes from “the core” of the party, unfortunately he has opened up a can of worms that doesn’t help out the Republican party.

“Human embryo” means all human beings from the beginning of the
embryonic period of their biological development through eight weeks,
irrespective of age, health, function, physical dependency, or method of
reproduction, whether in vivo or in vitro.

So harming a “human embryo” is the same as harming a person according to this clown.  This effectively means that birth control is off the menu in North Dakota since you are bringing harm to the embryo by net letting it implant in the uterus.  It would also ban fertility treatments since some of the fertalized eggs are discarded or simply fail to implant.  The creation of a “human embryo” with the knowledge that you may not have a successful implantation may be harming that embryo.

The state shall naturalize all preborn persons and shall afford to them all the
privileges and immunities of state citizenship guaranteed in section 21 of article I of
the Constitution of North Dakota, except that the state is not required to include
preborn children in state and local censuses

Rep. Ruby should be glad North Dakota does not border Mexico.  Mention of the word “citizenship” for the preborn would bring thousands of illegals across the border who don’t get the meaning of what is being accomplished here.

The people over at Office of Strategic Influence had an interesting thought.  Since an embryo is a person, does that mean that uploading your ultrasound to Facebook to share with all your friends is Child Pornography?  You are taking a picture of a nude “person” under the age of 18 and distributing it on the Internet.  Unintended consequences and as idiotic as some prosecutors are expect someone to make a name for themselves by charging people for distribution of child pornography.

The right to life is the paramount right of a person. The right to life is a more
fundamental right of a preborn child than the mother’s right to liberty or pursuit
of happiness, which does not include the right to kill other people. In no way
does a child’s right to life interfere with a mother’s right to life.

Whoa! Here come the Christian Taliban!  The right to life of a preborn child is greater than the mother’s right to liberty or pursuit of happiness.  There is no logic in this piece of legislation.  The pursuit of liberty and happiness is paramount.  Being stuck with a parasite for 9 months then a leech for 18 years interferes with both.  Logically speaking, you can always make another which means the woman has higher priority than any preborn.  She can always make another and we would assume that she is currently contributing to society, whereas a preborn has at least 15 years before they begin doing anything useful due to silly laws.  At least we Asians start contributing at an earlier age in our home countries.

This is clearly in line with something the Taliban would say, therefore we must oppose any legislation that puts our government on a sympathetic track with the terrorists we are fighting against.  Women fought a long time for rights in this country and anything that reduces the importance of women, or those of us that are already here for that matter, is sympathizing with Islamic terrorist philosophy which treats women as less than goats.  The idea that a state representative would commit to writing the idea that freedom and the pursuit of happiness is secondary is frightening and a sign that our elected officials do not have the interests of the American people in mind.  People being those of us that contribute to society and pay the politicians salary.

First, here’s the video.

Now, as you might imagine, the civil libertarian types are up in arms about this. After all, 2 cops beating up a 15-year old girl isn’t exactly a fair fight, nor would any reasonable human being claim that the cops were in any danger. I would imagine that the police officer in this video is going to get crucified.

But should he?

Seriously, they’re working in a local jail which is one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. Some dipshit teenager is mouthing off to them and then kicks her shoes at the police officer. Cops aren’t paid to fight fair, and no amount of compensation justifies taking abuse, verbally or otherwise, from a prisoner. Exactly how hard is it for a prisoner to keep their mouths shut and do as they are told? This isn’t a Rodney King scenario where the “victim” is a free man and not (yet) in custody. This girl was booked and in jail. She was not free, nor should she enjoy the rights of a free citizen. The cops quickly (if a bit harshly) subdued her and then stopped. It appears from watching the video that one officer landed a couple of stiff shots after they had the prisoner down, but if she was still struggling or resisting, then she had it coming.

Jail sucks. But if you keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told, then the guards don’t give you any shit. In fact, they can be downright friendly as long as you understand that they have all of the power and authority and you have none whatsoever. You do not bargain, you do not argue, and you do not refuse a lawful request from “the man”. (And if it is unlawful, they can STILL make you do it before you will be able to get a lawyer. Remember, you have ZERO power. If you fight, you will get put down, hard.)

It seems to be popular with people, especially young ones, to “fight the power” and “stand up to the man”. That’s all well and good if it is for a good cause, but remember. “The man” didn’t get to be that way by collecting stamps. Power is very real, and fighting it can hurt. If your cause is just, then be prepared to take whatever is necessary in order to fight for it, but fighting authority for no good reason will just get you a set of lumps. Something this girl isn’t going to forget anytime soon.

I’m not talking about the rather amusing movie by Terry Gilliam.  I’m talking about a mental disorder where a person fakes or induces illness in order to gain the sympathy of others.  In an age of attention whores, I suppose this represents the Mount Everest of attention-whoredom.  What makes this particularly vile is that the whore in question abuses the trust of their friends in order to gain that attention.  Any idiot can troll for their 15 minutes of fame on a forum or blog, but it takes an especially lame human being to betray the trust of friends in order to satisfy their need for sympathy and attention by claiming illness.

Cancer, to be specific.

“Mr. C” and I are well acquainted.  You see, God has, in what appears to be a rarity for Him, given me a crystal clear picture of what will happen if I start smoking.  Every member of my family who smoked is dead.  Specifically, they died from Lung Cancer.  Father.  Grandmother.  Grandfather.  All dead.  All dead from Lung Cancer.  The members of my family who didn’t smoke?  Well, the youngest of the ones who died did so in their 80′s. (ironically enough, smoke inhalation was involved)  I have one family member who has rivaled Keith Richards for heaviest lifetime drug consumption, but she’s still ticking along in her mid-80s.  Why?  The one drug she hasn’t touched (at least in my lifetime) is cigarrettes.

You can imagine that I’m a little sensitive when the word “Cancer” comes into play.

So when I hear that a friend is diagnosed with Cancer, and I hear that this person is saying their goodbyes.  I make it a point to show up.  I care.  I know, first hand, what it is like to comfort the dying.  I know what it’s like to say goodbye for the last time.  Saying “it sucks” is an insult to black holes everywhere.

So we say our goodbyes, and in the process, I manage to wear another set of treads down my own personal version of “Memory Lane from Hell”.  I see the faces, I remember the last conversations, I feel it all over again.  Some people are sad, but I’m past that part.  I get into full-blown pissed-off-at-the-world-and-want-to-make-you-feel-my-pain mode.  I open the door to the darkest parts of my soul and let the demons run wild for a little while.  In non-dramatic parlance, I am not a very nice person when I go through this.

As bad as all of that sounds, it is nothing.  It is something I will gladly bear for a friend, because at that moment, my friend needs me.  Needs to know that someone is going to stand by them to the bitter end.  It is an act of love, and an act of faith to comfort the dying.  It is one of the things in life that allows a human being to unequivicably declare their friendship, their compassion, and their love for another human being.

It is also an act of trust.

In this case, a trust that was ultimately betrayed.  It seems that she is not as sick as she has let on.

I would like to say that I am going to be the bigger man and not vent any hatred or bitterness about this.  After all, in the long range scheme of things, what does it really matter?  I could take solace in the fact that someone who I called a friend is NOT dying.  I could “find the pony”.

There is an old story about a boy bounding downstairs on Christmas morning only to find the living room brimming over with horse manure. Undaunted, the boy exclaimed, “There must be a pony!” Wrapped within an unfailing youthful optimism, the boy could only see something good in what was an otherwise dire situation.

Instead, I’m going to let it out.  There is no reason for me to hold this in to make someone feel better who has abused my trust in this way.

You (and you know who “You” are) are dead to me already.  You’re not a person with thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams of their own.  You are an abstract.  You are an Internet-fucking-cliche, and know that as long as you continue to draw breath, whether it be for one minute, or one millennium, there will be someone on this Earth who feels nothing for you but contempt.

The great thing about contempt is that is eventually evolves into complete apathy.  Not the “oh gee, that’s a shame” apathy when you read a news report about some stranger dying in a horrible accident, but rather the “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire” kind of apathy.  If you were sentenced to the electric chair and I won the lottery to pull the switch on your pathetic self, I would be popping open a can of beer before you stopped shaking and looking for a ride to the nearest bar to celebrate my service to the community.

Don’t be confused.  I don’t hate you at all.  I hope you live a long life with only yourself as company.  I hope you get to walk down the same kind of memory lane that I do, and see the faces of the dead and dying as they leave you in this life, one-by-one.  I hope every step on that path feels like burning coals and that when your own time comes, that you face it knowing that everyone who ever cared about you has already moved on either physically or emotionally and that you die utterly alone.

On second thought, you aren’t that important to me.  I’m going to focus more on enjoying my own life.

Crafty WordPress bloggers, however, can take back their blog and keep it fresh with their activity from Twitter or FriendFeed with the new Fresh From FriendFeed and Twitter plugin. The plugin uses a “magical” formula to pull recent content from Twitter or FriendFeed, enhances it with relevant video or images, and creates a nice looking – no effort required – blog post.

It’s simple to get started, but once you install the add-on, you’ll want to tweak the features to work for you. On setup, select whether or not you want to show fresh content for FriendFeed or Twitter, enter your username (no passwords needed), select total number of posts, determine how fresh the content needs to be, and definitely select to show images from Twitpic and videos from YouTube.

Next, you’ll want to adjust a few more settings. For example, when dealing with FriendFeed, you can tell the plugin to pull content from the specific feeds you have configured, have it ignore certain services completely, and set maximum limits.

The add-on is not immediately self-explanatory, so we’ll spell a few key things you need to know. The total posts is not on a per day basis, it’s the maximum posts the plugin will add to your blog. We advise you to start slow to see what you think by including only 1 total post. If you do nothing else, “Fresh From” will automatically refresh the same post when there’s new activity.

If you want to keep a particular item you will need to edit the post within the WordPress dashboard and delete the custom Fresh From field (see image). Still have questions? Check out the FriendFeed FAQ room for help.

We really like the idea of keeping our personal blogs fresh with little to no effort, and we love that the final result includes video, images, and links back to the original entries. We hope to see a few more options included in the future, like the ability to have new items saved as drafts, but for now we’re fans and we’d love to know what you think. Will you be installing the plugin for your blog? Tell us in the comments.

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Ready to see a real Burlesque show we wait patiently as the DJ tries to sort out who’s on stage. After fifteen minutes or so a woman in a bikini and clear three inch heels. Okay, no Burlesque show, just a strip club, we can deal with this. Or, so we thought. Four or so dancers in Pixie is leaning over punching my arm, to make sure I’m awake. Yes, it’s true my droogs your Sultan of Sexy had knocked off somewhere between a titty shake and a thong roll.

Has it come to this? Watching all but naked women gyrating on stage, badly, was just not cutting it. There was no arousal. Maybe some mild amusement as we watched “Bros” try to get a stripper to snatch the fiver from their mouth with something other than a hand. It was all stripper dance number 7, nothing new nothing interesting. Could they at least have the decency to pull a string of beads from some unseen crevasse? That may just be me, but please don’t do the same lame walk and shake as the last girl. I realize asking for creativity may be asking a lot but at least some variation.

So my lovely loyals I bring the question to you. Can you become so desensitized to the vanilla that it’s painfully boring? Better yet, if you have a story out there let’s hear it. Post it in the comments section along with a way to contact you and you may win 2 free rentals at the nearest Blockbuster.

Seriously, has there ever been a more contrived “buy shit you don’t need for that special someone” holiday?  It is as if Hallmark, DeBeers, and FTD all got together and said “How can we milk these suckers for even more dough?”  Toss in a healthy smattering of materialistic women (commonly referred to as “bitches and hoes” in many popular forms of musical entertainment) who look at this day as another excuse to cajole the men in their lives to buy them shit in exchange for continued affection (Isn’t that called prostitution in some jurisdictions?) and you have Valentine’s Day.

In fact, the Catholic Church itself isn’t quite sure which St. Valentine they’re celebrating on this day.  It certainly has nothing to do with “the patron saint of lovers”.  That would be an invention of Geoffrey Chaucer.

How did my wife and I spend today?  We took the car in for an oil change, got haircuts, and no… not in some fancy salon.  Crazy Dave’s, for those of you in the Atlanta area, is just about right.  They do better work than the “SuperCuts” places out there, but aren’t full of snotty and preening metrosexuals like the top-end joints.  There is definitely a market for places that cut hair but don’t suck all of the testosterone out of you in the process. Oh, and after that, we came home and took a nap.

Reminds me of what my dad said to me when I told him that Kathy and I would be getting married on April 15th. (Tax day, for those of you not in the US)

“Real fuckin’ romantic, junior…”

Maybe not, but I have a stable, successful, and happy relationship with my wife.  How YOU doin’, Don Juan?

Action Alert – Winter Wickedness

Support the Holiday Inn – Worthington, OH!

February 4, 2009

Please make a phone call now to support the Holiday Inn Worthington, the host hotel for Adventures In
Sexuality’s (AIS) Winter Wickedness Event taking place February 6-8th. The religious extremist group, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, along with a local religious radio station in the Columbus, Ohio, area are running a smear campaign against this pansexual BDSM event.

Peter LaBarbara of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality calls the event “a freakish sadomasochistic perversion-fest” and urges people to call the hotel’s corporate headquarters to pressure them into canceling “for the sake of decency and public health.”

Bob Burney, a religious extremist Talk Radio DJ, devoted an entire segment of his show slamming Winter Wickedness and attempting to link the event with non-consensual and criminal activities. He urged his listeners to call and mount a campaign against the hotel. (Tuesday, Part 3 starting at 10 min 42sec: ) Click here to listen.
It will only take a minute for you to help! It doesn’t matter where you live or if you’re not going to
attend this event. Please call the Intercontinental Hotels Group Corporate Customer service line at 800-
621-0555, then press option 1, then option 5, and thank them for not discriminating against groups, and
for being willing to face minor adversity for the sake of our freedom.

You can also call the Holiday Inn Columbus-Worthington today at 614-436-0700 – they’ll be very glad to
hear a friendly voice to counter the hatred of the religious extremists.

Suggested points to make:

1. Thank you for upholding the Fair Accommodations Act and choosing not to discriminate against legal
events.

2. Please don’t let a small number of religious extremists manipulate you by drumming up fear with their misinformation campaigns.

3. There are over 200 weekend-long BDSM events that take place every year in America – we bring in a lot of revenue in these hard times. We like to stay at hotel chains where we have been welcomed when we’re traveling on personal or business travel.

4. Organizers of BDSM events such as Winter Wickedness at The Holiday Inn comply with state and local
laws prohibiting public sexual intercourse and other forms of sexual intimacy. Demonstrations, lectures
and discussion groups as well as dinners and evening parties compose the variety of offerings to guests,
nothing different from any of the other hundreds of conventions hosted by your franchisees on a weekly basis.

5. Thank you for standing strong against hate and ignorance.

Please pass this on to your friends to call now!

The Associated Press is on the wrong of a fair use argument again. It is actually going after artist Shepard Fairey for his iconic Obama poster, which it recently discovered was based on an AP news photograph by Mannie Garcia. The poster is clearly based on that photograph (see comparison at left), but this is exactly the kind of use of copyrighted works that is meant to be protected.

The poster is art. The image it is based on has been sufficiently transformed that even the AP did not know it owned the copyright to the underlying work until a few weeks ago. And Fairey says he hasn’t made any money from the poster, although others have. You can buy the image on posters, stickers, coffee mugs and T-Shirts, and copies of the poster signed by Fairey sell for thousands of dollars. Still, the AP is wants money from Fairey.

I’d link to the AP story describing the dispute, except that we’ve banned the AP for exactly this kind of behavior in the past. The AP has a history of making copyright infringement claims that push the boundaries of the law. Last year, it went after Websites that copied its headlines, even if they had links back to AP stories. (The AP syndicates its headlines to news organizations, that’s how it makes money, but using headlines as links is also common practice on the Web).

Fair use is under attack, and the AP is leading the charge. Artists like Fairey take copyrighted images and reinterpret them all the time. Many argue that is what art is. Fairey’s Obama poster certainly made a bigger impact on our culture than the original image, which he reportedly found by doing a Google image search. He is being represented by the Stanford Fair Use Project.

I hope he tells them to go to hell, because if this isn’t fair use, I don’t know what is.

Update: This gets worse. It is not even clear that the AP owns the copyright to this photo. The photographer, Mannie Garcie, says he was a temporary staffer when he took it and never signed the AP contract. In a Q&A with Photo News Forum, he throws doubts on the AP’s claims of ownership:

2) Where you either an employee, or a freelance photographer, as defined by their contract, for the AP when you took this image?

I was a temporary hire, filling in for a staffer at the AP. It is my understanding that I was neither a freelancer nor a staffer, but rather a temporary hire. I have never been an AP staff employee, and no, I have never signed an AP contract.

3) So, you own the copyright to the image?

The ownership of the copyright is in dispute, as per the AP. It is my understanding that since I was not a staffer, and was not a freelancer, and did not sign any contract, that I am the owner of the copyright, but I am in discussions with the AP over this issue.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

By now, you may be wondering why we’ve taken such a liking to this album. That can be summed up in a word: Oasis. Not that the wankers from across the pond are directly involved, but they do play a key role in this. As you’re cruising through take a tour of track 10, then go back and listen again. Here I’ll help you out:

So are we taking a stab at rape? Making fun of abortion? Well, yes. Now ask why. Here’s a snippet from Amanda’s blog:

WHEN YOU CANNOT JOKE ABOUT THE DARKNESS OF LIFE, THAT’S WHEN THE DARKNESS TAKES OVER.

Also see:

you’re damn right this shit makes people uncomfortable.
it makes people uncomfortable to hear ANYONE talking about abortion and rape bluntly, much less talking about it LIKE THIS….

and i think it makes people uncomfortable to hear the truth about a very real and sick situation:
if you don’t know – or have never encountered – a teenager who is going through intense heavy experiences (like rape, abortion, eating disorders, abuse, fill-in-the-blank)
and is laughing these things off like THEY DON’T MATTER, then you are not ALIVE and AWAKE and living on this planet.
IT’S HAPPENING EVERYWHERE. i see it all the time. it’s called being a confused teenager. it’s real. it SUCKS.

abortion is serious. rape is serious. lots of things are serious. do they think i’m blind?

the song isn’t even so much ABOUT those topics, it’s about denial, it’s about a girl who can’t find it in herself to take her situation seriously.
that girl exists, everywhere. you probably know her. you’ve probably met her. you might be her.

Straight from the artist and that’s the real tragedy. During a tour of Jolly Ole’ apparently there was a spot of bother with this song. No stations were willing to play the song. The label rep goes so far as to suggest changing tempo, and mood to make Oasis more acceptable. One would think that, of all places England would understand irony and possibly subtext considering the intricacies of ‘proper English’. Then again what can I say? I am but a humbled yank.

If anything comes across, at least for me, it’s this: Pay Attention. Just because something is no longer making headlines doesn’t mean it does not happen anymore. The BBC did breakdown and gave airtime to Oasis on channel 6 but if you check out Amanda’s blog you can see the list of stations that have refused this work, including of course MTV. (Insert quick shot at them not playing any videos.)

If we don’t question then no one is held accountable. If we don’t listen then the answer is meaningless. As always, we don’t have all the answers. Just never forget to think. Don’t be afraid to be heard and if people don’t want to hear what you have to say it might mean it needs to be said.

Amanda Palmer’s Blog

Who Killed Amanda Palmer

We’re all worried, we’re all in pain. That just comes with having eyes and having ears.

- Mark Hunter, Pump Up the Volume

and just ‘cause they call themselves experts
it doesn’t mean sweet fuck all…

- Amanda Palmer, Who Killed Amanda Palmer “The point of it all”

By now, you may be wondering why we’ve taken such a liking to this album. That can be summed up in a word: Oasis. Not that the wankers from across the pond are directly involved, but they do play a key role in this. As you’re cruising through take a tour of track 10, then go back and listen again. Here I’ll help you out:

So are we taking a stab at rape? Making fun of abortion? Well, yes. Now ask why. Here’s a snippet from Amanda’s blog:

WHEN YOU CANNOT JOKE ABOUT THE DARKNESS OF LIFE, THAT’S WHEN THE DARKNESS TAKES OVER.

Also see:

you’re damn right this shit makes people uncomfortable.
it makes people uncomfortable to hear ANYONE talking about abortion and rape bluntly, much less talking about it LIKE THIS….

and i think it makes people uncomfortable to hear the truth about a very real and sick situation:
if you don’t know – or have never encountered – a teenager who is going through intense heavy experiences (like rape, abortion, eating disorders, abuse, fill-in-the-blank)
and is laughing these things off like THEY DON’T MATTER, then you are not ALIVE and AWAKE and living on this planet.
IT’S HAPPENING EVERYWHERE. i see it all the time. it’s called being a confused teenager. it’s real. it SUCKS.

abortion is serious. rape is serious. lots of things are serious. do they think i’m blind?

the song isn’t even so much ABOUT those topics, it’s about denial, it’s about a girl who can’t find it in herself to take her situation seriously.
that girl exists, everywhere. you probably know her. you’ve probably met her. you might be her.

Straight from the artist and that’s the real tragedy. During a tour of Jolly Ole’ apparently there was a spot of bother with this song. No stations were willing to play the song. The label rep goes so far as to suggest changing tempo, and mood to make Oasis more acceptable. One would think that, of all places England would understand irony and possibly subtext considering the intricacies of ‘proper English’. Then again what can I say? I am but a humbled yank.

If anything comes across, at least for me, it’s this: Pay Attention. Just because something is no longer making headlines doesn’t mean it does not happen anymore. The BBC did breakdown and gave airtime to Oasis on channel 6 but if you check out Amanda’s blog you can see the list of stations that have refused this work, including of course MTV. (Insert quick shot at them not playing any videos.)

If we don’t question then no one is held accountable. If we don’t listen then the answer is meaningless. As always, we don’t have all the answers. Just never forget to think. Don’t be afraid to be heard and if people don’t want to hear what you have to say it might mean it needs to be said.

Amanda Palmer’s Blog

Who Killed Amanda Palmer

We’re all worried, we’re all in pain. That just comes with having eyes and having ears.

- Mark Hunter, Pump Up the Volume

and just ‘cause they call themselves experts
it doesn’t mean sweet fuck all…

- Amanda Palmer, Who Killed Amanda Palmer “The point of it all”

The motto “In God we trust” was added to the dollar bill in 1957. Since then its purchasing power, relative to the consumer price index, has declined by a staggering 87 percent.

That’ll make you laugh for a few seconds before you curl back up into the fetal position and get depressed again.

(Thanks to Lexi for the quotation!)

Last week, you may recall our coverage on Tom Chick’s “5 Ways MMOs are broken” and Scott Jenning’s rebuttal article. This week brings a new story to the table of rebuttal with Trembling Hand’s author Tim writing a post on his 10 ways to fix the problems with MMOs. Tim is in full agreement with Chick on how broken MMOs are these days, as he too has felt the wear and tear of the genre. Tim’s newest post, however, points to the many areas where MMOs could improve, such as added AI to monsters, removal of classes and levels and moving towards skill based systems, and even something as simple as…

If it’s broken, then fix it! originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What’s apparently a sign of social ineptitude? Playing online games. At least according to the Coca Cola company, who last Sunday ran an avatar-themed advert that carried with it a strong message: Stop wasting your life with online games, and drink our acidic, sugar-infused soda instead. You can find the commercial after the cut, along with some more slightly baffled commentary….

Continue reading Coke Superbowl ad says: Get a life, buy soda… nerds

Coke Superbowl ad says: Get a life, buy soda… nerds originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just when you thought you had heard it all, MMO gamers are now being called religious zealots. According to Theo Zijderveld, a grad student at the University of Colorado, gamers who experience online worlds “like World of Warcraft and Second Life” are doing so to transcend their physical bodies and “realize a new identity in cyberspace”. This is not exactly news to us, but it’s the connection to religion that becomes interesting. In his 72-page Master’s thesis entitled Cyberpilgrims, Zijderveld cites the four dimensions of religion for his cause: community, ethics, culture and emotion. “The…

Is World of Warcraft a religion? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most of the commercials were “meh”.  Budweiser had the usual cute animal spots.  GoDaddy showed off their 12-year-old sense of humor. (and believe me.  I respect that.)  Doritos and the “Crystal Ball” spot had the best commercial…

What really got me was Cash4Gold.com.  Ok, it was funny to dig up Ed McMahon’s bones, and nice of them to give Stanley Burrell (aka MC Hammer) a ride from his day job at the car wash in order to pitch for C4G and remind us all of how old we have become since the last time either of them were relevant.  But c’mon.  “Mail us your vaulables in a clear plastic envelope and we’ll send you a check for how much we think your jewelry is worth”???  Seriously?  Mail them gold and silver and trust them to cut you a check for a fair amount.

Really?

I know this will come as a shock to most of you, but apparently this is one giant scam!

I recently came across an article called “Confessions of a Cash4Gold Employee“  The article itself is poorly written, which tells me that there is a better than average chance that it’s legit.  After all, if you were very smart, would you have gone to work for Cash4Gold.com in the first place?

I especially liked this example given.

“For ex: Sally Smith receives a check for $27.86 for a Rolex watch(which we don’t issue value for), a class ring, a ring with diamond chips, a pair of earrings with emeralds, as well as a few sterling silver pieces, and maybe a few items that were really of no value”

Ok… I appreciate that the economy sucks.  But seriously, anyone who sends a freakin’ ROLEX to these people deserves what they get.   The author goes on to describe how customer service routinely doubles or triples the amount of money given to people who call in to complain.  After all, paying an additional 50 bucks for the Rolex is still a net profit for the Cash4Gold folks.

Of course, since the “refiner’s kit” they send you is insured for a maximum value of 100 dollars, it is easier for them just to say “It got lost in transit” and have the insurance company pay you off.  Predictably enough, this is apparently a common practice at C4G as well.

Don’t be a sucker, kids…

We actually got this image from one of our readers, Neadric, who mailed it in the other day. He had apparently been waiting on a raid in World of Warcraft, and decided to play some Lord of the Rings Online while he waited. Of course, the thing is that this isn’t terribly uncommon around the virtual offices. Personally, I know I’ve run as many as three at once, although most of the time it’s just two. My regular mix is EVE Online running alongside another MMO – generally World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, or Lord of the Rings Online lately. But this raised the question amongst the staff – how…

The Daily Grind: Mixing your worlds originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 03 Feb 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rest assured, that is going to change, very soon.

For now,  suffice to say that I’m back in the gym (more details to come) and life is getting somewhat close to normal once again.  We recently had to change web hosts, so if you see any unusual behavior on the site, please let me know ASAP.

-Grim

So there you have it. The true way to fill the inner crisper. As one may have suspected it’s not to soon for the parodies and responses to start popping up:

Till next time my loyals.

Saddlebacking: sad•dle•back•ing \ˈsa-dəl-ˈba-kiŋ\ vb [fr. Saddleback Church] (2009): the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities

After attending the Purity Ball, Heather and Bill saddlebacked all night because she’s saving herself for marriage. Unfortunately her parents found out because they got santorum all over the sheets.

Find out more about Saddlebacking at saddlebacking.com

But, more recently, I have turned to hating Billy’s douchebaggy replacement, Vince. Vince sells products like the ShamWoW! which after further inspection is not a Warcraft Shaman Powerlevelling service. Vince has a different approach then Billy, prefering more to stare wildly into the camera and not blink you into buying whatever he’s peddling.

Turns out that the not blinking thing has a source. And after reading this article from Skepchick.com I have reluctantly had to shoulder the hate I have for these guys in order to fuel the other hate I have for the Church of Scientology.

Turns out Vince is a castaway from the CoS and is using the money he makes from selling his products into paying to fight the cult.

From the article,

He filed suit against them in 2004 for ruining his movie, his life, his business, and being dickholes. I couldn’t find any information on the outcome of this lawsuit, but according to ESPN, Vince is still fighting the good fight. And he is using every dime he makes from selling ShamWows and SlapChop as well as all the proceeds from Underground Comedy to fight them.

Taking on Scientology is one of the bravest things a former member can do. The Church doesn’t take kindly to dissent. Though they claim that fair game is no longer a Scientologist policy, there are plenty of stories to indicate that fair game is still alive and well, if technically “unofficial”.

Good luck Vince.

“Alcatraz is a tourist attraction. It’s a prison that is now sort of like a — it’s a national park.”

Pelosi has obviously missed the boat here.  If you say “tourist” with a Texas accent you get “terrorist”.  Just a little change in marketing and you can now sell it to the people.  But let’s look further into this.  It’s a national park.  It’s a prison, that is a tourist attraction, and is a national park.  What do you call a park that attracts tourists and is a prison?  It’s called a zoo.  Add some Al-Qaeda baboons and you’re all set.

Posted from a href=’http://sampath.wordpress.com/moblog’moBlog/a – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

It seems that LiveJournal might be going the way of the carrier pigeon.  Their parent company, Sup, a Moscow-based company, has laid off 20 of LJ’s 28 employees with no warning or severance and blamed it all on a “downturn in the economy”.

The article goes on to talk about other social networking sites that may be going out of business in the near future, but I’d like to take a look at a larger concept.

How do websites justify the ridiculous amounts of money that they “earn”?

Advertising?  Seriously, do you know anyone who has ever clicked an ad banner?  I have a hard time finding someone who doesn’t have ad blocking software integrated with their browser.  I don’t blame web companies for cashing in on this phenomenon.   If someone offered me a million bucks per year to put ads all over my website, I’d do it too.  What I’m wondering is why companies pay incredible sums of money to advertise on the web or on TV.  Ad revenue is the driving force behind things like

• The Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl (ok, EVERY bowl game)
• The BCS in general
• 2.6 million dollars for a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl
• News Corp. (Fox) paying 580 million dollars for Myspace
  
• Google
• Stadium Naming Rights

I understand advertising.  I understand the business need to get your name out to the public in order to increase interest in your product.  However, the dollar amounts here are far beyond the point of getting any kind of reasonable return on investment.

Citigroup paid 400 million dollars for naming rights at the New York Mets’ new stadium. Wait a minute.  Do you mean the same Citigroup that recently took billions of dollars in bailout money from the Federal government?  The same folks who are begging for dollars from Uncle Sugar are spending 400 million bucks to name a baseball stadium?  (the same baseball stadium that was paid for by taxpayer dollars?)  The same Citigroup that paid millions to have their name attached to the annual Rose Bowl game?

I have a special message for all of you Madison Avenue types out there.  We don’t watch 99% of the commercials that you throw out there.  Thanks to the two greatest inventions of all time, the TiVO and the remote control, we either fast forward through commercials when we are watching a recorded show, or flip channels to something else while commercials are running on live TV.  You’re paying millions of dollars for ad time that viewers spend going to the restroom, making a sandwich, walking the dog, changing the channel, or outright fast-forwarding past.  Web advertisers?  If your ad is seen by a million users (and that is a seriously optimistic case, given ad blocking software), let’s say that you get a click-through rate of 1% (according to this article, the actual click-through rate was 0.5% back in 1998)  That leaves us with 10,000 people who clicked your ad.  Of that, let’s say that 10% of those users actually buy your widget. (The number in the article is 12%)  That’s 1,000 sales or a 0.1% rate of success for your advertising.

So, using that number as our basis, let’s look at a Super Bowl ad.   Last year, the Super Bowl was viewed by a record audience of 97.5 million people.  If we use the figure of 3 million dollars for airtime and tack on another couple of million for other costs (actors, filming, ad exec salary, etc) we have a nice round figure of 5 million dollars.  0.1% of 97.5 million is 97,500 people who purchased your good or service because of your Super Bowl ad.  Let’s round that up to an even 100,000 people.  5 million dollars for 100,000 sales comes out to 50 bucks per “widget”.   Do you know anyone who would pay 50 bucks for a case of Budweiser?  Pepsi?  Tostitos?  Pizza Hut?

Pets dot-freakin-com?

If I were an advertiser, I would focus my efforts on being “easy-to-find”.  I’d make focus on an online presence and make sure that if someone searched the web for “widgets” that my company would be one of the first one’s found.  To that end, I can understand how Google makes a ton of money.  Search engines are ideal for advertising because people are looking for you.  Paying a ton of money to expose your company to an indifferent (at best) audience is not a good investment.

Oh, and for the record, I still have no freakin’ clue what insight.com is or why they have their own bowl game, and I have absolutely no desire to find out.

In October 2008 a judge in the Bayou case, Adlai Hardin Jr., ruled that investors who cashed out their interests within two years of the scheme’s exposure had to hand back their principal as well as their profits—even though they were innocent victims of the swindle—if there was evidence that they got out because they suspected, or had been warned, there was something amiss. (The court also ordered profits made within the last six years to be surrendered.)

Mitchell Banas, a lawyer who represents an endowment for Christian Brothers High School in Memphis—which got its money out of the Bayou fraud before it collapsed but now must return both profits and principal—says the outcome is “extremely unfair.”

So, if I’m reading this right if you invest in the stock market and you lose, then you can expect everyone who cashed out to pay you off.  Following this logic any stock holders of Enron who got out before the collapse should be paying their entire investment (read savings) out to the losers who were holding stock on the day Enron collapsed.  This explains why our government is bailing out GM and Chrysler.  Some idiots seem to believe that the winners will bail out the losers.  This means that our free market system is going down the toilet.  Las Vegas will also be wiped off the map due to this sort of thinking.  I also believe it is a racist policy.  Think of all the Indian reservations that will go out of business if the house has to share it’s winnings with people that lose money.

Surely the envy of any desk-bound office worker, Tommy Lynch has travelled over 27,000 miles this year, for his job testing holiday resort waterslides.

Mr Lynch, 29, works for holiday giant First Choice, checking the height, speed, water quantity and landing of the flumes, as well as all safety aspects.

He said: ‘I do have the best job in the world. No-one believes me when I tell them what I do.

This guy flies all over the world and slides down waterslides for a living! I think the only guy that tops that is the guy who gets to body paint naked supermodels.

“I wanted to see what happened here and use that as a guidepost to see what the court finds appropriate,”

That’s right ladies and gentlemen.  This asshole is going to toy around with this girls life because he wants to set some kind of legal precedent.   He actually has the balls to say that he’s not doing his job, but he is instead doing legal research.

The other thing here is that a cellphone is now a criminal tool.

The defendant entered a plea of admit to one count of possession of criminal tools, a fifth-degree felony, for the employing a cell phone to transmit nude photos of herself to others in September.

That’s right a cellphone is a criminal tool.  This is a great win for the PATRIOT ACT fan club.  There are over 500 million felons in the US.  No, I’m not being too rough on the injustice system here.  This is just idiocy that this prosecutor would consider all cellphones a criminal tool and then make this poor girl plead guilty to possessing a god damn cellphone.  Watch out Steve Jobs!  Ken Oswalt is going to be coming after you next for making criminal tools.  The next innovation from Apple will be the iJail.

What a waste of taxpayer money and of a few kilobytes of space in the Bar Association’s database.  This guy needs his law license revoked and his records need to be deleted from the system.

We’re reposting Mr. Oswalt’s contact information again in case you feel that he didn’t understand what you said the first time when you informed him that he’s an ass hat.

Licking County Prosecutor’s Office
20 S. Second St, Newark, Ohio 43055
General Telephone number: (740) 670-5255
Fax 740-670-5241