Tag Archives: corruption
scary…
today is the midterm election.
republicunts are projected to win majorities in both the house and senate, which means that
- they plan on impeaching president biden, more out of spite than anything else (because there’s nothing to charge him with, but that won’t make a difference, because democretins impeached #drumpf TWICE 😒), and…
- they are actively planning on (and bragging about it)
- eliminating social security and medicare
- any and all investigations into the crimes of #drumpf, the stolen government documents at mar-a-lago, and the january 6th insurrection will cease immediately
- a national ban on abortion
- a national ban on birth control
- a repeal of gay marriage
- further oppression of trans people
- making cannabis and other marginally legal drugs illegal again
- further wanton environmental destruction, promoting oil, coal, and elimination of endangered species protections
- gerrymandering and further voter suppression to make future election wins by democretins a lot more difficult
- other horrendously awful, inhumane, and massively unpopular stuff, primarily because they can.
and, if they win, there’s a much greater chance that #drumpf will run for president, again, and if he does, he will likely win, because of the republicunts’ love affair with voter suppression, and that will basically be the end of a democratic united states. 🤬
and if they don’t win at all (preferably), or if they don’t win enough to make a difference, the republican’ts have openly vowed to wreck the global economy, by refusing to raise the debt limit.
i am staying OFF twit-turd… maybe forever, but at least for a couple of days, or until the election FUBAR has died down a little.
bleah…
i’ve been under the attack of anhedonia and depression. my mushrooms have lost their potency: the last time i tried, i took 6 of them and they had, essentially, no effect at all. i connected with a person at SACBO — ranger’s connection — but she is only one step closer to the source… although she did mention that starter kits are available on ebay, and that they practically grow themselves, so that’s worth looking into.
part of the reason i have been so depressed is because of what i call the “political situation”: that is, drumpf and his latest atrocities. it just keeps on getting worse, and, when i think there’s no way he can get any worse, he blows the world away with the magnitude of his atrocities… and his republicon base of supporters get upset about a black disney princess and a pair of nike sneakers, but totally ignore the concentration camps and the gestapo Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, not to mention the totally inept people, including his own children, he’s put in charge of such things as education, housing, healthcare and the environment. it’s literally going to take us 100 years JUST to fix his fuckups, and that’s not taking into account the fact that the world is already in a crisis mode. it’s almost as though everything i’ve ever fought for throughout my entire life has been eliminated by this orange babboon in less than 3 years, and replaced with climate-change deniers, corporate stooges, forced-birth and anti-vax controversies, and so-called “christian” love, which is only for the so-called “christians”.
drumpf spent $92 million, which he appropriated from the national parks department (🤬), on a “military parade” in washington DC, complete with tanks and a flyover by the blue angels and “airforce one” — which, of course, wasn’t “airforce one” because the #SCROTUS was on the ground, observing the flyover… and the tanks were stationary, because, apparently, if they had moving tanks, they would have destroyed the streets and damaged the lincoln memorial… but the only people who could view this were his donors, because everyone else had to pay to get in… and then it rained, HARD and everything was postponed. the photos and videos i’ve seen show a very few thoroughly wet people and drumpf giving a long, boring, confusing speech that one writer i read compared to having been written by artificial intelligence, and a retired admiral said that it was on the level of an 8th grade history lesson… and the live video feeds from the top of the washington memorial, and the lincoln memorial were inexplicably shut down and removed from the whitehouse dot gov address, apparently to cover up how few people actually attended this debacle.
so, basically, we, the american people, threw away $92,000,000,000 on an egotistical, childish, boorish, dictator-emulating orange rapist with the IQ of half a rock, instead of addressing the concentration camps, or the homeless issue, or the healthcare issue, or… 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
as can be well imagined, despite my love for exploding things, i take little interest in such activities in celebration of this country, this year… which is, also, at least partially, because of the fact that we now have a dog who is totally terrified of fireworks, AND a next-door neighbour who is prone to setting off a ton of fireworks which ignite their lawn, and other suchlike wonderful things. 😒
OCF is 5 days away, and i’m hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. by this time, we’ve usually had one run through, and have some rough idea of how long the show will be. this year, we’re nowhere close to that, despite the fact that we started out with a working script, which we created 15 years ago, when we did this show (Jack And The Beanstalk) the last time. and we’re still missing two songs, one of which is probably not going to make it into the show for OCF.
and, on top of everything else, MAD magazine is shutting down! PBLFLLT!! 😠
Ten things that the legalisation of cannabis is now more popular than:
more government shutdown insanity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iX8rWmVO28
just in case there are any republicans reading this blog
the government has been shut down for almost 2 weeks, because the republicans want to defund the affordable healthcare act.
which the republicans voted to fund six months ago.
they’re arguing that “obama doesn’t want to negotiate”, but all the negotiation was completed, done, over with and ready to move on SIX MONTHS AGO and the republicans decided to change their minds at the last minute.
during the intervening six months the republicans also changed the standing rules of the house, so that only the republicans could ask that the government could be re-opened, in case of a shutdown…
and NOW they’re hoping that nobody noticed this little change, so that they can blame the shutdown on obama…
i think it’s time to dump THE WHOLE LOT OF ‘EM and put together a government that ACTUALLY represents all of the people, rather than just saying it does. 😛
well, so much for that fantasy… 8/
my impression is that there may be a different reaction if they called it by its proper name, which is CANNABIS, instead of what the “people” call it… CANNABIS, as a word, bears a very strong resemblance to other useful things, like canvas (which was made out of cannabis fibers, in the past)… and if we’re EVER going to convince “scientific” people that cannabis is beneficial, we’re going to have to use terminology that is correct… “marijuana” and “pot” are good for casual references, but, please, use “cannabis” when you’re talking about legalising it, okay?
the same goes for “reschedule”… it would be an entirely different headline if it read “White House: Obama has no plans to legalise cannabis”… if you’re going to use obscurity to mask the fact that you’re not going to do something that would actually produce a positive change in society, that makes it even more devious, scheming and wrong than if you were being direct about it. 😐
—–
White House: Obama has no plans to reschedule marijuana
The White House said Wednesday that President Barack Obama had no intention of altering the government’s policy towards marijuana.
At a daily press briefing, CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin asked Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest if the Obama administration had any plans to reschedule marijuana. The drug is currently classified as a Schedule I substance, while cocaine and methamphetamine are classified as less harmful Schedule II substances.
“The administration’s position on this has been clear and consistent for some time now that while the prosecution of drug traffickers remains an important priority, the president and the administration believe that targeting individual marijuana users, especially those with serious illnesses and their caregivers, is not the best allocation for federal law enforcement resources,” Earnest replied.
In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder directed federal prosecutors to not go after medical marijuana patients. Holder said prosecuting medical marijuana patients was a not good use of resources, but marijuana dispensaries were still fair game. Under the Obama administration, more than 200 medical marijuana facilities have been raided, even though they are legal under state laws.
At the press briefing, Earnest also indicated that the Obama administration has no intention of making it easier to research the medical benefits of marijuana.
this is a case where a picture is definitely worth at least a thousand words…
i couldn’t have said it better.
video politics
Rick Perry’s I Hate Gays campaign message currently has 747,019 total views, with 4,187 likes, and 197,756 dislikes…
The Partisan’s Rick Perry Parody message only has 301 total views, but, oddly, it has 7,198 likes, and 132 dislikes…
there’s something wrong here, but i’m not sure whether it’s the amount of total views, or the discrepancy between the “likes” and the “dislikes” that puts me off more… 😐
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”
when rick perry says that he’s not ashamed to admit that he’s a “christian” and then procedes to make a statement of a decidedly and remarkably un-Christian nature, you have to admit that he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning…
but, with everything else that the “christians” have been stealing recently, i anticipate that rick perry is very likely to win, and if he doesn’t outright win, there’s a good bet that he’s going to give the “real” winner a hard run for his money… and then contest the outcome of the election, and “win” anyway, just like they did with bush junior. 😛
Wow! You’re really getting the hang of this!
“Protect” IP?!?
much as i disagree with things like facebook and twitter, i don’t want them entirely shut down, but that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t get off our collective ass and prevent it: How’s That Free Speech Thing Working Out For You – The draft bill would: 1) Give the government and private corporations new powers to block access to sites accused of copyright infringement; 2) Criminalize the streaming of copyrighted content; 3) Restrict cloud-based storage services, music lockers, and the like; 4) Create the aforementioned new liabilities for sites that encourage the posting of user-generated content.
When they took the fourth amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun.
Now they’ve taken the first amendment,
and I can say nothing about it.
I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun.
Now they’ve taken the first amendment,
and I can say nothing about it.
MAKE SOME NOISE ABOUT THIS
or forever hold your peace!
My impression of the majority of mainstream news for the next three weeks:
weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner weiner…
get it out of your system now, and pay attention to things that are really more important… 😐
another week closer to the eschaton…
The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence – “Americans are not as violent as the most extremely violent cultures around the world, but we certainly are not as peaceful as the most peaceful societies. Unfortunately, our culture appears to be going towards increased social violence.” [Author James DeMeo, Ph.D.] points to the general failure of parents and sex-education programs to say much of anything positive about sexual pleasure, with the great emphasis upon “abstinence education”, as a major cause for the growing violence in our schools. “Our young people should be warmly romancing each other, dancing and singing together, making love and enjoying what should be the happiest time of their lives. Instead, we start our children off with a lot of hidden cruelty in the hospital birth, with incubator-isolation, denial of the mother’s breast, time-table feedings, circumcision and so forth. – no wonder we’re screwed up. all the more reason to scrap every vestige of what passes for society these days, and create something different.
The Oil BP Tried To Hide Has Been Discovered, In Thick Layers On the Sea Floor Over An Area of Several Thousand Square Miles – don’t fool yourself, it’s not over yet, by a long shot.
You Are A Terrorist – i’ve been saying that for years. now the gummint is actually catching up… 😐
Osama bin Dead A While – merry x-mas, the war on terror is over, whether they like it or not… but don’t let the gummint know, because they’re all set to whip up another fake osama video to scare us again…
US empire could collapse at any time – are you ready? this is a lot more “for real” than you might think: Missile defence FAIL: US ‘kill vehicle’ space weapon flunks test
Homeland Security Trolling We Won’t Fly Blog, Boy, 13, Busted For Illegal Marker Possession, TSA Too Busy Groping, Perving, Playing God To Notice Guns And Bombs, 10,000 Child Porn Images Found On TSA Worker’s Computer and Police Fatally Shoot Douglas Zerby For Holding Water Nozzle – what they are doing instead of searching for real terrorists… 😐
Plan to Turn Post Office Trucks Into Stasi Data Collection Nodes and Trash collectors to serve as eyes and ears in the street for police – because the police are too busy searching for terrorists people with water nozzles to kill… also, do you think that this just might be because of budget cuts, and/or because of the fact that they want to turn the country into an embodiment of the book 1984…?
Who Is the FBI Really Trying to Entrap? – muslims? people with water nozzles? more likely it’s poor, underpriveledged black and brown people who can’t fight back effectively on their own…
Probable carcinogen hexavalent chromium found in drinking water of 31 U.S. cities – this is one of the reasons i only drink artesian well water, and have for the past 25 years… that, and beer… 8)
UN defends human right to WikiLeaked info – so…
Wikileaks and the Definition of Terrorism – TL.DR: what wikileaks is doing cannot be defined as terrorism except, maybe, to the political elite in washington who are making all the fuss about it. WikiLeaks cables: BP suffered blowout on Azerbaijan gas platform – wow, wikileaks and the gulf oil spill… is this the work of a terrorist organisation?
also, the latest, futile attempt to make wikileaks go away, Feds Seek Computer Firewall to Block WikiLeaks ‘Pollution’ and Pentagon bars own journalists from reading Wikileaks – you would think that they’d have heard of the streisand effect by now…
Broadband firms urged to block sex websites to protect children – yeah, like that’s really gonna happen… maybe they could ban spam, too, while they’re at it… 😐 seriously, i think that any proposed legislation that is being put in place “to protect the children” should be banned on principle. the fact is, proposed “legislation” that can’t find any other reason than “to protect the children” has been proven, in the past, to be distinctly deficient in doing anything other than confusing people, violating someone’s civil rights or lining the politicians’ pockets… and usually a combination of all three…
Fox boss ordered staff to cast doubt on climate science – there’s some static running around because Faux News is disputing the report from last week that said that watching Faux News makes people stupid, and, at the same time, muddying the climate change waters with false information… not only that, but rupert murdoch’s companies have been on the forefront of the “war against christmas” game, and yet his Holiday Message was just that… why does rupert murdoch hate jesus?
Your right to protest in under threat – britain is being brought under the thumb of the rich politicians, and america is next.
Judge finds ‘increasing’ difficulty in seating marijuana juries – this is related to that post from last week, except that it’s a little more to the point: jury nullification is becoming a widely-enough-known phenomenon that courts won’t seat people on a jury if they have said that they know about it as an option, and when enough people have to be passed over to get an ignorant enough jury to actually be able to convict someone for possession of a miniscule quantity of cannabis, the courts have to look for “other alternatives”…
Your Apps Are Watching You – this is one of the primary reasons i don’t use a “smart” phone. i like my phones dumb and subservient, which is exactly what they’re supposed to be…
Is a BSOD on a bus … a BuSOD? – giggle…
another week closer to the eschaton…
Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid – do they really need a formal study to confirm that?
No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. – much as i agree with this, try convincing a cop who is intent on arresting you of that fact, or a court which is prosecuting you once you are arrested… 😐
Europe faces rising austerity protests in 2011 – this is just the beginning…
Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate – copying is not theft.
Why do we let this creepy company spy on our emails? – another reason why, in spite of the fact that i use noscript, taco, adblock and tor, i still won’t use gmail. Warrant needed to snoop on your emails – now we have to wait and see if google data-mining your email for targeted advertising will disappear. my guess is that it won’t change anything.
Why Are the Feds Cultivating Their Own "Homegrown Terrorists"? – could it possibly be that they can’t find any foreign-grown ones? or that they’re so inept that they wouldn’t recognise a terrorist if one blew up in front of them? could it possibly be that they don’t understand why someone would hate the way things are, and have a tendency to cheer, or look the other way when terrorists are actually being born…? 😐 … no, it couldn’t be that… it’s probably because they’re too busy with things like this: Texas Airport Security Insults India After Wrongfully Demanding To Search UN Envoy’s Turban and Boy of 12 hauled out of class by police over David Cameron Facebook protest – this is exactly the sorts of things in which the DHS is interested, not actual terrorists at all… TSA’s Scanners Can Be Fooled With Pancakes – another reason why “security theatre” is exactly that, and doesn’t really have anything to do with detecting or deterring people who really want to do evil.
Internet was never free or open and never will be – i’ve worked with internet long enough to know that he’s largely correct. i have about as much freedom as is practically affordable these days, but if my host provider decided that i was doing something illegal, they would shut me down and there would be very little i could do about it, whether i actually was doing something illegal or not. my impression is that the only way for me to prevent that is to buy my own server and a backbone connection, which is prohibitively expensive at the moment… and even then, i still have to connect to an internet which, if they decide to do so, can block anyone from ever being able to see, or get to my server…
despite rumours that wikileaks.org is back up and running on a new nameserver in the US (unconfirmed, because it still comes up as unknown), Air Force blocks access to sites that covered WikiLeaks – they somehow think that if they tell enough people not to view this site that it will magically vanish… poor, deluded air force people… 😐
UK, not Sweden, behind efforts to keep Assange in jail – i wonder how long it will be until actual blame for holding assange in jail boils down to US interests in shutting him up… 😐
meanwhile, US Is Apparently Torturing Bradley Manning, Despite No Trial And No Conviction – apparently the US gummint is really pissed at him for turning over their dirty little secrets… like this: Australia feared Israeli strike on Iran could spark nuclear war
Justice Department sues BP, eight other companies over Gulf oil spill – this is a good thing, but it’s far too little, far too late, and will probably be forgotten, appealed or countersued eventually.
another week closer to the eschaton…
double whammy! friday the 13th comes on a monday this month… namely today!
we’ll start this off with more oil-spill madness: BP Challenges Oil Spill Amount In An Attempt to Reduce Cost of Fines – it never ended, media just got tired of reporting it… 😐 for example: Navy Secretary Mabus pushes Pentagon to feed soldiers more Gulf seafood – i don’t know whether this should make me chortle evil laughter and say that they deserved it, or gasp in shocked amazement because nobody should be forced to eat that glop… especially when there are people saying things like “I wouldn’t eat shrimp, fish or crab caught in the Gulf,” and “There is no safe level of exposure to this oil, because it contains carcinogens, mutagens that can damage DNA and cause cancer and other chronic health problems.”
5 Myths About How to Treat Depression – this is the primary reason i am not interested in medication. i’d rather be depressed. i already know how to deal with it without taking medications.
One cigarette can kill you; so can one act of gay sex and House Republicans Try to Kill Bill to Feed Hungry Schoolchildren While Insisting on Tax Breaks for the Rich – at least half of our country’s citizens agree with these buffoons… this is why i’m depressed… 😐
Dick Cheney faces bribery scandal charges in Nigeria – i don’t understand why nigeria can charge him with bribery, but the united states won’t charge him with war crimes… in spite of the prevelance of 419 scams in nigeria, if they can get him on bribery charges, more power to them. Halliburton may pay $500 million to keep Cheney out of prison – wait… hasn’t he been charged with bribery?
the Wikileaks domain has been shut down (and WikiLeaks Dropped by Domain Name Provider) in a feeble and largely ineffective attempt to erase the “stuff that people shouldn’t know” from the web… fortunately, their IP address has not been blocked (so far), and there are also over 500 mirrors in case that is taken down as well. not only that, but because of the ongoing attacks to their infrastructure, they’ve released their entire archive of messages up to this point, just to make sure that the message gets out there if they can’t deliver it personally. meanwhile, US military threatens soldiers not to read Wikileaks – if the US government has nothing to hide, then why are they making such a big deal over this? the longer they keep this up, the more guilty it makes them appear… it also appears as though wikileaks has an ace up its sleeve: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ‘will release poison pill of damaging secrets if killed or arrested’ so download that archive now… you know you want to… 🙂
also If publishing the WikiLeaks cables were against the law, could the New York Times go to jail? – if julian assange goes to jail for it, then the new york times should go as well. if not, then why was he arrested anyway? and, by the way, Ellsberg: "EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time."
meanwhile, Irony? State Dept. criticizes Assange but plans to stage ‘Press Freedom Day’ and Someone Should Tell The State Dept That The State Dept Is Hosting World Press Freedom Day – the way we celebrate World Press Freedom Day in the united states, apparently, is by having julian assange arrested, in another country, for “sex by surprise”… what? especially while It appears that Assange may have fallen into a "CIA Honeytrap". and speaking of free speech, Man gets 33 months for threatening Obama in poem
also, PayPal Busted for Bogus Wikileaks Excuse – so paypal cut off wikileaks’ access to money that had been donated to wikileaks, because of a state department letter saying that what wikileaks does is illegal… that doesn’t exist they were scared that the US govermnent might come after them next… does that sound about right?
and, for those of you who have actually been wondering exactly what was in those cables that made the US government so uptight about wikileaks, here’s a sample: Consult us before using intelligence to commit war crimes, US tells Uganda – not “obey the rules of war”, but “let us know before you use our intelligence to break the rules of war”… yep, that’s a good enough reason to have julian assange arrested on trumped up charges… 😐
Tension grows between Calif. Muslims, FBI after informant infiltrates mosque – they’re stretching the line mighty thin if they’ve got to hire a guy to infitrate mosques and talk up jihad, just in order to get terrorists people who might be terrorists to arrest… also, Holder to Muslims Re Stings: Get Used to It – not only are they stretching the line, but those people who object might just be terrorists themselves, because they “simply do not have their facts straight.”
US Has Lost All Moral High Ground On Internet Censorship and Homeland Security ‘messages’ coming to Walmart, hotels, malls – now they want us to do their job for them, as well… 😐 that reminds me… it’s been a while since i posted this:
When they took the fourth amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun.
Now they’ve taken the first amendment,
and I can say nothing about it.
I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun.
Now they’ve taken the first amendment,
and I can say nothing about it.
Here Come Homeland Security Internet Police, and They’re Already Shutting Down Web Sites They Don’t Like – just like TSA for your computer, whether you like it or not… 😐
and, speaking of TSA, TSA Subjects Indian Ambassador To US To Glass Cage, Enhanced Groping – “It is believed that the TSA operatives flagged Ms. Shankar not because she set of the metal detector, but because she was wearing a sari, a long traditional Indian robe.” – Indian Embassy describes incident as “unacceptable”
Tooth Decay to Be a Thing of the Past – i’ve always wondered why people who brush their teeth religiously still sometimes have extremely bad teeth, while other people can not brush their teeth at all and still have all their teeth at age 80… this is apparently part of the reason. how much you want to bet that the dental association buys all of these guys research and buries it, so that dentists will still be able to fleece everybody?
Light can generate lift – wow! now all somebody’s got to do is figure out how to use it…
UN climate kooks want to cripple US economy and ban H2O – i think the point was that people in positions of power will be more likely to agree to something if they don’t know precisely what it is…
for those that oppose gay marriage, another big slap in the face, as US scientists create mice from two fathers – maybe it wasn’t “adam and steve” “in the beginning”, but the fact that it can be sort of negates your little fantasy about how “god” created everything, now, doesn’t it?
The Insanity Virus – no obvious link to toxoplasma gondii, but it makes me wonder…
Man legally changes name to Captain Awesome – i wonder why Boomer The Dog wasn’t allowed to change his name, but Captain Awesome sailed right through…
another week closer to the eschaton…
Harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice – just what we need… immortal mice…
Scientists Attempt to Crack Secret Code of the Axolotl – the race to extinction is on between the scientists who want to probe this creatures’ secrets of limb regeneration, and the general public who think that the creatures are delicious. my bet is on the general public…
97% of INTERNET NOW FULL UP – the number of allocatable IPv4 addresses just dropped below one hundred and fourteen million, and they’ve been being assigned faster than ever. there are less than 91 days until there are NO MORE IPv4 addresses. get yours today, because in May 2011, there will be no more…
10 Skills Needed To Thrive In A Post-Collapse World – this is something else that i am going to bet nobody (else) pays attention to… which is why the collapse is going to come as a deadly surprise to most people…
Mozilla rages at MS, Apple and Google’s ‘trojan horse’ tactics – it’s things like this that are exactly the reason why i use AdBlock and NoScript, and don’t use microsoft anything or google chrome, or apple itunes and safari… i want my computer to do the things I want it to do, not the things that some multinational corporation with sneaky and not entirely ethical reasons wants it to do. “Shove your plug-ins where the sun don’t shine!” 😛
Wireless gets a free pass on net neutrality – Throttle away, mobile broadband providers! net neutrality gets the boot on wireless networks… wired networks are next on the chopping blog block…
Sites With Government Seized Domains Are Moving On – so despite the fact that the DHS seized a bunch of domains without due cause, they missed the mark, because they seized the domain names, but not the web sites, and now the web sites are starting to resurface with different domain names… theoretically, of course, this could go on forever (my main web site, for example, can be found at hybridelephant.net and hybridelephant.org, as well as hybridelephant.com). what have the DHS accomplished apart from a big waste of money and resources, when Copying Is Not Theft!…
Homeland Security’s Domain Name Seizure May Stretch The Law Past The Breaking Point – so DHS is operating outside the law… what else is new? but at the same time, they’re getting really blatant about it, farming out the actual seizure of the domains to the company that runs seizedservers.com…
Fed up with ICANN, Pirate Bay cofounder floats P2P DNS system and With Domain Name Seizures Increasing, It’s Time For A Decentralized DNS System – yep.
Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to "Pharmacologic Waterboarding" – the DOD engages in “at best, an egregious malpractice.” instead of closing down gitmo, as promised, they are now moving beyond physical torture, and giving inmates a “treatment dose” (which is five times the prophylactic dose) of an anti-malarial drug – whether they actually have malaria or not is an entirely different question – which causes severe neuropsycological side effects such as homicidal and suicidal thoughts, severe insomnia, hallucinations, intense vertigo, paranoid delusions, aggression, and anxiety, and which was researched in MKULTRA mind-control experiments carried out by the CIA during the 1950s. at least they’re not using physical torture any longer… that we know of… 😐
Tea Party Nation President Says It ‘Makes A Lot Of Sense’ To Restrict Voting Only To Property Owners – and they say i’m a terrorist… we left the 19th century behind us 200 years ago, and this guy wants to drag us back there. 😛 apparently they think in circles as well – Without a guide humans walk in circles
Elected Official Says TSA Pat Downs Promote ‘Homosexual Agenda’ and Man arrested after ejaculating during TSA pat-down – which headline is a joke? hint: neither one…
Google beat box – finally, something that google is good for! click “listen”…
another week closer to the eschaton…
Spanish woman claims ownership of the sun – just wait until she gets sued for sunburn…
Anti Sarah Palin Post Gets Google Censorship – don’t! be! evil!!
FCC may forgo ‘Net Neutrality’ for wireless networks – say goodbye to the internet…
Homeland Security Seizes 70+ Websites for Copyright and Trademark Violations and Homeland Security shuts down dozens of Web sites without court order – due process be damned, after net-neutrality fails, you’d better believe that they’re going to start cracking down on anyone who has a web site with which “they” do not agree, regardless of whether it contains illegal material or not… and of course nobody cares, because net-neutrality is something of which most people aren’t even aware.
Bioencryption can store almost a million gigabytes of data inside bacteria – “a single gram of E. coli cells could hold up to 900,000 gigabytes (or 900 terabytes) of data, meaning these bacteria have almost 500 times the storage capacity of a top of the line commercial hard drive.”
Minn. Pol With Gun Outside Abortion Clinic Says He Was Just In Area ‘Checking On’ His Girlfriend – this is how one married, republican politician justifies potentially unlawful behaviour: it’s all a “misunderstanding”, he was just “trying to check up on her”… with a loaded gun… of course if he had been a democrat, or an ordinary citizen, he would have been put in jail, and there would have been no story…
Drug tunnel uncovered at San Diego-Tijuana border, officials say; nearly 20 tons of marijuana seized – if they had passed Proposition 19, they wouldn’t have to worry about it, but because they didn’t, the federal government now has to make a big deal out of it, and waste the taxpayers’ money to rid themselves of something that would have been useless otherwise.
Willie Nelson charged with pot possession in Texas – give willie a break: he’s a celebrity, he’s already got massive problems with the government, and he’s an old man, for god’s sake! 😐
Civil Unions for Illinois? – civil union ≠ polygamy, regardless of how much you say it does…
FoxNation.com Reposts Anti-Obama Article From The Onion, Doesn’t Mention It’s A Joke – it’s things like this that are one of the principle reasons why the terrorists have won the war on terrorism.
this is why people treat torture as though it was “no big thing”… – Torture memo author compared waterboarding to speeding – dude, where’s my country? 😐
Clueless Patsy Set-up by FBI in Christmas Tree Bombing Plot and FBI stopped Portland bomb suspect from taking job before sting – the FBI has been up to their old shennanigans again: finding a mentally disturbed 19-year-old kid, preventing him from getting gainful employment, building him up to believe that he’s serving a greater purpose, convincing him that he’s building a bomb (complete with a real test explosion in a remote area), and then arresting him and claiming that they’ve caught another “terrorist”. if they actually had a terrorist, my guess is that nobody would recognise him… 😐
Rep. Kucinich slams fake Afghan elections, fake withdrawal, fake Taliban – i still say he would have made a much better president than the democretin that won…
and, while we’re on the subject of the fake taliban, The ‘Fake Taliban’ Is A Real Embarassment To NATO – “It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.” also Afghan "peace talks" impostor paid by MI6
Woman: TSA Agents Singled Me Out For My Breasts – i wonder how much longer this is going to go on before someone decides to do something violent?
TSA Glass Box Mother Over Stored Breast Milk – she’s a mother, and pumps breastmilk for her infant. she doesn’t have a problem, until one day she’s held up because the TSA doesn’t know their own rules, so she files a complaint. the next time she travels, the TSA is waiting for her and makes up rules to prevent her from making her flight. the reason they get away with it…?
Why the TSA pat-downs and body scans are unconstitutional – 😐
TSA Worker Accused Of Assault Had Prior Record and TSA Groin Searches Menstruating Woman and TSA Tactics Find Ominous Parallel in Nazi Germany and Children Being Trained That Being Taken From Parents & Molested Is Normal – whatever happened, opt-out day apparently didn’t have any effect, and things are continuing to get worse at a surprising pace…
Are Air Travelers Criminal Suspects? – federal agents should be subject to the same laws as ordinary citizens. why aren’t they?
TSA Administrative Directive: Opt-Outters To Be Considered "Domestic Extremists" – we’re teetering ever closer to the edge of an abyss…
meanwhile, Child Finds Loaded Gun Magazine On Flight – oh yeah… the terrorists have definitely won… 😐
"Barefoot bandit" suspect pleads innocent – go colton!
another week closer to the eschaton…
A Vegan No More – i wasn’t vegan, but i was a strict vegetarian for 15 years, and i didn’t have as severe health problems as this lady did, but in a lot of ways, this could be a story about me.
92% of Afghans never heard of 9/11 – four in 10 Afghans believe the US is on their soil in order to “destroy Islam or occupy Afghanistan.”
Sir, There’s a Camera in Your Head – this guy has a lot going for him in my book: he hacked a video game and placed a virtual avatar of himself as a suicide-bomber hunting president george w. bush, he confined himself to an art gallery where people could shoot him with paintballs, and now he’s having a camera implanted in his head, and displaying the pictures it takes in a museum in qatar, but what makes me really sit up and take notice is that his current show is called The 3rd I, which was the name of the magazine i designed and printed in the mid-1980s… great minds really do think alike… 8)
Huckabee Calls For Lawmakers To Ignore Court Rulings They Disagree With – um… no. 😐
10 Ways to Outfox Cops That Are Abusing Their Powers to Trick You – common sense, really, but they’re all there, in a brief, understandable format.
How Wal-Mart, Google and Other Corporate Giants Are Trying to Trick Progressive Consumers – “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you, fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
FBI pressuring Google, Facebook to allow ‘back doors’ for wiretapping and Debt collectors using Facebook to stalk and humilate – more reasons to avoid using google and facebook… not only that, but Tim Berners-Lee says Facebook ‘threatens’ web future – and, personally, i believe that tim berners-lee is a person who we should probably listen to when it comes to the future of the web…
Suspected bomb in Namibia was ‘security test’ – wait, so the suspected bomb that everybody was so up-in-arms about earlier in the week was actually a US made “dummy” bomb to test security?? i would say that whatever test that was designed to be a part of, is a resolute failure, if it took them four days to figure out who sent it…
$11,000 fine, arrest possible for some who refuse airport scans and pat downs – if you decide that the porno-scanner and the sexual assault enhanced pat down are too much for you, don’t plan on going to the airport at all, ’cause you’re not gonna get out of it, one way or the other… 😐
TSA Opt-Out Day, Now with a Superfantastic New Twist! – wear a kilt and strike a blow against the very big stupid! or, if you’re a celebrity like penn jillette you can get your own, private escort to assure the TSA goons that everything will be okay…
Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer and Does TSA Behavior Fall under Definition of Terrorism? – the government are terrorists! porno-scanners and fondling…
Why Congress Isn’t So Concerned With TSA Nude Scans & Gropes: They Get To Skip Them – now it all makes sense…
One Hundred Naked Citizens: One Hundred Leaked Body Scans and Leaked Body Scanner Images Do Not Show The Whole Picture – Advanced imaging technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image, and the image is automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely located security officer? i think not… it’s just a matter of time before somebody posts a web site that offers porno-scanner pictures…
Fly With Dignity – sign the petition to end invasion of privacy and “dick-measuring” scanners now!
Sanford Airport to opt out of TSA screening – orlando says enough is enough. they set a good example for everyone else.
TSA Likely To Face Multiple Sexual Assault Charges For New Searches – the war on terror is over. the terrorists have won.
Is your ISP throttling you? Just switch—if you live in the EU – if you live in the US, you’re quickly running out of options, and those in charge apparently don’t care.
Oil to run out 100 years before replacements become viable, study claims – when in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout… and that’s gonna’ be about all you can do, because there will be no more oil… 😐
Google Is Assembling a City – “When society inevitably collapses, Googleville will be the sole safe haven, but only those with company IDs will be allowed in.” this is the reason why i am more than a little bit suspicious of google and their motives for doing things like sending me $100 in free advertising if i respond by a certain time…
Panic after ‘Devil attack’ at school – they still blame things on the devil? this is the 21st century, people… 😐
Aleister Crowley for President, 2012 – “We realize that Aleister Crowley is dead. And British. And, moreover, not running for office. Nevertheless, we believe that the most effective vote you can cast in 2012 is one for Aleister Crowley.”
another week closer to the eschaton…
"Damn Right": Bush Boasts about Waterboarding – can we arrest him now?? 😛 apparently not: Torture? Check. Covering Up Torture? Check. Rule of Law? Nope. – “We cannot say that we live under the rule of law unless we are clear that no one is above the law. I think it’s clear. We cannot say we live under the rule of law.”
Will Internet censorship bill be pushed through lame-duck Congress? – “A lot of the things wrong with society today are directly attributable to the fact that the people who make the laws are sexually maladjusted.” — Frank Zappa
High Society exhibition: can dope give us hope? – “the ban on hallucinogens is holding back vital research into their medical benefits.” wow, man… trippy science stuff! 🙂
China may be bigger economy than US within two years and Is the American Dream Over? and The US Has Lived on Borrowed Money for Too Long – it’s gotten bad enough that other countries are starting to put it together…what do you think the probability is that this isn’t the end of the US as a superpower? further information regarding our imminent economic implosion and what we can do about it: As the Country Falls Apart, It’s Time for Our Revolution
Sikhs outraged at US airport turban searches – people, you’ve got to realise that not everyone who wears a turban is automatically muslim… or a terrorist… 😐
BP blamed for toxification and BP Successfully Disposed of the Oil … In the Gulf Food Chain – it’s still going on, and it’s worse than anybody imagined… again… 😐
and, while we’re at it, Chemicals in Fast Food Wrappers Show Up in Human Blood – more toxic chemicals are leaking from places where we don’t expect them, and ending up inside our bodies. wonderful…
Global Oil Availability Has Peaked : EU Energy Chief – meanwhile, where are we going and what’s with this hand-basket?
Is Death the End? Experiments Suggest You Create Time – this is the end, my only friend, the end. the end of laughter and soft lies, the end of nights we tried to die, this is the end…
NATIONAL OPT-OUT DAY! – if you’re travelling, wednesday, 24 november, 2010 is the day when you can say no to the dick-measuring radioactive backscatter scanning device… of course you don’t have to limit your opting out of “security theater” that doesn’t really protect anyone to wednesday, 24th november, it’s just that everyone else will (presumably) be doing it as well…
Naked Body Scanners To Store Biometrics and World’s Pilots Reject Naked Body Scanners Over Radiation Danger, Privacy Breach and TSA Responds To Airport Molestation Complaints – more power behind We Won’t Fly and Don’t Scan Us.
Oklahoma voters may have also banned Native American rights – i’m going to bet that someone’s going to complain about that… and the fact that they’re being stupid and childish about the whole thing won’t enter into the matter at all…
Senior US appeals court judge says drug war ‘lost,’ country should try legalizing marijuana – this is the direction we should be going, a senior, sitting federal judge calling for legalisation… now if only they’d listen to him: a federal judge said essentially the same thing in 1988, but nobody listened to him.
Inside My Haunted Head — What It’s Like to be a Schizophrenic – i don’t have schizophrenia, but there’s a lot more about this story that i can relate with than i’d like to admit.
Mass action shields soldier’s funeral – “The Westboro protesters didn’t stay long once they saw the supporters.” this is how we should be responding to all the extremists in our society: not by bombing them into oblivion or making unenforcable laws against their beliefs, but by gathering together and saying “no, we won’t allow you to behave like children around us”.
Arizona Reminds Residents Not to Drink From Toilets – this is where john mccain is senator…
another week closer to the eschaton…
i woke up this morning, and checked my email. i had 4,856 new messages, all with the same subject line, which included the word “MLM”… please stop sending me these messages. they’re not accomplishing what you think they are, they’re really annoying, and i’m about to block your country’s IP addresses because of it. there are better ways of doing… whatever it is that you’re expecting to be able to do by sending out 4,856 spam email messages… 😐
A piece of their mind – they share thoughts… in spite of the fact that they have two sets of eyes, one can “read” what the other is seeing, without actually seeing it… The Fascinating Story of the Twins Who Share Brains, Thoughts, and Senses has more, including a video… fascinating!
The Return of the Stoned Ape – smart people do more drugs because of evolution. now it all makes sense… 😀 and, while we’re at it, Smart people SLEEP LATE as well… so there!
and now, to more mundane topics…
33 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True – fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord. beware, the paranoids are watching you. fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord.
The Information Super-Sewer: Will the Internet be Hijacked by Corporate Interests – funding a civilization through advertising is like trying to get nutrition by connecting a tube from one’s anus to one’s mouth. also Final nail in coffin for Net neutrality? – all 95 house and senate candidates who pledged support for net neutrality lost their races. what does this mean? it means that your unlimited, uncensored, unthrottled and open internet service will be going away as soon as the major corporations that now own internet are going to get to decide how much to charge you for how much access… which means that it won’t be too long before internet will be exactly like television, unless you can afford to make it better.
A Modest Proposal to Republicans: How to Trim the Budget – hint: it’s something that a republican would never think of…
Chomsky: US-led Afghan war, criminal – to date there is no evidence that al-qaeda has carried out the 9/11 attacks, and still we use that as justification to make war on a people who have their own problems.
The Surprising History of Copyright and The Promise of a Post-Copyright World – copyright was never primarily about paying artists for their work, and trying to make it about that now is obfuscating the real reason, which is to make the distributors as much money as possible. copying is not theft, piracy, or anything else illegal, and the sooner we toss the current copyright law fiasco and start over again, the better.
Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.5 Million Fine for Downloading 24 Songs – copying IS NOT theft! (my new mantra).
Bankruptcy of U.S. is ‘Mathematical Certainty,’ Says Former CEO of Nation’s 10th Largest Bank – yep… the end is coming, and it’s not looking like it’s going to be particularly pretty when it gets here.
Voters Approve Sharia Law Ban – meanwhile, fear, insanity and unreasoned reactionism comes to oklahoma, whether they like it or not… oh well, there are always 49 other states… 😐 meanwhile, it appears that Oklahoma Voters May Have Accidentally Voted Against Ten Commandments, Too – that’s what they get for being stupid and making nonsensical laws without thinking them through.
Details on PayPal’s Site Outage – they have been doing okay, despite the bad things that i continue to hear about them, but they apparently went down for anywhere from two to twenty four hours, depending on where you are, and so far they’ve not released any information other than to say “something broke. it’s fixed now, and we’re sorry.”
Google calls bug bounty hunters to YouTube, Blogger – $3,133.70 a bug seems like a lot, and i seriously doubt that their actual testers get paid anything like that. what this is, really, is an attempt by google to have volunteer “testers” hammer on their technology without having to pay them for doing so. then, when a “tester” discovers something, google can claim that they found it, pay the “tester” a minimal, one time fee and never mention the “tester” to anyone ever again… everybody’s happy, at least temporarily, and the big corporation profits at the expense of the american drone, who doesn’t notice because he’s too busy telling all of his friends how 733T he is… you can’t make a living on it, but it’s the american dream come true… 😐
Seagate squirts out rectal cleaning spray – no shit… 🙂
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: President Obama Visits Chicago and a Homeless Man Begs Him for Alms – no further comment needed.
Marijuana Legalization: Not If, But When – agreed, it’s just a matter of time, but it’s going to have to be the entire country, or it’s not going to work… and whether or not the entire country legalises it through a revolution or through a civil election still remains to be seen.
New Mother’s (False) Positive Drug Test Leads to Baby’s Removal… Poppy-Seed Bagel the Culprit – the only way to solve problems like this is to legalise all drugs, but if proposition 19 is any indication, even when we’re winning, we’re really losing… and while we’re at it, No reason for pot prohibition – when are we going to get the idea that the war on drugs is a collosal failure? not for the next couple of years, at this rate… 😐
not only that, but A molecular link between the active component of marijuana and Alzheimer’s disease pathology – the active ingredient in cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydracannabinol (THC), competitively inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), the key pathological marker of alzheimer’s disease. are we ready to legalise it yet?
Cargo plane bomb plot: passengers to face ‘ludicrous security measures’ – now that we have successfully prevented another terrorist plot from even reaching the country, of course, the logical response is to put more stringent measures in place to insure that innocent citizens are harrassed, poked, prodded, scanned and examined in new and unusual ways, to make sure that the terrorists don’t win again… oh, and by the way, Yemeni mail bombs suspect ‘had identity stolen’ – so we really don’t have any clearer an idea who did it then we did a week ago… swell…
For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance – they’re now searching your “crotchal” area, and they really want to get you to use the “Dick-Measuring Device” back-scatter imaging device, so be warned…
Pollution in China – this is why stuff is cheap in america. remember that the next time you buy something.
Obama may let CIA run more ‘hunter-killer’ teams roam abroad – this is premeditated murder and i question what the real intent is…
Why I don’t vote – W? T? F? i can understand a multitude of reasons for not participating in the farce of elections these days, but basing your abstinence in voting on 1 timothy 2.12 is far beyond anything that i could possibly figure out…
McDonald’s furious after San Francisco bans Happy Meals – apparently they didn’t get the memo…
Ram Dass Has a Son! – DNA tests confirm it, and ram dass is okay with it, so it doesn’t look like it’s going to cause a major uproar (like it has with other “spiritual” teachers), but it also is pretty much not what you would expect…
another week closer to the eschaton…
news has been too depressing the past week, so this week’s collection of links is going to be mostly fluff. i’ll leave it up to others to decide which is which.
Christine O’Donnell: Where In The Constitution Is The Separation Of Church And State? and she’s now offering a reward of $1,000 For Anyone Who Can Find The Phrase "Separation Of Church And State" In The Constitution – why is there still any question about whether or not she’s actually qualified to be a state senator? that’s like saying sarah palin is qualified to be president of the united states… 😐
Former Surgeon General calls for legalization of marijuana and Dozens of law professors nation-wide endorse Calif. marijuana legalization – but the federal government is going to continue to prosecute people for cannabis, in spite of state laws that legalise it… it’s not exactly what i was expecting from obama and crew when i voted them into office… 😐 They’ve Stopped Pretending
The World’s Largest Gummy Worm – 128 times more massive than a traditional gummy worm, it’s three pounds and 4,000 calories of gummy… um… it looks suspiciously like a dildo…
Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet – yep…
Apple Patents Anti-Sexting Device – all the more impetus for kids to learn a large vocabulary.
Gangsta Lorem Ipsum – Lorizzle dang dolor sit amizzle, shizznit we gonna chung the bizzle. We gonna chung sapien velizzle, dang volutpizzle, owned quizzle, break it down vizzle, arcu.
another week closer to the eschaton…
Future Chaos: There Is No “Plan B” – sooo… have fun while you can, i guess, ’cause if plan A fails, there’s going to be a whole hell of a lot of chaos, almost immediately, and there’s nothing you as an individual, and not much you as a group of well armed and well prepared people can do about it… 😐
It’s the 1930s car that was meant to change American lives. And now the Dymaxion’s back. – one of my lifelong dreams has been to own and/or drive a dymaxion car. maybe someone will be able to pull it off this time. 🙂
Tooth Regeneration Gel Could Replace Painful Fillings – Could this new gel be the biggest dental breakthrough since the introduction of fluoride?
Squishable, Breathing Smart Phones – for high paid geeks with way too much time on their hands.
David Harmer GOP Tea Party congressional nominee from California says ‘Abolish’ public schools and California shooter says he saw Glenn Beck as ‘schoolteacher’ and Republicans’ ‘scary’ immigrant photo depicts Mexicans in Mexico, photographer reveals – we’re still losing to these morons?!?
and this is for those who think that the budget crisis that we’re currently in the middle of is the fault of the democrats: Democrats shrank US spending, deficit in last fiscal year, figures show – and we’re still losing to these morons?!? 😐 admittedly the democrats are nothing to write home about, but they’re not the source of the current problems, and i really wish the republicans would remember that when they put all these ads on TV about how evil the democrats have been recently: we’re still recovering from the bush years, which were principally republican, and we will be for quite a while yet, so just cool it.
Multnomah County stops prosecuting dozens of illegal acts as crimes or Oregon county decriminalizes heroin, meth, cocaine and shoplifting, among others – but the federal government is going to continue to prosecute drug crimes anyway, even if states legalise or decriminalise them, so there’s really not an awful lot of news here.
Holder: US will enforce marijuana laws despite how Californians may vote – this is the reason why the only way we’re ever going to make any kind of substantial change in the “war on drugs” is to legalise them at the federal level…
according to a new RAND study, either Legalizing pot won’t hinder Mexican cartels or Marijuana Legalization Would Markedly Cut Mexican Drug Cartel Profits… you decide which is really the truth… 😐 here’s the Marijuana Policy Project’s spin on it – What Exactly Did that RAND Study Say About Cartels and Marijuana?
Tracking devices used in school badges – big brother waches over your kids, too, whether they’re at school or not.
Microsoft’s search engine will mine Facebook data – another reason not to use either microsoft or facebook. i have placed a directive in my robots.txt file that specifically denies microsoft’s search engines from indexing my site (while allowing everyone else), and i don’t use facebook… but my wife does…
Facebook is ‘killing privacy for commercial gain’ – a law against facebook… now there’s an idea… 🙂
Can a Person Be Moral without Being a Christian? – hint: his answer is no. “[I]f God is not your god, you will serve Buddha. Or, if not Buddha, perhaps Allah. Or, if not Allah, perhaps Baal. Or, if not Baal, perhaps Confucius.” let’s see: buddhism, confucianism and islam are recognised, but i don’t know of any modern baal-worshippers, except for jews, and, by extension, “christians”, who worship בעל (ba’al, or “lord”)… and he apparently doesn’t recognise hindus, or jaina, or taoists… maybe i shouldn’t expect so much. i keep this guy in my regular news feed primarly because he is so absurd. he gets more absurd with every new post. maybe he’ll follow the pingback to my site and learn how truly absurd i find his views. maybe not. who knows…
Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are Related – isn’t internet wonderful?
NSFW – the National Schools Film Week, you pervert… 🙂 now if it was NSFW it wouldn’t be so bad…
another week closer to the eschaton…
Think US politics are absurd? Brazilians elect actual clown to Congress – brazil has its collective shit together in more than two ways that i’ve noticed recently… maybe american politicians should be paying more attention to the brazilians…
60% of countries will be bankrupt within 50 years – the only hopeful thing about the future is that i will very likely die before that happens.
Drug cops smash into wrong house, terrorize elderly couple and Pot raid at school turns up tomatoes – if it were legal, they could be spending their time going after real criminals instead of hassling immigrant grandparents, and kids about their tomatoes… 😐
Why Comcast can (but probably won’t) read your e-mails, IMs – every now and then i need to remind myself why i am NOT a comcast customer. this will do for a couple of years, until something else awful and terrifying is revealed about their policies…
GPS directs driver to death in Spain’s largest reservoir or Un hombre fallece tras hundirse su coche en la presa de La Serena – i, for one, welcome our new, robot overlords… or not…
Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back and Student finds tracking device on his car; FBI demands it back – what…?
Hello, this is your ISP. You have been disconnected from internet. Have a nice day. – if micro$awft gets its way, this could happen to you if you get any kind of malware or virus. more reason to use linux, of course, but why would anyone think this is a good idea to begin with is a little mystifying.
Android phone auto reverts jailbreaks – i agree, that people who are required to pay for a piece of hardware to make their lives easier, should be able to use that piece of hardware for whatever they choose. the company from which you buy a cell phone does not retain an “interest” in the hardware, once you buy it… much as i like the approach taken by the makers of the android cell phone, i don’t think they should be able to arbitarily “take back” a phone that has been modified.
Woman screamed about God while destroying art and California Stem Cell Agency Rewards Blasphemy While Admitting the Humanity of Embryos Slated for Destruction – yep, people are still concerned about what other people do being “blasphemy”. in one case, a woman broke into a protective plexiglass housing and destroyed a piece of art, and in the other, people, for whom it did not make any difference, were “forced” to comply with the wishes of the people who were crying “blasphemy” and take down an otherwise inoffensive piece of art. i wrote to the contact person for CIRM (i encourage you to write to him as well) and sent him this:
i am not offended by any language, but because of the fact that you have seen fit to remove the poems in honour of stem cell awareness day, i can no longer see them, and that offends me.
No-one has the right not to be offended.
— John CleeseA truly great library contains something within it to offend everyone.
— Jo GodwinWhat is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
— Salman RushdieBeing offended is a natural consequence of leaving the house.
— Fran LebowitzThe most efficacious method of dealing with deviancy is to ignore, to the furthest point of our tolerance, those items which we find offensive.
— Ilbert GeisChristianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.
— Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet), 1694-1778
by the way, if you’re interested, the poems that were too “blasphemous” to post on CIRMs web site, can be seen here. USAToday is good for something after all.
Insane Clown Posse is actually a Christian band, and nobody knew – i knew there was a fundamental reason why i didn’t like them apart from their encouragement of drunken violence…
another week closer to the eschaton…
Feds want backdoors built into VoIP and email US Would Make Internet Wiretaps Easier – yes, the united states government wants to listen in on your phone calls, and analyse your email messages, because you might be a terrorist. forget about innocent until proven guilty, forget about warrants, if these people don’t get what they want, heads will roll… and they might just roll anyway.
Web’s creator slams ‘blight’ of web disconnection laws – tim berniers-lee has a point, and we should listen to him…
2 out of 3 Android apps use private data ‘suspiciously’ – DON’T. BE. EVIL! 😐
Red Hat says end software patents – the supreme court heard the Bilski case earlier this year, and it ruled that the patentability of intangible products should be reduced. red hat takes it one step further, and says that the patentability of intangible products should be eliminated entirely, turning the entire software industry on its ear. it’s a great idea, but it’ll never work out in practice, because people are still too greedy.
Downloads are not performances – despite the fact that i belong to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), i actually think this has the potential of being a good thing. whaddaya know?
Microsoft surrenders Live Spaces future to WordPress – part of me wants to laugh at the people who signed up for the micro$awft me-too web 2.0 hype, but part of me wonders if wp is really the best choice, if micro$awft chose it to replace their hype… 😛
Authorities Plan To Trawl Phone Calls And E Mails For Signs Of “Resentment Toward Government” – my guess is that they won’t have to go far, especially since my resentment towards government is plainly evident, and has been for quite a number of years… 😐
US Is ‘Practically Owned’ by China – don’t get too comfortable, the new bosses will be arriving soon…
The Proof Is In The Numbers: America Is Getting Poorer – where’s that hope-y, change-y stuff that they were talking about? it’s about time for that stuff to start kicking in, isn’t it?
Attempts to Ban Fake Marijuana Are Further Proof of Prohibition’s Failure – more flap about K2 and the valiant, but ultimately futile attemps to ban it. all the more reason to legalise cannabis. especially when the creator of the substance that makes K2 popular says this about attempts to ban his substance: “It’s not going to be effective, is the ban on marijuana effective?”
Key ingredient staves off marijuana memory loss – now that we’ve lightened up (a little bit), we’re discovering that cannabis really is good for something. The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition – legalizing drugs would save roughly $41,300,000,000 ($41.3 billion) per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition, and produce roughly $46,700,000,000 ($46.7 billion) annually in tax revenue. and we’re still fighting a “war” that we can’t win?
Barefaced cheek on Google Street View – ireland welcomes the google street view cameras with characteristic abandon.
Boss Hogs Bacon Chocolate Sueyts – yum… 🙂
Non-Sequitur
getting back to International Blasphemy Day, this cartoon has been pulled from some (upwards of 20 different) newspapers, because it is “offensive”.
personally, i don’t see it, but apparently it takes all kinds…
then again, as winston churchill said, “it doesn’t take all kinds, there just are all kinds.”
another week closer to the eschaton…
Google guy "invaded teen users’ privacy" Google damages users’ brains – DON’T! BE! EVIL!
On the Advice of the FBI, Cartoonist Molly Norris Disappears From View – this is what happens when you take any religion to its logical conclusion.
Linus Torvalds outs himself as US citizen – gadzooks! i can’t wait to get out, and linus is on his way in… tell ya’ what, linus… i’ll trade you. Silence is the Death of Liberty is an example of why…
New 64-Bit Windows Rootkit Already ‘In The Wild’ – i’m tellin’ ya’… it’s pointless for micro$awft to create “new” operating systems, because they’re all based on former, defective, operating systems, and they’ve already got a built-in cadre of hackers who are already 98% of the way to breaking anything new that they come up with, before they release it. NOTICE TO MICKEY: the way to fix this is to use an entirely different approach, right from the very beginning – instead of basing your next 64-bit “super secure, can’t be hacked” OS on the same 8-bit kernel on which every other MS OS has been based, why not try something that no-one expects and build an entirely new kernel? what? you’re not creative enough to do that? oh, well forget it then…
Open source: a savvy bet, even in tough times – another way of putting it is that “free” is a very good way to keep me as a customer… Principia Mathematica Corporatica
Massive La. Fishkill Prompts Oil Spill Questions, Gulf Oil Refuses to Stay Hidden Underwater and In legal filings, BP says thousands of oil spill victims do not have right to sue – will it ever end? not during this decade…
Nation of Israel Buys @Israel Twitter Account From Miami Pornographer – bwaah hah hah hah hah! 8D
Purging Evil – society still has a very, very long way to go. my impression is that it will continue to be as bad as it is, if not worse, until there is a fundamental shift in the way we think and behave, and guys like cal thomas are preventing that fundamental shift from happening. yet another example (the web is full of them, there’s no counting how many stories like this there are) ‘Devil’ appears in bathroom tile – and, yes, both of these are serious. the people reporting the stories believe that they’re true, no matter how absurd they really are. more absurdity:
Scientists are creating ‘mice with human brains’ Montana Republican Party wants to make homosexuality a crime Mother Denies Heart Surgery For Infant, Cites Religion – these are not jokes.
how ’bout another one?
another week closer to the eschaton…
we’ll start out this week’s post with a public service announcement: National Chronic Illness Awareness Week is coming up 13-19 september. be nice to somebody: one in two americans has an invisible chronic illness or condition!
Predator drones patrols of southern US border start Wednesday – this is now a police state, where only the priveledged live, the starving refugee is given temporary status, and the illegal immigrant is hunted down and summarily killed ejected.
example: California Cops Taser Senior Citizen in His Own Home – couple returns home, man falls, wife calls 911, cops show up and taser man when he refuses to go with them. beware – this could happen in your home, to you.
Oil Rig Explodes Off The Louisiana coast – didn’t we already go through this once? and, by the way, we now have a BP ultimatum: Let us drill or funds will dry up – considering that it took them all of a week to make the money that they have spent on cleaning up the spill, i think that they could go a little while longer before they are completely out of money…
More War Lies – war is peace, love is hate, lies are truth… business as usual.
Stephen Hawking Breaks Atheist Rules – yep, he said there doesn’t have to be a “god” in order for everything to be here. broke the rules, indeed… Is Stephen Hawking’s New Book Science or Science Fiction – “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mohandas K. Gandhi
Top Web Scams of the Decade – in other words, if you don’t know that you shouldn’t respond to random, sketchy-sounding email from someone you don’t know, you probably shouldn’t be online at all. Pew Study Claims One Fifth Of American Adults Don’t Use The Internet – i’ve got an idea: make it so that you have to have a license to use an internet-connected device, in the same way that you now have to have a license to drive a car. kill two birds with one stone…
Budget cuts bring end to Stockton narcotics unit – hey, let’s move to stockton! 8)
California pot legalization ‘could end Mexican drug war’ and Marijuana activists stage Mexico City smoke-out to protest prohibition – hint: legalisation of cannabis could go a long way towards ending the war on drugs everywhere…
The Pain-Killing Power of Marijuana – especially with people like this guy’s brother pumping out new research…
Two new scientific studies reveal hallucinogens are good for your mental health – another thing hallucinogens are good for! 8)
Ancient brew masters tapped drug secrets – another thing beer is good for! 8)
Mind-Altering Parasites – toxoplasma gondii on the loose!
network/s/ing
i am writing this from portland. to be specific, i am writing this from the back yard of my mother-in-law’s house. when i booted up my battery-powered laptop, it automatically found a network, and logged me in. it also found 3 other networks, for which i don’t have the password stored in my computer.
my impression is that i can go pretty much anywhere in pretty much any metropolitan area in this country, and be able to log on to the network with not an awful lot more than a password. this particular network’s password was (probably) supplied by my wife, who set up her mother with wireless ethernet last christmas, but it shouldn’t take any more than asking someone to be able to log in to any network. i just heard someone on the radio this morning who was saying that, inevitably, they’re going to include wireless networking, or wifi hotspots in new buildings, the same way that new buildings currently are wired with electricity, sewers and running water. i shouldn’t have to do more than ask someone to get free access to internet, in the same way that i shouldn’t have to pay someone to get water, or go to the bathroom.
and yet, that’s what google – the “don’t be evil” company – is out to make happen. it’s not bad enough that google anticipates the keywords that you type in, based on information that they have gathered from your previous searches, or that google is willing to sell that information about you to other people without your knowledge or permission, but on top of all that, they want to make you pay to get what should be equally free to everyone.
yeah, i know that you can go into a restaurant and get a fancy glass of water, but you’re also going to get quite a bit more than that in a restaurant, if what you’re starting out with is water, and when water is all you need, paying for all of that other, admittedly desirable, stuff, is starting to be more of a “luxury” item than anything else…
here’s an option: give free high speed internet to everyone, but let google and verizon build their “private, for-pay” internet and have them deliver that “private, for-pay” internet in a way similar to that in which fine food is delivered at a restaurant, and see how long it is before people realise that “private” and “for-pay” means that regardless of how raunchy, evil and nasty they want to be, someone is going to be aware of their actions.
ښالاماندر
Humans will be extinct in 100 years – a wonderful way to start out the post, but i’d tend to treat anything said by the guy who helped wipe out smallpox with a great deal of respect. you can argue about it all you like, but this is a guy who knows what it’s like to become extinct, and if he says humans are on the way there, i’d tend to believe him.
Scientists discover riding a bike is incredibly hard – in spite of the fact that the formula they came up with sounds pretty interesting (inertial forces + gyroscopic forces + the effects of gravity and centrifugal forces = the leaning of the body and the torque applied to the handlebars), given all the things that are going wrong with the world currently, there have got to be better things for “scientists” to be working on, don’t you think?
6-Year-Old Northeast Ohio Girl on ‘No Fly’ List – more idiocy on the part of home clownland security. all their antics sure make me feel a whole lot safer… 8/
and, speaking of feeling safer, Police tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn’t breathe – wow… just… wow.
no further comment necessary… 😐
Apple collecting, sharing iPhone users’ precise locations
Apple now collecting, sharing precise location of iPhone users – yet another reason why i’m no longer a mac fanatic… i’ll use a mac, but i’m NOT getting an iphone, and i’m probably not going to get a smart phone at all… 8/
Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising – Opting out of a network does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the network from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your Web preferences and usage patterns… but it’s a start, and if you’re as paranoid about network privacy as i am, you’ll understand the necessity for such a thing.
about every two weeks or so i get a call from a person who is looking for an “incense” called “K2”, or “Spice” – Toxicologist Warning to Parents: Look for Signs of K2 – ‘Fake Marijuana’ and After Indianola teen’s suicide, Iowa officials set sights on banning K2 – i find it really sad that people have apparently resorted to poisoning themselves, because it’s the only legal alternative, rather than getting legitimately high from something that is illegal, but has never killed anyone. from The 420 Times, “If you’re a kid and you’re thinking of trying K2 because it’s still legal to buy in your state, you’d be better off running the risk of buying real, illegal marijuana. Even if you get caught, you won’t die from inhaling a toxic substance or experience “hallucinations, severe agitation, elevated heart rate and blood pressure, vomiting and, in some cases, tremors and seizures,” like you do from K2. You’ll just be another statistic in The War on Drugs.”
沯
Toxoplasma Modified Humans – i’m glad to see that people who actually know what they’re talking about are looking into this, because i have been suspicious of Toxoplasma gondii for number of years, and this guy seems to be talking about the same stuff that i’ve been wondering about for a long time. the big question is: is ‘the meaning of life’ merely to accelerate the reproductive cycle of a parasitic protozoa? disturbingly, it also sounds suspiciously like the scientologists’ story about microscopic aliens controlling our behaviour…
Can we arrest him now? – i guess the phrase about “liberty and justice for all” was only for some people… 😐
沫
US drug war has met none of its goals – good ol’ gil’s working his way up the totem pole, and he’s still saying exactly the same thing he was saying ten years ago… i’d wonder about why nobody has taken any notice, but it would be a futile gesture. :/
i like that word ‘kleep’… it’s sort of like ‘telp’…
so the US copyright lobby is petitioning to put indonesia on the list of potential software pirates, because of the fact that its government supports open source software… if you don’t have your copy of linux and wordpress now, better get it soon, in case the US government decides that open source equals piracy.
i broke down and bought a price gun marker – $125 for a little gadget that prints two lines of numbers on a price tag, and is designed to be used at inhuman speeds. presumably it will work, but i won’t be able to find out until after the weekend, because my mother-in-law is visiting for the weekend and her bedroom is also where i store the incense.
i’m playing for the “Vicars & Tarts” party at the palladium tomorrow (yes, we are taking my mother-in-law with us, which should be amusing). i am playing with a whole bunch of musicians i have played with before in various other configurations, but we have never played in this particular configuration, and there’s one guy, colin, who i’ve never played with before. it’s going to be colin on trombone, me on e-flat tuba and greg on b-flat tuba (two tubas! 8) ), roslyn on clarinet, joseph on saxophone, stuart on guitar and a drummer who stuart says i have met before, but i don’t remember who he is.
Continue reading i like that word ‘kleep’… it’s sort of like ‘telp’…
GROWF!!
the PHBFH is reaching out and tweaking me from three counties and 15 years away…
i responded to a freecycle advertisement for a shower chair – the kind that disabled people use so that they will be less likely to fall in the shower. it so happens that i have one, left over from when i had my brain surgery. it’s been sitting at the bottom of our property and vines have been growing over it for the past three years or so, but being as how it’s made of aluminum and plastic, it’s still perfectly useable, once the vines are removed. i did so, and responded to this lady whose email user name is “meowphhtkitty”. she didn’t seem particularly motivated to come and pick it up, and i didn’t seem particularly motivated to take it to her, so i arranged for her to pick it up last weekend, and when she didn’t show up the first time, i just let it slide…
but then she wrote back yesterday and said that she was going to be working in auburn, fairly close to my house, and was going to come by to pick up the chair after she got off work. this time i went out – in the rain – and picked most of the vines off the chair, so that all she’d have to do is wash the brown leaf-stains off it and it would be ready to go…
she didn’t show up again.
this time i was more intrigued. i wrote to her asking why she hadn’t shown up, and – this is where the PHBFH comes into it – she wrote back from a different address: one from DSHS, where she is, according to her signature, a “Support Enforcement Officer” at the “Seattle Division of Child Support/DSHS”.
she made some lame excuse about how her boyfriend forgot to pick her up and her phone battery being dead, but she’s the DSHS drone who took the call from the PHBFH and had the police come over and roust me and my son out of a deep sleep at 3:30 in the morning on a sunday, 12 years ago, because the PHBFH wanted to make sure that she got her check from DSHS on time (which meant that she had to be in custody of my son), but my son wanted to stay and be the best man at my wedding…
i’m not 100% sure of this, of course, because i never actually learned the names of the DSHS people that were involved, but i know for a fact that the PHBFH was ripping off DSHS, she was crazy as a loon, i was taking care of her child and paying child support so that the PHBFH could get away with not having a job, and i couldn’t get anybody to pay attention to the problems I was having with the PHBFH.
and, of course, after my son turned 18 and i was no longer required to pay child support, the PHBFH went certafiably nuts and was involuntarily committed to the state mental institution, which is what i had been trying to tell people ever since my son was about seven years old. of course, by then it was “too late” – my son was already 18, i was already relieved of my child support obligation, and there was nothing anybody could do about it…
i haven’t been this angry at someone for a LOOOOONG time… and it is very likely that “meowphhtkitty” has no idea who i am or what my circumstances are…
but if she thinks that she’s going to be a no-show twice, AND be associated with the place that let the PHBFH step on my balls, she’s got another think coming.
why are people SO FUCKING IGNORANT?!?
Ugandan president urges softening of anti-gay bill – this is the ugandan president, saying – once again – that he is not going to allow the “kill gays” bill to pass. an admirable effort, if it actually happens, however, despite repeated assurances from the ugandan president, i still doubt will actually come to pass.
at the same time…
Witch-doctors reveal extent of child sacrifice in Uganda – this is somewhat of a surprise, considering their stance on killing gays. you get the impression from the first article that uganda is mostly a country of mortified “christians” who want to avoid the gay plague. there’s no clue from the first article that uganda is also a place where “crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity, and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.”
if they’re really just mortified “christians” then i would suspect them to shun “witchcraft” as well, but somehow these supposedly “christian” ugandans are more mortified about gays than they are child-murdering “witch-doctors”.
it’s as though they’re saying “it’s perfectly normal for us to want to kill gays, because they’re evil, but when it comes to getting ahead, a little child sacrifice, especially if it is someone else’s child, couldn’t hurt anyone.”
“(Homosexuality) is not allowed in African culture. We have to protect the children in schools who are being recruited into homosexual activities.”… but if there’s even the remotest chance that doing so would help us get a little bit ahead, we’re not above mutilating or killing children, either…
i’m not sure i even want to try to understand that one… 😐
death for xmas…
the way i see it, the possibility that uganda is not going to pass the “kill the gays” bill, and instead offer the option of “counseling and rehabilitation” will make it far more likely that the “christians” in the united states – who have been slapped in the face by the ex-gay ministry folks who have recently been forced to break ties with a guy who has been their affiliate for decades because of his “bizarre and unorthodox” therapies, and who are up against the psychologists associatiation saying that being gay is not a disease and not a choice, and who are also, ultimately, behind the “kill the gays” bill in the first place – will use the fact that uganda is saying that “counselling and rehabilitation” is “preferable” to their original plan is more justification that “counselling and rehabilitation” are effective “treatments” for this “disease”.
much as i hate to say it, i hope that uganda passes the “kill the gays” bill, so that it will be made plainly, blatantly, horrendously obvious to even the most uneducated “christian” on the planet exactly how “un-Christian” this legislation actually is. anything less will just give the “christians” more fodder, weak and meaningless as it is.
the war on xmas
the closer we get to xmas, the more i am feeling like a jew at a nazi rally, and i am aware of the irony of such a statement a lot more accutely than those of you who may be shocked at the reference.
what i would really like, is to magically transport myself to somewhere where they don’t celebrate xmas for the month of december – and possibly the months of november and january as well – just to get away from the hype that is going on. the commercialism and the politics of the holiday are really starting to get to me, and i still have 10 days until it’s over for another year.
it’s not that i don’t celebrate xmas, and it’s not even that i don’t believe in the “christ” and “god” that are behind the current incarnation of the holiday so much (although that’s another part of the story). what is really disturbing to me is the combination of not being able to turn on the television or the radio without hearing either commercials for products that i know won’t work (like Windows 7), or seeing news reports of people complaining because the greeter at walmart said something, or didn’t say something that was offensive to them… or not… 😐
i was brought up in a family that celebrated the commercial aspects of xmas. we didn’t even have a regular church service that we went to that was on a day other than sunday, and the church services that we went to all the time were pretty ecuminical and inclusive of traditions and cultures that were not specifically “christian”, so when i grew up and learned that some people believed that xmas was for stuff other than getting loads of toys and candy, i didn’t quite understand, but i didn’t really notice that much when the checker at the grocery store wished me a “merry xmas”. as i developed more of a relationship with sanatanadharma (which is what “hinduism” is really called) i started noticing the discontinuity a lot more: the “peace on earth and good will toward men” compared to the war, hunger and poverty that exist in the world, the constant fighting between catholics and protestants, the constant fighting between the christians and the non-christians, and the growing furor over “the war on xmas” came much more to the forefront, and i find it quite distressing.
things like the reference to a woman who compared santa to a swastika take on a meaning that is not immediately obvious to people who believe the swastika is an evil symbol, for example. i can see how santa is a lot like a swastika, and i wouldn’t mind seeing both of them in more common usage, but if there’s going to be an uproar over whether or not to have a swastika in a public display, then there certainly should be just as much uproar over whether or not to have a public holiday that celebrates santa – even if santa is not the "reason for the season".
and, for that matter, if you think about it a little more than most "christians" have, jeezis himself is not the “reason for the season” either. people celebrated the winter solstice for a long time before jeezis showed up, and it’s really only been within the past 200 to 500 years that we’ve had anything at all like what is currently celebrated as xmas, so all of those "war on xmas" fanatics really don’t have a leg to stand on in the first place. but in general, i think that the hindus and jews and buddhists and muslims and animists and even athiests have gone out of their way to accommodate all of the fanatics who insist that they are to be greeted with the phrase "merry xmas" instead of the more ecuminical "happy holidays" in fact, the only reason we have been as accommodating as we have been is because the "christians" are a majority of our population and if we weren’t so willing to give up what we believe in order to make peace, most "christians" wouldn’t have the slightest problem killing us!
what would jesus do, indeed?
i keep feeling like i am totally alone in a society of people who would have no problem killing me if they happened to find out that i don’t believe the way they do, but at the same time, i feel compelled to inform these ignoramuses that they aren’t the only ones on the planet, and that other people – people who believe differently than they do – have just as much right to exist as they do, and what jesus would really do is get along with everyone… which is supposed to be "The Christmas Message" anyway.
something has gone awry with the CSS part of the admin section for my wordpress blog. i logged in a few days ago and was greeted by a bunch of mysql errors and the blog’s admin page made with no CSS, and, to varying degrees, it’s been that way ever since. i suppose i’m going to have to do something about it eventually, but at this point the only thing i can think of is to totally replace everything except the database.
[UPDATE] i figured it out, sort of… all of the php files in my wp-admin folder had the following code appended to the top:
eval (base64_decode ('aWYoZnVuY3Rpb2...'));
which, when decoded, lead me to a file in /wp-includes/js/tinymce/themes/advanced/skins/wp_theme/img/ which was a whole bunch of script information that was base64 encoded, and a couple of IP addresses.
i’ve got the information more or less removed from the files, and i have deleted a whole bunch of suspicious files, and i have yet to discover who the IP addresses are, but when i do…
moe and i spent all day cooking yesterday, and today we have a freezer full of lunches and dinners. if things go as we’ve been discussing, we won’t have to cook again until next month.
i’m putting insulation and wallboard in the workshop. after that, it’s just a matter of moving in and unpacking the workshop stuff that i have had in storage for the past 4½ years. woo hoo!
“cult” = “christian”
It’s easy to spot signs of a cult – okay, let’s look at this from a bigger point of view: are not “christians” characterised by claiming that they, and they alone, have the truth about “god”, and dismissing other religions as wrong or misguided? and what about “god” giving their founders a new revelation that “corrects” the “errors” of others”? what about the differences between eastern and western orthodox catholics and methodists, or presbyterians and jehovah’s witnesses? what about the war over whether to perform the sign of the cross with two or three fingers? do they not add other authorities (like billy graham) to whatever canon they work under and secretly substitute their own teachings for things with which they disagree? what is it, if not in the message that “the only way… is through faith and trust in Christ” that makes “christianity anything different than the “cults” that he is warning against?
the fact that i can easily find “christianity” in this article that is supposed to be about “cults” should be warning to any “christian” who might be reading this, that even in such notable and presumably “christian” personalities as billy graham there is enough hypocrisy and lust for money that we should all be extremely careful about what we take as “The Gospel Truth” when it comes to making a personal decision like what one’s spiritual path should be.
if you’re really concerned about whether or not a group may be a “cult”, i would recommend evaluating it with the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame.
the latest piece of the 1&1 fiasco
i figured that i would file a fraud complaint with the police concerning 1&1. my experience has been that frequently the person who goes to the authorities first is the one who gets the authorities’ sympathy, and if you don’t go to the authorities until they come looking for you, even if you’re the one who is “right”, they have a tendency to look at whatever you say with suspicion, simply because someone else complained about you.
so i called the auburn police department to file a fraud complaint. even though our address is in auburn, the auburn police department doesn’t serve our area, because it is in the “unincorporated area” of king county, and is, thus, covered by the king county sheriff’s department. the king county sheriff’s department won’t take a fraud complaint, because there’s nothing they can do about it – despite the fact that fraud is a crime, they said that it is a civil matter, not a criminal one. they recommended that i file a complaint with the better business bureau, so i did. my complaint number is 0EC37-D0640-8140C-191A4-D2E85-C1D85-E0.
they want me to wait 30 days before inquiring about my complaint, and i’d be willing to bet that, complaint or no, 1&1 is going to try to contact me prior to that 30 day period. at this point, it’s a waiting game. we’ll see what happens.
bring it ON!
i got another email from 1&1 today, which said <ominous music>
please find the attached screenshots showing the offer you acceptted & the terms of said offer INCLUDING THE 12 MONTH CONTRACT.
with three attachments.
the first attachment is a screen shot from their current web site with the “specials” that they offer, all of which include a 12 month contract – but none of which i agreed to.
the 2nd attachment is the funny one. they said that it’s a screen shot of the contract i agreed to, except for the following items: 1) i never agreed to that particular contract. 2) it says “Recurring Payments, $19.95 per month; 1 time setup fee, $9.95”, and it has verbiage about a 12 month contract. the document i agreed to said “Recurring Payments, $9.95 per month; 1 time setup fee, free” and it had verbiage about a 3 month contract. finally, the “free domain” in their screen shot is blurred out so that i shouldn’t be able to read it, but i can make out enough to be able to tell that it is not my domain.
the 3rd attachment is a screen shot that i faxed to them, that shows their offer of an unlimited account for $9.95 per month, with no setup fee and no mention of a 12 month contract, except in very tiny print at the bottom – which, on my print, is actually not there!
furthermore, none of the three attachments have anything like a date on them, whereas the 5 items i faxed to them all have very clear dates on them.
okay… bring it ON!
what else is new?
again…
it’s coming down to the time when i should start thinking about switching host providers again. at this point it’s down to either HostGator or HostMonster each of which has their own google “complaints” page – this time i’m doing at least that much more homework… – and both of which have almost identical articles on hostings that suck which is questionable, since it also recommends 1&1… the reason for thinking of hostgator is that they have the balls to post an forum of customer reviews and apparently don’t remove the bad ones. the reason for thinking of hostmonster is that i have a very good friend who is a web designer and he uses hostmonster and speaks glowingly of them. probably going to start the process during the coming week or so, so that when i cancel with 1&1 they can’t screw things up as badly.
pipeline data apparently is apparently aware of the fact that they are running a scam, because when informed that we were going to the police with charges of fraud, they suddenly refunded the $11.95 that they had withdrawn from my bank account after i had cancelled my account with them… up until they were informed that we were going to the police, they had steadfastly refused to refund the money – which they were entitled to because of the contract i didn’t sign – under any circumstances, but when we told them we were going to the police, that is a circumstance under which they will refund it. there’s still no word on the $300 “early termination fee” – i’ve put in a dispute with the bank, and they’ve already started an investigation – but this doesn’t make it look too good for them. it may be a while, but today i’m guessing that i’ll eventually get the “early termination fee” refunded as well.
also… <tee hee> Fart Intensity Detector complete with schematics.
damn!
i have recently discovered that i have been ripped off by two different companies since december. the first one was the host servicie that i was so excited about a few months ago, 1&1 internet, who, i have since discovered, earned an "F" from the Better Business Bureau for “Number of complaints filed against business, Failure to respond to complaints filed against business, Number of complaints filed against business that were unresolved and Overall complaint history with BBB”. they “bait-and-switched” me into a contract for hosting services that ended up costing 12 times more than i would have agreed to, and then, in spite of the fact that their headquarters is in germany, they claimed to not understand when i told them that 4/10 didn’t mean the 10th of april, it meant the 4th of october…
the second company is Pipeline Data Processing, otherwise known as SecurePay, which also has an "F" from the BBB, has a reputation for holding funds, and charging you for things after you’ve already cancelled your account – like they did with me. and they said that it was all in the contract i signed, but i never signed a contract. the contract they sent me when i complained about the $300 withdrawal had a scan of my signature that could have been off a check or something… but i NEVER signed a contract. i was actually lead to believe that there wasn’t going to be any long-term contract.
the thing that pisses me off so much, though, is the fact that i would have learned about these rip-offs simply by typing the name of the company and the word “complaints” into google. instead, i figured that it was okay because the people sounded sincere, and signed up with both of them, and got ripped off. i am not immune to the very big stupid… 😡
i’m going to have to close my business account and open another one, because of pipeline data processing’s propensity for random charges well after my contract was cancelled, i’ve already got an investigation going at the bank, and the pipeline representative recommended that we file a police report for fraud, because they weren’t going to look into it otherwise.
fucking cunt-shit on a gold-plated platter!!!
i decided to check my bank account. i have only had one order since i unveiled the new site, and i had around $200 the last time i checked, but i was shocked to discover that pipeline data processing – the company i thought was going to help me process credit cards, before they charged me $45 for a month’s worth of services that i didn’t use because my site wasn’t set up for it yet, and subsequently, on april 7th, cancelled the account without ever processing even one credit card through them – had withdrawn $300 from my bank account yesterday! of course, this left me with a -$100 balance, plus a $35 fee from the bank.
naturally, i called them up to find out what was screwy. i didn’t use their services, i hadn’t incorporated their services into my web site, i had been a customer of theirs for less than a month – i originally signed up for a merchant account on march 16th, and cancelled it on april 7th – and they were withdrawing $300 that i didn’t have from an account that, presumably, they didn’t have access to any longer.
they told me that the $300 was an “early termination fee” and that it was “in the contract you signed”.
i didn’t sign any contract.
the entire transaction went on over the phone, and through email, and they have no record of anything other than a typewritten signature, which was not written by me, on a mishmash of text that they said was a contract.
as you can probably imagine, i was not very happy. unfortunately, since my injury, instead of being able to discuss the reasons for my unhappiness in rational words that actually make sense to anyone (including myself) i raged and ranted and stuttered and drooled and made a complete fool of myself to at least 4 different “customer service” representatives, before i finally got fed up with attempting to find out why a company that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a day was, apparently, unable to waive a $300 “early termination fee” for services that had never been used, and hung up.
i called the bank and told them that $300 had been withdrawn from my account without my approval. they said that someone would be getting back to me “in writing” – read “by snailmail”. they also said that if my account remained in an overdrawn state for more than 10 days, it would be suspended.
$#%&*@$!!%&*@?##!!!%!?!!
it’s worse than you ever imagined…
When they took the fourth amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun.
Now they’ve taken the first amendment,
and I can say nothing about it.
I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun.
Now they’ve taken the first amendment,
and I can say nothing about it.