At the Expense of Others

The movie Leap Year asks if women should propose marriage. That begs the question of if women should be making decisions at all. Really, should women be leaving their homes or even spending money?

The only people that think this way are narrow minded idiots that think "tradition" is a valid reason to continue bad policy. Unfortunately, these people also happen to be the majority of the population. So, sorry gals, looks like you're not in charge of your own lives.

Some People are Not Stupid

Like Ed, from Gin and Tacos.com. I love this blog. I have formally decided that Ed is now my future second husband (for the record, my future first husband is Kai Ryssdahl and I plan to have the babies of Morrissey and Amanda Marcotte. I also wanted to have the babies of my friend Nancy, but I think now I prefer want to gay-marry her to show my affection and admiration)

Ed recently received his PhD in Political Science. He teaches college at a big school in GA. Read and love.

In the Meantime

I have a couple more Stupid People posts coming up, but in the meantime, allow me to link an article by Barbara Ehrenreich: The Pink Ribbon Cancer Cult

Unrelated, but "Her presence underscores the impact and importance of bowling." I'm not sure if that line can be any funnier.

Dear America,

Pull up your pants.

Thanks,

More Spiders!

So, I missed a good picture opportunity Tuesday night when I hobbled out of my car at home. There was a huge spider on the wall of my "garage" and I didn't snap a picture of it. Today, however, I finally watched my cousin's video, titled (in a different uncle's font)

Uncle Tommy and the Jaguar in the Corn Field

The video's high point, for me, was the shot of a GIANT SPIDER near the end. This is shot in Wisconsin, in Septemeber. I can only assume that the white stuff on the ground is fertilizer, maybe the audio on the video explains this, but I couldn't hear the audio well. Click on the image to go to the video.

 

People are Stupid, Part 1

Last night, I learned that a woman who HAD CANCER that was detected by a mammogram at the age of 42 went and canceled her surgery to remove the cancer because of the new guidelines. At 42, this woman may have already had children, so when she dies, she won't be able to get a Darwin award, but she certainly deserves one. This is the concern - that stupid people will be stupid and do shit like this. Frankly, I could not care less about stupid people who ignore diagnosed problems. I think a lot of energy is lost trying to help people who are demonstrating no desire to help themselves (the cost issue has been ignored in this case, on my part, but the fact that cost is a factor in having life saving procedures is the fault of our shitty system anyway).

Then there are the emotional outbursts from people who think that the guidelines would work as restrictions and no woman under 50 would be able to get a mammogram. These people are idiots. The guidelines clearly state that this is ONLY the case for women who are not otherwise deemed to be at high risk for breast cancer. I understand the concern that this may mean that health insurance providers may stop paying for these screenings, which, when done correctly, save lives. Republicans are using this as a political football too, even though they have demonstrated that they have no problems with cutting off funding for procedures that save women's lives. But the problem with that argument is that the fault there lies with the ruthless tactics of the health insurance industry, not with well reasoned guidelines.

I can't emphasize that word enough - guidelines. Furthermore, these are guidelines for women who are not otherwise at high risk. Paranoid women and women with an ancestral history of breast cancer can get their damn mammograms every year, every 6 months if they really want it. However, had nobody ever come out and said that women under 50 need to have this done, we wouldn't be in this situation. I'm just glad that the paranoia didn't reach a point where they started proclaiming that women get mammograms in their 30's. After all, I do know women who have had breast cancer that early too.

[sarcasm]And lets not even try to think of better cancer screening procedures while we continue to post x-rays of women's breasts on the nightly news all the time, we're saving lives by barbarically smashing body parts and then posting them to the public![/sarcasm]

No Indication of Terrorism at Fort Hood

You know, if that was a true statement - as I saw posted on CNN tonight while at the gym - that would mean that this is an ordinary week at Fort Hood. Soldiers getting ready to deploy, processing physicals, and watching the tearful families separate. That would mean no "terrorism" occurred. Instead, someone shot at people without noticeable provocation, injured a bunch, and killed about a dozen of them. However, it seems like terrorism got re-defined in the last decade to the acts of people working for organizations. If the OKC bombing happened now, would we breathe a sigh of relief that this wasn't "terrorism"?

E-mail written by [Bananaman]

Dictated to E*** Z****

I got this feelin' - R** C****** is near. Yes, November 19, 2009, on college campuses near you, the R** C****** Posse of Idiots will come knocking to tell you how great God is, how baaaad Hitler is, and how somehow, he was Darwins' gay lover? I read some of the piece - well, I skimmed part of it when we looked at at SANE - I would read it, but I've already had one brain injury, and they say that the next one will be worse.

Alternet had a post about R**'s celebrities, Kirk Cameron and Ben Stein, passing out this 50 page fairy-tale piece. I didn't read the article, but I saw some comments, including this one.

The real story here is the big cash behind making stuff up. We live in a world where all the scientists believe in man-made climate change but half the population doesn't. In general, if the science doesn't suit a big company we get a science-washing campaign. This goes back to the 1920s when doctors endorsed cigarettes to make women slim. Then Exxon/Mobil bought a climate change campaign, the nuclear industry bought a radiation is good for you campaign, coal became clean coal (use it like soap!). This evolution serves Jesus deal is just one more schtick.

50,000 copies, for free, and lots of money put into the product. Of course the public will buy it!

-Source

I find the highest moral offense of Martin Luther to be valuing faith over works, but how else to sell a lie?

More Like Project Funway

This year's season on Lifetime is much more melodramatic than the Bravo seasons. I don't root for any of the designers to win, and things seem less "real". Maybe it is their location in LA, maybe it is the new network. In the middle of the season it became clear that the design skill was split by gender, which is not normal for this show. Christopher needed to go, as did Logan. Nicholas was annoying sometimes, but he was more talented and creative than Logan and Christopher. Chris was one of my Minnesota boys, so I enjoyed watching him, but his dresses were all "play on volume" crap, emphasis on the crap. Logan was boring and no, I did not find him to be attractive, I don't know what everyone is so excited about. I was so happy to see him go, yet Christopher is still here. Here is how I think it should shake out.

Winner: Irena, but I will not be surprised if Carol Hannah wins.

Bryant Park, no win: Althea, possibly Gordiana (but unlikely), and Carol Hannah

Next off: Chris (retroactively enforced five episodes ago) and Gordiana

Spider Time

So, I pledged a whole blog section about spiders, but apparently, there is only ONE post tagged with spiders. This is wrong. I have seen some good ones lately, including this one on a stop sign near my place.



I saw another big one a month ago or so. A couple was looking at it. Can you see it?

Late Night BART

I just got home around 4 or so after riding the BART from Powell. My friend and I got to Powell, camped out on the floor, then consumed ourselves untangling his Mardi Gras beads. Some girls near us caught his attention too and one was dressed as the raisin lady. He only noticed that after staring at the raisin box she gave him for a while. At 4 minutes to the train for Con-cord, people stood up. My friend got up when it about one minute. The group convened near the black tabs and I worried that someone might fall off into the train. When the train neared, we cheered and then we began to pack the train. I was wedged around a bunch of guys, one bald-headed white guy was drunk and also seemed to have wandering hands twice. He also accidentally slapped me on the tunnel, which I found pretty amusing.

We stopped at Embarcadero, but we had been packed at Powell. The conductor was not very patient with us, but at the same time, the people in the middle of the cars could have gotten closer. I looked around and saw nothing but passed out heads with arms clinging to the bars. Halloween zombies hanging from the handrails on the train who were not moving. I made room where I could, and the conductor threatened to take the train out of service if the doors could not close. We started, stopped instantly, then started again. And we were on our way under the bay. That tunnel took forever this time, and we had to wait until 12th Oakland to stop.

People, including me and my friend, poured out of the Con-cord bound train and I followed my friend onto an almost empty car going up through Berkeley to Richmond. We had to wait for a second train from San Francisco, but then we were off on the Richmond bound train - well, El Cerrito del Norte bound. We were to stop at MacArthur, Downtown Berkeley and El Cerrito del Norte. I guess the BART thought, "screw Richmond."

A couple of times during the night I got to note on our being a part of SF history with our BART ride. The Halloween Party Commute, 2009.

Flower Time

I call this "Potential" or something like that, then I cut the flower part off.

Just kidding, lol.







Here was a purple flower as seen through our fall foliage.

How I'm Surviving the Second Bay Bridge Closure of 2009

I don't know if any of you watch the national news. I only see it at the gym, but I did get to see that the Bay Area made national news a couple times. The big one is big, and might just complete our trifecta of transportation issues this year. A few weeks before Labor Day, we had the threat of the BART strike. The night before it was due to start, the state and the union reached a deal and trains ran on schedule. Disaster averted. A couple of weeks later, the Bay Bridge was shut down and we all forgot about the BART issue.

It is an El Niño year this year, and this last week has been hella windy. Tuesday night must have been really incredible. I didn't hear the traffic reports that evening, but somehow, by the next morning, I knew full well that pieces of the new Bay Bridge had been blown apart during rush hour on Tuesday. A few cars were damaged, one person was insignificantly (I think) injured, and the Bay Bridge was shut down. Not for repairs - no. It was so the engineers could figure out how to fix it.

The San Francisco Bay Area lives and breathes by its bridges, and the Bay Bridge is like shutting down the aorta of our traffic flow, carrying most of the East Bay out of the MacArthur Maze and into the city. Since the bridge went out on Tuesday night, the BART has been running longer trains and they even added a second ferry across the bay. However the other bridges are packed.

Its nice because there is no back-up to the one east bound lane of the Caldecott tunnel, but the traffic on 680 negates any time saved. I run right into all the Martinez, Pittsburg, and Concord people that usually take 24 to the Bay Bridge all rushing down 680 to get to the San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges before... well, before nothing cuz those are clogged and we made national news.

I don't know how things were after the Loma Prieta quake, but the recent 20 year observances made it clear to me that all hell did break loose during that time. The traffic issues with the Bay Bridge were likely dwarfed by the chaos that engulfed the area. They may also have been just as bad, but people were probably so shell shocked by the 15 second nightmare that caused it to barely care.

I'm lucky that my only concerns with this shutdown are not knowing which ways are the best anymore and that I don't work in the city. Some of my co-workers live in the city and commute out to San Ramon, but I don't know what they are doing. If it was me, I might think about packing a bag and staying with a friend that lives near-by instead of trying that commute. I don't work tomorrow, but I am not sure if it is a Furlough Friday or not. I hope it is - or maybe the state should trade them. I can only imagine the money our state doesn't have that's being spent. I wonder if the money lost on those tolls is being made up on other bridges, ferry fees, and BART tickets. I also wonder if the BART will run 24 hours in order to have some kind of traffic along that vessel.

We Need a Miss Manners for the Internet

I have absolutely no sympathy for the person that sends an email to me, either as an individual or as part of a large mailing list, with a demand to be taken off an email list. I have some respect for the request if I happen to be in charge of that mailing list, but if I'm just a user, especially if the email is to me directly, that person can kiss my ass. This week, I got one sent directly to me, and rather than respond or forward, I hit the delete button. One of my co-workers suggested I send the person an email saying that I did remove them from the list, and while I like the way that guy thinks, I opted for deleting rather than causing more havoc.

I know that people get on lists that they later realize they don't want to be on, and I also know that many lists are on other lists - signing up for the Hmong Student Association got me on the hotline to all the major API groups at UC Berkeley - and there may even be people out there that sign up group email addresses on those mass sign-up sheets that groups have out during festivals. It happens and the best way to get off the list is to ask someone to remove your email unless you happen to be at a university with a university account and can remove yourself.

What bugs me are the demands and the comments along with the demands about how they don't care about the subject at hand or the group in general. I liken it to being in a room where a conversation begins, then loudly shouting how you dislike everyone there and can't find the door. There are more polite ways to extricate yourself from a situation without making an ass of yourself and without insulting everyone else.

Now, the email that I sent out was a response to two other people. The email that I got back stated that this person was not interested in this group and wanted to be removed from the list. I was just about as able to remove this person as any of my grandparents are and I happen to have a very high opinion of the group this person was talking about. I might have forwarded a message that read something like "Hello, I don't know how I got on this list, but I would like to be removed. I contacted the other two people in this thread as well but they have not responded. If you cannot remove me, could you forward this message to someone who can? Thank you."

My mother always says that I'm constantly complaining that people do not say things correctly, and its true that I hold people to a high standard of decorum. Being as emotional as I am, I react strongly to rudeness. I have thin skin (metaphorically and literally - well, its transparent and burns easily), but I'm a human so I problem-solve and try to figure out how someone could achieve the same ends without acting like an ass. So if you're on a distribution list that you don't want to be on, do as Urs says, use please and thank you and your request might actually work.

Now, I could have been nice myself and forwarded the message, no matter how rude, but the person insulted my group, so &*#$ them. I mean, hell, I'm not a computer.

Another Quote

Over at Pandagon, I don't care for the bloggers that quote a lot because I want to read their analysis. I read the blog because I like the writing and opinions of the bloggers, so reading a bunch of quotes bores me. But, I'm not as skilled a writer as Marcotte, or this writer, so I guess I have to quote.

The fourth point: If you fail to respect what women say, you label yourself a problem.

There’s a man with whom I went out on a single date—afternoon coffee, for one hour by the clock—on July 25th. In the two days after the date, he sent me about fifteen e-mails, scolding me for non-responsiveness. I e-mailed him back, saying, “Look, this is a disproportionate response to a single date. You are making me uncomfortable. Do not contact me again.” It is now October 7th. Does he still e-mail?

Yeah. He does. About every two weeks.

This man scores higher on the threat level scale than Man with the Cockroach Tattoos. (Who, after all, is guilty of nothing more than terrifying bad taste.) You see, Mr. E-mail has made it clear that he ignores what I say when he wants something from me. Now, I don’t know if he is an actual rapist, and I sincerely hope he’s not. But he is certainly Schrödinger’s Rapist, and this particular Schrödinger’s Rapist has a probability ratio greater than one in sixty. Because a man who ignores a woman’s NO in a non-sexual setting is more likely to ignore NO in a sexual setting, as well.

So if you speak to a woman who is otherwise occupied, you’re sending a subtle message. It is that your desire to interact trumps her right to be left alone. If you pursue a conversation when she’s tried to cut it off, you send a message. It is that your desire to speak trumps her right to be left alone. And each of those messages indicates that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights.

For women, who are watching you very closely to determine how much of a threat you are, this is an important piece of data.

-Sweet Machine

Here is something that I already realize, but I did not have the capacity to put it into words. Fortunately, I can leverage the words of someone else and use this to put words to instances in my own life.

We Do Not Exist Just to Breed

Something is said to be alive if it is an item that grows on its own and creates identical items that grow on their own. So it happens that the life patterns of humans would include a period of growth, then procreation. A major difference between humans and other species of life is that we don't just stop at making copies of ourselves. We create and build, we discover and invent, we fix and improve, sometimes never stopping to have more than one or two children.

But many people have it in their heads that our purpose is to breed, they may be forbidden by others from preventing pregnancy, and many are unable to resist sexual contact. In the past, the human population stayed stable because we were unable to keep a large segment of babies from dying shortly after birth. The population was further held down due to disease, war, and in Europe, witch burnings killed a significant portion of the young adult population. These days, science gives us the technology to limit the number of people we create and to take good care of the ones that we do create.

But now and then, the past comes back to haunt us. Will we make the right assessment of the problem and fix it? Will we discourage religious dogma and encourage contraception? I hope we do.

Santa Claus and the Baby Jesus

Two cute Christmas mythologies, both that people commemorate with little displays of the story every year. Only one that millions of people actually think is true past their childhood. My parents had a ceramic nativity scene that we would display under the eastern window in the dining room. We put some books down to act as a platform for the barn, then put a felt cloth over that, and placed the ceramic figures. We put fiberglass down next as the "snow" (or maybe that went down first).

When the Decorators in my house went atheist, we put the nativity scene away and used the space for other decorations. In college, I bought my parents some little snow-people -- two big ones and two little ones -- and they sometimes go there. I don't know the Christmas decoration plans this year though. The nativity scene and angel ornaments were the only casualties of our atheism, but now there is an angel on the top of the tree, where before we always had a star.

Today, at the Ashby Flea Market, I stumbled on this, and then haphazardly bargained it from $15 to $7.

The books (or rather, paperbacks in the dust jackets) have been there for a while, and this was the perfect location in my living room.

I Love You, Caren

So...by not going to SC and getting herself hurt or killed, Michelle Obama is oppressing the freedom-loving, conservative patriots who just want to express their “dissent” to her personally. Is that right?

On that note, I’m pretty fed up with theocratic assholes who think that their First Amendment right to be free from government impediments of speech means that they are allowed to force any particular person to listen to them.

Chicago just passed a law creating 50 foot buffer zone around abortion providers’ workspaces. Within 50 feet of the building, you cannot approach someone closer than 8 feet without her permission. The ACLU is actually on the theocrats’ side in this, evil socialists they are, b/c it’s hard to leaflet from 8 feet away.

Anyway, tons of screaming about how these wonderful people who never harmed anyone and have saved countless baybeez are being discriminated against and not being allowed their freedom of speech.

You can talk. You just can’t talk to a specific person if they don’t want to listen: that’s called harassment.

Specifically to this post, no one is stopping anyone in SC from dissenting. If they can’t behave like civilized people or like Americans, then it’s their own fault if they can’t have nice things like a visit from the First Lady.

-Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes

Here is My Cat

This is Kitty Amin, she lives in the barn at my parents' place in Wisconsin. My dad blames our family's acquisition of her on me, so she became my cat, but as I recall, I just wanted to give her some kitty treats, it was Dad that let her in the house.

See, when I was home after my brain injury, things were a bit boring. Splotches, the only cat we had at the time, was not very exciting since she was never really a people-cat. One day, as I was trying to pet Splotches, I saw a cat walking down the driveway. I called to my dad about the cat and he replied, "yeah, that's the cat that comes over and eats the left over cow feed!" I went out to give her some treats and then Dad let her come in the house. We thought she was pregnant because her belly was so big and she looked otherwise starved. But the gestation period for kittens came and went and no kittens. I had some friends that were on a dictator-cat-name theme, so I decided to call this cat "Kitty Amin". Her size fits her namesake perfectly, though I wasn't thinking about that when I named her. She is a very friendly cat, which is problematic because she smells like the barn.

Under New York State Law

I turned on the TV tonight and the only thing on was Seinfeld, so I caught the end of the "Bra as a Top" episode. Elaine is annoyed by an acquaintance that never wears a bra, so she buys her one as a gift. The woman wears it as a top, with a jacket and causes Kramer to get into a car accident. It could be said to be a distraction, but in Manhattan, toplessness is legal, regardless of sex.

Names So Much

Three years ago, I got into Project Runway. I finished Season 3 and saw Season 4 to the end. Somewhere in there, I forgot TV and/or got busier, so I missed Season 5, maybe 6 too. Anyway, suddenly, I'm into the show again and Episode 2 had a maternity wear challenge. Pregnancy experience seems, to me, like a rare occurrence in popular culture and the winner worked with a model who had a 2 year-old. The Losers shook out like this:

• Ra'mon: an interesting optical illusion dress with contrasting color choices to create a bowling-ball-bag look.
• Mitchell: cute outfit, horribly sewn.
• Marvin: concept design to feature pregnacy: a mother hen.

. I don't remember as much about the winners, except that they were all women and Sharin won cuz she had an awesome dress and a super hot coat. I'm interested to analyze what I do know, however.

In other news, Project Runway is on Lifetime now, which allows me to see Lifetime commercials, including those for other shows on Lifetime. They all have incredibly emotional plotlines that can usually make me cry from intensity and wear me down. I have heard of a study claiming that having severe emotions one day reduces your physical ability to cope with the mental stress the next day. In other words, Lifetime stresses people out and the commercials are painful to me and I try to avoid them.

Just Don't

I love you, Energy 92. You give me the high bpm I need. You have Greg and Fernando, but wtf is up with playing the dance remixes of Pink songs? Who the hell is making those in the first place? No one wants to dance to her song about her dead friend, or her crumbling marriage. None of her other songs are fast enough for dance beats either. And let's not even mention Katy Perry, ugh! Are you trying to make her sound slow and retarded? Just stop - if I want to hear those songs, I'll listen to my CDs.

I Hate Zombies

I really can't stand them. Actually, zombies do not exist, what I cannot stand is the cultural obsession around them. There are all these stupid quizes and retarded hypotheticals about how they would survive a zombie attack that could. never. happen. Now people in the UK have wasted the world's time determining that humans could not survive an attack by this completely fictional entity.

Why aren't we spending time determining if the world could survive an attack of werewolves? What if we were infested with witches and warlocks that had a desire to do the world harm? How about a massive infestation of Big Foots? Sure, people are having fun, but this genre ceased being fun when people started putting zombies in every other movie, video game, and social conversation. Now that people are investing the world's conciousness in a stupid made up monster, it is just retarded.

Also, note that this post is a replacement for snarky comments on friends Facebook statuses. I have enough respect for the friends I have that find this interesting not to rain on their parade, but, as you can see, I hate the obsession with zombies.

Why I Use Natural Products

One time, after a shower in my flat in Cape Town, I noticed that I had not rinsed a bit of soap off of my leg after I got out of the shower. It was a small amount and I dried it off. A day or two later, I noted that I had acne in that area. Lesson learned, I paid even more attention to rinsing myself off in the shower.

Six years later, I was reading an Alternet article about something or other and saw a comment about natural soap products, specifically natural hair care products. The commenter mentioned that normal products contained petro chemicals that made your hair feel clean for a short while, but actually made it dirtier. With Whole Foods right across the street from work, I decided I would try out these products and find out for myself if my hair was any cleaner. This was how I learned about the value of "lather, rinse, repeat", and noticed that after a day without washing, my hair did seem a little bit cleaner. It wasn't until my three day trip to Houston when I used hotel [conventional] shampoo every day, yet couldn't wait to get home to finally wash my hair [with natural] that I really observed the difference.

So I stopped using conventional shampoo, but still used conventional products for everything else. About a month ago, I ran out of my deodorant. I used Secret Platinum, which had 19% of the active ingredient. Secret Clinical Strength, which was half as much for twice the price, was 20% of the active ingredient. It didn't matter which one I used though, I still had big rings of sweat on the pits of my clothes most days. It was usually small enough that I could conceal them by not raising my arms too high, but of course, that just made the sweat patch get bigger. I was out of deodorant, but only wanted to go to one store - Whole Foods or Target that night, and I needed dinner. Whole Foods had fresh food, Target didn't, so I tried out one of the natural deodorants at Whole Foods. The first day I tried it, no sweat. The second day I wore it, no sweat, and so on, for about a week. The main problem was that it didn't cover up my BO as well, but no one except me noticed - even when I asked people. Then I was chatting with a guy I know in the deli at Whole Foods and he suggested Crystal Stick deodorant, so I bought that. That takes away the smell and still, no sweat.

So my hair is clean, I smell good, and I'm not sweating like crazy anymore. Back when I was in Cape Town, I had brought with me my first ever bottle of Neutrogena's body wash. I remember seeing the commercial. It had nice, clean looking white teenagers standing on a white sound stage, confessing that people get breakouts on places besides their face. Being able to relate to that, I noted the product and bought a bottle when buying my toiletries for Africa. To be honest, however, I can't say that Neutrogena's body wash worked any better than any other soap for reducing acne on other parts of my body. It did help when I rinsed all the soap off, of course. Earlier this year, I started using natural soaps for my body more often, and now I use them exclusively. This weekend, I realized that I no longer had any body acne. In fact, I haven't noticed any breakouts or even single zits for a few months. I'd have to go back to conventional soaps - maybe I could use up all my Bath & Body Works things - to fully experiment on my body, or maybe I could just keep using this soap and see if I get acne anyway.

In my life, a number of things have caused me shame. For the last 12 or 13 years, one had been random breakouts, and in the past two years, another had been excessive sweating. They seem to be gone now, without making medication changes, without going to so-called "stronger" products. In fact, because my hair stays cleaner longer, I have less incentive to shower than normal. Though, now I will shower and not wash my hair more often because my hair is getting obscenely long.

Let the New Movies Begin

Will it be Made for TV or Big Screen? Michael, The Movie.

The last one was 1992, which was before the first time he was accused of molesting children, but after he began to whiten. There are so many more things that we need to know, and the rumor mill is stating

• Michael Jackson Couldn't Sing, Was Gay, Was Skeletal: Writer
• Debbie Rowe Not Kids' Biological Mother, Jackson Not Father, Arnold Klein Is: TMZ, US
• Michael Jackson Was So Distraught Over Insomnia That He Begged For Powerful Drug: AP
• Patrick Malone: Michael Jackson: How Not to Get Quality Medical Care

I don't know what is true, but I will be interested to see the tale of our 21st century Howard Hughes.

Good News, Governor Sanford

You're NOT the biggest news of the week. Who would have thought?

So, get this, the governor of a mid-size state goes missing. The Lt. Governor wasn't notified, his wife is clueless, and aides claim he went off hiking in the Appalachians. About six days later, he shows up at the airport, blabbering about a love affair with a woman in Argentina. Amanda writes a great post about the meanings of passion and conservatism and BOOM

Michael Jackson effing dies

Can anyone say Gary Conditt?

Never Studied

A friend on Facebook posted a cool photo of a storm in Iowa. The people that saw the clouds in this storm think that there should be a new cloud classification based on these clouds. But not everyone agrees and the article mentioned that meteorologists would classify these clouds as an existing type of cumulous clouds. It sounded like an interesting debate until I got here:

But Pretor-Pinney, who never studied meteorology, believes the clouds merit their own cumulus sub-classification.

This person is not an amateur meteorologist, one who might have read a bunch of books but never got a formal degree, no, Pretor-Pinney "never studied meteorology".

Well Said

marriedtothesea.com

You're Kidding Me

I'm watching all of the episodes of Bullshit from Penn & Teller. I'll be posting reviews of certain clumps of episodes, but I'm starting with the episode College, which is actually an indictment of diversity. I can hear the bs reason for the society in Fahrenheit 451 already. In all seriousness, I am censoring my post because I am nervous about having this blog deleted, literally. Though I have almost every reason to believe that the threat of this is gone, the risk is too great, censoring away!



That is an image of [a college], my alma mater and the episode actually talked about [something I vividly remember]. [I had another paragraph about my relationship with the events and people and locations portrayed] [Finally there was a paragraph about the racial make-up of the campus and other things] I can say that the episode's description of events does not match my recollection in that it leaves things out and doesn't actually answer any of the questions I had 8 years ago.

The white rich guy in the episode said that women, people of color, LGBT, etc people are treated like children when we are "told" that we should not be exposed to certain types of speech or opinions. In my experience, these same people are asking for a learning environment free of these assholes. It isn't just speech or opinions either. Remembering going to my alma mater, I remember a lot of conversation and yes, vitriol aimed at people who said stupid racist shit. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism of your hate speech. But a lot of what was said also wasn't protected speech. Harassment and threats are not the same as free speech. Sure, attention to diversity can be problematic - I am not a moral relativist - but you can't have an open discussion with someone that insists that "f****ts", "n****rs", and "b***hes" are less than human.

We have a history in this country that creates a context of hostility towards anyone not that "majority" group with which we are familiar. It is very easy for members of a group that has not been threatened with violence or are seen [more in the past than now, thank goodness] routinely as less than human to tell us what we want. In fact, they do it all the time and they did just now. Sure, diversity is rationally ridiculous to people that don't benefit from it, but ask the out black lesbian who is going to college to learn chemistry about the tangible benefits of diversity training and even awareness in the people around her in her ability to obtain her degree.

This episode could have been much more powerful and I did not come away from the episode with any new knowledge, literally, even about the incident at my alma mater. It could have been an indictment of the excesses of diversity training. They hit on some overreactions at my alma mater and pulled a stunt protesting diversity at a diversity event. Tolerating intolerance is not tolerance and the episode proved that universities are aware of this fact. The tolerance of any idea without editing, without regard to effect is an excess of diversity and no one is doing that. Making campus safe for a KKK group would be a problem, but it isn't happening. I think the fact that this episode had to go to a second rate state university in a state that most people in America forget about to get an example of "diversity gone wrong" when it wasn't even ABOUT "diversity" is an indication that they REALLY had to reach for something that just ain't there. Seriously.

The show could have also addressed the issue of too many people going to college or getting crap degrees with which they cannot get a good job after they graduate. What about grade inflation and the snowflake epidemic? They tried to address this issue by trotting out names of talented and/or lucky people that struck it rich without college, but that does not a criticism of college make. Everyone knows that being an entertainer does not necessitate college, with the exception of maybe Peter Graves. But these days college has become what high school used to be - a training ground for young people before they enter adulthood. But we consider that college and made high school into a holding pen for children and elementary school is elaborate day care. Colleges need to be places that create future leaders, artists, professionals, and scholars to enhance society for all people, whether or not they went to college. They should not pass students after they skip the final and even ask not to be failed so they can have time to drop the class.

There is so much this episode could have been, and it should have been two episodes to address the excesses of diversity (because they exist) and the problems in college today. As is, this episode just taught me that some highly educated and high powered and uneducated but wealthy entertainer white guys don't think that diversity or college are good things, respectively. I should probably make up some kind of rating system, but overall, this episode is bullshit.

Yeah

toothpastefordinner.com

Related Posts: Waste

Classic

It dawned on me tonight, after I refreshed Pandagon, that almost any motion picture clip that existed, especially after the advent of VCRs, probably exists on YouTube, even if the copyright holder takes it down over and over again. So I went searching.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Modern Times

So, Sunday morning, I woke up with a headache, probably from that skittles vodka shot or something, but I had no food in the apartment. I headed to Whole Foods for some breakfast and grocery type things and made my way through produce and near the fish, I saw that they had fresh eggs out near-by. Some of the eggs were larger than normal and I noted that they were goose and duck eggs. Then I looked up and holy crap...

What kind of a place do I live in? I would buy one, but would be too worried that I'd open my fridge to see a baby bird inside. Is anyone else reminded of Jurassic Park?

I guess it isn't SO weird, I mean, there are ostrich meat farms, and ostriches can lay unfertilized eggs, just like chickens, ducks, and geese. But holy living fuck.

Stupid Stupid

In a document released yesterday, committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the panel’s top Republican, said taxing health benefits would address so-called “Cadillac plans” they said promote overuse of health-care services and boost the cost of care.

-Source

Most people do not go to the doctor for fun. This jackass probably thinks that normal insurance is just like congress insurance. I have good insurance, but I still have to pay a little fee any time I want some medical help, and the company that handles my p[rescripotions can still trump anything my doctor says and just refuse to cover the necessary medications. I tagged this post with politics, but health care should not be a political issue. I do want my tax dollars to pay for it, for me and for everyone, but government is not the same as politics.

Miracle, by Anatole France

A few pages of text, pages 175-181, to disprove any mythology.

What is the definition of a miracle ^ We are
told : a breach of the laws of nature. But we do
not know the laws of nature ; how, then, are we to
know whether a particular fact is a breach of these
laws or no ?

Recent Memory

Due to all the time spent in waiting rooms yesterday, I saw a bunch of magazines. One was the issue of Newsweek with the article about the decline of the Christianity in politics.* It had a tagline with a comment saying that there is less religion in politics now than in any other time in "recent memory", which made me wonder just how short our memories really are. Seriously, less religion in politics since when? Unless "recent" translates to 5 years, and "now" translates to two months, or the day Obama decided to not have evangelicals visit the White House for the National Day of Ignoring the Constitution Prayer.

It seems as if our cultural memory has been limited to less than a few years. We live in the constant present, thinking that anything that happens could mean the collapse of society. In other words, there is a significant lack of historical literacy in our culture. This is different from cognizance of perpetuation of historical trends, but the definitions are always easier to say than to apply. Regardless, "recent memory" of religion in politics should go beyond one presidential administration, and an assessment of the status quo should too.

*I guess I was too annoyed by the tagline and the knowledge that any amount of religion in politics is a bad thing to actually read the article. Not to mention the fact that the doctor came in too soon.

OMG This Rules

superpoop.com

God, I love Superpoop.

Vindicated by "Several Studies"

I was about to title this post "Exactly What I've Been [fucking] Saying [you goddamn idiots] because I get rather tired of fighting the "hard wired into our biology" vs. "there is shit we can actually DO to prevent and change this" and yes, the importance of time of year in our development arguments to people that refuse to admit that ::gasp:: present evidence just might be overlooking some factors that will probably be proven later on. Guess what, readers, I keep seeing new information to validate my side of the argument.

I should let you on to the fact that I have been to the dentist, work, doctor, and pharmacist today. At the dentist, I wasn't prepared to have half my face numbed, so my day started out stressful. I didn't want to go into work, but my boss needed something urgently, which caused a great deal of anger that didn't really dissipate for a few hours after I finished the assignment. The doctor was ok, but I had to fill in my "gender" on the intake, which I crossed off and wrote sex. Sometimes, I wish that I never knew that gender wasn't necessarily biological, or I wish that I had more patience when other people keep doing and saying things that I have realized just don't make sense/aren't true, but I don't. Then, at the pharmacist, I discovered how great our health care system is another time. Apparently, corporate bureaucrats know better than my doctor and have determined that I can only have 1 of my prescribed 2 pills per day. Don't we live in a great country. My only respite so far was the article I linked, which refreshingly referred to a generic human without the male pronoun.

And so, I end my ranty post, and oh yeah, I doubt you're the idiots to which I refer. You might be, but you are probably aware that I already think you're an idiot. I'm stressed and therefore more abrasive.

Put to Words

This post about Conscience Clauses by Jesse put words to a thought I've often had.

It’s the same problem as the tolerance/intolerance argument: you create an insane recursive loop of oversensitivity, where your conscience violates my conscience, but since you started it, you get to call me a hatemonger and yourself the innocent victim. If I don’t have to issue a marriage license because of my moral convictions, why should I have to process unemployment benefits or respond to your crime report or deliver your mail? The entire point of America is supposed to be that, at the very least, we extend rights to all who abide by the law, regardless of who they are or where they come from.

If you find yourself unable to extend a constitutional right to those to whom it applies because your sky-man told you it was wrong, then go pray for a new job and let someone else serve the public. It’s certainly an issue for taxpayers to get angrier about than, you know, teabagging.

A Comic for Me

toothpastefordinner.com

I miss severe weather

So Glad This Exists

I can't claim to understand this very well, but it is hilarious.

O_O

Let's play with women by lying to them and then pretend it doesn't matter! We'll call this a game, in fact, The Game. Let's exploit the fact that sexism harms women in a number of understood ways. We can call that the "special psychology" of women, and use it to get them to do things that they don't want to do! Hahahahaha - yeah, dude, dehumanizing rocks!

Lookie What I Found!

It's a big ol' bug, just hanging out by my apartment.


What kind of bug is this?

And here is a video with my shoe in there for perspective. My shoe is a size 10 hiking shoe cuz of my ginormous feet.

To Our Favorite Drug Addict

I'm so sorry I called you ugly so I sent you an apology note.

Pop Quiz!

A friend calls you at home one evening. She tells you that she received a chain letter email on a topic that both of you are very interested in and she forwarded it to your work email address.

Your friend asks you to read the email when you return to work, and to please forward the email to ten other people to help keep the email chain growing.

What should you do?

1. Run to work, open the email, and forward it to ten people because, like your friend, you too are a complete idiot.
2. Find out what the message is about, read it the next day, then forward it to your mom and your brother cuz they would find it interesting too.
3. Hang up the phone and defriend the person immediately, you don't need anyone that stupid in your social network.
4. Tell your friend that you would rather have her send this to your personal email address and also that you check your email constantly, so there is no need to call you to announce that an email has been sent. Then check the calendar to make sure that you have not gone through a time warp back to the year 1996.

I would probably do number 4, but be very tempted to choose 3.

Is This My Birthday?

Ok, so first, I see the article about Crist, but I skip past it, and decide to read what my dear leader was saying:

Governor Sanford says that he does not want to take the money, the federal stimulus package money. And I want to say to him: 'I'll take it.' I'm more than happy to take his money or any other governor in this country that doesn't want to take this money, I take it, because we in California need it. ... You know, you've got to go beyond just the principles. You've got to go and say, 'What is right for the country right now?'

-Gov. Schwarzenegger (R-CA), "GOP Civil War: Schwarzenegger Slams GOP Govs' Stimulus Refusal"

The visual of Ahnold calling their bluff was pretty amusing and a good pick-me up. The title is pretty corny though. Scrolling doesn, I next saw an article called "Poor Bush: Websites Mocking W. Rank Higher Than His Own Presidential Library Site". It was a nice little 'feel good' piece that served to satisfy our national need for schadenfreude.

The next one down, however, got me thinking about international women's rights and strategies to be effective in more ways than just raising awareness. Those thought processes can get very depressing or frustrating pretty fast. The emotional response can become similar to the kinds of feelings I have when I am worried about my friends and loved ones. So, after I came to a conclusion to the thought process, I really wanted to see actual good things happening instead of work to be done. I decided to go back up top to read what Crist was saying:

The people elected him. And I'm willing to give him a good shot and try to help make this work. We're in a tough time, as we talked about before. I think we do need to be bipartisan. We need to be, in fact, nonpartisan.

-Gov. Crist (R-FL), "There's Only One National Leader, 'His Name Is President Obama'"

And I was shocked. I read the whole post and returned to that phrase in the article. His utterance of 'nonpartisan' reminded me of an awesome Pandagon article that I was unable to locate so I cannot supply a link. It has been a good birthday morning today.

WRONG

Once again, we see that Obama, despite his mention of "non-believers,"* still needs to play to the delusional.

"There is no god who condones taking the life of an innocent human being," [President Obama] said, and all religions teach people to love and care for one another.

Not the god of the Old Testament! That god LOVED killing anyone and everyone. Oh, but I guess because they were living on land that some other people wanted, no one could consider them "innocent". It all hinges on the definition of that word, and few, if any humans (American or not) are actually "innocent" according to these outdated, hateful, xenophobic, and misogynist texts. And I’m talking about the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and yeah, even Eastern religions have crap about what women should and should not do because guys got all freaked out by us shedding unused uterine lining once a month. It’s easy to put on blinders and think that because one character in a book told us to love our neighbors as ourselves that religion is harmless. Just be careful that you don’t get stoned, set on fire, or cast out of your family for accidentally breaking one of the other asinine rules also written in those mega-violent novels.

*I actually don’t like that term and was not that encouraged by it in the inaugural address. It wasn’t until I read other blog posts that were so happy about our inclusion that I even know that it was a big deal. I don’t like being defined by what I lack. The terms atheist and even godless are less bothersome, even though they mean the same thing. I’d love to start using the term rationalist, but there are so many religious misogynists (though misogynists can also be atheist) that also think they are rational so the word isn’t very descriptive.

Fight Oppression by Pants

From a Michigan friend

You can de-pant if you want to.
You can leave your trowsas behind.
Because if you wear pants, and if you use pants, then you're no friend of mine.
Hey depant.
Hey depant.
Everyone loosen their pants.

It seems she has also learned the excitement of skirts :D

Like 1993 All Over Again

In grad school, I processed a collection around the passage of the Federal Direct Loan Program and learned that I never, ever should have cursed my FAFSA. The system in place before the FDLP was similar to the situation most students now have with private lenders but far, far worse. The government backed the loans in this case and the private companies involved learned that they made more money when students defaulted on the loans. With that information, they began a practice of not sending the loan statements so that students never knew that the needed to begin repayment. In the first Bush administration, most members of congress were in support of changing this system. Enter William Jefferson Clinton and suddenly, congresspeople that once liked the idea of Direct Loans found them to be a terrible idea. Interestingly, all of these individuals happened to be members of the Republican Party.

I don't seem to recall Democrats just flip flopping on issues like this (and with so much evidence about their change in stance) when Bush came in to office. It was more that Bush was doing so many things that Democrats plain didn't like. Oh, sure, Obama is going to do a lot of things that Republicans don't like either, but they're also dragging their feet on issues that they loved in mid-2008. Rachel Maddow played a clip of one such Republican Senator on the "Keep F*cking Things Up" Tour. He indicated that Republicans didn't think that giving money to make broadband and other internet connections available to people was a good use of money. This was why they didn't like the stimulus package as Obama and the Democrats presented it. Interestingly, this same Senator - I forget his name, John or something - actually promoted the same idea he now hates when he was on the campaign trail this year. I guess it was for re-election or something - no, wait, that's right, he was on the Joke Ticket, I remember now. Yeah, Candidate John McCain loved broadband for the people, but suddenly, now that the American people resoundingly rejected his ideas and his party, Senator John McCain hates the proposal.

Welcome to 1993, folks. To bad for Republicans that most of America is far more informed and we have recordings of your flip flops. And to Americans, never forget that this economic crisis is the result of deregulation and the destruction of the New Deal Era policies. We've been through this before, and that it isn't exactly the same is meaningless. If you disagree, well, you probably also weren't in on the joke from this last election cycle. Hope you enjoy your Obama tax cuts.

We're back to doing our best

Also, it was kind of stupid for no Republicans to vote for the stimulus in the House. You know that now the Democrats know that it doesn't matter how much they cater to them, they'll still be stubborn babies. I hope they like being shut out and ignored cuz they've shown that listening and even giving in to their idiotic ideas is pointless.

In Light of Detroit's Bailout

I present to you Design for Dreaming, a promotional movie by GM about its vision for "the future".

Oh, I forgot to mention that this is from the MST3k episode 524, 12 to the Moon.

Spiders in the Rain

I have always disliked spiders, but as I age, the fear gets dimmer. When I was 14, there was a huge spider in my bedroom which I ran from and made my parents kill. I wasn't able to sleep in my room for days. Some time passed and I told my first therapist about my fear. A few months after that, I saw a garden spider on my ceiling, which was about 4 or 5 feet from the bed I was lying on at the time. I grabbed a shoe, killed the thing, and went back to bed.

When I first moved to San Ramon, I noticed that massive webs with "big ol'" spiders seemed to be pretty normal. As long as there is enough distance or a window between me and the spider, I love staring at them in the atriums of the buildings at work. In my old apartment, there was a time when I killed a massive spider at least once a week, but this apartment doesn't have as many. Earlier this month, I saw a smaller, but still pretty large spider crawling on my bed while I was getting ready for work. It was too big to smush with my hands, so I grabbed a TV remote and managed to smack it. Call me the Spider Killer, I guess, but its only when they come into my dwelling.

This spider was on a light pole outside my place last week. That was when I decided that I want to document my 8-legged finds. I hope you'll enjoy the series. My morbid fascination with spiders definitely aids in overcoming the somewhat irrational fear.

No He Wasn't. He Just Gave All of Our Money to His Rich Buddies

That's what my dad told me when my 8 to 10 year old self thought about the Reagan administration, didn't remember any major wars, and decided to declare that Reagan was a "pretty good president". This was information that I did not know, so I said "oh" and moved on with my day. I didn't care that much back then anyway - I don't even remember exactly how old I was, I just remember my dad balking at my statement. But the early 90's saw the introduction of right-wing radio in Central Wisconsin, and just 4 years later, he was voting Republican.

I'm listening to NPR tonight with Terri Gross interviewing a guy talking about war robotics. She mentioned the massive outsourcing of military activities during the Bush Administration and wondered if we can go back, which got me thinking. The no-bid, bloated contracts for mercenaries didn't seem to save the Pentagon any money. So, was Bush the kind of president that history will judge kindly? See post title.

Now if only I can get my father to realize the depths of the crap he's been hearing for the last 16 years.

But Only When the Person isn't an Adult Woman!

Choads in the Senate, sad that they are on the wrong side of history, voted against Clinton's nomination to be Secretary of State. There were only two of them and one was David Vitter. Wasn't he the diapers guy? Not that it is fair to make fun of someone for their kinks (though I've got my own feelings about those), it is more the hypocricy that matters. The other choad decided to vote his misogynist conscience:

In addition to concerns surrounding the foundation, [South Carolina Republican Jim] DeMint said he opposes Clinton's positions on such matters as providing aid to foreign groups that offer abortions.

"I do not plan to slow up this nomination, but I do find it difficult to support a nominee who I know will pursue policies so contrary to American sovereignty and the dignity of the human person," he said.

Dignity of the human person? What about the human person who knows she will die if the fetus inside her is not removed? What about the human person that was violently raped as an act of war at the age of 12 and finds herself orphaned and pregnant in a refugee camp in the DRC? Oh, I forgot, women aren't people, and since that fetus MIGHT be male, well, we musn't allow that woman to live a productive life in that case. Duh.

Do women in South Carolina understand that their senator thinks their lives are trivial things and that fetuses matter more?

50 Most Fascinating People of 2008

One of which is none other than my incredibly bratty cousin, the youngest duaghter of a brother of my dad's that had kids. If you know my last name, you'll see her on the list. She's grown up now and was always pretty cool, but she was two years younger than me, a year older than my little sister, and the three of us had something like a sibling relationship when we would play together at The Farm.

She is a Campaign Director with the Traveling Press

Al Qaeda Birds

So a plane had to land in the Hudson River today, all 155 people on board were fine, but they probably lost all their stuff.* I hope the business travelers didn't have any unique company records with them!

"There were eyewitness reports the plane may have flown into a flock of birds," said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown. "Right now we don't have any indication this was anything other than an accident." - Yahoo News

Yeah right. I bet in a few days, we'll learn that these birds are part of some secret islamo-facist terrorism network.

*I come from a family with hoarding tendencies, I worry about this kind of thing.

Lose More Weight, Have More Sex, Be More Awesome

That is my New Year's Resolution, to be executed with the following plans.

Lose More Weight

• Maintain healthy eating habits like eating a balanced breakfast, making sure I get protien with every meal, avoid that HFCS, eat more fruits and vegetables, and don't binge
• Begin working out again
• Go climbing more often
• Construct a better outdoor activity wardrobe and make more hiking dates

Have More Sex

• Maintain the current plan to increase confidence and don't back down from the predator mode
• Take any and all lessons from the Ghetto Boy
• Make sure I don't lose contact with the Ghetto Boy
• Wait and see if The Hottie wasn't just being a tease
• Tend to the rest of my harem appropriately
• Try another angle for CL ads
• See other parts of the plan

Be More Awesome

• Perfect my footless highway driving
• Create a Britney Pool
• Follow up with all of the projects projected for '09
• Push bosses to create a ticketing systems to charge for small consulting projects
• Follow through on documentary idea (meeting with a friend already scheduled)
• Improve concentration at work