World of Suck

I just saw the worst news ad ever!

Paraphrased: "Kids love to use instant messages. They might send hundreds per day. And when they do that, they use shorthand. Shorthand with...IMPROPER GRAMMAR!"

That's the top story on the local news tonight. Sometimes people don't use proper grammar on the Internet and on text-messages. Apparently, this is considered news. And it's considered a major tragedy judging by the announcer's voice, which used the same tones as "Are sex offenders working in your child's school?"

I know it's sweeps month, so local news stations need to scare people into watching. But is that really the best they can do?

Certain taxes get me. One of these is the taxes on cigarettes, which some states are increasing. They want to spend it on health care, schools and the such. All very good causes and hey, its an "evil" habit so let's tax the smokers, right? But here's the rub - isn't smoking something we want to decrease? In an ideal world, wouldn't we be do away with smoking? Then what are these states going to do for revenue for these very good causes? I personally think that increasing cigarette taxes and using the funds for anything but smoking cessation programs is building a house of cards that will eventually collapse, buring the taxpayers with it. Taxes on something like cigatettes, for which we hope future generations will find little or no use, is fool hardy and shortsighted.

It doesnt matter WHAT party has the Presidents office or what party holds the majority in the House or Senate. Facts are that the illegal immigration problem has been around since the early 80's and NEITHER party's President or majority in the legislative branch have done squat to stop this problem. We've seen our fair share of dems and republicans in office since the early 80's and both suffer from the same problem - they want voters. Lets face it we all know how easy it really is to stop the border problems. It's not rocket science - its not about cost.. we're spending billions in Iraq and Im quite sure that it wouldnt cost the same to protect our 4 borders. Its about votes, money and prestige. It even trickles down to local, city, state, and township legislative members as well. They too want votes and do not wish to piss off these illegals whom are soon to be registered voters.

Do NOT misinterpret me. Im all for those coming here LEGALLY. Follow the rules and we'll welcome you as we do for all immigrants.

Both parties want voters to vote for them. Both parties do not wish to piss off the illegal latino and somali communities whom now are soon going to become registered voters. Why else would they propose amnesty for them? hrm? They want to make the illegals legal simply to use as voters. Voters = money. All politicians are crooked as hell no matter which side of the fence they prefer. In the end they win, we lose. Its all about the money - follow it.

Get used to the higher taxes to pay for these cockroach illegals, get used to higher insurance rates to pay for those who dont have any insurance or drivers license. Get used to increased crime rates. Get used to increased interest rates across the board. Think its not a problem in your town yet? Stand-by because its coming soon.

The police cant track them, the government wont track them, citizen aren't allowed to track them, border patrol is reluctant to control them - all for fear of being labeled a hater or racist...or worse yet- a conservative republican!

But six.

Six people.

On skis.

While I shoveled my way out of the record snowfall that hit our region the previous night, Wednesday, I counted six people joyfully sliding along the jogging trail that runs behind my home.

Skis.

This was no desperate attempt to get to the store. This was no emergency run to the hospital in the post-blizzard conditions. They walked down the street, saddled up at the trail and were off, shushing past everyone else who was digging out.

I hate people.

Society has become hilarious when it comes to political correctness. I believe that things should be called for what they are instead of coming up with some stupid fancy sounding name and/or classification. In many cases these silly ass titles, names and classifications are a result of complaints from employees about their job titles. How the hell does the title really change WHAT you are doing? Sure, cover up your piss poor situation with a crafty title or name and instant gratification awaits your resume. Come up with some fancy name to make yourself feel better.

• Garbage men in some areas are classified as Waste Management Engineers. Yup.. waste management engineers. Makes it sound like they should be making about 100k a year doesnt it? Yet Im sure some are bothered if you call them Garbage Men - get over it - you chose to do this job.
• Pizza Hut refers to their phone order takers as Customer Service Representatives. Wow.. thats a mouthful of a title for someone taking orders for pizzas on the phone isn't it?
• Grocery store baggers have become Carry Out Associates.
• Many Gasoline distribution centers have given the job title of Transfer Engineer to the guys who fill up the big trucks. Heh. Transfer Engineer. Makes it sound like some high paying job with the electric company working on the big electrical grids doesn't it?
• Any physical impairment is lumped into one new phrase: Physically Challenged or Handicapped. These descriptions are far too broad. I want more info.
• Fat people: Weight challenged. How are they challenged... as compared to.. what? The use of the new politically correct phrase does NOT correct the fact that They are simply fat - get over it. Should be reclassified as Food Challenged or Meal Challenged.
• Gay people - Hrm.. should we refer to you as Sexually Challenged? Maybe Biologically Challenged? These new terms are far too braod. Fag or Dyke leaves no room for misunderstanding.
• Cross Dressers/Sex change electives: Biologically Undecided? Biologic Transitioner? How about Gender Trainwreck?
• Cable company phone order takers: Entertainment Specialist. haha wtf?

How can there be so much unhappiness is society today when each and every day we have new terms created for old situations that make us laugh? I dunno.

Wow! Powerhouse blood pressure boiling news today!

Yes, its true. Bank of America and several other lending institutions have begun issuing Visa credit cards to illegal aliens with $500.00 limits. You do not need a social security number, you do not need a permanent address. You simply need a bank account showing 3 months of history with no overdraws. How did they get a bank account anyway? I thought you needed a SS, or TIN and a permanent address... especially after 9/11. Who's going to bear the burden of their incurred debt? We are!

If I was a high profile attorney with tons of money I'd certainly put together a class action lawsuit claiming discrimination of credit comprised of all the hard working LEGAL Americans who've fallen on hard times in the past and are unable to obtain any credit whatsoever.

References:
Chicago Tribune
CNN
Fox News

There's a weird trend in advertising right now. Companies are starting to show ads about people being upset with their ads. And I hate it.

Geico has been doing this for a while. At first, they had the "So easy a caveman could do it" ads. Then they started having ads where the cavemen were upset at the insult. Now I see the caveman ads all the time, which have nothing to do with Geico's product. They're just a bunch of cavemen (on a TV talk show, at a party, etc.) complaining about how Geico insulted them.

Now Rolling Rock has started the same kind of ads. The CEO of Rolling Rock sits behind a desk and describes a recent offensive Rolling Rock ad. (I've never seen any of the "offensive" ads, just the apologies.) Then he apologizes for the offensive content, and says he hopes people won't stop drinking Rolling Rock because of it.

As far as I can tell, there's only one reason for these ads: To make consumers feel stupid complaining about ads. Let's say that Geico's next ad campaign shows a bunch of bad Asian drivers crashing into each other. Then Asian-American groups protest the ad, as interest groups often protest offensive ads. Everyone will laugh at them for being just like those wacky Geico cavemen!

These ads aren't about selling the product. The Geico ads barely even mention what Geico does, and the Rolling Rock ads aren't much better. The ads are about protecting the ad industry. And that's just bizarre.

I'm a little bit slow. Sometimes it takes me a long time to really understand things. So I'm asking for a bit of help here. I'm fairly sure u235 already covered this topic, but it's come up again, so I'm taking a swing at it.

There is a virus out there call papillomavirus. It's an STD. If you catch it, it can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. In fact, it's responsible for 70% of all cases of cervical cancer. Cervical cancer has about a 40% fatality rate. So, I think we can safely label it a bad thing.

However, there is a YAY moment here. Scientists, being smart people, created a vaccine. Prevents the spread of this virus. Fewer infections, fewer illness, less cancer. It's an easy to follow train of thought. And the world rejoiced. A handful of states made it required for girls aged 11 or 12. Parents have the ability to opt out if needed (say if your religion has rules against modern medicine or you just don't want your child to get the damn thing). So all was good.

I admit, I'm hesitant about throwing this injection out there and forcing it on a large part of our population when the scientists involved don't know how often booster shots may be required, but in general, it's a good thing, so YAY!

Naturally, there are some people that are against this vaccine. First off, how the fuck can you be anti-vaccine? It that like pro-virus? What the fuck people? That aside, they object. They say that by preventing kids from the risk of an STD, you encourage children to have premarital sex.

My brain hurls itself against my skull at that concept. It wants the bad idea to go away. OK, first off, it's only one STD. You can still point at AIDS that FUCKING KILLS YOU. Preventing this shouldn't put a dent in your ability to terrify your child about sex. Especially given the horrible sex-ed classes many schools in this country have. How can you reasonably justify the idea that vaccinating children against a disease encourages them to have sex? They're not safe from all of them!! And even if they were no risk of infection, you can still discourage them by discussing the problems with teen pregnancy and the emotional baggage associated with sexual relationships.

Honestly, what is the precedent here? What if they found something that would eradicate every known STD in the world with a single injection? Would you forbid your child from getting it because you want the risk to scare them into keeping their pants zipped? Wouldn't a realistic discussion about sex accomplish this with education instead of fear mongering? Teach your children to think and you won't have to make them afraid of sex in order to stop them from having it.

Crazification in action!!

It's not often I say this. I agree with Steve Jobs. The Apple Führer recently spoke out against the music industry. Sorta. Specifically he targeted the Digital Rights (restrictions) Management requirements that the RIAA has forced onto Apple's iTunes store.

In a article posted on Apple's web site, he makes a couple of good points. Ones that the rest of the internet world has made time and again. Hopefully, he has a little more weight to throw around.

He forecasts three possible futures for digital music. The first is what we have now: online music can only be played on the purchasers mp3 players, but pirated and homemade music can play on any of them. The second is Apple licensing it's FairPlay DRM to competitors so they can interoperate between players, giving users more options. The downside is that it increases the exposure of the DRM as more people have access to the encryption process. The third option is to get rid of DRM entirely because it just doesn't work.

He advocates the third option. He claims that of the 22 billion songs sold last year, the record companies sold 20 billion of them on DRM-free CD. The remaining 2 billion songs were sold online with some for of DRM. As long as that model is true, piracy is not even slowed down by attempts to restrict music with annoying DRM exclusivity.

Think about it. It takes about a minute to find, purchase and download a song from iTunes. Give or take. It takes about the same time to do the same on a peer to peer network. Call it 10 minutes to grab a full album off bit torrent or p2p. The difference is that once you get music from iTunes, you have to spend additional time altering the file to get the music into an mp3 or AAC format to use anywhere you want. The pirated version came that way. Sure, it's unethical, but it's true. How much is that time worth to you? If you've got the right player, nothing. If you don't, maybe it's worth more than $.99? Justification of course, but foolish record companies (I know, I repeat myself there) need to consider that many of the pirates out there follow that exact line of thought when it comes to online sales.

DRM is bad. Has always been bad. Will always be bad. And it hurts your sales more than it protects them. I could understand it if it worked. But it doesn't. The proof is the fact that p2p networks still have every song you could ever want after years of DRM sales. They have to come from somewhere, right? But I know the RIAA doesn't like to be introspective and notice the flaws in their thought process. Their itty bitty brains might explode if they ever caught on to the fact that anyone with a linux box and a MP3 ripper can buy a CD and offer it up to the world, eh? Can't even install illegal rootkits that way, can ya Sony?

Your model sucks. You need to rethink it. And given how low the world opinion is of your organization, you might want to consider Mr Job's proposal here. I think he's right. And if you had a brain, you would too.

Recently three men with hoods went into a IHop and tasered a bunch of people and stole from the cash register and customers. They wound up shoot an guy that wouldn't stand by as they pistol whipped his son for protecting his granddaughter. Fast forward three days later . . . My mother and I pull into the parking lot of a neighborhood hardware store. I see a guy walking in with a hooded sweatshirt that covers his face that has a skeleton (the hood is a skull). Needless to say, my mother was not too inclined to go in. We waited until he left the store, not knowing if he and his buddy were going to hold the place up.

Considering the robbery, the guy was lucky the store clerk wasn't trigger happy! WTF do some people think!

This really isn't a rant. More of a sharing experience.

In the course of a discussion with a friend of mine, I was linked to a blog. (One that I would link if the spam filter didn't hate the SPOT where the BLOG was hosted) This particular blog contained a very useful term. Crazification.

It's a great term. I'll quote their definition here:

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --

Tyrone: 27%.

John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.

Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?

Tyrone: Hadn't thought about it. Let's split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification -- either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.

John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?

Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?

John: ... a bit low, actually.

I like it. Not just for political usage, but for everything. Left, Right, religious, nonreligious... right down to the best flavor of ice cream.

I agree that 27% is probably a bit low. (BTW their math is wrong. 27% of ~300 million is ~80 million) We all see crazy things every day. This site is DEVOTED to the insanities that drive us up a wall. This term doesn't explain the crazy people, but it gives us a means to quantify them! To help us accept the fact that 1 out 3 of the people we deal with is statistically insane. Or, if they're not, you are!

So, I thought I'd share the word. Next time you're locked in a meeting with crazy people, review the crazification of the room and smile to yourself.