Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another. – H.L. Mencken
Posts tagged Rants
A few thoughts as Arizona residents push for Medical Marijuana
The use of cannabis for medicinal purposes has been a source for heated debates for quite some time now, but recently we’ve seen more states vote on legislation that would make it legal to use cannabis for medical afflictions such as migraines, insomnia, chronic pain, and illnesses that would otherwise be treated by common drugs like anti-depressants, sedatives, and/or opiates. The newest state to join this group is Arizona. Next year’s general election may very well contain an initiative for the legalization of cannabis as a treatment for the sick. This is a very touchy issue, as opponents of the measure tend to believe that cannabis is just another dangerous drug like heroin and cocaine, while proponents claim that the drug, when used responsibly, has less side effects and is more effective than prescription drugs. Personally I have much to say about this whole debate, but I’ll try to keep it short. First of all, the medical effects of cannabis have never been given serious attention, however, I’d venture a guess that people who genuinely suffer from chronic illnesses know their disease better than people who either haven’t or aren’t currently experiencing the same thing thus, they are in a better position to say whether or not a certain treatment works for them. Second, cannabis was made illegal for political and racial reasons—it had absolutely nothing to do with science. Indeed, the technology to accurately test many of the claims made about “the dangers of Marijuana” and it’s effects on the human brain, didn’t even exist when they were made! Third, tobacco and alcohol are known killers yet they are legal. While it’s tempting to say that nobody has ever died from smoking cannabis, I can’t prove it; but if cannabis was as dangerous as we are told, then you’d think that the news would be all over any reports of illnesses or hospitalization caused by long-term usage or overdose… instead we hear about lung cancer, emphysema, cirrhosis, and other illnesses cause by smoking and drinking. Fourth, the idea that you can outlaw something and it will go away is seriously flawed. If there’s a market for a particular item, that market will continue to exist regardless of law. Prohibition will only create a black market and drive up the demand. We should have learned this with alcohol prohibition.
If you can’t already tell, I’m in favor of legalization. You would think that a substance so demonized would have been studied thoroughly—but it hasn’t been. Occasionally you’ll hear about some government funded study confirming all the misinformation that we’ve been told, but how do you reconcile the disparity between that and reality? People are not dying in the streets from smoking cannabis, but according to the government, they should be. Conversely, every now and then you’ll see a report about how scientists in Europe or elsewhere are having success in treating cancer (or some other malady) in mice, but by and large, those reports are not heard by the majority of Americans—this is a taboo subject, but not because there’s a proportionate amount of scientific evidence to warrant such a high level of condemnation.
Thoughts?
Relevant links:
http://newmexicoindependent.com/…
Concerned about the “Serve America Act”?
Are y’all ready for an early-morning cup of ignorance? A little background info first; there’s an e-mail making it’s rounds on the ‘net that contains the following text:
Do you love your children and grandchildren? Of course you do. Well, how would you like it if these children were forced to enter a camp at age 18, run by Michelle Obama and other government enforcers, and forced to be trained to be a “volunteer” until age 21? How would you, yourself like to look forward to retiring and devoting your time to some volunteer service of your own choosing only to be forced to enter the same kind of government camp for seniors? Does this sound suspicious to you? Me too. Especially when I learned that just such a bill has already quickly passed the House of Representatives and is scheduled to be voted on as early as next week by the Senate – with or without going to conference as is the usual protocol when it passes out of committee. This is another rush-rush effort just like the last stimulus bill was rushed to a vote before anyone had a chance to read the whole thing and really discern what was included in the bill.
This effort was called the GIVE ACT in the House which has already passed. In the Senate, it’s called the SERVE ACT (#277). Besides the fact that it is a bill that would require every 18-21 year old, male and female to attend a camp and “volunteer” to be trained and taught a government-sponsored ideology, the fact that it is being rushed through the legislature and not reported on by the media, makes me extremely suspicious What’s the rush and why the silence? What is in these bills that they don’t want us to know about? In addition, does it make sense to spend $75 million or more a year to put our young people in camp when we’re in the middle of hard economic times?
Check it out. See what you can find out. But, in the meantime, since they are trying to rush this into law before you have a chance to investigate, call your Senators and tell them to vote, “No” on Senate bill #277, telling them that you object to this bill. The people I know who have already done so have received surprised responses that they even know about the bill.
Let us BURN THE PHONES LINES tomorrow to call our Senators to demand that they NOT vote on S. 277: The Serve Act, when it reaches the floor of the Senate next week. Then, please call all your friends and ask them to do the same; then to call their friends.
When calling Congress, it is best to keep your comments short, like this:
“I am calling to ask Senator _____ to vote NO on a bill that is due to reach the Senate floor next week. The name of this bill is The Serve Act and its number is S. 277.” That’s all you have to say; staffers are BUSY and will not ask you WHY you are stating this.
But you and I BOTH KNOW the reason: This bill is DANGEROUS for our youth, and now also for our seniors. It is not “voluntary” but “mandatory” and we want nothing to do with it!
Here is the news from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on this new bill:
http://help.senategov/Maj_press/2009_03_18.pdf
It DOES say that “retirees” can be called into service, too!!
Here is the article on Fox News about the GIVE ACT – the House version that did pass yesterday, 3/18:
Note that SOME House members ARE concerned about the ramifications of this bill on the young.
Finally, here is an article from our friends in CANADA that “spills the beans” on the REAL AGENDA behind these two bills:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9374
Remember the regulation the Department of Defense made last week that would limit ammunition sales and drive the price up as well as create hundreds of lost jobs? It was announced on talk radio last Sunday and both ammunition makers and pro-gun sales people pounced on it, making phone calls, sending faxes, meeting with the proper people and it’s now been shelved – in less than a week’s time from the announcement. We need the same kind of quick action on the SERVE ACT.
Does Hitler Youth ring a bell?
But whoever causes the downfall of one of these little ones who believe in Me – it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea!” (Matthew 18:6) HCSB
I believe I’ve located the source but I haven’t been able to confirm that yet—it also could be that the e-mail was the source of the article; who knows. Anyway, aside from the fact that this frantic plea is an obvious piece of fearmongering, I entertained it’s claims long enough to disprove them.
I’m not sure if this e-mail was a hoax or propaganda, either one is equally likely. What we have here is someone mixing truth with fiction—the usual conspiracy bullshit; S. 277 is real, but the claims made in this e-mail are patently absurd. Read the bill. As far as I can tell, the purpose of this bill is to provide incentives for people to volunteer in their communities—that’s a generalization, but the prospect of “involuntary volunteer” camps initiated though this bill, is < 0. Which leads me to the most glaring flaw in this e-mail: if the author were genuinely trying to prove his/her case, then why not link to the actual text of the bill (rather than fox “news” or other questionable sources?) I think we all know why. But it does contain a broken link to a PDF file that supposedly supports it’s claims; there’s just one problem though, it doesn’t. Neither does the linked fox “news” article; and the Canada Free Press article? All commentary, no backup.
I wonder how many people that received this e-mail noticed that the following url: http://help.senategov/Maj_press/2009_03_18.pdf is missing a “.” between the senate and gov portion of the domain name? The website that I cited as the possible source of the text also contains this link and the text portion is missing the dot as well, but the href portion of the link points here:
mailbox:///C%7C/Documents%20and%20Settings/Owner.backup/Application%20Data/Mozilla/Profiles/default/ea23c0xc.slt/Mail/west.pop.cox.net/Inbox?number=1608772594
In case you’re interested, here’s a working link to the PDF file that the e-mail references:
http://help.senate.gov/Maj_press/2009_03_18.pdf.
My opinion is that this is just another attempt to associate President Obama’s image with Soviet-style Communism. This campaign has been going on for a while now; every time you hear a Conservative talk about Obama, it’s one of the first things they mention; “Obama’s a commie!!1!1! blah blah blah”, which is really quite sad because in most (read: all) cases, the only thing they “know” about Communism/Socialism/Marxism is that it is “evil”. I wrote a post a while ago about how the majority of Americans don’t know jack about Marxism, Communism or Socialism—the only thing they know is that Soviet Russia was “Communist” and that’s all they need to know about the subject. They aren’t open to any debate about the merits of Marxism or Marx’s contribution to philosophy or society; instead, they are content with blaming acts committed by people who chose to twist and stretch his philosophy to fit their own personal wants on Marx himself. Don’t misconstrue that as an endorsement of Marxism or Socialism… it’s not.
This post has nothing to do with defending Obama or his image—that’s his job, but when I see ignorant shit like this, I feel that it is my civic duty to set the record straight. But I must admit, trying to keep up with the tide of bullshit that I see on a regular basis really tests my limits… that’s why this post isn’t a lot longer.
Marxism and Socialism, are the new Al-Qaeda!
Occasionally, a concerned family member will send me something like this and occasionally I’ll respond. Maybe it’s because I was in a bad mood _before_ seeing this, but this video really pissed me off. Honestly, I’m so sick and tired of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh polluting our nation’s media that I’m starting to feel physically repulsed whenever I see or hear them speak (something that they’d probably be proud of however… bravo you disgusting fucks). Anyway, watch the video before reading further.
Marxism is not Communism
Socialism is not Communism
The average American believes that Socialism and/or Marxism are both the exact same as Soviet-style Communism when in fact they aren’t.
Every time I hear a so-called “conservative” talk about either, as if they actually know what the fuck they’re talking about, I just shake my head. Their ignorance of these philosophies that they claim to know (and fear) so much about is just embarrassing.
People like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh want everyone to believe that Socialism and/or Marxism means that eventually, soldiers will be kicking in your door and confiscating your valuables so they can “redistribute” them to the poor, in an effort to make everyone “equal”. This is not the case however, and if anyone believes that this is the scenario that Barack Obama is trying to implement, then they’re a brainwashed fucking idiot. We came a hell of a lot closer to a Communist dictatorship with the passage of both the “PATRIOT” acts and with Bush’s warrant-less wiretapping program… sadly though, they’ll never rebuke these legislative atrocities because they were enacted by a republican.
And let’s discuss that term “conservatives” … what the hell are you conserving? It sure as hell ain’t the environment, it sure as hell isn’t freedom and equality for everyone. You’re not conserving a woman’s right to choose. The past eight years has shown us that conservatives don’t give a fuck about peace either. A quick count of the number of “conservatives” that would like to see “Intelligent Design” taught in science class tells me that “conservatives” also aren’t interested in “conserving” education. I’m just confused as to what it means to be a pro-life/anti-choice, pro-war/anti-peace, let’s-solve-everything-with-our-fists “conservative”. Someone, anyone, please explain this to me.
Scandal? Double-Standards? Doom and Gloom? Are you sure we aren’t talking about the Bush [mis-]Administration here? C’mon Glenn, you’re smarter than that… start acting like it.
The most outrageous spending package the world has ever seen…
Really? So like, the combined costs of the Iraq war and Veteran healthcare (veterans of the Iraq war) is just fucking pocket change? I’m not trying to downplay the cost of the stimulus package—it’s big, but need I remind you that the Iraq invasion was completely unnecessary? Most analysts put the total cost of the Iraq war at about $3 Trillion. That’s more than 3 times the amount of Obama’s Keynesian stimulus bill. Once again, so-called “conservatives” are willing to ignore the trespasses of the “Grand Old Party”… people living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
I really need to stress the point here that President Obama’s stimulus package has all the markings of of a “Keynesian” stimulus package; does that mean it will work? Who knows, but at least he’s taking an academic approach rather than the usual “shoot-from-the-hip” approach embraced by his predecessor that has failed us so miserably.
ok, that is the first time a president has ever mentioned non-believers
So? It’s about damn time. We’re people too, religion doesn’t make you moral and non-religion doesn’t make you immoral/amoral. In fact, here’s a perfect example of a “good Christian” doing something immoral:
Barack Obama issued an executive order to drop the charges against the man who planned the USS Cole bombing
–Glenn Beck (…lying in the aforementioned video)
Uh.. no he didn’t. He DID issue an executive order to freeze military tribunals at Guantanamo. Matter of fact, Susan J. Crawford, the top legal authority for military trials is the one who decided to drop the charges:
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Crawford withdrew the charges against al-Nashiri. However, new charges can be brought again later, and al-Nashiri will remain in prison for the time being. [...] “It was her decision, but it reflects the fact that the president has issued an executive order which mandates that the military commissions be halted, pending the outcome of several reviews of our operations down at Guantanamo,” Morrell said late Thursday night. [Source]
Read that again: “It was her decision”
See? This subtle misrepresentation of the facts by Glenn Beck has probably gotten a lot of people all fired up and angry at President Obama for something that he was accused of doing but did not do. Glenn Beck just lied to his viewers by completely misrepresenting the facts on national TV (surprise!). I believe this implies that either he really believes what he just said -or- he thinks his viewers are too dumb to notice that he just fed them a shit sandwich. I’ve never seen/heard him not acting like a pompous, condescending ass or saying something stupid so I’m leaning towards the latter.
Moving right along…. why was there an executive order to freeze the tribunals?
The ruling also gives the White House time to review the legal cases of all 245 terror suspects held there and decide whether they should be prosecuted in the U.S. or released to other nations. [Source]
There’s nobody who could possibly argue successfully that this review is not needed. The prisoners at Guantanamo have been imprisoned for quite some time (which is punishment all by itself) and the kicker is that the United States; the land of the free, just and righteous, has condemned them to their fate without trial. In short, they have been found guilty by our government without being afforded the opportunity to argue their case—this injustice can only be acceptable to those who believe that every Muslim/Iraq /Afghani/etc is a terrorist/Al-Qaeda or less than human and thereby does not deserve a chance to argue their case (i.e. the majority of Beck’s, Limbaugh’s, and O’Reilly’s viewers/fans/sheep).
Now, am I defending the prisoners? No. But injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and these people have not had their day in court.
Is there anybody, anybody within the sound of my voice… not a Republican, not a Democrat who’s worried about their country…?
I thought you’d never ask…
Yes Glenn, I am worried about my country. I’m worried that it’s been taken over by people who are intellectually lazy and by people who misrepresent the facts; I’m worried that it’s been taken over by people who willingly allowed the restriction of our rights and great atrocities to be committed out of fear for our own safety. I’m worried that we might never regain our reputation; I’m worried that it’s no longer “politically correct” to educate children about science just because a few fundamentalists disagree with the FACTS about how old the earth is and whether or not man lived with dinosaurs. I’m worried that there are masses of ignorant, weak-minded people who vote; I’m worried that there are greedy arrogant fuckers with TV and radio shows who will take advantage of those who either can’t or won’t think for themselves and instead would rather be told what to think (as long as it falls in line with their preexisting biases—as long as the commentator hates the same people they hate). I’m worried about the effects of two costly simultaneous wars on our ability to defend ourselves from a real threats; I’m worried that the UN wants to make it a punishable crime to insult religion and that some religious leaders in the U.S. would like to see the government enforce this rule—free speech be damned. I’m worried that the chairman of the Federal Reserve refuses to name the banks and financial institutions who applied for and received bailout money—OUR MONEY—and I’m worried about the fact that congress can’t currently compel him to do so. I’m worried that we’ll never truly know the extent of Bush/Cheney’s treachery because the only politicians who have the balls to stand up and do anything about it (Dennis Kucinich for example) have been largely marginalized by the rest of the spineless bastards in the House and the Senate. I’m worried that if so-called conservatives keep misrepresenting historic fact (e.g., The U.S. was started as a Christian Nation, The New Deal was a failure, etc.) in order to push their agenda, that eventually these falsehoods will become generally accepted as fact. I’m worried that President Obama might give in to the anti-gun lobby, although I must admit, this is at the bottom of my list of worries. I’m worried that our country is circling the drain in a whirlpool of rampant lies, confusion, magical thinking, ignorance, misunderstanding, hatred, xenophobia, fundamentalism, cognitive dissonance and fear; and that the majority of this mess was created by those whose patriotism has gone unquestioned; whose reasoning unchallenged only because they were members of “the party that loves America”. Simply, this crisis was caused by those who told us what we wanted to hear while feeding our fears so they could gain as much control as they could in the shortest amount of time possible. Now that those people have been mostly voted out of office, or have had their careers ruined because someone exposed their scandalous deeds, it’s time to return to reality. It’s time to climb out of the rabbit hole; it’s time to remove our heads from the sand. The real world has sharp edges; reality doesn’t give a shit whether or not it hurts your feelings—in the real world, facts are cold and unfiltered and truth is not subjective. You can believe whatever you like, but unless it’s in accordance with fact, you will be wrong. Hopefully the Obama Administration will not repeat the mistakes of the Bush Administration; namely; feeding fear and legitimizing falsehood. So far he’s doing a good job; you can tell simply by the number of people who are crying because they want their teddy bears back; welcome to reality. It’s taken us eight years to get where we are, why should we expect that it will take anything short of eight years to get us back on track?
The anti-.docx/.xlsx post
The users of one of the companies that I manage (I.T.) send a lot of e-mails with MS Word/Excel attachments. A while ago, they decided to ignore my protests and upgrade to Office 2007; aside from the fact that Office 2007 sucks, this created a rather annoying *issue* for them whenever they sent a Word or Excel attachment via e-mail—about half of their recipients couldn’t open the attachments. This is a rather easy problem to deal with so I didn’t pay it much attention in the beginning… actually it’s not a problem at all, the software is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: Force people (i.e., the recipients) to believe that they have no choice but to upgrade when in fact, they don’t. If this weren’t the case, then why wasn’t the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack included in the latest Office 2003 service pack (which was released September 18, 2007; eight months AFTER Office 2007 was released for retail on January 30, 2007)? But I digress… I could be here all day griping about Microsoft’s shady business practices. So anyway, in the beginning, I told the users to tell their recipients that they needed to install the aforementioned compatibility pack, I even gave them the direct link to the download. I also told them that as an alternative, they could save their documents in Word or Excel 2003 format. Both of these options proved to be too much for them (or their customers) to handle, and since I’m the I.T. guy I’m expected to “just make it work”. It’s ok, that’s what I get paid to do, so what did I do? Rather than travel to three different locations and make changes that would be reversed either at random, by the users, or by an update; I inserted the following lines in their login script(s):
Option Explicit
'Set word and excel 2007 default save formats
Dim objShell
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.RegWrite _
"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Options\DefaultFormat", "Doc", "REG_SZ"
objShell.RegWrite _
"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Options\DefaultFormat", "56", "REG_DWORD"
They only have about three different login scripts for the entire domain so this wasn’t too hard, I didn’t even have to leave the office 
This changes a user’s default Word and Excel save formats to the Office 2003/XP format. If you put this in a login script, it will be run every time the user logs in (thus, changing the setting). This is exactly how Office 2007 changes this setting so there’s really no harm in setting it every time a user logs in. Also, running it automatically upon login prevents users from changing this setting permanently because it will be reset once they login (after shutting down for the evening or logging out for example).
Now I must admit, a part of me feels dirty for doing this. A part of me wanted to tell them that their only options (aside from telling their customers to upgrade) were the two that I already gave them (which, if it weren’t for my little addition to their login scripts, would be very true). I wanted to lecture them on why they shouldn’t be using proprietary software (and paying through the nose) for things that could be accomplished just as well, if not better, using free software. I wanted them to understand that this is what happens when your business depends on proprietary software–you become the manufacturer’s prisoner.
However, if I had attempted any of these, I would be less one client and they would have just found someone else to prolong their suffering–at least this way I get to keep my client.
I’m sharing this experience in the hope that if we spread this around, we can stifle the proliferation of OOXML formatted documents (I know it’s hopeless, but you can’t say I didn’t try).
If you’d like to know more about why it’s bad to send Word/Excel/Powerpoint/etc attachments, click here.
