what are we waiting for then?

Continuing this science thing, it seems that Donald Pettit, one of the three astronauts to have gotten stuck on the space station for an extra couple months after the Columbia accident, has come to believe that it's possible for humans to endure a long space-flight and still be strong enough to operate a spacecraft well enough to go to Mars. So why aren't we?

"We were on orbit in a reduced-gravity environment for 5-1/2 months, about as long as a one-way trip to Mars," Pettit said. "We got in our own vehicle, piloted it down to Earth through an air-brake maneuver ... Without any help from the ground we secured the spacecraft, we opened the hatch, we crawled out ...

"All of this demonstrates human beings have enough physical strength and integrity to go on these long missions, pilot vehicles through operational paths, secure equipment and operate immediately," he said.

story

a candidate interested in theorectical physics...hmmmm

This Clark guy has finally said something that I can get behind. No, not that he believes that faster than light travel is possible (it is not), but that he has discussions like that with his friends and people. That's awesome. I have never known a single soul that has enjoyed discussing such things that wasn't an alright person...at least level-headed. I don't know. I've been pretty skeptical of the guy since he announced, primarily because all these people have been lauding his entrance into the race as if he was the second coming of Christ. There's something fishy about that (like it's an illuminati ploy or something) and I just haven't been able to get around that.

the story

But Gen. Clark is the first candidate that I have ever heard speak as if he's actually interested in science. And a president that's interested in science is more likely to promote scientific research, and scientific research is one of the things that I think government should have a heavy hand in (which hasn't been the case having presidents that believe that pure science is the responsibilty of the private quarter since at least Carter). Imagine, government money given out to support scientists wishing to research new fuels instead of how to refine oil differently to make more money. Scientists researching exploration of space instead of how to exploit it for profit. These are good things.

Anyway, this is of course just one star for the general...Howard Dean still has many more in my book...but at least Clark has moved beyond the field of no star candidates like Lieberman.

Oh, and by the way, faster than light travel is impossible because the energy needed to move even a single molecule that fast would approach infinity at an exponential rate as the molecule approaches the speed of light. Moving anything worth while would require so much energy we couldn't even imagine it. But warping space is viable (though would also require lots of energy, but only enough to wrinkle the space-time continuum so that a space-ship or whatever could plow through the wrinkles in time-space instead of having to traverse the fabric in it's entirety), and would get you from point A to point B in the universe faster than light could travel through space to go the same distance.

oh me oh my

So I'm at the grocery store the other night and this girl walks up to me. "Do you have any pets?" she asks me. I thought maybe she was doing some kind of survey except that it was on a Sunday and night and she didn't have any identification saying she was working for someone or something. It was kind of weird. "Yeah," I said. "A dog or a cat?" she returns almost instantaneously. "Cat." "What kind of cat is it, a calico, a black cat?" This was getting really weird. "Well," I said rather nervously, "He's kind of a sandy brown colored." "Yeah, I have a cat too...but at school we have to dissect a cat and that's kind of weird. I like science, but I'm more of a math person. But I'm not really looking foward to have to see one from the inside." She tells me way too much for me to really care, still trying to get my grip on what was going on here. "Well," I say, "Good luck with that," and I walk away.

I definitely got the impression that she was trying to hit on me or something...or maybe trying to be weird at the store. I don't know. But I walked away and laughed. How weird is all that? Why do the freaky ones always flock to me and the nice ones stay so far away? grrrrrrr.

dirty pool

White House Rejects Independent Counsel for Leak

You know, I don't think it's necessary really for this whole who told what to who thing overly political...but considering that the Republicans sent in the heavy guns over a stupid land deal (and not to mention to investigate a couple blow jobs) I think it's only fair.

The Republican Party has taken it upon itself to play dirty pool. With the 2000 election fiasco in Florida and especially witht his California recall stunt...I think it's important for the Democrats to shove the shit in the Republicans' pipe so they can smoke it. I mean, whatever happened here with someone telling classified secrets mostly for the sake of revenge against Mr. Wilson for daring to speak up against the White House's "evidence" for WMD claims...it's a federal crime (more serious than lying in one's deposition, much worse than getting a blowjob from a consenting adult) and someone should be prosecuted.

I say let's see what the Justice Department comes up with. I won't be surprised if they don't find anything...if that's the case...then send in the independent counsel to see what the hell's being covered up.

i'm bored...

...bored out of my mind. My days consist of waking up, going through the normal routine of getting ready for the day and then doing absolutely nothing. Today I got up, took a shower and blady-blah, watched a little tv until that got boring, then checked my e-mail hoping that someone had written me, but hadn't, then taking a nap, waking up, checking my e-mail and blah blah blah.

Tonight I shall spend my time checking e-mail, watching tv, endlessly surfing the web, and masturbating. That's about it. That's the extent of my life. No one ever calls me, and if they do it's to do something that involves spending more money than someone that's unemployed (that can't even find any jobs to apply to) and crazy in debt (and behind on payments) can really spend. No one wants to just hang out, no one wants to just talk or watch a movie or any of those free sorts of things. And so I have to say "no" and hang out by myself hoping that someone will shange their tune and want to hang out.

But that won't happen because I'm as boring to others as my life is to myself. People don't want boring people, they want exciting people...and the fact of the matter it, I'm not exciting.

I don't have the sort of personality that goes after conflict. I don't have the balls (or would immaturity be the right word?) to go do crazy stunts that get some laughs and get the adrenaline pumping. I have too much respect for other people (and especially girls) to go out and tell a few lies to get them in the sack. I don't have anything that would make people want to be around me. At all.

I'm the guy that enjoys sitting and talking. I'm the guy that is happy with a day when it is capped by watching the sun set, even if that means that the day is done at 7:30. I'm the guy that is happy just being in the presence of someone else (or more than one person) and just enjoying the company. But that isn't good enough for people anymore. Everything's about doing something.

There is a distinction in how a person lives their life that I'm sure I've made on this blog before. There are those that say "I do" and those that say "I am". Society has become a place where "I do" is all important. People don't care about a person's personality or soul or what have you, they only care about what they do...and how that affects them. In a sense, the world is full of people that care nothing about themselves and their "friends" are only those people that do something for them -- whether it be make them smile or laugh or feel good about themselves or (to go to extremes like I so like to do) orgasm -- that's all. There's no honest comradery any more, no soul searching done, no real connections made. Just lines in a web that cross just long enough to get from point A to point B.

I'm sick of it. I really am. I am sick of being in a world where it is passe to think about other people before thinking about oneself. I'm sick of living in a world where it's all about me me me. I'm sick of seeing so many people waste their lives trying to occupy themselves with feeling good, getting high off non-drugs. And most of all, I'm sick of thinking such negative thoughts about the human race...but every time I try to cut us some slack, it's proved to me again ten-fold. I'm sick of it. Really, really sick of it.

That is all.

an observation

Ted Bundy got plenty of dates.
I can't get a girl to look at me with even the tiniest twinkle in her eye.

How fucked up is that?

the nice guy thing redux

I've gotten myself into several discussions about the nice guy dillemma lately and how much it flatly sucks to be one in the world because people take you for granted, only willing to be your friend (or more importantly, girlfriend) when they need someone. It sucks. It sucks a lot.

This page, broodings: the nice man's burden, was just posted on WWDN, and I've been reading through it and finding that sort of comfort that you find in hearing someone else say everything that you're thinking. Of course, it's Saturday night, 11:48, and I'm home on my computer instead of getting laid like I would if I were not a nice guy...but there's at least some comfort in not being alone.

There is too much good stuff to read...I'm finding it hard to quote any here, but I will quote this (which is similar to something I wrote a few months back):

Friendship, to Nice Guys, is like vanilla ice cream. Nice Guys get a lot of vanilla ice cream. Almost everyone they meet is willing to give them a free sample; with relative ease, Nice Guys accumulate large quantities of it without even trying.
However, try as they might, they can't get anything more. No matter whom they turn to, no matter how nicely they ask, no one's willing to sell them anything but vanilla. Some people don't have any other flavors to give; they've already sold their upper-echelon treats to others deemed more worthy. Others have better flavors available, but aren't willing to sell to someone as "lowly" as a Nice Guy - although they never fail to have some vanilla for them to try.

Mind you, the Nice Guy doesn't mind vanilla ice cream; it sure as heck beats no ice cream at all. He values his vanilla dearly, and even though he has oodles of it, he never turns down the chance to get a little more. But still: he wonders how other flavors taste. He wonders how it feels to have other options open to him. He's not greedy: though he'd love some Ben and Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough more than anything, some simple chocolate or strawberry would, in truth, suffice. It can't be that hard to get some fancier flavors. Nice Guys see others all the time who have some premium mocha almond fudge; even others who don't have much ice cream at all can seem to find varietous flavors somewhere. Meanwhile, no matter how hard Nice Guys try, no matter how charming and alluring they are, no matter how much they offer, they can't seem to get more than vanilla.

This is the Nice Guy's plight: in a world where everyone is willing to be a friend, NOBODY has the desire to be anything more.

Okay, it's the 24th of February, 2001. George Dubya Bush took up his occupation of the White House a month previous as the result of a landslide five to four vote in the Supreme Court chambers a month previous to that. General Colin Powell, a good man and among the only good men deemed good enough (or not too good enough, whatever the case may be) to serve the president in his cabinet, says something. He claimed that Saddam Hussein did not have "any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."

Flash forward seven months and the nation is reeling from a below the belt attack that would soon become the focus for George Dubya's life and presidency. Nothing could be said or done by anyone in the administration without being sandwiched by at least two references to the death and destruction that was to be forever known as "nine-eleven". That policy began on nine-eleven itself (after the president finished reading a story to a group of elementary students but not before he actually cared to take on his role as commander and chief some time after the attacks began) and would continue to define his presidency. Even though there were issues that had nothing to do with the attacks -- everything had to be tied to them.

It was no wonder then that people felt that Saddam Hussein had something to do with nine-eleven. Nothing that could be said about the man could not be said sandwiched in bewteen two references. After all, the horrible economy was the result of nine-eleven, the violence in the streets was nine-eleven, racism, low charitable giving too, and everything else. Nine-eleven required a tax cut for the rich, nine-eleven required drilling for oil in ANWAR, nine-eleven required forgiveness of CEO wrong-doings, t-ball games on the White House lawn, and retraction of civil liberties. EVerything had to do with nine-eleven, everything. So why wouldn't Saddam Hussein?

Flash forward two years, Saddam has been removed from power, and no one really knows why. Billions of dollars and trillions of bullets have been sprayed into Iraq killing thousands of innocent people all to get at a single man that has yet to be gotten. The people think that it has something to do with nine-eleven, just as everything else seems to, but the president says that it doesn't. Saddam Hussein was just a threat, he had bad stuff that we needed to get away from him before he could use it. So we got rid of him, and in his absence found that he didn't actually have any of the bad stuff that we thought he did. And so with a shrug and a whimper George Dubya said to the UN "oops, sorry...hey, can we get a little help here? It's a little too much for us to handle." Thinking that they might even though we made the biggest oops in the history of oopsies. We invaded a little prematurely, without any sort of justification, really, because before nine-eleven, we knew that there wasn't much to worry about...Colin Powell said it best on February 24, 2001 when he said that Saddam Hussein did not have "any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction." But Bush took nine-eleven, mixed it with a desire to avenge his father's mistakes and a big helping of oil, and sprinkled it with a little dash of neocon philosophy to make war and kill a bunch of people.

God bless George Dubya Bush.

I realized today that I am more or less at peace with my life. There are plenty of things that I could be upset about -- my lack of a job, my confusing and rather lonely love life, the death of my dog, my shitty-ass president, and so much else -- but I'm not.

It's not that I'm not feeling anger or whatever because I'm not feeling anything either, I don't think, because I have this overwhelming feeling that everything that's going crazy right now is going to turn out okay. I feel a lot of love and forgiveness right now, like nothing bad is coming my way...only blue skies.

Of course, given my luck (and cynicism) that means I'm due to get shot or hit by a bus tomorrow). ;)

Local news sometimes has grander implications, here's a case of that.

An apartment complex in one of the suburbs was condemned a month ago because of 3000 housing code violations that included everything from coakroaches and mold to broken windows and missing fire alarms. They didn't get fined a single cent...just made to close down, tenants told to get out in thirty days.

The deadline for moving out was yesterday and now word is going out to the press that if tenants aren't out by Firday, they will be issued fines of $75.

How unfair is that? The company that owns the place breaks thousands of laws and doesn't get in trouble...but the people that live there are forced to move and if they don't have to pay up -- in effect having to pay for the mistakes of some faceless corporation. And get this, when the city attorney was asked why they weren't filing civil court procedings against the apartment complex for all their misdeeds, the Grand Rapids Press reported his answer thusly:

"We could have conceivably issued a citation for every violation for every day," Sluiter said.

Sluiter said it is difficult to charge a corporation. "You have to issue it against an officer or a general partner," he said. "We've considered it."

This is just another case of how the little people get screwed over by the system as it is. We live in a country that gives the same rights to corporations that are given to individual, living, breathing human beings (in accordance to the 1886 Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad). Not only does that not make a whole lot of sense, but it leads to instances like the one at the apartment complex. It leads to a system where corporations can get away with anything because they have more resources, more heads like the Hydra that Hercules fought in Greek mythology -- you kill one and two more grow up in their place. And so law enforcement doesn't do much about it, knowing that they can't be beat...

And so they go after individuals.

In this case, it's easier to force people out of their homes than it is to fight the corporation that owns the complex. It is easier to threaten the mostly poor tenants of the place than it is to threaten the people that actually caused the problems there. It's easier to do that because the system is designed to be that way because in theory that's how money is made and that is the foundation of our entire system. It's really quite sickening if you ask me, and I'm fed up with it.

But I'm more fed up with the fact that people just accept this as the way things are don't fight it, bringing justice back into our little world.

And that, my friends, leads me to be completely empathetic towards the situation. I don't have the strength to swing my sword at hydra heads by myself anymore.

Speaking as an ex-Young Republican, this doesn't surprise me at all:

DALLAS -- Southern Methodist University shut down a bake sale Wednesday in which cookies were offered for sale at different prices, depending on the buyer's race or gender.

The sale was organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who said it was intended as a protest of affirmative action.

A sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.

There's just something about the republican sense of humor, especially among the young ones, that makes it cynical...but not int he funny way. I understand the point that these guys were trying to make, and I understand how they would think it was clever and cute or whatever, but that's only because I was once one of them and had the same sense of humor...

Of course, now I think it's sophmoric, ridiculous, and rather retarded.

Hear that loud gasping sound? That's the sound of a new majority of Americans that are taking their first breaths of fresh air having just pulled their heads out of their asses and do not approve of Bush's handling of his job. That's a first for his presidency (as long as you don't count the actual election and Supreme Court decision that got him into office in the first place).

Who's the man? Why, Walter Cronkrite is:

In his 2 1/2 years in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law. Tomas de Torquemada was the 15th century Dominican friar who became the grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. He was largely responsible for its methods, including torture and the burning of heretics - Muslims in particular.

Now, of course, I am not accusing the attorney general of pulling out anyone's fingernails or burning people at the stake (at least I don't know of any such cases). But one does get the sense these days that the old Spaniard's spirit is comfortably at home in Ashcroft's Department of Justice.

The Patriot Act is much in the news, as Ashcroft and his minions seek both to justify its excesses and strengthen them, thus intensifying its dangerous infringements on the Bill of Rights.

There was something almost medieval in the treatment of Muslim suspects in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Many were held incommunicado, without effective counsel and without ever being charged, not for days or weeks, but for months or longer, some under harsh conditions designed for the most dangerous criminals.

It was in the spirit of the Inquisition that the Justice Department announced recently that it would begin gathering data on judges who give sentences lighter than called for by legislative guidelines.

Nothing so clearly evokes Torquemada's spirit as Ashcroft's penchant for overruling U.S. attorneys who have sought lesser penalties in capital cases. The attorney general has done this at least 30 times since he took office, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel. In several cases, Ashcroft actually has overturned plea bargains negotiated by those government prosecutors.

More on the Patriot Act from the executive director of the ACLU.

an epitaph

Tonight is my dog's last night of pain.

We got her 14 years ago, when she was just a puppy, from a house around the block from us. For days we tried to come up with a name for her to no avail. While playing I or my brother or someone called her a little Rascal...and so that became her name.

She was a remarkable dog, house-trained in a day after one "accident" and forever after quick to learn new tricks. She had a guilt-complex like no other dog I've ever know...unwilling even to take food from your hand unless you told her she could. She was playful and loved the sun and the grass and the water...we were never able to keep her out of the river behind our house growing up.

But over the years she didn't seem to age. My Freshman year in college she came down with some intestinal bug that nearly cost her her life. One night my mom called me, telling me that she was going to have to put Rascal down because she wasn't responding to treatment and there was little hope that she would in the future. I cried a lot that night. But the next morning, when I was to go home to say goodbye to her, my mom called again and said that she had finally begun to respond, that the vets thought she would make it through it all...though it would probably shorten her lifespan by years.

Rascal didn't die. SHe continued to be my best friend when very few humans would be my friend. She would listen to me, lay with me, rest her head on my lap as I sat in the dark thinking about where life was taking me. When my mom died, she came to live with me for a year, and she was the greatest roommate I've ever had.

But as the years moved on she started to slow down a bit. Though still rambuncious for a 10, 11, or 12 year old dog (acting mor like a 6 or seven year old), she didn't have the spunk that she did. Playtime was followed by longer periods of rest...but that didn't stop her from catching her first rabbit when she was 11. She brought it home and plopped it down as proud as any puppy would do.

The last two years have found her in increasing pain though. Arthritis set on very quickly and within a few month period she went from spry to still. She'd try to run about the yard, still chasing, still playing, still pouncing, but the sparkle in her eye had begun to fade behind the cataracts. The last year she has been mostly still.

We didn't think she'd make it through the winter last year, then the spring, then the summer of this year...but she did. The arthritis was putting her in pain, but the drugs that she was being given seemed to help out a lot at first. But their powers have started to diminish too...and she walks with a frail step, leaning against walls, and standing with a look on her face that screams dread for the agony of laying down. We can't stand it anymore...to see her in pain...to see such a wonderful, amazing, beautiful, faithful dog suffer so damn much. And so my dad is bringing her to the vet tomorrow...one last road trip.

I only wish that she had the strength to sit up in the front seat so that she could stick her head out of the window to feel that rush that dogs love so much. I only wish that her stomach was not so feeble so that my dad could take her through McDonalds for one last taste of her favorite double cheeseburger. I only wish that she was able to jump up onto a bed to spend her last night laying next to a warm body of someone that loved her like I do...but if all those things were the case, she wouldn't be going tomorrow. I only wish that dogs lived forever. Or at least Rascal.

I will miss that dog. I will miss her to death. The pain of the possibility of losing her has built up over the last year even though I view the last seven years as a gift from God in letting her stick around after her illness. I've seen it coming, I've gotten myself as prepared as I could be. But I'm still crying right now.

Rest in Peace, Rascal.

Project Censored's list of the biggest under-reported stories of 2002-2003:

#1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
#2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
#3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report
#4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
#5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
#6: Closing Access to Information Technology
#7: Treaty Busting by the United States
#8: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
#9: In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights, and Civil Disruption Worse than Ever
#10: Africa Faces Threat of New Colonialism
#11: U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
#12: Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
#13: Corporate Personhood Challenged
#14: Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
#15: U.S. Military's War on the Earth
#16: Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
#17: Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
#18: Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
#19: U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
#20: Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
#21: Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
#22: Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
#23: Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
#24: Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
#25: Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment

Go to the site to read about them. Or, I'm sure they'd love it if you bought the book.

Two points to this post. The first is for the request of a reader roll-call. It's fast, it's easy, and most importantly, it's absolutely and positively *FREE* to you the user. Just click the comments button below and say something, even if it's just your name. I'm just curious...there's a comment from here or there every now and then, but I want to see just how high the number can go on that thing.

Secondly, and this ties in with the first request...has anyone ever used a courier service for flying overseas? I'm looking at the website for the Air Courier Association and thinking that $25 might not be a bad bet if it can get me overseas for one or two hundred bucks. I'll look around some of my other travel sources, but if anyone knows anything about the process, please do tell.

Thanks.

I added a counter for the cost of war in Iraq under the body count count to the left, it is a very informative site, you should check it out: Cost of War. It is truly incredible how much the administration is willing to spend on this war and at the same time refuse to spend on the Amrican people.

So my roommate's girlfriend has custody of her kids for the weekend...but right now she's in my roommate's room fucking. That's just fucking fantastic.

I think it comes through just fine and dandy when I post on here that I think that she is scum. This, of course, is worse than the mooching her housing off of me -- ignoring her kids.

Let me say this outright and LOUD: Any person that puts anyone ahead of their own children is the scum of the earth. They cannot do or say anything that will make me think otherwise of them. They will never garner my respect. She has custody of her children only 50% of the time. The 50% of the time that she does not have them, she is either here in my apartment, or at work. You would think that would be enough (50% of her free time) for her boyfriend would be enough. It isn't. Out of the other 50% of the time that she does have her kids...she still comes over here. On her breaks from work, before she goes to work, nights like tonight.

This means that she devotes more time to her boyfriend (and therefore herself) than she does to her poor kids who already have to grow up having a mom and dad that don't live together or love each other (which is bad enough for a kid)...they have to grow up having a mother for whom orgasms and smoochie-face is more important than them.

Fucking A, I wonder sometimes if they should license parents to make sure that bitches like her don't bring poor semi-orphaned children into the world.

The sound of her moaning right now is making my blood boil.

Aarrrrr me mateys, tis Talk Like a Pirate Day and ye know what that means. Bring out the chum bucket and the grog...and make yer way across the seven seas...and confuse people with yer pirate yapping.

You know, I'm not sure if my anger towards those that would corrupt our youth in order to make a buck comes out enough. It is one of the things that most greatly disturbs me about our society and economic structure. Children today are stripped of their childhood and made into little adults, which in the capitalist game makes them little more than little consumers.

But more than little consumers they are as we all have lived through our adolesence and all know what it is like to want to be fully grown, look like we're fully grown, pretend like we're fully grown, but not be able to think like we're fully grown at all. It's just that the human mind takes longer to develop than anything else. We do not learn to think at a fully developed level until we are older, past our physical growth, and in many cases, out of those trying years where answers are not found through introspection but in the world around us -- in our peers, in our communities, and in an ever-growing presence, in the media.

And companies take advantage of that whenever they can. They play with the knowledge that kids will be kids that want to be like all the other kids. They use that knowledge to produce images that kids want to emulate, they use it to drill their slogans into the minds of the underdeveloped, they use the kids to make a buck...knowing that what they say and how they say it will have an influence and, in many cases, steer the kid into their store to buy their product. It's an easy game for them...but it's not a game...it's beyond a game...it's like deer hunting with an a-bomb, totally lacking sportsmanship.

And maybe I exaggerate a bit, maybe there are more young free minds out there than I give credit for, but the fact remains that these presumptions are made by the forces that be and they do have an influence. But they don't care. They have no problem tampering with the minds of youth in order to twist them into believing that they have some need. They convince girls that they need to be thin in order to be beautiful in order to get the guy in order to be worth anything in this world. They convince the guy that he needs to drink to be macho to get the girl to not be a loser. It isn't hard for them...and they're getting worse every day. And it sickens me. It SICKENS me and there's not a dman thing I can do about it.

Whenever I go off on a rant like this, people nod their heads as if it will content me to think that they are listening and comprehending what it is that I'm saying. Sometimes they argue, sometimes they do agree, but most of the time it is that ambiguous place. Not here, not with this. The advertising industry has gone too far now and things must be done about it. If you agree with anything that I have said above, than there is no more room for wobbling -- you must take action. If you believe in any degree that the children of today are not just being robbed of the innocence of their childhood, but being brainwashed into becoming buying machines for the profit of business, you must put your foot down.

And it's not that hard, in fact it's easier than doing something -- it's doing nothing. It's not buying from companies that attempt to ploy the kids into buying their shit with sick and twisted advertising gimmicks (FCUK for instance). It involves saying "you know, they're a shitty company..." when a freind asks you what you think of their new shirt or jacket or whatever. Most importantly, it involves being a part of a kid's or many kids' lives and through whatever means letting them know that the magazines and television have it all wrong, that beauty comes from within, self-worth cannot be bought, and life is about more than things.

That is all.

A Challenge

I read stories like this, 'Grand Theft Auto' makers sued over teenage killing, and think to myself why I ever bothered holding back on the malpractice suit against my mother's doctors that gave her a staph infection that indirectly killed her. That at least would have been a semi-legitimate claim, except that I'm man enough to accept that old cliche -- shit happens. I mean, here are two stupid fucking retarded kids that don't know the difference between reality and a cartoonish video game and the victims sue the makers of the game, not the parents of the stupid fucking retarded kids for bringing their stupid fucking retarded souls into this world. Geez. $100 million. What's up with that?

I'll tell you what's up with that. Today's homework assignment: Think of the worst thing that ever happened to you in your life, now think of the most deep-pocketed person/entity that is at all tied to that instance, and file a lawsuit, a BIG lawsuit. Fuck personal responsibility, the people with the money possess your responsibility, right?

We are all the pawns of those with money...at least that seems to be the popular belief.

help me please

I'm pre-dating this entry so that it isn't on the front page of my blog (so that the advertisers can't find this as easily, since they may not be so happy about my approach here), but I wanted to ask for a little help from those that I know. I'm broke right now, broke and unemployed and, quite literally, living in my parents' basement. I want out in a bad bad way so that I can get on with my life, go back to school and all of that...but to do that, I need money. Now I'm not the kind of guy to go out there and ask for people to put their money into my pockets...that's rude, at least it is when there are other ways around it. And there are.

In trying to make ends meet, I have been signing up with several (read, scores...over a hundred) different internet companies, offerign to advertise for them in return for a cut of their revenue from those advertisement (the term in internet parlance is "affiliate work"). Most of these involve purchasing some service which then leads to some percentage cut in the sale. Some of them, however, will pay me for nothing more than a "lead". That is, if I send people to them to request information, they will pay me for having done so. These are mostly finacial service companies that want to give out loans of one sort or another, but others want to give you life insurance quotes, want to have you try out their service for free, want to send you information about hair loss or educational opportunities. These sorts of places will pay me (and pay me half-way decently) for just sending you along to send them your name, address, and e-mail address. And so, I am only asking that you do just that.

Of course, I wouldn't ask that you do so without being at least somewhat interested in what they have to offer. Not only is this stealing, sort of, but it also makes me look bad if I send a bunch of people their way and never have any of those pitches connect. You know? But I do have several companies to list and if one or two grabs your attention just a little bit, it would help me out if you went to their sites and checked them out (if they ask for information you're not comfortable giving, don't feel as though I'll be offended if you don't go through with it).

Thanks in advance.

AmericanSingles.com will give me a couple bucks just for you to sign up with a valid e-mail address. This will only work until September 23, 2004 however.

Bosley will give me a ten-spot if you give them your name and address so that they can send you a video about Hair Loss solutions. They don't call (they don't even request a phone number).

Capella University will give decent money for your information, but I cannot attest to what they do with it since I'm not in an area of the world they want anything to do with.

DeVry University does pretty much the same for me as Capella.

eBay
will give me 10 cents when you bid on something through this link, as well as $10 if you're not a member already and you sign and buy or sell something within 30 days.

goZing will pay me a buck to send people to them to register and take surveys which you will get paid for (I'm a member and have made a few bucks from the surveys myself).

Great-expectations is a dating service that will give me between three and seven dollars for you to sign up, depending on the service ($7, I believe, if you give them a phone number).

Keen is a psychic directory. You get three minutes on the phone with a psychic for free and then if you put money into your account (it looks as though this can be as little as a couple bucks, but I haven't tried), I get $50.

Matrix Direct will call you soon after filling out their form to make sure it's a real number (your work number perhaps?), but then will send you information through the mail. Absolutely no hassling here, and I get good money. I might add that it was interesting to see how much life insurance was, in case I ever have a family and decide to get it.

Perfect Match is an online matchmaking service that'll give me a buck and a half for you to sign up.

University of Phoenix will pay me for your information...even if it's not complete (wink wink). Their enrollment people WILL call the number you give.

XDrivewill pay me to have you try a free trial of their backup hard disk space.

PeoplePC Online will pay me if you download their software or request a cd-rom.

courtesy of Yahoo

This is rich:

The Conservative "Free Congress Foundation" which has been saying all along that the only ones that should fear the government prying into their lives are those that are committing crimes, is now getting mad at Sen. Orrin Hatch for being a little too supportive of the Justice Department's desires for more and more power. It seems that they're starting to realize that at some point a liberal might be president and appoint a liberal Attorney General that might treat them the way that many of us liberals feel we're being treated now.

Paul Weyrich, the Chairman of the group puts it best though: "We are concerned not about Ashcroft, but about a possible subsequent attorney general, named by President Hillary Rodham Clinton, who might define as terrorists those of us who peacefully oppose government polices." (The Salt Lake City Tribune)

Gee, when a liberal makes that exact claim only backwards, we're paranoid and anti-patriot, communist and Taliban-loving, guilty and scared...but if one of those "liberals" takes office (the ones that are most vocally opposed to the DOJs new powers and most likely to not use them, let alone abuse them), they're really going to abuse it.

Fucking hypocrits.

Here's a guy that makes sense, in a Ashcroftonian sort of way:

From The Ottawa Citizen

A Quebec woodsman who wanted a black bear as a pet, set out Tuesday morning and snatched a young cub from the Gatineau River

...

The bear managed to break free from his captor eight times by clawing at him. He tried in vain to swim to shore, only to be dragged back out into the river.

To wear out the bear, Mr. Ryan started running him over with the Jet Ski, forcing the cub's head under water.

The 55-year-old woodsman got his best grip on the cub by holding it upside down by one of its hind legs.

He then started dunking him again and again under water in a cruel attempt to drain the cub's energy.

The cub was now moaning, desperately trying to breathe.

...

This time, to stop the cub from jumping off again, he tied a rope around one of its hind legs and kept one hand on the leash, the other on the handle bars.

With the bear secured, he turned around and drove to a public landing in the heart of Wakefield. He figured a cub on the back of a Jet Ski would make a good picture for the town's newspaper.

[the bear gets away again]

Mr. Ryan jumped off the Jet Ski and tackled the bear as it tried to scramble up the bank.

"Then I tied him again and dunked him again to get the energy out of him. I tied him pretty good this time. He was so tired out," Mr. Ryan said.

...

Mr. Ryan grabbed the bear by a hind leg again and was dragging it home when the MRC des Collines police stopped him, demanding that he let the cub go.

And, when all was said and done, this is what the guy has to say for himself:

"I was never mean to the bear. There was a couple of times I wanted to hit him over the head with a pipe or something but I didn't do that."

He died not in vain

The man that scaled the fence at the WTO meetings last week and plunged a knife into his heart in protest is thought of as a hero in his hometown in South Korea:

That sentiment is echoed in a new banner that greets drivers as they enter Jangsu. "The late Lee Kyung Hae, patriot and hero, we will follow your goal," it reads. "We strongly oppose W.T.O. globalization."

The NY Times reports.

The lies of Little John Redux

John Ashcroft, on his crusade to uphold the virtues of the Patriot Act, decided yesterday to attack the American Library Association for getting the word out to library users that the Justice Department has the right to look at your records there and that the library has no right to ever tell you that they let them. The The New York Times quotes him:

The Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft said, "has no interest in your reading habits. Tracking reading habits would betray our high regard for the First Amendment. And even if someone in government wanted to do so, it would represent an impossible workload and a waste of law enforcement resources."

Let's pick this apart a minute. First off, Herr Ashcroft says that the Justice Department has no interest in reading habits. Obviously, this is wrong since it was the Justice Department that insisted upon being given the right to track reading habits when they shoved the Patrioit Act down Congress' throat, making them vote on it two weeks after September 11, without giving many (if any) in Congress the chance to read it first.

Secondly, he states a "high regard for the First Amendment." This too is obviously bullshit given that they shoved the Patriot Act down Congress' throat...

Thirdly, and this is the kicker, is the claim that "it would be a waste of time anyway". How many people have used that line. "No, I didn't tell anyone your secret, why would I? I wouldn't have anything to gain from it..." Or the hand in the cookie jar "I wasn't stealing a cookie, I'm not even hungry, why would I want a cookie?" Seriously, why do people for this stuff? Besides, the FBI is notorious for throwing resources into the ridiculous. Last year, they put ten agents on the case of a brothel in New Orleans that could have been used for, I don't know, trying to figure out what the hell went on on Septemeber 11. How the hell is Herr Ashcroft able to then say that the FBI has better things to do than look into library records? It seems to me that they're already wasting time on other things -- checking up on random reading lists is going to net more bad guys, it seems, than tracking the comings and goings at a fucking whore house.

More complaining from the confines of my bedroom

Well, the RM's GF is out in the living room, her craft making shite spread about. I threw myself into the usual exile of my room after watching the news. On the news was a story about an unidentified woman found half-naked and dead at the side of the road some miles from here. I looked over and saw her, half-way disappointed they weren't speaking of her...

I really don't like the feeling of disliking someone this much, but it's hard not to when it's thrust in your face.

The Future of Democracy in America

The President wants us to pour $87 Billion more into Iraq to cover his ass for sending 300 Americans and thousands of Iraqis to their pre-mature deaths for reasons (I'm talking the real reasons, not the fabricated proven-false reasons he has) that he doesn't want to share with the people (i.e. We the People) who are giving the government the money that he wants to spend. $87 Billion. That's a lot. TomPaine.com offers some suggestions as to what else that money could be spent on.

Just remember next November what's more important: Stopping a spectre of terrorism that turned out to be nothing more than a vapor or education, the environment, and a safety net. I have been wrong for believing there weren't any differences between Republicans and Democrats -- Gore would have spent MY money much more productively.

Of course, there's hope that the majority of Americans are beginning to pull their heads out of the sand and see the truth, as some 60% don't like the idea, and more believe that it should be paid for by tax rollbacks for the rich than any other suggestion.

John Ashcroft has been running around the country lately trying to convince the world that the Patriot act is completely constitutional and not used to do anything but prevent Americans from getting hurt by terrorists. Of course, all of his remarks presumably are similar to those found on the government paid for website for pro-police-state propoganda, Life and Liberty (how grand is democracy when the government needs to spend money to try and convice the people that it's not trying to take away their liberties?) but it's hard to tell since the meetings are closed to the public and he will only take questions from select media (how much faith can you put in a man's words when he's afraid to discuss them with newspaper writers?).

But according to the press, this kind of stuff is happening:

Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car.

A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months.

Who do you believe, John Ashcroft or the truth?

You're goin' down! FOR ASSISTED SUICIDE! (even
though it was good you did it)


What Would You Go to Jail For? (Many outcomes)
brought to you by Quizilla

No, that is not a banana in my pocket:

The Pixies to re-unite

I know I promised that I would never write about any specific person but its about my roommate and he doesn't read this and he's really pissing me off, so I'm going to break my own rule. Just this once. Besides, I could use some advice.

Okay, here's the thing. He's been dating this girl for about two months or so. Obviously I could care less because it's not like she's evil or anything...or maybe she is. In any case, I'm not worried about him or anything, but there is a problem. See, the thing is, she is practically living here. Actually, one could take the "practically" out of that sentence and not be too far.

She sleeps here almost every night, she eats her meals here, she showers and changes her clothes here, when she gets extended breaks at work she comes here and, well, I guess that pretty much means she lives here. It is fucking annoying.

I used to live alone, and for a reason -- I'm a pretty quiet and withdrawn person. I decided a year ago that getting a roommate wouldn't be such a bad thing as it would mean I'd be able to afford a better place and even be able to save money which is always a good thing. Yeah, it's annoying having someone around more often than I did when I was alone, but that has always been okay since my roommate is an alright guy and we generally stay out of each others' hair if we want space. cool. But then the bitch enters the picture. (oops, did I call her a bitch?)

Now it's as I have two roommates. My space has been effectively cut in half, I have to wait to use the bathroom, I have to leave the common areas of the apartment whenever they're around because they are constantly talking and/or kissing (and I hate PDAs), and otherwise have to cope with the distractions of two roommates rather than one -- without the benefit of cutting rent three ways or anything else. So...I have been effectively shut into my bedroom which means I'm back to living by myself in what is effectively a studio apartment. Man. Oh, and I forgot...this is all being done without ever saying a damn word to me. My roommate has invited his live-in girlfriend to live with us, without ever having asked. Fucker.

It also gets to me for other reasons...she's a mom of two and her being here means that she's not with her kids, I have a problem with that and it is the main reason that I am capapble of referring to her as a bitch. She doesn't have custody of them half the time...but even when she does, she looks for ways to come HERE or otherwise not be with them. That pisses me off to know end.

But then there's the other thing -- they've been dating for two months and are "practically" living together. There's something wrong with that I think. I mean, not for some people, but for me it is. I'm rather old-fashioned and don't really think it's right to live together until two people are married or practically married anyway...unless circumstances warrant otherwise (moving cross-country for example). She started spending what I feel is a ridiculous amount of time here about three weeks into things. On top of that, I know that my roommate is a pretty religious guy (I know he believes in Creationism)...and that sort of hypocrisy drives me bonkers (as if you didn't know that).

Here's the thing...I'm about ready to go ballistic...maybe even kicking him out. Am I wrong or do I need to take a chill pill?

Two years after the 9/11 attacks, there are still many unaswered questions -- some of them quite simple like: Why did Attorney General John Ashcroft and some Pentagon officials cancel commercial-airline trips before Sept. 11? and Why did the NORAD air defense network fail to intercept the four hijacked jets? and 18 others asked by the Philadelphia Daily News.

It's about time that we hold the Bush Administration accountable for the free ride they've gotten from the tragic events of that day and make them answer some questions. Don't you think?

I have spent much of the day with a tear in my eye.

Much of the day I have spent online and listening to Johnny Cash songs that I could find and the few that I have on CD in one form or another. The raw emotion that he put into his work, the honesty, the truth. It overwhelms me. And to love his wife so much with such a true love as to give up on life after she died -- to feel that it's okay to give up after the person that you shared your life with passes, is so beautiful. That is what I strive for in my work and my life. He lived a life that I wish to live -- being outright with my feelings, not hiding any part of them, to hold them so strongly. His was a great life.

I don't think I ever realized how much I idolized Johnny Cash until he was gone from this world.

Sorry that I posted twice today on his death, but I haven't felt someone's passing like this in a long time...perhaps since my mother died.

Goodbye, Johnny Cash, you shall be missed.

You know, I'm not usually one to get choked up over the deaths of people I know through their fame, but through a newsite I found this cover of Johnny singing We'll Meet Again and I started to cry. I dare you to listen and not tear up.

Man he was a great singer.

He said, "My warning goes out to all citizens that human beings are in an endangered situation. That uncontrolled multinational corporations and a small number of big WTO Members are leading an undesirable globalization that is inhumane, environmentally degrading, farmer-killing, and undemocratic. It should be stopped immediately." ........and then he plunged a knife into his heart.

Suicide at WTO Meeting Highlights Farmers' Plight

Lee's lament goes to the heart of what is perhaps the single most contentious issue in international trade today.

Free-market advocates argue that agricultural producers who can grow crops most efficiently--that is, at the lowest cost--should be permitted to export to other markets without tariffs or other trade-distorting barriers, such as farm subsidies in the importing country, in order to keep global food prices low and as affordable to as many people as possible.

Instead of trying to compete with low-cost producers, according to this view, farmers in other countries who produce the same crop at higher cost should either grow something else at which they will have a similar competitive advantage or give up farming altogether and move to the city where they can get a job in a manufacturing or some other sector whose products or services can be sold to yet other markets at competitive prices.

This "neo-liberal" philosophy, which guides the WTO and other institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that oversee the global economy, is precisely what brought Lee to Cancun and ultimately to his death.

Okay, so I've put up a bunch of things for sale on half.com cuz I need some cash. Help me out would ya? Thanks.

I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She'll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She will hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought and with every breath
Someone who'll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don't want to be tied
To anyone's strings
I'm carefully trying to steer clear
Of those things
But when I'm asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
I'll get away with it

-Depeche Mode
Somebody

It's about time: U.S. House votes to allow Cuban tourism

Two comments on the article however. First, it quotes Tom Delay as saying, "This amendment would reward injustice. There is no such thing as a 'Cuban tourism industry.' There is only Fidel Castro and his thugocracy." Who exactly is Tom Delay to call someone a thug after he chased the democrats of Texas out of the state in his efforts to, very thuggishly, ram his redistricting proposal down their throats?

Secondly, what's really the big deal about opening up Cuba anyway...all you've ever had to do was fly out of Canada or Mexico, Europe or wherever. I mean, I hate to break the heart of W and company, but Americans have been doing that quite successfully for years. (There are travel companies out there promoting this option and have been for years)

Oh well, go ahead Mr. W. and veto the entire bill over this -- what the hell good have you done for this country or any other anyway? You wouldn't want to ruin your batting average after all.

A really good piece bySlate's Fred Kaplan on the way that the Bush Administration took opportunities for internnational support that had been handed it on September 11 and just wasted them -- instead deciding to alienate the world.

You know, I may be way off base here, getting upset about nothing, making mountains out of molehills, but something on television's been irking me lately. It's the new McDonald's ad campaign for their dollar menu.

The gist of the commercials is that they show a profession with a voice over of something along the lines of "this is how long a pet psychologist has to work in order to afford a double cheeseburger" and they show him talking to a dog for three or four seconds. There are a few, each of them, I guess what would have to be considered "weird" or at the very least "superficial" careers that are really pretty meaningless towards society as a whole. That is, that McDonald's seems to be saying "if these yokel can afford a hot fudge sundae, so can you".

What I find disgusting about the campaign though is that they couldn't do a commercial anywhere near the lines of "this is how long one of OUR employees has to work in order to afford a double cheeseburger"...because it would be way too long. Seriously. With a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour and taxes afterward, a minimum wage employee is going to be taking home $4 an hour. A dollar takes 15 minutes...a commerical admitting this fact would be practically an infomercial and not of the variety that would have some entertainment value the way that those Amazing Discovery ads with the guy Mike that always wore a sweater seemed to always have. This infomercial would have a guy standing around, probably without a diploma -- either because he's too young to have finished high school or dropped out long ago (or, as the joke goes, he's a philosophy major) -- slapping hockey puck burger patties on a hot grill press only to remove them when they're done to clear room for another round, all the while getting sweaty from standing over the grill, maybe getting burns on his arm from grease splatter (hey, I know, I worked at McDonald's for a year in high school). It would not be glorious, not at all.

And definitely not as light-hearted and ridiculously irrelevant as a pet psychologist.

I don't know, it just boths me that McDonald's goes out of its way to jokingly refer to odd careers the way they do, whimsically suggesting how well off people get doing those things when they themselves pay their employees as little as possible -- and make them do a lot more work. It just seems ironic or slefish or something, I don't know what it is. At the very least, it seems almost demeaning to McDonald's bottom-rung workers and it really sort of pisses me off.

But of course it's all made okay because McDonald's has a corporate policy of "social responsibility":

Our People Principles
Our People Principles guide us in delivering on our People Promise. They commit us to:

*Fair and respectful treatment.
*Recognition and rewards for good work.
*Openness, attentive listening, and appreciation of diverse opinions.
*Competitive pay and benefits.
*Support for personal and professional development.
*Resources to get the job done.

from the McDonald's website

Hypocrites.

I have a radio station thingy set up on LAUNCHmusic over at Yahoo, if anyone's interested in listening to some good tunes (some of them are bad, I know, but most are good) you can find my station here. I'll add it to my links later.

okay, so I'm back. I finally got internet hooked up on my computer. it's a good thing.

What a friggen ripoff.

I was going through some of my stories and came across a couple that could be sort of chicken soupish if I dumbed them down a bit (and shortened them). So anyway, I'm short on cash and thinking about how to make some bucks and stuff and think about the possibility of going for it -- so I look on their website. They pay $300 on acceptence of a story. $300!!!

Here I was thinking all along that these books sell like $5 bottles of water at the gates of hell and figured they'd spread the wealth to those that contribute. They do too...$300

Think about it. If there are 50 stories or individual peices in there, that means that the publishers put down $15,000 on the content of the book. They put it all together, ship it to the publisher and, bam, sell 50,000 or more copies of Chicken Soup for the Angsty Teenager's Soul© and make a couple million off of the deal -- the next month publishing Chicken Soup for the Gay Pet Owner's Soul© and make a couple more million. What a racket. Sheesh.

So anyway, since the stories have to be true...I have a feeling that I might be able to have a lot of not-so-true-but-go-ahead-and-prove-that-they're-not life experiences that I can put $300 worth of work into (for a writer, what, 6 hours?) and ship 'em all over.

First one's going to be the Chicken Soup for the Widowed One-legged Sea Captain's Soul©. ARRRRRR

Well, I get my cable modem set up tomorrow, so I will be able to start updating more regularly starting then...hold yer horses man.

Of course setting up the internet will require me to give up to the cable company that the apartment I just moved into yesterday had cable hooked up in it already. That's right, dammit, I HAD FREE CABLE! bloody hell and all other things for my need to have internet service and give up the chance to save $40 a month. DAMN DAMN DAMN!!!!

:)