Tag Archives: Humaniti

In regards to PRISM

Posted by on June 8, 2013 No comments

Apparently the government has been collecting a butt ton of data on American citizens since 2002 or so. I am completely the type of person who says I told you so. Well,

I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!

I believe back in those dark days after 9/11, when the Patriot Act was being rammed down our throats, I said “Hey, this is a bad idea, we are giving to government too much power to collect information with too little over sight!”. But alas I was shouted down, told to STFU because Terrorism and AMERICA Fuck Yeah!. Well,

I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!

I said, you all are comfortable with it now, but what about down the road when a different administration is in power, a different Attorney General, a new NSA Chief. You all said, there is a sunset on it, so this is not going to be forever, I said, no, it will be reauthorized again and again and no one will care. Well,

I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!

So I am telling you now, go back to your reality TV and People magazine, its too late, you had your say, and it was clear years ago what was going to happen and now its happened, I am finding it very hard to feel sorry for anyone on this issue. If you supported the Patriot Act, congratulations, we are living in your world, oh and

I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!

Healthcare Reform vs The Supreme Court

Posted by on March 31, 2012 No comments

This last week Conservatives finally had their day in court, SCOTUS heard arguments from both sides about the constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare Act. There is an excellent chance part of the act will be deemed unconstitutional and a much smaller chance they will eliminate all of it. While I hope the SCOTUS acts in good faith here, a part of me thinks maybe the complete over turn of the whole law will have a positive effect on the coming election. If AHA is overturned, healthcare will become a central topic this summer along with the economy, both of these subjects are bad for Republicans. The Democratic party will find it very easy to stir the pot by blaming the Republicans for returning us to the previous system where Insurance companies reject legitimate claims, tell cancer victims they’re uninsurable, and raising premiums year after year while cutting benefits. They could ride to victory on the “Medicare for all” platform, which is easily done with a minor change to an existing law that can be tacked onto a budget bill which requires only 51 votes in the Senate to pass. All that would be needed is a slim majority in both the Houses of Congress and a willing President. This would however require a very disciplined Democratic party and a willingness to allow some Blue Dogs get buried. It would also require moderate Republicans to stay fractured from the tea party wing. Neither of those two things are likely, but who knows what the dog days of summer will bring.

The lottery

Posted by on March 31, 2012 1 comment

As I am sure everyone knows the Super-Mego-Ultra-Nuclear-Lotto was up to half a billion dollars last night. So naturally, there was considerable talk about it at work. Both PezWitch and my own team each had Lotto Groups and we both threw in $5 each, her team collected $85, my team collect $40. Normally I am not a big believer in the lottery, in my mind it is a tax on the stupid and should generally be avoided. However the one thing to consider is, if you buy a lottery ticket, your chances of winning are astronomically low, however, if you don’t buy a ticket, it is ZERO. In this particular case, where there was a lot of talk around the office all day, in my estimation, it was worth the $10 to me, just to listen to my co-workers dreams. It is not often that you have so many people together all at once talking about things that make them happy and to see glimmers of hope as they threw done their $5 and put their name on the list. Over all, yesterday was a pretty good day and even though we didn’t win the millions, we did win in life, even if just for a brief few hours.

Another Generation as passed

Posted by on February 5, 2012 3 comments

This year will be the 30th anniversary of my graduation from High School. Being a middle aged man, I am prone to bouts of nostalgia and while I do not miss High School at all, there are some things of the 80′s I do miss, it was after all my coming of age period. However, I digress, This post is not really about the 80′s, the 80′s was just what made me think about the 90′s.

What occurred to me was, how little society has changed in the last 20 years. If you compare 1952 to 1972, culturally, those are very different time periods. The clothing, the music, movies, car designs, nearly everything. Same thing with 1972 and 1992. I am pretty sure this is also true of 1932 and 1952, as well as 1912 and 1932. However, if you look at the last 20 years, 1992 to 2012, there really has been very little change in hair and clothing styles, music, TV and movies. Seriously, if you watched a mainstream chick flick movie from 1992, could you tell if it were made in 1992 or 1999? Has music really moved very from when the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pear Jam were all the rage in the Alternative Rock scene?

Keep in mind, I am not really complaining about this, I am simply making an observation. It seems to me, considering all the things that have happened in the last 20 years, that our culture would be far more transformed than it is. I suppose much of it has to do with Television and the mid-westernization of the country. Regional dialects have been dying for more than just the last 20 years, when was the last time anyone heard a deep southern drawl. At least I know T-Shirts, blue jeans and tennis shoes will still be in style in 2032.

Interesting ideas

Posted by on December 9, 2011 No comments

I have not needed a condom in many years, however, I have personally never had problems wearing a condom when needed. I have always felt guys who complained about them and had trouble keeping their erections were just being d-bags. Seriously, if a woman is willing to get naked with me, the least I can do is keep my erection, it just polite. So anyway this company came up with the idea of a lubricant that helps men maintain their erections and then put it on the inside of a condom. Seems to me to be a pretty good idea, so no more excuses, man up and do what you have to do.

http://gizmodo.com/5866129/will-viagra-in-a-condom-get-guys-to-like-using-one

I am Slacker, Hear Me Snore !

Posted by on February 7, 2011 8 comments

Here is my biggest problem with American life. We Americans confuse standard of living with quality of life. To put it more clearly, we have this puritan work ethic that forces us to work longer hours, take fewer vacations and generally work our selves into an early grave just so we can afford a bigger TV than the Jones down the street. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else, but I don’t like it. If you want to see why so many of us are stressed, hate our jobs and hate our lives, there is the reason right there.

Feeding the hungry

Posted by on February 1, 2011 8 comments

A few days ago I read an article on Gizmodo about making lab grown meat. One of the things mentioned is this would enable us to feed all the starving people in the world. The problem with that is we have the ability to do it now. It is well within our ability to put food in the mouth of every single living human being on the planet at our current food production levels world wide. Even if food production was an issue, it is well within our technology level to produce “People Chow”, a food source that could be produced extremely cheaply were three cereal bowls a day would provide all the calories, vitamins and minerals needed to live a happy hunger free life, although it probably would not taste all that good. Our problem is not that we need more food and vat grown meat is not the solution to world hunger.

The problem is the first world countries don’t have the will required to feed the world. Feeding the world would be expensive and it would be difficult. Even if my theoretical “People Chow” cost pennies a pound to make, it would still cost millions of dollars a day to transport it to all the places it needed to go and distribute it. On top of that, many of the places where the food needs to go, the governments are not inclined to cooperate with any effort to feed thier people and even if they were so inclined, most of the food would disappear down the maw of corruption. We have done things that are expensive and difficult, for instance we have sent men to the moon, we defeated nazi Germany in 1945 and we have created an array of new technolgy that our grandparents never dreamed of. Those things are sexy and exciting, feeding the hungry is not sexy, its not exciting and so we just simply don’t want to do it.

Wikipedia lists everyone should read

Posted by on January 13, 2011 4 comments

If I could get everyone I have to talk to everyday to read the Wikipedia List of Common Misconceptions, the quality of my daily interactions would be greatly improved. I admit, I have been guilty of repeating some the the misconceptions listed, but the mark of true intelligence is learning from your mistakes.

While we are at it, I would like everyone in the world to read Wikipedia List of Fallacies, this would save me a great deal time explaining what a Logical Fallacy is and why we should not use them in civilized intelligent debate. Again, I have been guilty of using these in the past and it is likely I will in the future, but I do honestly try to avoid them and so should everyone else.

Now, all that aside, I think it would be a really entertaining game to enter into an ongoing Internet flame war and attempt to use as many fallacies on the list as possible, extra points awarded for using items off the list of misconceptions to support the fallacy.

Wrath of God

Posted by on December 1, 2010 5 comments

This is NASA’s November 30th picture of the day. It is a A supercell thunderstorm cloud sighted in Montana.

I am not sure what you all are doing up there in Montana, but from the looks of things, you should probably stop it.

People with more money than brains

Posted by on November 24, 2010 4 comments

Mary, who sits next to me at work, has been talking about this odd customer she has been helping over the last few days. Apparently this guy is trying to get a multi monitor setup with three 30 inch monitors to work. While I think this is obviously over kill, there is some justification for it. However, she mentioned that Mr Moneybags planned to eventually have eight 30 inch monitors, which he claimed he absolutley needed for his work as a stock broker. I would certainly never belittle the cool value of having monster computer setup with eight 30 inch monitors, but please please please do not insult me by claiming you need it for work. Seriously, there is only one thing a setup like that would be used for, and that is PORN ! Anyone claiming anything else is trying to fool you.