Never Censored

Valentine's Day poem

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:35:05 -0600

I wrote this in response to XKCD's valentine's day comic. Hope you enjoy it.

"Valentine's Day"

Roses are red
And violets are blue
For Valentine's day
Flowers don't suit you

Cause flowers shall die
And cards thrown away
They cost quite a lot
Just for one single day

Potatoes are better
To give unto you
For just as they grow
They grow like love true

And planted with love
They root and take hold
And keep you alive
Till you've grayed and grown old

So cast away roses--
You need not a thorn
And cast away cards--
Our love can't be torn

Just take this potato
A gift unto thee
And let us make love
'till a quarter past three.

Ending the Reign of Lobbyists and Political Bribery

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:49:00 -0600

I've been brewing a quick fix for a country overrun with lobbyists, and I think I've finally settled on it: pay politicians a lot more.

I know what you're thinking: "They already make way too much money." You're wrong. In comparison to the middle class, they make a lot of money, but it's not off the taxpayer dollar--it's off those of lobbyists. Why does this matter? Consider: the President of the United States (POTUS) makes only $400,000 per year off taxpayers...and that's to be the most powerful elected official in the world. That's pitiful in comparison to the position: a Fortune 500 CEO can make a hundred times that. On top of that, they have to pay for their own re-election campaign, so they're inevitably chained to campaign contributions from such evils as SuperPACs. The problem is doubly compounded when it comes to the similarly-pitiful salaries of congressmen: the most they make is $223,500--a sum landed by the Speaker of the House.

To put this in perspective, you could buy the combined salaries of every single senator for only $20 million dollars. That's pocket change for a companies like BP, whose annual revenue is $297 billion; GE, whose annual revenue is $150.211 billion; or even General Motors, whose annual revenue is $135.592 billion. They can risk the $20 million because even if they lose it, it doesn't take even a fraction off their revenues.

So to me, the solution is simple: give every single one of them raises. Bring Senate and House salaries up to $1-2 million dollars per year, and the POTUS's salary up to $10 million dollars per year. The net cost to the taxpayer ends up only being a couple billion dollars, and you'll shortly see why this is a hell of a deal:

One of the main benefits is that it frees the politicians to vote their conscience and retire at the end of their terms, if they so desire, without needing a golden parachute. On top of that, they then have significant disincentive to get kicked out of office prematurely: why spoil something you're guaranteed to bank on? Also, why risk pissing off voters if you can get a second term and instead retire at the end of it?

...but by far the most important benefit is much more subtle: raising their salaries that much makes it so that it takes a significant chunk out of anyone--company or individual--who tries to bribe politicians in bulk. For individuals, it becomes nearly impossible for a single person to bribe the entire government with their stash of personal wealth. For companies, it becomes an unacceptably risky investment; therefore, it's extremely difficult to justify to shareholders. It's risky because it's illegal to bribe politicians outright, so you must rely on the politician keeping their word or otherwise being bound to their source of revenue--the "campaign contribution." At the same time, it's difficult to justify to shareholders, because the money that would be involved--billions--is naturally better spent on R&D, which has a better rate of success when it comes to keeping a company profitable.

And there you have it: the answer to most of our current problems related to government stagnation and corruption. It's counterintuitive that the end-all-be-all solution involves spending more money on the people who seem to be screwing things up, but think of it like this instead: we'd be bribing our politicians to not take bribes.

Pretty cool, huh? :)

Ending the holy war between Macs and PCs

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:18:00 -0600

I get tired of people posting crap about both, so here's a truly objective overview for everyone:

Most secure: FreeBSD.
Least secure: Windows.
Most compatible with software: Windows.
Least compatible with software: Linux (mainly because FreeBSD, for example, has a large amount of native linux binary compatability).
Most compatible with popular games: Windows.
Least compatible with popular games: Non-macs (admittedly, non-macs can get away with using commercial packages like winex and/or virtualization, but compatibility isn't guaranteed and there are still hardware compatibility concerns).
Most compatible with hardware: Windows.
Least compatible with hardware: *BSD.
Easiest to use: Mac.
Hardest to use: *BSD.
Easiest to perform core hardware upgrades: Windows.
Hardest to perform core hardware upgrades: Mac.
Easiest to perform OS upgrades: Mac.
Hardest to perform OS upgrades: Tied between *BSD and from-source Linux builds.
Best server platform: Trick question, and depends on what the server's doing, the budget, and the situation.
Worst server platform: Windows client builds.
Best development platform for iPods/iPhones: Mac.
Worst development platform for iPods/iPhones: Anything but Mac.
Best development platform for android phones: Linux; the rest are neutral.
Most expensive: Mac.
Least expensive: *BSD (this would have been tied between BSD and Linux, but BSD's license is less restrictive).
Most stable: *BSD.
Least stable: Windows (ungraceful handling of hardware failures and frequent security patching).
Best official support: Mac.
Worst official support: *BSD.
Best storage server: FreeBSD (due overwhelmingly to free zfs support without being locked into solaris).
Worst storage server: Windows client builds.
Best CUDA, OpenCL, etc platform: Linux.
Worst CUDA, OpenCL, etc platform: Windows.
Best as a media center: Windows (unfortunately due exclusively to PlayReady DRM).
Worst media center: Tied equally between non-Windows (again due to aforementioned DRM).
Best for truly tech-savvy users: Everything, depending on the situation.
Best for non-tech-savvy users who don't call tech support: Windows or Mac.
Best for pseudo-tech-savvy users: Mac.
Best for people who value aesthetics over low-level functionality: Mac.
Best for people who value low-level functionality over aesthetics: Linux (mainly due to the numerous embedded-device-specific flavors).
Worst for lazy people: non-Windows and non-Mac.
Best for lazy people: Mac.
Best for people who like to think they're trendier/better/cooler/edgier than everyone else: Mac.
Best for people who don't want idiots messing with their computer or server: *BSD.
Most open-source operating system: *BSD (wins over Linux due to having a less restrictive license).
Least open-source operating system: Mac (note: Microsoft does, contrary to popular belief, release their source code to companies with a large enough number of licensed PCs, so long as they agree to sign a very tight non-disclosure agreement. In contrast, Mac conformed to the licensing restrictions of the kernel at first, but does not publish their proprietary extensions to anyone as far as I know).
Best mobile phone platform: Android 1.6+ (primarily due to hardware locks restricting Apple's iOS to a specific manufacturer--that is, Apple)
Worst mobile phone platform: Palm and other manufacturer-specific operating systems.
Best for thin clients: Linux.
Worst for thin clients: Mac (hardware locks again).
Most vendor lock-in: Mac.
Least vendor lock-in: Linux.
Worst operating system ever made: Windows ME (there are worse, but this was the most popular of the worst).

Also, please note that there's no battle between "PC and Mac." In a way, that used to be the case when there was a processor and platform difference, but nowadays, Macs are now PCs made exclusively by a specific manufacturer (Apple) that happen to ship with a hardware-locked operating system. This is the reason you can install Windows on a Mac, but not vice versa—Apple hard-codes a lock into their operating system to prevent it from being installed on non-Apple-made PCs. There are ways around this using virtualization, however, but for the most part, the argument is overwhelmingly now between operating systems—not platforms. Thus, the arguments should now be more along the lines of "My Toshiba is better than your Apple," "My Apple is better than your Acer," "My custom-built box is better than your Apple," etc. Alternatively, for disagreements over operating systems, "OSX is better than Windows 7," "Windows7 is better than Linux," "FreeBSD is better than Windows 7," and such are the more appropriate forms of argument.

So yeah, now that the holy war's over, nobody will ever again post flames that are pro- or anti- whatever, right? RIGHT???

Well, crap, I guess it was worth a try anyway.

Cheers,
-Kurt

Letter from God

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 05:13:00 -0600

Apparently God thought my blog was the best place to put this. I'm guessing he was stoned again, but whatever.

To All That This Concerns:
Hi. I'm God. I'm a bit busy now, so I'll try to make this quick. As a preface, if you're reading this a thousand years or more from now, stop reading it and just use some common sense. Good. Now that that's out of the way, I've got a few points I need to cover:

Stop speaking for me — You read way too far into things and you're screwing up the message. Don't improvise, don't make it modern, and if someone doesn't believe the way you do, it is perfectly ok. In fact, I don't even care if people believe in me—they don't have to. Also, leaders of megachurches and centralized religions: stop abusing these people—you're stealing their money, and you know better. I know why you do it, and I know about the crap that's happened and not happened in your childhoods, and I understand, That said, please do me this one favor: stop. Just...stop. All of it.
There is no afterlife hell — I have no idea where you people got this from. To think you'd even think that angels would ever stand idly by, truly able to help while other people suffered—regardless of the reason—well, that truly astounds me, and it shows a profound misunderstanding of just what, exactly, is "good" or "evil" and what, exactly, angels are.
Don't worship me — I don't want to be thanked, remembered, died-for, or anything else. Just... just don't. Pretend I don't exist. In fact, if you really want a way to make me happy, truly do some good despite consciously believing there's no god and no reward coming because of it. It's the purest form of good that's even able to be done.
I'm not all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful, or anything else — Oh, and don't be idiots—even I'm not sure if there's something even greater than me out there, so I'd completely understand if you doubt my existence. Again, that's totally fine.
You were all born happy — Everything from there on is entirely a product of society and from your upbringing, which was largely out of your hands and almost entirely in the hands of your parents and those surrounding you. I should note that you won't—in any way—be punished for how you turned out and the circumstances of your lives. Instead, realize only this: while there's no afterlife version of hell, you're obviously still free to create your own "hell" complete with demons. I say "obviously," because apparently you've already gone and done that, sadly.
Don't worry about religion — Try this: first look around you, Now, look at everything that's not around you. Don't get it yet? Here's a hint: you're screwing up the former because you're spending too much time worrying about the latter.

Oh and trash the Bible and all the other holy books. They're corrupted, outdated, and while there are some valid parts, the fact that they've been so heavily tampered with and abused through rhetoric negates what would have presumably been "divinity," at least, as far as I'm concerned. Reference them, by all means, if you so desire, but don't take them literally nor as my word.

Hmm...oh, and of course, when in doubt, smoke marijuana. It's there for a reason, and it grows everywhere for a reason, and it affects you in the way it affects you for a reason, and it's impossible for any human to overdose on it for a reason. I'm not quite sure why some of you thought I made a mistake on this (and therefore thought it'd be a good idea to make it illegal), but doing so forced me to write this letter because you were about to destroy yourselves in wake of the ramifications of outlawing such a critical plant. You might as well have outlawed oxygen—it was that stupid of a decision. I mean, I normally don't say things this candidly, but that really kind of pissed me off—especially when you started slicing wings off of angels by throwing them in jail because of your stupidity. You people are freaking idiots sometimes, you know that? It frustrates me so much because you're all just so...ugh! ...but I still love you, because I know you don't understand. You could never understand, and I would never be able to make you understand without destroying what you are. Above all, I'd never want to make you into me—nobody should have to carry that burden.

So yeah... toss the holy books. I know a lot of you will freak out, but don't panic. I've got you covered.

I say that, but then I realize that you'll just figure out a way to screw it up again, won't you? Hmm...ok, then...

If you need something solid—something to live by—then live by this: Just be excellent to each other.

Best wishes,
-G

Three new steps to avoiding getting winter plagues

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:31:00 -0500

'Tis the season when the media puts out a bunch of well-intentioned articles and reports with stereotypical suggestions for people to avoid getting colds. Ignore them, and follow mine instead.

1. ALWAYS avoid contact between your hands and your eyes. Around 80% of colds enter through the eyes and from there proceed to infect your sinuses (giving you the characteristic sniffles). It's a general rule of thumb to avoid touching your hands to your face (especially your nose), but avoid your eyes like the plague. Use your sleeve instead.

2. If you wash your hands, re-innoculate them with bacteria from your upper arms, neck, or lower legs immediately. You're not a surgeon, and your hands don't need to be "sterile." No matter how hard you scrub, you'll always have things living on your hands, so your goal should be to keep benign bacteria happily reproducing there in order to physically compete with and starve out the tough, pathogenic stuff that you will regularly encounter in the wild. Never, ever, assume that "germs" are inherenty bad.

3. Get plenty of sleep. Okay, so this one's probably not new to anyone, but nobody seems to actually follow it. :P It's right up there with "don't stress the hell out over trivial things," but then again, it's America. Long story short, your immune system very quickly starts to go nuts if you don't get enough sleep. It only takes a couple of days of poor sleep for Bad Things to gain a foothold. If you find yourself getting abnormally tired, a combination of going home, blasting the heat, and sleeping can be the difference between two weeks of semi-sick hell and two weeks of normality.

Anyway, that's about it. Sure, you'll hear a bunch of stuff about getting exercise and avoiding sick people, but many of the common infections are most readily transmitted when the person infected with them is asymptomatic (i.e., not apparently "sick"), while the exercise part is only really important when it comes to avoiding infections if your diet is either too high or too low in simple sugars (and, well, let's face it, if you live in this country, your diet is probably high in simple sugars). Either way, I consider exercise and avoiding dudes hacking up a lung to be common sense, so they don't get their own numbers. :P

Cheers.

Never, ever buy Microsoft Dynamics RMS

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 23:58:30 -0500

Let me preface this with the following: I rarely hate software.

There. Prefaced. Let's good to the goods, shall we?

Here's how it went with Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System:

Let's say you go, "OMG! Cool software! This would run my store really well!" and you shell out the $15,000+ dollars to provision a handful of points of sale, because you think it'd be a good investment, and that its ease of use combined with powerful backend (a trait Microsoft is known for) would be a perfect fit for a given situation.

Now like you should do with any computer program, you want to apply the latest security and bug fixes. Uh Oh! Apparently, unlike Windows, Office, SQL Server, and pretty much everything else, it seems that with RMS, critical security patches, bugfixes, and miscellaneous updates aren't delivered for free via Windows Update. Instead, Microsoft demands hundreds of dollars to give you access to "CustomerSource" in order to get them. Can't shell out the hundreds of dollars per point of sale, per year? You're screwed.

So not only do you pay around $15k for the initial investment in the software for 5 or so points of sale, you don't even get security updates. No updates! Not even when XP SP3 and Vista SP1 will corrupt your database and screw up everything. Want to prevent that and save your store from disaster? That'll be hundreds of dollars, per POS, per year—all payable to Microsoft. I kid you not.

It gets better.

Say you want to customize something in RMS like you would in Windows or basically any other Microsoft product. Guess where the documentation is? One would assume it's freely available on TechNet or MSDN like pretty much every other Microsoft product. Hah! You wish! This is RMS! It requires a subscription to "PartnerSource," which requires you to take multiple $100+ dollar exams, and once you're done there, you have to provide customer references of those you've performed RMS work for.

Yes, that's right, in order to get access to the PartnerSource website, which has all of the documentation, customization guides, and software development kits (SDKs) that you need to help customers with RMS, you have to somehow already have access to that information—available only via the PartnerSource site itself—so that you can have the customer references to send to Microsoft in order to get access to the PartnerSource site. It's unbelievably insane.

On top of that, even if you're an MSDN subscriber already paying thousands of dollars per year to be one, and you have access to pretty much every product Microsoft makes, you get no access to download RMS—not even to develop or test with. So you can't even practice with the software before taking the exams unless you buy it first.

Bear in mind, this insanity is just to get to the technical documentation, SDKs, and updates that come free'n'standard with pretty much every other Microsoft product.

I'm trying to figure out analogies in real life for how ridiculous the idea is. Here are some I could think of off the top of my head:

It's like requiring a baker to bake a cake before allowing him to buy or test an oven.
It's like requiring a car owner to become a certified mechanic before allowing him to change a flat tire.
It's like forcing air force cadets to fly F16s before letting them into F16 simulators (unless they want to buy their own F16 first).

In short: don't buy RMS. I don't care what you buy (or get for free), but avoid RMS like the plague. If they ever start to provide security patches, bugfixes, and documentation for free, maybe then it'd be something to consider. Otherwise, they've got you by the balls, and your entire business is at risk unless you pay whatever fee they choose to ask of you each year.

RMS could be great one day. All Microsoft has to do is not screw over the people who buy it. As it stands, however, my opinion is that it's a bottomless pit that both your money and your sanity will fall into but never return.

If you liked WWJD, then you'll love WIJD...

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:51:45 -0500

After watching the most recent Penn and Teller: Bullshit! episode about how the legal system is out of control, I created a new test both for lawmakers to gauge the sanity of laws and for the justice system to gauge whether or not they should enforce them. I figured that with the success of the What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) campaign, I could launch a spin-off with aspirations of attaining equal success. Thus, I propose the following: "What If Jesus Did... (WIJD)". It goes a little something like this:

Say you're a lawmaker and you've got a bill. You want to know whether it would be a good idea to try to turn it into a law. Ask yourself What If Jesus Did...the thing you're about to criminalize. Would it then be sufficient grounds to put Jesus in jail for committing the crime. If you wouldn't be okay with putting Jesus in jail for breaking that law, then the law is inappropriate and should thus be either pigeonholed (and thus never made into a law) or repealed (if it somehow already became a law).

The same process goes for a cop faced with whether to arrest someone for a certain crime, or a district attorney faced with the decision of whether to prosecute someone for a given violation of the law. Judges can even apply it when it comes to sentencing.

Some examples of the application of the WIJD principle:

Rape—Is it okay to send someone to jail for raping someone else? What if Jesus raped someone? Yeah, I think son of God or not, Jesus should go to jail for raping someone. Thus, laws against rape are valid.
Theft—Even though it'd be kind of weird, I'd say it'd be okay to jail Jesus for theft in certain situations. If he's stealing to eat because he's starving, then by all means, let the man have food, but if it's stealing a car to increase his street cred, then jail Jesus. Then again, if Jesus was stealing a car because someone was dying and he needed to get them to a hospital, then it wouldn't be right to jail Jesus. Thus, laws against most types of theft are valid.
Drug possession—Here's one where you really can't justify jailing Jesus. If Jesus and his twelve friends gather together and get high, don't hurt anyone, and watch Family Guy reruns in the privacy of their own home, how, on earth, could you justify throwing on some SWAT gear, breaking down Jesus's door, and sending him off to jail? It's absurd. He's professing peace and happiness, volunteering to help the weak and sickly, and you want to throw him in jail for getting high? Insane. Thus, laws against marijuana possession are not valid.
Speeding—Say Jesus was cruising down the highway (sober) and he happened to be going 15 over the speed limit. Interestingly, this is a case where at least in Texas, both WIJD and the law say that it would be silly to put Jesus in jail for breaking it. So, a law where speeding, alone, lands you in jail would be not valid.
Prosecutorial misconduct—Say Jesus had a job as a prosecutor and conveniently suppressed or ignored evidence that would otherwise prevent an innocent man from going to jail. Would it be okay to jail Jesus? You bet. Jesus would never do such a thing, but if he did, by all means, throw the jerk in jail for life. Thus, a law jailing prosecutors for life in cases of prosecutorial misconduct would be valid.

There. Problem solved. :P

UK lawmakers fail at internets, lawmaking

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Sun, 16 May 2010 14:44:00 -0500

So UK politicians are caving in to lobbyists yet again, this time it's resulted in a gem of can't-go-wrong legislation that, in essence, results in ISPs canceling internet access if filesharing is detected on a customer's account. What the law fails to account for—in an epic way—is a golden principle of the internet: you can never assume positive ID based on IP address.

For those who have no idea what any of that means, live in the UK, and don't engage in filesharing, the chances are decently good that you're gonna wind up being disconnected for filesharing down the line. It really doesn't matter that you're not filesharing, but it does, in fact, matter that you have any one of a myriad of security holes on your computer that could easily allow someone to silently hijack your internet connection and route their filesharing traffic through it. On top of that, you're probably using outdated, totally insecure wireless encryption (or none at all).

There's not much you can do to prove your innocence, either, because politicians assume that IP addresses correspond to the account holder using the ip address. That's basically just as bad as assuming that the return address on an envelope is the true sender of the letter.

Anyway, I can't wait until one of them gets busted under his own law when some dude hacks his wireless and goes on a filesharing spree. Maybe another one of them will download a trojan that opens a proxy (very common). The most amusing that I've recently seen are trojans that not only open a proxy, but a public proxy, so that not only can the attacker use your internet connection as he pleases, so can anyone else on the internet who stumbles across it.

If I were to guess, basically the only people who likely could actually successfully instantaneously track and pinpoint—accurately—typical forms of traffic, encrypted or not, routed through proxies is the NSA, and I assure you they couldn't give a rat's ass about filesharing or anything other than actual matters of national and international security—and they never will. ...and that's the way it should be.

But you'd think that maybe—just maybe—one of the UK lawmakers could have consulted with... I dunno... their IT staff before splicing this in? Maybe google the word "proxy?" Nah... it's easier to just take the money and let the chaos ensue, apparently. So what if a few innocent people get their access yanked and then get sued by some record label for downloading something they never downloaded, with absolutely no way to prove their own innocence?

So, my little younglings of the internet—and yes, that includes you, lawmakers above the age of 40—the moral of the story is simple: never, ever, sponsor, vote for, encourage, or write legislation that implicitly trusts ip addresses as a form of positive ID. That is, not unless you, too, want to eventually fall victim to your own legislation when some nutjob opponent frames you for something you'll have never even done. At least when it comes to being framed for drugs they have to procure some drugs first, but on the internet, you can be toast in as little as a few keystrokes—all from some crappy internet cafe in dirkadirkastan...or from across the street.

...I shit you not.

Procrastination is everywhere

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:14:00 -0500

After having received at least a dozen "we need permission to include your work in our advertising stuff" sorts of requests from various marketing firms for massive mobile device manufacturers (e.g., motorola, nec, sony, nokia to name a few), I now can safely say that all of them have one thing in common: they procrastinate. This is obvious, because they'll email me on a Thursday and expect me to fax them some form by the very next day. The best of them give me an extra day or two and provide me with a pre-filled in form, while the worst of them expect me to take time out of my day to call them in the 22 hours I'd rather spend getting high or something.

Now, I mean, it's likely these guys say things like this in order to light a fire under my ass. That's totally understandable, and I guess it's expected in the world of big business. Things happen fast, business moves at the speed of light, time waits for no one, yada yada yada.... Whatever the buzz-phrase, one thing's glaringly obvious: they procrastinate with the skill and alacrity that I always have.

I'm only saying this because I remember a time when some misguided teacher tried to lecture me about how one must plan ahead and tackle herculean projects by "simply" working on a little bit at a time, all the while forgetting that other teachers had said the exact same thing about their own assigning of massive projects. I also remember carefully explaining the direct relationship between happiness and free time, as well as the inverse relationship between the summation of the two and time available to crank out a 10 page paper detailing the intricacies of post-Shakespearean, pre-Modern belly button exhibitionists (and their critics). Sadly, my protests would usually fall on deaf ears. It must be some sort of teacher amnesia brought on by fumes emanating from their red pens of doom.

Long story short, though, I was right. Sadly, I would guess that any teacher that reads this will probably shrug it off and continue robbing kids of their childhoods in order to prepare them for successful careers in procrastination later in life.

Tradition: it's just another word for "cyclically tenured nonsense."

E-stripsearching at the airport

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:43:16 -0600

It's been a while since the last blog, but I genuinely felt this needs to be said quite clearly: if 30% of Americans will at some point travel by air this year, 30% of Americans (~75,000,000 people) will be being strip-searched at the airport--without probable cause--if we allow backscatter machines to become permanent fixtures in the security line.

I have no idea what makes people somehow think that the magic of technology somehow mitigates such a brazen violation of several constitutional rights by treating the 30% of the entire American population that travels by air each year like criminals.

By the way, in case some of you out there somehow think that this will make things safer, know this: a terrorist doesn't expect to survive the flight, so he'll have no problem filling his large intestine with explosives or downing a few sealed baggies of his explosive of choice. Drug smugglers already do it with every drug imaginable, so I don't think it's beyond wide-eyed fundamentalists to do the same thing with explosives.

Keeping that in mind, my fellow 30% of America, when this e-strip-searching fails to prevent the next once-in-a-decade attack that apparently only kills a few thousand people (0.002% of Americans), be sure to think of me and how right I was when 30% of us are getting...what? I dunno? What's next? Maybe...e-fingers-in-the-asses by some robot. After all, it's not strip searching en masse when it's done electronically, so surely it's not a cavity search when it's also done electronically.

Go ahead. Laugh at the idea of an airport anal probe. I know I did. I mean, it's absurd to even think it'll happen. The thought of a robot with a finger in my ass at the airport is hilarious, and since this is the internet, someone out there probably finds the idea not only hilarious but exciting. :P

I suppose, though, that if a few decades ago you'd told me 30% of everyone in the country and 100% of all air travel passengers would be getting strip-searched annually, without probable cause, well, I would have probably laughed just as hard.

By the way, if any historians in the future happen to read my tiny, insignificant blog on the outskirts of the internet, know this: this is how the most successful empires fall. It's neither lead-lined aquifers nor disease nor invasion nor over-expansion; instead, it's paranoia. Dopamine-fueled paranoia that something, somewhere, somehow... will get us or our children--that evil and danger lurks in our own shadows and must therefore be eradicated before the boogeymen get us. It doesn't matter if the threat is insignificant, justified, or non-existent. If it's insignificant, we think it can be eliminated; if it's justified, then we'll claim ourselves infallible to it; if it's if it's non-existent, then we'll invent it.

When our last real enemy gave up, we panicked when there were no more. We turned on ourselves and decided that if the evil isn't just out there any more, it must be right here instead. It's because of this paranoia that we end up stripping away everything that has allowed the ~~empire~~...~~republic~~...once-democratic nation to flourish in the first place. All of our principles, including freedom itself, are sequentially being seen as weaknesses that are being exploited in a seemingly perfectible curtain of allegedly impervious iron--and those weaknesses must be patched for our curtain to remain strong.

Of course, as history has shown us, it's a detrimental, ineffective curtain that's fated to fall. No matter how high it's built or how wide it extends, it can never be anything other than a huge, expensive hunk of metal we use to keep ourselves thinking we're locking bad guys out when we're really just locking ourselves in, becoming a nation of idle shut-ins content in our baseless, self-determined notion of perfection.

The curtain always falls, and it doesn't fall lightly. It crashes down with a rippling thud, crushing the poor souls desperate enough to erect it in the first place--all to protect the putrid corpse of the past. We'd do anything to get back to the irrationally-idealized "good" ol' days, obsessing in our quest with some bastardized notion that for us, the ends can somehow morally justify the means.

Somehow the anal-probing robot fits into the metaphor, but I'm not sure how. I have to admit, though, I like the mental image of it "inspecting" the very minions constructing the wall. That'd be hilarious...

... Hilarious, but shockingly accurate to the metaphor.

To wrap it all up, I've got this to say: what...the...fuck are you people thinking? Did it never occur to you, somewhere along the way of Nixon, Bush, and the Patriot Act that maybe we should quit fag-bashing and stand up for something noble...something peaceful...something...actually good? Is it even worth trying to fix it any more? I'm starting to think that everyone's just content with letting it all fall to the ground because the charismatic men on TV with fire in their souls, aesthetic crosses on their necks, and cookie-cutter stickers on their cars sit and tell you some missing white girl or some jerk burning a flag or some dude getting married to a dude is somehow more important than 30% of Americans being e-strip-searched without probable cause.

That said, I make a fuss, but in all honesty I really don't give a flying fuck. Nowadays I'm so far outside the freak show that I can only look on and watch in awe. A part of me still wants to join in--to fit in--but thank god I've so far been able to bitch slap that part of me down. :P

It's lonely out here, though. There are few lights, and what lights there are lie far off in the distance, polluted by the fluorescent decadence of a once candle-lit hope for tomorrow. I must admit, though, that I quite like the darkness that everyone's afraid of, because there's nothing to be afraid of once you step outside the light of our noisy cave. I mean, you expect some monster to come get you, and you kind of want one to gobble you whole when you find out the monsters never existed in the first place, or if they did, they're back the way you just came.

I also like the fact that the dark's one of the last places where you can still find balance, and, most of all, freedom.

That said, darkness is a bit depressing at times, and it's a bit of a bitch trying to find the rare kindred spirits wandering around in a night that's almost as black as pitch.... :\ On the upside, though, pot grows like a weed out here, and stress is nonexistent. No wonder they tell everyone there are monsters out here--the whole system would collapse if people knew they actually had a shot at happiness if they stepped out of their caves.

Imagine if we all stopped listening to the cacophonous din of a rock star nation that's been convinced by its businessmen to dump its instruments and ignore its band mates; a pop star nation that now wonders why it struggles to find a harmony or even carry a tune after having carved out its own heart; a bright star nation so desperate to satisfy its addiction to an inflated bottom line that it will steal the very shoes from under the feet of others if it yields more fuel to burn.

That's all it is--a sadistic symphony where everyone screams pointless nothings, dances out of rhythm, and flails aimless delusions in perfect self-confidence that unlike the mechanical music monkeys they so frequently resemble, they remain differentiated from both primitive simians and robotic mechanizations by a far greater, decidedly unique purpose: to repetitively clap for a bass-less cymbal of happiness.

Kellogg donates Phelps-labeled cereal to food bank; I launch Potheads 4 Hunger

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:39:27 -0500

In case you missed it, Michael Phelps smoked some weed and people went crazy over it. As part of the fallout, Kellogg axed their deal with him. Now, here's the kicker: they're donating the boxes with him on it to a food bank:

San Francisco Food Bank officials say they're thrilled about a recent donation by Kellogg Co. of thousands of boxes of breakfast cereal.

And they're intrigued to note the boxes have Olympic athlete Michael Phelps' face on the front.

Apparently the only way to get billion-dollar food corporations to donate to the starving poor is for celebrities they endorse to smoke weed and publicly admit to doing so. Sounds like a good plan to me.

If it means that Kellogg will donate more food to homeless shelters and food banks (for once), then I think it's a good plan. As a result, I am now officially calling upon all current and future Kellogg-sponsored celebrities to smoke weed for the poor. I call it: "Potheads 4 Hunger."

Sure, we all know that weed tends to bring on the munchies, but isn't it paradoxically poetic that in the pangs of drug-induced hunger, we'd be curing real-world hunger? It doesn't harm the pot-smokers in the slightest (remember, it's impossible to overdose on weed), and it would result in helping to end world hunger. Plus, I actually like munching on Frosted Flakes when I'm stoned, so I'd be helping to offset the lost profits of Kellogg "donating" the celebrity pot smoker boxes to charity. It's win-win!

So I say to all celebrities: smoke pot while being endorsed by Kellogg, and you're doing your part to cure world hunger. Join Potheads 4 Hunger today!

High school play banned for sex and drugs to go on at local college

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:09:37 -0600

A bunch of parents with sand in their vages banned a Steve Martin play about the nature of creativity, intelligence, commercialism, and art from being performed at the high school (with a 4-3 vote by the school board), because the play contained allusions to alcohol and sex. So, a local college stepped in and said the students could perform it there. Kickass.

From the article:

The La Grande School District Superintendent got a complaint from a parent and a petition signed by 137 people and banned the play, which has references to sex and drinking, features the characters of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso meeting in a Paris bar in 1904, as both were on the verge of breakthrough work. It deals with themes of artistry, genius and the nature of the 20th century.

Since when is an allusion to either sex or drinking a problem in performace? Seriously.

It's not because they're "children." They're highschoolers. Teenagers. They're a couple of years away from 100% unfiltered reality and being free'n'able to blow someone's head off in war, but sex and alcohol is too much for them to handle? Up until the 80s they were able to buy and drink alcohol, and it was outlawed only due to the now-proven-incorrect belief it would end teenage drunk driving, so their knowledge of it or alleged glorifying of it is immaterial, since they're clearly not going to be possessing it, drinking it, or driving during the course of the play.

The country supported outlawing it solely to prevent them from harming others-- not due to the alcohol, the consumption of alcohol, the idea of alcohol, or the glorification thereof. We tried that nearly a century ago with extremely poor results; organized crime and violence significantly increased until prohibition was repealed, at which point violence and crime levels returned to pre-prohibition rates. We don't want to re-live the first part of that, right?

The second half of this is sex. Again, they're not kids. Their metaphorical (and in half of them, literal) balls have dropped, and sex is totally natural. Everyone living is the result of it.

For the parents to assume their children don't already know about sex is truly frightening, because it means they've completely failed as parents, and even worse, they don't give a crap enough about their kid to inform them (or are too ball-less to do so), while at the same time disallowing a play to do the job for them. More shocking is that the parents are assuming that their kids aren't already having sex and don't already talk about it between friends— that's mind-bogglingly ignorant.

So, I guess the only reason for forbidding the play is due to the artistic tastes of parents. That, too, is also immaterial. If a parent doesn't like the art his kid enjoys, then the parent needs to shut the hell up and remember how rock'n'roll, jazz, nudism, and pretty much every new art form on the face of the planet spurred significant negative criticism by "parents" during their respective periods. Then again, I guess they would have been reminded of that once they had seen the play that their kids would have performed (that's part of the content of the play) but instead the parents essentially ban themselves from seeing it, plugging their ears and drowning out reason with their baseless screams.

In the end, if the goal is to shield your kid from the world until the second they've been thrust head-first into it, or if your goal is to stagnate art, halt progress, hasten the collapse of creativity, and force the country to fall behind as the rest of the world develops on, then by all means, ban the play and everything else you don't like. Good luck. All I ask is that you simply come up front and say that instead of masking it as a problem of an artistic work referencing drugs, alcohol, sex, harsh language, or some other vague, arbitrary and unfounded crap about "the children."

Really, I should be thanking the parents. As a result of their actions, I'm willing to bet that countless high schools across the country will be performing the play in the near future. People are like that. Censor something, and it's seen by everyone. I guess it means that the world isn't completely mindless...

...yet.

What makes a poem good

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:05:11 -0600

Someone posted a question on Yahoo answers that they didn't know the difference between a good and a bad poem and was asking others advice on how to tell what a good poem is. I wrote this in response:

For a poem to be good
At least as I have understood...
Undefined.

There is nothing—
Nothing to describe—
Only feeling.

Ignore what others say it should be,
For they are the ones
Who've never understood
That which makes
A poem good

Even if "they" say it could be
in some essence
in evanescence
in scripted hurry
in useless words...

They'll have said
What must make it good
And I'll weep:

They'll never hear the music—
Only tones.
They'll never sing the lyrics—
Only chant.
Yet still tell a poet
That he doesn't belong.

What makes it good?
The flow?
Prosodic plateau?
Love, itself, in tow?

I don't know.
I hope one day
That none will know,
For on that day
Our souls,
Risen from below,
Will ascend to that far better place,
Flying through our own hazes—
Of dark and bright—
Of black and white—
Of wrong and right—
And with hindsight in our rear view mirror,
And everything suddenly clearer,
Our next stop, nearer:
Nirvana.

Michael Phelps is not a role model, so quit treating him like one

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:21:00 -0600

Turns out Michael Phelps got suspended for hitting off of a bong. From the article:

...we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero...

What? A role model and a hero? Are you serious?!!? More importantly, are you high? If you want your kid to take after a guy who's spending 6 hours a day swimming in a pool (since he was in his teens), eating like a fiend, and selling his soul to advertisers as his day job (i.e., "he's a role model"), well, perhaps you're stupid enough to believe he should be punished because he took a hit off a bong after "work."
Continue reading "Michael Phelps is not a role model, so quit treating him like one"

DNA evidence clears guy convicted of rape in 1985 who died in jail

nospam@example.com (Kurt) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:46:18 -0600

From zee article:

The Legislature took on a somber tone Wednesday as lawmakers honored the family of a man who died in prison, only to have DNA testing show years later that he did not commit the rape he was convicted of. Tim Cole and his relatives for years claimed he was innocent in the rape of a Texas Tech University student in 1985. But until DNA from the crime scene was tested last year, no one else believed them.

Rape sucks, but one person's word against another should be avoided at all costs. Two reasons:

1. The accuser's word always outweighs the defendant's by default. See also: Duke lacrosse thing. Despite multiple people and substantial evidence to contrary, people still sided with the accuser by default.

2. The human mind is more likely to make mistakes in picking out the actual rapist out of fear of not picking one at all. It's kind of like how when a kid shoots up a school, the everyone frantically searches for a causal reason or something to blame-- even if it's incorrect, because not having a "root cause" is considerably scarier for everyone than blaming an arbitrary thing. I think the same thing frequently happens in rape: out of fear of not finding the attacker, the mind is more okay with finding the wrong one than finding none at all.

Think about it: if you're a rape victim, you really want to find the bastard and make him pay. The problem is that walking away empty-handed is, to make an understatement, less appealing than finding the guy that really did it. I mean, who wants to look over one's shoulder every night worried that "he's still out there?" As a result, I'd argue that it's more likely for a victim to make an honest mistake during a line-up by merely picking someone who looks close enough for their brain to be certain (for its own sake) that that's the person— even though it's not. Combined with the overall unreliability of eyewitness testimony, as a whole, and I'm sure this poor guy isn't the only one to have been wrongly convicted.

That said, it probably would have helped not to have been black in Lubbock, Texas in 1985. :P