Category Archives: Rage

House Judiciary Chair Introduces Unconstitutional Bill To Permanently Abolish The Income Tax | ThinkProgress

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House Judiciary Chair Introduces Unconstitutional Bill To Permanently Abolish The Income Tax | ThinkProgress.

This headline was hilarious. How do these people think they will be paid? If there are no taxes then there is no money to pay these politicians for their ‘service’ to the country. Will they work for free? The bill was co-signed by 69 others, so that means that 70 congresspeople are technically willing to work for free. So, since each one of them earns roughly $174,000 a year (not bad for being worthless schmucks) then that means if they all worked for free, like their bill would eventually end up making them, that’s roughly $12 million dollars a year right there! We could just take that money and fund PBS or maybe find some nice things to do with that money at the EPA or perhaps NASA, where it’ll make more sense to spend it.

I think we all should write a letter of thanks to every one of those cosigners to this particular bill and thank them for their brave sacrifice to work for free in Congress.

What A Mess We Have In Zimbra

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Webmail Plus and Apple, two tastes that make for awkward WTF’ery. At work I get meeting invitations so I open up Calendar and I open the invitation up. I change which calendar it’s on over to my iCloud calendar because I do not like using Webmail Plus and if I can avoid it, I will. But when I do that single action it apparently sends meeting cancellation notices to everyone else who is invited to the meeting! So the hilarity ensues. Then I get emails from everyone confused as to whether or not the meeting is on, or not.

So, it’s an incompatibility between Webmail Plus and Apple’s Calendar application. What a shocker. The workaround? Just ignore the invitations from Webmail Plus and bang in the details manually using my keyboard. It’s low-brow, but alas, it’s what must be done.

I find it hilarious that doing this sends out a cancellation to everyone else, even though the meeting wasn’t organized by me. Seems to be a bug, but since I just laugh at Webmail Plus and it’s issues, I just shrug and move on. Zimbra. Hah. Whatever.

PAD 1/14/2013 – Headlines

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“Head to your favorite online news source. Pick an article with a headline that grabs you. Now, write a short story based on the article. “

This article grabbed my attention and would not let it go. The story is about a dolphin that ended up in the Gowanus Canal in New York City. There really isn’t any story to write about this, nothing that will leave anyone feeling good about humanity. Look at what we have wrought. Wildlife wandered into a canal so awful, so toxic, so disgusting that it died of exposure to us. I would argue that the canal represents New York City quite well, anyone who has read my blog, especially my LiveJournal when I was there knows my opinion on New York City is poor at best. That the waters of the Gowanus Canal can kill just cinches it. Everyone thinks that New York City is the biggest and best city in the world, but I have never liked it. Too many people, too filthy, too disgusting, too dangerous. Some think that this tale of the Gowanus Canal is just one small little part and that the city has more to offer, that you can just whitewash over this awfulness by looking elsewhere – perhaps the arts maybe. The city is dangerous to more than just wildlife!

So what to write about New York City. The waters are toxic, the streets are lethal, and this is all before we add in all the sick twisted terrible humans which just add to this murk of awfulness. So, here’s a little story.

Years ago the people of upstate New York laughed amongst themselves that if everyone northwest of the Hudson River would just agree and all flush their toilets with uncanny synchrony that we could finally blow New York City into the Atlantic. After reading news story after news story about all the corruption, not just in the people, but deeply embedded in the very land itself it became clear that this upstaters fantasy really might need to come true. So everyone from Watertown to Syracuse and all the way over to Buffalo all agreed that they would pick the perfect day, a sunny day filled with hope and wonder and they would all march into their bathrooms and at the very stroke of midnight everyone in New York State would flush their toilets all at the same time and blow the cancer of New York City into the sea. Much like Atlantis, except riddled with toxins and horrors beyond understanding, the mad city of New York sank beneath the waves, never to be seen or heard from again.

If you love New York City, I invite you to saunter along barefoot all the way to Gowanus Canal and have yourself a bath. Good luck with that.

PAD 1/31/13 – Burnt

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“Remember yesterday, when your home was on fire and you got to save five items? That means you left a lot of stuff behind. What are the things you wish you could have taken, but had to leave behind?”

What would fire consume? Everything. That’s what insurance is for. There are things I would miss. Things that weren’t saved because there is just too much of it, it’s too difficult to rescue or move in time. What kind of things would I miss? My wardrobe, Scott’s comic books, our extensive entertainment library with both DVD’s and books. So much would be lost, but that’s one of the reasons why there is safety equipment at home and fire extinguishers, but even then, disaster could strike.

There is something about living simply which bears here I think. The wisdom that if you have a lot of things in your life that in certain ways, you don’t own the stuff, but rather the stuff owns you. Reducing the amount of stuff you own is likely a wiser move, but it runs so much against American culture, that you own or rent a residence and then fill it full of treasure and then keep it. Adding to it and never reducing it. I’ve read so many articles online about radical simplification and there is something in it. I cannot deny the wisdom in living simply and rejecting the consumer culture that abounds here in America. Always having more stuff and adding more stuff to that just doesn’t make much rational sense.

This works a lot like greed in a certain way as well. People are driven by greed to always increase the amount of money they have, to earn more, corner the market, whatever it takes to maximize your fiscal health. I don’t think I could be any more left-leaning if I tried. I’ve said before and I still believe this that the irrational accumulation of stuff is just as silly as the irrational accumulation of wealth. It runs directly against capitalism which pushes us all towards making as much money and keeping it as possible, even beyond rational understanding. I think that you should earn what can make your life comfortable and anything beyond that is actually wrong. I’ve thought long and hard about this and I put the limit on personal wealth at $75,000 a year. Beyond $75,000 and the money does less and less for you. Eventually that money means nothing and it starts to injure you. Look at the filthy rich, they lead lives of plenty with endless funds and they are miserable human beings. They are sad, they abuse drugs or alcohol, they act irresponsibly and generally are poor little rich people, devoid of true happiness. Sometimes, when I’m feeling very liberal I do spend time considering the forceful redistribution of individual wealth, where everyone’s wealth is capped at $75,000 and those who don’t earn enough to reach that limit are given money so that they can reach it, on the backs of the rich who, lets face it, wouldn’t even notice the money being gone. This of course would upset anyone who is a capitalist and would brand me as a socialist – why stop there, why not just go all the way to communism? Yes, I write this out of mean spite. I don’t really think the world will ever be like this idea in my head, but after years of watching the poor, the children, and the disadvantaged suffer while the rich build their obnoxious residences and waste their money on worthless endeavors, it’s actually a great reaction. Consider it not in terms of capitalism but rather in terms of suffering. How much suffering could be alleviated by forcefully redistributing the wealth of the richest people amongst us? I think it’s a worthy to consider a world like this, because to me, this seems to be something that Jesus himself would likely smile at and approve of. It has always struck me as odd, how people can maintain the wealth disparity in our society with their self-professed belief in Christianity.

I look forward to your spirited responses to this idea. 🙂

Keystone Kops

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I’ve had a hell of a time with Verizon. We have a Verizon Government contract at work because we are a governmental entity along with being a non-profit.

To set the stage, my system support specialist wanted to drop his old phone and take his number that he likes and that everyone knows belongs to him and have that number assigned to his work iPhone 5. We asked Verizon a few times and it took a fair bit for them to come around and we eventually got it off and running, or at least so we thought. Then this email exchange happened. I have redacted the numbers and names to protect the guilty.

Verizon Government said:

Thank you for contacting the Verizon Wireless Government Customer Operations Team. We have received your request to transfer [NEW PHONE NUMBER] to account [VZ ACCOUNT NUMBER]. In order to complete your request, please have the end user ensure the device and price plan are associated with Verizon Wireless and not Alltell. We are unable to transfer an Alltell device and price plan.
—
VZ Rep said:
Andy the user on this account needs to have his rate plans changed to non share Verizon plans. Once that is done they should be able to process the transfer.
—
Verizon Government said:
We have completed your request to perform an Assumption of Liability (AOL) for mobile number [NEW PHONE NUMBER] . On January 31, 2013 we account number removed the aforementioned mobile number from [EMPLOYEE]’s private account and reassigned to [INSTITUTIONS] account number [ACCOUNT NUMBER].
—
VZ Rep said:
Please put the line [NEW PHONE NUMBER] on the AC1000 min plan code 74053 with the 10.00 hot spot. See below.
—
Verizon Government to VZ Rep:
Dear [VZ REP],
Additional information or clarification is needed so that we may process your request. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Information Needed:

• With the line of [NEW PHONE NUMBER], the requested price plan of 74053: AMERICAS CHOICE II 1000 SHARE EMAIL & DATA+N&W+IN UNL $96.14 is not valid for the simple phone of Samsung Reality SCH-u820.
—
VZ Rep to Me:
Andy are you going to cancel the line that has the iPhone? [EMPLOYEE] does not have a smart device so the line was transferred with his consumer plan.
—
Me to VZ Rep:
[VZ Rep],
[EMPLOYEE] doesn’t really care for his current device and so I’d like to have the number associated with the iPhone 5 that [EMPLOYEE] is currently is using to have that phone number. The plan will be applied to that iPhone 5 that he is already using.
—
VZ Rep to Me:
You need to cancel the number currently on the iPhone 5. Once it is canceled you can then request the device be activate on his line.
—
Me to VZ Rep:
[VZ Rep], I can do this on our website right? I’ll give it a shot later today. Thanks!
—
VZ Rep to Me:
The site will only allow you to suspend. Please send me the line that needs canceling.
—
Me to VZ Rep:
Okay, I’ll repeat myself once again. We’d like to cancel [OLD PHONE NUMBER]
and put [NEW PHONE NUMBER] in its place. Put the number on the iPhone. No new
device, use the device we have. The device that [EMPLOYEE] already has, his
iPhone 5. The device that we have already on our account, the one that
currently has [OLD PHONE NUMBER], should instead have the phone number
[NEW PHONE NUMBER]. This device already has a plan, the plan that has always
been on the device since we started our contract.
I don’t understand why I have to keep on requesting the same thing with
the same details over and over again.
—
VZ Rep to Verizon Government:
Please cancel [OLD PHONE NUMBER]. Once that is processed please take that
device and put it on mobile [NEW PHONE NUMBER]. The [NEW PHONE NUMBER] needs to be put on
the same plan that [OLD PHONE NUMBER] had – 74053 – AMERICAS CHOICE II 1000 SHARE
EMAIL & DATA+N&W+IN UNL $96.14 0408 with the 10.00 hot spot.
—
Verizon Government to VZ Rep and I:
Dear [CUSTOMER],
We have completed part of your request.
Reference Number: [REFERENCE NUMBER]
We have deactivated:
Mobile Number: [OLD PHONE NUMBER]
Effective Date: 02/09/2013 06:35:20
Contract End Date: 02/09/2013 06:35:20
Early Termination Fee:0.0

Second request to do an ESN device change to [NEW PHONE NUMBER] for the Iphone 5 [MEID], the SIM [SIM CODE] was already paired on mobile number [OLD PHONE NUMBER] and can not be used on more than one number. Please either advise a new SIM card that has not been used or we can ship you one for free, just provide a shipping address. ( NO PO BOX)
—
My response to Verizon, both Government and Rep:
Thanks, but since you tossed [OLD PHONE NUMBER] the device Iphone 5 [MEID], the SIM [SIM CODE] no longer has a number. Please set [NEW PHONE NUMBER] to this device.

Please do this, otherwise I’ll have to ask [VZ Rep] to do this again in a few days and you’ll do it anyways. Lets just cut to the chase and do it now. I’d rather not have to make this request a 15th time, literally, just to get one step closer. We’re so close. So unbearably, deliciously close!

I have faith in you all. That a task asked 15 times over two months can be done. We all know it can, so pretending that there are problems is just playing coy. Think of it this way, once we’re done I’ll stop being the worlds most screechiest wheel. I do not like being that loopy wheel on the shopping cart of life that just refuses to track with all the others.

If I can’t get to the end just with our consumer/carrier relationship then at least help me finish this. Think of it not in terms of ESN’s, plans, or SIM cards but rather in the merciful euthanization of this sprawling task from hell that shot out grubby tentacles and turned into one ugly time vampire. Don’t do it for me, do it to kill this wretched task. It must be killed and the only way to do that is to spritz it with the holy water of assigning Iphone 5 [MEID], the SIM [SIM CODE] to [NEW PHONE NUMBER].

Once we are done the angels in heaven will trumpet our glorious success.

LET US FINISH THIS. PLEASE!

Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway | www.wsbtv.com

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Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway | www.wsbtv.com.

Do we need gun control in America? After reading that article how could you say anything else? How exactly is this sort of response even defensible? What really upsets me is that I’ve been known on occasion to also pull into random driveways, mostly so I can wait for traffic to clear and turn around with a K-turn. Even more than how this could happen to me, or happen really to anyone at all the segment of this story really gets me:

Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors’ attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.

So apparently they were churchgoing folk as well. It doesn’t do anything to calm my nerves as it appears that not even having the church dominate your life the notion of “Thou Shalt Not Kill” seems to not apply in these people. In this case, at least how it seems, it’s kill trespassers without provocation. Malice of forethought indeed.

Why do we need gun control? Why should there be limits on guns? I think the now-not-happening future of Rodrigo Diaz should be enough, but then again, all the now-not-happening futures of the kids in Newtown, the people in Aurora, or anyone else who was killed with a gun. So much potential squandered, so much lost.

That’s what I want to know. At what point does the loss-of-potential run up against our love affair with the gun? When is it enough that we should as a society temper the second amendment with the very regulations that the text of the amendment itself actually demands?

How much death, how much blood, how many lost lives? To quench this paranoid delusion that if we don’t have guns that somehow the government is going to swoop in and ruin our lives. That’s what gets me so much – this unfocused paranoid fear that citizens having guns is the only thing, the only single pillar that keeps our society functioning. If citizenry didn’t have weapons then obviously… what? No really. WHAT? What would happen? Would Township Supervisors rape your pets? Would Congresspeople attempt to cannibalize your children? What is this fear, where does it come from?

I don’t think it comes from anywhere really. I think people have fallen in love with guns and they love to kill. They love murder and bloodshed and the Church with all it’s high and mighty pronouncements are worth absolute bollocks. It’s got very little to do with securing liberty and everything to do with ensuring that you can kill effectively at a great distance with the minimum of effort. It’s the worst thing imaginable. It’s murder and laziness, the pinnacle of both. The second amendment has more to do with greed and lust for death than it does with any lofty “protect the womenfolk from marauding interlopers”. I seriously need to know at what point the body count, all the blood, and all this death will ever be enough to satiate the lust these people have for their beloved guns. It disgusts me and I am ashamed of what America has become because of this failure to well-regulate the militia.

Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond Of Each Other

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I saw this news item from thinkprogress.org:

 

“Republican House Leader Vows To Use ‘Power Of Humiliation’ To Undermine LGBT Program”

My first reaction was a knee-jerk one of course. “What is it to you?” What is it about gay people that gets these particular people all worked up? I’ve always wanted to know that. My curiosity of course is somewhat rhetorical as it’s pretty much obvious that much of this comes straight (ouch, pun) out of the pulpit and is certainly reinforced by the mirror maze of political self-convincing talk.

What would these people do if they were faced with the reality of what they say? The subject of their ire is the Mental Health Services Administration’s book titled “Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Individuals.” So, what about this document? The title is really quite plain and explanatory and being a gay man, and knowing my particular niche culture gives me a unique viewpoint on this particular issue. Is it important? Do you think that people who are sick should be cared for, that people who are despondent and without hope should be helped? What are your thoughts on suicide? This gets right to the heart of it. I bet a lot of these people are upright god-fearing Christian types, they hail from Oklahoma and there is a stereotype, lets face it, about that region being rather salt-to-the-earth and quite red when it comes to politics. Sit back and let’s think for a moment about what your self-professed lord and savior, Jesus Christ, would think about “Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Individuals.” Your lord and savior wandered around healing the sick, he never asked anyone if they were gay, lesbian, or transgendered. It just didn’t matter to him. People who cared for the sick like he did, he said, would be favored in God’s sight because they cared. Care. That’s what it really gets down to, who cares and who does not? Who hides behind a carapace of bigoted ignorance and who really cares? For these people in this meeting, all of them who didn’t stand up, who didn’t stomp their foot on the ground and argue against this – all of them – how can you face your self-professed lord and savior who you see every Sunday, nailed to a crucifix? Yes, he died to absolve you on sin, but when he was alive, when he was teaching – what was that part? Did you all miss that part? In your haste to be absolved of your sins, perhaps you missed everything up until the climax and after it was all over, you just rolled over and fell asleep?

These are valid questions that I would love answers to. I would dearly enjoy facing these people after we all march through the stations of the cross together. Jesus healing the lepers, Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life, Jesus and the children. Then turn to me, turn to a younger me, turn to any gay man, lesbian, or transgendered person and spit out that vitriol about the “Gay Agenda”.

Ma’am, yes, we do have a Gay Agenda. You caught us red-handed. Our agenda is simple. We are in pursuit of ending suffering of the people who are like us. The kids who grow up bullied and turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of being mocked for being different. Not the color of our skin, not anything patently obvious like that, but mocked for who we love. You mock us over love. How can you face Jesus Christ when you mock people for loving? Wasn’t Jesus all about Love? Isn’t that what he preached? Love each other, be good to each other, and for the love of god, stop killing each other! So, where’s the love? That’s what the agenda is. We want to save ourselves and people like us. We want to reduce the suffering, we want to catch the sad and hold them tight and tell them that they are not alone. We want to rescue people who are so alone and unhappy that all they want to do is hang, shoot themselves, or drink or take drugs until they die.

So, is this document that the Mental Health Services Administration is providing a good thing or a bad thing? What are your feelings on dead children? How about young men and women dying at their own hands? What about that? How does that stand up to your fear of some undefined pink menace coming for you and yours?

Jesus Christ My Ass.

 

We’re Lousy With Superheroes

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I wrote this post of Facebook just now and sometimes when I get to writing something that I really find appealing comes out while I write and it surprises me. This was a comment about Katie Couric interviewing Matthew Shepard’s mother:

 I hate that helpless feeling. Knowing that there are these crimes and that kids are killing themselves because they feel so alone and without hope. It’s the agony that sits at the center of things like the Trevor Project and “It Gets Better” project. If more people were honest about themselves and gays were more visible then maybe these kids in crisis would notice us and reach out and we could catch them and prove to them that life does get better. 

There are more people that love you and those people may not be your family, or they may be. But there are people out there who do care, all that keeps them quiet is that they don’t know they are needed. The country is full of superheroes, but they are all saddled with one tragic flaw, that they aren’t clairvoyant.

I thought it was so neat that it should go in my blog…

Blog Spam

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I hate spam. I really hate it. I don’t want anything to do with Casinos, cheating lovers, or SEO bullshit. In fact, I’ve developed a very acute loathing for the phrase “SEO”. I’ve started to mentally connect “SEO Specalists” with “Used Car Salesmen”. If you are one, keep it to yourself. Don’t come and talk to me about SEO. It’s just gaming the system and it’s both corrupt and dishonest.

To that end, I went back to look at Askimet and realized that the API token that I thought was for-pay only turns out that it’s free for personal blogs. What a surprise! So I installed the Akismet plugin (I had earlier deleted it because I thought it was pay-only) and applied my API token and so far, although it’s only been a few moments, my blog is blessedly spam free.

The comments are the source of the spam. There was a post in the WordPress Community Pool regarding Twitter that got me thinking about how my readership engages with my blog. People don’t really engage in Twitter much anymore and they don’t engage in WordPress comments either. All the engagement seems to be focused on Facebook. I’m not against any of this, but I find it very fascinating. This leads me to the topic of this post, which is that blog spam in the comments on my WordPress.org system is even more damnable. Nobody uses the comment system but I’m loathe to disable it. So, Akismet, at least so far, is riding to the rescue.

With that, I have a great Monty Python skit to share with you all on YouTube. Enjoy!

 

Ugly, but hey, the hats kind of neat…

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The Catholic Church opens its mouth and they say the darnedest things. They live in an uniquely distorted world: People aren’t exactly flocking to churches, the Pope himself is deeply implicated with shielding pedophiles in the Church ranks and then they say this out loud. How exactly are you spreading the word of Jesus Christ? Is it by preaching hate and sexually abusing children that you think is the path to salvation?

Much like the conservatives, it seems that the Church has drifted so far off its axis that they no longer seem to have any grip on reality.

But hey, who am I? Hah! Have you looked in a mirror lately?