Police Gear

I stumbled across this new site for purchasing police gear and some of the deals are pretty good. You can get Blackhawk Gear, some military-style gear and knives and clothing. I was looking at maybe getting a Master Parachuter hat for $5 - until I remembered I'm afraid of heights.

They've got a really need storm-proof lighter that's armored, waterproof and can keep a lit flame even in 80 mph winds. Too bad most of my friends stopped smoking. And don't live in hurricane-heavy areas...

Anyway, I recommend taking a look, especially through their clearance section. Both of their clearance sections.

Enjoy!

This is a sponsored post for L.A. Police Gear.

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Airplanes!

So even an agorophobic like me is aware of the current situation involving the FAA and their horrible safety inspection record that has led to airlines grounding planes indefinitely in order to be serviced and inspected - leading to hundreds of flights being cancelled every day for some airlines.

To be honest, it makes me glad that I'm not someone who flies very often.

I don't want this to be a "sucks to be you" rant, but I would like to give my opinion on the matter. Because I enjoy giving my opinion.

I'm pretty sure that this whole thing started an entire month ago when the Federal Aviation Agency found out that there were missed safety inspections at Southwest Airlines and ordered an audit of their maintenance records. This led to the discovery that dozens of Southwest airplanes hadn't been inspected for cracks in their fuselages. The result was a $10.2 million fine for the airline.

That's when the whistleblowers stepped forward. Safety inspectors for the FAA claimed that the FAA treats airlines more as "customers" rather than companies that need to be regulated and inspected. In fact, "the FAA's chief maintenance inspector at Southwest, Douglas T. Gawadzinski, knowingly allowed Southwest to keep planes flying that put passengers at risk, and that another inspector knew of the problem and did nothing.

Southwest is not the only carrier that has benefited from a "cozy" relationship with regulators, said Tom Brantley, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union that represents FAA inspectors.

In testimony prepared for the hearing, Brantley details maintenance and safety issues at United, Continental Airlines Inc., Northwest Airlines Corp., Hawaiian Airlines Inc. and elsewhere where the carriers were given great leeway by the FAA to correct problems that inspectors on the ground said merited more serious attention. Financial penalties for infractions suggested by inspectors against United and other carriers also were ignored or significantly reduced by the time they were assessed, he added."

From there on out, it's just been a back-and-forth between the FAA that is now being brought to light for NOT having inspected planes and the airlines and their airplanes that apparently NEED to be ACTUALLY inspected. This led to the grounding of dozens of airplanes in order to be inspected and given clean bills of health, which results in hundreds and hundreds of cancelled flights for these airlines.

The price of fuel is already skyrocketing to the point of airlines raising their rates and cramming a body into every possible seat - which means that cancelled flights have no way of transferring their passengers to other airlines' flights because they're already overbooked as it is. Airlines are declaring bankrupcy left and right because of the loss of revenue due to grounded planes, fines and a lack of customer satisfaction (not to mention some airlines giving vouchers and paying for hotels as an attempt to compensate).

So I guess what this all boils down to is:

Would you rather:

1) Expose the FAA for the corrupt agency that it has become, which means that airplanes will finally be inspected and maintained, but at the cost of higher prices with cancelled flights on less options of non-bankrupt airlines.

2) Go back to an "ignorance is bliss" lifestyle of less-outrageously expensive tickets on a number of airlines to travel on airplanes that "probably" are safe to fly, knowing that the last time a jumbo jet actually crashed was Nov. 12, 2001.

Don't look at me to advocate one or the other. I'm just saying that these are the two paths - and people didn't seem to be too troubled with option #2 until the bubble was burst on the blissful ignorance and we've automatically careened into option #1 with no hope of going back.

I'm just positing that both were viable options.

Frankly, I'm torn between the two. With all of the comedians chuckling it up over our insane airport security procedures, this is just icing on the cake for them since they'll search you three different ways to make sure you don't have any toothpaste containers over 3 ounces large but apparently won't bother to inspect the plane for cracks along the fuselage. But the point is, does it matter? Are you any more safe after they've finally searched the plane for cracks? Would those cracks have actually taken down your plane and it would have been blood on the hands of the FAA?

One would think that if this wonton disregard for inspection and regulation had gone on for so long - there would have been more evidence of it in airplane crashes and whatnot. Right? Wouldn't you have expected to see this eerie string of plane crashes that after long investigation showed that they were the result of something that should have been caught in an inspection, which would lead to the investigation into the FAA's inspection and then we'd be right back to where we are now - but it would have made a lot more sense.

Maybe I just have a weird way of thinking about these things. Maybe it's the fact that I fly at most two roundtrips per year and never internationally. Maybe it's just the stream of headlines...

ATA Airlines filed for bankruptcy.
SkyBus filed for bankruptcy.
Aloha Airlines filed for bankruptcy.
Frontier Airlines filed for bankruptcy.

Are we looking at the end of passenger aviation? If we do get to keep flying, will we be safe under the watchful eye of a federal agency that likes to look away? Wouldn't it be easier if we let them keep doing it but back in secrecy so that ticket prices could go down and flights could resume at the potential risk of a few plane crashes? What are your thoughts on the matter?

(The whistle gets blown)
(The flights are cancelled)


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Balloon Ban?

Every now and then, one of the news stories I read about just catches my attention for multiple reasons at once. The headline of the article was about a ban on metallic balloons. My first thought was about the recent Mythbusters episode about the lead balloon and how they busted the saying by actually constructing a lighter-than-air lead balloon. Eventually, once I clicked on the article, I realized that they were talking about Mylar balloons. But a BAN on them??

Apparently the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. of Northern California is complaining that Mylar balloons that come into contact with power lines have caused more than 200 blackouts in the past year in their service area. So a California senator proposed a bill that makes it illegal to sell metallic balloons that are filled with a lighter-than-air gas which could allow the balloon to rise high enough to hit a power line.

Believe it or not, there already ARE laws regarding the sale of metallic balloons. California law already requires that helium-filled metallic balloons must be sold with weights to hold them down. But Senator Scott said those weights are often candies or action figures designed to be removed by children.

This bill, if passed, would make California the first state to ban the sale of these balloons filled with helium.

Barry Broad, a lobbyist for The Balloon Council, objects to what he calls a "wacky" attempt to criminalize a party toy.

In other news...

THERE'S A BALLOON COUNCIL?? WITH LOBBYISTS???

Apparently so. They even have a website:
http://www.balloonhq.com/BalloonCouncil/index.html

Meanwhile, the bill has already cleared the Senate Public Safety Committee, sets a $100 fine for selling the helium-filled balloons starting in 2010. Repeat offenders could be charged with misdemeanors.

I've actually READ the bill. I hunted it down and looked at the wording and such.

Apparently it would be a crime to sell or distribute metallic balloons that are filled with helium (and any balloon that has a metallic or conductive string or is tied to a metallic balloon). The law says nothing about selling or distributing non-inflated metallic balloons or about selling or distributing helium as seperate entities. Which means that the law doesn't care if you fill that balloon up yourself.

Also, the law "shall not apply to manned hot air balloons, or to
balloons used in governmental or scientific research projects." Which means that all you'd have to do is claim it's for your science fair project and you and your distributor are off the hook?? I suppose you could also tie a basket to the balloon and place a small creature in the basket - but I don't know if hamster balloons would count as "manned" for the sake of this law.

I'm a little irked that official government parties could probably have helium-filled Mylar balloons but my birthday party would require two separate purchases and having to fill the balloons myself.

Anyway, it's a stupid law. And The Balloon Council agrees.

Really, are you going to disagree with The Balloon Council? How could you??

(The news article about the ban)
(Once more, a link to The Balloon Council, in all its official-type glory)
(The ACTUAL BILL, in all its balloon-popping pomposity)


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Korea and Dogmeat

South Korea is the only country where dogmeat is consumed. In fact, every year dogs are consumed by the millions in the country. Frankly, I wish that this notion could spread to the USA - where the pet population is out of control and animal shelters are filled to capacity and we have PETA killing 96% of the animals being "rescued" and we have old celebrities hawking the idea to "spay or neuter your pets" to try and ease the overpopulation.

In 1988, to try and improve popularity with some good publicity before hosting the Olympics, South Korea's capital Seoul banned dogmeat and snakemeat as "abhorrent food." Despite the much-ignored ban, South Koreans still eat between two and four million dogs every year and there are more than 500 dogmeat restaurants in the capital alone.

So what's a government to do?

They're trying to finally classify dogs as livestock.

The whole point of it is that a livestock classification would mean that dogmeat could get the food safety standards of the other meats being consumed in South Korea and protect the health of those eating it. Since dogs are not currently classed as livestock, there are no hygiene regulations on their slaughter at all. I think that even a vegan member of PETA would at least agree that if a slaughter is going to be done, it should be hygienic and regulated for safety.

I, for one, think this is a great idea.

I've always advocated the notion that things made of meat (other than humans) can be eaten. I will admittedly draw the line when it comes to humans - not out of any ethical or moral reasoning, but because that would mean that I could be eaten and that doesn't benefit me in the least. I'm also not that hugely in favor of eating things that could become extinct. However, I do believe that those animals should be bred in captivity like you would on any farm, just to keep the numbers up and set aside a nice fat percentage for consumption.

As for dogs, there's just too many of them running around. SOMETHING's got to thin out those herds. Cars aren't working fast enough, and no matter how many get their gonads removed as advocated by TV celebs, there's three more taking its place and breeding like crazy. The same goes for cats, but they're not as meaty as dogs. Perhaps a cat breeding farm could genetically create some meatier cats that aren't running and jumping around so much that their becomes stringy and tough; that's a possibility in the future. But we should be eating dogs.

It's certainly more humane to slaughter a dog in a hygienic and regulated facility and harvest the USDA-regulated meat to feed a low-income family than to inject it with poison and dump the carcass in a dumpster.

If you don't agree, you're obviously a member of PETA.

(The article about Korea and their dogmeat)


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Florida Teens Are Idiots!

It's hard to describe the jaw-dropping idiocy that I read about in this article. So I'm just going to copy it.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.

The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.

State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.

They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said.

It would still require teaching abstinence but students would also learn about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.

The bill just passed its first vote in a committee, Local 6 reported.

(In case you think I'm making this up)

How can this really be blamed on poor sex education?

Honestly, I blame the sheer idiocy of Florida teenagers. Sure, one could argue that they're only idiotic because of a lack of education, and since this is regarding sex, it would be the result of poor sex education. But if these kids actually think these above ideas are TRUE - then there's just a general lack of brainpower going on upstairs that far surpasses any blame you could point at the abstinence-only sex education curriculum.

Although I do have to give them partial credit for their notion that drinking bleach will prevent HIV.

After all, if you get an idiotic Florida teenager to drink ENOUGH bleach, it will prevent that dumbass from contracting HIV once s/he is dead.

We should be TEACHING that piece of information, just to clean up the gene pool just a little bit. There's too many regulations out there prolonging the lives of the stupid kids enough to have them procreating. A few little tests like these would easily correct that.

Okay, I'm going back to work now. Read more!

Earth Hour?

I'm really torn between enjoying this pointless event's creation or wanting to banish it to hell like all of the other fake, self-puffery, nonsensical, environmentalist bullshit going on in the world.

"Well Aaron, if you hate this kind of bullshit so much, why would you even consider possibly enjoying its creation," I hear you ask.

Because it's an HOUR.

In case you missed it last year, Chicago was the victim of environmentalist atrocity at a level of unspeakable proportions. Here's my scathing review of a piece of crap known as "Earth Month". Which wasn't even a month - it was 34 arbitrary days of scattered environmentalist meetings and demonstrations and recycling center groups. The worst part was their catchphrase of "Make Every Month Earth Month."

At least with this, they've scaled it all down to one hour of pretending to care about the environment.

The weird thing about this event is that I'm still trying to figure out HOW they plan on getting people to care or make a difference. The whole basis of this event is that around the world on this day at 8pm local time, everyone turns off their lights for an hour. Not "don't use energy at all for an hour" but just turning off the lights.

One hour of lights-out for a typical residence would result in no more than $0.25 in savings for the monthly electricity bill (and I think that's assuming they usually have every light turned on and like 100-watt bulbs in all the fixtures). So it has nothing to do with convincing people that they can save money. They're not telling everyone to turn off everything in their home - so it can't be a way to convince people that they can still have a great life while "living green" or something. I haven't seen any promotional T-shirts or hats or anything that you can buy in support of Earth Hour - so it doesn't seem like the WWF is trying to profit from this event.

I'm really baffled - what are they trying to do?

Any time something catches on and it's a widespread event, SOMEONE is looking to profit. Money makes the world go 'round, and wherever you've got millions of people who are gullible enough to turn their lights off because you've created Earth Hour - you HAVE to have someone profiting off of the gullibility.

Maybe it's the candle companies? After all, it seems like everyone who participates is going to need to be able to SEE, so candles are the way to go. Are candle sales really that low that they need a worldwide scam to have people turn off lights just to move a few extra candles??

Seriously - this is bothering me.

The website claims:
Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.

It's not doing anything for the planet except making regions of it dark for an hour.
It's not doing anything to affect the climate.
It's not doing anything for the environment at all.
It's not doing anything for the people participating other than making them feel smug about "helping".
It's not doing anything for greedy profiteers, except possibly candle companies.
It's not doing anything at all...

Please help me figure out why the hell this exists at all. Things need to have meaning or else they are literally meaningless. In which case, they shouldn't exist in the first place.

(Here's the website, in case you can figure any of this out.)


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Employers and Facebook

There's a new lawsuit going on over in England regarding whether or not business employers can investigate potential employees via their Facebook or other "social networking site" webpage.

Before you pick a side or finish hearing the story or my opinion - take a minute to think about your social networking sites (if you have any). What is on your Facebook profile that you would be okay with showing to an employer you're trying to get hired by? What is on your Facebook profile that you wouldn't want your potential new boss seeing? What's on there that you don't even want your family seeing? And we're not just talking about your basic profile information - we're talking about all of the comments left on your page by your friends, whether you think they're appropriate or not for any situation.

Let's continue, shall we?

A coalition including the NSPCC, the Children's Society and the NCH want a new law to prevent employers and colleges searching the internet for "digital dirt" on potential recruits.

Studies show one in five employers use the internet to check out candidates and two thirds of those admit their final decision has been influenced by what they found.

Checking networking sites is also common practice for recruitment agencies with research showing more than 60 per cent of British executives are signed up to Facebook or similar.

The children's charities argue that this is akin to nosing through someone's diary and is examining whether existing discrimination laws could be used to prevent the practice.

Now I'm not entirely sure about their argument that looking at networking site information is the same as reading a diary. In my experience, a diary is personal thoughts for yourself only, which is why you hide it under a mattress or beat up a sibling who discovers its secret location. Social networking sites aren't really meant to be solo experiences. And even if you DO use one for such an experience, there are plenty of filters and privacy settings arranged for most social networking sites so you can keep private thoughts private.

Of course, these filters are rarely used by the less-web-savvy users.

John Carr, secretary of the Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety which is co-ordinating the campaign, said pictures and gossip posted while someone is a teenager should not be used against them years later.

Once again, I'm not in agreement with the argument. Just because there is no foresight about what is being done, that doesn't entitle them to complain when it rears its ugly head down the road. Everything we do is who we are - and while we can certainly attempt to change, we cannot deny our history. How many times can you recall a news story featuring a celebrity (major or minor) who became aghast to discover that old gossip or even photos or video of themselves had been dug up and gotten them into trouble?

The law currently enforces equal opportunities in recruitment and a system that searches social network sites could be unfair because some candidates will have profiles and others will not.

Here's where a real argument lies. It's discrimination to base a hiring decision on a piece of information that doesn't exist for all candidates. I have a Facebook profile, another potential hire might not. But they might have a MySpace page, whereas I do not.

Is each networking site off-limits because of potential discrimination?
Does the balance of each of us having a site mean there's no discrimination?

One could make the argument that both of us have a NAME, so there's no discrimination if an employer uses Google or another search tool to look up information just based on our name - but is a social networking page result equal footing because it was found in an equal-opportunity manner, or does it fall directly under this "not everyone has one" idea of discrimination?

It's a very gray area, and while it might deserve the scrutiny of a lawsuit to make the issue known and get people talking about it - it runs the risk of a decision being made that unfairly benefits one side or the other.

So far, one idea being thrown around is the notion of a "time limit" for surfing these gray-area websites.

Do you have any ideas? What do you think? Discrimination or not?

(The full article)


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For the Future

I was reading some article about a guy who got arrested in California for "being creepy" and something about him hanging around a library and was arrested for talking to a kid because a mom freaked out.

I could go off on a diatribe about how it sucks being male because every mother out there apparently thinks you're out to molest their children no matter who you are or what you look like, but I won't. Okay, I'll say one thing:

Mothers, your children aren't all that amazing. Just like I'd say that not all children are cute and not all children are geniuses - not all children are spectacular enough to become targets for molesters. From what I've read in the newspapers and seen on news footage, most of these kids who get molested are rather decent-looking kids. Odds are that if the other kids in the class don't want to play with your precious child, neither would some molester.

Now that I've got that tidbit of hatred out of the way, I'll attempt to bring you with me on a bumpy train-of-thought that gets me to the REAL point of this post.

Everyone has to wonder for a second what this guy was talking about with this child. Some would think it's evil things, some would think it's harmless things. I try and think about the less-likely possibilities that could ironically twist the situation into the MOTHER being the bad person. (And not just for getting some guy arrested for "being creepy".)

The first thing that pops into my head that fills this situation is: What if this guy is the future version of the kid and he's trying to warn him about something??

In all of the infinite possibilities, you have to include this one. I mean, this information could be the difference between life and death for someone. But if you're the kid - how would you know that this guy really is you from the future? With the internet and the possibility of a real stalker, so much information is already at everyone's fingertips. You can't use trivial things from your life, because who would really remember a triviality at the age of 30 from when they were 8?

The only solution is a keyword or code phrase.

This is a brilliant thing for every person to have, at as early an age as possible. Decide on a keyword or code phrase and NEVER tell it to ANYONE. Don't write it down, don't pick something that anyone could ever string together, and keep it memorized. Then if you ever do meet the future version of yourself, you'll have that failsafe to be certain that it really is you.

I'm making mine right now. Although it sucks that now I can never go back in time to meet myself at an age before 24, since I wouldn't have known my secret phrase back then.

Of course, if I did go back to when I was younger than 24, wouldn't I have experienced it already? I don't ever recall meeting anyone who claimed to be me from the future. So I guess all my bases are covered then...

Have you made your own future-self keyword or code phrase? Is it a good idea? Or are you still too peeved about my tiny remark about how your child isn't worth molesting? Read more!

Pelosi and the Lama

So apparently the situation between Tibet and China has gotten to the point that we're sending our annoying politicians NEAR the area to TALK about things - and not speaking FOR the United States but just out of personal opinion.

Yea, we must not really care that much. I mean, it's Nancy Pelosi. Maybe they just needed her out of the House for a while.

I really don't understand the long long history between China and Tibet - I'm one of those dopey Americans who can pretty much sum his knowledge up as "there's a lot of people with signs that say 'FREE TIBET' on them so it's either not free yet and they want it to be free or it's a very strange advertising campaign."

C'mon down to Crazy Wu's Elephant Emporium! We got Asian ones, we got African ones, we got a whole lotta pachyderms and they're ripe for the pickin' - and if you act now, we'll throw in Tibet absolutely free! That's right, we're just givin' away FREE TIBET because I'm CRAAAAAZY WU!

Okay, all joking aside, the Tibetans are claiming now that the death toll of Tibetans is now at 99. Of course, China says the death toll of Tibetans is still at 0, but the death toll of innocent Han Chinese in Tibet is now at 13. Honestly, unless Giraldo is there with his journalism team, I don't think the numbers will ever be real. And even if they were real, we're talking less than a hundred.

Maybe I'm just the product of a horrible generation who paid attention in history class and tried keeping up with the news and would always hear about millions of people being killed, or at least tens of thousands. I mean it's not like I'm unaffected by anything unless it's at WWII level with 60,000,000 deaths (the deadliest war). But China's had a reputation for massacre before and they never got away with less than 50,000 and upwards of a 1,000,000 on some of them. Hell, in Darfur it's been at least 400,000 and even when the Hutu government of Burundi started the slaughter of Tutsis they killed like 50,000.

(Okay, I admit that I needed Wikipedia for those last ones.)

And we're talking about possibly 99 people in Tibet who have been killed. We should ALL be so lucky that the death toll amid governmental conflicts as such should be this low ALL the time! True, if there's ever going to be a resolution to this conflict, the death count will undoubtedly rise. Well, if there's ever going to be a resolution to this conflict that means the ceasing of FREE TIBET signs, I mean.

Few people seem to understand that another resolution is Tibet accepting things and understanding that it is owned by China.

This whole thing used to be so commonplace at a time in history. Forces rode in, conquered a land, and quelled the rebellions until the people understood their place and got used to it and carried on. There's a new jerk in charge and some things may be different and you may get some ethnic changes to the neighborhood, but you still get up and go to work and continue your little existance as a tiny cog in the grand scheme of the universe.

Back to Pelosi. (And yes, I get very little joy out of saying that.)

"As a freedom-loving people, if we don't speak out about the Chinese oppression, then we have lost our right to speak on human rights," Pelosi told reporters. She made the comments during a meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, noting that she was voicing her personal opinion and not U.S. government policy.

You know, if you're a leader in the U.S. government and you start blathering political agendas like "Chinese oppression" in the midst of a political struggle - there's no f*cking way that anyone is going to believe you're not trying to be officially political.

And this whole generic term "freedom" is kind of misinterpreted a lot. It's NOT a general idea. Freedom only works one way. If I want to do something to you and you don't want me to do something to you, what does freedom say about it? Do I get the freedom to do as I please? Do you get the freedom to stop me? Isn't freedom tantamount to anarchy in some ways?

Or am I overthinking things?

Lastly, I want to take one more jab at Pelosi. Because it's fun.

Pelosi told the crowd at the temple in Dharamsala that it must be karma that brought her to India at such a difficult time.

To quote "The Princess Bride" actor Andre the Giant: "I do not think that means what you think it means." "Karma" is about the balance of nature and that good things eventually come to those who deserve it and likewise for bad things. I don't really know what the Dalai Lama did to deserve a visit from Nancy Pelosi, but if I were a decent non-violent person who has been exiled and am having my people possibly being killed by our oppressors and someone told me that karma was in effect? I'd be pretty damned pissed off.

Wouldn't you?

The article about Pelosi and the Lama




I promise I'll try to make the next post less political. Or at least not about Tibet. Read more!

Tibetans in the Midwest?

I'm sure you already know how much I am against protesters. It's a running theme in this blog of mine. And apparently yesterday there was a protest here in Chicago led by "Tibetans of the Midwest" that consisted of a short march and then a bunch of yelling outside the Chinese consulate and eventually some minor damage was done.

In my usual state of mind, I am at an impasse regarding the whole China-Tibet situation. On the one hand, it's mean to just storm in, take over land and beat down any nails that try sticking up with a hard military hammer. On the other hand, that's just how things are done and you can't eradicate "mean" from the world. I mean, the only way to stop this situation (and I mean REALLY stop it) is war. Tibet obviously can't do anything against China, both for size/strength reasons as well as the whole pacifist government-in-exile thing. It would need to rely on a country big enough to "liberate" it from China's hands. Which would probably be America, since we're the country everyone looks to for barging into smaller countries and doing what they can't do for themselves. Of course, the largest group in favor of freeing Tibet is the hippie population, which is the least likely to pick up a gun and do something about it.

I'm a little sad that empires are kind of gone. While I realize it was a less peaceful time in history, the notion of living in a country that kicks other country's asses and then takes over sounds keen. Of course, living in a country that sucks and gets trampled on and absorbed into another country wouldn't be great, but if they were good enough to kick our asses, they must be doing SOMETHING right and now that we're part of it, maybe we can get in on the action. Like some better healthcare to pay for the bayonet wound created while we got taken over by a country with better healthcare.

I still think that the solution to the illegal immigration problem in America is just storming in and taking over Mexico. They should just let us, really. Then as part of America, we'd be responsible for taking care of it since their numbers would officially reflect ours. We could move in and industrialize and cultivate and throw some Starbucks locations in there to generate some economic flow. Plus, maybe some of these illegals would move back to be with their families since we'd be bringing jobs THERE instead of having them come HERE to STEAL our jobs.

Anyway, back to Tibet and this insane protest. I call it insane because it's not going to do anything. Protests just don't do anything. The farther away the situation is that you're protesting and the larger the situation is, the less you're going to be able to affect anything and the more you look like idiots for trying. And this situation is across the freakin' Pacific Ocean. I just don't understand what they're expecting to accomplish other than looking like idiots.

Do they think that there's some mentally-challenged newbie who is friends with the Chinese military leader and is working his first day at this consulate after living in a cave for 60 years? He'd see 600 protesters with big signs chanting "Free Tibet" and flip out when a rock goes through the window and he says "OH NO THEY'RE SERIOUS! AND THEIR SIGNS ARE SO SUCCINCT! WHAT A GREAT ARGUMENT! THEY'RE RIGHT!" and calls up his buddy in charge of the entire Chinese military and tells him that there's a crushable number of protesters in another country who are armed with rocks and not afraid to use only one of them so we'd better hand Tibet back over to the Dalai Lama and withdraw the troops??

The only thing dumber than a group of protesters might be the individual protesters themselves.

Demonstrator Tenzin Palkyi, 21, a student at the University of Minnesota on spring break, carried a sign with gruesome pictures of Tibetans she said had been murdered by the Chinese government because of their opposition to Chinese rule.

Seriously, if your idea of a rockin' Spring Break is displaying tableaus of murdered bodies while screaming and marching - you obviously don't eat lunch at the popular kids' table.

One protester, who did not want to be named, said many people knew nothing about Tibet other than the Dalai Lama, which he said was not what the march was about. "It's not about just China or Tibet, it's about basic human rights."

I'm hoping that he didn't want to be named because he knew the possible consequences of being dumb enough to march with the "Tibetans of the Midwest" in a protest of China's occupation of Tibet and murdering Tibetans - and then saying the protest isn't just about China or Tibet.

You can't march in that kind of protest with signs saying "FREE TIBET" and then say it's not about Tibet - it's about "human rights".

That's like throwing a temper tantrum over Denny's not giving you a free Grand Slam breakfast meal and then claiming "This isn't about me getting free food - it's about ending world hunger."

If you can understand the logic there, you're hopefully smart enough to know that protesting is useless, or if you have to be an idiot and protest, at least you'll be smart enough to not say insanely-stupid things about why you're protesting.

And sometimes, that's the least I can hope for. So when ARE we going to take over Mexico, anyway?

(An article about the protest)


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Anime Review: School Rumble

I figure that as long as I once again spend a good part of my nights watching anime (mostly watching anime I've already seen before) - I might as well try reviewing some of them.

School Rumble is a school-based romantic comedy. Here's the basic premise that you get from the first episode and leads into the explanation of the "love triangle" that is what most romantic comedies rely on to keep the humor coming:

Harima Kenji was a delinquent high-schooler. He didn't go to class, and he liked to fight people. One day, he sees this girl getting attacked by a couple of thugs, and he rushes in to her aid. Just after the scuffle, she faints. Harima has little choice but to bring her to his place until she wakes up. He starts feeling an attraction, watching her sleep, and through anime-cliched tactics gets too close to her while she's sleeping and in her sleep, she says "I love you" - then gets him in a death-clutch while still asleep and of course wakes up to find the two of them in a compromising position. She freaks and calls him a pervert, but is nice enough to say before leaving, "Mr. Pervert, you should really come to school" or something like that.

Harima Kenji decides to give up his delinquent ways and go back to school in order to win her over and confess to her. However, since he doesn't want her to recognize him as "that pervert", he dons sunglasses and grows a small mustache and beard. The girl, Tsukamoto Tenma, is dense enough to never see through such a feeble facade. She also never notices the many many attempts of Harima to display his affection for her - since she's too wrapped up in making many many attempts to display her affection for Karasuma Oji, who of course never seems to notice them (or show much emotion at all). Oh, and Karasuma loves curry. So maybe this isn't really a "love triangle" and is more like a "love rectangle".

That's the basis for the main storyline. Along the way, you meet the wide range of classmate secondary characters who fill in the gaps with their own storylines and romance-comedy scenes. There are rivals, there are school events, and other school-related things that drive the series onward.

Of course, with one main male character and a female character with three female friends and a younger sister, it gradually blurs the lines between romantic comedy and just a simple "harem anime" where the other females start considering having feelings for the main male character who's just always around. Luckily, the guy used to be a delinquent, and he's kind of violent, so there are plenty of reasons to stop much progression on those lines. Of course, deep down he's a pretty decent human being - otherwise you wouldn't be rooting for him and Tenma to get together. Of course, it's hard when you also want to root for Tenma and Karasuma to get together at times as well - even if you're not sure why.

Let's just say that the "love triangle" concept branches out to enough characters and sideplots to give fanfic writers enough material for a lifetime.

Animation-wise, I love this series. Of course, I rather enjoy any series that utilizes a running "antennae" gag when it comes to hairstyles. Tenma has her two little pigtails that pulse in chime with her emotions. Harima has a very thin upward-arching hair antenna that occasionally gets pinned to his face by his sunglasses. And Suou has blue hair. Because "you gotta have blue hair" when it comes to anime. This series has both tons of cutesy-chibi scenes as well as overly-manly-drawn scenes as a balance. Oh, and there's a pig named Napoleon and a giraffe named Pyotr.

All in all, this is a series that you have to watch for yourself. So do that, and let me know if you agree with my overly-positive review.

And as a bonus, here's the Opening Credits to get you hooked!




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Liberation Fronts

If there's one thing that the news has taught me as of recently, it's that any situation that uses the word "liberation" means that the situation involves "terrorism". While some claim that America going in to "liberate" countries means us look more like the terrorists than the terrorists creating the ruckus in the first place that led to the country needing some "liberation", one cannot deny that the two ideas of liberation and terrorism are both at work. I've already had several diatribes against the Animal Liberation Front and their terrorist ways - especially when the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was passed and rightfully put groups who destroy animal testing research and threaten the lives of those in animal-based work into the proper classification of "terrorists".

Well here's a "liberating" group that needs to be rightly put on that list as well. The "Earth Liberation Front" apparently goes around destroying things that it deems aren't environmentally-friendly enough, or something like that. I'm not really sure how this group plans on liberating the Earth. I mean, with the A.L.F. they at least deliver what they promise. It's a lot more definable to liberate an animal than a planet. The animal-rights dipwads go into medical labs, release all of the animals (either into the wild where they cannot survive because they were bred for research or taken to shelters or kept as pets, which I wouldn't say is actual "liberation") and then decide to be jackasses and also burn down the lab or destroy the research or threaten to kill the scientists or their families.

Frankly, if the Earth Liberation Front really wanted to liberate the Earth, it could start with a mass suicide akin to famous cults in the past. Seriously, Earth is too bogged down and cluttered with idiots and it could use with some liberation from THAT. I mean their main argument seems to be that humans are destroying the planet with non-environmentally-friendly things. So which is more likely to liberate the planet: destroying those things, or destroying people in general? Apparently they're fine with arson forms of terrorism, but they supposedly draw the line at murder.

Yea, the main spark for this post was that the E.L.F. attacked some multimillion-dollar homes in Oregon that were built under the premise of being "green", and according to the scrawlings that the Earth Liberation Front left on the burned remains of the homes - they were not.

So the question arises: are we going to call this an act of domestic terrorism? My answer is yes. In the same way that the A.L.F. are terrorists, this group is using a crime to scare (aka: terrorize) people and coerce them into doing something or not doing something according to their agenda. At the very least, they are criminals. At the very most, they are a terrorist cell hiding out in the Northwest that have obviously done at least millions of dollars worth of damage.

And you know what? As long as we have idiot groups out there willing to commit crime in order to "liberate" things that they've deemed needing of liberation, I want to propose a few new Liberation Fronts that follow the same pattern of having crazy impossible dreams and going about them the wrong way:

The Vegetable Liberation Front - The V.L.F. fights to liberate the vegetables and fruits that cannot fight for themselves. They think it's okay to eat meat because animals can express pain, so they will always have groups fighting for them out of sympathy - but WHO WILL THINK OF THE CARROTS? Carrots and eggplants and other plant life cannot express themselves and the pain and emotions they must be feeling after being ripped from their natural homes to slowly die, unless they are chopped up into pieces or run across graters or cooked alive! The V.L.F. robs grocery stores of produce and burns down farmer's markets and puts all the liberated victims into compost to "return them to Mother Earth".

Seriously, are we really that far off from a band of these guys?

The Mall Liberation Front - The M.L.F. (not to be confused with MILFs) fights to liberate malls and other shopping districts from window-shoppers. The mall is a place of commerce, and window-shoppers don't buy things and contribute to the economy. Well, they don't contribute to the mall economy... In order to rid the malls of these delinquents, the M.L.F. goes around malls, destroying window displays and painting over the windows of stores without specific window displays. Without things in the windows to stare at, the window-shoppers will be foiled and flee from the malls or resort to entering the stores where their perusal can at least be counterbalanced by pushy clerks and salespeople who can target them and attempt to make sales. For the mall!

"Window-shopping" really is kind of a misnomer if no shopping actually gets done.

The Gene Pool Liberation Front - This is my favorite made-up organization. If only the streets had roaming assassins who were equipped with common-sense testing supplies or something; ready to kill those who threaten the gene pool with their idiocy. They could just watch all of the recorded episodes of America's Dumbest Criminals and make that their hit list. We can all agree that if you have to kill off the dumb people, it's a good idea to start with the dumb people who are also criminals. I suppose that if they're just trying to liberate the gene pool, it would be less-deadly to just castrate people instead of just outright killing them - but if you've already got people who are dumb enough to try and cleanse the planet of dumb people by killing them, I doubt you'd trust any of them with surgical tools. In fact, membership to the G.P.L.F. would probably involve some form of sterilization. It might be too expensive, though - so I guess the alternative would be using the murder-suicide approach as opposed to the straight-up-murder approach. It would at least mean fewer trials, since the killer would be dead as well. And that cleanses the gene pool of two problems at once. (More, if you hit some kind of idiocy convention.)

What do you think? Can you foresee any of these "liberators" actually existing? Any Liberation Front ideas of your own?

(The article about the E.L.F. destroying the expensive homes)


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Global Cooling in 2007

I seriously hope that George Bush has seen this article. I'm actually thinking about forwarding a copy of it to him at the White House or something, though I don't like the notion of being put on some "list" because I attempted communication with the President. I think he would thank me, though - if his e-mail weren't read by interns and there's only a slight chance it would ever really reach him.

We've all heard stories about George W. Bush and his statements about the nonexistance of global warming. Some of you laughed. Some of you were enraged. Some of you are just plain hippies so any time he opens his mouth you just assume the worst and then eat some organic granola or something.

Well what would happen if he were RIGHT? Think about that for a minute, and then read on.

I found an article by Brit Hume that has some scary information for all of you global warmers out there.

"Now there is word that all four major global temperature tracking outlets have released data showing that temperatures have dropped significantly over the last year. California meteorologist Anthony Watts says the amount of cooling ranges from 65-hundredths of a degree Centigrade to 75-hundreds of a degree.

That is said to be a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. It is reportedly the single fastest temperature change ever recorded — up or down."

Did you read that? The year 2007 basically erased a century of measured global warming.

Some of the scientists are attributing the global cooling to a reduction in solar activity - which is a much more powerful factor in temperature than any man-made greenhouse gases and whatnot have been. So does this really mean that global warming is true, but the sun basically counteracted all of it by itself? Possibly. Does it prove that global warming itself is a myth or a lie? Not really.

But you have to admit - it does present a good argument against the protesting green-movement hippies and all of the global warming fearmongering going on. Which is why I think Bush needs to see this and rub it in some liberal faces for a change.

Of course, the story came from Fox News, so I guess we should take it with a grain of salt. But when has that stopped us from blowing a story out of proportion in the past?

What do you think? Global warming going to kill us all? New Ice Age cometh?

(The Fox News story)


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Immigration and Crime - A Poor Study

If there's one thing I hate even more than a poorly-done analysis claiming to be research that assumes that correlation means causation - it's a poorly-done analysis claiming to be research that assumes that correlation means causation AND misgeneralized the interpretation in the first place AS WELL AS assumes that the analysis has something to do with the issue being researched, which it DOESN'T.

The poorly-done analysis/research in question today is a study that "shows California's foreign-born population -- including illegal immigrants -- makes up only a sliver of the state's population of inmates".

Fine, you found a slightly-negative correlation between California inmates and their foreign birthplaces. Unfortunately, that information is useless. Especially when you try and generalize and apply causation relating foreign-born people to illegal immigrants, relating incarceration to crimes committed, and then also neglect the effects of illegal immigration other than just the initial immigration (like family members) and neglect certain non-jailable crimes (like shoplifting and vandalism).

Are you starting to see why I'm pissed off at this study and the news article that makes the claim that a lower number of foreign-born inmates indicates that stereotypes about illegal immigrants and crime rates are now disproven?

First of all, let's start with the fact that this study can never prove anything about illegal immigrants because all the study inquired about was the nation of birth and who was foreign-born. They make the argument that illegal immigrants are INCLUDED in the foreign-born population. I would make the argument that could also be illegal immigrants included in the USA-born population, assuming that they emigrated first and applied for citizenship elsewhere, THEN illegally re-entered the USA. It's possible, you can't deny that. Would it make a difference? Not at all. I'm just saying that their logic sucks, and equally-sucky logic proves it.

Secondly, this study is about INMATES, not criminals or crime at all. These are people who supposedly have committed a crime and been convicted of it and sentenced to jail. This study cannot possibly fathom the number of crimes being committed that have NOT led to an arrest. This study also ignores the number of crimes being committed that do not have a PENALTY that would lead to an arrest. The biggest problem about trying to make ANY connection of this study and illegal immigration is the fact that an illegal immigrant, once arrested and convicted of a crime, does NOT go to jail! Illegal immigrant criminals who are convicted are supposed to get DEPORTED. Hence, the number of foreign-born jail inmates means VERY LITTLE in relation to illegal immigrants.

Thirdly, any claim about crime rates is bogus. The number of criminals in jail had little to do with crime rates in general. One would HOPE for a correlation between crime rate and criminals being busted, but there are so many other factors in play that any generalization wouldn't be strong enough to beat up a five-year-old girl. Not even a five-year-old girl with brittle-bone disease!

Lastly, illegal immigration is illegal. The crime rate / percentage of criminals in the illegal immigration population is 100%, you dumbasses! At least near the END of the article, there is one quote that actually admits to this glaring error in the statistics: "While acknowledging that staying in the country illegally is a crime, Butcher and co-author Anne Morrison Piehl focused on activities that both foreign-born and U.S.-born adults can commit."

So they basically decided to do a study about crime and foreign-born people, but completely ignore that all of the foreign-born people who entered the country illegally are already criminals.

Any way you slice it, this is a worthless study and an especially-worthless article about the study.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS ILLEGAL.

(I can't make up something this atrocious - here's the article)


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Starbucks-less

Dear Coffee Junkies,

We regret to inform you that if you're jonesing for a cuppa Starbucks coffee this evening (Tuesday, February 26th) between the hours of 5:30pm and 8:30pm - you might be out of luck.

Yours in Caffeine,

Starbucks


Okay, so the letter doesn't exist - but the facts remain true. Most of the 7,000 US locations for the Starbucks chain WILL be closed for three hours tonight. Why? Because the congolmerate of coffee is having a nationwide training/re-training session for all of its baristas. One can only hope that the result of this session would be better service, better coffee, or the very least more baristas who will have a better idea of how to use the various instruments lying behind the counter and the magical things they do.

Will they all be able to properly foam a latte? Doubtful. Will they all at least understand how to operate a cash register? One can only dream.

It's hard to believe that three hours' time is enough to eradicate the years of collective ignorance and apathy one generally finds in the average Starbucks employee - but it's nice to know that Starbucks actually recognizes some of its shortcomings and wants to create the illusion of attempting to fix it. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow you'll get the lucky barista who learned something from tonight's training and you won't feel like beating him/her to death like usual.

Just thought I'd throw this message out there, in case there are people who are THAT addicted to Starbucks coffee that three hours of 'Bucks denial might cause a homocidal rampage. Seriously, suck it up and head to a Dunkin Donuts. Stop killing people over caffeine withdrawal. That's just stupid.

Disclaimer: I do not drink coffee. But I have been to Starbucks many times.

Will you survive tonight?

(The original article)


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Proponent of Cubicles

I don't care what anyone says - I am in favor of cubicles.

Ever since I abandoned my childhood dreams of various careers that earn NO money (seriously, I had three career plans and ALL of them pay horribly) I have wanted to be a cubicle drone. While some see the comic strip Dilbert and think it's a horrible existence to live in a little box typing away and slaving for "the man" - I see it as a great idea and something to strive to attain in the future. Office Space was a great movie about a horrible business and horrible office with horrible bosses - but the cubicles still seemed to interest me.

I guess it's the comfort level for me. I'm not used to wide open spaces. I have a four-room two-bedroom apartment and rarely am I seen outside of my tiny room. Give me a computer, somewhere to sit, and somewhere to sleep (if it's my bedroom, not necessarily my cube - though a nap zone would be nice) and I'm a moderately-content guy. Even better is the ownership of the cubicle. The desk is mine to organize however I choose. The walls are mine to pin up things to keep me motivated or entertained. And my time is my own.

I know that my ideal cubicle situation involves an ideal WORK/BUSINESS situation, but it's my dream and that's what I want. I want a job where I can work in my cubicle at my own pace - which is faster when I have less distractions of people interrupting my work to give me different work. The ideal is having a set list of tasks to complete every day/week and allowing me to complete the work by the deadlines without interference. The cubicle would enhance that awesomeness, allowing me the peace and quiet I need to calculate and figure out new shortcuts and ways to improve on things. It's usually in my downtime between projects that I'm the most creative and able to piece together things to create new solutions to existing problems. Plus, earlier in the day is better than later in the day, but there have been tons of studies proving that already.

Employees are most productive and more creative in the mornings than in the afternoons.

So why the sudden rant about cubicles? Well, my office has been remodeled once again. Luckily I was not moved in the process, but the surroundings were moved and it's affecting everything yet again. I had about two months of peace and comfort with a cubicle in my time here with this company. We moved to a new office, with a big room of cubicles (though with shorter walls than I'd prefer) and I shared my cube with another worker. Cubicle-sharing isn't that bad, in my opinion - especially when his schedule meant he only worked one shift and I had the whole place to myself for the other shift. I had my own desk I could decorate with my own bric-a-brac and a bulletin wall where I could pin things on my half.

And then I got moved to the other room. I had a window desk with a great view, but in one big room. They put up some spare cubicle walls to separate the two halves of the room, so I had one wall next to me where I could still pin things up, but it wasn't the same. I was in a half-room with three other people and no privacy. Even worse, our room connects to the boss's office. You don't have to read Scott Adams's book (the creator of Dilbert) to understand that proximity to the boss's office is directly correlated with the number of times you're asked to work on a project.

Today, things stepped down yet another notch. I entered the office to find that our room had been remodeled yet again. Our wall divider is now gone, and has been replaced with several extra desks, a few of which directly face our desks. Privacy is gone. I found a pile of my wall decorations placed on my desk, which had previously occupied the now-missing cubicle wall. I no longer have any remnants left of my brief life as a cubie.

I miss my cubicle.

Do you have a cube? Are you a cubie? Don't you wish you had a cubicle? Share!


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Food for Thought

Once again, a small offhand comment triggers a mental debate in my head that needs to come outside and play. It started as I pushed away the remains of my Caesar Salad for lunch with a disgusted look on my face.

"Why don't you finish your salad ever?" she asked.
"Because it's disgustingly bland and they use so little dressing," I replied.
"Well, food isn't supposed to be delicious - it's supposed to maintain life," she retorted.
"No," came my reply.

Just "No." Food IS supposed to be delicious. We wouldn't be here (in America) if the facts were any other way. If she were right (and she is not), we would have vitamins and calorie pills and flavorless mush like you read about in bad (and some good) science-fiction pieces. Such is farthest from the case. Sure, some idiots out there choose a bland and flavorless life in order to get nutrients and sustain life and nothing else - but it's just a minute population that it barely is worth mentioning at all.

The rest of us in the normal human race understand that food is supposed to be tasty. That's why we have taste buds in the first place.

Argument #1: A rational deity/entity would not have provided us with taste buds if food were not meant to have taste.

The atheist corrolary to that would be the concept of Nature or chaos theory or something like that. Fact remains that we HAVE taste buds. Ergo, food is meant to have taste. Otherwise we would have evolved to no longer HAVE taste buds. Humans not only have been focus on taste (and its partner in crime, smell) for so long that we recently discovered a new taste: umami. We continue to strive to understand how we taste and what the building blocks of taste are - which we would never have done if food were not meant to be delicious.

Argument #2: Cooking is proof that flavors can be created, enhanced and mixed - which would never have been necessary if food simply needed to be consumed for survival alone.

It's called COOKING. Recipes exist to remember what flavor creations have been created so that they can be replicated. Some are kept secret (something about 11 herbs and spices?) so that others cannot replicate those flavors for themselves. If food were not meant to be delicious, then why would billions of dollars and jobs be dependant on one flavor or recipe being more delicious than another? Why would billions in advertising be spent to compare one taste to another similar taste just to boast about which is more delicious?

Argument #3: Without spices, exploration would have been stagnated.

Spices have always been where the money is. In fact, ever since ancient Rome, spices have been vital to life and prosperity. Salt, for its curing purposes long long before the days of refrigerators, was a freakin' CURRENCY. That's how Roman soldiers were paid - and how the word "salary" came to exist. In fact, a poor soldier was not "worth his salt". As culture progressed, we searched for MORE flavors and spices, not fewer. With each new spice, new trade routes were established and this led to the whole notion of the "faster route to India" and all their lovely spices. Which accidentally led to, well, Columbus and the New World debacle.

I could go on further. I REALLY could. You don't want to mess with a fat guy who enjoys food and goes on a rampage when you insult his food or food in general. Sadly, though, I must get back to work now.

Your thoughts? Read more!

How Much is Enough?

This morning I stumbled upon the RedEye's cover page which featured the word "fat-osphere" and nearly lost my cool. It's not often that I get the chance to lose my cool before 7am, but there it was, staring straight at me. Begging me. Just dangling that abomination of the English language in front of me as if I weren't going to lose my cool.

The article (if you can call two pages of fluff about "fat people blogging" actual journalism) was not what offended me. There's a bunch of people out there who are overweight and are blogging to spread acceptance of the overweight to all of the internets and kudos to them and let's all eat a Kudos bar (whatever happened to Kudos bars? you never see them around anymore) and ha-ha we came up with this word "fat-osphere" to join fat people and the blogosphere. What got me going was the picture(s).

"These people are FAT??"

Maybe it's that I'm an elitist when it comes to my own disability/minority/issue. I AM FAT. One look, no question, case closed. I SEVERELY dislike people using the word "fat" in my presence when it is being used to describe someone who is not on a "one look, no question, case closed" level of obesity. Any time it happens, I want to shout, "THAT is NOT FAT! THIS is FAT!" It especially aggravates me when it's someone complaining about themselves being fat in my presence when the numbers don't lie and I AM TWO OF YOU PUT TOGETHER, YOU DUMB BITCH!

Are the people being talked about in the article overweight? Probably. Even though "overweight" and "obese" are currently overused as subjective words and their objective meanings are even more ridiculous because they rely on the BMI - a system created by a mathematician several centuries ago doing population studies and has nothing to do medically with anything.

Does that mean that they should unquestioningly call themselves "fat"? I don't think so. I think there's reasonable doubt. And while a debate could ensue and they could possibly win the argument to use the term, that's not a solid enough case off the bat to unflinchingly use it without the debate.

I can't be the only one out there with this problem.

I'm sure that there are people who have gone completely bald and overhear some guy with a receding hairline talking about how he's "going bald" or maybe a guy with legit symptoms of male pattern baldness (in a classic horseshoe pattern) using the term "bald" to describe himself and these completely-bald people get offended because THAT guy still HAS SOME HAIR and it's not a slam-dunk case of baldness, buddy!

Even in current politics, we've got the issue of the two "fighting minorities" on the Democratic ticket: the woman and the black guy. And yet, Obama's been put under the microscope about getting to use that term "black guy" for himself. Depending on who you are and your background, you might think that's up for debate and not at all a slam dunk case. You could be a well-to-do high-class attorney who thinks that any skin tone darker than a week in the Bahamas is "undoubtedly black". You could be an African-American who emigrated from Nigeria and judge the term "black" on roots and heritage connecting back to Africa and judge Obama accordingly. Many people have been judging Obama's decision to be the "black candidate" - and battle lines have been drawn numerous times as a result.

I'll even throw in a quick joke about Hillary Clinton getting to refer to herself as the "woman" candidate. Sure, most of America takes it at face value and simply assumes that it's correct, but I KNOW people out there who doubt it. Usually jokingly, but sometimes a little scary on the seriousness side as well. And frankly, I've never seen any proof either way. Of course, I don't use the internets for searches of presidential candidate pornography. I have much bigger tasks at hand. Like complaining about people calling themselves "fat", I suppose.

Which brings me back to the question: How fat is "fat"?

I'm an objective person. I'd like to say that the cutoff for unquestionable "fat" terminology would likely be a cutoff between 270 and 290 pounds, provided that the stomach sticks out further than anything else. I wouldn't want to discriminate against the weightlifters, who have lots of muscle mass that weighs a lot. You really don't want to discriminate against people who can break your spine.

Please, let me know what you think. Are you a member of some terminology that is also being infringed upon by those whose status is debatable? Are you "fat" and have a different idea for a cutoff point for those who want to be in the club without having to argue over possible membership? Do you just want to call me an "asshole"? Are you an "asshole" who wants to suggest a cutoff point because too many "half-assholes" are infringing upon your unquestionable "asshole" status?

Please leave a comment. And let's explore.

(RedEye - the "fat" picture/article is rotating screen #2)


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Finally a Winner!

I guess what they say about numbers is true. No matter what the probability, if you keep going and going over and over, eventually you're bound to catch it every now and then. It's enough to make me believe the "legend" of some guy asking every random woman he met if they'd like to fuck - right off the bat - and despite the horrible odds or if working, with enough test subjects he eventually got positive results every now and then.

I'm not sure if it's enough of a boost to advance from random sweepstakes to propositioning random women for sex on first sight, but it's at least enough to boost my confidence just slightly and I will keep pressing onward.

It all started around Thursday or Friday of last week when I found www.onlinesweepstakes.com from some news article about some guy who enters tons of contests and winds up winning tons of prizes. So I thought, if this guy can do it, why can't I?

Within one week of starting, and entering maybe 30 to 40 contests daily, I struck my first victory:

Congratulations. You have won a copy of GAMBIT. I have emailed your name and address to the author and she should be getting your copy out shortly. The book should appear within the next few weeks. Thank you for entering the drawing and please continue to support reviewingtheevidence.com by reading our reviews and entering our drawings.

Thank you

Barbara Franchi
Sharon Wheeler

For further verification, I went to their website, reviewingtheevidence.com and lo and behold! I was there on the front page!!

"The Winners of the drawing for a copy of GAMBIT by Karna Small Bodman are: Aaron Samuels, Chicago, IL;' Rhonda DiSanto, Cranston, RI, David G Bertolo, Scottsdale, AZ."

So it's true! Anyone can be a winner!

[insert random comment about not doing drugs]

I'm continuing onward, hoping for more victories and better prizes in the future. I'd tell you to come and join me in my crusade, but that just increases the competition!!

BACK OFF!!

(No, really - it's okay if you want in. Just remember who started you down the path of victory. Tithing is acceptable.) Read more!

Valentine's Day: The Japanese Way

Here in America, we see Valentine's Day as a "Hallmark holiday" with no roots or foundation and an excuse for couples to flaunt their happiness while single people mope/rant about couples flaunting their happiness. The color is red, whether to celebrate all things heart-shaped and sweet - or to rage against them. The candy of choice is chocolate (sometimes chocolate-covered cherries or other fruits) and also those chalky Necco-brand heart things that they SAY is candy - but a high sugar content alone does not a candy make. We have oodles of cards, possibly the most base foundation for the "Hallmark holiday" epithet, and from grade school onward they instill both a sense of caring and of sheer obligation.

In Japan, things are similar - but never the same.

Red is still the color of sweetness and anger at having no sweetness to call your own. Cards still exist, certainly. After all, Hallmark exists beyond language barriers. As for the candy - it's all about the chocolate. Just not in the way you'd expect. After all, here in America the commercialism leads us to "the most expensive chocolate is the best". But I have a question for all the lovers out there: When was the last time you MADE chocolates?

That's right - they make chocolates for the people they care about. And by "they" - I mean "women". While here in America, it pretty much falls on the male to take the time to make something special and set up plans for a romantic day/evening - in Japan, Valentine's Day is all about the females giving chocolate to the men in their lives. (Don't worry, all you feminists out there - there's a REASON other than subservience...) On top of this, the Japanese don't want to mix the notions of obligation and sincerity – God forbid that someone would ever get the wrong idea - so their chocolates come in two different categories:

"Giri-choco": Known as "obligation chocolate". Small, moderately-priced chocolates that are given to classmates, colleagues, co-workers - any man in your life who deserves recognition, but not your affection.

"Honmei-choco": Known as "specialty chocolate". More-elaborate chocolates if found in a store. Traditionally hand-made and cast in special molds; given to that "special someone" in your life, or someone you would want to become a "special someone".

(Another option in the honmei-choco line is a chocolate cake - anything that's chocolatey gets the job done, no matter what shape or form it comes in.)

So on the big Valentine's Day, women give these chocolates to the men in their lives they wish to recognize or appeal to. Men get to brag about how many chocolates they received, or the fantastic quality of the chocolates received, or the elaborate designs or anything else men can find to brag about chocolate-y goodness they've received.

To be a man without chocolate on Valentine's Day in Japan is the equivalent disgrace as being alone here in America. Or the fat kid at the end of the row in school, shaking his V-Day card box upside-down and having nothing come out.

Okay, so now that I've explained the rituals of Valentine's Day in Japan, I'm sure that feminists and most women in general are feeling gypped by it all. "Oh great, we have to do all the work to get something romantic on Valentine's?" Well, cheer up, ladies. Because unlike here in America where V-Day is a one-day event, in Japan there exists a counterpart holiday.

It's known as "White Day" and it takes place a month later on March 14th.

Okay, so what is this White Day and how does it relate to Valentine's Day?

Remember all those chocolates the women were giving to the men? Well, there's more reason to it than just being "nice". Every man who received chocolate has to remember who gave him what, because on White Day - he has to return the favor! The tradition started only a few decades ago, because the men felt so GUILTY about being showered with affection on Valentine's Day by the women, and they decided to make a new holiday to return the favor. Not only are men supposed to return the favor with a gift in return, but it should be of a HIGHER value than the gift that was given to them a month prior. Traditionally this is in the form of cookies or chocolates, but there's a reason why White Day sales are some of the biggest that take place in Japan. If you received handmade chocolates, your return gift has to be equally thoughtful - and probably NOT something you made yourself. Jewelry and women's clothing/accessories are usually the biggest sales on White Day.

So there you have it - a holiday not created from commercial Hallmark, but out of sheer guilt from receiving presents. Only in Japan, huh?

You want to hear something awful? While in Japan, the men felt guilty enough about being showered with gifts and chocolate on Valentine's that they made a new holiday just to return the favor out of obligation and fairness - here in America we did the opposite. Men, feeling they were entitled to something extra for all of the effort and thought that went into their Valentine's Day plans and gifts for their valentines, decided as well to make up a new holiday (though not a fully-recognized one yet, if ever). Rather than one of obligation to be fair and give something in return - it's one of obligation on the VALENTINE'S part to give something in return.

That's right - March 14th in America is "Steak and a Blowjob Day".

I'll leave you to ponder that holiday, while I count up all of my chocolates given to me today by the women who appreciate my being in their life.

Yup, still ZERO. (At least in Japan I could be happy about having no obligations for White Day...) Read more!