A little holiday Fun...
Recently in Stupid Should Hurt Category
Yesterday we celebrated the 4th, the birthday of this great nation I live in. Sure it has lots of faults, but still the greatest nation where one can live in freedom. Of course that is just my opinion, and one that isn't universally held.
For example Chris Satullo, a columnist for the Philadelphia Enquirer doesn't think we deserve to celebrate our nations birthday. That we should don sackcloth and ashes while we lament our many sins against the world.
Put the fireworks in storage.
Cancel the parade.
Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time.
This year, America doesn't deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.
For we have sinned.
We have failed to pay attention. We've settled for lame excuses. We've spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago.
The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner.
The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing.
....
The men huddled long ago in Philadelphia had better reason. A British fleet floated off the Jersey coast, full of hands eager to hang them from the nearest lampposts.
Yet they pledged their lives and sacred honor - no idle vow - to defend the "inalienable rights" of men. Inalienable - what does that signify? It means rights that belong to each person, simply by virtue of being human. Rights that can never be taken away, no matter what evil a person might do or might intend.
Surely one of those is the right not to be tortured. Surely that is a piece of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
....
We left it to those in power to keep our precious selves from harm. Whatever it took.
We took the coward's way.
The world sees this, even if we are too dim to grasp it. We've lost respect. We've shamed the memory of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.
Mr Satullo forgets the actions of the Militia of his own state of Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. They were responsible for the Gnadenhutten massacre of 96 Christian American Indians. The village was accused of raids into Pennsylvania on behalf of the British which they were innocent of. However the Pennsylvanian Militia held a council and voted to kill them all anyway. The entire village.
Yet our actions liberated 50 million from a bastard dictator, while keeping 300 million free in this country. Would it have been more honorable to let tens, or hundreds of thousands of Americans die before twisting the arm of a terrorist? Perhaps he should be reminded of great presidents like Roosevelt, who locked up all of the Japanese on our soil, or president Truman who blew up a few cities and tens of thousands of people. This columist's view holds us to a suicidal standard in the world of radical terrorism.
There are many names that I would like to spew at Chris Satullo, but I will bite my tongue on them and just say that only needless defeat passifying the enemy is dishonorable.
This is supposedly a true discussion that happened on an IRC channel (channel #stopHipHop), although translated from German. A typical troll by the name of bitchchecker gets into it with Elch, the leader of the IRC channel.
Just for information, so that the gist of it doesn't go over any heads, IP 127.0.0.1 is localhost or the IP address of the computer you're running.
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-a97f9137.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-61a2169c.dip.t-dialin.net) has joined #stopHipHop
<bitchchecker> why do you kick me
<bitchchecker> can't you discus normally
<bitchchecker> answer!
<Elch> we didn't kick you
<Elch> you had a ping timeout: * bitchchecker (~java@euirc-a97f9137.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
<bitchchecker> what ping man
<bitchchecker> the timing of my pc is right
<bitchchecker> i even have dst
<bitchchecker> you banned me
<bitchchecker> amit it you son of a bitch
<HopperHunter|afk> LOL
<HopperHunter|afk> shit you're stupid, DST^^
<bitchchecker> shut your mouth WE HAVE DST!
<bitchchecker> for two weaks already
<bitchchecker> when you start your pc there is a message from windows that DST is applied.
<Elch> You're a real computer expert
<bitchchecker> shut up i hack you
<Elch> ok, i'm quiet, hope you don't show us how good a hacker you are ^^
<bitchchecker> tell me your network number man then you're dead
<Elch> Eh, it's 129.0.0.1
<Elch> or maybe 127.0.0.1
<Elch> yes exactly that's it: 127.0.0.1 I'm waiting for you great attack
<bitchchecker> in five minutes your hard drive is deleted
<Elch> Now I'm frightened
<bitchchecker> shut up you'll be gone
<bitchchecker> i have a program where i enter your ip and you're dead
<bitchchecker> say goodbye
<Elch> to whom?
<bitchchecker> to you man
<bitchchecker> buy buy
<Elch> I'm shivering thinking about such great Hack0rs like you
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-61a2169c.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-61a2169c.dip.t-dialin.net) has joined #stopHipHop
<bitchchecker> why do you kick me
<bitchchecker> can't you discus normally
<bitchchecker> answer!
<Elch> we didn't kick you
<Elch> you had a ping timeout: * bitchchecker (~java@euirc-a97f9137.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
<bitchchecker> what ping man
<bitchchecker> the timing of my pc is right
<bitchchecker> i even have dst
<bitchchecker> you banned me
<bitchchecker> amit it you son of a bitch
<HopperHunter|afk> LOL
<HopperHunter|afk> shit you're stupid, DST^^
<bitchchecker> shut your mouth WE HAVE DST!
<bitchchecker> for two weaks already
<bitchchecker> when you start your pc there is a message from windows that DST is applied.
<Elch> You're a real computer expert
<bitchchecker> shut up i hack you
<Elch> ok, i'm quiet, hope you don't show us how good a hacker you are ^^
<bitchchecker> tell me your network number man then you're dead
<Elch> Eh, it's 129.0.0.1
<Elch> or maybe 127.0.0.1
<Elch> yes exactly that's it: 127.0.0.1 I'm waiting for you great attack
<bitchchecker> in five minutes your hard drive is deleted
<Elch> Now I'm frightened
<bitchchecker> shut up you'll be gone
<bitchchecker> i have a program where i enter your ip and you're dead
<bitchchecker> say goodbye
<Elch> to whom?
<bitchchecker> to you man
<bitchchecker> buy buy
<Elch> I'm shivering thinking about such great Hack0rs like you
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-61a2169c.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
Post Source: Time
Click for larger
From his Cessna a mile above the southern Amazon, John Carter looks down on the destruction of the world's greatest ecological jewel. He watches men converting rain forest into cattle pastures and soybean fields with bulldozers and chains. He sees fires wiping out such gigantic swaths of jungle that scientists now debate the "savannization" of the Amazon. Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texas cowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, says it's going to get worse fast. "It gives me goose bumps," says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier. "It's like witnessing a rape." ....
"You can't protect it. There's too much money to be made tearing it down," he says. "Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work."
This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels. An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate.
Propelled by mounting anxieties over soaring oil costs and climate change, biofuels have become the vanguard of the green-tech revolution, the trendy way for politicians and corporations to show they're serious about finding alternative sources of energy and in the process slowing global warming. The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol--ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter--in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade.
"You can't protect it. There's too much money to be made tearing it down," he says. "Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work."
This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels. An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate.
Propelled by mounting anxieties over soaring oil costs and climate change, biofuels have become the vanguard of the green-tech revolution, the trendy way for politicians and corporations to show they're serious about finding alternative sources of energy and in the process slowing global warming. The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol--ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter--in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade.
How ironic that the deforestation is being driven by clean energy environmentalists.
...with the compactor about to be activated.
Post Source: San Francisco Chronicle
That should be enough to make a person stop drinking, at least to excess.
William M. Bowen, 27, awoke about 6:30 a.m. Thursday to find that he was inside a commercial trash-collection truck filled with waste.
A Rumpke garbage truck driver had emptied a bin behind the Muncie Eye Center into his truck and was about to activate its trash compressor when he heard someone screaming.
"He looked up and this gentleman was standing out the top of our truck," said Larry Green, market safety supervisor for Rumpke.
Green said the only thing Bowen said to the driver who found him was that he was cold.
"This gentleman was extremely intoxicated," he said.
A Rumpke garbage truck driver had emptied a bin behind the Muncie Eye Center into his truck and was about to activate its trash compressor when he heard someone screaming.
"He looked up and this gentleman was standing out the top of our truck," said Larry Green, market safety supervisor for Rumpke.
Green said the only thing Bowen said to the driver who found him was that he was cold.
"This gentleman was extremely intoxicated," he said.
Apparently, and I'm guessing because he said he was cold, he crawled into the trash bin to stay warm. An intoxicated mind doesn't work rationally.
This is an Atom Films animation that I linked long ago, but embed code wasn't available at the time. I find it fascinating not just because of the humor, but I'm rather awed by the work that went into producing this flash film.
Enjoy.
Post Source: Newsweek
Back in 1995 Clifford Stoll made some pretty pessimistic predictions for the future of the internet.
But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.
Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works. ....
What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. ....
Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts.
Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works. ....
What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. ....
Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts.
However I do pretty much agree with his last paragraph. I spend a lot of time online and gotten to know a lot of people quite well. While I may consider some friend, even the closet online relationships are pretty cold when compared to life.
What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where--in the holy names of Education and Progress--important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.
Via Dean Esmay
Post Source: WBBM CBS TV Channel 2 Chicago
So, what do you do when you gamble away your apartment, law practice, parents' home, and owe the IRS $58,000? You sue the casinos for $20Million for not being responsible for you, and cutting you off.
But her gambling spun out of control: She said she would go days at a time at the tables, not eating or sleeping, brushing her teeth with disposable wipes so she didn't have to leave.
She says her losses totaled nearly $1 million.
Now she's chasing the longest of long shots: a $20 million racketeering lawsuit in federal court against six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas, claiming they had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off.
Arelia Margarita Taveras filed a $20
million racketeering lawsuit in
federal court against six Atlantic
City casinos and one in Las Vegas,
claiming they had a duty to notice
her compulsive gambling problem and
cut her off.They knew I was going for days without eating or sleeping," Taveras said. "I would pass out at the tables. They had a duty of care to me. Nobody in their right mind would gamble for four or five straight days without sleeping."
Experts say her case will be difficult to prove, but it provides an unusually detailed window into the life of a problem gambler.
"It's like crack, only gambling is worse than crack because it's mental," said Taveras, 37, a New Yorker who now lives in Minnesota. "It creeps up on you, the impulse. It's a sickness."
She lost her law practice, her apartment, her parents' home, and owes the IRS $58,000. She said she even considered swerving into oncoming traffic to kill herself. ....
"How are you supposed to know whether this was a woman who was just having a good time, or had money and was just lonely, as opposed to someone who couldn't control themselves?" he said.
Arnie Wexler, the former head of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, estimates there are 5 million problem gamblers in the United States, with 15 million at risk of becoming compulsive.
"Hers is not a rare case, believe me," said Wexler, who says he had a gambling problem. "This is the most powerful addiction you can have without putting something into your body. You remember your first big win, and you think `Hey, I can do this again; I can get it all back.'"
As a young lawyer, Taveras made a name for herself representing the families of victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in New York City's borough of Queens in November 2001, killing 265 people.
She says her losses totaled nearly $1 million.
Now she's chasing the longest of long shots: a $20 million racketeering lawsuit in federal court against six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas, claiming they had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off.
Arelia Margarita Taveras filed a $20
million racketeering lawsuit in
federal court against six Atlantic
City casinos and one in Las Vegas,
claiming they had a duty to notice
her compulsive gambling problem and
cut her off.
Experts say her case will be difficult to prove, but it provides an unusually detailed window into the life of a problem gambler.
"It's like crack, only gambling is worse than crack because it's mental," said Taveras, 37, a New Yorker who now lives in Minnesota. "It creeps up on you, the impulse. It's a sickness."
She lost her law practice, her apartment, her parents' home, and owes the IRS $58,000. She said she even considered swerving into oncoming traffic to kill herself. ....
"How are you supposed to know whether this was a woman who was just having a good time, or had money and was just lonely, as opposed to someone who couldn't control themselves?" he said.
Arnie Wexler, the former head of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, estimates there are 5 million problem gamblers in the United States, with 15 million at risk of becoming compulsive.
"Hers is not a rare case, believe me," said Wexler, who says he had a gambling problem. "This is the most powerful addiction you can have without putting something into your body. You remember your first big win, and you think `Hey, I can do this again; I can get it all back.'"
As a young lawyer, Taveras made a name for herself representing the families of victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in New York City's borough of Queens in November 2001, killing 265 people.
Why would the courts even hear a case like this? I think this is the generation that grew up a decade or two behind me (60s & 70s) and don't have any concept of personal responsibility.
Can't say I understand why guys want to hang rubber testicles from their hitch, but I see no harm. To each his own or different strokes and all that. It must be a testosterone thing because I can't see a woman hanging a rubber vagina from her vehicle.
Virginia State Del. Lionel Spruill introduced a bill to ban displaying replicas of *snark* human genitalia on vehicles. His reason, a safety issue because it could distract other drivers. Truck drivers would risk a $250 fine under his proposal.
Tasha Maltby doesn't mind, nor does she mind the weird stares.
"I am a pet, I generally act animal like and I lead a really easy life," she said.
"I don't cook or clean and I don't go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It's my culture and my choice. It isn't hurting anyone."
"I don't cook or clean and I don't go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It's my culture and my choice. It isn't hurting anyone."
Hmmm no cooking or cleaning? Nah! still too humiliating, not to mention the hassles.
Last month, with Miss Maltby on a leash as usual, the couple tried to board a bus at the bus station.
The driver, who was off duty, was standing near the door.
Mr Graves alleged: "He shoved me off the bus. He called us freaks and he called Tasha a dog.
"He said, 'We don't let freaks and dogs like you on'. ....
In a separate incident, police were called when the driver, who has not been named, refused to allow other passengers on board after the couple ignored his orders and sat down.
The driver, who was off duty, was standing near the door.
Mr Graves alleged: "He shoved me off the bus. He called us freaks and he called Tasha a dog.
"He said, 'We don't let freaks and dogs like you on'. ....
In a separate incident, police were called when the driver, who has not been named, refused to allow other passengers on board after the couple ignored his orders and sat down.
But according to a Reuters report, the bus firm Arriva has apologized.
Arriva would not comment on specifics but said it apologised if the couple felt they had been discriminated against. It added, however, that the driver was worried about safety and the company told Maltby to take the leash off in the future.
"We have spoken to the driver who has talked about health and safety," a spokesman said. "Should she be attached to a chain and something happens on the bus, that could be dangerous. All we are saying is that she is very welcome to use the buses but not when she is on her lead."
"We have spoken to the driver who has talked about health and safety," a spokesman said. "Should she be attached to a chain and something happens on the bus, that could be dangerous. All we are saying is that she is very welcome to use the buses but not when she is on her lead."
Well I guess different strokes and all of that...
H/T to Wicked Thoughts blog
