Random pointless thoughts in January

I have been trying to find something amusing to write about today. I am not having too much luck. I peruse the news for oddities and weirdness but today's is full of woe and turmoil.

I suppose this story about the Giant Green Blob is amusing. But it's so far away. And so trite.

It also appears that Verizon is going to be pushing the iPhone. Many people were unhappy with AT&T's service so this is a good thing. Though my brother was not happy with his Verizon service. We shall see if the complaints continue. Maybe it's not the service but the device? I think I just blasphemed Apple... I will get hate mail now.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to block Apple's attempt to trademark the term "App Store". I have no idea why... maybe MS is going to start their own and wants to somehow trick Apple-heads into buying from them?

[Now I'll get even more hate mail]

Myspace.com seems to be falling apart. Facebook apparently is winning the Social Networking war. I don't like either of them myself. But that may be because I am a recluse at heart. One of these days, I'll buy me a cave somewhere very remote and withdraw from society. But only if it has cable.

The violent rhetoric has now infiltrated sports... Oh, wait... that's just football. Never mind, violent rhetoric is a fundamental part of that game.

David Nelson died. I used to watch Ozzie and Harriet every week. Actually, I wasn't given much of a choice. My father controlled our TV. David was the "good" son. Ricky was that rebellious rock and roller. David was the clean-cut, happy, all American boy of the 50's. Ricky was a bit darker, more angst ridden. Ricky died back in 1985. Thus disproving the old adage that "only the good die young."


Sorry, that is the best I can do today. There's just not enough irony out there to overcome the angry rhetoric.

An attempt to put it in perspective

The events of January 8th have prompted a number of blogs, pundits, and editorial boards to make statements about the tone of discourse in this country. It would seem, based on these, that the tone and the level of anger and animosity has reached critical levels. Maybe so. I think it is quite a bit less than during the events leading up to the Civil War. Even less than what I saw in the 1960's over Civil Rights and the Vietnam War.

We won't reduce the tensions by repressing the anger, I don't believe. That would just feed the "beast" and create more outbursts such as what happened on that day. Besides, I believe the anger of citizens, collectively, is what drives changes in policies and that is mostly for the better. People vote out politicians with whom they are angry, people protest against policies which they see as "unfair" or "unjust", and people vote for "change" out of anger and frustration with the status quo.

We've had these violent outbursts like this one in Tucson before, many of them. A McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, back in 1984 was the scene of a horrific massacre. Charles Whitman back in 1966 killed 16 people and wounded 32 others from a tower at the University of Texas. There have been numerous others throughout history, some with political overtones (think Harper's Ferry or Shays Rebellion) but most not.

These are not unique to the U.S., we have only to look at Rwanda some years ago (1994). Or to the insanity of the Islamic terrorists of today, or to the radical terrorists of the 60's and 70's with the skyjackings and embassy attacks. Madmen can be anywhere. Every society has had these things in their histories.

It is only natural for the rest of us to want to find some thread of rationality behind these acts. Some cause we can determine so that we might prevent them in the future. I don't see any way we could do that. We cannot remove all guns from society and prevent them that way. Two incidents in China back in April of 2010 prove this. Two separate incidents of knife wielding madmen within a couple of days. No guns but many killed and injured. Even a regimented society like China cannot prevent these things.

Human beings are simply capable of great and irrational violence. That won't change because of gun control laws or a toning down of the type of political discourse in this (or any) country.

We cannot change society into some peaceful and idyllic paradise. Not with laws, not with repression, not with an increase in freedom. All we can do is try to protect ourselves, try not to be complacent and try not to become too paranoid.

Footnote:
In looking for a history of massacres or acts of major violence in the US, I came across this page: http://alynptyltd.tripod.com/nd/Massacre.htm

He's probably harmless.

Trawling for data

I have been meaning to comment on something... This seemed like a good day to do that...

Along the right side of this blog, there is a little "gadget" that tracks the visits. It's provided by "Feedjit" and it reports your city (nearest internet node location, actually) and something of what you read. The location it gives for me is about 75 miles north of here. Though not accurate, it gives us a general idea of where a visitor was from. It is what is read that is interesting.

By far, the most popular destination is Shopping Trip. I am not exactly sure why. Following that is Random Musings for May. I detect a slight pattern there. Those two seem very popular with Middle Eastern countries. Another favorite is The Myth of Pandora.

I am not actually spying on anyone, I don't dig too deeply into the preferences of the visitors here, I'm just happy they dropped by at all.

I worry a little about who collects this data and what they do with it. Most of the data sifted from various sites is used to direct advertising. Just as those surveys that are attached to product registration are used. You didn't really think they wanted to know how much you made and your age range and job category so they could improve the product, did you? It's all about sales.

I sell nothing on this site. I carry no (nor solicit any) advertising here. So long as the site is free for me to use, I see no reason to try to profit from it in any monetary way. I do profit from it by venting, by meeting new people, and by learning about things tangential to my posts. It's fun for me. If it wasn't, I would not do it.

I have come to think of it as a "diary" of sorts; a place where I can say anything at all. But instead of locking my mental ramblings up in a drawer somewhere, I let anyone who wanders in read them. I suppose I should place a warning on the page...




Caution! Read at your own risk!

"Please Sir, I want some more"

I once remarked to a friend that my theory was that the difference between a recession and a booming economy was about 2 percentage points. I basically invented that "2 percentage points" difference. I have no foundation or experience in macro-economics. To be honest, I am not very good at managing my own micro-economics; I spend too much, I save too little, and was never good at keeping tabs on it all. This may be the reason that both wife vers. 1.0 and wife vers. 2.0 just happened to be good with such things. I need a CFO around the house or I'd be broke most of the time.

My youthful understanding of economics was similar to my "Theory of Girlfriends". The "Theory of Girlfriends" states that if you have a girlfriend, you will attract new prospects for same; if you do not have a girlfriend, no one will date you. If I had money, opportunities to get more would appear; If I did not have money, no opportunities could be found.

However, that lack of financial acuity has never kept me (or, apparently, most everyone else) from criticizing how the economy is being run by the government. Let's be fair, the government doesn't actually run the economy. It sets a tone, it encourages or discourages growth though various policies and legislation but we really do have a market economy, not a centrally planned one. Yet that is exactly who we blame for a bad economy and who we expect to get us out of a hole they, presumably, dug for us all.

Over the years, my economic theories have increased in complexity. I no longer see a direct correlation between having money and good opportunities to get more. The relationship is still there, mind you, it's just not absolute. Days and nights spent in casinos have taught me that. Dabbling in the stock market reinforced that complexity.

Government, in my view, can only put up roadblocks or smooth the way for the economy. And I think there are a couple of ways these are done. First is tax policy. The second is enforcement of laws.

Currently, we have two major political parties and these are in the process of being defined ideologically as "liberal" (Democratic) and "conservative" (Republican). And the ideologies are also being further defined as "pro-labor" and "pro-business." Or "tax and spend" and "cut taxes and spend." That's right, neither party seems to want to actually cut spending. Neither one actually cuts taxes, either, they just increase them or move them around or, more likely, both increase them and move them around so it appears that taxes were cut when they were actually raised. You also need to know that cutting spending is defined as not increasing spending on various things by as much as you wanted is called "spending cuts" or "gutting [insert popular program here]."

It's a political charade wherein politicians can claim they voted for (or supported) lower taxes and tried to cut spending while also claiming their political opponent was in favor of uncontrolled fiscal government growth.

Much of this reminds me of my mother. She would remark from time to time about credit cards. She said she never had to worry about maxing out her credit card debt because "they always raise my limit before I reach it." And this is what Congress is about to do... raise the limit on their collective credit card. They are arguing over whether to raise the debt ceiling for the nation. They do this because they fear, as far as I can tell, that not doing so will mean the government will grind to a halt and we'll default on our debts.

Now you and I (who cannot simply tell the bank or credit card people to "gimme more!") do something different as we approach our credit limits. We start looking at what we can do without. We start cutting back on how much we spend and on what we spend it on. We prioritize. Congress does this also but they make everything the "number one priority."

I don't really think this new Congress will do anything differently.

A couple of random thoughts struck me

I just heard a PA (that would be "Public Announcement" for those of you who are, apparently, clueless about these things) on the radio that was a little morality play about using one's small child to clear a hornet nest from the eave of one's house. It is full of little chuckles when the child expresses fear of falling ("Oh, you understand gravity! You're so smart!") or confusion ("I can't see... are they biting me?" "No, silly... Hornets don't bite, they sting!"). It's a wonderful piece. Sure to entertain and inform anyone with small, exploitable children.

It took me back. When my son was about 6, I managed to convince him to crawl under the house and bring some speaker wire from the back den to the living room in front where I had drilled a small hole in the floor for the speakers I planned to put out there. Before you accuse me of child abuse, I usually had to restrain him from getting into that crawl space. He was eager to do it.

Still, being a responsible parent, I was concerned about things like spiders, rats, and poisonous snakes. So I made a cursory search with a flashlight. I would have made a thorough search but the batteries were old and only held out for a few minutes. I am just kidding. The batteries held out until he crawled back out.

I would have crawled under the house myself but the opening was too small for me. My little volunteer had no trouble fitting through the opening. And there actually was plenty of light from other openings and that flashlight. I carefully instructed him on how to use the flashlight to fend off the giant rats and basted him with insect repellent before turning him loose.

No harm came to him at all. No insects bit him, no rats even challenged him, and the snakes all stayed hidden.

He grew up in spite this incident, of falling off a bike and breaking his arm (age 7), bouncing off the road after a skateboard fall and gouging a hole just below his knee (he still insisted on playing baseball that weekend... age 9), getting his thumb caught between the chain and the sprocket on his bike (age 14), and countless other little incidents. Now he owns a nice big house of his own and like the other two houses he owned, this one has no crawlspace under it.

I wonder why?

Every so often, someone drops me an email asking me to mention their blog or asking if I would advertise their (usually commercial) site. I decline these as politely as possible most of the time. But I have this fetish and someone chanced upon it.

A guy named "Ken" sent me an email with this link:
4o Funniest Cartoons to share with the nurse in your life


So, I checked it out. Because that fetish I told you about? It involves nurses... Something about white uniforms with white stockings... none of which I will get into here. In the process, one of the cartoons led me to another site, Nursetoons, which I also checked out. A friend of mine has a standing joke...

Joe: "Sorry I was late. I was sick in bed... with a nurse."

Me (or anyone willing to play along): "Really?"

Joe: "Yeah, she even said 'You're really sick!'"

Be kind to your nurse, she may be the only thing preventing your doctor from malpractice.