the faces of evil

A week ago, religious cult leader Rick Warren asked Obama and McCain about evil; wisely, they both acknowledged that it exists (wow! how controversial! what a lame question!).

Today, there are various Faces Of Evil:

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# 1 - meth head assassins

I wonder if these White Christian Republicans [Tharin Robert Gartrell, 28; Nathan Johnson, 32; and Shawn Adolf, 33] knew they'd be famous more than 48 hours ahead of the time they planned to assassinate Senator Obama? I wonder how long it'll be before Gartrell and his gang are linked to Karl Christian Rove, and whether he financed them?

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# 2 - swiftboat bigots


They may also wish to look for financial links from alleged white supremacist misunderstood tycoon Harold C. Simmons, who lives here in Dallas.

Simmons is the billionaire scumbag Texas sweetheart who's financing this year's swiftboat ad about Barack Obama. He has practice; he did the same thing to John Kerry in 2004 which is why we got Four More Years of George W. Bush.

At least Simmons is following Republic Golden Rule #3: Lie, then lie some more. He understands that the small-minded fools who make up the base of the Republic Party will believe most anything.

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# 3 - Karl Christian Rove (and his co-conspirators at Fox "News")



I look forward to the day when the US version of The Nuremberg Trials are held, with these defendants getting the same fate as the Nazi leaders.

If we still had The Fairness Doctrine, they'd all be off the air by now.

the impartince of good speling

On one of the mailing lists I'm on, the following "conversation" took place yesterday:

... sent out a memo about using there name as a generic name for air ambulance. At our place the reporters were told to use "Air Ambilance"

then someone asked what an "Ambilance" was.

A third person chimed in with "So now we're complaining about spelling error's??"

Oy, vey.

Part of the reason the rest of the world (rightly so) sees Texas as a hillbilly backwater is because the vast majority of natives here can't spell (or grammar) their way out of a wet paper bag. In the first two sentences above, there are two errors. In the last sentence, there is one. I didn't see the use in correcting "error's" but couldn't help but feel sorry for the writer.

When I read something (whether online or in print) it's distracting to deal with the near-constant grammar errors, misspelling and misuse of punctuation. I don't understand how students can get a diploma when they can't complete even one sentence without an error that those of us with half a brain will trip over as we try to understand what they're saying.

Then, as seen in the second sentence above, someone else has the audacity to defend these errors under the guise that "smart people can figure out what he's trying to say". It's enough to make me want to take away "they're diploma" [sic] until they can converse like rational adults.

Perhaps they were home schooled, and their parents were incapable of correcting the errors, or didn't want Little Joe Bob to have poor self esteem, so they gave them a passing score although it was undeserved.

All of us make occasional typos, but with the ubiquity of spell checkers and grammar checkers, there's no excuse for such clumsiness; it simply breeds more and more bad behavior, until communication devolves into what passes for Acceptable via Text Messaging.

first victim of new Dallas City Council policy?

Just thirty days ago, I predicted it wouldn't be long before someone dies as a result of the recent Dallas City Council vote to tow vehicles if they're uninsured. Today, this article landed on the local paper's website:

A woman died this morning after she drove off the road while fleeing during a traffic stop, Dallas police said. Lillian Volk was pulled over around 3 a.m. in the 18100 block of Preston Road and sped away in a 2003 blue Ford pickup before receiving her ticket, according to police.

The officer did not chase her but found her vehicle about 10 blocks away in the 17000 block of Preston Road where she had driven off the road, struck several trees and flipped over, Dallas police Senior Cpl. Kevin Janse. Ms. Volk was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Dallas County medical examiner's office. A cause of death was not immediately available.

Coincidence? It will be interesting to see if Ms. Volk had insurance, or if this was caused by something else (warrants, blood alcohol, drugs, etc.) Sadly, she's dead so she won't be able to provide her side of the story except via autopsy, or a media reporter who's willing to do some digging.

death sentences handed out by Dallas City Council

Earlier this week, the Dallas City Council handed out am unknown number of death sentences, to begin in January 2009. The most likely victims will be innocent, living in the poor parts of town, but .. they'll all be random and it could happen to anyone.

Okay, so The Council didn't hand out the sentences directly; this is the result of Unforeseen Consequences Legislation. For me, this is a no-brainer but that's probably because I have the audacity to Think Before Voting.

These upcoming death sentences are due to a combination of two laws: one already on the books and the other (apparently) coming in January. It's already well publicized that the Dallas Police [DPD] have a "no chase policy" which forbids them from commencing a chase if it would endanger citizens. Now, add the new 2009 rule which will force the towing of any vehicle being operated without insurance (estimates of 10% come to mind) and the race is on.

What will happen is that the DPD will attempt to pull over someone for a minor traffic violation - broken tail light, for example. The driver, knowing that she has no insurance, will envision her car (the only means of getting to work, grocery, etc) taken away if she is stopped. She also knows (word travels fast) that the DPD won't stop her if she goes into Massive Evasion Mode, so .. she takes off at a high rate of speed. Being new at this Evasive Mode Thing, she hits/kills a pedestrian, or (more commonly) T-bones into a small 4-door sedan and kills the occupants. Thanks to the Dallas City Council, this is exactly what to expect in early 2009.

Sure, in a perfect world I'd like to see everyone insured, too. I think the fairest way is to incorporate minimal insurance (think: Liability) in the price of gasoline. Yes, gas prices will rise slightly, but this will be mitigated by the slight reduction of insurance premiums for the 90% of us who are financially responsible. And it won't subject the rest of us to an out-of-control motorist whose only crime is that she chose to buy food for her family instead of liability insurance.

ramifications

No wonder the Dallas Managed News is losing subscribers hand-over-fist (they've lost more subscribers than any paper in the country). Not only are their subscribers fed up with the über right wing editorial slant (didn't they notice the election results?) but their incompetence in even the basics is amazing.

Case in point is the recent (several days ago) decision by a DMN Rocket Scientist to rename their blogs .. without telling anyone. I only noticed because I've grown accustomed to checking their RSS feed every day or so (after changing to the Weekend Only [physical] Edition) and noticed that nothing had updated since the 24th. Usually if there's nothing one day, it can be ascribed to a technical fault and will self-correct the following day.

So, today I decided to navigate their website to see if they were still blogging -- perhaps they simply stopped without communicating (something newspapers are supposedly good at). Sure enough, the blogs were still there, although they had been renamed AND the RSS feed addresses had changed - radically. I double-checked the old feed, and there was no polite indication that this was about to happen. What idiots!

I manually made the corrections and can now see things again. I suspect 98.3% of those who were subscribed to the old feeds won't be able to figure it out, and the DMN will have lost additional (online) readers.

Perhaps one day they'll wake up. Hopefully before 21 Dec 2012 (when the world ends).

hard to believe, but ..

... after reading reports of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia University, I can only conclude that there's at least one world leader with an IQ lower than that of George Walker "Dubya" Bush.

The Perfect Storm

Last week, I decided to experiment with the Celsius settings in my car. It's mildly odd to see the inside temperature of 21, knowing that's toasty. This morning (en route a customer) it said -3, and had inched all the way up to +1 before I returned home. The scale's been easy for me to adapt to, so I'm still puzzled by America's inability to switch from the oh-so-quaint Fahrenheit scale. Not to mention the equally quaint ounces-pounds-gallons volume measurements. Bah.

Unrelated: I had lunch with Jill Wazzabob (who was in town for a visit) and Drew-Bob on Tuesday. Jill called at 11:27 and offered to meet here at 1pm. Then, Drew called at 12:12 saying he was just leaving his employer's parking lot. So, all 3 of us ended up at Chuck's Burgers, Solving World Hunger. Fascinating.

Now, Jill's back in Hoosierville where it's nice and warm, unlike here, where it's -4. Yes, Celsius.

an observation

just when I start to think there may be some hope for the world, I stop to read the Dallas Managed News' Letters To The Editor, or even Fundies Say The Darndest Things.

I then reallize that, indeed, There Is No Hope, put my headphones back on, and continue along my way.

either way, it's still $20

I typically use a tire (tyre, to you Brits) pressure gauge in the car, when I remember to check the air. Often that's about once a month, unless I notice the car's a bit sluggish taking a corner.

So, when it came time to replace a front floor mat, I spotted (nearby) an acceptable price on a set of Indicator Valve Caps for the tires (Tire Check, by Kleen Wheels). Now, as I'm approaching my parked car, I can glance down and see when one/more of my tires has lost enough air to merit a stop at the air pump. The indicator is difficult to master: green=good and red=bad. Golly, I hope I can remember this. The set of four was $20.

Speaking of air, I recently asked the "experts" about the trend of some car service places to fill tires with nitrogen instead of "plain air". The merchants claim that the nitrogen molecules are larger, and hence won't leak as fast. For $20 (i.e. $5/tyre) that should be true, but my local experts say it's basically a marketing ploy (i.e. "crap"). Maybe if I was driving a racecar around Texas Motor Speedway, but not on the way to the market.

stem cells == white paint

Since my post on Wednesday, I've been trying to think of an analogy that a 3rd grader (and hence, Our Beloved President) could understand regarding ESC [Embryonic Stem Cells]. While it may take additional work, I'm thinking the example of PAINT may be workable.

For the moment, let's equate ESC with white paint. If you've ever had a custom color mixed, you know they always start with white and then add stuff to achieve the desired color. ESC and human tissue appear to be a little like that. Start with an ESC, mold it this way or that and it becomes bone marrow, or lymph glands, or a pancreas.

If you don't use the white paint in a certain amount of time, it drys up and must be thrown away. The ESCs at the heart of The Argument are leftovers, from couples who used the frozen embryos to conceive a child. Once that task was done, the remaining embryos (400,000 at last count) are either kept until they're no longer wanted by the couple, or thrown out. Like garbage.

Here's the rub: President Quagmire and his ilk don't seem to be concerned when they're thrown out with the trash, but they don't want that "garbage" used in ESC research, either. Maybe they're assuming that frozen embryos are, by definition, future liberal voters. Using my analogy, they don't want anyone to use their white paint to make shades of blue; they'd rather the paint dry up. That's what I don't understand: what (quote) "ethical" statement that's making.

Does my analogy work? Do you think it's too complex for Rove's Puppet (President Quagmire) to understand?

Stupidity in the White House

Deep Thought: the important things in life aren't covered in the TAKS [Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills] test. If anyone ever graduates not knowing the difference between "your" and "you're" they should not receive a diploma.

Speaking of the Biggest Morons of All Time, this News Flash just landed in my inbox:

"In the first veto of his presidency, President Bush has vetoed the ESC [Embryonic Stem Cell] bill", which would've allowed for federal funds to go to ESC research.

This just goes to show what an FTE [FunFilt Texas Edjacation] will do for you. The Moron doesn't understand what an ESC is (i.e. can't distinguish between that and a fetus) so he condemns millions of Americans who could benefit from such research to their deaths. Just bloody brilliant.

20 July update: I checked the Official G8 Website and it doesn't include the lead story by the American MSM .. namely that President Quagmire said The S-word to His Pet Dog, Blair. Fascinating.

booming business: U-Hauls in Dover, PA

Given that the townspeople are in a panic trying to get out of Dover, Pennsylvania, I'll bet the local moving companies are doing their best-ever business.

Yesterday, Pat Robertson told (rural) Dover residents that His Christian God would soon attack them. Why? Well, Dover residents sensibly voted out all eight (un)Intelligent Design school board members (each a Rhodes Scholar, no doubt). To paraphrase The Daily Show, I suspect the IDiots believe that Adam & Eve rode their dinosaurs to church every Sunday.

{queue sarcasm} You know, I'm sooo relieved that Texas voted to amend the constitution (earlier this week - it was in All The Papers) to mandate blissful marriage among straight white Republicans. If that hadn't happened, Texas'd surely be facing a nightmare scenario of nucular [sic] annihilation (Pat Robertson's prediction, no doubt).

At least they're not the laughingstock that is Kansas; can you imagine a high school graduate (schooled in Intelligent Design) trying to get into MIT with his Kansas High School diploma? Next!

Speaking of unfathomable stupidity (!), a tip of the Gimme Cap to Mary (not a -Bob) who forwarded the list of Stupid Quotes by Tom DeLay. You know, when Gene-Bob becomes King, I'll mandate an intelligence test for all politicians. They'll have to prove they have more brains that an avocado before they can run for office. That should keep the vermin like DeLay and Robertson out of our courthouses.

PS: yeah, yeah .. the Sundry on Thursday blog is updated. Please - calm down!

Dallas (poorly) recycles

It's no wonder that 80% of the Dallas households don't participate in household recycling. The program here has been described as "feel good recycling" and is a far cry from what could be done. Last night (in the middle of the thunderstorm) I attended a meeting about the recycling program in Dallas. The more I know, the more I just have to shake my head in disgust.

When the contract with Community Waste Disposal, Inc. [CWD] was signed years ago, it covered types 1 and 2 plastic (PETE and HDPE) but only if they were plastic bottles. Later, they added type 3 (PVC), and they still must be placed inside a translucent blue bag (any other color will be rejected). It's a good thing that I didn't read the fine print, since I've been merrily tossing any type 1,2 or 3 plastic into my blue bag .. not caring if it was a bottle (with a neck) or not. Apparently, CWD can also recycle plastic types 4,5 and 7 but that's not publicized.

Also, the blue bags are hard to find; most stores don't carry them because so few people buy them. And when you do find them, they're more expensive than clear bags.

CWD also accepts newspaper and glass, but rejects the whole bag (with a bright red sticker) if you include other items that could be recycled, including cardboard. I suspect part of the problem is a poorly educated consumer, and other is due to stupidity. Perhaps there's also a degree of stubbornness from Texas Good-Ole-Boys who'd rather just toss their beer can in my front yard.

The US average for waste generated is 4 pounds per person per day.

Some new things are being tested, including single stream recycling (where your trash is sorted into recyclables and non-recyclable). The city will begin a 12-month pilot program in September 2004, for four homeowners associations: Bryan Place Neighborhood Association; Claremont Addition Neighborhood Association; Lake Cliff Homeowners Association; and the Preston Citadel Club.

One option (instead of blue bags) is the use of 64 gallon rollcarts for recyclables only) versus the 95 gallon rollcarts (for all other trash) they're using now. This solution would replace the twice weekly collection (from the 95 gallon rollcarts) that is in effect now.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

just to show that not all stupidity is confined to the Deep South: Illinois Parents Sue School Over Wireless Network (if only they had known about the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie). This would be a better world if people would take a few minutes to understand how stuff works, rather than running off at the mouth with a new conspiracy theory!

EPC (Electronic Product Code, aka Auto-ID) will replace the UPC (Uniform Product Code) barcode labels that adorn everything sold in retail. RFID is a subset of Auto-ID, er .. EPC.

RFID Privacy reports (on their blog) : "Texas Instruments has developed an RFID chip that can survive dry cleaning" (true); conspiracy theorists say this means that The Guverrmint [sic] will be tracking all of us, all the time.

Heck, The Government can't even get rid of the quaint $1 bill (paper) and move us to a $1 coin. The cash registers would then be free to put $2 bills where they store $1 bills now. Why is this so difficult? Ditto goes for the move to the metric system. We seem to be able to handle 2 Liter bottles of soda, but precious little else metric: go figure.

Message from GeneBob to The Government: Just Do It.

BTW, here's my reaction to RFID tags in clothing: conspiracy theorists don't bathe/clean their clothes now, so how will this change anything? They think that showering in chlorinated water renders them sterile!

The web is full of conspiracy theorists (thanks be to free speech), including the Stop RFID web site and CASPIAN - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (who want to ban those wonderful loyalty cards). There is even a site with anti-RFID Bumper Stickers; I haven't seen a real one yet (and hopefully never will). This is not an endorsement of any of these conspiracy theorists (I find the bulk of them trivial and very foolish).

pre-bowl feeding

I had the puerco con zucchini (¿como se dice zucchini en Español?) last night at Mario's Chiquita (kinda sorta behind Circuit City at Central/Parker). Then, it was off to be swept at bowling (the rest of us generally bowled above our averages, but Todd wasn't there).

Earlier in the day, I wandered around columnist Dan Gillmor's blog and had to laugh when he opined about Arnold-as-governor ("Terminal Stupidity"). California's my home state, and I lived there for 10 years, so I feel comfortable in saying: Californians Get What They Deserve. Personally, if I still lived there, I'd vote for Gary Coleman. I wonder how long after the election it'll be before they reform the absurd process which allowed 120 or so candidates on the ballot.

Lately, I've been following a discussion group about the deaf/HOH (hard of hearing) community. They mentioned a telephone which does automatic speech-to-text conversion: the Ultratec - CapTel phone. I also spotted an article entitled "Who is a big D in the Deaf Community?" which says "small d"(eaf) people align themselves with the hearing community (reading lips) while the "big D"(eaf) people use sign language to communicate among themselves.

I noticed that the local Mail Boxes Etc is becoming The UPS Store™ and was surprised to see that this is a system-wide change. Wow.