How to stop the meteor

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

When I first started taking calls, I remember how grand the whole enterprise was. Everyone had full medical coverage. Everyone had a phone and a desk. People were wondering about their dental and vision care and even their legal services provider. It was quite the rush. I remember thinking to myself this is it, I have made it to the right company and now I just have to manage my way up the ladder.

And this was the cheap credit card. We had a standard APR of 15.9%, A late fee of $10, and a NEW thing in credit cards that noone else apparently could afford... no annual fee.

What do we have now? We have $40 late fees, overlimit fees, and even replacement card fees. Employees have to pay for most of their medical and can discount their coverage by paying less premiums out of their checks. Employees now share desks perhaps with a total of 3 people since the phone work 24 hours a day. Tuition, instead of being paid in full directly to the school BEFORE the course like it was at first, is now reimbursed to you after the course, after you pay it first and only if you get good grades.

You might think to yourself, what just happened?! But no it took 20 years of slow melting to take employees health away and give it to the executives. It's obvious to me where all the money went as it should be obvious to you, but to the new employees, I'm just a tired old employee that needs to stop costing the company SO MUCH money for doing the same job as the new people.

I'm sure the higher ups didn't feel a need to debate that.

This is where our country is. As people realize that people addicted to the growth of their company translates into dragon status among their peers, with dragon access to their golf clubs, it's obvious where all this wealth is coming from which is NOT from the free market. It comes from executives "finding" overspending (aka Employee Delight) and cutting it off and keeping half for themselves as a group. And as being an "elite" becomes a more noteworthy status among executives, you can bet NONE of them will be ever able to change companies unless they are "our kind" of executive.

That was the famous line from King Edward the Longshanks when he introduced the doctrine of Prima Nocta. A move designed to attract "his kind" of noble to rule Scotland.

And more to the point this is happening on a grand level everywhere. It seems obvious to people that belittling your weaker halves makes you stronger but THAT is the very essence of abusing your privilege. It's this kind of thinking that is at the heart of politics. Just reading a tweet yesterday about the Republicans chopping this and that and the other and still getting people to vote for them, reminded me that young people have NO IDEA how to understand the people ruling them.

Well here it goes. Here goes my idea and see if it seems like reality to you.

Everytime you see a political ad, someone RICH paid for it. Everytime you talk to a politician, your little space above your head either HAS or HAS NOT a dollar sign. Most everything that happens AFTER you elect him into office will be a duty to call for funding from the rich. And just like the rich people at a church, the pastor will explain richly about jobs and taxes, but come time to make the offerings he will turn into an unashamed beggar asking for your every effort to help his "cause" or to ease his obligations.

It's not hard.

He DOES have obligations and he does have many things that people need to survive like food for the spirit; and a need to be taught something even a slight something is PROOF that you belong in the church.

I lost my train of thought now. I used to have a pastor that was like this who ran a Baptist private school that I went to. He was great but boy did he have a good time when it came time to pass the plate around.

Ok so Ima have to shorten this up since I have stuff to do. Oh, so one more thing. In the Census Bureau, it was much worse. The whole phones operation was a fly by night sort of deal. The desks were made of cardboard, the phones were nothing but a keypad with a phone jack, there were NO computer screens and all we had were census forms and home phone numbers to call ALL the people back that didn't completely fill out their forms which was required. This takes me back to the whole Shatner thing where people don't wanna do the simple things that are required by authority, like as though the government was trying to weaken them or something. It was even passed around that going off-site door-to-door was becoming difficult because agents were getting harassed and insulted for asking them to finish filling out their forms when they didn't have a telephone.

I have to say that for myself I used to be an ASS (yes thank you Sarah I know what my butt smells like) when it came to providing proof of being 21 when I finally was old enough, but working the Census and the Credit cards changed that and becoming friends with people at the bar also gave me a new perspective on carding people that seems so offensive until you realize the GRAVITY of request.

I have to say one more thing about power in a vacuum. At the bureau, there came time to stop answering questions from people from the 800# who wanted help filling out the form. And as the deadline to fill the form came and went, so did our jobs change from receiving calls to calling people to get those missing answers filled out. Calling people was MUCH more difficult than receiving calls. All of my life after that, people have been aware of that difference but only people from the industry. It's like receiving a call from New York...

(I know it's unfair to group all NYers together but it was true then like 90% of the time, it may not be true now)

 ...where you just KNOW it's going to be a fuckwad, that's the difference between answering calls and calling someone. Calling someone is almost ALWAYS disturbing to people. And if you don't call during dinnertime, the phone won't answer and you won't get credit for completing a form. It's ironic that people when they are home, when I need to talk to them, DON'T want to be called. 

So I had a REAL problem calling people. I remember sitting there thinking I couldn't do the job that first day and I thought, I'm not sure, but I thought I was going to have to quit. But I dragged it out and tried it slowly just to get through the day. After a couple of days, I realized that we just had to attempt to call 3 times and that was considered completed. Oh goodie! Things really speeded up at that point, because I would wait the required amount of rings and do my checkboxes and lickety split I started to produce forms. In fact, I became one of the highest producers there. And I remember having a conversation with one of the employees and he pointed out to me that this one FAT woman, the one that collected forms, was telling everyone that I needed to be fired.

Can you imagine? And there she was not even calling people, collecting forms, and forming an opinion of my productivity when she wasn't even doing the job herself.

That is what being rich is like. You just hula-hoop yourself into power, like Chris Christie, hula-hoop yourself into the Sandy Hurricane Relief fund, and FAT people get to finger of death the ones they like despite THEM being the FAT farmers in the King's Court and who put them in charge.

I know one thing, you might think that those big huge people like Sandy Weill and his entire legion of fat cats, Chris Christie, Oprah, and this here fat lady at the Census, it must seem that they are amazingly smart because that's how they got where they got... but no.

Everytime I see FAT people I see dullards, willing to belittle others. There is NOTHING attractive about fat people. Not in their veins not in their eyes not in what they say.  The more you try to understand how they have so much power, the more you deduce that it must be intelligence.

No my friend... no.

Yes, I am plenty fat myself ... so I know what I am talking about, but I have that uncomfortable tire that I drag around, I don't WEAR FATNESS like a badge to be proud of.

Sidetracked, so to end this before the meteor hits, I will give you all some clue as to how to avoid the meteor.  I once told you all that Galactus is coming and it's true. When the world eater gets here it spells doom for at least half the planet (50/50 right?) but I will give you all a chance at averting it in this one little blog entry.

Remember the episode of Star Trek called the Paradise Syndrome? Kirk(which is another way of saying church) goes down to the planet and falls into a trap next a monolith. It's a great reprisal of what it means to be GOD as Kirk prances around the entire episode being worshipped by his peers(now Indians) that believe he was sent to stop the Meteor. The rest of the crew, because they had to go back to stop the Meteor, leave Kirk with the Indians until they can sort out the threat. But Kirk has lost his memory. He doesn't remember being Captain and is in love with what most people would say is the "boss's daughter" which is code for you get to live as long as she's happy.

So she is happy as long as he can avert the meteor but pfft, what the hell does he know about stopping meteors right?

Miramani!

ps. the answer is in the episode, it's what we as a country need to do, to STOP the meteor, thanks for playing, btw I watched Xmen yesterday and it was too much for me, I was boo hooing like a baby, noone deserves to die like they did ...all stupid

What's your SSN?

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

What's your Social Security number? This question has perhaps caused me the most grief in my life. Most people will provide it, some people will refuse it, ALL people know it's illegal to demand it. And yet the card company uses it to organize accounts. Nothing is as unique an identifier as this number. And though it is becoming more and more common to use the driver's license on applications, this is the easiest to use.

It's not hard.

Being scary is not something to get used to. I might have talked about this before but showing your identification is NOT supposed to pull the IRE out of people.

I recently made mention of how Trayvon Martin might have scared people by wearing his hoodie and that though being afraid of people was ok, it is even more justifiable when you hide your identity.

So recently, William Shatner starts to throw a fuss about some guy that was verified. My guess is that now that he has thrown his weight around and after some guy got his goat about the whole process because he was a relative nobody and too bad for Bill(William) because his famous actor friends were gonna have to wait, now he wants to throw it around some more and try to get twitter to give up their verified policies and lay down some rules besides "you're verified cuz we said so".

But Bill is different, he's from Canada. He doesn't like to have to verify himself and recently he went so far as to try to have his facebook account verified and they would do it only if he provided a driver's license.

Then he refused. 

Why do they always refuse a simple request by authority?

There went some of Bill's popularity, you see BECAUSE you are a big time movie star and get accommodated by SOME businesses doesn't mean all businesses will treat you that way. And more importantly when it comes to TRUTH... everyone demands it, even if they don't care or live near you or even see you but once in a blue moon, they wanna know your secret if they think you have one.

In my job, as a call representative all those years on the phones one of the first things I had to do was verify accounts. What's your this and that and finally just give me the password you gave us. And if they couldn't give the password then it wasn't them. And this is especially difficult for Spanish accounts because most of the time, like my parents, they preferred to have their children speak perfect English rather than harang their way through a representative that may or may not explain themselves well.  And sometimes these children(who me?) would take an elite-ist approach to the whole situation and just PRETEND to be the parents and then... poof, off to the fraud department with you.

And you might think what jerks we are until you come to terms with HOW much fraud is out there. People can pretend to be someone else easily by just copying down information. Someone just fills out an application over and over perhaps with the same SSN several times because we can't just ex out someone's VALID SSN even if it is copied. The fraud department now works with official law enforcement and has quite a few ways to catch criminals but believe me when I say that not many are caught.

In the bar, it's even MORE necessary because serving one minor can close your restaurant. And despite being nice gentle people who love everybody, if you're serving minors, who knows what OTHER secrets you think you can get away with. So law enforcement is very strict with this seemingly innocuous law... ... ... and the people working there will explain it to you happily most especially after you become friends with them.

But if you are on the OUTSIDE, like Bill from Canada, who refuses to show his ID, probably because he doesn't HAVE one, well then... "I'm sorry CAPTAIN, I'm gonna have to send you over to our fraud department."

PS. He was promoting his show this weekend in Las Vegas that I wish I could have attended if only I would have foreseen spending $5000 on something stupid. It's called Shatner's World and, oddly enough, it really DOES seem like he is in his own world sometimes. 

When these odd coincidences happen, like his show title and these things happening online at the same time, I wonder if the GODS are making fun of me... or maybe they are telling me this REALLY IS his world. 

Sometimes, I think I rather look like him... what?

To mom on Father's Day

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

There are thunderstorms here today.  And over here goes Carbuncle... kinda reminding me of my mother,  a bright little light in the midst of a storm. 

So when I first knew what was going on I was 2 years old.  I have seen many pictures of my 2nd birthday party of which it looked like I was quite the hit.  4 families lived near to each other in those days and they all each had their set of children to raise. My mother says that in those days, my father's family showered her with affection.  But as my father struggled to improve his position at a supermarket, eventually rising to the level of buyer, he pined for the days when he went offshore, which he had done before he met my mother.  

And as the saying goes for every beautiful woman, there's a guy that's tired of [doing] her.  

I know, that's no way to talk about my OWN mother.  It was a significant amount of money though compared to the minimum wage he was earning at the market, or so he thought.  And one day I will tell you the story of how he got put out of the market, because like MOST things that pile up on you when it rains... it was probably a SPELL casted by witches. 

Anyways so my dad starts to catch ships again and promises my mother that he will save up enough to start a small market so he can stay home... and she believed him.  Knowing what I know now, it's no wonder that they never got off the ground.  Dark matter is everywhere and everywhere they see how much money people are earning and they spread these secrets to mechanics to doctors to landlords.  It was lucky for them that they didn't know they would never have a decent chance at their dream and so what, because at least my father got what he WANTED right, he got to be lonely offshore with gobs of money and friends and beer, and my mother got... what she got.

Us kids.

Well, in defense of my father at least he didn't fly away when it got too tough like other dads(though there were close calls)  and he did contact the union to garnish or send an allotment of his salary to her monthly so that there was always a set amount sent from his pay.  And unlike other dads that had to suffer sending what they didn't want to send and get nothing for it from their separated ex-wife or something, MY DAD got to come home to a woman that missed him terribly and kids that thought he was GOD on Earth everytime he came home.  

He washed us with dinners in restaurants(McDonald's) and Conan comics he brought home and with records and all sorts of strange gifts that were something just this side of fantastic.  He was a great fan of music and every couple of voyages or so, he came home with a new HUGE radio with buttons galore that we could press to our hearts delight as kids.  

Often though, I would hear my mother crying of what all I could tell was loneliness and would wonder why she was so strict and so mean.  It was offputting.  I would hug her and she would hug us back every chance she got and wouldn't let us go and it seemed that she was starved of affection.  And my father's family didn't help as what they served to do was keep an eye on her and tell tales of tidbits just short of suspicion.  She has relayed some of those tales to me now in her old age and I can tell you that GOSSIP is DEATH to a friendship.  I can only imagine the solitude of living with people that don't exactly like you.  

Wait I don't have to imagine... having friends that don't like you is a (edit: difficult) and though she was incredibly mean to us, I can see now, how difficult it was for her in retrospect.  

So I was tweeting recently with a certain Harvard grad and giving her accolades to her idea of cheering for her mother on Father's Day.  I too, thought of my Mother as she did, as a one-woman parenting dreadnought that somehow got it all done without any help from anyone else.  

But I can't discount my father.  Despite those many years of "questionable" behavior, he never left, he never stopped loving us, and I don't believe he, unlike me, has an irresponsible bone in his body.  But like all of us, like all of his kids, I believe he can enjoy life entirely too much, when he is not around his loved ones. 

So he likes to drink beer, meh...  there are worse things. 

I got you now Jester

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

I love TOP GUN. It's one of those movies that you squirm and try to remember some scenes and wonder if you really wanna watch it again, but after the tape goes in and the bass heats up and the music and the words set you up for what the movie is going to be about and after the jets heat up and then take off as much as the music does, you're toast. You had better hope you got yourself some popcorn or something cuz there's no commercials in movies.

One of my favorite scenes is when Maverick goes after his instructor, whose callsign is Jester. His instructor is the best in his field but being the best also limits your innovation. With noone better out there to compete against, your skills wane, as they did for Jester who didn't see that jetbrake-move coming and was almost defeated.   After he showed what being in charge was all about, by breaking rules that your opponent CAN'T, it was his turn to teach Maverick a lesson which was to never go into battle alone.  As Maverick relishes in the fear of his prey, Jester, who was forced to cheat the last time and must be cowering in his pants now knowing that his DAY has come and he will be defeated, as he selfishly RESPONDS to what looks like easy-meat he utters those fateful words "I got you now Jester... you're MINE" At which point he is "tomahawked" with a missile lock from VIPER... a trap. 

( EDIT:  I saw this on Lawrence and was quite shocked to find that it wasn't Jester, it was Viper,  BIG oOPS man, lol, that's why he makes the big bucks!)

It was because of this movie that I often played myself at pool or played "the ghost" as Dave once put it to me.  That's why I'm always SECOND best.

The Jester was also second best if you remember. VIPER was the best of the instructors and even though you might discount the Jester as the one that was beaten, you shouldn't discount the value of LOSING to the right students.

Three reason to watch Bill Maher that don't include laughing out loud(lol) every time he utters those oxymoronic, copied from 3-man, prophetic words "new rules".

1. I wouldn't know why Guantanamo is still open if not for him. Fact is, if we gave them access to a trial by jury the first thing they would call for was reparations for being tortured. And how much you think they deserve you think? And what about all of the information they gave while under duress, is that in our constitution? It's a whole 'nother country for those men in Cuba because they don't have access to rights and we can't give them access because they have been wronged by someone official in our government.

... doesn't ... remind me ... of ANYONE.

2. Veterans Hospitals can't afford regular doctors but if it wasn't for Maher's show I wouldn't know the fundamental reason for why it's so hard for our government to provide care. That guy said it last night on the show. The Veterans Hospitals can't compete for regular doctors. They can't afford to pay them. AKA, there aren't enough doctors working for the government to take care of our soldiers. And far be it from me to offer a possible reason for this but it could have something to do with the World Trade Center. Yeah, fact is most things that are funded by the government, can be abused by people that just don't care how they are charging Mr. Fancypants. You see the Jacksonville Courthouse is another famous example of people that know the taxes are going to be used to pay for it and so now it's time to change the contract, up the cost, these chairs are for who, then triple the price. The FBI should open up a new branch of government just to deal with price-gouging of the government because it happens EVERYWHERE. People just have to say this is for the courthouse or for the world trade center or for STAR WARS and for some reason you can just throw out all good sense and stamp a "free market" seal of approval to YOUR selfishness.

3. Thirdly, one thing more you could learn from Bill is that you aren't going to find him leading a movement. We aren't going to rush the Kochs or raise flags of altruism or even yell foul at the Dystopian-ity of the modern age. We are here to laugh at what we know and don't know and if you come out of the show that much wiser to the ways of the world, so be it.

And let me address still one more thing before I let Bill get off scott-free of insult. There is a lot to be said of the Jester. I call it Jester-politics. Because while the jester is laughing up and down the King's court jabbing at the FAT farmer or stepping on the toes of the barefoot miner, he makes it obvious to the KING who his enemies are. Yeah. It's a cold day in hell when the king looks at his nobles and slowly tilts his head because THAT'S the day the king realizes ... it's not funny anymore.

Monsanto might actually be not only supplanting genes in their food but might have OTHER plans.

Fracking might be a neato idea whose time might have come but how about we just take over Iraq INSTEAD of poisoning our own water?

Global warming sure was a stupid idea that noone can prove, let's just ignore the entire sphere of scientific influence for a couple of more years and see what happens.

You see, the jester is laughing it up working for chump change but one day a year... the king SEES his nobles, one day a year the king hears what everyone is afraid of .. and it ain't him; one day a year everyone in the kingdom realizes the jester is the smartest one of all.

And the day that everyone is as aware as the jester is, the jester has done his job well. The Jester has become KING for a DAY. 

Capital-schism

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

Anything more annoying than a curly mustache?  I mean here you are typing and thinking up stuff to do and twice now you've wiped your nose only to get that itch again.

Where is it coming from? 

Now you have figured it out and you are trying to bend the TWISTED hairs back and keep them all in place and all it takes is a swallow or a yawn and BOING, there goes that itch again.  Worse part of it is now you KNOW why it itches and you know you are not going to be able to fix it unless you do something capital.  

Speaking of capital.  Let's talk about capital punishment since Rachel was on it last night.  You have to ask yourself, like I did, why would hospitals NOT want to provide the lethal injection drugs for a state-rendered execution?  Aren't there enough doctors in that state?  Doesn't every pharmacist know the formula? 

It takes me back to my first college philosophy professor who was good looking in a Rachel way not so much an Alex Wagner/F40 = useless except for the ALL THAT power/charisma way = no air conditioning but who needs that you've got Alex/Ferrari!  

In fact yesterday I was kinda hoping she would walk across the set of her show in the background with a huge paddle in her hand, maybe wearing something sexy, blithefully suggesting to someone what exciting looks like.  

In her class, the professor's(sorry side-tracked ya?!), I learned a great many things that weren't covered in Sunday school about right and wrong.  It was the first time WOMEN thought about things critically and I realized it was just WHO you talk to.  To all these people, that was important, to a great many others, it wasn't.  In that class, one day, we sat there discussing the arms race and how important it was to keep nukes away from fledgling countries.  I was being difficult and was pontificating about free speech and giving people choices, I think, and then the conversation turned to books and censorship at which point I said I was completely against it.  Then the professor, a second male professor, asked what if the books had details on how to make a nuclear weapon? 

What then? 

Hard question.  And with that he said now imagine it's not even a question of money.  What if in a book somewhere, there is a formula for creating a deadly disease right in your own home?  Should we allow people access to that?  An even harder question now.  You see I had NEVER once questioned people's motives about things.  Ever since I realized there WAS such a thing as forbidden knowledge.  Ever since then I realized that governing isn't about protecting as much as adjudicating who gets freedom.   A tenable position.  Because once you start to regulate others' freedom, they start to want to regulate YOURS.  Once you start us/them-ing the world, you have FAILED at governance.  

So fast forward to today and our problems with capital punishment.  People exist that want to know that formula of drug that stops the heart.  What could be MORE valuable than an injection that causes someone to die of "natural" causes.  And if it exists out there somewhere, it's just a matter of time before some millionaire somewhere pays someone off.  Naturally, this implies a great deal of trouble for a hospital or doctor working in that field yes? 

As Rachel said in her show, only the worst doctors turn out to work in that now you see why.  They are the rejects of the profession and in their last throes of existence... a questionable act allowed by the state for dark reasons, an act of vengeance.

It's not surprising that in early days, when the chopping block was NOT JUST for chickens anymore, that executioners wore black masks.  In a peaceful society, where noone has killed anyone before, noone suspects anyone of murder because noone CAN kill unless they have done it before.  And that is the doom that brings you down in the end is people finding out that you have killed people before.  Once you do it, it's possible to do it again, and then some time later, it becomes possible to LIKE it.  

In the movie, THE EDGE, with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins, the center villain is a bear.  It makes mention of how bears never attack man but if they are starving enough and if the man is injured, the bear may try out of curiosity to kill a man.  And once he does that, he will eat so well, and it will be so easy, that he will never hunt anything else.  

He will have become a maneater.  

Such is the life of a murderer.  It's assumed that if you have killed people, then the disease of killing people and liking it, may be inside you like a sort of lycanthropy/werewolf's blood.  

So the mask must stay on right?  Because in polite society here comes THAT GUY that kills people but it's ok cuz he does it for the state but ... WAIT what's that look for?  Why is he SMILING at me?  

What's even more disturbing you say?  Well, the guy they actually killed with that botched lethal injection made mention of the fact that assassins always get away.  I wondered about it because there's NO WAY the police would allow assassins in today's world... am I right?  And he said he did it like a profession and then it occurred to me that after the botched injection much like in Flash Gordon's botched execution, the curtains came down and the doctors pronounced him dead but noone might have actually SEEN him die!  

Food for thought... or should I say forbidden fruit for thought.  

So these doctors, that administer the lethal injection, must remain HIDDEN to society because like their older placeholders, they scare people and not for invalid reasons.  In fact a lot of my reasoning for NOT allowing capital punishment is that it allows a whole group of people/law enforcement officials to FEEL the emotion of vengeance.  

This is wrong.  Vengeance is a normal function for animals but it doesn't belong in society.  

People in civilizations kill for many reasons but for whatever reason it is, it was someone who did it and someone else who caused it to happen, much like the red card given yesterday to Pepe in the World Cup game of Germany vs. Portugal.  Both are guilty so let them have their fight or eject them both but always there are at least TWO.  So whomever survives, that person must be treated and healed, not discarded.  And he can still be productive albeit in jail but he should NOT be providing others with food for their spirit like vengeance does.  Once you like killing or like the act of getting someone executed or like playing TRICKS on people... you are an agent of chaos.  You no longer serve the collective good, you serve yourself and others like you. 

Us/them remember? 

So that's my take on capital punishment.  The way they do it now from what I learned from Rachel is that they first inject anesthesia, then they inject some sort of local something, and then they inject the killer drug that stops the heart in an effort to kill a person as gently as possible.  

After that show that explained lethal injections, I started to think about the electric chair and shooting squads and guillotines and tried to imagine some humane way of killing someone.  I remember thinking to myself what it must be like to die in your sleep.  

Two days ago, it was Father's Day and though I shun the thought of my father dying, every once in a while the subject comes up, then he goes off on his rhetoric about hoping he dies in his sleep or he talks about someone that died in their sleep and went off into the nether land peacefully.  

This is bullshit.  Everyone knows that a heart attack, as described by EVERYONE that has every had one, feels like you are DYING and there is incredible pain and even though you can't speak you don't pass away blissfully in the night, your entire body drowns as the blood it needs to survive slows down and stops flowing.  It is probably NOT very peaceful at all.  A fact that I made as clear to him as possible so that he not "accidentally" try passing away thinking it would be easy.   

The way I play devil's advocate in arguments, my philosophy professor would be proud.  

So by the same token then, I started to wonder what WOULD be the best way to die.  I'm thinking gunshot to the head now or what about alcohol?  I mean don't doctors often LOSE patients because they gave them too much anesthesia?  Couldn't they just sleep the guy to death?  Isn't that what they do to dogs?  Hmmf.  Or how about drowning.  Couldn't we drown them in water in front of everyone?  It works for fleas... if you read my previous blogs hahaha, you probably like that one.  

And even BETTER how about drowning them in alcohol?  The sensation can't be all that bad if you go numb and then drown while numb right?  

Of course if you raped women and people of the state want to see vengeance or want to get paid by some millionaire somewhere that knows who to pay off... 

it would be unfortunate if a match were to accidentally cause 45 minutes of suffering...

ps. My thoughts are with my sister this morning who has spent a month mourning her dead boyfriend. If I think about her too much I can feel SOME of what she feels and it's overwhelming, please pray for her.. I know I don't pray but if YOU do then do it... and shut up about me and by the way I'm not in such a good mood now. (Joke.) 

I remember long ago... ooh when the stars were shining (beat) ... and the sound of your laughter... as I held you tight... so long ago.~

Asking for it

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

When you are drunk, you're beautiful, and also just a bit scary.  Beautiful creatures tend to be placid, gentle, and even a bit mysterious yes?  You are just a little bit MORE of how you normally are.  Maybe a bit more friendly, a bit more preachy, a bit more careless... perhaps.  

This is what YOU think.  

What others think is that you are out of control.  A possible manslaughterer, a possible spitter and pisser in public, even a possible skips out on his tab-er-er.  Most of what you say may seem like friendly talk but the reality of it is that lingering in every word... is the possibility that you might SPILL THE BEANS about a certain something or someone, and it's people like this that make doing crime a real hassle I imagine.  

Oh and let's not leave out what the criminals think.  People that do crime are opportunists.  They look for weak people and when they need help, they trap em into some agreement that both know is illegal.  And this can only work out if one of the two people is a good person, why, because good people don't betray others is why.   Such is what it's like to be a good person in a bar, you are like a sheep in a wool factory, what could happen?  People that will betray others are a dime a dozen.  It's like they said in 3:10 to Yuma, and let me paraphrase(like Alex says) [only the most terrible person could lead a gang] and at any given moment he needs to be able to betray them all.  So noone is all that interesting at the bar because that's what they are is betrayers and they want nothing better than to have you trust them so they can betray you.  

Ok, probably said enough about that, though I could say more.  The point today is to explain what drunk people look like to others.  My mother and I were just having a conversation about scary and she asked me what I would think if someone came to the front door drunk asking for help.  

They are asking for it, right?

They want you to help them because they were in a car crash and even though you don't realize that you are drunk and black and your hair is messed up, your good intentions and well-meaning family have nurtured your willingness to interact with others so much that you thought it was ok to go up to a ranch house and ask to use the phone.  

At this point, someone says something you don't hear, you ignore it and now it's time to shoot you in the FACE with a shotgun.  Sound like anyone in the news recently?  

Yeah, cuz fact is drunk people are scary to people that don't drink an ounce of liquor or whatever.  I remember talking to a psychologist and she was telling me she didn't drink an ounce of alcohol and to myself I was like "then HOW can you know anything about what it's like to be me?"  It's just stupid, if you've never been there you can't walk in and start telling people where things are located.  

Now I don't want to involve you in my politics about drinking, I know I am not an alcoholic just like I know I'm not gay just like I know I am not addicted to cunnilingus.  But people like to argue so go ahead I guess.  But fact is you are going to have to have a wide set of experiences if you ever want to be someone who KNOWS what they are talking about in front of a general audience.  Oh sure you can script it from textbooks but if you can't explain why... people are going to know you are like, in the military or something.   

Ok, so now that I am on the military in a way let's get to the crust of the matter.  America is in trouble with the rest of the world.  It thinks that we are well thought of, we like to have fun sometimes and when we make a mistake we just accidentally ruin a country or two but it's not like we are taking over the world, right?   Just a minor slipup, couldn't happen again right?  But it's not so easy to get us out of the pickle we are in.  

I was once MUCH more bossy than I am now. I lived with 3 women, not including my sister who lived to do what I say as well as my brother, sort of.  We went from place to place having good times and drinking Natural Light which was close to water but as it turns out when you are happy with friends, the lighter the beer the better.  And it was pretty damn cheap too.   OH BOY did I get into trouble back then.  One time I was yelling at this girl at a Calico Jack's that was on the floor to hurry up and get up so that we could leave and she wouldn't get up so I yelled at her some more and some guy told me to stop.  I asked him if he was going to give her a ride home and he was like OH NO YOU DON'T.  But my girlfriend was transfixed on wanting to help her and if she trusted her that was good enough for me.  Trouble yes?  Another time I didn't like a guy that my sister was with and he spit on my car almost to where I could tell it was him... almost.  Another time this girl was pretending to want to have sex with me but I could tell she was drunk and left her alone but we were alone in a dark room for a long time and she was not unattractive but being 20 I was "considering" it.   About 20 minutes later, I hear a big huge ruckus about some guy raping a girl in the very house I was in and it was that same girl but with another guy that was like confused and shocked and I myself was like perplexed at what happened, knowing what I knew.  I obviously didn't want him to go to jail for rape but meh, what did I know right?  

Well, that's 20 year olds for ya.  Trusting and foolish and slightly out of sync with reality, most especially MY group of 20 year olds.  But the time passed and quite a few other amazing moments led up to my 21st birthday where my brother got pounded into the ground by one of the 3 girlfriends' brother that was "sort of" invited but not by me.  Later they had to take him to a hospital and the next day we sort of were "forced to leave" by the other 2 girls I lived with and their NEW boyfriend who,  a couple of weeks later, because we both had the same babysitter, told us laughingly that ThEY got kicked out of the apartment because WE happened to be the ones with jobs.  

Welcome to my life.  

Luckily my mother took us all in and even though I was having a ball, and somehow not landing in jail, I was getting tired of the GOOD life.  It wasn't long after that I moved on from McDonald's and that girlfriend and got a job at Citibank and for some reason, because I had much more money and NO girlfriend... I got into FAR LESS trouble from then on.   

I'm not kidding.  For like 10 YEARS after that, I didn't get to date too much or anything, but since I was young I just attested it to my pickiness and my squalid approach to impressing women which was like, ASK ME about my life instead of ME ASKING THEM out on a date.   But my reputation might have had something to do with it.  

So sidetracked yeah?  Anyways, I wanted to give you some of the value of having me as your master.  Now I don't expect you to do everything I imply but I would like you to act towards me as though I have lived quite a full life, and have even lived quite an ABSENCE of it.  My point is that even though I am living my life like I have done nothing wrong, and I haven't by the way, it's naive of me to think that people wouldn't talk.  Now that I have time to think back, I wonder at how much of that whole era is out there in the public as a a warning to people to WATCH OUT for me like I am some kind of violent or something.   

That is where our country is.  

We have done "questionable things" to other countries and all including Russia would LOVE to use that information to dominate us despite the validity of our arguments.  And what about Iraq?  Are WE responsible for not "saving" the population from tyrants?  How long would it take to get one of our election crews out there do a census and register everyone and count up every vote, DO the election and get out of there?  

It's not hard.  

When you think of the world's problems, you need to tell yourself that over and over so that you remember that adding a tax makes it hard, pricing something 2.99 makes it hard, calling your gf all day long makes her life hard and often all of these things are done by the rich people, the ones that want to spend your money, pay less taxes and keep tabs on you so that THEY can go cheat on you.   You should try to make life less hard and be suspicious of "hard" things, like economics, medicine, drugs, and laws.  

It's just us on this planet talking to each other.  Saying what you mean isn't hard unless there is some secret there.  

Alright, so what to do about Iraq.  We could send troops to bolster their army.  We saw that most of their army likes to GIVE UP at the sign of truly terrible foes, so why even help them right?  We could send air strikes which is more like using poison on roaches, than it is like negotiating with a people.  Or we could just forget about it and let the most powerful people rule and wait for what happens when someone LESS trustworthy than Saddam gets into power and presents his ideas on how things should run.  

I'm guessing his views won't come out of a religious text.  

I will offer you MY advice now, knowing what I know from what has been a dismal 20 years of NO RISK since I was 20 years old.  And that is that we you RULE with a soft hand, accidents happen but people continue to trust your good judgement as long as you keep on ruling.  I was happy and mistaken many times in those days, but noone EVER thought that I treated them badly, despite yelling and fighting and moving out and many other things, you won't find a SOUL to say I was a bad man.  

And that is what I recommend to the government.  We need to go over to Iraq, have their elections, have the United Nations, oversee it, explain how religions are for children and explain how having a belief system ALIENATES others and why it must be forbidden... at least for like 10 years.  

They need to adopt a plain consitution of merchant laws and property and forget all of this feeling good about your God.  And only after 10 years of living without a belief can they be ALLOWED the LUXURY of believing in something.  Movies, soccer or football, even Joel O Steen or music concerts... ALL OF THAT needs to be forbidden for 10 years until they get moving again.  ALL of their businesses need to be owned by people with a clean slate.  All debts removed, all crimes forgiven and a re-draw of the property maps with contracts at a 1 year maximum.  Banks and other businesses should be something simple at first and then allow fancy risky pricing to exist as people begin to ruin their good credit.  

And we need a base there, not just an embassy, but a base with missile silos and fences and even a Disneyland if it gets big enough but we need to have that there yesterday because Pakistan is nuclear and frankly I blame everything that is wrong sith that country on Pakistan's intelligence or lack of it.  

Yes I know what you are going to say, promoting the philosphy of benevolent dictator... is asking for it.  

That's why it's illegal

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

One of Star Trek's better episodes was "Dagger of the Mind".  Thanks to Netflix I can watch the episodes over and over and get new symbolism from them that perhaps affected even the people of that day, the way it affects me.  Thanks also to money well-spent remastering the special effects to make them seem much less dated.  Watching the old episodes is really a treat especially if like me, you think women from the sixties were not that very good-looking.

Well, "Dagger of the Mind" is one episode that thwarts that theory because that girl Marianna who played Helen in the episode was REALLY good-looking.  There was one scene when Kirk puts her into a vent that must have been so hard for him to play because he just kept on looking into the vent, that was at face level, until she crawled away from him.  

Ok, so now that the hormones have settled, the machine in the episode was one of torture.  And as you wonder how the machine works, it works by emptying the mind of thoughts, making you lonely, and then suggesting to you OTHER thoughts.  So she suggests to Kirk, who has his suspicions that the machine is harmless and no longer useful, that he is hungry and then suggests that they had a one night stand even though they didn't, but that's when she is captured and the warden/tyrant continues on with her scenario by suggesting that he has always loved her and that his one need in life is to see her happy.  

That's mind control for ya.  Doesn't... remind me of... ANYONE.  

Well the classic/funny part of the episode (as I imagine the police would ask ME if they ever thought that I MYSELF was under some sort of mind-control) is where I get to explain the controls...

Here goes the ON and OFF switch and over here is the INTENSITY. 

wait for it...  

it's not hard.

So you see, THAT is what harassment does.  It empties out ALL OTHER concerns and provides you with a brand new UNSTOPPABLE beam of concern, that drains you of sexiness, of gregariousness, of confidence, and of basic optimism.  

That's why it's illegal.  

(Welcome to the jungle)

PS. You might think that I have some hidden purpose, but no, I have NO purpose

A Pig's Farm... er Land

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

Everywhere you go there will be evil.  You may join the military and think, "whoa people that treat you bad there get shot" but no, not true.  In fact, you might think, as is commonly discussed, that because bouncing a check is a court martial offense, that the Marine Corps is the highest echelon of public service.

Well, I am not going to talk about the Marines but rest assured that even there, 50/50.  

So what about Berghdal, man I can't even spell his name but EVERYONE pronounces it right don't they? Yeah that's infamy for you, if you are Rachel, she might be a cow, a coup, or a cat-ass-trophy but so what if you get her name right, and yet if you're krispy kreme, krystal meth er uh I mean Chris Chrissie, I mean Christie, his name gets always pronounced correctly.  

Sidetracked, ok so what I want to talk about today is betrayal.  I will be the first one to ask WTH is going with that beard that Bowe Berghdal's father was growing... especially, when he is shown with the President and 5 seconds later we see 5 terrorists' pictures with the same beard.   

But if you have lost your son, you have a NEW religion/purpose folks.  The act is described in the Bible right?  Even in the times of Confucius it was said that the first born of their top generals were taken by the king and raised at the palace, to ensure against betrayal.  Even Abraham had to offer up his son as sacrifice to God and the story has REAL meaning because most children become less and less important and the last child of 6 is usually the one granted the most freedom because nothing has happened to the other 5.  But, the FIRST born is the key to controlling someone.  Nothing serves so well as a heartplug as someone's firstborn.  Nothing is the symbol of someone's youth and innocence, nothing was so hardly fought, or was cause to endure as much pain as the firstborn.  

I might be assuming that Bergdal was the first I'm not sure but when the father, looking all clown-like with his beard and begging for support and rallying people behind him with earnest, was televised speaking on Rachel's show, she was silent for a moment and then I swear she was going to ball... 

and then I did the balling for her.  

I can see NO reason to be abject about this trade but at the same time I can find no fault in the President either.  What a tremendous loss to lose someone in the line of duty, him having joined for the purpose of defending our country at a time of crisis and having kept the faith all of his life until he found out we were there for oil and that our military was there NOT to keep the peace and placate the public but to stir discontent(using questionable means) long enough so that we could "straighten out" the oil thing.  

I think it would be best if we didn't put him on the stand for too long.  The whole WORLD might hear what he is saying and the people against him might just want to HOLD his head under the water, until the "right kind" of people crack open a smile.  

See, now we can tell what kind of people we want running the Republican Party. 

There is no WHY in the military.  That's why the first thing they do is break your spirit and then build it back up again.  That's why kings make such good leaders and why their children make such LOUSY ones.  Kings know why everything works.  Captains know how everything on their ship works.  Organizing people and getting them to enjoy their job is an exercise in finesse, not an exercise in cruelty.  If he deserted his post, if he was THAT UPSET about the war, what should happen to him, should happen to his WHOLE TROOP.  There's no I in team.  If you are willing to sacrifice one of your men, then ALL of your men fear you.  

And if there is fear, then your team is... NOT an effective team.  

I have to say one more thing about torture and imprisonment.  Unless you have been there, you should shut up.  It's not hard.  Unless you want to have YOUR fingers clamped, and your mind berated until you are retarded, or have YOUR spirit and hope drained out of you until you are left examining the floor or ceiling wondering WHY... you need to shut up.  

There is no WHY in the military.  

Your existence is allowed by others, a GREAT MANY others and before you start spouting off awful unfortunate truths like you're a Ted Nugent on a pig farm, you'd better recognize what you are telling everyone... ABOUT YOU. 

I am talking about people that show up two days later to beat down on a someone that has been suffering for years.  I am talking about people, of HIS OWN team, that spent time looking for him, that have good ideas about what happened... after they QUIT looking.   

Now I for one was looking forward to seeing if this man was going to run for congress or for mayor.  It should be plain to him why he was rescued and that is because his WHOLE TOWN loves him and wanted him back or at least love their parents.  But I guess the lords of gray foresaw that too huh?  So much for ONE LITTLE SEED of righteousness displayed.  

Now I might be wrong. Maybe this guy and his whole Idaho family found Islam and follow the great prophet on his pious walk of faith across the world.  Maybe a new MOSQUE is being built as we speak, IN IDAHO.  But I wager, this guy was so disgusted with evil that his leaders, dropped the rotten fruit before he could make the others rotten, meaning the other soldiers who didn't mind killing civilians on their leaders' say so.  

Wow, hell is a confusing place yeah?  Well, you're welcome.  There is a song sung by Phil Collins that's about hell.  2 guesses, which one?

... to make this a place worth living IN~   

I want to continue to talk down to all you SCUD missiles out there but I realize that it's only the ODIN types that are reachable.  Peace out... sort of. 

ps. I'm getting worse at editting.  I publish stuff now and it reads like slop and I don't even care.  I sure hope noone good-looking is reading this, :D.

Bretons are from England

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

I watched Maleficent today.  I thought it obvious that Angelina would look foreboding in the lead role, which she was but what was unexpected was to see how delightful she was portraying the fairy that turned into the evil or relatively evil Maleficent.  

As usual, I started to think the movie was about me.  Such a timid beginning she had, so much to look forward to and then she did what the Russians like to call "sleeping with gypsies".  The saying goes "if you sleep with gypsies you wake up in a pile of shit" Well, it's funny because I had MY wings taken in a similar fashion.  I felt betrayed. 

Still, it's been so long ago that I don't wince anymore thinking about it.  Later in the movie, when she was almost killed by the man wanting to be King, it occurred to me what REAL godlessness was.  

Godless people are mercenaries.  They feed off the populace.  In fact, the only way to tell who they are is to start a religion and look-see who doesn't enjoy the sermon.  That's why priests are so successful at keeping a city together because once there is a faith center, it's easy to see who is acting for the public good and who is acting selfishly.  

The problem with our country is that it is faithless yeah? 

Well, not really.  As we saw in Sin City, often the very leader of faith, abuses his power as all trust is placed in his hands, as sacrifice becomes justifiable for what he thinks is the greater good but since he is INTERPRETING, it means sacrifice occurs when he says so... for his own selfish good.  And the fact is that ANY book of laws is a simple structure that can be beaten down with exceptions that eventually include a whole class of people that feed off the rest of the people following that structure rigidly.  That's why it's better not to blame the system but the people.  All systems work well and the more sophisticated the better. 

In Skyrim, there is a class of people called the Bretons that have a natural affinity for magic resistance.  You all should know by now by reading my blogs that magic is influence.  It's a way of turning gossip into a spell that can cause REAL damage to a person without physical violence.  And Bretons have a resistance to that in the game.  Moreover, I believe the game was meant to depict the people from Great Britain as being these Bretons or Britons as they are called in real life.  The people with the MOST experience in the world, with the most sophisticated set of laws that have been re-written over and over, have the highest resistance to these "tricks" because TIME heals all wounds and once wounds heal, a resistance to the spell grows.  So who better to resist magic than a set of people that have been around FAR LONGER than we Americans.  

We could learn a lot from them I think.  

And yet I just got finished saying in my last blog that atheist/godless people can be good yeah?  You have to understand something about me.  I believe in using imagery to explain things.  A long while ago I used to want to tell people how to do things but as I grew up with my mother and father usually telling "because I said so" I was often frustrated with the not knowing why.   And that frustration, especially when it came to teaching, made me seek out examples to use when explaining things.  Symbolism and metaphor is another tool I like to use.  

And as it turns out the Bible is full of examples and even though I like to reference the Bible, it turns out that using real life examples or examples from good movies everyone has seen, make my points more believable.  

You all know what I mean by believable yeah?

And as it happened in the Star Trek : The Next Generation(TNG), as it happened in the TNG episode Darmok, the use of metaphor eventually allowed two different races to communicate.  

So today's lesson for you is that THIS is what the Bible is for.  To get different people to communicate by citing examples, EVEN in different languages, so that we can better portray ourselves as beings that exist to pontificate... about the greater good. 

ps. there is a Sarah Silverman moment in the movie and I won't tell you when but if you follow her work, you'll know it when you see it, and I DON'T think it was a coincidence :)