Bombings, Benghazi, and the new state of paranoia

Days before the Boston bombing happened. All I heard the loud mouths of work talking about was what the hell we should od about North Korea. That, and Obama is really trying to take our guns.

Then the bombings happened.
And they still didn’t know how to pronounce the country of the bomber’s origin precise enough, repeatedly calling it Czechoslovakia. (A country which split only years ago. ) And not the Chechnya they were trying to say.

And what happened to those war ships, and bombers that were so close already to the North Korean border. The “training” with South Korea finished, and instead the loudmouth public eye moved to scrutinizing the Gov’t for letting a bombing happen. Scrutiny of the Gov’t for an embassy in a country in turmoil being attacked, leaving 4 dead. But where was the scrutiny of the ever growing ‘Big Brother’ Government that perpetuated these hostile backlashes. Where were the Tea Party members that had the point, that instead of us tax payers being bailed out, banks were? If I go by our local loony branch, their focus has shifted, at least by what the Bellingham Herald quoted months ago. What’s harming America more than the continued involvement of big business lobbies, the almost signing of CISPA into law, and the deficit?

According to them, as I’m sure all other Koch Corporation propaganda fueled fear tanks, the Tea Party’s focus is now on the U.N.’s attempts to regulate carbon-based emissions and guns. That’s right, the U.N. is the biggest threat to the these loonies. Too add to the fire, these are the gun-nuts too.

So next time it rains in North West Washington, don’t forget your aluminum foil hat. Because you never know if stray bullets are going to be falling to as shooters take aim at non-existing U.N. helicopters.

A New World begins

THIS IS STILL IN EDIT, BTW

It is satisfying to hear that at least one senator attempted to filibuster the approval of Brennan into his position. Why it was only until last week that it seems like politics in DC are actually working, is what get’s me as ‘scary’ for lack of a better word. Last Years National Defense Authorization Act gave the Fed. Gov’t way too much power involving killing ‘Americans’ who ‘may be involved’ in plots against the Government. Rand Paul, son of crazy anarcho-capitalist but always true-Libertarian Ron Paul, is the Senator that spoke against the clock for 12-hours, half the length of  the record 24-hours by Strom Thurmond against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (seriously)

While of course Thurmond was doing an obviously racist act, he liked to think of it as “cruel and unusual punishment”. But that Racist was an idiot. Moving on.

My problem with this whole Drone thing is what are the implications that we’re not seeing already. The FAA since the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 is planning to release an agreed upon plan to safely integrate unmanned aircraft into FAA airspace. The FAA’s domain doesn’t cover privacy, and though concerns have been raised, nothing has been said. In other words, any of us who are “spotted” by the Drones that may be a “requirement” overhead may find charges against us for any/all infractions. That means more wastes of money by the government to line the pockets of these defense industries. The newest addition to the “Military Industrial Complex”, Information, is going to create the greatest extent of power the Federal Government has had. Completing those Group Psychology degrees at College must feel great when you’re looking forward to literally working for Big Brother.

Speaking of the Military Industrial Complex, I found out that Lockheed Martin may have built 50 for every 1 C-130 Hercules plane ordered by the Gov’t. In other words, they earmarked and lobbied their way into making more planes than the military asked for at the tax payers expense. Is this is what Eisenhower told us about?
ARTICLE LINK SOON

Next, I will blog about how this ‘Complex’ is actually impossible to shut down, especially thanks to one word: “Jobs”.

So many things wrong that should be right

Despite my atheistic beliefs, Thank God that the Presidential Elections are over. I’m sure most people are happy in the end regardless of who they voted for. Life is back to normal, and leading towards the hailstorm of shit trying to affect your mind/vote, there seemed to be an future-damning trend. Ads, specifically social ads are abundant and apparently working. The “Ignorance is bliss” (or being the unnecessary evil) logic proved itself as Presidential Candidates hid from some towns, grabber words thrown out like candy, and the business class bought everything.

Approximately $881.8 million raised in favor of Mitt Romney / SuperPACs

The thing that get’s me the most is people’s detachment from their supposed Christian morals. Peoples ignorance of Mitt Romney’s business organizations and the overwhelming support by business leaders and investors for him are a close second. In the end, facts were called lies and lies as facts. I’ve gone through political cartoons both in favor and against Barack Obama, the one thing that’s clear is the one’s that lean towards are a lot more truthful than the opposite. Cartoons from Investors.com/cartoons have a clear and obvious hatred towards Barack's supposedly socialist ways. The line between opinion and “fact” is definitely blurred as this particular cartoon which is supposed to be Part II of an on going list of lies that the President has said. One in particular says that, “Citizens United will allow foreign corporations to spend without limit in our elections” This of course was later agreed upon to be illegal along with coordinating directly with the candidate. {I need to find who decided this} However the ‘artist’ wanted that quote to look damning, the truth still exists that due to the nature of unlimited spending/donations to SuperPACs, fudging the books could easily allow a foreign income.  So in Mr. Micahel Ramirez’s cartoon, opinion of course is applied as opinion as poli. cartoons are in the Op-Ed. section, but sold as factual truth. When it comes to other  media, ‘Facts’ again is a word the must be in parentheses. Obama: The Movie, pushed by NEWSMAX a faux-news organization, scares people that the unrest in the Middle East is going to lead to a super-state that’s soul purpose is to destroy the US. Fear mongering is back full swing. All the while, Mitt is still possibly getting rich off of his ties with Bain as they move Sensata to China.

The apparent teachings of caring and moral wealth over material wealth by Christianity are completely ignored by people who are voting for a person that believes in a different book. And the history of Mitt Romney finances paints Mormonism as believers of material wealth as proof for God at the gates. Wives or Money, God wants to know you got rewarded on Earth.

The one thing that not only lets me know we still have a democracy but defines a competent candidate is tax info. How popular was the concept of tax info not released by Mitt this year? It seemed, according to how many older Republican leaning employees I work with, that Mitt was a terrific candidate that they’ve never heard of before and above all is great. It was this time (late September, 2012) that I came up with an idea…

My Idea was to listen to entire Rush Limbaugh sets for so many days until after Election Day.

Time and effort, coupled with the fact that after whoever won, those blogs wouldn’t matter anymore. But seeing as this would be a great research project as well as a glimpse into the Limbaugh way of thinking, I will listen to all the radio shows Rush has done for half of October to November 6th. Expect the first of a series soon. The question remains whether I am going to have migraines for the whole time or not?

And that’s it for a Sunday blogging session…
Something I haven’t done in a while. A long while.
And don’t get me started on how ‘scammy’ the internet is getting. That will be for another blog.

This and That all suck.

Fuck Twitter with it's incessant "we've locked you out of your Twitter acct." every week thing. If I don't touch Twitter in a week's time. I have to re-login. Now it's not that that's a problem, rather only an annoyance. It's the fact that every time this happens it tells me 5 times in-a-row that my passwords are all wrong. Everything else works. Twitter is just proving how useless it is to me. I don't like being forced to 'microblog' and nor should anybody else. And always when I see the need to speedily broadcast anything, Twitter must self-destruct before then. So it's use to me is beyond useless. Twitter is used for still the most mundane of reasons: Why aren't there more businesses using it to distribute coupon-like items?
On top of that, Twitter prevents me from braodcasting that Bellingham Fitness sucks. I prepaid a whole year, 1 year 6 months ago. And after much more study of my finances, I've been paying for a monthly membership for the past 5 months. Well that's fucking dandy! Barely went to the gym to start and now they've been charging me and not even letting me know that I'm still a member. It's like charging people for hospital visits because they happened to visit their doctor once a month for 2 months in a row.

So that’s what that other monitor was there for.

Over the past month, I’ve been trying to jumble together CSS and HMTL into the beast that I want. My work to show  has definitely been going slow thanks to me only using 1 out of my 2 monitors (for the past maybe 9 months).
Next time I boot this puppy up I’ll be hoping I get away with less distraction and more focus on code that needs to go here and there. (Add on to that I’m starting from experience years ago, trying to catch up)
Not being used to all this coding, leaves me at an unfair advantage; having to use X-Ray vision and guess what my covered windows hold is a challenge. Using a 2nd monitor ought to let me just look over and have up to 2 full split-windows still in full view versus the current 1 split-window.

Photos, Photos, Photos!

I have a ton-load of photos I’ve been holding onto for up to a year that I've been meaning to publish to Facebook, etc. They are coming!

I need an attitude adjustment

Sometimes I feel…

like life is slipping by. Pretty sure I could write a book when I’m older titled: “Just a boy” Still being stuck with the mentality of a kid, probably wouldn’t get finished, sure I could just blame self-diagnosed ADD.
What fraction of the population is this….I guess lazy?
And why do people from the Netherlands love reading my blog? Hallo Darr. I really am curious.

When is the real Internet going to get here?

So beyond all the hunk-a-junk of freaking speed and byte caps brought down onto to us loyal internet users, because we hate the ads on TV, there is still things not yet delivered on. Why aren't 'unlicensed researchers' actually doing a good job at posting the information they know.

I am currently looking for just in pure and simple English what the timings of a pulse are for my Nikon camera if it was triggered by an infrared light. I come across people using Arduino's and other micro-controllers all pretty much using the same 'schpeal' but without actually seeming to provide any information on what the timings are, their purpose or if they're adjustable. In their programs they'll list several variables for several factors going into the infrared signal which is all good and all. Sadly though I'm still a lost boy with needless information.

What the heck I'm supposed to get out of a bunch of timings when nothing is left for me to decipher except that they are there. I'm not told if they are for shutter speed or just the simple triggering of the 'photo taking' that the camera does. If there was literally just a place to find actually useful information rather than a bunch of cheap hacks of which i can find the schematic (not-so-useful) and programming (very useful) without having to sign up for a for-profit site like Make.com I would have hopefully found it already. It's been a good week of of a good amount of searching, and all I've found out is that removing the infrared filter over the CCD of the camera is daunting if not an almost useless task save for scientific imaging.

It's things like this that inspire me to push for a functioning internet that's not based on Ad clicks and intrusive Pop-up Ads. (Have you seen what the MSN website looks like with IE6.5?) It's really a waste of bandwidth, and a waste of focus. Citizens need the information to make responsible decisions, not left in the dark to horribly go after the whims of charlatans or whomever fits in their ideological bubble. And I think this applies to everything from the Gov't to people playing around with homemade solar-water heaters.

The future "will blow your mind"

Seen any 3D movies recently? By 2012, things could be quite different. 3D movies and comic books have been around since essentially photography has been around. But with advances in both facial recognition seen everywhere and eye tracking that Intel has been supposedly been doing behind the scenes, a combination of the 2 technologies will be quite impressive, if not a broad technology shift.

Most games, if not all current games by popular gamehouses have 3D support, add BluRay to that and you can see where this is going. Even YouTube has had a 3D support widget for some time. All of these require glasses for non-fatiguing viewing but doesn't excuse the sunglasses indoors look.

In the coming months though, Nintendo will release it's 3DS, which if you can figure from the name is a 3D version of their famed DS. (Maybe even their 3rd Gen DS at that.) Luckily though, it's Auto Stereoscopic, meaning no glasses are needed. The only thing is, odd viewing angles rid the screen of any world in the 3rd dimension inside of it. Perfect for a small hand-held game console screen, where only one viewer and viewing angle is common. Even more amazing is that, like the App Store has done for iTunes and the DS, 3D pictures and video will be capture-able and viewable from a DS. Making little kids everywhere have the power to have the world presented exactly as their friend recorded it.

Computers and even the increasingly popular iPod Touch and Phones have the processing power, especially so with the next-generation of iPods to track your eyes through it's cameras. Combining this with an adjustable version of the optics used in the 3DS and you have a new world defining medium. One that scary enough, because of the already high pixel count of screens these days, may actually start pulling people into that 'reality' rather than the one we all still live and breath in everyday (hopefully).

I'm going to be somewhat impressed by this feat, as well as the transition that is already taking place for implementing 3D file formats used everyday. When 3D pictures and videos become standard, how will the storage of these images/films be preserved to outlive a 'Digital Dark Age' if devices like these are lost. And besides the preservation of history and information, what will happen to the generation that is born in a world where there is not one reality, but several if not thousands interactive worlds through digital windows. Anyone else curious where civilization will go from there? Or even more so, from where we are now?

Coming soon

The limited title actually provides the perfect description. I’ve been way too busy lately, dealing with computer issues, setups, management of all of my assets and trying to start the New Year the way I’d like to.

It’s definitely been a time and need for me to get some fresh air. To start anew.

Health (Dealing with Crohn’s)

Since the Summer of 2010, it’s been 4 years after I became extremely sick and finally diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease (an IBD) which still comes up every once and a while to remind me that it is there. This year is absolutely about putting that into it’s hopefully final remission.

Finances

I finally have health insurance again that’s not just driving me deeper into debt! I found this out after I had to drive to the Finance Dept. of Peace Health to have them decipher what my Explanation of Benefits from my insurer meant. This is a major plus, an 8X multiplier of skill points if you will.

Soul (and the purpose thereof)

On a scary note, I’m 24 yrs. old and in less than 10 months I will be 25. How many years left in my life do I have from there? Half-life or quarter-life, time is of the essence.

The main focuses of me right now is applying myself to all sorts of ideas. Be it photography, expanding my limited number of drawings, to web page design and business ideas. Whatever comes first as my resonance at the time will take over for perhaps a month. In that time having built quite a portfolio of images or establishing definable qualities about myself with certification in Web languages, will be a great if not excellent use of my time. (I’d especially would love to get the drawing tablet hooked back up to my machine, but first things first!)

Here is a picture of St. Helens for your eyes. Taken last summer

Computer Memory blues

I've got only 2 640GB Hard Drives and with back-ups of all the pictures I have and then some I'm swamped with doubles, duplicates, clones, zombies and clowns of crap I don't need. Add to that the stuff I want I stumble upon, and with 2 years of organizing, then moving, then having to reorganize all of it; It's beyond the point of care for repair. I'm in no need of any more memory and after some time passes, I may finally care to have some more to match the 1's and 0's I consider I own.
Having this much extra space is just a curse, like credit and the economy.
Living lean is living happy!

Great quote heard.

Today, the 11th...
"MTV is rarely what people want!"

perhaps, just perhaps...

Perhaps the economy is in the shitter because people seriously treat each other like that in order to make a buck. And it's driven because apparently people like being con'd. If people wanted everything we had back in the day which I don't see anymore, like whether or not this toy could kill your kid, how much is the cancellation fee going to be on a credit card or whether or not the clothes you just bought are still gonna fit after you wash them. It doesn't matter because apparently nobody wants warning and information on stuff like that. Well there you go, taken advantage of when you clearly ain't having a problem with it.

Canadians, they aren't that bad

I've been to Canada. I've lived in the US forever, especially including that I've never lived anywhere else than Bellingham. And the one thing that I've gotten out of both is that we both suck at driving, or should I say they're are a lot of people on the road that suck at it. But then again 45 percent of those according to a Gallup Poll done in 2004 (the number hasn't really changed since 1985) still believe God created Man in the last 10,000 years. Not that this is a bad thing at all. God and driving have nothing to do with each other except one thing, the GOP and Trucks.

No, my thing with Trucks is that usually whomever the jackass is inside, they feel they rule the road. This is not OK, they must follow the rules and be as courteous as everyone else that they are sharing with. Instead, I've had a trucker surge onto the ass of my car because they were pissed I tapped the breaks so I wouldn't hit a squirrel. Hilariously enough from the legal standpoint, I can stop for anything in the road, and they can go ahead and hit me and be fully responsible for the damage to both cars. In other words, I win. If they failed to realize the power of their large height off of the ground and crush my car underneath them. They would be fully responsible for not only hitting me, totaling my car, but also all medical bills had they not already killed me with their belligerent and arrogant action. So Fuck 'em see, they are the shit on the road. This license was a Washington one.

Those Canadians that although they don't know where the hell they are going. They need to God damn act like it. And on top of that, learn to fucking signal. Over the past 2 longest weeks of my life, from this past Sunday (9/5) to the 2nd Sunday prior to that, I've had attempts on my life. Not from snipers or hit men trying to score some dough for my head, hand, etc. Nope, these were normal people. Normal people, with below average skills or perhaps even knowledge behind the wheel. In Seattle 2 weeks ago, I remember 2 cars changing lanes almost if not behind my bumper had I not paid attention. Even more so, had these ladies (yep, bot times!) signaled at all, I would have let them in without having to tap my brakes and inhale, all so I'd forget to have honked. Politely noting them that they are horrible drivers was sadly all I could do. Both were Washington plates.

So if you want to blame the Canadians, why don't we then show them how we're supposed to drive. Everywhere in every country people want to drive as fast as they want, but I don't care cause I do to sometimes. I'd just like to let people know what I'm thinking of doing with the car before I move it right in front of anyone or whatever sitch. Signaling above all is key, and if we wanna complain that Canadians can't drive, perhaps we should again try to drive better then them. Maybe teaching them something as well.

It just hit me.

It just hit me after coming across a stock for the corporation known as America First Tax Exempt Investors that between WWII and Now people became full of Bullshit.

Those Yellow Ribbons really 'help' the troops, while you're making sure Uncle Sam doesn't get 'your' money.

Why is it like this. Old People and the Road.

I Guess I'll start this off with a good starting point to conglomerate all random little tid-bits into a manifesto of why people are so freaking stupid. I love giving people choice but sometimes people choices are done too often in the stupidest direction and contraditcions to their beliefs too far fetched to not call them idiots.

Take a week or two ago. I was pulling into the Best Buy parking lot after clearing the roundabout, which is like some weird item for the road gods above trying to prove vehicular evolution. The biggest eats the smallest. Needing to turn around and reach the nearby Storage rental place due to a division, I continue speeding past the lady who I'm sure would of hit me in the roundabout and pull into the Best Buy entrance. I slightly slowdown and ready the car for the turn and BAM! that lady is there apparently rushing to reach the stop sign. We both stop saving ourselves from the possible collision, I look at her and wave for my apology and back up to start off straight. She's still sitting in her car still looking at me as I am about to drive off as cars are honking at us but mainly her as she hasn't moved her car at all. She rolls down her window, I'm sitting there wondering what the hell she wants and look at her car to make sure nothing did hit. I pull forward, and see she is completely fine, and roll down my window and kindly ask if she was ok.

To this she reply, "That was really bright" in the most bitchy and it's all about me attitude a 50 year old lady can put into her words.

To that I smirked and said OK as frankly bastardising way possible and drove off.

Obviously, I must just have a thing for old people wanting to hit any of my cars. And that is just not right. In fact it's pretty screwed up. Even worse when they are at the stop sign. And thanks to her they're now getting younger. Old people 55 or older have some odd Kamikaze like instinct in them to get in my car's way. What the hell?

The George W. Bush administration was smart?

So besides the pretty much retarded and very limited use of political talk going on at work, and of course I mean by non-professionals*, I have been stuck trying to figure out one thing.

How the hell is the American populace going to accept that they will not receive a tax break or 'stimulus check' in the coming years. Which brings me to another thing.

Can people be bought out. Can a large enough majority of a country be so caught up in their own personal gain. Their own self righteousness, their own fueling of hatred towards the over-bearer, that now since the lollipop has been provided. The flow of sugar has to keep coming.

It's a very hard question to follow an answer for because one, Wal-Mart and China alone were some of the few companies to have considerable gains in the downed economy. And that can only be abstracted from the fact the no connection was seen for human rights, worker rights or even the care to wonder how we stopped being a super power. And two, just like the cause of the last 'crash', will people's ignorance and lack of restraint be the end of a free-society.

I guess we'll see how long people are going to blame the President for the debt as they frantically wait at the mail box for their check each year.

*As far as professional thing goes, the statements where I have heard the most mundane and asinine of things both political and culturally relevant are people that I question as special. And by special, I mean if I say anything more, Sarah Palin might make a scene here. I see again that ignorance is bliss.

Seriously. Is this what we want? A musing of 2010 so far and prior.

So since New Years has passed away and we sit here idly cruising through 2010 at the exact speed of 1 second per second (Unless you're moving at a high velocity, ala Einstein's Relativity), my mind has been everywhere from subjects to objections that are both personal or of national or international importance.
I've come ever closer to seeing how capitalism has failed us as a society. But it's not that greedy people are getting away with literally whatever the fuck they want. It's that people actually buy into it. You are voting with your money. Your money that you know very well doesn't grow on trees. So why then are we against the government stepping in on situations where we were being screwed and would continued to be screwed? I guess it is incorrect to say 'we' but our nation's system of an ever ongoing history and tradition breaking and molding/mixing has been tossed away for people that speak the loudest. Even if their loud speaking is complete garbage.

Glenn Beck and official fat ass-hole Rush Limbaugh whine away their days talking about both the rapture, Obama's likeliness to steal because he's black, and the final objection to Obama's security state that will be finalized with somewhat 'free-er' Health Care. Let them ignore that 9/11 happened under Bush, and that the Patriot Act (All provisions/signings) are the greatest threat to the libertarian ideals that I can have a private life. But idiots or not, enough people listen to them for their tearful complaints, exploitation of tragedies and brain-washing through fear, that they make a profitable life for themselves. In capitalism, the more money you make the more meaningful you are to society. But obviously, this is a failure of the ideal.
Much like why the hell should we be ready and willing to travel to Mars and make it our own. As much as I would like to know that human life can continue with the possible demise of all life on this planet. But with that said that is what scares me, the fact that colonization can wipe that worry away. And then what happens after Mars? I do not see the spreading of the insistent hate-mongering and the lessons of human nature we live over again through out our history.

I'm not a hater of capitalism, but seriously, when us consumers feed a company such as a utility or a service provider to become a controlling force in our lives, then we are fucked! It is then free for them, to even if they are not a monopoly to exploit the premise that technology grows and we all want to be involved. That a game's sequel will be better than the original. And yet, in the instance of Cable Co's here locally, we must get a receiver box to get less than par TV that now forces the few of us enjoying the built in HD-TV tuners of our set's to pay a fee on top of the original price in order to continue watching channels in such quality.
By degrading Digital TV, and requiring all users to comply unless they want the only other option for such an array of channels. This is a monopolistic act, and sadly most people complied. But it is more than utilities/service providers that are grinding my gears, video game companies have been at it for a long while. Take a good portion of EA games. Now think about how each sport season there is another game to go along. Is it really that better playing as new players? And outside of the sports games, how many levels do you need to play in Need for Speed Underground until the building finally look different. And people bought those for $60 a pop. Same goes for all the LEGO/Lucasfilm game releases.

The majority of us see this happen, slowly or immediately we recognize it. But after the days and days passing of time, business becomes as usual. And we all become what we never believe ourselves to be. Compliant to the whims of someone else.

Way to go everybody! You win a gold star!