Thoughts

So, where I work is a downtown location with plenty of young professionals about.  Every day, I go to one of three places for lunch (really, one of two) and I sit and I read a book for a while, have a sandwich, perhaps some soup, whatever.  I’ve noticed lately that no matter where I go, I see principally guys.  That doesn’t make sense!  There’s certainly plenty of women in the workforce, and even if there wasn’t, the town/city has plenty of women living there.  So why is it that I see every table as all guys, mostly guys, etc?  What are women doing for lunch?  Are they just that more dedicated that while us guys go jerk around during lunch, they sit at their desks hunched over a computer screen?  I don’t think so.

Alright, when the fuck did we go off the deep end?

I dealt with Ron Paul. I dealt with anti-Hillary, anti-Guilliani (both of which I agree with, but don’t need to see constantly). I deal with the constant Alternet postings. But now - what the fuck?

So yesterday, some Iranian boats charge a U.S. destroyer, cruiser and frigate (I believe it was) in international waters. Annoying, provocative, yes. But what’s Reddit’s response? “Oh, it must have been the fault of the U.S.” Bad enough. Then, I log on today, and WHAT THE HELL? “If you believe Iran “harassed” U.S. ships, you have forgotten the USS Vincennes.” WHAT THE FUCK? What on EARTH does a 1988 shoot down of an airliner have to do with whether or not the Iranian boats charged U.S. ships in 2008?

Here’s my real point, Reddit: IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY EVIDENCE TO BACK UP YOUR CONSPIRACY/WHINING/BULLSHIT POLITICAL CRAP, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

If you have evidence that the U.S. started this confrontation or something like that, please, bring it forward. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

That is all. Thank you. And yes, I’m going to submit this myself. Get over it.

Burn karma, burn.

Posted at: http://politics.reddit.com/info/64vi8/comments/

Late edit:

I’d like to make it clear that I am no neocon or anything of that nature. I’m an anti-war, registered democrat, etc. But claims by EITHER side, without evidence, are just ridiculous. Also, just because I don’t support the war, doesn’t mean I think everything that happens is automatically our own fault.

Later edit:

Although I expected my (non-existent)  karma to burn over this story, what surprises me is that even though all I’m saying is “when you post something, make sure what is said is actually backed up,” even in the comments people are making assumptions about my political opinions, my opinions on Reddit as a whole, etc.  Disagree with me if you like, I have no problem with that.  Just don’t think you know my politics or opinions based on this post.

So, over the past couple weeks I’ve gotten into the whole Wikipedia editing experience.  It’s… interesting, I’ll give it that much.  It’s a pretty slick system, although a bit too complex for the average user.  It has taken me this long just to learn the very basics.  Regardless, I’ve pretty much exclusively (it has gone from 6k in size to 30k in size since I started editing) developed the Southbury article.  No one has really interfered with me, or edited it since I started.

Until today.  I go in today, and people have added things, made statements, changed things around - all without any discussion and often without any source.  While I’m not saying any of it is wrong, I’m saying it’s annoying.  I feel like I’ve done all this work, for free and really even without an acknowledgment - my name isn’t even on the page - and now people can just screw around with it.  That annoys me.  It makes me not really want to continue.  I’d rather write the history & status of Southbury on this blog.

Wikipedia has discussion pages for a reason - people should use them, if they’re going to make edits.  Even when I alone was working on it, I put a significant amount of stuff onto the discussion page, which not one other person has bothered to respond to.   Annoying.

Even worse, one of the users claims in his user page to be primarily responsible for the contributions to the article.  This pisses me off to no end.  But what can I do about it?  Nothing, really.  Sure I could delete it from his user page, but he could just re-add it.  It needs to stop.  Wikipedia is TOO open.  There should be one person or group actually responsible for approving edits to each article, rather than everything being completely open.

But hey, what do I know, I’m only someone adding information to it.

Sperm Donor Wins Child Support Battle: Mother can’t renege on payment deal, Pa. Supreme Court rules.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22488113/

In an age where the reproductive rights of a mother are hotbed political issues, and the rights of a father are ignored, it’s refreshing to see something like this.  In short, if you make a deal with somebody you know (at least, in Pennsylvania) for them to donate sperm to you in order to have kids, and you agree that they’ll effectively not be the father (they don’t pay child support, and they have no right to visitation), then that’s it.  They’re not the father.  You can’t then go and renege and demand money.

Unfortunately, even this was decided in terms of the rights of a woman.  The decision hinges on the fact that to decide any other way would be to destroy sperm donation system, which in turn would limit a woman’s “reproductive prerogatives.”

The state of the system today is simply unacceptable.  Why is it that all we care about are the rights of the woman?  To be clear, the result in this case was right and proper.  But why was even this decided based on the rights of the woman, with the man ignored?  This is ridiculous.

Just some food for thought.

Wow, so the Iowa caucuses are over, and we’re looking at Huckabee for the Republicans and Obama for the Democrats. Surely nothing we’d've predicted very long ago (especially Huckabee). More surprising to me, however, was Edwards placement - he beat Clinton, 30% to 29%. Granted, he’s spent the last long while campaigning in Iowa, so I doubt he’ll do as well in New Hampshire/etc, but that’s still pretty impressive.

I really can’t stand most of the [front runner] candidates on either side this time, which is surprising. Usually there’s one I could at least stand (John Kerry, while not being great, was fine by me in 2004). This time, there’s just no one. I like Chris Dodd. I like Joe Biden.  But neither has a shot in hell. I really like Al Gore (why on EARTH didn’t he run?).  Too bad Stephen Colbert didn’t run nationwide (and therefore, didn’t run at all).

So Obama with 38%, Huckabee with 34%. Hardly blinding endorsements, but they’ll do for a first state caucus. But Huckabee DOES have Chuck Norris. You can’t really argue with that.

Here’s what I’m waiting for now: Michael Bloomberg. That’ll be an interesting candidate. He has a chance to effect elections more this time than any 3rd party candidate in history. Ross Perot couldn’t come close to what Bloomberg can do. Our nation is so split right now, with such polarizing candidates - we’ll see. It’d be tough or impossible for Bloomberg, but I bet he could get more of the vote than Perot did.

When the high for the day here in Connecticut is zero degrees Fahrenheit (including windchill), you know somethings wrong. Good job Al Gore (by which I mean, I love you Al Gore, please run for President). But it’s a good time to reflect on the fact that I love where I live, and I’d like to stay here (which would require obtaining a permanent job - I’m currently doing temp work at a law firm, anybody want to fix that?). I’ve been doing a lot of work lately on Wikipedia, updating my towns website. Since I took it over, it has gone from about 6.5kb to 27kb - a large size, a large increase, even if you can’t think about how to translate that into a usable figure.

I’ve added so much, in fact, that I’ve run out of things to add. So I’m asking you: Do you have any current or historic information on Southbury, Connecticut? If so, shoot it on over to me.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” - Aldous Huxley

Huxley goes on to speak about love of servitude being impossible without economic security. I however argue that love of servitude is caused by a fear of losing perceived security.

I could not possibly compete with Huxley’s writing, his ability to convey his ideas. I have no pretensions to being a great writer. What I do know is that in the United States today, we are faced with the ever increasing power of the Executive. This trend has been occurring for some years - it is not merely a result of George W. Bush. But under him it has reached a peak we could never have dreamed of.

In a secure world (both economically and physically), people do not fear the government, people do not listen to the government, people do not need the government. People do not make war, unless there’s further gains to be had. It is our insecurities that cause war. But that’s an issue for another day. More important to this discussion is that rather than being a secure world in which the government becomes stronger, becomes totalitarian, and in which we love them for it, is one in which we fear a LOSS of security, be it real or perceived.

Let us explore the United States leading up to, and since, 9/11. We existed in a prosperous country which had never had much of a physical security issue. We were confident in the fact that, though the world might have problems, those problems, those wars, did not effect us in our day to day lives. For the most part, the country had money. For once, the deficit wasn’t significant. We had a President that couldn’t find his own nose, but it didn’t matter, because there was nothing to worry about. He’d be ineffective and he’d be gone in a few years.

September 11, 2001 changed all that. This President went from completely ineffectual to being able to get and do whatever he wished, no matter how crazy. No matter how much the rights of the populace changed. No matter how much money we spent. No matter how many lives were lost. He could do no wrong. Or at least, he could do no wrong that would make the majority wish him gone. After barely being elected to office in 2000 (and indeed, it took the Supreme Court to confirm that), he actually INCREASES his lead over his challenger in 2004. He took our rights away, and we loved him for it. DMCA, Real ID, FISA amendments, plane security, torture, whatever he wanted, we gave him. Sure, some people complained, but that didn’t stop him. That didn’t stop US. The more his popularity dropped, the more he was able to get what he wanted. The more power we gave him.

Why? Why did this happen? Because we feared that worse could happen. We feared that by not giving up some of our rights, by not endorsing the President, we would be putting ourselves at even greater risk, both physically and economically. When asked what President Bush has done for this country, I find that most fans of him cannot tell me. The answer is always “it could have been worse” or, with the more honest of them, flat out “I’d rather give him this power than have him be unable to stop an attack.” That’s assuming that the power has actually done that, which many would argue against. Again, not a subject I care to get into here.

My point is simple, and it is this: Fear gives politicians power, gives them love. Happiness does not. Clinton was well liked, yet for a minor sexual scandal was nearly impeached. Bush has brought rights in this country to its knees, and opinion polls aside, grumbling aside, we love him for it.

 ”Un-American activity cannot be prevented or routed out by employing un-American methods; to preserve freedom we must use the tools that freedom provides.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower

This story, despite its many flaws, is just so interesting to read that I thought I’d post a link to it:

A Middle-Aged Princess Grows Up

They had the Patriots dead to rights… and then they blow the entire clock in the 4th.  Argh!  No more comment necessary.

So, following on my rant about Starbucks imperfections, I’m going to add another.  This isn’t actually Starbucks fault, but rather the fault of the suburbs, or at least this suburb.
   To begin, let me say that since I’ve moved back here, I’ve loved it.  Yes, there isn’t as much to do around as there was in Boston, but that’s OK by me.  But today I wanted to do something low key, so I decided to do something that I used to do a lot in Boston: go read a book at Starbucks.
 So I get in the car, I go to Starbucks, I get a mocha, and I sit with two books (I was finishing Children of Men by P.D. James and starting Brave New World by Aldous Huxley).  Yeah, I don’t stay long.
   I never thought I’d say this: teenagers in Boston were more respectful, less obnoxious, than full grown adults (the women especially) in this town.  I sit in one of the comfy chairs.  As I’m sure you’re aware, these always (in my experience) come in pairs around a small table.  I never mind if someone else sits at the other.  Heck, sometimes it can lead to good conversation - at worst, it’s never annoying.  This was annoying.
   Some woman sits down with her young child (4-5 range).  She doesn’t ask if she can take the seat, she just takes it.  As I said, I don’t mind if someone takes it, but at least have the courtesy to ask first.  No one ever says no, so what’s the harm?  It’s a good thing to do.  She doesn’t.  OK, fine.  Then her kid starts moving the table around with my coffee on it.  She apologizes, ok.  Then some other woman comes by, hits my foot, doesn’t say a word.  It just escalates from there.  I finally leave - it was ridiculous.  Maybe I need to move to New Haven or something, get back around college kids.  Never thought I’d say that.
   By the way, today definitely emphasized what that article was talking about yesterday inSalon.  Starbucks was jammed, and its atmosphere was horrid.  A coffee shop next door (or anywhere in this town, as far as I’m concerned - we have 1 Starbucks, 1 franchised Starbucks, and 1 independent that is more of a breakfast/lunch place than a place you can sit and do work or read in) would have done well.