Tyson Homosexual

When modern technology fails.

Heller Gun Ban Decision

I wanted some time to see what the interpretations of the decision were going to play out like before I commented on it.

I'm not sure it is a bad decision nor do I think it is the end-all/be-all to gun control decisions. It seems that all it did two things:

1) Tossed out the entire 'militia' argument in the constitution all together and established an individual right to bear arms

2) Said total gun bans are unconstitutional at the FEDERAL level and reaffirmed the right to own a gun in the house or for hunting.

It did nothing to talk to how states want to enact gun control laws as long as it isn't a blanket restriction. From comments I've listened to and read over the past week since the decision came down it appears only a handful of gun bans are going to be affected. DC is already talking about pushing a new one through that enacts licensing and registration of guns and limiting ownership to the home for protection.

Another thing the law ruling doesn't do is talk to conceal and carry laws and the like.

So really I think, except for the 'militia' argument, this ruling doesn't do much of anything to end the debate on gun control. What it does do, politically, is it takes the gun control wedge issue off the table to beat Obama up with.

All in all I'm ok with it.

Movies Part Two

Funny, just as I finished writing the first movie post I came across this.

I've seen all of them.

Oy.

Movies!

Here are the movies I want to see that are out now. Who wants to see what with me?

1) WALL*E.
2) The Happening
3) Hancock (starts Wednesday)
4) The Love Guru
5) Get Smart

R

It's The Economy, Stupid

Since I've been on a McCain kick...how on earth can you not be aware of the gas price? I guess they haven't gotten the memo that people are more worried about their wallet than water camels and islamofascists. Seriously, how can you not only be not aware of something that has been all over the new and, even worse, not understand how it matters?

Wow.

UPDATE: Opps. The full quote shows that he was answering a question about what gas used to cost when he pumped it himself, so I suppose not the best example. The link last week about Obama vs McCain's answer about the biggest threat to the country is a better example.

Cindy McCain

A friend sent me this email and asked me for my take on it. Here is my response, if anyone cares to know more about Cindy:

While that stuff is true on the face of it, there is always another side.

For example, the drug addiction. The only reason they came out publicly with it was because of an impending story exposing it was about to be published (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/drugs/print.html). As a result, the charity was shut down and a doctor's license was revoked. Cindy had a slap on the wrist.

Yea, she contributes to charities, as does her husband. The funny thing here is the one they mostly contribute to is the one that funds the private school her children attend (http://harpers.org/archive/2008/05/hbc-90003001).

There is an arguement that one of the reasons John McCain dropped his first wife in favor of Cindy was due to her fortune so that he could run for Congress. In fact, she did help him with his original bid and is involved in something called the Keating Five which is long and complicated but may get some air eventually (http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/Mark%20Nickolas/blog/&blogId=2084).

And to top it all off, the recipes that she has put out turned out to be copied from Food Network (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-weiner/mccain-family-recipes-lif_b_96666.html).

There is some other stuff but that is a good start. It all comes down to how you like to spin the truth.

R

Boat News!

My boat was out on the water today!

The engines have been switched and they are trying to run out some nasty 16-month old gas and clean up the carburators from the crappy gas. After that, there is an alarm that needs to be fixed and that should do it.

It looks pretty nasty so it'll need to be cleaned up (oy). There are also some other repair things I want to have done at some point this summer (one of the seat braces is broken, etc) but the end result is I should have the boat for the 4th and after!

Left Buttcheek

What on earth could I have done to make my left buttcheeck hurt so much? Whenever I walk it hurts, sitting down kinda sucks. It feels like a sore muscle but I don't recall doing anything to excerise my left buttcheek, or either cheek.

What gives?

This Is Stupid

More perspective please. This is stupid. There are something like 2 people on death row for child rape and none have been executed in over 45 years for the crime (assuming I recall the stat correctly). It is a horrible crime but bitching and moaning because the court struck down the death penalty for a non-death crime is silly. Get over it. People obviously haven't been given that penalty too often for it so how exactly does this really affect things?

How about focusing this 'outrage' on more important matters?

Fear Mongering Fuck Tard

How is this not an example of McCain just being a third term of Bush?

I'm telling you, once they start breeding aquacamels you better watch out. The invasion will be coming.

"I Am Aware Of All Internet Traditions" Part 2

Just came across this.

It is gaining power.

Good times.

What Do You Do When Everything Changes

What do you do when the things that were constant in your life cease to be? Do you loose your anchor and drift into the anarchy? Or do you latch on to something else to keep you centered? Or do you just go with the tide and see where you end up?

I'm not sure what I do. I think it is a mix of the second and third items. I tend to latch on to whatever is there at first and then slowly just let go and end up wherever it is I end up.

I always thought the chinese curse of 'May you live in interesting times' was a good one.

Strong Women

This post has been brewing for a while. Do I, or don't I, have trouble with 'strong women'? I put it in '' because I think part of the issue here is what the hell do people mean by 'strong women'? It is right up there with hippy, high maintenance and even bitch to some degree (see below) as far as things that people think they know what it means but that definition is WIDELY different for each person. This may ruffle some feathers but only because I think it is a very sensitive subject. I truely struggle with this so feedback is a good thing.

Do I have problems with strong women? Well, that all depends on what you mean by a strong woman. I don't believe I do. In fact, as I think about the women I am friends with I would consider each and every one of them a strong woman. They stand up for themselves and voice their opinions as strongly if not stronger than a lot of the guys I know. I've had probably more spirited and enlightening conversations with them as a whole than with the fellas.

So why, then, do I get this 'problem with strong women' criticism thrown at me from time to time by different people? I don't get it. So I brought this up in a conversation with some friends last week to get some feedback.

Here is the deal from my perspective. It all comes down to the 'bitch' term. The HRC candidacy really highlights this. How can a woman be strong and not be considered a bitch? Or, more importantly, why is it that when a woman is forceful or very vocal (particularly in the workplace) she is labeled a bitch while if a guy does it he is just motivated or whatever? Good questions, for sure. I can only speak for myself here but when I call a woman a 'bitch' or, more likely, the 'devil incarnate' it isn't because she is strong so much as she is being rude as hell. When guys do the same thing I can them assholes or other such lovely things. What really gets me is when I get slammed for perceived offenses or the attitude that I owe them something, that drives me nuts in anyone, not just women. So I think, for me, with men and women, there is a line between being forceful, vocal and spirited and being a total rude shit and when that gets crossed I call people on it (even if it isn't to their face - I hate direct confrontation ;) ). So if that translates into a problem with 'strong women' then fine. But I think that it really translates more into a problem with rude assholes than any inherent issues with people that stand up for themselves.

Am I full of shit here?

Things I Am Learning About Me

It is funny that as time moves forward I learn more about me. Maybe I keep changing and am learning about new things. Or maybe I'm just beginning to understand deeper levels of stuff that I wasn't willing or able to see/accept before. Who knows, who cares. The point is, stuff is bubbling up for me to be aware of so this post is about those things. It will be somewhat of a rambling/novel/stream of conscious thing while I try to work through some of this.

I am a perfectionist. Can you believe it? Maybe you can, but I'm having a hard time admitting to it. Perfectionists, to me, have always been really picky and had to have everything just-so explempified by clean houses and perfect dress. The last two bits there sure as hell aren't me, so I never could see the other parts that are true. I like to go with the flow and let how things fall out dictate my response, that too doesn't sound too perfectionist to me either - at least to what I thought perfectionism was. As I have learned more, my perspective or understanding of what it means to be a perfectionist has changed/broadened. Like anything else, it isn't as simple as just slapping a label on something. While I definitely have perfectionist tendencies, I am not ruled by it (usually). But it seems totally at odds with how I like (or think I like) to live my life. How can I be content to determine what I want to do by letting events fall out and still be picky about what I want to do? It seems like a paradox to me but it works. However, it certainly gets in the way as well. Fear of failure or, more, criticism plays large in my life. Sometimes I think I come across as a know-it-all or someone with an opinion on everything. With work I can get caught up in one little stupid detail that just isn't that important, although I'm getting much better at balancing this aspect of it. Finally, in matters of love, this tendency tends to get me stuck in my head rather than my heart. Of course, there are up-sides. I tend to want to know alot about something before I jump into it, then when I'm ready I jump in head first. This has served me well in some places, just not in matter of the heart. More about that later.

I have learned that I am too much in my own head sometimes. This is something else that surprises me although I've heard it before. How can I just 'go with it' and let things happen but at the same time be too much in my head? I don't know. Maybe I can bounce between being stuck in my head and not depending on the situation? All I know is I love a good debate with people and learning new views, etc. I really dislike people that apply logic to every damn thing and aren't just willing to accept other points of view. Am I being a hypocrite now? Seriously, am I? I don't think I am but I honestly don't know.

Ultimately, I am a survivor. I always knew I was flexible as far as my decisions go (something else that flies in the face of perfectionism...or does it?). I'm willing to change my plans and thinking based on what events play out and I'm ok with it. When something happens that is out-of-the-blue, I am flexible enough to figure out a new path and adjust my thinking. Not to be cliche, but when life hands me lemons, I make lemonade. I always have and I think it is one of the things that really makes me who I am.

The survivor bit I just recently came to and I think it really fits, or at least fits for now. In my mind, it explains how I can have these different aspects that are seemingly at odds. And that fits something I've been saying for a long time: embrace your hypocrisy (or contradiction). We are full of them and it is what makes us so damn fascinating.

More Graphs!

All of these come from here:








Because I have been on an AC/DC kick lately:


AND



AND of course Big Balls:


Finally, a Monty Python reference:

Milkshakes and Yards

So I came across this graph a long time ago and didn't know where to find it. A post by Shana lately pointed me to the proper site. I find this one very funny for some reason:


more graph humor and song chart memes

Finally: Obama Talks Back Regarding 9/11

So, finally, a democrat with balls to push back against the 9/11 justification for everything mentality.

Well I refuse to be lectured on national security by people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States. The other side likes to use 9/11 as a political bludgeon. Well, let’s talk about 9/11.

The people who were responsible for murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11 have not been brought to justice. They are Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and their sponsors – the Taliban. They were in Afghanistan. And yet George Bush and John McCain decided in 2002 that we should take our eye off of Afghanistan so that we could invade and occupy a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The case for war in Iraq was so thin that George Bush and John McCain had to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein, and make false promises that we’d be greeted as liberators. They misled the American people, and took us into a misguided war.

Here are the results of their policy. Osama bin Laden and his top leadership – the people who murdered 3000 Americans – have a safe-haven in northwest Pakistan, where they operate with such freedom of action that they can still put out hate-filled audiotapes to the outside world. That’s the result of the Bush-McCain approach to the war on terrorism.

This is from a transcript of his speeh here.

Why haven't we had leaders doing this four years ago? Why did it take a presidential candidate with balls to finally start doing this?

Regardless of my frustration of why it took so long, it makes my heart all warm and fuzzy now that it is finally happening.

Go get'em!

"I Am Aware of All Internet Traditions"

This is a new meme in the political blogging circles that just creeped up about 45 minutes ago and is classic. I so want the t-shirt.

It came up in the comments here due to another meme called 'shorter (x)' which started here way back in 2003.

I am only posting this so when you all hear me make a reference to it you can laugh with me. :)

UPDATE: This is a better explanation of what happened.

American News Project

So there is this website of online video journalism that is pretty nice. I am totally behind this stuff as a counter to the corporate-owned media that is kinda screwing us. If this kinda thing puts pressure on the big boys to actually do their job, good deal.

Anyway, check it out and if you want an example, check out this piece of annoying crap in the senate hearings.

Dean and Obama's 50 State Strategy

I've talked about this before on this blog and have had conversations with others. A point that comes up a lot, and I totally agree with it, is without Dean in 2004 and as the head of the DNC for the last four years, Obama wouldn't be as successful today. Obama took Dean's 50 state strategy and turned it into a way to not only win the presidential nomination but to turn the entrenched way of doing things on its head. No one else embodied the entrenched interestes and traditional way of doing things in the Democratic party more than HRC.

Anyway, this is a pretty good and shortish summary of the coming together of the two strategies and what it means for the GE.

Rules for Radicals

Community organizer Saul Alinsky’s 1971 list of 13 Rules for Radicals:

1 ) Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

2 ) Never go outside the experience of your people. It may result in confusion, fear and retreat.

3 ) Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat.

4 ) Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules.

5 ) Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

6 ) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

7 ) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

8 ) Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.

9 ) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

10 ) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

11 ) If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.

12 ) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

13 ) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.

I was going to go through these, but I'm just going to let them speak for their own.

I will say this, however. Obama is doing quite a few of them.

Demo Destruction

How do you guarantee that a demo to a customer is going to go to shit? By introducing massive changes to the underlying framework the day before the demo. This place has that down to a science.

What others ways can you do it? By introducing major changes to the style sheets and then allowing your designed to take off at 5 pm.

And if that wasn't enough, another way you can screw your employees is to ask already stressed out people to provide a list of what you have done over the past month on the day before a demo. Good timing, that.

Oh, and now the mofo left. He fricken left. What the fuck is that? The guy running the show, the manager, the man with the plan, he who must approve everything, took off while we are waiting for database changes to verify that stuff works on the demo site where they are going to, you know, demo from.

I am so torn right now between wanting to say fuck it and leave to and my ethics, of which I have few but those I have get in the way sometime. I mean, here we are being pushed for weeks about how important this demo is and then the day before it half the people act like it is no big deal? Are you kidding me? I cleared my calendar to make sure this stuff was going to work the least I could get in return was a similiar effort.

I'm telling you, it's like they don't want to succeed. Maybe we are being tested and there is nice prize if we pass? Not that we can. The deck is stacked against us.

Man. Just, man.

Is There Anything Better

Than when a crushing headache finally starts to subside? It is like a new lease on life.

Finally

Obama isn't wasting any time knocking things into shape now that he is the nominee.

He has instructed the DNC to take no money from lobbiests and PACs (here).

And he slapped jackass Joe Lieberman around a bit. Oh to be a fly on the during that conversation.

Good start.

Not a Good Title

Lots of stuff in this article about what Obama has done and the ramifications it has moving forward in the general. The two major breakthroughs he talks about are:

1) the Obama campaign is the first mass multi-racial collaboration in the United States since the Southern Civil Rights movement.

2) a critical mass of progressive Americans are learning political discipline again

If you want to understand why this is no ordinary electoral movement and why I'm so worked up about it, that's a pretty good article. It is changing things, finally.

Holy Clean Cat Litter Batman

Why don't I have one of these yet?

Class Warfare and Moving Forward

From here:

I wrote, the other day, about my friend's father passing away. My friend is a 42 yr. old gay man who'd never told his father he was gay. His partner of nine years had never met my friend's father. Can you imagine what he's feeling right now? I can't. And I want nothing more than to live in a society were my friend and his partner are given the respect they deserve, and angry bigots are mocked and jeered as the Unclean; cast out with the people who look down on us because we don't make enough money, don't pray loudly enough, don't have genetics or genealogy on our side.

This struggle for a better America is what lies before us. This horrifically wrong headed, aggressively inhumane decade of kicking the "not cool kids" in the balls must end. And we, who call ourselves "progressive", need to focus on making that change. Today.

I did the highlighting. I think it is an important point and goes back to the identity politics that have made the past decade or two such a cluster fuck. Class warfare is very alive in this country and it needs to stop.

I was reading something somewhere and I came across something that really puts this McCain vs Obama thing into perspective. Actually, it puts the whole Repubs vs Democrats into perspective for the past few decades (particularly the last 8 years). The writer said something along the lines of 'McCain's handlers are whispering in McCain's ears to bring Obama does into the mud rather than rise up to Obama's level and run against him on the policies'. I think this is right on and shows the basic theory behind the 50+1% strategy that has been followed for so long. Smear your opponent and beat him because people think they "don't make enough money, don't pray loudly enough, don't have genetics or genealogy on our side". Identity politics at its worst. Political assassination. What Rove is awesome at. That shit is on it's way out and I can't wait for it to be gone.

What I would give for McCain to toss off his handlers and raise to Obama's level and run against him on the issues rather than trying to bring him down into the gutter.

Obama and the Hillary Faithful: A Question

I have a question for the ladies in particular and I need a perspective check here.

On the way in to work today I was listening to some pundits babel as they so often do. One of things they were talking about were the letters they have received since last night regarding the Hillary faithful and the question of voting for Obama or not. What came out of it was that a perspective that many of the women that are threatening to sit out the election was that they relate to Obama as someone in their own lives who was a younger flashy male that swept in and just pushed them aside.

So my question is this, as I know quite a few of you preferred Hillary over Obama: how personal was that decision and is it something you think people can move past by November?

Serial Sincerity

Their are serial exaggerators, serial liars, serial killers and what I like to refer to as serial sinceritors (how the heck do you spell that?). You all probably know what I mean, they work in most offices. They are the people that tell you they are going to do something or promise to do lunch or whatever and they absolutely 100% mean it when they say it, but it never (or rarely anyway) happens. Thus, serial sincerity.

That is all.

Correlation Does Not Equal Causation

This is one of my favorite things to keep in mind. It reminds that things can happen for reasons that seem apparent but are actually different in reality. I always have trouble coming up with a good example but yesterday I came across one.

I left work early yesterday and hit Tarara Vineyard with a friend. We did the super secret tasting and, really, they actually have very good wine. Not sure where the dislike comes from. But anyway, the point is we were talking to the pourer (who turned out to be the wife of the winemaker) about buttery Chardonnay which I absolutely hate. I call them popcorn butter. Somehow the conversation of oak vs stainless steel came up. Here is the correlation part. When tasting Chardonnays and one is buttery as hell, it always seems to be aged in oak. When tasting a Chardonnay I can stomach it is in stainless steel. So it seemed that the buttery flavor was in part due to the oak. Turns out, it's actually caused when they ferment the wine with the leaves and they normally only do that in oak. Stainless steel is used for a lighter wine so they don't ferment with the leaves. Ta da.

So there you go. The correlation was that the Chardonnay was fermented in oak therefore it had the buttery taste. Turns out the oak wasn't the cause thus the saying: Correlation does not equal causation.

My office hours are 3 pm to 3:05 pm every other Tuesday if there are any questions. ;)

Where I've Been

So I fell off the earth for a couple of weeks. Just to catch you all up, I was under the gun in a big way since about May 15th at work. I put in 117 hours over the last two weeks but that little phase is over. Now I have something like 50 personal emails to catch up on and such so if you emailed me and are still waiting, a response will be coming before long.

Thanks for the concern. :)

The Secret

Really, when it comes down to it, isn't the ultimate lesson really not only learning but truely embracing that you are ultimately responsible for everything that happens to you?

Untitled: The Reckoning

The boss boss came by and I have to give him credit for handling the situation well. He started by telling me he has been in my shoes before and have written similiar emails that I wrote to him over the weekend. We then got into the heart of the matter and talked about what was driving me nuts. I expressed that while he does a good job of describing the big picture he sucks at defining the short-term and intermediate goals. We talked about ways we could both communicate better and how to set and meet expectations better. In the end, it was very productive and really went a long way to difuse the situation.

Do I think it'll change all that much? Nah. But I have a better idea for what questions to ask and how to approach the situation and he has a better idea of what I need from him in order to do my job effectively.

Last Hope for Hillary

While I await my boss boss to show up and talk to me, I read this. Favorite two reasons:

-By the time a the Democratic National Convention only one delegate still supports Hillary Clinton. His name? Jesus.

-Hillary Clinton challenges Barack Obama to one last debate, where she tricks him into saying his name backwards, making him disappear into the fifth dimension in a puff of pixie dust.

Untitled

Blah, can't think of a witty title right now. Maybe one comes by the end of the post. Stream of conciousness in 3...2...1...

I'm at work. It's 7:49 and there is supposedly an 8 am meeting that I believe has now been pushed back to 9 and it seems that everyone but I know about it. There is no email about it, so I wonder how everyone found out. Just another example of the shitty communication in this place that is making me question staying. The benefits are good, the pay isn't bad, I have an office, most of the people are easy to work with and pretty cool on top of it...but the key management just SUCKS. I mean really sucks. In the past I've fought those battles at other companies but at this point with where I'm at I'm just not willing to do it again. There is a tipping point where on one side there are the benefits and the flexibility and on the other side there is the fricken crazy stress brought about by people in management positions that shouldn't be there that sooner or later is going to cause me to bail. I'm already at the point where I'm ok with it. It would cause some hardships and stress in the short term, which would suck since I'm finally close on having stuff put back together financially. In any case, this morning will be interesting.

Last week I tossed a lot of time and effort at stuff here to try to get something together for a demo that was supposed to happen Friday evening but was then pushed back to "8am" this morning, which is now magically, apparently, 9 am. To make a long story short because I'm tired of dealing with it I received some emails over the weekend from the boss boss that were very critical of what we have done and very disappointing. The reasons for the state of the projects are mainly do to shit management and I refuse to be left holding the bag on that guys fuck ups. We basically had two months to do the project, 6 weeks of which were wasted with him pulling the rug out from under us because he's too proud or clueless to actually tell us what he wants. We didn't get that information until May 15th. So in essence, we had 10 business days to make it happen. Well, no shit its missing half the features. What did you think would happen. I sent an email where my frustration bled through very clearly Sunday night. I just received a response requesting to sit down and talk about it. Stay tuned.