Asshat of the Day - August 20th, 2008

Petrol Pump Pilgrims Keep Faith

...

Okay. I thought this was ridiculous when I first read about it, but we've moved from ridiculous to ludicrous.

"We don't have anybody else to turn to but God," Mr Twyman told the BBC. "We have to turn these problems over to God and not to man."

So, to control the price of a commodity extracted and traded by Man, you turn to a divine power? If God doesn't listen to all the children in war-torn countries who pray that their parents survive the night, why on Earth would He listen to people whining about gas prices?

This week the group returned to the site of their first prayer meeting to celebrate. Singing "We shall overcome," they changed the words of the well-known hymn to "We'll have lower gas prices".

I'm... actually speechless. You take a song that's a lovely testament of faith, and you turn it into a "thanks, God, for making it easier to fill my tank"? I am probably the most lapsed Catholic in the world, and I still find that abhorrent. I mean, good ol' J.C. and his disciples were rather famously against the hoarding of money, so really, high gas prices are doing you a favour by bringing you closer to God.

Mr Twyman is sceptical that market forces might be responsible for the lower prices. But he and his prayer warriors have changed their motoring habits.

Ahh... do I detect a hint of doubt there? The market upon which gasoline is bought and traded is an artifact of man, the supply of oil finite and its extraction, again, limited by man's own capabilities. God may be comforting to turn to in times of trouble, and faith a ward against the cruelties of the world... but don't go crediting Him with things that aren't His work.

*sighs*

Asshat of the Day - August 14th, 2008

Today's Asshat of the Day is our reigning champion, the Bush administration, and one of its Horsemen (or Horsewomen) of the Idiocalypse, the Secretary of Transportation, Mary E. Peters.

The article, you ask? Here we are: Drop in Miles Driven Is Depleting Highway Fund; Loan From Mass Transit Is Urged

Let's get into it...

The secretary, Mary E. Peters, said the short-term solution would be for the Highway Trust Fund’s highway account to borrow money from the fund’s mass transit account, a step that would balance the accounts as highway travel declines and use of mass transit increases. Both trends are being driven by the high price of gasoline and diesel fuel.

Now... this isn't all Mrs. Peters' fault; part of it has to do with the colossal lack of infrastructure spending that accompanied the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude that has seemed to dominate American politics for the last few decades. Always better to offer a tax cut than to actually keep the infrastructure in good shape, eh?

However.

Things are now broke. They need fixing. However, the US government is also broke. Hence the rampant borrowing from Social Security, among other funds. This idea, though, beggars credulity.

You depend on a tax from the people who use the highway system to maintain the highway system. Fewer people now use the system. As the free market economy that the administration professes to be such a fan of would dictate, if fewer people use a service, but the service quality is fixed at a certain level, the price to those few should increase. Ergo, a rise in the gas tax to support infrastructure spending. It's the same in any profession - the more specialized a tool becomes, the more it costs an individual user.

Heck, you could even make more roads toll roads electronically; we did it with the 407 and that road is self-supporting now.

But both of those involve raising taxes or charging people more money, which the Republicans are traditionally against. What to do, what to do... Oh, I've got it! Let's take money from the transit system that desperately need infrastructure improvements, right now, and spend it on roads that they don't use! Brilliant! Only pinko Commies ride public transit anyway!

Whoa... a few too many shots of sarcanol there. Bit dizzy.

So, Mrs. Peters: yes, the highways, bridges, and roads need improvement. They've been needing it for a long time. But borrowing from another fund isn't a solution, because the transit system is going to need that money. You're just going to have to bite the bullet and raise taxes. Hell, your administration has the lowest approval rating in US History - what's another few points?

Asshat of the Day - August 13th, 2008

Sorry, loyal readers - I mentally flagged this article yesterday, but didn't get around to posting it. So here, a day late, is the Asshat of the Day for August 13th, 2008...

Back to the US with today's story:

Chemist Allowed to Go Home, Sans His Lab

Of particular note...

“It is a residential home in a residential neighborhood,” [Pamela A. Wilderman] said. “This is Mr. Deeb’s hobby. He’s still got bunches of ideas. I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation. … There are regulations about how much you’re supposed to have, how it’s detained, how it’s disposed of.”

(Emphasis, as always, mine.) So, Ms. Wilderman, you "think" he crossed a line somewhere? Is that why you seized his property without a warrant? Isn't the progress ion of such things usually "suspicion, investigation, confirmation, jurisprudence, and then lawful search and seizure"? Seems to me you skipped a few stages there.

Mr. Deeb’s home lab likely violated the regulations of many state and local departments...

Again, I'd think that I'd feel uncomfortable in a country where seizure of assets can occur on a "likely". I'd like a "does", thank you.

And, of course, let's not forget one of the leading paragraphs in the article:

None of the materials found at 81 Fremont St. posed a radiological or biological risk, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. No mercury or poison was found. Some of the compounds are potentially explosive, but no more dangerous than typical household cleaning products.

So, let me sum this up. A chemist who so enjoyed his work that he continued experimenting in his copious spare time after retirement had his lab, doubtless the fruit of many weeks/months of labour, confiscated because authorities thought that there might be something wrong with it being there. Nothing he had was chemically harmful - at least, no moreso than a dozen things you can pick up in a hardware store - and as a chemist, he was probably more aware of the harmful capacities of any such chemicals than your average layperson.

I sincerely doubt that Mr. Deeb was dumping chemical residue into greywater, given his previous experience, so what we're left with is "I don't understand what you're doing, but it scares me, so I'm stopping it" from the authorities.

Oh, and I don't buy the "violation of zoning laws". He wasn't doing scientific R&D commercially, he was doing it 'cause he liked doing it! It was a freakin' hobby! He might even have found something new, working on his own... but we can't have people trying to better society on their own property, can we now?

Gah.

Asshat of the Day - August 12th, 2008

This one's pretty straightforward:

Mark Thomas

Every time I think that the "them furreners, takin' our jobs" mindset is ensconced south of the border, someone like this pops up.

Julie bbviously(sic) has dual citizenship and she should have represented Communist China - it would have been a more comfortable fit for her. Besides waving the red Chinese flag or banner. In her interviews all she talked about was China China China - not once did she mention Canada or if she was proud to represent our country. This is a disgrace she should have represented her real homeland China and not taken advantage of Canada. But then again being 50 she would never have qualified for the Communist Chinese team!

Nevermind that it had already been made clear that what she had held up was a countrywide "Hi Mom!". Nevermind that she was competing for Canada. Mr. Thomas was all too keen to leap onto this as evidence of an immigrant plot...

Julie is not a Canadian - she is and identifies herself as Chinese first. Another example of an immigrant who thinks the multiculturalism means you can live in Canada and enjoy its benefits but sitll consider your birth country as your homeland. Canada deserves better!

(Emphasis mine.) You can see the thought process here; immigrants, clearly, rather than being one of the hardest-working and proudest components of our multicultural society, are moochers who come for the benefits while laughing at us behind our backs. This is the kind of mind that's behind building fences along borders.

What my sports affiliation is - simply is none of your business. The bottom line is members of the Canadian Olympic team are supposed follow certain rules of conduct when they represent Canada - demonstrating loyalty and commitment to the country you represent. She did not! My goodness I can just imagine the hysterua she would have caused had she waved a Quebec flag!

It has all the hallmarks of a genuine, Grade-A asshat... willful ignorance, stubborn refusal to let clumsy things like "facts" get in the way of his uninformed opinion, and bigotry.

For all these reasons, Mark Thomas wins Asshat of the Day.


Go Jujie!

Asshat of the Day - August 3rd

So, Saturday didn't give me anything to post about. Very little asshattery took place. In addition, I was busy, and I'm still getting used to this "daily post" business.

But, I'm back. Today's evidence that there is no intelligent life on Earth:

Beijing is moving protesters to where they're out-of-sight.

Now, I can understand registering for a protest; it's only polite. Likewise, I can see working with police or civil administration to allow unobstructed paths for athletes and spectators. However...

The application process differs for foreigners and locals who wish to rally at one of the three officially approved protest sites near far-flung sporting venues, which were announced by Liu at a news conference in Beijing on July 23.

(Emphasis, as always, mine.)

So, essentially, protesters get this: "Oh, of course, we wouldn't dream of impinging upon your right, as a citizen or foreign visitor, to protest. You are, as always, welcome to make your political statement. Just not where anyone will see you. You can go protest by the Ballroom Dancing pavilion. Shoo, now."

This, combined with the Great Firewall of China blocking out Amnesty International, as well as other sites critical of China from the Olympic pavilion (though the blocks on some of the more prominent websites were later lifted) earns China (and Beijing in particular) the title of Asshat of the Day.

Though, I suppose, I shouldn't be too critical of the Chinese. After all, the Americans came up with it first. And we've done it too - though with the agreement of the protesters, I grant you. And the Chinese constitution, at least, doesn't pretend that free speech is an inalienable right in which the government has no business interfering.

New Feature! - Asshat of the Day

This new (daily) feature bestows the dubious honour of "Asshat of the Day" on whatever newsmaker I deem to be having the largest negative impact on the world... or who demonstrates the greatest stupidity, even if the scope of their influence is less than a lesser case of terminal stupid.

Today's winner/loser:
The US Government (specifically, the Department of Homeland Security.)

Important excerpt from the article (emphasis mine):

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

So, in other words, the DHS can seize your laptop if you're crossing the border, for no better reason than "we felt like it", hold it indefinitely, and give any information contained therein (or on a Blackberry, or iPhone, or PocketPC) to anyone they choose.

If it weren't for the fact that they're rewriting the laws to allow it, I'm fairly certain this would qualify as "unlawful search and seizure... but when has something like the Constitution stood in the way of the Bush administration, eh?

So, our first Asshat of the Day (doubtless destined to recover the honour many more times) - the Department of Homeland Security.

ive Got a Bone 2 Pick With U

Today's rant - people who don't even make an attempt at spelling.

As a preface - this is not meant to be directed at the dyslexic: they have a problem that is no fault of their own, and should not be blamed for it. Neither should it be directed at those who truly try their hardest, but still come up short - they will improve with time, and their problem is either age or an educational system that failed them.

No, the people at whom this particular diatribe is aimed are those who can't bring themselves to make the effort to learn to use the English language correctly - or, worse still, those who know how to use it correctly, but are too lazy to do so.

Now, formal language isn't required for all writing. In fact, I have a loose hierarchy of written communication, from informal, to formal:

• Text messages
• Instant messages
• Short e-mail
  
• Forum posts
• E-mail
• Personal letter
• Creative writing
• Formal letter
• Essay

By the time you've passed the second rung, there should be no misspellings.

By the fourth, grammar and punctuation should always be correct.

Everything from then on in is tone and word choice. (eg. Repetition should only be for effect by rung, and so forth.)

What brought this on was my role as a moderator of a certain online forum wherein participants submit stories for approval by myself or others on the team. If these were, for example, handwritten with pencil and paper, the occasional spelling mistake would be tolerable. Were they typed out on a manual typewriter, a lack of formatting or major grammatical errors could be overlooked.

But this is the internet, and you're working on a computer.

All the major web browsers have inline spellchecking these days. Not only that, but several (Firefox among them) will even give suggestions as to what the right word might be. This won't, of course, catch homonyms, but even having all the words spelled correctly would be step up from some of the dreck that seems, increasingly, to be littering the web and forums everywhere. If, for some reason, the browser you're working with doesn't have a spellchecker built-in, it is the work of a moment to copy your post to a word processor (MS Word, OpenOffice, TextEdit) and check it there. If you have no control over the programs on a computer (if you're using, for example, a public computer), that's still no excuse: there are still sites like Spellcheck.net which will correct your assault on the English language.

More stunning still is the ability of posters to misspell words taken directly from the previous poster, or the original article. Transpositions of letters, phonetic replacements - all of which should be, flatly, impossible. The word is right there. How in the name of any god who cares to take proper writing into their fold can you possibly get it wrong?

A few particular pet peeves:

• I moderate on a fantasy gaming site. People persistently misspell "rogue", as "rouge". The one is a sneakthief. The other is a powder applied to the face. It's really not that hard.
• Abuse of apostrophes. Girl's is not more than one girl. It's is a contracted form of "it is", not a possessive pronoun. And if you're describing something belonging to a collection of objects, there's only one "s". (eg. "The racers' cars flashed by, engines racing.")
• Random capitalization. Unless it's a proper noun, capital letters ought not to preface it.
• Generally, people who say "people understand me, so it doesn't matter how I write!" (See concluding statement.)

In conclusion, I'll offer up a plea to the internet at large, and the writing-challenged in particular. Get a spellchecker for every communication program you have. Pay attention to its little red lines, and take its advice. Take a moment to read something over before you hit "post" or "send". And, for the gods' sake, read! Read everything you can get your hands on. Read every day. There is no better way to improve your writing skills than to have a large base upon which to draw.

Written language, in this day and age in particular, is the greatest communication tool the human race has ever conceived. Abusing its rules, ignoring its strictures, and raping its meaning for the sake of expediency or laziness is unworthy of it, and should (and often does) lower your worth in the eyes of others. If you wish to be heard, understood, and taken seriously, learn to use the language. Otherwise, stay off the 'Net. It was built on language, and if you're going to languish in the gutters of linguistic abuse, you're just a waste of bandwidth - no better than white noise.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes...

Today's rant will pertain to that most vile of demographics - smokers.

Now, don't get me wrong - I have personally known quite a few people who were otherwise very nice, but were possessed of this disgusting habit. The habit did not erase their positive characteristics, but it did lessen their worth as human beings in my eyes.

"Now, that's a bit harsh," I hear you say. This may be the case. It does not, however, make it any less true. I can see nothing, whatsoever, laudable about the habit. I do not vilify those who successfully kicked the habit - it is behind them, now, and they may have started for reasons beyond my ken. But those who "try" and yet continue to smoke, or, worse still, those who have never even tried to quit and sneer at those who do - they earn no points.

(This is principally targeted at those who smoke conventional cigarettes and cigars, but pipes and weed are certainly guilty of many of the same crimes.)

Why all this anger directed towards people enjoying a pull from some fine American-grown tobacco? Where to start?

• Pollution - people complain of smog, and governments are legislating high-emissions vehicles off the streets. When the AQI is particularly nasty, children, the elderly, and those of an otherwise weak constitution are advised to remain indoors. Yet smokers seem to think that it's their god-given right to stand wherever they want and blow smoke into the air. Nevermind that being twenty feet upwind of a bus stop does nothing to attenuate the smoke concentration. Nevermind that you're exhaling pollutants many times more toxic than the cars whizzing by on the street. You're either such a slave to your nicotine addiction that you have to have that taste right now, or you're so bored that you can't think of anything better to do with your time. Both of these are reprehensible.
• Littering - If someone finishes their McDonald's meal, crumples the wrapper, and tosses it on the street, most people (smokers included!) would look at them with disgust, and the bold in the crowd might even demand that they pick it up and dispose of it properly. Smokers, somehow, seem to think that their butts are exempt from this. They are not - neither legally, nor morally. A smoker who drops a butt can be charged with littering, and should accept that this is precisely what they are doing. Some smokers, should they ever read this, might say, "Oh, but it's just paper and plants. It'll biodegrade!" Bull. Anyone who walks the streets of any major city can tell where smokers hang out. The scattered butts accumulate until a street sweeper or cleaning person cleans them up, or until a rainstorm flushes them down into the city sewers. Either carry your own ashtray, or quit the damn habit!
• Damage - There's a reason pretty much all North American businesses forbid smoking indoors. It's not the health issues (at least, not primarily), nor is it the risk of fire when cigarettes are combined with office paper supplies. It's the damage. The amount of smoke damage done to office buildings back when smoking was permitted in office buildings made most of the materials making up the buildings unrecoverable when the buildings were demolished. This same accumulation of crud (soot, tar, nicotine stains) occurs on anything a smoker smokes near. Speaking for my own area, smokers are permitted to (or, whether or not they're permitted, they do) smoke on their balconies, though not in their apartment. This is ridiculous. First, it spreads the smoke, and second, most of it will go straight back through the open door of their apartment anyway. The conditions under which you should be permitted to smoke in a building or in a vehicle ought to be: a) you must own the building/vehicle and b) the smoke has no means of escape from the vehicle/building.
• Wasted Crop Space - with the biofuels/food crises gripping the land (though not particularly pressing in North America, it remains a concern), using over three hundred and fifty thousand acres to grow a slow poison seems an almost criminal waste of cropland.
• Health Concerns - I live in Canada, so the concern I have is twofold. First, as with any area, people suffering from smoking-related illnesses take up space in hospitals that could otherwise be given to those with legitimate ailments that they did not induce themselves through an idiotic habit. Second, anyone who afflicts themselves with chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or other respiratory illness (or worse, Buerger's Disease) presents a massive drain on publicly-funded healthcare. This drain, and its reallocation of resources from those who need help and didn't bring their health problems on themselves, is not at all offset by any cigarette tax that could be levied. If smokers were required by law to either quit or give up their health cards, I'd be happy.

What sparked off this diatribe? Well, recently (hallelujah!) the city in which I live passed a law banning smokers (smoking ones, anyway) from bus stations, any indoor public venue, and anywhere within six metres of a door, window, or air intake of any sort to such public venues. As such, most coffee shops posted prominent notices indicating that there was no longer any smoking in their customer patios.

Did this stop the smokers? Not a whit. I saw one man lean back against the no-smoking sign as he lit up. There have been several outspoken letters in the newspaper where they declaim that their rights and freedoms are being infringed upon, and that they should be able to smoke wherever they please.

I'll tell you what, all those of you beholden to the god Nicotine - as long as I never have to see your butts lying on the sidewalk, or be forced to walk through your exhaust fumes when on my way about my day; as long as I never have to endure an interminable ride on the bus sitting next to someone whose clothes reek of cigarette smoke; as long as I never sit down to have a coffee, take a deep breath of the fresh morning air and choke on the pollutants you spew for your own entertainment and gratification; and as long as I never have to pay a cent to save your lungs from the toxins and grit you gleefully suck down... smoke wherever you want.

Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from the devil does proceed;
It drains your purse, it burns your clothes,
And it makes a chimney of your nose.
— Benjamin Waterhouse

In the Beginning...

I'll start this with an obvious, but necessary, preface. This persona was created as a means to vent my thoughts in a public forum without otherwise affecting my online presence under other pseudonyms. I will not publish anything that is considered secret, and all names in this blog will be changed to protect (most likely) the stupid.

It will also largely consist of rants on one topic or another. I pride myself on my coherence and cogency of writing, but if you're not the sort who enjoys a bit of vitriol or railing against the world, you may wish to stop reading at this point. (Then again, if you're someone here to whom I didn't explicitly give a link to this blog... welcome! Your readership is welcome, if unexpected.)

With that done, let the railing and gnashing of teeth commence!