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likely i’ve mentioned my loathing of politics before.  still, one cannot escape it, since nearly every medium blares the godawful stuff at you constantly.  mind you, that is one of the reasons for my loathing.  another would be the oxymoronic lunacy that shat itself onto my tv last night, in the form of a paid political advertisment (for some silly PAC, as far as i could tell).  i have this annoying habit of paying attention to what people say, even if it is a commerical.  what these people were saying (via a bad actress dressed as a doctor) was stupid.  they are against health care reform and spewed forth the typical talking points about government rationing of care (cause insurance companies don’t) and fabrications about existing systems of socialized medicine (ie: canadians wait up to a year for “vital” surgeries, if, by “vital”, you mean “elective, non-emergency” surgery.  and by “a year” you mean “about 2 months”).  what really got me, though, was the take-away message: don’t let the goverment get between you and your doctor [by reforming health care to include a public option], tell your congressperson to focus on funding medicare.  i’ll let that sink in a bit, before the befuddled “what the fuck?”.

 i’ll admit to be a regionalist.  frankly, i consider the northeast too intelligent for this crap to fly here.  apparently i think too highly of my fellow new englanders. 

back to the message.  i just don’t understand how groups like this think.  what are they trying to say?  no government run health care, except for the elderly?  it makes my brain hurt, to try and unravel the madness.  now, my understanding of a public healthcare option might be off, but it is just that: an option.  the government sets basic criteria for insurance plans (which, um they already regulate), offers a public plan that is the baseline and people have the option to choose the public plan or a private plan.  i know the fear: it will put private companies out of business.  kind of like how public universities have done away with private ones (wait, they haven’t?). 

 well, so fucking what?  hey, i work for an insurance company (not health insurance, but insurance nonetheless).  they exist to make money by investing your premiums.  insurance is a hedged bet, particularly health and property/casualty insurance.  term life insurance too.  you pay to have coverage in case something bad happens.  the more likely it is that something bad (sickness, car accident, etc.) and covered will actually befall you, the more you are going to have to pay.  if a company feels you probably won’t ever make a claim, they are fine with charging you lower premiums.  lower risk, after all.  the ideal form of the business model is that people pay for insurance and never make a claim.   the goal is to avoid paying out.  this is something we should strive to preserve…why, again?  consider, if you will, what happens if insurance companies don’t make money off a particular form of coverage.  flood damage, for instance.  homeowners insurance never covers it.  you have to buy government flood insurance.  why?  because the risk is too high for insurance companies to want to cover it.  no profit in it.  why, again, would we want to make sure these companies thrive?

the whole thing makes me angry.  like education and dependable public transportaion, health is something we should consider part of the nation’s infrastructure.  i’m not a fan of having to pay taxes, but since i have to, the things i want them spent on are making sure everyone can get an education (free, up to a bachelors, if they desire), get to where they need to and receive the care they need to stay healthy.  maybe thinking the government should provide the baseline for these things makes me a socialist.  so be it.  public versions of education and transportation haven’t eliminated private versions.  i see no reason why the same shouldn’t hold true for health care.

from the bbc: Twitter tweets are 40% ‘babble’

to which i reply: “only 40%?  i’d have thought it was far more.”

turns out that “conversational” twits are not considered “pointless babble”.  the short of it is this analysis company determined around 9% of the twits to be “of value”.  from the article (again):

Instead, it found that 40.5% could be classified as pointless babble, 37.5% as conversational and 8.7% as having pass-along value. Self promotion and spam stood at 5.85% and 3.75% respectively.

granted, no one bothers to explain what the fuck “pass-along” value is.  one would assume it is information deemed important enough to share with others; however, that is a rather subjective criteria (moreso than usual). 

i don’t use twitter, mostly because my pointless babbling tends to run on the wordy side.  still, it’s impossible to avoid knowing what is it.  given the entire concept is “say what you are doing right now, in 140 words or less”, one might (rightly) surmise it exists solely to pointlessly babble.  only, it isn’t quite pointless.  at least, not to those interested.

 see, there is a profound truth that most people miss about the internet.  particularly the media and marketers.  it’s a niche market.  always has been, always will be.  the assumption is that, since one is available to the whole world, one is trying to speak to everyone.  not so.  most of what goes on across the web is what always goes on amongst people: small knots sharing interests and not paying attention to the others.  it’s just easier to find the knots that interest you.

the web is public the way a crowd is public.  sure, you can listen in, or join into any conversation.  but you are really just going to wander around, trying to find a conversation that interests you.  mainstream media still persists in thinking of the internet as some seperate entity, something more than a tool.  it is not.  it is simply connections.  connections between information and between people.  that’s all. 

frankly, most people aren’t all that interesting, except to those who know them.  take this site.  except for those who know me, who the hell is going to swing by and look at baby pictures (or read the occassional rant)?  no one.  nor do i expect them to (or want to, for that matter).  sure, the possibility is there, but the probability is low (this seems a reasonable point to mention that, if i do have any unlikely new readers/commentators, my apologies.  there are nearly 50K messages in my moderation queue: too many to mass moderate.  i can only do 20 at a time, so if there is actually something other than spam in there, it’s not seeing the light of day.).

anyway, the point is, twitter is a service developed specifically to post pointless babblings.  telling people that most twits are babbling is, well, pointless.

folks, this is what happens when you decide “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” in regards to keeping your damn software up-to-date.  when it does finally break, nearly a decade and a half later, no one can fix it.  why?  because you have a vendor app that was written with Borland C++ 4.5, and i can’t get my hands on that to create a debug version of the exe, that’s why.  and XP doesn’t want to let a 16-bit windows debugger run (there is probably a workaround for that, but dear fucking god!  you’re still using a 16-bit system!). 

honestly, we even keep the damn cobol on the back end at the current version, and that language used to use punch cards.  not to mention that it pre-dates, well, me.  but no.  i’m stuck supporting your shitty little system and learning all about obsolete versions of languages, since you never saw fit to upgrade from FoxPro 2.6a and your app apparently uses Clipper to read dBase III tables.  it’s not even comprable to learning latin; i’m learning etruscian instead.

i’d smack whomever is responsible for this system never being upgraded or having the business moved to a different system.  but i don’t know who they are and i suspect they are in iowa.

my penchant for reading newsweek on the can inspires a political rant.  read it at quiblit.com.

dear fucking god are people stupid.  well, we released version 2.0 of our app just before the holidays, and finally sunset the old, creaky, obsolete and occasionally just incorrect DOS apps it built to replace.  guess what?  in the year that version 1.0 was in production, it turns out approximately three people were actually using it.  so, with this release, we’ve got all the problems of the initial roll-out.  meaning, no one knows how to use it, there is no training and none of the users can figure it out.  because they are, by and large, stupid.  did i mention that?  the calls to the help desk are starting to wind down, but i still have to call these assholes.  and i hate it.  hate it.  hate it.  there is a reason i am a programmer and it’s not a love of technology.  no, instead, it’s because i don’t have to deal with people.  now, they are forcing me to do it.  fucking bastards.  they didn’t give me a large enough raise for this sort of crap.

for insanity.  apparently, the firm that recruits australian santa clauses has recommened their santas to say “ha, ha, ha”, instead of “ho, ho, ho”.  why, you may ask?  because, it seems “ho, ho, ho” may be offensive to women.  i’ll give you a moment to compose yourself after the fit of laughter that’s just wracked you.

the reasoning is fairly typical of these sorts of things:  “ho” is an american (though not australian, and remember, we are talking about events in sydney) slang term for whore.  since we all know that context has absolutely no bearing, whatsoever, upon the meaning of a word.  particularly homonyms.  for instance, if one walks into a hardware store and asks to buy a hoe, it is absurdly obvious they are looking for a prostitute.  it is obvious, then, that allowing santas to loudly proclaim that all women walking past are whores is unexceptable.

or it could just, maybe, possibly, be yet another example of ridculously sensitive overreaction.  what worries me though, is all too often crap like this occurs because someone made a complaint.  i can only imagine so woman tracking down the mall santa’s boss:

woman: “sir, i’d like to make a complaint about santa.”
boss santa: “yes, what happened?”
woman: “well, i was walking through the mall, minding my own business, when i heard someone call me a ho! i looked, and it was santa! i was going to ignore it, but then he called me a ho again! and then, wouldn’t you know, the fat bastard called me a ho a third time! i want him fired.”
boss santa: [blinks, incredulously]
woman: “or i’ll sue.”
boss santa: “er, yes, we’ll take care of that. have a merry christmas…ho, ho, ho!”
woman: “you fucking bastard, i’m not a ho!”

yes, it’s a scary world we live in folks. just remember, when you gather round the tofurkey next thursday, that the pilgrims were genocidal cultists! in fact, remind your family of that just before tucking into eat. it’ll put everyone in the true holiday spirit.

it’s not condo fees.  it’s not having no yard.  it’s not even the petty jackasses who pettition management to have your car towed cause they think your back seat is too dirty.

no, it’s that it’s 72°F outside right now.  at 1 in the fucking am.  and i’m in shorts, sweating.  why?  because the dimwits have never heard of weather forecasts, and switched the AC to heat last week.  seriously, i know that highs in the 80s is not normal for october.  but that’s what the past week has been.  right now it’s humid, hot and sticky.  i feel like i’m in florida.   with no AC.

granted, roasting a chicken tonight probably didn’t help matters, heatwise.  but that’s beside the point.  it’s still bloody hot.

fuck you.  seriously.  i haven’t decided if you’re assholes or just idiots.  likely both.

so, i’m perusing your page on the ALDS match-up between the sox and angels.  there, under “Angels’ Local Headlines”, is this gem, that begs to followed: “No coming-out parties for Lackey“.  who can resist that?  naturally, i clicked the link…and got directed to the “sign up for espn insider” page.  are you fucking kidding me?  you dimwits are routing outside content links thru your subscription site?  there is a reason i don’t subscribe to espn insider.  namely, i don’t want to.  it’s a damn good reason too.  stupid crap like only allowing your paying readers to follow links to other sites, even if it’s a mistake, only reinforce my opinion that give you jackasses money would be a waste.  even though i’d get to read gammon’s column.

i’m not much of a football fan.  don’t watch games; only occassionally check the scores.  however, the “scandal” in which the pats are currently embroiled has been hard to miss.  personally, i think it’s a rather minor infraction of the rules (this also seems to be the majority opinion amongst fans).  gregg easterbrook (aka TMQ) thinks otherwise.  in fact, in an article bursting with sheer lunacy, he claims it as a potential death knell for the NFL.

let’s examine, shall we?

first, we get this either either extraordinarily hyperbolic or extraordinarily naive proclaimation:

“…the NFL is on the precipice of blowing its status as the country’s favorite sport. The whole NFL enterprise is in jeopardy from that single word: cheating. It’s the most distasteful word in sports. And now the Patriots have brought the word into the NFL.”,

yep, that’s right folks. the patriots are the first NFL team to cheat, ever! apparently steroids and HGH don’t count as cheating. or, count only as individual cheating, not team cheating. whatever. a reminder: all professional atheletes and teams will do whatever they can to win, including cheating. and continue to do so until they get caught.

but wait, there’s more! TMQ also compares bill belichick, a football coach, to nixon, a former us president!

“It seems more than just an eerie coincidence that Belichick’s unethical behavior involves illicit taping, the same offense that made Nixon’s actions so sordid. The parallels to Nixon don’t stop there. Caught, Belichick – like Nixon – tried to hide the true extent of the prohibited acts; Belichick – like Nixon – tried to claim his prohibited action hadn’t been prohibited; Belichick – like Nixon – immediately stonewalled. It would be tempting to break the unhappy tone of this column with a Nixon joke – when the league plays Belichick’s tape of the Jets’ sideline, will there be an 18-and-a-half minute gap? But for all lovers of the NFL, there’s just nothing to laugh about now.”

shall we remind everyone that belichick broke the rules of a game and that nixon broke the laws of the country he was supposed to be governing? really, is there any comparison? again, leader of a football team breaking rules of a game in order to win said game versus the president of a country breaking the laws he was elected to enforce.

it gets better. next, he claims michael vick copping a plea in federal court is dignified:

“Michael Vick tried to deny and stonewall, but at the last owned up and admitted what he did. That’s dignity. Belichick is now using weasel words to deny responsibility for his own choices. What kind of example does that set for the young?

does this even need explaination? whatever you want to say about dogfighting, admiting to it is not more dignified that half-admitting to stealing signs in a football game. one is a federal crime, the other is, again, against the rules of a game.

my favorite though, is this gem:

” Worst, did the Patriots cheat in their Super Bowl wins? If New England was cheating in the Super Bowl, this will become the darkest sports scandal since Shoeless Joe and the Black Sox.”

does gregg not remember that the black sox threw the world series, which they were favored to win, because they bet on the games? and thus purposefully lost in order to reap gambling profits? stealing signs in order to win the championship game, solely because you want to be the champions, tarnishes the game as much as throwing the game to make money and not caring whether you win or not? really? please enlighten me as to how these scenerios are not a few orders of magnitude apart on how much they cheapen the game.

really, there’s a whole lot of crazy in this article. and it’s only about stealing signs! something everyone does, just not always with videotape. thing is, had they just taken rapid stills and made them into a flip book, there would not have been a rule violation. fun, huh? obviously this will destroy the sport of football.

a new entry has been made into my personal lexicon of brutally abused words: organic. yes, organic. the entry was made official after reading another potter’s quote (in the 500 Bowls book), who seemed to think that stone was “organic”. newsflash to the world! organic is not a synonym for “natural”. rock, for instance, cannot be organic. why? because it’s not fucking carbon-based life, that’s why. this word abuse irritates me, nearly as much as modification of “unique” does.

i blame organic farming for this. hippy bastards.