Category: Do the Right Thing

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Really Puzzling…

Tonight I caught “The Great American Handyman” for the first time–catching the “final five” competitors, and found the show to be a real puzzle. These are the “final five”? I mean, really. Given a timed task, “fixing” a broken window in 30 minutes, all of them tanked at least one aspect. Break the glass time and again! “Handymen” who don’t know how to cut glass?!? Dropping a pane out (and breaking it) because no glaziers’ points used? What?!? *sigh* I mean, come on! One guy did a decent job, even after screwing up the glass cutting a few times. Another guy did an almost decent job after darned near filling a dumpster with broken glass… *sigh*

Then, 30 minutes to roof a doghouse. Piece of cake. Not for these guys. *profound sigh* All awful. Absolute fails.

Installing a toilet?!? Just about the easiest plumbing job there is. Easier, IMO, than installing a new sink and far, far easier than installing a new water heater, for some common examples. Did these guys do decent toilet installations? None of ’em did installations I’d want in my home. Some of the installations were disastrous.

And these were the five finalists*. No wonder so many folks are so often disappointed with handymen and contractors and such. Heck, I don’t know much more about such things than I was taught by my grandfather (the “more” mostly having to do with power tool use, since he never owned a single power tool), but still, just tagging along as a kid, I picked up more than these guys apparently know–enough tat calling in a handyman to do things around twc central is more a matter of my time than skill set.

OK, I’ll grant you, ONE of the guys is pretty close to OK in his skill set, and shows evidence of thinking things through a bit, but one out of the “final five”? Says a lot about previous episodes’ contestants, doesn’t it? How in the world were these contestants chosen, really?

*Actually, by the time the show got to the three event “obstacle course” one of the five had already–with extreme justice–been eliminated.

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Yet Another Lame “Warning”

(20+ years malware-free on my personal computers, speaking here.)

I am so very tired of this kind of thing,

“As a user who has fallen prey to this new rogue / virus, while surfing the net using IE9, let me share my personal experience with you.”

So very many stupidities in one brief sentence; where to begin? I’ll start with the least offensive element: “rogue / virus”. No, dumbass, “rogue/virus”. *sheesh*

Now, the next least offensive: “surfing the net using IE9”. Why do such a thing? It’s still in beta and… it’s still Internet ExPloder. Lame; truly lame. As much as the thing is touted as having been improved, features added, etc., it’s still far behind modern browsers in features and compatibility with standards.

But the really offensive statement is, “As a user who has fallen prey to this new rogue / virus [sic]…”

1. “[F]allen prey” indicates the attack was waiting in ambush for an innocent passerby. Not so, as I will explain in a moment.
2. “[N]ew rogue / virus [sic]”. No it’s not. It’s the rogue Antivirus 2010, which is almost exactly the same as the rogue Antivirus 2009 and the… etc. “New” it is not. It’s so old, it’s almost reached puberty. *heh* And it always achieves its infestation of a user’s computer by direct action by that user. Sure, it’s “laying in wait” to lure a stupid, lazy* user into installing it, but if one simply doesn’t install it, one will not be infected.

And, BTW, while I’ve seen the invitations to infect myself while surfing, it’s only while surfing with Internet Exploder or Firefox that I’ve seen these popups. Of course, the really stupid folks who infect themselves do so by clicking on static ads that lead to a direct download and install of one of the variants of this crap.

And the comment, “Not sure of which site infected me… ” once again says the author doesn’t recognize or accept responsibility for infecting himself–typical of most users infected with malware. Here’s a brief video that demonstrates the typical steps someone has to take to infect themselves with this pest:

No, it’s not “As a user who has fallen prey” but “As a user who has stupidly infected himself.”

Oh, the really funny thing about the article I find offensive overall? “…Antivirus 2010 labeled Alureon.h, though recognized by current security software like Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes, can remove the virus, but the after effects of the removal will disable users from using IE9.”

Bud, that’s not a negative. It’s a benefit.

Word of advice: If you ever do infect yourself with some malware, the FIRST step to recovery and prevention of future infections is to admit your own culpability. This guy’s just going to keep on infecting himself and refusing to accept responsibility, I’d bet.

*stupid and lazy? Yes. While one could say “naive” in this day and time a naive computer user running loose with an internet connection and installing apps willy-nilly is definitely the result of their own (or in the case of a child user, an irresponsible adult’s) stupidity and laziness. Period. No exceptions.

Update: catch the whiny, crybaby tantrum (replete with continued denial of responsibility for infecting himself) posted by the author of the screed I deplore in my lil rant. Sounds a bit angry doesn’t he? But… over at a Shoutbox forum (scroll down to the actual post), he records his reaction to my lil post differently:

“I was shown this article today in response to the article I wrote about IE9 and the Antivirus 2010 virus. I almost spit my drink all over my computer, laughing, when I read it…”

Quite the contrast to his crybaby tantrum here, isn’t it? Methinks the dude can’t even lie well.

BTW, just for posterity’s sake (because you can never trust liars not to “pull a Charlz Green”), here’s a screencap of the guy saying my post was funny, not “inducing frothing at the mouth anger” as his comment here indicates:

What a maroon...
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Misplaced Attentions

Doug Wilson reminds us what we get when we place our attentions on the wrong things and listen to the wrong people:

We do not look to the modernists for anything but stainless steel despair. Bigger, faster, shinier! And we do not look to the pomos* for anything but bootless confusions. When you finally get that quorum of clowns, you are going to have a circus. What did you expect?

*”pomos” are, of course, postmodernists, that gaggle of geese to whom meaning is “just semantics“. *gag-spit*

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A Timely Reminder

You just can’t fool Mother Nature or Father Time…

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

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The Purpose of the System…

“The purpose of the school system is to protect teachers regardless of competence. The purpose of government is to collect taxes and pay them to government workers. It may be that some teachers and some government workers do something useful, but that is not the purpose of the system. The Iron Law* prevails.” — Jerry Pournelle

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Grandma Shoulda Had an AK-47 and Extra Clips

Police Tazer 86-Year-Old Grandma… in her bed.

Yes, there’s a lawsuit. Should be some dead cops, though, too. Seriously. She “took a more aggressive posture in her bed“? Gimme a break. More than 10 cops “respond” to a 911 call for medical assistance, crowd into the lady’s bedroom and tazer her when she tells them to leave?

The only thing that will stop this kind of thing is justifiable (self-defense) shootings of said bad cops. I don’t care who they are or how “scared” they may be of a crippled old lady, these guys deserve a long, long dirt nap and an introduction to their eternal rewards in hell.

And the impoverishment of their families to the third and fourth generations.

h.t.

The Economic Collapse

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No Redemption Absent Admission of Guilt

Or, no one can truly be forgiven if we eradicate “right” and “wrong”.

Mike Adams has a short piece that underscores some of the same issues that brought Dr. Karl Menninger, of the well-known and highly-respected Menninger psychiatric institute to write, “Whatever Became of Sin?” in the 1970s.

There are a number of problems associated with redefining all undesirable forms of behavior as “disorders” to be cured. Among them is the unanticipated consequence of depriving man of his humanity. If a man is merely a victim of some disease then he cannot really be considered evil. If he has no potential to be evil, he has no potential to be good.

C.S. Lewis pointed out another unanticipated consequence of our rush to treat, rather than punish, people who do evil things. He noted that the same intellectuals who determine when an illness has set in will also determine when that illness has dissipated. And they have a powerful incentive to drag out the entire process. Who among us would not rather take our punishment and be done with it – as opposed to waiting in perpetuity for the official clearance of a doctor?

Adams emerges at a slightly different place than Menninger, but both raise the issue of converting what is simply bad behavior into “treatable” so-called “medical conditions”.

The really critical issue to me is that wrong-doers can NOT obtain forgiveness for their wrong-doing and move on to reformation and redemption absent admission of guilt and genuine repentance–a desire to abandon their wrong-doing and change their evil ways. Yes, I said “evil”–so? 🙂 A part of admission of guilt and repentance must embrace a willingness to accept punishment and an attempt to make restitution for wrong-doing. While those last two things may stand apart from being forgiven by those they have wronged, full restoration into (whatever) society must hinge on demonstrations of willingness to make genuine restitution, however much it is possible to do so.

BTW, that last is one reason why I am a firm supporter of capital punishment for some crimes. There are simply some things for which no one can make restitution, and the criminal taking of another human life is one of them. No amount of repentance or genuine expression of remorse can restore the life (or lives) taken by a drunk driver, for example, but as long as society wrongly excuses such drunken manslaughter by giving drunk drivers a “bye” for their supposed “disease”, proper punishment of their crime (and the resultant “encouragement” of other drunks to eschew driving in the condition they created by choosing to be drunks) will not occur. (Yes, I do believe the proper punishment of someone who commits vehicular manslaughter as a result of choosing to drive drunk is execution. Preferably by having their own car–or whatever remains of it–dropped on them repeatedly, in public, until they are a greasy smear.)