Category: No More Bullshit!

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Sometimes, Basic Skepticism Isn’t Enough

When I was first exposed to the Internet, I had already had exposure to BBSes, mailing lists, and more. Those ARCHIE, VERONICA and GOPHER searches offered me amazing tools to dig into academic and other resources for information and just knocked my socks off.

So, I’ve always viewed the Internet primarily as a research tool. When doing research on any academic topic, the general procedure, back in those long ago days of yore when colleges and universities were repositories of knowledge and literacy, and training grounds for critical thinking, involved a LOT of sifting and winnowing, comparison of purported facts, sources and documentation, and the eventual selection of most reliable sources and facts.

I guess I just unconsciously and tenaciously hung onto the misconception that most–or at least many–folks treated presentations of information on the Internet that way for some time, but slowly I began to realize that–by far–most folks just turn to “information” received from Internet organs for confirmation of their biases, not for real information.

And then I woke up, looked around me and realized that the relationship between most folks and (most) information has been that way all along, and getting even more so as time has passed.

Sad. Real stories are much more powerful than fiction, but ready acceptance of lies by lazy, bigoted, ignorant folks seems to be more powerful still.

Discouraging.

Along with the Internet being used as a disinformation organ by so many, in similar manner to the way the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind uses TV, radio, movies, newspapers and magazines to spread propaganda and plain bald-faced lies, the schools have been churning out both illiterates and a-literates at an alarming rate, “products” who lack even the basic tools to see that they are willing, even complicit, victims of the Dunning-Kruger Effect who think they are competent to discern truth from lies, fact from fiction, etc. . . but are not.

Tired of all the stupidity passing itself off as punditry (and being lapped up by the sheeple). Tired of social media devolving, as such things do, into nothing but stupid repetitions of the latest fantasies or silly “memes” that are little but propaganda for the a-literate.

Just tired, period, I guess.

Maybe I’ll take a nap.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to trust Internet sources to be untrustworthy until they demonstrate their material is reliable.

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Dancing the “County Clerk Kerfuffle”

Re: the Kim Davis kerfuffle. It didn’t hold a lot of interest for me for some time. Some county clerk was objecting to issuing marriage certs to homosexual “couples.” *yawn* Some outside agitators were looking for their 15 minutes of fame. *bigger yawn* Still, I gave it a cursory look. Hmmm, yeh, there was a legal leg to stand on, were the clerk to make the effort (and were her religious objections even possibly sincere). I kept waiting for a legal tactic/action to be made by her. Waiting. Waiting.

Not much interesting going on. The usual Hivemind “viewing with alarm” silliness. *yawn*

Meanwhile, the ACLU decided to stick its nose in, not, apparently, because homosexual couples in the county were objecting (not that I found as I looked at what were laughably presented as “reports” at least). But, of course that’s what they said, anyway. They did have outside agitators–angry, belligerent supposedly homosexual couples posing as “gay” (the opposite of angry and belligerent)–from Ohio and elsewhere who traveled to shop for an outrage. *yawn* Typical angry, belligerent faux-gay homosexual activists.

But then, as the misrepresentations began to pile up–on all sides, from what I could see–I got pissed off enough to actually dig a little deeper and saw that ALL sides (but especially the faux liberal and even faker libertarian folks) were misrepresenting just about everything they could lay their hands on, and STILL Kim Davis hadn’t made any apparent moves to clear things up, even though she apparently had some dandy legal moves she COULD have made.

And then the ACLU whiners ran to a judge who made her move and jailed the Doofus Clerk.

Then, FINALLY, her semi-literate (yeh, I’ve read his public statements to the press. Subliterate moron. He should be sued for practicing law without literacy) lawyer makes the appropriate appeal for accommodation under Kentucky’s carefully-crafted RFRA which allows for the same accommodation the federal RFRA requires of all classes of employment save military (with some notable exceptions) and elected officials (Kentucky’s RFRA apparently specifically INCLUDES elected officials in the SAME considerations for accommodations of religious convictions the feds extend to others).

Finally.

And yet, all sides are now firmly fixed. None of them recognize all the elements. Kim Davis’s ardent supporters neglect to consider that she stupidly left the whole thing hanging, with no apparent real appeal to authorities who could make reasonable accommodations (until just recently) or that she stupidly failed to articulate a dependence on relevant authority to make a reasonable accommodation. Or that she just shut the marriage licenses down without doing these things, things any reasonable person with more active brain cells than are found in a head of cabbage should have done. Nope.

Meanwhile, there are the supposed libertarians who say she should be fired or resign for not doing her job, or that she is violating the “rights” (which in the case of the outside agitators amounts to “violating their convenience”. . . for the benefit of their sound bites and 15 minutes of fame) of others1, despite the fact that doing so would cede her own rights. WTG phonies. Ah, well, convenience for the many marginally few more outweigh the rights of the few (and, parenthetically, there are more than a few other county clerks in many more than a few jurisdictions who are refusing marriage licenses to same sex “couples” for flimsier reasons than Davis’s, but since she claims to be a Christian, and so closely fits the left’s sneering attitude toward supposed right-wing religious fanatics, she’s the goat du jour).

And then there are those who just want to crucify her for personal reasons possibly tied to their own confused sexuality. Yeh, whatever.

[Edit: Oh, and one must not forget the Hivemind’s interest, which is entirely self-serving and whose “reporting” thus bears little relation to real reality or, for the most part, shows any interest in being genuinely informative. Naturally. Scum.]

Neither of the latter two classes bother to care what the damned law–both federal statute and case law and Kentucky law–has to say about the matter or about the fact that Davis FINALLY made a correct and proper effort to get the relevant authorities to make a reasonable accommodation. Heck, I have even run onto certifiable, self-made morons who claim she can just say, in effect, “To hell with legal. I’ll just make my own accommodations,” and modify a form mandated by the state for legal marriage in Kentucky.

No, neither of these classes care a whit that she has sought accommodation from the authorities who CAN allow the form change she requests as an accommodation to satisfy what she says are genuine religious qualms. (I have no view of her claims about her religious convictions, partly because her inarticulate public utterances are a mishmash and partly because it is not my place to discern her mind.)

None of the bitchers and moaners and criers-for-blood (yes, literal death threats *sigh* about which none of the supposed “libertarians” whose comments I have read care one whit) give a damn about the facts any more than the Davis supporters seem to, because their minds were all–apparently–made up before and without consideration of facts. Any facts any of the sides seem to consider are ONLY those facts that either support their views or that they can lie about or twist to support their views.

Damn them all for their dishonesty, laziness and refusal to consider inconvenient facts.

And a special note of condemnation to Kim Davis for being so stupid. Shame on you. If you’re going to pick a fight–right or wrong–get your ducks in a row, dummy.

1Those marriage “rights” for homosexuals created ex nihilo with such touching appeal to motion (an egregious fallacy of reasoning) by Justice Kennedy, with such fire, with such utter bullshit.

And about that construction, “homosexual ‘couples'”. They’re just sad, silly, sexually confused people, and unless the–maybe 4% of the population–who genuinely belong to this sad, silly, sexually confused demographic start agitating for “rights” that a.) don’t exist or b.) are really just accommodations for their psychological problems, all I think concerning them is. . . nothing different to what I think about any other delusional folks. But when they become angry, belligerent troublemakers ithcin’ for a fight, well, bring it on, bitches.

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Will the Last One Out. . .

. . .please turn out the lights?

I got a call from a client this A.M. They’ve sold their house/acreage and businesses and are moving to Panama ~September 15. Giving up on the U.S. and just need a lil “exit work” on their tech. Doomsday Preppers? No, just worn down by “gummint bureaucrappy” created and encouraged by Left AND Right (neither of which is either “progressive/liberal” or “conservative”) and fearing more “quantitative easing” and other “feddle gummint meddlin'” in the economy will wipe out their retirement years.

They are not alone in their fears.

One of the most obvious symptoms: A president is–or has been–mostly just emblematic of the direction of the country, but King Putz’s unconstitutional diktats (and recent diktats spewing from the agencies he rules) have certainly demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the rule of law and expanded–thanks to a supine Congress–the powers of the presidency far, far beyond any level seen before (save, perhaps, for the Lincoln Years). Reversal of the Obama Blight will take decades, and many, MANY down-ticket elections of honorable people (though where those can be found, I can’t say), to reverse. . . if it is possible at all, especially given the propaganda machines of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries.

For the 2016 presidential race, I could hope for a clear choice between an openly blatant socialist and a genuine conservative, but I’m unsure where we could get one of the latter on the ticket, nowadays. . . Heck, just FINDING one would be a task for Diogenes.

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“Pursuit of Happiness”

The expression, “pursuit of happiness,” can mean many things, and it definitely had at least one commonly-accepted meaning at the time Jefferson included the phrase in the Declaration of Independence that is almost unknown today, but I want to consider just one today in light of the following comment by William Penn:

“No people can be truly happy, though under the greatest enjoyments of civil liberties, if abridged of the Freedom of their Conscience as to their Religious Profession and Worship.” — William Penn, Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties, 1701

The First Amendment to the Constitution explicitly denies the “feddle gummint” ANY power to impede the free expression of religion. Nowadays, the feds are all over the place bending over backwards to accommodate those who want to eradicate any religious expression that does not agree with their own agendas from the public arena.

And Christians, of all groups, make it especially easy by having secularized their churches to the extent that they have little to stand on in protest of “feddle gummint” misbehaviors.

Let’s take Penn’s “Religious Profession and Worship” phrase to contrast to today’s churches. “Religious profession,” in Penn’s language, does NOT mean “professional religionists,” as in clergy. No, a “religious profession” is a declaration of one’s religious beliefs–to many, anathema in the public square. . . as long as it is profession of Christian beliefs. Anathema even to some who claim to be Christians. When Christians allow themselves to be cowed into silence about the substantive teachings of the church, they have denied their profession.

And what of worship? *feh* The weak, insipid, false view of worship that pervades churches nowadays is the direct result of churches becoming just another part of secular society, and just as secular as what is found outside the congregation. Confining a highly secularized “worship” to behind a church’s closed doors is simply a denial of worship, since true worship is behavior that pervades all of life.

Sidebar: The late 60s youth song, “Sunday’s Child,” about someone who was holier than thou on Sundays but lived like hell the rest of the week comes to mind, as does Fred Pratt Green’s, “When the Church of Jesus.” A snippet:

V.2

If our hearts are lifted
Where devotion soars
High above this hungry
Suffering world of ours:
Lest our hymns should drug us
To forget its needs,
Forge our Christian worship
Into Christian deeds.

Now, what “Church of Jesus” would allow “feddle gummint” bullying or naysayers’ whinnying to keep them from true worship? Those who do forfeit a happiness that it is their right to pursue. . . or eschew, as most do.

Yes, I’ve wandered around a bit and not really defined what this form of happiness is, but unless one is willing to pursue obedience to Christ, describing it will do no good.

Matthew 28:19-20

19Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

Yes, “all nations” (all people) means our own, and everyone we meet, whether they like us for doing so or not. Jesus did not say, “Go ye therefore into all the world and try to make people like you by never offending them.” No, in another place He warned that “the world” would hate those who followed Him. Get over it. The highest happiness, for the Christian, is not found in the approval of others–whether of his fellow Christians or outside the congregation of believers. It is found in trusting obedience (our half of the “fides covenant”).

Religious profession: telling others of your faith. Worship: living a life of trusting obedience to God.

And neither of those are genuine if confined only–or even primarily!–inside “church” walls.

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Well, If I Haven’t Managed to Get on a DHS Watch List Yet, This Ought to Do It

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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Undermining the Foundations

Ponder, if you will, all the times the feds have, of late, misused the 14th Amendment to impose restrictions on genuine rights, create licenses (that it mislabels as “rights”) and in general oppress liberty instead of using it correctly to protect legitimate, natural, God-granted rights. Interesting, eh? Turning constitutional provisions on their heads and destroying liberty seems to be something a majority of SCOTUS, for example, is quite comfy with.

Poisoning the well of freedom. Not a good thing.

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More Mediacom Misbehavior. . .

. . .allowing me to have fun with the subliterate drones that Mediacom employs to lie to its customers.

I was incensed enough at Mediacom’s deceptive, unethical and outright evil behavior today that I had the opportunity to school a Mediacom customer *cough* “service” *cough-gag-spew* representative on the differences between obscenity, vulgarity and profanity. And yes, I made the poor, illiterate moron in the employ of The Evil Company listen to the whole thing. And when he insisted he had corrected the (34%) over-billing that was the proximal cause of THAT particular phone call, I made absolutely certain he knew that I chose not to believe him until I had documentary evidence in my hand, since everyone from Mediacom (except for our local service tech) has lied to me for years. Yes, everyone, even if they are just repeating lies they have been assured are truth.

Thing is? I told every single person from Mediacom I have talked to since it started strongarming me into installing their “DTAs” that this “billing error” would happen. All of them insisted it would not.

And ALL of them insisted that “federal law requires encryption of digital cable”–a flat-out lie, if the FCC is to be believed, since all its regulatory comments say only that cable companies encrypt digital content as an option. Lies, lies and more lies.

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Once more unto the breach. . .

Or should I say, “Once more Mediacom sucks dead bunnies”?

So, last week, the two “strongarm tactics” digital decryption devices that Mediacom lies about, calling them “digital tuners” arrived and did not work. The “20 minute” updates they reported requiring never happened, so yesterday, replacement devices arrived (because that’s the only “solution” Mediacom had) and today. . . I get no functionality from them, either.

Oh, they report needing and update and breeze through “updating” and then. . . “We have detected an interruption in your service. . . ”

Mmmk. Disconnected the device from OUR network entirely. Connected it DIRECTLY to Mediacom’s line in–outside, no less.

Same thing. So, not our wiring, not our problem.

Mediacom non-existant, so-called “tech support” tried resetting the device from their end. At their direction, I (once again!) rebooted their lil device. Nothing. Same error report.

Until Mediacom’s encryption *gagamaggot* “service” *gagamaggot* goes into effect July 1, the digital tuners on our TVs will still work (yes, I have a digital-only channel tuned now via the TV’s tuner, so the signal’s fine; it’s just Mediacom’s crappy “tuner” devices and implementation).

It’s definitively all on Mediacom’s end.

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The Enemy

The enemy is stupidity and evil. NO person has the right to force their stupid or evil ideas off on another. Heck, no one has the right to force ANY ideas on another. Doing so is both stupid and evil. Coercion and manipulation are the tactics of ultimately stupid evil. May all those who feel that forcing their ideas on others is acceptable reap what they sow.

Thatisall.