The Way It Looks from Here. . .

. . .is that we live in an age exemplified by English professors who cannot speak fluent English (poor grammar, word misusage, etc.) and give forth blank states in response to quotations of The Bard.

Yes, we live in an age of a nearly universal “literacy” filled with actual illiterates, pseudoliterates who could not read their way out of a paper bag. And yet there are those who defend democracy. *sigh*

At best, in the words of Third World County’s corollary to Santayana’s Axion, “In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.” But the norm is even worse: rule by those who have gulled the illiterate and innumerate into granting them power.

Work to Eliminate the Evil Influence of Google in Your Life

Given all the anti-Russia yammer in the Hivemind and elsewhere, I’ve enjoyed sitting back (admittedly behind a decent VPN) and using Yandex for more and more things “Interwebby.” Save for a Gmail account that I use less and less, Google, THE single most evil internet gang, is completely blocked on my computers. Yeh, I know Google says its tracking of me and suchlike is turned off, and what it reports as having on me is the next thing to zero (Google’s lying, of course), but thanks to a decent VPN and other measures (TOR!), much of what Google has on me is ancient history, and much of the rest is. . . not exactly accurate. It’s a pleasure to not have seen a Google ad for years, now, for example.

Yandex is a Russian-based, multi-national company and “is the 5th largest search engine worldwide after Google, Baidu, Bing, and Yahoo!.” (Wikipedia) I quite often use its search capabilities to good effect, and the email service it offers is slowly replacing Gmail in my daily use. Slowly. Perhaps because of my VPN use, and a few other things, ads and other obvious intrusions from Yandex just haven’t appeared on my horizon, and I have yet to discover any blatant politicizing of search results, as seemed so common with Google.

And, by avoiding Google as much as possible, I lend as little support as possible to such as this:

BANNED BY GOOGLE FOR OPPOSING INFANTICIDE

As I said in the post title, it is my considered opinion, supportable by evidence such as that which is noted at the linked article above, that Google is evil. Period. IMO, not even Me$$y$oft, Apple, and FarceBook combined approach Google’s evil. Avoid Google “services.” The (as yet) unborn will bless you, if nothing else.

“Irks Me” #3,642

More and more often of late I have seen constructions (in supposedly “professionally written/edited” text) like,

“I would have sung along, if I knew the words.”

“If I would have known the words, I would have sung along.”

Both are horribly wrong, and evidence of serious subliteracy*. Neither should see the light of day in literately edited text.

Correct:

“I would have sung along, if I HAD KNOWN the words.”

If I HAD KNOWN the words, I would have sung along.”

Even worse are those illiterates who add to one or the other of those disgustingly egregious (for a writer who expects to be paid) assaults on the English language an attempt to gag a maggot by writing, “have sang.”

#gagamaggot

That is (nearly) all. . . for now.


*I define “subliteracy” as being the condition of being able to decode/encode those funny lil squiggles that comprise written language, while stubbornly maintaining a very, very poor understanding of what is written/what one writes. This condition is primarily due, I think, to a lazy a-literacy: refusing to take the time to become both fluent and literate by means of reading a great deal of well-written text.

I find that in every single case of subliteracy I have ever run across the person is a self-imposed victim of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome; they think they are literate, they “play” a literate on the Internet (and elsewhere, succeeding only in fooling other subliterates and seriously illiterate folk), and they have no interest whatsoever in improving their literacy. In fact, most are offended at being corrected, instead of taking the opportunity to learn from correction.

Note: in casual daybooks, journals, or emails, etc., not written for pay lapses in orthography are certainly excusable. But people who accept pay for wordsmithing should be corrected, and excoriated in the strongest language if they take offense at correction.

And THAT is all. . . for now. 😉

The Iron Law of Bureaucracy at Work

So, fifth time in six years that “city” *cough* workers *cough* are “repairing” the water line to the house. Yeh, the guy in the hole didn’t like me sticking around to see that he was just putting a patch over the hole in their line. Replace the faulty line? Heck no! That would take work. *sigh*

But at least it keeps them busy going back and re-doing their crappy work.

One of the principles of Type II “Bureaucraps” is to NEVER actually solve a problem, because that doesn’t let them request more funding, more personnel (at the end of the “job” there were five “workers” busyworking the job. Oh, it never needed more than one to do the “work” and another to lean on a shovel and issue directions (which, when it came to the so-so use of the backhoe/FEL at least gave the guy five minutes out of two hours of legitimacy, but it needed five to eat up some time on some time cards), more “turf” to claim as their own.

And their supervisor, of course, set it all up the way it was run, from excess workers using equipment oin a manner assured to take the most possible time with the equipment used, to shoddy repair. All designed to eat up resources in the most inefficient manner possible and assure ANOTHER leak down the road.

May I? Please?

May I dope slap someone for using “abit” to stand in for “a bit”? Please? Pretty please with sugar on top? Would it help my case if I told you the same folks used the adjective “backdoor” when they meant “back door”? Hmm?

[excessively polite mini-rant /off]

Warning Signs

1.) The book blurb for a self-pub contains orthographic and grammar errors as egregious as this, first sentence of a blurb did,

“A global flu pandemic has wiped out ninety nine [sic] percent of the worlds [sic] population.”

The first page of the book includes, among other offenses, “He staggered back, unable to breath.”

You might well, with signs like this, think, “Hmmm, Cupcake, if you haven’t bothered to learn basic English, why should you expect to have English speakers/readers buy your book?”

Oh, and if “Cupcake” thinks so highly of his own subliterate capabilities (and is so dismissive of his readers) as to eschew paying a competent line editor to mend his execrable grasp of grammar and vocabulary, well, that’s another strike against him and his “literary” non-efforts.

(And yeh, the butchery of English continued in that case, until I finally exited the snippet and sought some mind-cleansing in better-written text.)

Note: there is a lot of non-fiction written nowadays that is just as bad as in the fiction referred to above. Damn democratic influences in the arts! *heh*

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.

Did Edward Snowden Break the Law in Revealing the Depth and Breadth of the NSA’s Surveillance of Citizens?

For those excoriating Edward Snowden for “breaking the law” I’ll say this: I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t know, because I haven’t–and probably won’t–research the relevant laws, because I do not care whether he broke any in revealing the NSA’s surveillance of ordinary citizens.

Here’s why that is: ANY time a citizen shed’s light on government mistreatment of its citizens’ rights it is a Good Thing, no matter what his motivation, no matter what laws he breaks to do so. Any laws that even ALLOW the government to cover abuses are anathema to me, and should be to every citizen who lives; they are nothing short of being bad faith with the social contract the Founders recognized which establishes that government exists to protect our rights, not abuse or deny to us the free exercise of them. ANY law or regulation that provides cover for government abuse of citizens’ rights is illegitimate and has no moral force whatsoever, no excuse for existence save for the vile, reprehensible, utterly abhorrent excuse of defending that abuse of power, and that’s a raison d’être that in itself gives adequate cause to sneer at and openly flout disobedience to any such law or regulation.

Apparatchiks in the same party that gave us the death toll of Fast and Furious and Benghazi, the trampling of the First and Fourth Amendments in the AP scandal and the blatant IRS abuses of power have talked with relative comfort about disappearing Snowden. Yeh, what’s a little banana republic terrorist tactic between friends, eh? In the toxic atmosphere of an overweening, anarcho-tyrannist “feddle gummint bureaucrappy” that views everything with an US (the “gummint”) vs Them (former citizens, now subjects) it becomes obvious to anyone who’s not dumber than a sack of Shiite that the “feddle gummint” is cast adrift from a constitutionally-informed social contract designed to protect the rights of citizens and not the turf of politicians *gag-spew* and “bureaucraps” *gagamaggot*.

In such an environment, as I said, ANYONE who for ANY REASON brings government abuses of power into the light of day has done right, no matter what their motivation, no matter what any CYA laws or regulations say.

Doing the right thing, even for wrong reasons, is doing the right thing, no matter what.

One last thing: Edward Snowden may be weird. He may be distasteful in his personal habits, lifestyle or morality. I don’t know and I don’t care. I have seen hints about such things written by people condemning him, though hints only, as I skip over and simply note another ad hominem attack designed to discredit him in the eyes of stupid people. I don’t know Edward Snowden, and I do not particularly care to; not only that, I do not have to know ANYTHING about him apart from the fact that the information he revealed has so far checked out and that it reveals massive abuse of power by the federal government. THAT is ALL that matters in this brouhaha. Period.

Root and Branch: Extirpate the IRS

Conservative group’s lawsuit targets IRS employees personally

Look, folks, let’s just say it openly and without reservation: The IRS is simply evil. Period. I’ll accept no qualifications about “good people” working in the IRS. No, if they were truly good people, they’d find a job not working for an evil organization. Period. End of story. No excuses.

The fish rots from the head and from its inception, the IRS has rotted and is nothing but a poisonous evil whose sole function is to do evil and enable further evil to be done. Any lame justifications that it collects revenue for legitimate purposes fall, because most “feddle gummint” functions nowadays are constitutionally illegitimate (hence, based on lies, evil). Nope. The IRS has to go. Now, how to get there. . .

Pressure–and never, never, never stop pressuring–congresscritters to abolish the IRS and the oppressive, tyrannical, capricious income tax system it administers. Get involved in local politics in order to gain influence on political parties’ selection of candidates, at ever higher levels of government. Join with other “outsiders” to invade and take over the political apparatus of whatever party or parties you may have a chance to “subvert” to bring them back in line with constitutional principles.

And never, never, NEVER stop pushing back–twice as hard, and harder. If you are attacked, as the person and her organization in the linked article above have been, push back as that organization has. Make it as personal as the bureaucraps themselves make it. Hold them PERSONALLY responsible.

Keep it in bounds–not their bounds, the law’s bounds–but make sure they know it IS personal, because that’s the central meaning of The Founders’ Constitution”–personal, individual liberty and responsibility is THE central reason the Constitution was written to SET BOUNDARIES BEYOND WHICH GOVERNMENT MUST NOT GO!

The “feddle gummint” needs to be told to sit down, shut up and LISTEN to the PEOPLE. . . and then sit down and shut up–PERIOD!–wherever the Constitution says they have no business going.

I Blame the Hivemind

For at least a couple of decades now, anyone who has watched the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind so-called “news” shows has been programmed to eliminate the ability to discern clear distinctions as to many things, but the most egregious–and most consistent–destruction of reason has been the twisting of time. How many times have you heard *cough* “news” *cough* readers refer to events that occurred some time in the past as happening contemporaneously with the reader’s babbling?

Past tense for past events, idiots. But no, in *cough* “news” *cough* readerland present tense is fairly consistently used to refer to past events. And so an essential anchor of reason is eroded daily and common folk attempting to be writers begin to write such drivel as,

The sun rose rose over San Antonia [sic] de Bexar as a Blood [sic] red omen of what the day will [sic] bring to the men of the Alamo.

Good Sharkey, Colonel god! Past tense, properly used, mixed with future tense speaking of a (long) past event! Oh, why not. *sigh* If the past is present, then surely the past is future as well. Time means nothing.

OTOH, any literate person who’s not been lobotomized by watching *cough* “news” *cough* shows would have written,

“The sun rose rose over San Antonio de Bexar as a blood red omen of what the day would bring to the men of the Alamo.”

It’s still a bit overwrought for me, but at least the conditional is dealt with properly. It’s not just aspiring web “journalists” committing such gagamaggot faux pas with English, no. Such superbly dumbass writing abounds in traditionally published works, from newspapers to books from traditional publishing houses (which at one time employed literate proof readers and editors) and in the speech of *cough* “news” *cough* readers inhabiting the Hivemind, the political and entertainment classes and even Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries.

Is it any wonder these dumbasses who consider themselves an elite that’s fit to rule the hoi polloi are making a mess of everything they touch? They cannot consistently deal with speaking clearly and rationally on simple subjects.

And the sheeple eat it all up with a spork (because they cannot be trusted with a real fork).