Passing Thoughts

A commenter who made a monumentally stupid assertion in commenting on a recent post led me off on a rabbit trail today, which, in turn, led to this gleaning from several past posts of thoughts about people who simply do not think. From, “Facts vs Feelings”

I met an old guy who runs a junk store who’s a good example of “feelings over facts”. He had on his shelf a bottle of clear amber fluid labeled “Pepper Beer–not for drinking”. Naturally that led this unmoderated tongue to comment, “What a shame. Beer is for drinking” which led to…

“Beer destroyed my family,” and a tale of growing up in a family where his father got drunk on beer and was abusive. No amount of pointing out the fact that the beer didn’t force excessive amounts of itself down his father’s throat making him into an abusive drunk was going to convince him of his father’s responsibility for his own drunkeness. No, it was the beer that did it.

*feh* Such people are idiots. Inanimate objects, chemical substances and the like do not make people harm others. People make themselves do harmful things, including making the CHOICE to abuse mind-altering chemical substances of all kinds.

The bushwah about people, including addicts, not being responsible for their actions is the perhaps single most harmful meme in our society today.

From September 22nd, 2008’s post, “Are You Too Stupid to Vote?” noting the results of the Civics Quiz found here,

Heck, face it. Most American citizens who now possess the right to vote don’t know the fundamentals of our government structure, our history or anything genuine about current events (most still getting their information from the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind propaganda machine).

Too stupid to be allowed to vote, and yet it is this mass of stupid people who will elect the congresscritters and administration that will exercise power.

Scary.

BTW, that civics quiz? Got 100% right. Anyone who gets a lower score either wasn’t paying ANY attention in grade school (OK, maybe junior high), or else was but suffered their earliest lobotomy in public school. Seriously, folks, it’s one easy-peasy quiz… and those who took the quiz who had held or currently do hold public office were the lowest scorers. But that’s OK. Most folks failed it outright, anyway.

And these same civics-illiterate boobs can (and do) vote. See especially the finding that those who watch the news are less well-informed than those who don’t.

And here, noting the difference between so-called “radical” and so-called “moderate” Muslims is an example of correcting misconceptions foisted on self-enstupiated sheeple by the “philosophy of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide,” as espoused by Mass Media Podpeople, politicians *spit* and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, is “The Difference Between ‘Plain Old Muslims’ and ‘Islamic Terrorists'”

“Plain old Muslims” claim the Koran (choose your own trendy spelling) is their literal guide to a holy life.

Islamic terrorists claim the Koran (choose your own trendy spelling) is their literal guide to a holy life.

“Plain old Muslims” revere Mohammed and view his life and teachings (of which the Koran, Hadith, etc.) as worthy of emulation in all of life.

Islamic terrorists revere Mohammed and view his life and teachings (of which the Koran, Hadith, etc.) as worthy of emulation in all of life.

Now, THE distinction: Islamic terrorists honestly, forthrightly and openly seek to actually emulate the bloody Butcher of Medina, while “Plain old Muslims” are either just not all that serious about actually following Mohammed or are living lives of lies, decieving the Dar al Harb.

There. Now you know the single most significant difference between “Plain old Muslims” and Islamic terrorists.

And, from The Islam Comic Book,

[audio:Islamnot4me.mp3]

And from a 2009 re-post (of a 2007 piece) on morality vs. the very nearly universal deceit that is accepted in our society,

M. Scott Peck wrote some 20 years ago or so about “People of the Lie” (a pretty insightful book, IMO, and one with particular application to understanding the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind and politicians *spit* as a class) wherein he said that the truly evil “are masters of disguise and cloak themselves with masks of respectability, goodness and often piety.”

The Lie is central to the destruction of a moral culture, and it is by continually lying about darned near everything, continually selling the culture of The Lie that the culture of the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind (almost entirely congruent with a culture of The Lie) makes its lies into reality, as sheeple ape the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind in their daily life, in everything from envy of the lifestyles seen portrayed on the dullertainment offered to the political agenda of the Hivemind as revealed in dullertainment and “news”-ertainment programs.

And art. I saw a segment of a public television show the other night featuring an “artist” who painted on wood using house paints. The “artist” was shown as an example of a modern primitive painter. The “artwork” displayed was crap. And that’s speaking kindly. The worst stuff I’ve seen in years. Presented as “art”. When the very idea of art is debased to such a level, is it any wonder that in performance art we have such excrescence as “rap”? (Go on: try to make a convincing argument that listening to rap “music” does not debase an individual. Try. Please.)

But about all sorts of topics, from Islam to Healthscare, from taxes to “welfare” the increasingly illiterate (in many, many ways), self-enstupiated sheeple who get all their news propaganda from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and their understanding of the Constitution from the American Communist Liars Union ARE the problem. As the money quote in the blog header says,

“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom

One More Corrupt Politician Bites the Dust

There is something fundamentally sad about a man who goes to his grave apparently unrepentant of his sins. And that is the only sad thing about the death of John Murtha. As far as his place in the Congress: good riddance to bad rubbish. As far as one more soul (in all liklihood, from the evidence of his life) self-consigned to hell: at least he will be in familiar company. Say hello to Teddy, John.

Oh. Is there some rule about speaking ill of the dead? Well, I don’t see any sense in speaking of the dead other than as I have spoken of them in life. Seems rather hypocritical to me. I’ll not dance (or do other, less savory things) on his grave, and I do regret the apparent fact that he died an unrepentant sinner, but the loss of one more corrupt politician is in some senses a reason for rejoicing.

Calling the Plays… That Have Happened

Drudge said, “Kiss of death”–“Obama predicts Colts victory in Super Bowl”

As an acquaintance on FB said,

Everyone said the Saints couldn’t win unless hell freezes over. Did you see there was a blizzard in DC over the weekend?

Common Sense? We Don’t Need No Steenkeeng Common Sense!

In the face of such stupidly ironic statements from The Ø! as,

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

That from the idiot who apparently thinks spending money the country DOES NOT HAVE on wasteful, useless, pork to buy votes for his agenda is the way to deal with a national economic crisis. Cue Bugs Bunny:

[audio:What-a-maroon.mp3]

“We live in an era in which… government of the government, by the government, and for the government apparently can never vanish from the Earth, but instead will continue to grow…

…Meanwhile, appeals to common sense are futile: we all know the common sense solutions to many problems, but the government of the government by the government and for the government isn’t about to allow that.”–Jerry Pournelle

A common sense approach to dealing with an economic crisis engineered by “feddle gummint” meddling is really quite simple. Not painless, but simple.

“Feddle gummint”: stop spending money we do not have.
Getcher stinking hands off my money! Effect the FairTax and operate the “feddle gummint” on whatever it brings in. Period.

“Feddle gummint”: stop spending money we do not have. That WILL mean fewer “feddle gummint” workers and pork programs and meddling in the personal lives of citizens, which, of course, means less power for Beltway self-anointed elites. Oh, boo-hoo.

Of course, absent some serial counseling sessions with Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether, I doubt the Beltway Bandits will release their deadly grip on the throat of the U.S.

But miracles happen.


Due to an amazingly uninformed assertion made in comments, I’m adding one lil video that packs enough references to enable ANYONE who wants to do their own homework to fact check it, even glean more information by ignoring the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind propaganda and simply doing a little research:

Quite contrary to the myth propagated by the Hivemind, politicians *spit* and anyone with a commie/socialist/class warfare axe to grind, typified by comments such as this,

I think we can sum up the cause of our current economic crisis in one word — GREED. Over the years, mortgage lenders were happy to lend money to people who couldn’t afford their mortgages.

The Federal government required financial institutions to make sub-prime loans to people who could not afford to pay them back. Outright lies such as the one I quoted above (and no, I will not link to that lying site. Google it if you want) are the core of the meme The Ø!’s administration and co-conspirators are flacking.

But it is a lie. Sure there was greed. Largely on the part of those who sought the loans they could not afford to pay back and on the part of politicians whose “careers” were boosted thereby.

A Helpful Batch File for Windows Users

I like other OSes, but Windows is the Big Kahuna in eyeshare, so naturally I share more Windows tips here than anything else for any other OS. Just the way it is. That said, here’s a lil tip for Windows users to help keep down the accumulated junk a Windows install just naturally crufts up with.

First run “cleanmgr /sageset:99”

Oh, right. Start>Run and copy-paste the above material found between the quotation marks–just don’t include the quotation marks. Win 7 users, just hit the Start Orb and paste it in the search field and hit enter.

Choose files you wish deleted, actions to be taken, apply, then close.

Then copy the text below, paste it into a plain text editor like Notepad and save it as a batch file. Replace “%username%” with your username. Place it in a “tools” folder or some such to use as desired or in your startup folder if that’s your preference.

The switches selected for the del command below are

f=force deleting of read-only files.
q=quiet mode; do not ask if ok to delete on global wildcard
s=delete specified files from all subdirectories.

c:
cd “C:\Users\%username%\Local Settings\Temp”
del /q /s /f *.*
cd “C:\Users\%username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files”
del /q /s /f *.*
cleanmgr /sagerun:99

Sure, cleanmgr will attempt to clean up TEMP files and Temporary Internet files for you, but it just does a so-so job. By including the first two “del” commands, you’re assured that those WILL be deleted.

Oh, you could also download, install and run CCleaner (“Crap Cleaner”), but even it doesn’t necessarily get rid of read-only files located in the TEMP and Temporary Internet Files folders. It’ll try, but…

“Consider the Threat Level”

From the otherwise excellent and usually reliable Windows Secrets newsletter comes this guffaw from the usually serious Fred Langa responding to a reader’s question about outdated browsers (with massive security holes) being required by the “feddle gummint’s” FAFSA web site:

First of all, it appears the site has been updated since your phone call. The FAFSA help page lists all the supported browsers, which now include IE 8 and Mozilla Firefox 3.5.4.

Second, consider the threat level: most browser security features exist to protect you against hostile sites that might try to stuff malware into your system or steal information from you. Why would the government need to attack your browser? If the government wants your personal information, it can get it quite openly through legal channels.

Oh. Wait. He was serious. “Why would the government need to attack your browser?” It’s not “need” that drives a “feddle gummint” bureaucrap to do anything, Fred. They pretty much do as they want, because they can. Government of the government, by the government and, especially, for the government shall not perish from the Earth, Fred… *sigh*

Frankly, I consider “feddle gummint” websites to BE malware, unless proven differently.


Continue reading ““Consider the Threat Level””

I Do These Stupid Things…

…so you don’t have to. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it.

Calibrating the Clear Type tuning on a Windows system with an LCD screen that’s displaying text just fine? Stupid. So, what did I do? You guessed it. The Clear Type calibration tool uses a series of displayed text images for the user to subjectively choose between in order to tune the Clear Type display. What I got recently out of playing with that was a lesson in “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

At 100% in my browser (pick any of four), here’s an example of what “tuning” Clear Type using the M$ utility resulted in:

Ugly, eh? Makes me want to poke my eyes out. At 120% or higher magnification, the effect disappears, though. Still, now I have to reverse the “tuning” or automatically CTRL+Scrollwheel to a different magnification when such artifacts appear. *sigh* Just a warning to Windows users, once again: if it ain’t broke…

Fortunately, I can always browse just as well in another OS in a VM. 🙂

Repeat: 13 Ways to Have a Better Day

Thirteen Ways to Have a Better Day

1. Think “happy” thoughts. (e.g.–“The guy who just cut in front of me and slowed down in 70mph traffic slowly lowered into boiling oil.”)

2. Smile at the world (and the world will wonder what the heck you’re up to).

3. Wear better-fitting shoes. (Or go barefoot. Sure, you’ll not be allowed in a McDonalds, but you are looking for a way to better your day, anyway, so that’s a win-win for ya.)

4. Avoid phones. (Don’t 90% of your hassles come from “miscommunications”?)

5. Uffda! Avoid “feeda“. *heh* (I once saw a graphic demonstration of the difference between the Norwegian expressions “uffda” and “feeda“–two guys walking; one pointed at the ground and said, “Uffda!” The other didn’t see “it” in time and said, “Feeda!” So, it’s uffda if you see “it” and feeda if you step in “it”… )

6. Be pleasant to idiots. (See the principle stated above. Uffda! You’ve been warned.)

7. Turn off the “news”. (Again, see numbers 5 and 6. *heh)

8. Eat some ice cream. (The joys of cold, sweetened fat!)

9. Take a nap. (There’s no problem that does not look better from behind closed eyelids.)

10. Laugh at life’s little “funnies”. (“So, two Muslim terrorists walk into a 230-grain bullet traveling at 830 feet per second… ” That’s both funny and economical! Don’tcha just love .45 ACP humor?)

11. Coffee!

12. Beer!

13. Pray “The Serenity Prayer”… Frequently.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill
BECAUSE THEY REALLY TICKED ME OFF!


Quirky Day

As a result of beating back some locusts (and getting my lunch eaten by others *heh*), this turned out to be a mostly good, productive but kinda quirky day.

Man! Was I ever a chatty cathy during the time working on the tail end of flooring and other projects Down South. Motormouth city, fer shure. (And yeh, I coulda had a classic SM-58 in my hand doing a monologue, for all the running off… gottachucleatmyself… )

Learned something freaky deaky about OS X. Installing a new hard drive (in a Macbook) and using an OS X install CD apparently does NOT automagically bring up a prompt to initialize the new disk. Have to open Utilities… Disk Utility in the boot menu to force recognition and installation of the drive. Strange. I’ve not run into that in other OSes hardly at all in the last 10 years. I guess Apple only wants geeks to install new drives in their systems. Can’t give an average user any obvious help. *heh* That Apple: always looking out for the users to keep ’em from doing normal stuff. *LOL*

Anyway, boy did I feel like an idiot when I looked over instructions someone had printed out for transferring all his data and software from one Macbook drive to a new one. I never even thought the system wouldn’t tell him he needed to initialize the drive. Silly me. I acted like he was doing the install on a Windows, Linux or BSD system. Live and learn.

Man, sometimes getting old sucks swamp gas. (Yeh, the gas can be a problem too.) Now, my good knee and good hip (on opposite sides, no less… of course) are the ones talking to me. Figures. Just when I get used to the pain in the others… 🙂

My Wonder Woman just got another rave review from her work for another course in her grad classes. Natch. She’s such a wiz! But heck, with a 3,000 word paper for her first month’s class and a ten page paper for this class, at this rate she should just have shot for a PhD, complete with thesis. *heh* Her EdLaw class has at least been pretty interesting. But it’ll be over by the end of this month, I think, and her next class doesn’t begin until April. Means she’ll have some “time out” (from course work, not from teaching) before Lovely Daughter’s wedding March 27. Nice.

Lovely Daughter home early tonight–by 8:00 or so. I guess she has a big day tomorrow between church and some sort of social activity tomorrow evening. Something about gathering to worship some really amazing pottery? I think she called it a “super bowl” or some such. I don’t get it. Seems like idolatry to me, but then I’m just an Olde Pharte.

Oh, well, I don’t suppose it’s much more idolatrous than what goes on in most churches on Sunday mornings.

Just hit my own personal wall. Going to hit the sheets before my head falls off my shoulders.