Piracy is a Sinking Ship

When I observe the piracy debate, I see these two camps whine over self-interests. The media industry wants a tight monopoly on everything they produce and the consumers want the right to consume as freely and cheaply as they can. It's like a zoo, where the caretaker brainwashes chimps with bananas and suddenly the chimps go wild and do anything to get their hands on a yellow fruit. I'm not sure our lives will get better if we're allowed to download all the music in the world. Likewise, I don't see the industry contributing with anything of artistic or cultural worth, even if they bring in 30 instead of 20 million dollars on Alien 6 or American Pie 98.

Piracy is a sinking ship. It's an embarrassing remnant of a society that only revolves around financial profits and self-interests. Some people will say it's good to be able to download a CD or a movie before buying it, and I agree with this, but we all know this piracy cult is not really just about "trying out new stuff." Like TV, video games and sex, it's more like a drug to make us endure our passive, boring lives. We're tired of all shit around us and therefore consume entertainment to pass the time for an hour or two. All talk about "new releases," "sequels" and "special cuts" is just bullshit to have something to discuss.

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Excessive breeding leads to excessive measures

http://www.corrupt.org/news/sanity_prevails_call_for_stop_to_excessive_breeding

As I've stated in previous posts, I believe these measures should only be employed upon people who are coherent and know well enough to do better for themselves, but have chosen the easy way out of life.

Coffee, grain-fed beef, and quality vs. quantity

http://www.datejesus.com/ (scroll to March 26, 2008 entry)

The Jesus has posted about the American view of good food versus truly "good" food. This resonated with me as I've been to Italy a few times - the ice cream tastes better, the coffee tastes better, the cheese tastes better, the pasta tastes better, the meat tastes better. Everything...even the water. While Europe itself is becoming more Americanized, which is a shame, they still have a knack for making great food, but it's not necessarily in the recipe. It's really in the ingredients - Jesus' point on grain-fed beef, for example. Instead of making good food for the sake of good food, we try to make as much food as possible for the masses, who don't know anything about what makes up good food. Oh, and we are given the privilege of all these choices, so we end up paying a lot more for Starbucks than Dunkin' Donuts. Not only do Americans consume way too much coffee (look at the sizes), we're charged too much for the crap they swill. In Italy, coffee is meant to be enjoyed in a small cup, or maybe a larger one if mixed with milk. In America, part of the reason we eat crap is because we're so used to eating way too much food at all three meals, so companies know they can get away with reducing quality by using preservatives and taking the moisture out of food to make it last longer, enriching it with all sorts of disgusting things that don't belong in our food - corn syrup, anyone?

One interesting experience of mine in Italy was when I was with my cousins and grandparents on a night out to dinner. Suffice it to say, we likely ended up embarrassing my grandparents to a ridiculous degree. My grandparents invited two friends of theirs out for pizza. In Italy, lunch is the big meal, and dinner is a more casual affair - pizza, for example (but like everything else, it's more healthy, tastes better, and far less is consumed in their culture). There we are, myself and two or three of my cousins, ordering individual pizzas and tearing into them with forks and knives - sucking down Coke at the same time - and eating the pizza by crude slice after crude slice - by hand! The two guests of ours were slowly eating their pizza, one bite at a time, with a fork.

This reminds me of a random Sopranos line - Tony telling AJ to slow down, and not gulp the champagne - "hey, slow down - you have to savor it. It's important." If David Chase was really the artist everyone wishes he wasn't (who really liked that ending to the show anyway?), could this be seen as a critique on Americans? Probably - I know I see it.

Shield Season 7 trailer, Lost, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NurFoK0ySjQ

Unfortunately, because the FX Network geniuses have decided to plug Dirt and The Riches (I've heard the Riches is okay, but Dirt? Ugh...), and also have to try to wrap up Nip/Tuck due to strike delays this summer, looks like The Shield's final season will begin sometime in September. The least they could do is put out the Season 6 DVDs well in advance; I never understood the marketing behind, "release the prior season's DVDs right before the new season begins, even if there are production delays". Why? Movies come out on DVD about 3 months after the theatrical release these days - I Am Legend is on sale already.

The Shield will, of course, rule in its final season, so why delay the inevitable?

I try to watch as little TV as possible these days - just call me Pentti Linkola, I guess - but my few current indulgences these days include Seinfeld & Family Guy reruns, as well as new episodes of Nip/Tuck, The Shield, and Lost. Nip/Tuck is on hiatus after a pretty gruesome ending to mid-Season 5 (or, with the hiatus, that could be it for Season 5 and they'll just call the next set of episodes Season 6).

Lost seems to be in a league of its own these days. The viewers definitely have a love/hate relationship with the show, and it has to be the show that gets the most attention out there on the internet - countless blogs, spoiler postings, etc.; much more than one would even see for the Sopranos simply due to the mystery surrounding the show. Well, we had all kinds of questions and imaginative musings surrounding who the Others are, what the deal is with the island, etc. etc. from Season 1 through Season 3. And we knew at the time that there were going to be only six seasons of the show, total. That means that by the end of Season 3, we were only halfway done with the story. So when we saw Locke kill Naomi, and then Jack went ahead and called for rescue anyway, we knew there would be an entirely new story opening up in Season 4. We also thought, maybe they'll start answering some of those all-important questions, such as the following - a very short list out of the thousands of questions that exist about this show:

• What were Sawyer and Kate building during their time in the prison camp? A runway, okay, but for what - are we getting an Island Airline? I can see the slogan now - "Able to withstand a time-warp bubble wrapped around this very special island".
• What the hell ever happened to Walt and Michael? (this was actually answered in S4E8)
• Charlie was able to find out who the freighter did not belong to, but who does it belong to? (we may have the answer but we're really not 100% sure on this one)
• What's the deal with Jack's Dad? The producers have said we'll see him again this season; we already saw him in the first episode. We know the coffin Jack found in Season 1 was empty. OK, so we know the island has healing properties - Jin's fertility; Locke's legs; Rose's cancer - but can it actually bring someone back to life who died recently? And if Christian was in a coffin when he was transported from Australia to the island, wouldn't he have been embalmed? Even after dying, cold storage for days, and then embalment, we're supposed to believe the island can still bring someone back to life? It'll be a very interesting answer, whatever it is.

I guess that's the whole point here - we get answers, but they're superficial. We're looking for tidbits of the big tomale, the big picture, guys. Lostisagame.com maintains that this show is set up like a game, so certain events give you hints of what the "answers" are to "move on to the next level", but even they admit they don't really believe the show is a video game playing out; it's just set up like one. So what is the end to all this? We know the following main plot points for Season 4-6 due to the fun "flash-forward" sequences that have provided an awesome new twist in Season 4:

• The Others can leave the island as they please - Tom & Ben have both been seen off the island in flash forwards during the show (though, technically, Michael's episode in S4E8 was a flashback)
• Ben is being sought by some very powerful people who very pissed off at him. It's entirely possible that Charles Widmore is behind this (or some third party that hasn't yet been fully identified - think Abaddon from S4E1, the freaky dude who puts together the freighter crew (does he work for Widmore? We don't know that for sure yet, though the Captain has stated that the boat is, indeed, Widmore's).
• Ben is convinced that every single person on the island will be killed if the freighter gains safe passage to the island - something that has been teased to us fans in the wake of Karl's death in S4E8, and in previews for S4E9 where the Locke camp needs to band together with Ben to fight off, presumably, Keamy and whoever else went on that "errand" with pilot Frank Lapidus in S4E8.

These are just very broad strokes - never mind why Ben is off the island in the future fixing up Sayid's wounds, why Sayid is working for Ben in the first place, how the Oceanic Six are explained, why they feel they have to go back, whether or not Jin is really dead, whether or not Clare is dead or injured ("this baby will be in danger if raised by another" -Season 1) and why Aaron is now in Kate's hands. Interesting how, at the moment, the show's main characters - the LOSTies, aboard Flight 815 - are almost secondary to the plot at this point. Yeah, we have had episodes centering around who the Oceanic Six are, but isn't this season - on the island, at least - really all about the freighter and Ben?

I'm glad the show has diversified the plot, because Season 3 got a bit boring, but I hope starting with S4E9 we start to get bits of what this all means, why the island is so important - oh, and what the HELL is that black smoke monster? And uh, can Walt time travel or not - huge cop-out in S4E8, Michael's flashback - is he really just a shell of his former self at his grandmother's house, or is he traveling through time to warn Locke? Note how even though Desmond was an adult in 1996 and 2004 when he had his own flashback issues, Minkowski pointed out, "you look a lot older now, don't you?" Well, not really - he just has longer hair and a beard. I feel like they put that in there so that the producers will be able to explain why Walt appeared as older to Locke (something the producers said would be explained), and maybe why he'll appear older if he shows up again. Something tells me he's bound for another trip to the island at some point.

As you can tell by the babbling above, this show is truly maddening - we love it because it's interesting, and hate it because we get a fix week after week and then have to wait months to see the new season. I almost wish I hadn't become interested in this show until 2010 and could just watch all of it on DVD at once...

The Real Meaning of Easter

On this, Holy Thursday, I am obligated to call to your attention one of my favorite pieces of work by none other than The Jesus (found at both http://www.datejesus.com/ and http://www.myspace.com/datejesus). I have pasted the following sermon excerpts, originally published on April 13, 2001, but you can find the original published work here, and more of his work by clicking here. Just another one of my favorite ridiculous web sites, the philosophy of which I subscribe to hook, line, and sinker.

Here goes:

The older European and pre-European holiday traditions were not based upon claimed religious phenomenon, but rather upon the seasonal characteristics of nature. The ancient traditions were founded by people who were highly aware of seasonal change and arranged their lives and festivities around them accordingly, explicitly marking the spring and fall equinoxes as well as the summer and winter solstices. These periods acknowledged and celebrated the Sun god and its relation to society. The Sun god was seen as the provider of the energy for life from which they prospered, and was therefore given reverence. Even today Judeo-Christians borrow extensively from pagan wisdom while otherwise slandering and misrepresenting paganism. If you go to a sunrise service on Easter, reflect for a moment about why the rising sun is an inherently powerful and appealing force to our inner spirit.

"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it."- Will Durant, "The Story of Civilization"

When Judeo-Christians attempted to convert pagans from their traditional beliefs, the native people of Europe were initially resistant to discarding the beliefs and values that had guided them successfully for thousands of years. Realizing that it was difficult to get people to give up their relation to nature and the recollection of their past, the Judeo-Christian conversion effort adopted and modified the pagan traditions, while replacing cyclical nature with an invisible, inert god and a personal, linear human idol to worship as its representation.

The chosen people of the Judeo-Christian God did not like the worship of nature and knew this would be harmful to the successful propagation of their beliefs.

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Pagans were familiar with the cycles of nature that made life everlasting. Life and death were not considered personal ego-based conditions and feared as they are in Judeo-Christianity, but were seen as stages of growth and decay through which everything living inevitably passes. Instead of being afraid and needing to be "saved" from life, pagans loved this world and lived with honor and respect so that they were able to have the best lives possible. The notion of a "better world" reached by dying was not their life's goal. Instead, they believed in making this world better for each other and for their children. Here "better" does not concern itself with being meek or moralistic, but rather is focused on what is real and heroic in life, while also preserving its rich roots and heritage. This conception of life is that of a long chain to which every child is eternally connected and from which he inherits an entire history as his birthright.

The name Easter comes from an ancient European goddess of the dawn called Eostre by the Anglo-Saxons and Ostara by the Germanic peoples...She was considered the goddess of the growing light and spring, associated with fertility and celebrated with a festival of rebirth. One story has her entertaining children by performing a trick that changed her pet bird into a rabbit. This rabbit then laid colored eggs that she gave to the children. Given the history of these ideas which date back to at least 2000 years before the Christian era, it should be no surprise that the original symbols and practices of Easter persist today, just as our ancestors once celebrated them.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Colored eggs have a variety of traditions. In some European cultures, they are used similarly to Valentine's Day gifts as a way of indicating attraction to a desired mate. The egg also symbolizes cosmic creation which is consistent with its use in the spring festival of rebirth. A Babylonian legend even says that the goddess Ishtar hatched from an egg that fell from heaven.
Hot cross buns trace their origin to the ritual bread served at the feast of Eostre. The word bun is derived from the Saxon word boun which means "sacred ox". The cross represents the solar wheel and thus the pagan cosmology.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Most people are aware that the day of Easter moves each year, but few people remember the reason for this or the method of its calculation. When we celebrate Easter, it is the first Sunday after the first Vernal Equinox fullmoon. The Vernal Equinox signifies the astronomical arrival of spring and was considered the time to celebrate the rebirth and renewal as nature resurrects itself from the death it suffered in winter. The Sun that died at Yule is reborn!

It is outside of the scope of this sermon, but the Winter Solstice is the basis of Christmas, as well as the Christmas tree. There is truly little attributed to Judeo-Christianity that is original, but to be fair it is difficult to conquer people sufficiently to destroy their traditions and instinctual feelings. This must be performed gradually by first coopting the traditions, slowly turning them against the spirit of the people, and then cutting the people off from their roots so they remain separated from their natural instincts and awareness of what is right.

If the symbols, image, and traditions of Easter seem incongruent with the message of those who promote the holiday, they may make more sense after you look into their nature-based pagan roots. Here you can gain hints from the aspects of the celebration that spoke to our ancestors. The same ancient spirit lives on in us today, only we have to uncover it and rediscover its meaning. In that way, we can find our past traditions preserved in Easter -- and give them rebirth.

Celts still crazy-good

The Celtics are, as of today, still the only 50-win team in the league - after a huge comeback win in San Antonio Monday night and a thumping of the Rockets. Twenty-two is the magic number this week so far - they came back from 22 down in the first half to beat the Spurs and stopped the Rockets' win streak at 22. It doesn't mean much, right, because this is still the regular season? Well, when you consider that the team is 21-4 against the Western Conference this season, the Finals this year, IF the Celtics can make it through a seven-game series against one or both of the Cavs and Pistons, should be just the last stepping stone to eventual glory for the C's this season.

Even though the Pats choked in the Super Bowl, they still went 16-0 in the regular season and Brady & Moss still looked like Montana & Rice all year. Plus, the Sox just won a championship, something called the World Series, back in October. A 17th banner in the TDBankNorth Garden would right the ship after that damn Super Bowl...and with the way the Pats are adding corners and safeties to their roster even ahead of the draft, don't be surprised if they hoist the Lombardi again next year.

Damn, I wish more Jets fans read this thing.

Wow, a post about me?!

(If you're wondering what the pictures above are all about, keep on readin'. I'm just too lazy to post these on the internet somewhere and link to them in the appropriate place.)

It occurred to me this morning as I was updating the template to this wonderful arena for social discourse, that not only have I not shared this blog with many people aside from one friend (and by extension, his wife), and my wife, but I haven't really posted much lately aside from social criticism and links to the writing of others. Forgive me, for I excite easily over the rantings over society's failings, and how ultimately we'll all end up looting REI for that last pair of hiking boots before trying to hide in the woods from other humans when civilization reaches its ultimate decline.

I stated at the beginning of this blog, that I really wouldn't be giving you much personal melodrama (or information, of course). The "blogosphere" (ouch..it genuinely hurts to type that word, which is why I have to put it in caps; it's kinda like the magnetic field of a planet protecting itself from the sun's radiation) is filled with way too much personal drama. "Oh look, I'm retro! I listen to music that not too many people listened to in the first place back in 1974 BECAUSE IT SUCKED!" Or "oh, look at my puppies and my myspace page and my blah-blablabla-blah-blah". No, this blog was intended more for social discourse and the insane rantings of a lunatic who still hasn't let go of Lost Boys, Ralph Snart, or any other childhood indulgences.

I will share a brief story about dealing with the town in which I currently reside. I used to work in this town about four years ago (02-04), and there's a bank, donut shop, and dry cleaner's in this little parking lot right at the intersection of two main roads. Always, always huge potholes at both entrances to this place. It's raining one dark night in February and I decide to stop off at the bank after going grocery shopping. Well, one of these big, jagged potholes (pictures above) decides it's a good time to eat not one, but TWO tires of mine (I couldn't see them due to rain). I bought these nice Continental tires just over a year ago and was smart enough to also buy the service plan, as I love my "alignment guy" and would always go out of my way to take the car back to him if I ever needed service to begin with. If they're offering the warranty via some third party, I figure, that will work out just fine as they'll honor it - and they did.

Of course, I'm pissed that I'm out two tires and $30 or so for a AAA tow. I contact the local police so they can log the claim, and asked how I would go about getting reimbursed. "Good luck!", the kind officer tells me, and he was pretty nice; he gave me the phone number of the DPW. I also got in touch with the Town Accounting office and logged the incident with them as that's the dept. which would be able to reimburse me. Turns out they have an insurance policy for this kind of stuff, and they had to put the claim through the insurance company first.

Slight aside here: This was much better than the Verizon customer service nightmare noted in my last post (below). It's never pleasant getting in touch with a local municipality and asking for money - they collect money, they don't shell it out. I have to give kudos to my town for handling this professionally. About a week after this tire incident occurred, I needed an abatement on my wife's excise tax as we had sold her car early in January and got her a different one. I sent the backup via mail to them, and they called me back a couple days later to inform me they received the backup and would credit out the entire amount, and send me a receipt. Much better than the last town I lived in, where I had to deal with a battleaxe of an old broad who insisted I come down in person to the Assessor's office...glad I'm outta that rathole.

Anyway, this insurance company promptly sent out a letter (even though their "investigation" was supposed to take 3-6 weeks) referencing some silly rule that Massachusetts doesn't pay for pothole damage to a car unless they know about the pothole in advance. It's a way for them to avoid being at fault. So I call the insurance rep and explain to her that both the police officer I spoke to AND the DPW employee I spoke to, in order to log the incident, both told me they knew exactly which pothole I was talking about. In fact, the DPW employee stated that he was sure the pothole was on commercial property! Apparently not, or the insurance company would not have had to note this "fact" or "law" or whatever you want to call it, about when and if Massachusetts is ever at fault for potholes. It's been over two weeks and I'm still awaiting a response from the insurance company after I shared this information with them - today I'm calling MY car insurance agent to see if there's any way they would get involved, as this caused damage to my car and I'm not being represented by anyone except myself at the moment in this case.

In other car news, Alfa Romeo might actually be coming back to the States. They've been saying it since 2004, but apparently it's now been confirmed for the 2009 model year. Two hundred and fifty of the 8C Competezione vehicles were sent to the US, and if I know the Northeast, at least a dozen of them ended up here in New England. Hopefully I'll see one driving around, but for now, I'll have to just stare online as these won't be at dealerships any time soon. What I'll have to do is wait for a used one, and hopefully Alfa is smart enough in their US marketing this time around to offer a certified pre-owned plan. Let's face it, it's going to be tough to bring people back to the brand in this economy, with Alfa's reputation for reliability being somewhat...spotty. But if the sport sedans and wagons and such are priced at about Audi A3-Audi A6 level, it will be an exciting shot to the arm for an already crowded luxury car market segment. If successful, I could be ridin' around in an Alfa sometime in 2012 - we all look forward to that, I'm sure.

Verizon sucks

http://fiosexperience.blogspot.com/

There are similar blogs out there about Comcast, etc. Most "service" companies work this way.

"Invisible hand", my ass. Socialism isn't too far around the corner.

ihatejobs.com

Great article - a site linked to ANUS.com and Corrupt.org:

http://www.ihatejobs.com/news/the_career_man.html

Doesn't this just mean more fresh water for people?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080316/ap_on_sc/un_melting_glaciers

Uh, no, because they melt into the ocean. Can't wait for carbon dioxide and methane to choke us all as the Earth tries to cleanse itself of us! But you can't tell people to not have as many kids or stop polluting the environment - that'd be wrong, because they have rights and it's their right to drive SUVs and crank central air whenever the outside temperature goes above 70.

Corrupt.org post from Alex Birch

On my way from the train station today I spotted a group of upset leftists, standing by the sidewalk, holding up a large flag saying "NO INDIVIDUAL IS ILLEGAL." Even though no people were paying any attention, the proud communists repeatedly screamed out slogans for equality and peace, as if to summon a supernatural god from Soviet past.

This is the religious mantra that our society is brainwashing us with on TV every day. The dogmatic message of world peace achieved through a utopian world government is not unique to leftism; the globalist elite is promising millions of clueless workers the same dream. The idea is that if we remove everything that makes us unique (and thereby unequal), we'll all live happily as industrial clones in a fairy tale society.

You have to be either really stupid or really brainwashed to buy into this idea. Mainstream leftism, although historically responsible for genocide of the aristocracy, mass slave labour that led to mass poverty, and some of the most insane leaders being put to power, is more than willing to join hands with neo-liberalism and other ideologies that claim we're all equal, special, important and legal.

I don't buy this. If you ask me, I'd like to illegalize all of these whining leftists and deport them to Africa, where they'd be forced to aid all third world disaster with their magic hands. I'm sure they'd fancy the militaristic regimes, primitive lifestyles, violent suburbs and cultural confusion. While at it, why not include all drug dealers, criminals, defectives and perverts that right now are populating our communities? We'll let them survive on their own and if they fail, who'll miss them?

Let's end the drama of humanism once and for all. No one believes in this fairy tale society anymore, especially not the middle class people who've observed their neighbourhoods becoming increasingly violent, corrupt and poor. The people who want to keep all defectives should stop bitching on the street and start acting accordingly; move out and establish your own society, regardless of intelligence, culture, social status and race. We're more than happy to see you leave - have a wonderful third world experience!

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'avin' a good day, are yer, guv'nor??

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23685768

Hmm...so we replace a guy who admitted to hiring prostitutes, with a guy who admits to having an affair - but it's okay, because the wife did, too! And to top it off, he's legally blind. OK, OK, I know people with handicaps can achieve things and live lives that are relatively normal...but governor? Is that really the place for a legally blind guy with a questionable past? Why don't we just start electing monkeys to public posts and get it over with?

Cubans happy to suck off the American teet

The five already are in Lake Worth, a town north of Boca Raton, according to The Herald, which reached the players by phone Wednesday.

"'We're fine, calm, feeling hopeful about our new lives," Bermudez told The Herald. "Of course, we're nervous because we're young, have no family here, and we don't yet know the way of life here, but we hope the Cuban and American communities will help us get started."

Their first order of business when they got away from the hotel on Tuesday was to buy a cell phone, contact a lawyer -- and celebrate with a Cuban meal, according to The Herald.

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Let me guess - free Medicare, free health care, free everything, while our own citizens are struggling to get by...lovely...what a great story of hope and courage - people living in a country where they have hardly any responsibility, to come to another country where they have even less responsibility but more consumer goods to marvel over!

Boston zoning board

Just about as moronic as any other zoning board, it appears.

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Uh, how 'bout them illegal immigrants?

ANUS.com musings

Good article by SPR.

"Honest nihilism liberates us from that dying cycle. Nihilism eradicates morality as it is practiced, and gives us space to re-invent a civilization that is not based on pacifying the masses with morality, but on working together to build something beautiful. Our goal is not to praise the darkness, declare all is lost, and go home to our pizza sofa video game klatches. Our goal is to transcend this mess, and then put our ideas into action so they persist in physical reality."

[full article]

Batra

Once the majority of intellectuals become acquisitive, materialism degenerates into supermaterialism. There are no more religious or ethical restraints on the avarice of the elite, and as the public follows its leaders, everything gets commercialized.

There comes a point when the intellectual acquisitors are virtually unchallenged; that is when the process of wealth concentration runs full throttle, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer at incredible speeds. The boundless hypocrisy of acquisitive intellectuals ultimately torments the majority of people. Salaries go down, and the bulk of society is forced to devote much of its time to making money. Warriors and intellectuals then have to become laborers and are left with little time for the finer pursuits of life. They have to labor hard to support themselves and their children. The intellectual's inherent love for art, music, painting and philosophy give way to routine work all day long to provide the means for family survival. The warrior's innate predilection for adventure and sport is replaced by overtime work to make ends meet. The vast majority of society comes to adopt the laborer's way of living and thinking.

Only two classes then remain - acquisitors and laborers, or the haves and have-nots. The age of acquisitors eventually turns into the age of laborers, which may now be called the acquisitive-cum-labor age, in which the acquisitive intellectual is dominant.

For a while, people suffer through the deceit and exploitation of the reigning class. They maintain their lifestyle by increasingly getting into debt. Acquisitors now have a field day. They make money left and right. They enrich themselves through their control over businesses, farms, and factories, and through lending money to the other classes.

This is right about where we as a society find ourselves now, Batra argues.

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More good news!

Click

A cracked polystyrene man...

From The Jesus blog (www.myspace.com/datejesus)

Expandable polystyrene (EPS) is a petroleum-based product that is frequently used for food packaging purposes. This material is currently non-recyclable and non-biodegradable (i.e., unable to decay into constituent substances). Because of its inability to decompose, food service EPS waste is consuming an ever-increasing amount of space within landfill facilities. Moreover, EPS waste products are detrimental to the health, safety and welfare of the general public, as well as the ecosystem, for reasons which include, but are not limited to, the following: 1) EPS litter is capable of lasting indefinitely within the urban landscape, thereby contributing to urban blight; 2) EPS that enters the ocean, through both direct and indirect means, deteriorates the quality of ocean waters and adjacent beach areas, which in turn endangers public safety, discourages tourism, and jeopardizes the local economy which depends on tourist trade; and 3) EPS threatens the fragile ecological balance as marine and terrestrial wildlife often perish after ingesting EPS products.

Hmmmm, this doesn't sound like a beneficial product. Why is it permitted?

Some speculate that because EPS merely breaks down into smaller pieces, rather than its constituent parts, that EPS litter in land and marine environments may actually persist for thousands of years.

For that amount of long-term harm, someone must be making a lot of money.

Alternative products, which are biodegradable, reusable and/or recyclable, are readily available at reasonable cost. Research to date indicates that alternative products cost an additional one to five cents per unit.

Oh good! One to five cents per unit. Good job making money from poisoning the environment needed to sustain life. That's smart thinking the stockholders can all appreciate!

Don't drink the water, Montezuma

http://news.aol.com/health/story/ar/_a/probe-finds-drugs-in-drinking-water/20080309184409990001

This has to be the best media quote of the month/year/whatever:

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies — which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public — have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

Um...can we just take a wild guess here and assume that prolonged exposure to molecules not intended for our bodies is a bad thing?

Another immigration-friendly article

From our buddies at Boston.com:

Immigration Article

Why has the media decided that illegal immigrants are just as deserving of free lawyers and pleading their case in front of our courts than our own hungry, homeless, etc.? We have veterans to whom we're not very kind (to say the least), soldiers being sent overseas to fight a useless war, people starving in our streets - not to mention a health care and education system which has far more issues to deal with, without having to worry about illegals putting a further burden on those systems.

If anything, this article shows that when we round up illegals - which is absolutely our right to do, not only to punish them but punish business owners who employ them - we should just drop them at the border and let them sort out their own mess.

America the...?

In a US style democracy, instead of a party's time being spent on running the country for the people, they are forced to compete with other parties in expensive populist contests. Funds come from lobbies, corporations and other interested investors, hoping to buy influence. Once in power, the winning party returns the favors to its financial backers. It also tries to keep sweet with the privately owned media, which makes sure they are pleasing the owners of the newspapers, etc. Public opinion is manipulated, which can sink the party and is designed to facilitate the media owners' agenda. Democracy is therefore nothing to do with governing on the people's behalf, and is a deception that can never allow any socialism to flourish.

While I'm not a huge fan of Cuba, this is still an interesting article about why the Castro's have resisted for so long and are completely content with any US-imposed embargo:

Click

How I feel being back at work

Peter: Ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that...every single day that you see me...that's on the worst day of my life.

Dr. Swanson: What about today, Peter? Is today the worst day of your life?

Peter : ...Yeah.

Dr. Swanson: Man, that's messed up...

Tropical Changes 2

More thoughts on the vaca, this time a bit more objective:

• Aruba is nice and consistent in terms of weather, but there's a secret society of towel-gatherers. One has to arise from bed around 6am, certainly no later, at most resorts in order to secure a hut (read: shade) for the day. Lines form as early as 5am for a towel hut that opens at 7am. One is not allowed to merely walk onto the beach to take a hut; one must have towels in order to secure a hut, and the resort employee will take your "towel card" and room number, and assign a hut. After all the huts are taken, one is only allowed towels, and then one must find one's own shade. I can't criticize this process too much per my most recent vacation, because my mother, who can't sleep more than one hour a night, was always up plenty early to get us all a large hut so we'd have plenty of shade...but it's interesting that high-rise resorts are build with not enough huts to provide shade for all guests. It certainly caused tons of complaints from other guests who weren't willing to get out of bed at 5am each day.
• Again, hate to criticize because the vacation itself was fine. But the hotel employees were pretty terrible. When I checked out I didn't even get a "thank-you for staying with us"; just "you're all set". This was the general mentality of the hotel employees during our stay...very indifferent. Indifferent to customer complains; indifferent to their own jobs. In fact, the most pleasant people my wife & I came across were the ones who were cleaning our rooms. We weren't staying at the most expensive resort on the island, but still, my overall experience at Turks & Caicos was much better.
• We heard through one of the special people who get in line very early for towels, that the new Hotel Manager is a disgruntled, useless South American gentleman who "hates Americans" and "only wants South American guests" at his hotel. Hm, and this is the same island which uses U.S. currency. I love it when two-faced, low-life pieces of shit hate Americans but love our money, our aid, our charity to their citizens who cross the border illegally...good luck getting your fellow South Americans to spend nearly the cash at the bar and casino that Americans do when you chase them all out, pal.
• It's a very interesting experience going on vacation to a tropical, resort-oriented island. One local told us to "fuck off" as we drove past. Again, lack of gratitude from what was probably a resort employee who loved to hate on the "gringos". Just sad. It's very likely he drove a Civic worth $500 with $2,000 rims on it - very typical. But other than being told to fuck off, it's just a very interesting atmosphere: I loved the beach and the water, and one always feels comfortable with lots of Americans around, which was the case on the beach, in the hotel, in the casino, etc. etc. But when dealing one on one with hotel employees, there's definitely an air of tension, as if the hotel employees feel the American guests walk with an air of entitlement, and the American guest just wants the same level of service to which he/she is accustomed back home. The hotel employees were generally not willing to work with hotel guests with any issues they had upon check in; the check in process was ridiculously long (at least 15 minutes per party); the concierge wasn't very helpful...and they wonder why tourism is down 7% from a few years ago in Aruba. I think for a while it'll be fine, but I see it going the way of the Bahamas in future years, where cruise ships will bypass Aruba and go instead to Grand Turk or other, nicer places.

By the way, the hotel we stayed at was the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort in Aruba. Stay away if you're planning to go there - splurge and stay at the Westin or the Radisson, or rent a time share.

Again, these aren't complaints, per se, because the overall experience was excellent and I loved beachin' it all day, every day; the food was phenomenal; and we certainly needed the getaway. Just observations and one big warning re: the Holiday Inn.

Tropical changes?

After one week in beautiful Aruba, my second jaunt to the desert island with the huge desalination plant which is used mostly for tap water for residents and resort guests, I've decided to pursue a career in hotel management so I can move down to some island, swim in the ocean every morning, then go to work in a warm climate.

In all seriousness, it'd be nice, but given that a large hotel chain can send you pretty much anywhere at any time to manage a different branch - who wants to end up in Saudi Arabia to manage the Hilton in Riyadh - or, worse, Butte, Montana??

I've never traveled to a warm climate from a cold one; that is to say, I've never left New England to anywhere south of Washington, D.C., during the winter months. Definitely recommended.

Barstoolsports.com

Awesome post:

http://www.barstoolsports.com/article/motivational_posters/2064/