Out with the old!

Shame on you Barack!

I was trying to reserve judgement on your cabinet picks until you were actually President but now I am so repulsed by what you are doing that I can't stand it.  Robert Gates represents the the Bush Administration and the policies of President Bush's failed wars.  We need new leadership in the White House and in the Pentagon.  Get rid of Robert Gates and bring someone new in, someone who isn't tainted by the policies that were maintained after Rumsfeld was shown the door, and someone who hasn't been supporting policies that CANNOT work in the long term.

What am I talking about?  Isn't the surge a success?  NO!  The relative peace that exists in Iraq today is due to the gratuitous cash payments that are being made to the militias.  In effect, we are paying people not to fight us.  These cash payments are part of the giant cost of the Iraq occupation and need to be stopped, but once they are the violence will resume and the supposed gains of the surge will be wiped out.  

Get rid of Robert Gates!  Shame on you Barack!

And fuck you Joe Lieberman and the spineless democrats who voted to keep him!

Spam: Survival of the fittest

After reading about the recent lawsuit in which Facebook won a $873 MILLION verdict against Canadian spammer Adam Guerbuez (read about it here) it made me think about what a Malthusian challenge spam has created for our society. To date I have received dozens, if not hundreds of spam messages telling me that my Amazon account is blocked, or my credit card was used in a foreign country, or a friendly member of the Nigerian royal family wants to cut me in on a good business deal and never have any of these resulted in me divulging any information that would allow an online account to be hijacked, my money stolen, or my identity assumed by the spammers. And why have I been so fortunate as to survive these assaults that claim millions of people every year? I think the two best explanations are that I am not "click happy" and I have am sufficiently proficient in English grammar and spelling.

My best guess is that over 95% of the spam/phishing/scam emails I receive are filled with terrible spelling and grammar that looks like someone threw a Chinese sentence into babblefish (does anyone still use that?) and translated it into 4-5 other languages before finally translating the last results into English. Those emails are also dreadfully inpersonal, typically addressed to "user" or "customer." From working in IT I know that businesses and organizations spend a shit-ton (that's a lot) of money to make their mass emails seem personalized. They also spend a good deal of money to hide user information in their mailings so if you receive something that's addressing something as serious as credit card or bank accounts, and you can see 30-40 email addresses in the CC: box, then you know that's fake too.

Ultimately, those who are not suceptible to these kinds of fraudulent attempts will continue to hold onto their identities and accounts while those who aren't will continue to be fleeced. I guess in a way that's the natural order of things and I imagine the same people who are being conned and hoodwinked today are probably similar to those that were tricked by the snake-oil salesmen of the past.

So while this Facebook lawsuit might deter some from scamming, it's going to keep happening so long as the "n00bs" out there keep clicking on links and giving away their account passwords, or opening the emails that say "Dude...you gotta sea this!!!!***!!!!"

Turkey Day

As we ramp up for Turkey Day I jut wanted to share this little blast from the past. It came to mind when a friend of mine texted me about a "pilgrims and Indians" party she was hosting. While that might seem like a good time and just some light fun, it is also a sad reminder of our own historical past. Just as Prince Harry was chastised both for attending a "Colonizers and colonized" party and for wearing a South African military uniform (which looked a little too much like those of Nazi Germany), "pilgrims and Indians" should be no less offensive as a theme.
As poor little warpath here demonstrates, the mythology of Thanksgiving has completely overtaken the history that accompanies the birth of this country.

On that note, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

California Wildfires

STOP LIVING IN FIRE PRONE AREAS!

Watching all the news coverage of the efforts by the bankrupt state of California battling wild fires only leads me to one conclusion.  People should not be living in those mountainous regions that are prone to wild fires.  If they do choose to live there they should be responsible for footing any and all bills related to fighting the fire and should not be elligible for any federal disaster money.  If I build my home on a sandbar and the tide comes in I shouldn't get federal money to rebuild my home on that sandbar.

How does Jane and Isabelle's marriage affect yours?

With the renewed discussions about gay marriage in the national spotlight I find myself posing this question more and more: how does the marriage between 2 women or 2 men affect you and your marriage?  While I've heard a lot of bull shit in response to that question I thought I'd throw down the most common responses along with my evisceration of those reasons.

1.  It diminishes the meaning of marriage and therefore is an attack on my marriage:

Really?  Does your neighbor's divorce diminish your marriage?  Does your co-worker's infidelity diminish your marriage?  If an other's divorce or infidelity negatively impact your marriage are you for a constitutional ban on divorce?  Or criminalizing adultery?  My guess is you are not and so your stance against gay marriage is not only hypocritical but misplaced.  By including same-sex couples into the realm the marriage you add proponents for policies and issues that defend and support marriage, be they tax policies or public education for your children.  Ultimately the more people who marry the stronger the institution of marriage becomes.

2.  I don't want my children to go to school with the children of gay couples because it will teach them that there's nothing wrong with being gay:

This is one of the last forms of acceptable discrimination in our country.  I'm not saying that other forms of discrimination do not exist but most attacks on other groups (based on race or religion) are met with strong opposition in the public.  This line of argument points to a problem in your own life and your discomfort with gays and lesbians.  Most of the data show that younger generations are more comfortable with gays than their parents and grandparents, so chances are your children will encounter homosexuality during their time in school and be OK with it.  The easiest response to this argument is that there was a time not too long ago when the same arguments were made against integrating schools.  Complaints from (mostly) white parents who did not want their children in school with "Negroes" was the driving force behind maintaining segragation as long as it lasted.  Luckily we have, for the most part, agreed that this reasoning was bigoted and wrong and hopefully we will view the issues of homosexuality through a similar lens in the years to come.

3.  My religion/church/spaghetti monster tells me that a marriage should be between one man and one woman:

For starters, let's remember that most major religions were founded over a thousand years ago and that they also contained passages like the following: "Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."  So the next time you want to use the bible or some other holy book as a defense for your discriminatory policies towards gays remember that there's a lot of rules and decrees found in any religious text and if you aren't following every single one of them who are you to judge someone who is breaking one of them?

4.  Studies show that children do better when raised by one man and one woman:

This study, which is often brought up by groups like "focus on the family" (side note: organizations with the word "family" in them tend to be very bad for families) as a reason to stop gay marriage.  What these studies usually look at is the presence of two parents versus one parent in the home.  I assure you that Rosie O'Donnell's kids or Ellen DeGeneres and Portia deRossi's kids will have a fantastic life and will not have any socio-economic issues despite the absence of a father in the home.

If you have or have heard any other reasons why two men or two women should not be wed please let me know.  I'm sure we can debunk them as well.

The real Barack Obama

To all of you who are pretending to be so shocked that Obama is shaping up to be a rather moderate President and not the rabid leftist pinko-commie Trotskyite that Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly told you he would be all I can say is, you're a moron. If you actually "drank the koolaid", as Bill is so fond of saying, and believed that President-elect Obama was a Socialist then you obviously don't know what a Socialist is. And at the same time, if you are now shocked because you had hoped he would be a radical leftist then you too are a moron.

Barack Obama is, above all else, politician. Granted, he is a phenomenally better politician than George Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin or Joe Biden, but he's still a politician. I believe he will make some great changes (or try to) for this country, and I believe that we as a nation will benefit from greater respect abroad, but he's still going to try and keep most of the country happy (or at least not angry).

He's not going to take your guns, he's not going to force you to abort your baby, he's not going to burn your church to the ground, and he certainly isn't going to get every last American soldier out of Iraq and Afghanistan in the next 4 years. These are the compromises that exist in American politics and we should be grown up enough by now to recognize them. Americans need to stop taking what they hear on the campaign trail as the gospel and start viewing it for what it is...campaigning.

At the end of the campaign Republicans were without a message so they ran ads calling Obama a risky radical. Not because they believed he was, but because they believed that would stop people from voting for him. Likewise, the Democrats pushed the notion that McCain was the same as Bush, not because they really believed it, but because they thought it would resonate with the anger people had towards this administration and be good for their candidate. If you want to be disappointed, fine. If you feel disgusted by it, fine. But it's just how the game is played.

The most important thing isn't getting someone elected but making them do right by you once they are in office. President-elect Obama has vowed to make his administration one of the most open and transparent administrations in American history. Good! Use that! Go to the websites, send emails, make phone calls and not just to his organization but to your local elected officials: your Congressman/woman, your Senators, your Governor, your state assemblyman/woman and your city councilman/woman. If you sit around with your thumb up your butt don't be surprised when nothing happens because despite what anyone says on the campaign trail, they are influenced by the voices that keep talking after the voting is done.

WTF Black Californians?

Preface: I've been sitting here thinking about how to write this. I feel the need to tread lightly, but then because of that feeling, it seems more important than ever to take off the gloves.

First off, let me say I'm sorry to the 3/10 of black voters in California who went to the polls and voted down Proposition 8. I'm sorry that for the past week and probably the next few weeks, you will be included in the many discussions about why a discriminatory ballot measure passed in large part due to the African American vote. Just know that it's not your fault and you voted with your conscience. If there is any fault to lay at your feet it's that you were unable to convey to your neighbors or family that importance of striking down discriminatory legislation even if it doesn't target you specifically.

To the 7 in 10 of your who voted for Proposition 8, I hope that a number of you misread, or didn't read, the ballot. I have always held the belief that for an oppressed group of people to turn around and discriminate against another oppressed minority is one of the most shameful things that can happen. Where was your empathy on November 4th? It was not that long ago that many states had laws banning interracial marriage on the books but people fought it, and some opponents of those laws may not have planned to marry across race but they fought it none-the-less because it was wrong.

Now I'm not going to try and make a case that gays are more discriminated against than Blacks or vice-versa, but I will say that if you believe in fighting for civil rights, AND you believe that your own civil rights still hang in the balance, then you have a moral obligation to support the civil rights of those around you. In my opinion, by not helping those around you gain equal protection under the law you deserve any and all bigotry, oppression or discrimination that befalls you.

For everyone one of you whose faith tells you to oppose gay marriage, remember that somewhere out there someone else's faith tells them to oppose your right to vote, or your right to marry, or your right to marry someone of a different race. Marriage today is a civil institution that carries with it rights and benefits granted by the State, not by god. If you want to close your church's door to gays and lesbians, so be it, but your church should not be in the business of stripping rights from people as it does a great disservice to the struggle so many of you have been involved with in using your faith and your church to fight discrimination.

So please, do not argue that we must take away someone else's rights because Blacks are still discriminated against. Do not argue that we must take away someone else's rights because our church tells us to. Do not argue that we must take away someone else's rights because the case was not made clearly to you. Recognize that whatever your reasoning, you took away some fundamental rights from a minority group and you should be ashamed.


Oh yeah. One more thing. Fuck you Joe Lieberman.