Author: wwducat

About: Writer, Technology guy, Photographer, Possibly EX-Software QA Engineer, Worker Bee. Interests: SCUBA, Working out, Friends, New Views, New Vistas, Photography
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Gotta love hypocrites

Journal News publisher Janet Hasson

A letter has appeared from Janet Hasson the publisher of The Journal News  explaining why the paper has decided to take the gun permit map down.

Her letter doesn’t hold water, yet she’s trying to spin taking the map down as a victory.

Read the comments after her letter and It’s pretty obvious that the heat must have been and will hopefully continue to be withering against her and the paper.

To our readers:
 
In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, The Journal News thought the community should know where gun permit holders in their community were, in part to give parents an opportunity to make careful decisions about their children’s safety.
 
The Journal News mapped the public database of permit holders, placing a dot on the address of every permit holder in Westchester and Rockland counties and providing the name and street address of each holder. The dots conveyed a powerful message: gun permit holders are everywhere in our counties.
 
But public reaction to the posting of names and street addresses was swift and divided. Many in the community expressed their gratitude for The Journal News’ decision to make the information available, but permit holders were outraged at what they considered to be an invasion of privacy. Gun owners from across the country vocally conveyed their anger and accused The Journal News of having exposed permit holders and non-permit holders alike to the risk of burglaries and other crimes. Hundreds of threats were made to Journal News staffers.
 
So intense was the opposition to our publication of the names and addresses that legislation passed earlier this week in Albany included a provision allowing permit holders to request confidentiality and imposing a 120-day moratorium on the release of permit holder data.
 
Today The Journal News has removed the permit data from lohud.com. Our decision to do so is not a concession to critics that no value was served by the posting of the map in the first place. On the contrary, we’ve heard from too many grateful community members to consider our decision to post information contained in the public record to have been a mistake. Nor is our decision made because we were intimidated by those who threatened the safety of our staffers. We know our business is a controversial one, and we do not cower.
 
But the database has been public for 27 days and we believe those who wanted to view it have done so already. As well, with the passage of time, the data will become outdated and inaccurate.
 
Equally important, the legislature has weighed in on the issue and representatives of residents from across the state have said that some New Yorkers who hold gun permits should have the right to keep that information private. As a news organization, we are constantly defending the public’s right to know. Consequently we do not endorse the way the legislature has chosen to limit public access to gun permit data. The statute is very broad and allows anyone who meets certain criteria within qualifying categories to keep their permit information private. When the moratorium concludes, far fewer permit holders will be identifiable, and those who want to know which houses on their block may have guns will not be able to get that information. But we are not deaf to voices who have said that new rules should be set for gun permit data.
 
Make no mistake, The Journal News will continue to report aggressively on gun ownership. We will continue to pursue our request for data from Putnam County, and will closely analyze the data for Westchester and Rockland counties when it once again becomes publicly available. And we will keep a snapshot of our map — with all its red dots — on our website to remind the community that guns are a fact of life we should never forget.
 
Sincerely,

Janet Hasson

President and Publisher

Journal News Media Group

Here is the link to the article.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20130118/NEWS02/301180125/Letter-from-publisher-gun-map

They’ve removed the map and the information about the gun permits because the law said they have to.

Sadly, this is rather like locking the barn after the horses have escaped, there are no doubt copies replicated on countless servers, blogs, and on private computers worldwide.

In short The Journal News has created a situation that can never be undone.

In other related news there is this from ProjectVeritas

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt1Zy_ASNyA&w=640&h=360]

The video is about 10 minutes long and it’s very interesting to note a couple of things…

First, not one of the editors/reporters who describe themselves as anti-gun will place a sign on their lawns saying that their homes are essentially gun free zones

Second, a large percentage of the editors/reporters either have armed guards at their homes or they’ll call the police at the “drop of a hat”.

Talk about people that think nothing of the safety of others (regardless of what they say) but when it comes to their personal safety all the sudden their concerns about guns vanish.

I guess this is what Über liberalism is all about.

I’m reminded of the line from Plan 9 from Outer Space. “All you people of Earth are idiots” I supposed we could revise that line to read “All you non-liberals are idiots, you’re either with us or you’re racist morons!”

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Another week has gotten behind me

How did that happen?

I guess some of the time was chewed up dealing with trying to find health insurance. What a nightmare!

Transitioning from the Obscenely expensive COBRA Plan to something less obscene isn’t as easy as you’d think it would be.

I can’t imagine what people do. I’ve been quoted as much as 1200 a month.

I’m Healthy!

But due to my age and the fact that I’m actually addressing some of the age related issues, health insurance feels that they need to rape me.

When one of them quoted me $1200 I lost it. I mean really? That’s my house payment! It’s also 600 a month more than COBRA.

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Then theres the HIPAA plan which is supposed to make sure that everyone has access to health insurance. And it does that…. At rates that are more obscene.

Basically I’ve been quoted rates form 202.00 a month to 1200 a month.

How the hell is that reasonable? I’m looking for nothing more than the ability to go to my doctor, keep getting the prescriptions that I need, and have hospital coverage. I see my doctor maybe twice a year and haven’t been in a full on hospital since I was 16.

I’ve had minor outpatient surgery once in the last 4 years and that was to tend to an issue before it became a problem… You know, the way it’s cheaper and easier to replace your brake pads before they destroy your brake drums or rotors on your car. No reason we shouldn’t look at our bodies the same way. Fix minor stuff while it’s minor. Dental care is a prime example. Get the filling… before you need the root canal. It just makes good sense.

I find myself wondering,  is this yet another situation where my having been a responsible individual is screwing me? 

Because I’ve taken care of myself and work at remaining healthy, am I paying the price for all those people who haven’t? 

I can’t even explain how frustrating this is. 

Ironically, the most expensive of the insurance options is the HIPAA plan. HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

In what reality can someone coming off of COBRA possibly still unemployed, or returning to the workforce in a part time position or to a company that  doesn’t provide group insurance afford 700 – 1200 a month in health insurance?

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COBRA and HIPAA are the two main reasons that I question the efficacy of the Obama Care plan.

Both of these “services” are made available and administered due to government intervention and regulation.

Yet they are without question the most expensive options. It’s a pretty funny racket too. Before you’re eligible for HIPAA you have to exhaust your COBRA benefits. After exhausting your COBRA benefits then you get to pay higher rates to maintain a  HIPAA plan.

It doesn’t make any sense at all since our politicians run around wringing their hands about how “Our Children” don’t get the care they’re supposed to.

Those same politicians seek to criminalize the lack of health care insurance but at the same time they do nothing to reduce the cost of the government mandated plans. 

Better questions are why does health insurance cost so much? What is driving that cost?

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Why can I go see a doctor pay cash for his services and pay less than the negotiated insurance rate? Why do doctors and hospitals always charge the maximum negotiated rate to Insurance providers?

Is it really all about the administration costs that doctors incur, while insurance companies screw around trying to deny claims?

If that’s the case then the problem isn’t the cost of services being rendered. The problem is that the patients, AKA consumers are caught in the middle.

Perhaps the solution isn’t a 16 trillion dollar health care plan that just stokes the fire allowing more and more abuses driving the cost of even basic services up. Perhaps the solution is to terminate all health care insurance.

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We’ve seen what happens when an artificially inflated price for goods or services collapses. It was called the housing bubble. Maybe it’s time for a similar “correction” to happen in healthcare and health insurance.

I can tell you that if my only choice is a 1200 a month health care policy, the insurance companies can put it where the sun don’t shine.

I’ll go without insurance pay straight up for my doctor, and the prescriptions I need and if it comes to me being hospitalized I’m guess I’m going to die.

After all I’m just a useless, misogynistic, testosterone poisoned, moronic, dumbshit, racist, republican, gun totin, white man, who’s responsible for the oppression of all the other races, global warming, inflation, and who deserves to die horribly.

Isn’t that the Über Liberal party line? Did I get it right?

If Obama wants to criminalize me for not having medical insurance… well he can come and arrest me. 

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At least then, I’ll have 3 hots & a cot… ohhh and state supplied health care.

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Paraprosdokian Of the Week

A Friend sent me a list of these. I thought it would be fun to share them.

Paraprosdokians are phrases or sentences that lead us down the garden path to an unexpected ending.

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit… the target.

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What’s good for the goose apparently isn’t for the gander

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I read this article this morning and darn near blew coffee out my nose.

http://gu.com/p/3d674

The gist of the piece is that a programmer decided to outsource then manage the outsourcing of his own job to China. 

He went to work every day, surfed the net, updated his Facebook, watched cat videos and wrote a daily progress report for his boss.

All the while the actual programming was being done by a Chinese programer for 1/5 the salary the programmer was making.

This programmer even managed to take on programming jobs at other companies and was making a ton of money.

He was ultimately fired from his position but only because a network audit uncovered his “misuse” of the corporate network. (Facebook, twitter, cat videos)

The funny thing is that the guy was apparently considered one of the better employees and programmers at his company.

The article mentions that had this guys job title been different he’d have probably gotten a bonus. 

I think the guy was creative and clever, but he missed his calling.

He should open a consulting firm specializing in offshore project management. I’ll bet he could make a fortune.

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Enough Already — Updated —

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I hope it’s not just me.

I’m beginning to think we’re over stimulated. 

Watch young people, go to a Starbucks. There’s a constant din of chirps, beeps, buzzes, and squeaks as the people in the room drink their coffee say one or two sentences to their companion then turn all their attention to responding to the never ending text messages.

I’ve lately found myself annoyed at people in my house interrupting a conversation dealing with where we were going to dinner to answer texts.

After a few minutes of being ignored… I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, went to the table and began eating. I was 3/4 of the way through the sandwich before my visitor realized I was eating.

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Then they got upset with me because I’d ruined our dinner plans. I pointed out that they’d been texting for 45 minutes solid and hadn’t said a word to me during that time. I was hungry and now had no need to go to dinner. They left in a huff, I still feel justified in my actions. 

I mean I was physically in their presence but I took a back seat to someone else who was god knows where.

There are just way too many distractions!

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I even do my best to avoid gas stations with those damn video loops playing on top of the gas pump. As an aside I hate playing 50 questions with the pump too.

It’s like I’m being assaulted. The video is playing music and talking at me, the gas pump is beeping and booping asking questions, do you want a car wash? do you want a receipt, check out our drink selection inside, please enter your zip code, you qualify for a discounted car wash are you sure you don’t want a car wash, please select the grade of fuel. 

I just want to get the hell away from the noise and confusion. Maybe it’s because I’m an adult with ADD… it’s like there’s too damn much input!

I just want to put gas in my car and get going.

This summer while I was driving to Denver, I noticed that once I got out of California the gas stations calmed down. So perhaps this craziness at the pump is only a California thing. I really do hope so.

I feel the same way about reading news on the internet.

I hate clicking on a news article and beginning to read then having loud music or a voice blathering at me about some product or service. Lately it seems to be getting worse. 

I’m reading the article precisely because I don’t want to hear commercials screeching at me over my morning coffee. I like silence in the morning… I like to read the news and come to my own conclusion about a subject after reading several articles from different sources.

Aside from an increasing number of articles being so poorly written I can’t imagine how they made it past an editor, now I’m having to listen to commercials followed by a talking head describing the article I’m reading.

I’ve actually started keeping the sound muted on my computer. I can’t even imagine trying to take a break and read a news article at work. 

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I’m also driving with my navigation system off.

If the car needs to tell me something it can turn on the display, but normally I’m just choosing to be un-assaulted by yet another information display. I really prefer to notice the scenery i’m passing at 90 MPH while trying to not be run over by an asshole in a Mexican 18 wheeler.

Lets turn down the noise.

Really, try turning off the TV, and the tablet, and the computer and the text message notifications.

You’d be surprised how wonderful silence is. 

I play a game sometimes, I’ll simply leave my cell phone in quiet mode on the nightstand. I’ve done this for days at a time.

Folks get a little weird after just a few hours of no responses from me.  I suppose it’s because  they’ve gotten so used to the digital interactions they’re demanding an instant response to whatever they’ve sent me.

They’re content if that response is nothing more than an emoticon. I’ve often thought I should create an autoresponder that picked a random smiley or LOL. I wonder if that would work? I wonder if there’s a app for that?

When I decide to pay attention to my phone again I’ll get messages from people telling me my phone sucks, or that I really shouldn’t ignore texts.

I ask why not? 25 years ago cell phones weren’t all that common. People got along just fine leaving a message on my answering machine and I got back to them when I felt like it.

If you want to register your opinion about the assault at the pump you can send an email to the contacts here

http://www.outcast.net/fuel/

Cynopsis

Also brought to you by these people is this…

I’m not sure if it’s a marketing ploy or simply a demonstration of poor editing.

The word is synopsis.

I suppose I could see it if the misspelling saved a number of characters but in this case, it just looks like someone couldn’t spell.

It’s like that annoying spelling of fat. Phat doesn’t get you anything except to identify your ethnicity, musical choices and education level. On top of that you’ve turned a 3 letter word into a 4 letter word, what’s the point?

The only way I’ve found to register my displeasure about instant play videos on webpages is go to the source of the video and send a complaint.

I guess I’m old school. I think what happens on my computer should always be under my control. That includes videos or music playing. If I didn’t press play… then keep that crap to yourself.

I’ve actually gone to blogs, then closed the browser window when music started playing. I went to the blog to read what the person had to say, not to listen to their John Denver albums.

That goes double for going to a massage schools website and being blown out of my chair by Ravi Shankar at a volume that could be heard in a neighboring star system.

I like most of Ravis work but I don’t like anything at that volume, especially when I can’t make it shut the hell up!

We seem to have forgotten that we own the technology, the technology shouldn’t and doesn’t own us. 

I love technology. But I’m finding that I’m less and less interested in it running my life, or destroying the silence of my day.

UPDATE

Within hours of my posting this, I was confronted with another element of the over-stimulation and the demands for instant responses. I was on the phone taking care of some business. Another call came in, without interrupting the phone conversation I was having, I sent the new phone call to voice mail.

Within a second there was another call from the same phone number. Once again I sent the incoming call to voicemail. Two seconds later the persistent caller was calling again!

I excused myself from the conversation I was having, explaining that I had someone who was desperately trying to reach me and asked to interrupt my conversation for a few moments. Fortunately, they understood and said they’d hold. 

 I answered the persistent caller and honestly I wasn’t exactly polite. I hate people who won’t be patient, wait their turn and leave a fucking message!

It was an unknown headhunter.

They start the conversation with “Hi, are you busy?”

I responded, “Yes… which is why your were sent to voicemail Twice! I’m on another phone call.”

“Oh… well I calling to find out if you’d be interested in a temporary contract position.”

“Yes, however as I’ve said I’m on another call right at the moment. Did you leave a voice mail?”

“Uhhh I think so” <— LIE!!!

“Could you please send me an email regarding the position, I’ll review it and call you back.”

“Sure” <—LIE!

“Fine then I’ll review the information and call you back, Good bye…”

Then I returned to my previous phone call. I have yet to receive an email, this headhunter didn’t leave a voicemail and I’ve pretty much decided to blacklist them in my email and phone.

This guy didn’t even apologize for his annoying behavior. 

WTF?

I don’t want to be represented by a company who doesn’t even understand basic courtesy. If they make a prospective employer angry because they’re discourteous, my chances of employment are nill.

Politeness and professionalism still count a lot with me.

I guess I’m showing my age.