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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Time for journalistic responsibility.

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I couldn’t resist the Reagan poster. But you have to admit if anyone aside from James Brady could speak to the subject it’s Reagan. 

CBSNews Is reporting the New York paper responsible for publishing a map showing the addresses of registered gun owners in two NY counties has added to their grandstanding by hiring armed security guards to protect one of their offices.

The so called “journalists” are kinda missing the point.

I love the irony in that they’ve turned to armed security to protect them.

Registered gun owners are law abiding citizens which by default means that these people aren’t likely to go to the newspaper to exact revenge.

Law abiding citizens are going to choose weapons of mass destruction…. LAWYERS!

The Lawyers will be far more devastating to the newspaper than anyone with a gun.

If I were one of the people affected I’d be seriously pissed off. Not because now the world knows I have guns, but because of the invasion of privacy for no good purpose other than headlines.

Essentially this newspaper has stigmatized the gun owners of these counties. What they’ve done is tried to equate gun owners to sex offenders. “Who are the gun owners in your neighborhood?”, Who are the sex offenders in your neighborhood?”

I’m sure that the editors of the newspaper have gotten some really negative mail and deservedly so.

The gun owners affected have committed no crime, they’ve done absolutely nothing that should have resulted in the forfeiture of their privacy and yet… They’ve lost their privacy. Their homes may be targeted for potential break-ins by criminals who would like to steal guns and resell them to other criminals.

Now the newspaper is trying to look like the victim, and spin the story that they’re scared of the gun owners. 

I have a few things to say to that;

1 Buck up. You published the piece, you must have thought about the invasion of privacy you were enabling and if you didn’t well you’re not very good journalists. You need to accept the consequences and responsibility for your actions.

2 You have nothing to fear from the registered gun owners. You need to fear their attorneys.

3 In the years to come you need to fear the criminal element that breaks into these houses and manages to steal the weapons. They’re the people that are going to mug you, rape you, and shoot you. The blood of innocent victims, and the blood of the home owners occupying these houses will be on your hands.

In my opinion, a single injury or god forbid a death caused because a criminal targeted these homes should result in prosecution of the journalists involved in the story.

I’m for freedom of the press, but with that freedom also comes responsibility. 

There’s a quote from one of the Star Trek movies. “Just because we can do a thing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should do a thing.”

Yes, it wasn’t said by a statesman, or a scientist, or a politician. But it’s nonetheless a wonderful cautionary statement.

I suspect that the movie quote is based on something Robert Oppenheimer said;

“When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. – J. Robert Oppenheimer”

The point is, sometimes it’s important to take a step back to look beyond your ability to act and decide if the ends are really justified. 

How many wars, how much harm would have been avoided if people had simply considered the ramifications of their actions?

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I’ve finally learned my lesson

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I’ve been tinkering with this post for a while. I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to post it but I’ve come to a “what the hell point”  about it.

Let me preface with the following statements; I’m the guy that doesn’t illegally download music from the internet. I obey the law. I do whats right because I believe that’s the best way to live. I like the simplicity of not telling lies. I have purchased all my videos, and software. I pay my bills, and I admit it if I’ve fucked up and missed a payment.I admit when I’m wrong. I tell the truth and have always done my best to be honorable.

The problem is:

Honesty doesn’t pay.

This flies in the face of everything that I was taught as a child. When I was a kid, My parents taught me that being honest was absolutely the best thing you could be and that the rewards of being honest were great.

As an honest person I could expect respect from others, I’d be someone who people trusted and preferred to do business with,  my word would be my bond and we’d therefore not have to engage lawyers in anything but the most complex of contracts, I’d be a valued employee and could look forward to retirement as an honored person.

Perhaps these things were true when my parents were growing up.

They’re sure as hell not true now.

Let me give you some examples;

When I was dealing with the California EDD there was a question on the form you fill out. The question is “Did you start any training during period X or period Y. (X is the first week and Y is the second week). I answered yes… because I’m an honest man and I had in fact taken a 1 week training course.

My reward for being honest? EDD withheld the unemployment compensation for both weeks. Resulting in a shortfall of cash and late payments on several bills. Why the shortfall? because I was running that close to the line and attending the training class meant that I had to buy gasoline to attend the class.

Thanks EDD! Now I have the training to do a new job, but I don’t have the ability to attend any interviews.

I looked at that question for a long time before answering it. I knew in my heart that I should lie. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. In the back of my head was the knowledge that the class I was attending, reports the student attendance to the state of California. 

If it wasn’t for raiding my 401K I’d have had my car repossessed when I owed less than 3K on it. Since the car could still be sold for 20K this represents a wonderful profit for both the bank and the state.

#FAIL

The correct answer is to lie to EVERY STATE OFFICIAL, and on EVERY STATE FORM. Lie about your age, ethnicity, your religion, sexuality, and national origin, your circumcision status, and anything else you can.

I’m now a blind, black, mexican, transgendered, 30 year old, druid. Prove me wrong!

NEXT!

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Another example was when I was working for a government contractor as a Software Quality Assurance person.

The software was broken. It was horribly broken and with each iteration it was broken more severely than the last. As a lifelong QA person this is something that raises alarms in every industry. 

A QA persons job is to find the defects, report the defects, and come up with a way for the defects to be demonstrable on command, preferably so that the programmers can do a fault trace and correct the code in 20 minutes or less. (As an aside developers hate intermittent or difficult to reproduce problems.)

As a QA person I recreated every defect I reported at least 3 times. I did this to insure that I’ really did have a defect worth reporting and that I’d documented the steps to demonstrate the problem in as simple a way as possible.

While doing my job, the defect count kept going up I dutifully reported the problems. I followed procedure, and because I was concerned with the safety of the end users of our product I stuck to my guns about the defects. But I was told not to report the defects and eventually my ability to enter defects was revoked. This left me sending my defect reports to my boss who wouldn’t enter them because it made the project look bad.

I was honest. I didn’t lie, even when it was suggested that I do so. This was after all a government contract and my job as a citizen and QA person was to make sure that the product was delivered to the end users with as few defects as possible and that the project be delivered under budget and as quickly as possible.

WRONG

The game is that government contractors always overrun their budgets and their time. Why? because the government will penalize the contractor by reducing the amount of money it pays if the contractor delivers a product early.

Burying defects and slowing the progress of a project is the only way for a contractor to maximize their profits. It’s called follow-on maintenance.

So in this instance… once again truth is a very bad thing.

The common thread is that the state government and the federal government seem to operate on an illogic where honesty and truth are not in the best interest of the parties involved.

LAST EXAMPLE

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Under absolutely no circumstance should you ever tell the truth to your boss. In private or publicly, even if you’re respectiful and honestly trying to insure the success of a particular project or venture never tell the boss that their plan won’t work. Even if you have the weight of the history of mankind on your side… never tell them it won’t work. 

By doing so, you’re just setting yourself up to be at the top of the layoff list. If there aren’t layoffs imminent, you’re setting yourself up for poor reviews, and being tortured daily.

At the risk of sounding misogynistic (I wonder what the opposite of misogyny is? Oh there it is. Misandry, I’ve been on the receiving end of that more than once.), this is especially true if your boss is a woman. She is always right, she is always perfect, her ideas are just the best you’ve ever heard. “Of course we’ll make space in the office by drawing pentagrams on the floor and  casting spells to levitate the furniture. Obviously parking my desk and chair above my co-workers will work and save space.“

Just make sure that you’re as far away from the explosion and laying of blame as you can be because you can bet your bottom dollar that she will try to blame anyone else for her half baked plan failing.

Whatever you do… NEVER EVER keep a record of your bosses directives. Absolutely, never present that record as your defense to upper management when your boss tries to blame you for the chaos and failure.

You’ll win the war… But you’ll lose your job.

Oh and never point out to anyone that working is about receiving compensation for your labor… The correct statement is, you work because you love the people at your office and you think your job is important and fulfilling. 

So from here on out. I’ve decided that I’m going to be like everyone else. 

I’m going to lie, cheat, and generally fuck over everyone else. The rules no longer apply to me, I’m special, I’m important, I’m entitled!

Never let it be said I don’t learn from my mistakes…

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Happy New Year

Happy New Year

For those of you nursing hangovers, I’ll type quietly. I was sitting here watching my Alien boxed set and woke up well after Midnight.

Wow, what a party animal I am…

For various reasons I didn’t go out. I’d planned to have some champaign to toast the new year. The champaign is still in the fridge, and I’ve been sober as a judge for at least a couple of weeks.

We’re still aimed for the fiscal cliff. I’m actually surprised that the lawmakers didn’t announce an agreement last night. I guess they wanted to increase the drama and excitement.

This year has got to be a better year than last. 

There are a number of things that I need to finish and am rededicating myself to those tasks.

No I don’t have a traditional news years resolution list. Suffice it to say I know what I have to get done and it’s up to me to do it.

I hope that all of you have a safe, productive, and happy year.

I would have said interesting, but the Chinese have a wonderful curse that wishes one to live in interesting times. I didn’t want to start the year out on the wrong foot.

On to a second cup of coffee and then I think I’ll start dismantling the Christmas tree.

I’m more than ready to start a fresh new year.

 

 

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Happy New Years Eve

It’s a beautiful cold as heck day today.

I’m lounging around in my robe and slippers and thinking about what I want to do today.

The stock market is up a bit, as the theater in Washington DC enters the final act.

Yep, I’m pretty sure that there will be a “last minute agreement” between our lawmakers late today. It will represent a compromise and miraculously we’ll avoid the fiscal cliff.

Thelma

So no Thema & Louise for the country. At least not yet but someone is going to have to find a way to pay the national debt.

As I’ve said before, I think we should take control of the natural resources of certain countries where we’ve had to have a military presence and take an appropriate amount of those resources to pay for our military services.

Tack on a nice 20% profit and call it even.

But then I’m a capitalist pig… you know one of those people that thinks profit is not by it’s nature an evil thing.

Yes, yes I know… I’ll be sitting at the right hand of Satan… Right there with all the Republicans.

So what? At least we’ll have lights, martinis, hookers, and air conditioning! Sounds like more fun than sitting on a cloud playing a harp for all eternity.

Just saw this news flash… President Obama has approved pay raises for congress.  Yep! you read that correctly. While hundreds of thousands of Americans are unemployed, and millions of Americans are looking down the barrel of a tax hike the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the end of WWII congress gets pay raises.

I can only ask WTF?

Rank & file members of congress will see their salaries go to 174,900, while the more elite members of congress will see their salaries top 250K.

I’m shaking my head… Jesus! I had to suck cock, lick cunt and plant my lips firmly to the ass of my boss to get a lousy 80K a year, with 30 years experience! The companies I worked for begrudged me that. Plus I had to pay for my own medical insurance, commute like a mother and if someone didn’t like the job I was doing I was shown the door.

Yet here we have a congress that has the lowest approval rating I’ve ever seen. This group of people have had a hand in  stalling the government, our economy, refuse to do anything constructive about it and they get a raise????

DAMN!

I’d suck Harry Reids and John Boehners dick for 174K a year. Hell, I’d sleep with Nancy Pelosi for that kind of money, and you know what??? I’d feel good about doing an honest 10 minutes work.

You know the old adage, “If you’re going to prostitute yourself, be well paid.” 

These people wonder why they get no respect… for christ sake, they make more money than 75% of the general populace, they’re in a position to fuck us all every day of the year, and they do!

It’s time to fire every single one of these fuckers and put some people with common sense in office. And I’d say bullshit on these salaries. 100K tops for every member of congress and they have to pay for their own fucking health care. Maybe then we’d have a government that was about being responsible with the trust, responsibility,  and the money, “We The People” elect them to manage.

Positive thoughts, gotta think positive thoughts…. Breathe…

Is it too early to start drinking?

I hope everyone has a very safe and happy New Years Eve…

If you’re drinking please don’t drive. I can’t afford to loose any readers.

If you’re going to have sex, make sure it’s safe or with your spouse. To my friends planning on giving their dungeons a workout…. Why the hell didn’t you invite me?

Be safe everyone, I look forward to hearing from you in the new year.

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Been trying to come up with a blog entry

I’ve looked at the news – nothing I could say is positive.

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I want to make the last few blog entries of the year positive.  I’d like to go into 2013 with a positive outlook.

The problem is that with all the uncertainty about our government it’s difficult.

Really, can I as a citizen now in the lower portion of income brackets say,  I’m going to have a higher tax burden? YEAH!!!

I can’t pay my bills now,  much less having my taxes go up by 2 or 3 thousand dollars per year. And that’s not even considering what the idiots in Sacramento are likely to do to butt fuck us.

Tough to think positively with that kind of uncertainty.

Look at the stock market and you’ll see I’m not alone.

I saw an article from France where their court system had struck down some kind of super tax as unconstitutional. Peppered throughout the article was a percentage of 75% being purported as the tax rate.

I’ve not confirmed the information in the article and I believe less & less what American Journalists say.

However, if in fact the French tried to impose a 75% tax as the American news reported, I’m surprised there wasn’t a revolution.  Of course that kind of taxation would sure prevent anyone becoming wealthy so I guess burdensome taxation is in fact a great equalizer.

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I should point out,  so is communism!

LIke I said, it’s tough to be positive.

I caught a youtube with Ted Nugent taking on Piers Morgan.

Now that was funny! I have attempted to watch Piers Morgan on more than one occasion.

In each instance I wasn’t able to watch more than a few minutes. I find Mr. Morgan not only on the opposite side of any subject from me but he’s with the rabid frothing at the mouth opposition.

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In short I think he’s a pompous ass and I have no desire to waste my time listening to him interrupting his guests and preventing them from making their points if they don’t agree with him completely.

I would support sending him back to England… But the English are our allies and it would be just wrong to send a weapon of mass delusion to our friends.

NewImageThe Nugent piece was great though… Ted, managed to talk over Piers anti-gun rhetoric and make his point. I got a laugh out of it when Nugent told Piers to suck his machine gun.

One of my family called to ask if it was common to go swimming in a frozen lake here. I had no idea what they were talking about. Then I found the news piece showing a bunch of people falling into a lake near here.

Then I found a video on a town web site showing the whole sorry event. I guess it was a slow news day and the national medial used this video as a nice filler / fluff piece.

The video is appearing and disappearing on youtube hourly. The bit of video the media is showing is not the whole story.

No matter how the media may try to paint it as a “Tragedy avoided”

The tragedy isn’t that someone fell through the ice. The tragedy is that these people didn’t see a problem walking on the ice in the first place.

The Lake in question isn’t completely frozen over so you’d think someone would have realized “Gee, this ice must be thin”.

Nope… instead one person falls in and then like lemmings we have a dozen people in the water. Unlike lemmings they didn’t die.

The whole video is actually 10 minutes long and you can hear people with common sense telling these other people to get off the ice.

It’s when the first person falls in, that you suddenly realize everyone on the ice is Spanish speaking and apparently realllllllllyyyyyyy stupid.

The only thing missing from the longer video is Three Stooges Music or a sound track from Benny Hill.

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After I saw the long (10 min) video, I called my family member back and told them that had I witnessed this insanity I’d have walked away.

Mind you these idiots were sledding down a short hill and out onto a partially frozen lake.

I’d have called it Darwinian selection and figured that the survivors from the group of idiots remaining on the shore might have learned a valuable lesson.

It’s a lesson that most of us don’t need to learn by watching a family member drown / freeze to death but some people are apparently slower than the rest of us.

This is akin to early hominids learning it wasn’t a good idea to poke a saber tooth with a stick.

“Too bad about Ogg, I told him leave the saber cat alone but he wouldn’t listen, from here on out everyone in tribe avoid big cats with pointy teeth.”

In that vein, I’ve seen an idiot on Catalina Island walk up to and try to pet a wild buffalo even when the people around them were saying “No, Stop, that’s a Wild Animal”

I was standing apart from the crowd with my camera ready. I was hoping to immortalize what happens to a genetically & mentally deficient human when they interact with wildlife, and miss the obvious signs of agitation and aggression in an animal that outweighs them by a thousand pounds.

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Unfortunately, a park ranger stopped the moron before the buffalo got really pissed off.

I can’t get over the thought that some people really do need to be allowed to kill themselves due to their own stupidity. It would serve two purposes, 1) They’d remove themselves from the breeding stock and hopefully their defective genes too. 2) They’d be wonderful object lessons for others.

Again, it’s really hard to stay positive.

I’m hoping that some libation, masturbation, sex, porn, a good meal, and pretty fireworks, not necessarily in that order will make me feel more positive.

But I’m not holding my breath.