Category: Cultural Obscenities

How our culture has allowed itself to become twisted

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We’ve reached the end of the week.

Annnnnnnddd… Nothing is new!

Had a job offer rescinded. Disappointing but in truth I had some reservations about the job. The pay was good, but the Job itself was in Florida.

Florida wouldn’t be bad for me personally, but it would mean leaving Jesse, my home, and probably any reasonable chance of returning to California would be gone too, except to sell the house eventually.

I thought about it and had come to peace about all that I’d be leaving and all that I’d have to clean up eventually.

The reservations about the job in addition to those stated, also had to do with the relationship of the person I’d be working for and my family’s involvement. What happened to the job if things went sour between my boss and the family? Those questions were apparently answered when the offer was rescinded. I know from the family’s perspective that something happened.

I’m trying to convince myself that it was for the best and have mustered at least some strength of will to continue this fruitless search.

I’ve been considering just entering warehouse work. There’s a nice symmetry in that. One of the first jobs I had, involved warehouse work, and I sorta liked it.

No politics, simple labor, In motion all day long, and not trapped behind a desk. Do your job, do it right, and go home at night.

There’s also a pot grower nearby that is looking for help with the growing. The pay isn’t as high as the warehousing positions, but I like making things grow. I’d also be a good candidate because I don’t particularly like pot. The employer wouldn’t have to worry about me taking merchandise or being stoned out of my mind on the job.

The longer this unemployment goes on, the more I’m leaning toward abandoning technology as a career and doing something that’s actually constructive.

I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time to let software continue it’s slide toward horrific inadequacy without my interference.

After all we’ve all seen the debacles across the software industry in recent years. From simple things like, Typos salted through menus and help texts, to data breaches exposing a corporations entire customer database to the world.

Remember… the software “Passed” testing…

I wonder how happy I’d be returning to an office environment where any bug I discovered could be called “Racist” based on the color of a programmer’s skin or their national origin. Software either works correctly or it doesn’t. As a QA person my job is to find the problems and report them. I don’t care who or what the programmer is, a bug is a bug.

The problem is, that if you’re assigned to test a particular part of functionality it’s often a particular programmer’s code. Programmers hate QA finding bugs in their code I could see it devolving into a “He’s just a racist and going through my code with a fine tooth comb because he hates: X, Y, Z colored people.“

No matter how you play that scenario out, as a white man these days you lose. Even if you’re treating all the code you test in exactly the same way.

Then I ask myself do I really want to deal with being afraid of using the wrong word or pronoun.

Years ago I was called on the carpet during a class that I was teaching for using the term “dikes”. It was a common term that described diagonal cutters (as in for wire).

I don’t know how the term came into common usage, as that happened decades before I was an itch in my Daddy’s pants. But there I was, facing a pissed off lesbian who’d taken offense.

First of all, I didn’t know or care that she was a lesbian. Second of all, I used a term that the other 30 people in the class knew, and my use of that term caused them to all pick up the indicated tool to perform the indicated action.

I asked her what term I should use, her reply was, “diagonal cutters”. “Fine,” I said, “I’ll use that term for the rest of the class.”

While she was yelling in my face about how hurtful the term “dikes” was, I could see the other 30 people in the class rolling their eyes in annoyance.

I told her in front of the class that I happened to be gay and that I wasn’t offended by the term “Fag.” In fact I expected to hear that term frequently when I was in London.

I then asked if we could get on with the class. She’d have none of it. She demanded satisfaction in the form of an immediate written apology for using an offensive term.

Her boss spared me wasting time on an endeavor to satisfy 0.03030303 % of the class by removing her from the classroom.

Several other women were present and two of them said they too were lesbians, and didn’t mind my use of the term in this context. One of them quipped, “I hope Sheila NEVER visits Holland!“

The class burst into laughter and we got on with business.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that incident over the past year. I honestly can’t say if I’d be happy in an office full of people just waiting to pounce on the wrong word, action, or pronoun, just to be offended and cause drama.

Perhaps I’ve had enough of the corporate grind.

I know I’ve had enough of the HR bullshit where a corporation states their policy then promptly discards the policy based on skin color.

Yeah, the last place I worked had a few incidents like that. I’m rule based. Give me a rule & I’ll follow it until you aren’t following the rules. At that point, don’t try making me selectively follow your rules, especially not based on the color of my skin versus someone else’s.

The last place I worked, was just starting to see the perpetually aggrieved. I have to wonder how much worse that’s gotten over the past year.

I just want to go to work, do my job, be paid for my effort, and go home. I don’t want to be terrorized all day into silence or be expected to show up at some event to show corporate support for a cause that I don’t believe in.

Sadly, that too seems to be required by some companies.

Time will tell…

I wonder if it’s too late in my life to move to Norway. A nice simple one room cottage perched on green hills overlooking a fjord. Maybe some sheep, a cow, and a windmill or solar panels to charge the electronics, (At least much of the year…)

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I’ve been seeing articles about AOC being triggered

AOC-by-evy-mages

The first articles quoted her as saying she didn’t feel safe with her republican colleagues.

Then she says she was triggered and fearful for her life.

Then we find out she wasn’t in the Capital Building itself but was in one of the offices adjacent to the Capital Building. These offices are connected to the Capital via tunnels.

Last week she’s saying that she was a victim of sexual assault, but refuses to name the perpetrator.

Now she’s saying that she was afraid that the rioters would get into the tunnels.

Really AOC?

Pick a freakin lane!

I’m sorry that she was sexually assaulted.

Although I have a certain doubts about the veracity of that claim. Having known several women who were victims of sexual assault. I find it hard to believe that AOC (of all people) refuses to name the person and have them strung up by their gonads.

I know, we’re supposed to believe all women. (Unless they have a credible claim against a certain sitting President, cough! Biden.) Then it’s fine to ignore the claim, the evidence, the woman, and marginalize her out of existence. That’s the way we do things now in the Socialist Democratic States of America. Right?

The thing that I would ask AOC is, “Did you pay any attention the the security briefings you no doubt had to attend when you took office?”

Those tunnels have existed for years, since long before AOC was an itch in her daddy’s pants. There are multiple security protocols in place to prevent a full on invasion, because if some force were to take control of those tunnels. it would require a major military assault to regain control. The best way to avoid that problem is to be able to close off sections that might be compromised. The better solution is to prevent the tunnels from being compromised in the first place. I’m absolutely sure that much thought has been given to this problem and many horrific scenarios have been played out to create protocols for the security of the Capital complex.

Those protocols have been considered and revised often over the years and by people much smarter about such things than AOC or myself. The fact that many Congressmen and staffers were evacuated to the tunnels suggests that they are more secure than the office buildings or The Capital building itself.

So what exactly was AOC doing during those briefings? Was she simply ignoring what was being said because she mistakenly thought it had something to do with Donald Trump? Did her hatred of him, blind her to the underlying fact that security is kind of a big deal in and around the Capital? Did she fail to consider that security has been functioning for at least 200 years, through multiple Presidents, even though the tunnels are more recent editions?

Further, how on Earth does she come up with her Republican colleagues would be a threat to her? I’ll grant you they might not like her. (Probably don’t.) But they would not see her come to harm.

I honestly dislike AOC. That being said, I would still tell her to come with me for her safety. I’d leave it completely up to her to enjoy my protection or not, in a battle, a fire, a poison gas attack, or whatever.

I believe you can choose your own fate and if you’re not smart enough to choose wisely, then it’s on you and you alone.

I doubt I’d take a bullet for AOC, and feel very sorry for her security detail because they’d have to.

Even though, I see her as a petulant child, and I think she’s among the absolute worst of our so called “leaders” I would not see her come to harm, if I could prevent it.

I’d suggest that she get some professional psychological help.

I say this because the level of fear and paranoia she’s been displaying, suggests a very damaged person. It is possible that she should not be in the position in the House that she now occupies because it is clearly far too stressful for her. If she chooses to remain in her position, her crippling fear will only get worse.

I can tell you this, had I been in the Capital during the riot, I’d have velcroed myself to the largest group of ex-military Representatives or Senators, regardless of their party affiliation.

I say this because they know how these things work, and when bullets start flying, their instinct is to protect. They don’t give a crap about your party, sexuality, gender, religion, or the color of your skin. They are about survival, and saving as many people as they can.

That’s my having faith and respect for military people.

That AOC doesn’t get this, says a lot more about her, than it does the people she works with.

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Enough Already!

That’s it! Let’s take all social media platforms down! Yeah I said it!

All podcasts, Twitter, FaceBook, Gab, and all the rest!

I’m sick of seeing yet another self righteous pundit, news organization, or whoever the hell else, BITCHING about people espousing views that they don’t agree with. We’re supposed to be a free country, we’re supposed to have freedom of speech, we’re supposed to respect people whose views are different from our own. RIGHT?

Apparently NOT!

The latest two examples of violation of free speech is this article in Breitbart. Followed by this little gem from The Washington Post.

The Breitbart piece talks about the AP, yeah, you read that right… The Associated Press making the case that Podcasts should be de-platformed due to “incitement” on these podcasts.

The Washington Post article describes Apple being sued in federal court to force Apple to de-platform Telegram. Telegram, don’t ya know is where all the Parler users went after finding out that Parler was going to be screwed over by Amazon Web Services.

Here’s a idea. Shut it all down. Our phone batteries would last longer.

That would have the benefit of keeping all the village idiots in their own villages. If you stop them from talking to each other, you’ll prevent them from gathering steam. You might also have a side benefit that if they never meet, we don’t have to worry about an every increasing number of idiots that we’ll have to put up with and take care of.

Then we have this brilliant Senior News analyst from CNN (Communist News Network) who’s trying to float a balloon about censoring OAN & Newsmax.

Both of which appear to be conservative oriented news broadcasters. I’ve not watched either of them, because by the time I learned about them, I was too disgusted by the way the country was heading after the 2020 election to give a rancid fuck.

This is so similar to the way that the NAZI party came to power I can’t stand it. If they actually taught history in schools today and didn’t sanitize the brutality of various regimes people would know this.

First control the narrative, then control the media, then censor anyone with differing beliefs, cast everyone who doesn’t agree with you as anti-(insert the noun de jour) BLM, ANTIFA, Left, Progressive, Equality, Woman, blah, blah, blah. Then take over the country. Next build the camps, then try the re-education, and finally kill EVERYONE!

But… humanity appears doomed to repeat the horrors of the past.

A couple thousand years from now, in a barren wasteland some guy will find a TESLA buried in the sand. People will oooh and ahhh and decide it’s from Aliens. One curious person in the group will recognize that it was made by humans, be curious about how we fell so far, and the whole process of a civilization crawling out of the muck will start over.

Maybe they’ll get it right the next time.

The fall of America to communism or socialism won’t destroy all civilization. But the pervasive backwards thinking cult of leftism in the world just might.

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Right on schedule

This is what you get if you try to access Parler today.

For those who don’t know about the why… Let me summarize.

Twitter, Facebook, and Google, have been blocking people that they deem undesirable. They’ve been doing this for years if they decided that what you said was controversial or to borrow Orwell’s term “Wrongthink”.

I myself have been in Twitter and Facebook Jail for asking questions or stating my opinion about events in politics such as, my opposition to the Russian uranium deal, or speaking out against Sharia law in America, and once for questioning why we were having all the discussion about bathrooms, I was also lamenting the loss of urinals.

This according to Twitter & Facebook is “Hate Speech“. Though I said nothing hateful in my posts. I used no derogatory language, or foul language. I simply posted my opinion and as we all know opinions are like assholes, we all have one. (Although I’m sure Twitter would ban even that statement as it might be offensive to those who are literally asshole challenged.)

Twitter and Facebook consistently banned conservative voices, they banned any voices that questioned the dominant politically correct narrative or liberal Democratic policies and these companies were blatant about it.

An Islamic American could say that a raped woman deserved what she got and should be stoned to death, An Average American could not say that those who thought the woman should be stoned had missed the point of being in America and perhaps they’d be happier in their countries of origin.

Eventually Twitter and Facebook started banning a ever increasing number of conservative politicians, then they started banning politicians who were running for office. That got the attention of Congress and the various companies executives were called to the Capitol to answer questions.

In those hearings, Twitter and Facebook told Congress that anyone could create a competitive service. Everyone shook hands and across the country several entrepreneurs did exactly that. Parler and Gab being among the two most prominent.

Gab was never allowed on the Apple App store. They existed as a web site only because Apple found fault with the basics of the Gab philosophy. Parler on the other hand was able to get Apple approval and has existed on the Apple and Google Play store until Saturday 1/9/2021. When Apple announced that they were removing Parler. Google Play beat Apple to the punch removing Parler from their app store about 24 hours ahead of Apple.

There are many articles about the reasons for Apple’s move. I’ve randomly linked one of them here. The articles all read pretty much the same. One consistent phrase seen in almost every article is “Popular with Trump Supporters”.

A.K.A. Conservatives.

I was on Parler, I guess technically I still am on Parler while the site reconfigures. There are a lot of good people there. They have values similar to my own, they are generally patriotic and at least once a day if someone’s rage about the election boiled over there were numerous kind and supportive people who would say things like, “I know you’re angry, but this is why we have the courts.”

In all cases I witnessed, having someone kindly listen and remind the angry individual about the rule of law and that conservatives peacefully protest, that our Constitution provided protections etc. would calm the angry person back to reason.

I’ve followed several threads wherein Veterans cut off from counseling services for PTSD (due to COVID lockdowns) found solace because someone would engage with them not with hateful rhetoric but with kindness. Sometimes it was Vets helping other Vets and in many cases Professional therapists freely gave of their time using direct messaging to help a Vet or anybody get through a rough patch.

This was a markedly different experience than what I witnessed on Twitter. Twitter in the last few years has become a place of pretty vile vitriol being spewed at anyone who was different. Don’t be a conservative leaning Gay person on Twitter. You’ll be canceled and labeled a pariah. Think of it as walking into the DNC and declaring you’re a Republican.

Parler provides a place of free thought, free expression, and since freedom of speech is the rule, a healthy adult outlet where people can legitimately question almost anything and generally speaking get healthy feedback, not hate filled condemnation.

The last thing someone who’s suicidal needs to hear is, “Sack up pussy!” which happens all too often on Twitter, with absolutely no pushback from anyone.

But Parler has been painted by the media as a place of hateful insurrectionists. Funny, I’ve seen calls for protests, I’ve seen Proud Boys delineating rules for attending protests. “No weapons, no aggression, no hate, no yelling at protestors counter to your views.” The adult an unspoken understanding, which is accepted in all cultures is, “defend yourself if you must.” Apparently this is what now passes for hate.

Pulling Parler off the app stores wasn’t enough for the rabid mob. Amazon Web Services which if I recall correctly is a service companies PAY for decided that Parler had to go.

So they denied their contracted services as of Midnight Sunday 1/10/2021. Effectively booting Parler from the internet. They provided Parler zero time to move the operation to alternate hosting providers.

This is nothing less than Draconian censorship and flies in the face of the Big Technology companies saying “If you don’t like our way of doing things build your own service.”

Well Parler did build a very popular alternative service which was growing rapidly, and the big tech companies Apple, Google, and Amazon colluded to take the alternative away. Surely this would be prosecuted under the rico act if we had a fair and impartial court system.

Gab is still up, but due to the shear volume of now disenfranchised users (750% uptick in new users last I read) they’re struggling mightily to bring new servers online to handle the volume. Kudos to them!

I suspect that it’s only a matter of time before they’re under siege from the technology companies.

Google will be the first I suspect to attempt to make Gab unfindable on the web. Other internet service providers will follow suit because Google will intimidate them by threatening to make them unfindable as well.

If you can’t be found on the web, you’ll have a tough time signing up new customers. So Google will be directly impacting the web hosting sites income.

The common theme here is that conservatives, and supporters of President Trump, or the Constitutional right to free speech, are in fact being targeted.

As I’ve said before in this blog, I didn’t particularly like Donald Trump when he was elected. But even then I respected the Man, and the Office of the President. As time progressed I actually came to like Trump because he was exactly what he appeared to be, for good or bad, he was consistent.

Contrary to the media, he was not a dictator. (As an aside, Dictators don’t get Censored.) He garnered support from millions of average Americans because he was straight talking and more like them, than the other politicians in Washington D.C. That’s his appeal.

He’s not asking you to like him, he didn’t overly pander to anyone and was a businessman running the largest corporation on the planet, The United States Government. Sure he made some questionable decisions, who hasn’t? We all make questionable decisions from time to time. I’d submit that even his obvious mistakes endeared him to 70 million average “work a day” Americans.

Americans who by the way would have accepted Trumps defeat in the election if their concerns about that election had been treated with seriousness instead of dismissed out of hand, like the concerns of an unruly child.

The FBI is arresting with breathtaking speed the folks who breached the Capitol. But where are the arrests of the perpetrators in Portland, Seattle, or Minneapolis? Where are the prosecutions for incitement of violence? Why have Twitter and Facebook remained beyond censorship when groups freely use their services to coordinate the violence seen in these cities?

What happened to Hunter Biden’s laptop, have we seen an investigation there? For four solid years, we heard nothing but Russia collusion over a single phone call, and a false dossier. It was Joe Biden who bragged on camera about withholding aid to the Ukraine resulting in the termination of a prosecutor looking into illegalities with Burisma.

These things are not conspiracy theories. They are facts, supported by video evidence, and congressional testimony and witnesses.

In this light, can you see how average Americans might feel that the scales of justice aren’t level anymore?

We are indeed in a dark Winter, as Joe Biden said. But that Winter is not the Fault of Trump, his followers, or conservatives.

That dark Winter is arguably the result of socialism, cancel culture, censorship, and our Constitutional rights being assaulted not from an outside force but from within.

“When all government …in little as in great things… shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”

Thomas Jefferson

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Jan 6th

Congress was doing what they were supposed to do according to (3U.S.C. §15)

And I submit that up until the capital was breached, so were many thousands of Americans. Marching in the streets of Washington D.C. These are people whose concerns had been dismissed by all of the appropriate legal means.

These people were there to support their President (not a crime). They were there to visibly show Congress that they were not faceless nobodies (not a crime). They were people with lives, children, homes, and reasonable concerns about the election (not a crime).

It’s easy for leaders to dismiss nameless, faceless masses. It’s a bit tougher when those people are right there demanding answers.

People died. Some reports say 4 some say 5. I saw a report from the Capital Police that said CNN was incorrectly reporting one of their officers died. That Capital Police report no doubt ended up page 20 of leading newspapers. It probably never made it to CNNs news desk.

That people died is tragic. That should never have happened.

The Capital has been occupied by protestors several times over the past century, and bombed at least twice. Almost always for the same reason, citizens seeking redress of their grievances, but being ignored by the politicians.

The faux “shock and outrage” on the part of Congress and the news media over the Capital having been occupied is disgusting and disingenuous. Especially since some of the fossils currently in Congress were alive, and If my math is correct were serving in the building at the time of the previous incidents.

There’s a brief Washington Post Article here describing the history of attacks on the Capital. I’ve seen a report that a group of African Americans occupied the Capital and were armed when they did it. There was an interesting picture, but no corroborating link to the the source article.

The building has been damaged far worse in previous incidents, than it was this time.

What I find really disturbing is the spin. There are videos of Protestors attempting to dissuade others from breaking windows. There are multiple eyewitnesses corroborating the videos.

So rather than a few perpetrators being called to account, all the people supporting President Trump and indeed Trump himself are labeled terrorists?

This offends my sense of fairness. How have we gotten to a place where one kind of protest degenerating into violence is labeled “Mostly Peaceful” but another kind of protest is instantly labeled “Terrorist“?

But it goes on. People randomly identified in the crowd outside the Capital are losing their jobs. For what? Exercising their first amendment rights? Then it goes further, the conservative voice in America is being silenced with ever more draconian methods.

In some cases these folks are citizen journalists who make part or all of their living by attending these events and reporting what they actually saw. These entrepreneurs post their video and first hand accounts on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and the like.

Suddenly they’re banned on these platforms because they were at the protest, were identified in the crowd, and chose to report what they saw.

There’s no accusation of wrongdoing, no arrest, no trial, nothing…

Just Censorship. More voices silenced by what amounts to the mob.

We’ve seen this phenomenon with increasing frequency over the past few years, in online communities. Twitter “Shadowbans” and Facebook “suspensions”.

These bans happen when someone gets upset or offended by something someone posts. The offended party effectively runs to mommy (The Service) they cry and whine and get all their online friends to join in the whining and mommy summerly silences some poor person for a period of time.

It’s the online equivalent of the “timeout”. The problem is, very often the comment that caused the offense was taken out of context or misinterpreted in the first place. It doesn’t matter though because the damage is done, and the mob has been rewarded with a “Kill” so they’re self-righteous indignation continues on and on.

Where does this stop?

Reported by the gatewaypundit.com today

Mozilla, developer of the Firefox internet browser, has argued that more must be done to keep Donald Trump and other “bad actors” out of cyberspace, prompting many to vow to never use the group’s services again.

In a blog post titled ‘We need more than de-platforming’, the open-source software community said that Twitter’s decision to permanently ban Trump from its platform didn’t go far enough in weeding out “hate” on the internet. While blaming Trump for the “siege and take-over” of the US Capitol on January 6, the non-profit tech group argued that “white supremacy is about more than any one personality.”

“We need solutions that don’t start after untold damage has been done. Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms,” Mozilla wrote.

Apparently, it doesn’t. Because for these people there is no such thing as enough. There can never be any end to their grievances. For if there were an end, these people would have to face the fact that they are in fact far worse than what they were fighting.

I don’t need protection from hateful words or ideas, I’m quite capable of ignoring or avoiding these things all by myself. I’m beginning to think that I need protection from those who would force their “protections” on me, unbidden.

Apologies if I’ve been a little rambling. Chalk it up to “Dogieous Interruptus” A young dog in the house means there are no boundaries!