Category: BullShit

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Wow! just wow.

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Just heard about this one in my local area.

Middle schoolers in a suicide pact?  Where the hell does that come from?

Their lives are so tortured that before they can drive they’re trying to kill themselves?  

Don’t get me wrong I have no pity for them and almost wish they’d succeeded. Then they’d at least serve a purpose, kind of a signpost that says it’s not really all that bad.

It would give other parents the opportunity to say “Now girls, go plug yourselves into your ipods, do your homework, and we’ll call you when the pizza gets here to feed your fat asses”

I do pity their parents.

What must go through a parents mind upon learning their child was in an almost successful suicide pact? That must be horrible and then of course there’s the high probability that CPS is going to be all up their asses.

Add to that, the stress of paying the co-pay for hospitalization and on-going psychiatric care possibly lasting for years and in short order I could see the parents having all kinds of difficulties. I’m talking marriage ending kinds of problems. I can’t even imagine the weight of guilt these parents are laboring under.

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But no one is ever going to talk about that… It’s going to be all about the reason behind why their little darling tried to kill themselves.

I sound harsh, I know. 

Heck, I grew up waiting for the damn A-Bomb to wipe us out. I had to do well in school because if I didn’t I’d be held back for as long as it took for me to pass or I dropped out, whichever came first.

I had the military crawling all over me wanting me to join up, see the world, serve my country.

You want pressure or stress?

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Try being different WITHOUT any expectation of support, understanding,  or, for that matter without even knowing that there were others who felt just like you.

Bullying was the norm and you either toughened up or you spent your days crying.

I can remember being bullied for the color of my fucking hair. Yeah! My hair color got me taunted and on at least one occasion in a fight. When I was a kid I was a “Soulless Ginger” as Cartman says on SouthPark.

I toughened up, I learned to throw a punch, I became confident in myself and my abilities and created a niche where I was indispensable and thereby insured my safety.

I also learned that safety was transient and no-one is forever indispensable. Turns out, those were valuable lessons and they’ve served me well throughout my life.

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There was one suicide in my High School. One that I’ve always felt I should have seen coming or could have, should have, prevented.  The young man was troubled and while I’m not sure, I suspect he might have realized he was gay.  

I’ll never know because he killed himself and the shame and stigma his family felt prevented our asking any questions about the period of time leading up to his suicide.

I know there was some legal trouble that originated with a false fire alarm, and that his father had something to do with the fire department. But I knew nothing at the time about his home life or indeed who he was as a person.

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I knew him, I spoke to him but he was very closed off. I’m not even sure he was gay, I remember him being a “blank”, quiet in class, got good grades, but he didn’t participate in any of the stuff the rest of us guys were into.

I don’t think we were purposely ostracizing him, it was just that his name didn’t come up when we planned to skip school or something.

I’ve always felt bad about not really “seeing” him. I think if I had, I’d have seen perhaps a kindred spirit, or at least his pain.

Things are totally different now. 

Bullies don’t get their comeuppance in the form of a righteous pummeling. They can reach their victims with ease via our technology at all hours of the day and night.

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“I’d rather be dead than red” echoed exactly once off the side of the junior high school as I was leaving for the day. If I pedaled faster down the street, the wind in my ears would drown out even the nastiest words spoken about my Mom’s marital status.

Yes… I was one of THOSE children, (queue sad dramatic music) I was from a broken home!

Little did I know, most of my friends, and the bullies were about to be similarly afflicted.

We grew up, we adapted and we didn’t kill ourselves… well with the one exception, generally we didn’t kill ourselves on purpose. There were some car accidents that resulted in deaths

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My point is, what the hell is going on?

This world isn’t all that bad a place. Yeah it can be a pisser, and you might not get everything your way, but it’s not too shabby a place. 

I can tell you this for certain. (Most of the time… There are exceptions!) This world is a better place because you’re in it.

If there’s something that you don’t like or that bugs you, don’t kill yourself, fix it! Fix it for everyone that comes after you and contribute to the betterment of the planet.

That is of course if you have the capacity to get beyond your own selfishness.

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Ferguson is Dead, it just doesn’t know it yet.

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By now you’ve read or heard that two police officers were shot in Ferguson, MO last night.

There are conflicting accounts about the aftermath. Some have said that protestors were taunting the police administering first aid. Other accounts say that the protesters scattered.

Either way, Ferguson, MO is dead.

Their police force is resigning in droves. The Chief is only the latest resignation. Digging around, you can find reports that say officer turnover is increasing and with good reason. It’s not that the police department is a bad department per-se. It’s any cop, but most especially any white cop taking a job in Ferguson is willingly strapping a target to their body.

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Going in, an officer must know that he or she will be under a microscope for any arrest or shooting they’re involved with. They know they’ll have no backing from the public and no matter what, they’ll be accused of excessive use of force, and simultaneously accused of not doing enough to protect the town.

I’m guessing Ferguson will disband their police force and then complain because St Louis PD isn’t doing enough. The people of Ferguson will have what they wanted, all the bad cops will be gone… and so will all the good cops. There are probably folks right now wondering if they should walk away from their homes because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s coming.

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Next, will come the gang bangers renting or squatting. Then comes the turf wars, drugs, burglaries, violence,  drive by shootings, and victims families wringing their hands asking, “Why?”

The stigma of any police officer having “Ferguson, MO” in their service records, the heightened danger, coupled with any incident in Ferguson being a career destroyer, will further slow police response. After all, why be involved in an incident, when you can show up and hour later and just clean up the mess?

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These factors will create fertile crime zones and what was once a nice suburb will become yet another wasteland. Today, no bank in their right mind will loan money to open businesses in Ferguson, at this point I doubt that any insurers will issue policies either. So tax revenue, and local stores will dry up, then in time, Ferguson itself will cease to exist.

Through all of this there will be lots of blood. Black folks, White folks, Police, Firefighters, and even the occasional tourist who gets lost on the way to see the St Louis Arch. All these people will bleed, suffer and many will die over the next five, ten, or twenty years.

All of it for nothing. Except building the careers of men who didn’t live in Ferguson, but who saw an opportunity to exploit the town and it’s people.

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In the end Ferguson will look like Detroit, or Berlin after the blitz.

Eric Holder will be living in luxury on a government pension. Al Sharpton will be dancing on the graves of yet another “Racism” crisis.

They’ll both have long since forgotten about Ferguson. They’ll forget all the blood spilled, the racial flames fanned, and the town destroyed.

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Daesh (a.k.a. ISIS, IS, Morons, Assholes etc…)

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Alright, these people really need to be ended. I think the entire world agrees but has been holding off opening the can of Whoop-Ass for a variety of reasons.

We can assume that Stompy Foot will remain on the golf course for the remainder of his term. We can assume as well that any “action” he takes will be nothing more than fulfilling the oral fantasies of Daesh and the Islamic Brotherhood.

So the odds are good it’s going to fall to the UN to start the ground war on ISIS.

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Up to now, the UN taking any action has pretty much been a pipe dream, especially when you consider the makeup of the UN and that as an organization they’re largely puppets with God only knows whose hands up their backsides.

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Notice I said up to now.

Daesh, in addition to killing Christians including women and children, and tossing accused homosexuals off tall buildings, (Ever notice they’re not tossing homosexual women off buildings? I wonder why that is, OH, yeah it because they can rape the gay out of the women! Right!) Daesh, adding to its long list of horrific “achievements” is now destroying archeological sites.

Yes folks! Daesh being the wonderfully moral and just representation of Islam is destroying their history.

I’ve made the point before that Islam and most of the Middle East is practiced / populated by what I’ve termed a retrograde society.

The destruction of ancient sites is yet another example of rejection of intellectual pursuit. These sites in general are from cultures that have been dead for thousands of years. The names of their monuments, idols, and gods have in many cases been lost to the howling winds of history.

These sites present no threat to the Peaceful, Kind, Gentle, Willing to Coexist, religion of Islam.

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Hell the people that worshipped at altars within these archeological sites have been dead and dust for at least a millennium.

For all we know, Muhammad himself fucked these civilizations over and left their monuments standing.

Who is Daesh to contravene Muhammad’s will?

However, in what I can only describe as an epic fail, Deash is destroying some of the very few things that have stayed the collective hand of the West.

The historical sites! 

Why hasn’t the area previously been carpet bombed, nuked, doused with napalm, turned into an ordnance testing ground? 

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Beyond our leader & by extension government having no balls, simply refusing to see the evil these savages represent…

The archeological world heritage sites had to be protected. 

What happens when those sites no longer exist?

Then there’s no longer any reason for the West to restrain themselves.

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Even the UN would have cause to look away, while the the civilized world did what needs to be done.

Daesh must be destroyed.

They must be made an example.  They should be shown no mercy, no rules of engagement, no trials, no prisoners.

Anyone who has joined Daesh, or has attempted to join Daesh has forfeited their citizenship and must never be shown the slightest mercy or allowed back in any civilized country.

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Anyone supporting Daesh by sending money, or materials should be stripped of their citizenship and deported to Daesh held areas in the Middle East.

Daesh and it’s supporters are the enemies of civilization. They have no interest in advancing humanity, they are a cult of death and destruction. 

I’m all for sterilizing the area with High Explosives of whatever type seems appropriate for the job.

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NSFW Remember when Google’s motto was “Don’t be evil?”

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Got a notice from Google saying that my blog could no longer have sexually explicit or graphic nude images on it.

Well that’s not a big deal for me since I’ve not been using a blogger site for at least a few years. 

I was intrigued, because they go on to say;

We’ll still allow nudity presented in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts, or where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content.

What exactly does that mean?

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How are they going to determine the artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts wherein explicit nude images are allowed?

Who set them up as the arbiters of good taste? 

One man’s obscene image is another mans art.  We’ve already been down this road with Robert Maplethorpe images. 

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The view of a man bottoming for a greek god (or one who looks like a god) is by some measures beautiful to some people. I could make an argument that such an image is educational, or that such an image artistic or even scientific. 

Why do men participating in such behavior keep going back for more? Is this a function of low self esteem or do they keep doing it because it feels good?

Some societies (Islam) call images of nude women obscene. While others (Generally the rest of the world) call them artistic. The Venus di Milo comes to mind. 

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I saw this coming a long time ago and that’s why gentle reader this blog is on a site that I own, and pay for.

Blogger had a habit of making some content simply disappear with no explanation and if the owner of the content didn’t have a backup well too bad!

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I find myself wondering what the driving force for this is. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that Google has run afoul of global political correctness, and are caving in.

As I said it’s not a problem for me. While their records correctly state that my blogger site, years ago had nude material. All my data was removed from their site and the only thing left is a pointer directing my readers to this site.

It’s a real pity that their records don’t indicate that I haven’t logged into that site in over a year. It’s sad that they didn’t record my numerous attempts to get rid of the blogger site and the failure of their site to process my request.

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As to Google being evil? They’re getting there with each passing day. Complicity in censorship is a big signpost to me, and depending on who they’re trying to appease… Well they might be branded traitors.

I won’t be surprised if soon we won’t be able to find a wide variety of artistic images with our Google search engines.

After all we wouldn’t want to offend anyone now would we?

Here’s a thought… 

Boycot Google for a day. 

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Yippee! I’m one of the People Anthem has Screwed again!!!!

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As expected, I got the “We’re Sorry” message from Anthem.

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Honestly I’d rather have them pony up the money for two years on my existing LifeLock membership rather than someone I’ve never heard of. 

At least The credit fixing service is based in Texas and not off shore. I note that the product Anthem is signing us up for is identity repair, NOT Identity theft monitoring.  Since there are a lot of children who were covered under Anthem Policies, Two years of repair is next to useless since children are unlikely to know that their identities have been compromised for possibly decades.

I have no children to protect in this situation, I mention it because the hot ticket in ID theft today isn’t adults, it is in fact children. The crime goes un-noticed for years and by the time a child or their parents figure out something is amiss it’s a sisyphean task to correct the damage.

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It’s my opinion that this email and Anthems 2 year plan is nothing more than corporate hand waving to make it look like they’re taking responsibility for their carelessness, and that they’re taking corrective action.  

I strongly suspect that the measures Mandiant suggests will be deemed as “Too Costly” especially when it’s far cheaper for them to say “We’re sorry” and pay for credit repair that most people won’t take advantage of.

My suspicion is based on experience with large corporations, as an employee and as a victim of ID theft. 

As an employee I’ve sat in meetings where cyber security was discussed and watched executives choose to risk private data (Credit, SSNs, Addresses, Phones, credit ratings, you name it…) because a breach was less expensive to deal with than spending the money on infrastructure upgrades.  The infrastructure has to be constantly upgraded and results in a year over year line item on the budget, whereas a breach is a “one time” expense and since it’s technically a “loss” it’s apparently got a more favorable tax position. 

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Ironically, the same company then lost an HR laptop that contained the whole employee database. We’re talking thousands of employees worldwide and that database residing on a laptop was in violation of the policies and procedures of the company.  Once again the response was, “We’re sorry” we’ll pay for credit repair and monitoring.

Every time I hear of another data breach and the inevitable “We’re Sorry”, I can’t help but see the South Park episode where the oil company drilling has opened a dimensional portal and allowed Cthulhu access to Earth and ushered in 1000 years of darkness…

I didn’t include the whole memo from Anthem, it was pointless. 

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Bottom line is that in addition to the three or four companies that I worked for and who allowed my data to be stolen, The couple of banks where my information has been stolen, now my data has been stolen from an insurance company.  They say they don’t believe my health records, or my credit information has been stolen but they’re less than convincing about it.

When I couple their data breach with the sudden uptick in healthcare related SPAM I have to wonder. 

My SPAM filters have been getting one hell of a workout since Dec 1 2014. I thought it was the usual bullshit running up to Christmas, but now I’m thinking it’s because of the Anthem breach.  Probably the quickest turn on the hack was to sell email addresses.

That would buy time for further analysis and allow full IDs to be pulled from the data, packaged and sold. I have no doubt that every single one of the records stolen from Anthem are already in China, Russia, or Mexico and that there are a ton of counterfeit me’s running all over the place.

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The NSA doesn’t have to spy on us, they can buy all the information they’d ever want on the open market.

Between Google, and data breaches I’ll bet the NSA is considering closing their sophisticated data monitoring centers. Think about the savings!

Yeah, I’m pissed. 

Anthem screwed me due to ACA, Anthem screwed me for an entire year of insurance that was almost completely useless, and now Anthem has screwed me again only this time the screwing will last for years

I’d honestly like to see their assets redistributed to all of us that they’ve hurt in various ways.

Maybe then Banks, Insurance Companies, The Government, and various other businesses would take data security seriously.

Update March 8, 2015

Almost Two weeks later, The Los Angeles Times published a more in-depth Op-Ed that makes many of the points I di in my post.  They wrote their article with only slightly less snark than I did.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-anthem-is-warning-consumers-20150306-column.html#page=1