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I never saw this coming – To our neighbor Canada

Asshole

I watched in stunned silence, the events unfolding in Canada.

My heart goes out to the Canadians.

I hope the Canadians don’t change the way they do things.  

Goodguy

Their Parliament building is beautifully open, unlike our public buildings, their buildings don’t have the forbidding feel of an armed camp.

Many years ago, I was in Washington DC and remember vividly that Pennsylvania Avenue was busy.

Honored

There were cars, and trucks, and people just going about their business.  I remember standing next to the wrought iron fence and being fascinated to look at the President’s actual house.

I was thrilled to walk up the steps of Congress and to see all the historical and modern buildings unimpeded as is my right as an American citizen.

NathanCirilloFuneral

This was in the years before fear came to rule us.

In the initial images of the Canadian Parliament I was struck by the freedom of access. I remembered the joy I’d felt to live in a free country when I visited my capital all those years ago.

I hope Canada doesn’t succumb to the same fear that has made our seat of government so inhospitable. 

CirilloPups

I’ve heard already that; there are people in Canada trying to use the tragedy to increase gun restrictions.

Canadians have obviously given a lot of consideration and thought to balancing the rights of hunters and shooting enthusiasts against the desire to insure public safety. While I may not agree with all the Canadian regulations, I respect, and even admire to some extent, the system you have in place.

Canada, don’t let this single heinous incident cause you to jump to conclusions about anything.

CanadianParliament

My Friends, you lost your innocence today, and a good man. Remember that another good man put a stop to the insanity before it got much further.

Take time, bury your honored dead, tend to the wounded, and know that you southern neighbors understand, and you’re all in our prayers.

I sincerely hope that you don’t change.

To the Jihadists…

Your day is coming, you’ll not be able to hide, you’ll find no mercy, no rest, no water, no food, no love, nor hate; you’ll be hunted like vermin and die in filth. On the day the last of you has his brains spattered on barren sand, the world will rejoice and you’ll be wiped from the history books like a vile dream.

That is your legacy today, it’s not too late. Beat your weapons into plowshares and the world will help you plant a future.

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President Stompy foot just doesn’t get it does he?

TPresObamahe president has called for calm, and trust in the face of ebola.

He’s cautioning the American public not to give into hysteria. 

Really?

Mr President, perhaps people would be more willing to trust you, your administration, and the government in general if you hadn’t lied to us again and again.

Just a few weeks ago you and the CDC said that ebola was hard to catch. Then we have someone come in from a country that honestly should have been on a restricted travel list and he’s sick. Then he’s at a hospital and dies, now two nurses have tested positive for ebola.

Protocols?

So Stompie, is this disease hard to catch or has your arrogance already killed thousands?

The math of a simple geometric progression is scary enough, but the potential for spread of this disease in a densely packed locale like a city is terrifying, especially since the fixed ratio is likely to be more like three or four if you account for family units or co-workers.

Most people think of the series 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128. That’s a fixed ratio of 2, a fixed ratio of 3 yields something like 1, 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2187. A fixed ratio of 4 gives you 1, 4, 16, 64, 256, 1024, 4096, 16384.

It’s not unreasonable for the American people to ask if the genie is already out of the bottle. A sick nurse, on two flights in a closed environment at close quarters with a minimum of 140 other people…  Gee, that sounds like a freaking party! Sign me the fuck up! I’m surprised as hell that others aren’t showing symptoms, but the incubation period is still young!

Djin

You said, Mr. President, that you didn’t think we’d need an ebola tsar, yet you’ve assigned one.

You said the CDC had it under control, but they’ve said they screwed up.

You’ve said that the troops we’re sending to Africa to battle ebola will not have contact with sick people, but now we’re learning that apparently they are going to be assisting sick folks in the temporary hospitals.  What are you going to do if our troops get sick? You’re needlessly exposing our troops to a situation that they shouldn’t be in.

You’re concerned about imposing a travel ban because we need to help the people of Africa. You’ve told us that a travel ban will harm the people of Africa by restricting the flow of aid, that’s dishonest on it’s face. We can send all the aid we want to Africa, we just don’t have to allow anyone from the restricted areas to COME HERE.

Golfy Stompy

Your Oath of Office says you’ll put the needs and safety of the American people first. Imposing a travel ban is a simple direct way to do that, as is closing our southern border (which you have consistently FAILED to do.)

We won’t even discuss your failure to take, ISIS or as France has decided to call them Daesh, seriously, or your subsequent authorization of bombing in Iraq and Syria. 

Really President Stompy, Why should I or the rest of the American people trust you?

I’m not hysterical about ebola. I’ll tell you this, I’d think twice about getting onto a plane right now.

I’ve caught the flu more times than I can count on planes. The flu is a pain in the ass, ebola is worse so if I don’t have to fly, I’m not going to.

President Fail

Technically I don’t even have to fly to get ebola. I can simply kiss someone that was on a plane and who now has flu like symptoms, its flu season we’d think nothing of it, and we’d probably wait to get treatment because a lot of us are still having so much trouble with our medical insurance that the concept of seeing a doctor is simply too daunting. The delays in seeking treatment, could result in more exposure, and the spread of the virus before it was even reported in a particular area.

This is because Mr. President, you’ve failed… again, to put the safety and wellbeing of the American public first.

You may well have created an America that rivals third world cesspool countries, time will tell. Regardless, your presidency will be one for the history books. 

Congratulations!

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I’ve been feeling Compressed

PADI 2014 Oct 12

No, not as in diving compressed, (although I could use some underwater time). Any Divers out there wanna get wet? [Thanks to PADI for the nifty photo]

My compression stems from issues in my life.

As I’ve mentioned before, I share internet with the next door neighbor. Generally this isn’t a problem,  they’re using an old Windows based machine that I suspect is rife with malware. This doesn’t really affect me, except that when that machine logs onto the network it sucks up pretty much all the available DSL bandwidth.

For the non techies… The internet gets really slow.

Most of the time, even that doesn’t bother me unless I’m streaming a movie or something. But it reminds me that I’m not alone, and someone else has the ability to affect my life through my own niceness.

Then there’s the ugly assed fence which focuses my vision on their back yard, making me to be completely unable to ignore all the kids stuff, trampoline, monkey bars, various toys scattered about, and the pile ‘o junk stuffed in the corner.

IMG 0309

This fence also makes me feel that I have no privacy because it’s a constant reminder that there are kids there, even when they’re not out screaming, squabbling, or using the trampoline to jump up above the fence to ask me what I’m doing out on my deck. I can’t look past it, god knows I’ve tried. The 7ft tall monstrosity is THERE  protecting the children from… what? The occasional wayward hiker?

Then there’s the ceiling fan in my office. You see, the neighbors apparently put up a new ceiling fan in their house, and they left the unit’s code set to default. (Lots of new ceiling fans have these nifty remotes that allow you to change the speed of the fan and / or control the light in the fan.)

The problem is that when you put one of these fans in, you really should choose a new code other than the default one. Guess how I found out the electrician that built this house hadn’t bothered to change the code?

You guessed it. The great fan war started this summer. There are three neighbors that could possibly be close enough to control my office ceiling fan. One house is under going major remodeling. Since that place is gutted, I scratched them off the list. The other neighbor isn’t likely to have made any real changes, since she’s cold all the time. Which leaves the next door neighbors!

IMG 0362

Dammit! They’re jacking my internet up, have destroyed the view, have left me feeling like I’m having to accommodate their kids, “Asked” that we hose down our back yard every day during a drought while letting our plants die because she was pregnant and her nose was too sensitive, and finally…

Because they don’t want to figure out why their new fan isn’t working quite right, I’m the one that has to get up on a ladder with a screwdriver and a spring hook, (a spring hook looks a lot like a dental tool its sharp and pointy with a slight hook at one end. Great for flipping tiny little switches.) to manhandle 70lbs of ceiling fan to change the code to something they’re not using. 

But then it continues…

Once I’ve got the fan issue fixed, I think, “hey its time for me to rearrange the office” and so I begin that process only to find that my other half has systematically occupied every single open space in both closets, the filing cabinet, and a substantial portion of the basement with… for want of a better term CRAP! 

There’s no way for me to put my stuff out of the way or reorganize my stuff because his stuff is literally everywhere.

SO after grumbling about living with the equivalent of a 13 year old packrat, LOUDLY.  I start whipping through my shit and tossing anything that isn’t nailed down and functional. 

But the whole time I’m thinking, why am I the one that’s adapting to the situation AGAIN. 

I find myself thinking, “Maybe I should just pack whatever shit from this house that I want, and that will fit in my damn car and that will be MY space. Perhaps my life will be easier if I just allow the forces in my life that are conspiring to compress me into a tight little space, win. Then everyone will be happier and I’ll finally have some peace. Maybe I should sell every vehicle I own, buy a pickup truck with a tonneau cover (I don’t like camper shells) and be a true nomad, wandering towns and highways randomly. I’ll stop in interesting places do piece work for cash then move on. Maybe I should become ’That Guy’, the stranger, the scary dude in the corner of your local bar. ”

Then again maybe all this is just another way for the universe to tell me “Its time to move on.”

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Well, that was relatively painless

OSX Yosemite

Ok, Perhaps I am a fan boi.

I downloaded Apples newest OS today and it installed without a hitch… so far as I can tell.

Yosemite is awesome, flat and fast.

I’ve never had an OS update that was faster than it’s predecessor and I’m kinda digging this.

Obviously there is a lot more to investigate but honestly, in this full OS Upgrade thing, Apple is king.

I’m looking forward to the integration between the Computer, the phone, and the iPad. All that stuff should be implemented fully on Monday when the IOS update to 8.1 happens.

In the mean time, I get to explore a new Mac OS. 

Happy Friday!

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Gay politics

Sad to say my brothers & sisters but we’re blowing it big time.

Especially in light of the new reports, one of which says we’re less than 2% of the population and the other report that says overall new HIV infection is down, EXCEPT in the young Gay / Bisexual crowd where the numbers of infection are climbing.

First, it is time for us to stop making the marriage fight about the GAY, instead make marriage about freedom and equality.

We need to stop pissing off the conservative base. We need to recognize they could be our natural allies. I know its hard to fathom but let me explain:

Conservatives are about freedom and constitutional rights. In this age of Obama we might be wise to capitialize on those issues rather than continue to have our collective wagons hitched to a President that may well have assured a conservative Republican takeover in the House and Senate.

The planks these Conservative Republicans are likely to be running on will be Freedom, Smaller, Less Intrusive Government, and Constitutional Rights.

I submit to you that it is a Constitutional right to marry the adult of the same species that you love. The Constitutionalists will be looking to swing disillusioned Democratic voters to their way of thinking and aren’t likely to rock the boat if some or even a lot of those voters happen to be gay, especially given the recent rulings and non-rulings by the SCOTUS.

We could easily have inclusion, not “speciality” in the political process and full equal standing in all rights within the next 5 years. We could even be respected for fighting when it was necessary and knowing when the fight was over.

Mayor Parker

But then we have IDIOTS like the Houston Mayor.

After someone like this garners national attention over a stupid ordinance, ALL Gay folks are screwed.

Let me set the stage for you.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to get rid of gender specific bathrooms in Houston and proposed an ordinance to the city council.

(Have you ever cleaned a women’s public bathroom? Let me tell you something, you’d rather clean all the bathrooms in a frat house with a toothbrush, the monday after homecoming, than clean a single public women’s restroom. As a male, I’ll take my urinals and relatively clean bathrooms thank you very much.)

This ordinance was passed, a lot of people were pissed off about it and they took action.

What they did was legal and correct, they gathered signatures for a referendum. Specifically, they gathered three times the number of signatures required for a referendum. The City Secretary did their job and certified that there were indeed enough signatures for a referendum.

Then the City Attorney and the Mayor rejected the certification of the referendum. This effectively put The City Attorney & Mayor in defiance of the law, not to mention defiance of the will of a number of civic minded citizens.

The citizens responded by filing a law suit against the Mayor. The Mayor, “aka the city” responded by using the power of her position to attempt to violate the first amendment rights of a number of local pastors and churches, by demanding their sermons and communications with their congregations. Its possible there is a fourth amendment violation in here too but I don’t think that will hold up in court.

If it was JUST that this Mayor was an idiot, it would be one thing. But in this case its well known that the Mayor is gay.

Folks are noticing and commenting on how similar her actions are to the actions of others In the so called Pink Mafia, or those forcing the “GAY Agenda”. 

Surely you remember;

Gay people suing bakers to bake wedding cakes

Gays suing to stay at a bed and breakfast, causing the B&B to close forever because the legal fees bankrupted the owners

Gays trying to sue a church into allowing them to have their wedding in the sanctuary. 

Don’t even start talking about GLAAD and their bitching about someones offhanded comment.

Lets not forget the great Vodka and Pasta, and Coors boycotts.

Or the forced resignation of corporate executives because they expressed their opinion about gay people, which they have every right to under the first amendment. 

Its time for HRC and GLAAD to start being useful in a more mature fashion. Yes, continue to watch for abuses of gay people or curtailment of peoples right based on their sexuality. But a more important job for both organizations might be to begin educating gay folks in how to use their newly gained rights without being assholes.

What we need is a situation where we can all point to an idiotic Mayor and call them an Idiot because of their policies or actions, regardless of their sexuality.