On the plus side…

Screenshot 2023 11 13 at 8 05 22 AMIn Wauwatosa, WI there won’t be any Palestinian flags flying in city buildings.

This is true for at least the Christmas season. You see, a memo from a Wisconsin deputy city administrator discouraged employees from putting up “religious decorations” in “red and green colors” for the holidays in public buildings in order to be “inclusive.”

You have to love ill thought out edicts with unintended consequences!

Since Red and Green are used in Christmas Decorations. Or so the theory goes, Christmas is offensive to some people and can’t be celebrated. Red and Green are also used in the Palestinian Flag, Most African Flags, and of course the flag of Italy.

So tell me again, how this is inclusive???

What this deputy city administrator really wanted to say was, “Hey Christians Fuck you and your Christmas Trees, traditions, and decorations,”  She just didn’t have the guts to say it out loud or in print.

This was directed at employees decorating their cubicles. With “Open Office” floor plans it’s likely that the cubicles are visible from public areas and are therefore considered public areas.

The last place I worked, we could decorate the hell out of the place for Halloween. But we couldn’t do elaborate decorations for Christmas. It was the same thinking… We had Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and people from every religious persuasion in the building. Christmas decorations could offend those other people so they were muted.

The funniest thing was that the practitioners of Wicca were the happiest folks in the building because everyone went wild over Halloween. That being the only holiday that wasn’t frowned upon. Even the Fourth of July was frowned upon because there were workers from other countries in the building.

I’ll grant you, this is a small thing. But it’s another annoyance, and I think an attempt to wipe Christianity and possibly American values, from America. 

I really miss the elaborate decorations in malls at Christmas. When I was a child shopping with my parents, the decorations made the time of year magical. As an adult myself, shopping for family and friends, the decorations made me smile and actually enjoy being trampled, in over crowded Southern California malls.

Over time, those beautiful elaborate decorations became muted, and watered down, the last time I was in a favored mall the decorations seemed “phoned in”. There was no joy in them, and many were obviously shop worn, not having been replaced for many years.

I think this trend is not inclusive at all.

Inclusion would be, “Hi, come on in, join us in our fun and revelry. Let’s brighten up this dark time of year. You don’t have to believe in my religion to participate, you’re welcome all the same. Where are you from? How can I make you feel welcome?”

This “inclusivity” is actually exclusion. It eliminates a situation where respectful questions get asked, and people smile at each other more. A time when people share favorite foods, family recipes, and sweets, enjoying it all together and putting aside differences.

This inverted “Inclusion” spawns nothing but low level resentment and demonstrates that some are apparently MORE included than others. Some are more important because they can’t have any possibility of their feelings being hurt.

Honestly, that’s the birth of resenting “Snowflakes”. If you’re so weak in your beliefs, culture, sexuality, or whatever, that you have to be protected at the expense of everyone else’s method of going about their lives…

You’re going to be disliked. Not because of your beliefs, but because you disrupt and prevent others from pursuing happiness in their way.

It begs the question, why is group X,Y, or Z more important than all the rest of us? How do they rate and why?

I wonder if some people seeking answers to those kind of questions find themselves harboring resentment that blossoms into hatred. In their search for inclusion do these folks join hate groups that they would never have considered had they not been excluded by “Inclusion”.

It’s just a theory. I honestly hope I’m wrong. I do wonder though, if we stripped away all the sophistry and spoke what we really felt and thought without fear, would a majority of us admit we felt excluded from society by the never ending inclusivity movement? It’s just a thought.

Merry Christmas to Wauwatosa, WI.

To anyone working for the city of Wauwatosa, WI who might be proud of their African, Italian, or Palestinian heritage… Y’all will need to put the flags in your cubicles away until after Jan 1st!

As I age…

As I age I notice an accumulation of stupidity and everyone else either ignores it, or flat out doesn’t see it.

I wish I could ignore things and remain blissfully ignorant. 

Some examples:

Tail lights. I’ve recently seen at least two different cars, with all three tail lights flashing at different intervals from each other. There are warnings in movies about flashing light sequences affecting photosensitive individuals. In a movie the person is sitting in a chair. On the road, a photosensitive person might be in the driver’s seat of 2 thousand pounds of vehicle and can do considerably more damage if they react poorly or have a seizure.

F-hN5LJWgAQ59Xq.jpegI’ve noticed the irony of college protestors demanding an Israeli cease fire, but being perfectly happy to beat the living shit out of a Jew with a different opinion. Which is it? Peace or War? 

The Washington Post Censored the Cartoon at right, even though it is a perfect description of truth. WP didn’t want to offend? How does truth offend? WTF?

We literally censored people from the internet who spread “mis-information” about elections, COVID, Vaccines, etc. When Rashida Tlaib spreads mis-information on the steps of the Capital using her position in Congress to magnify her importance and therefore her voice, nobody says shit about it, until the House passes a vote to Censure her. What is said after the Censure vote is in condemnation of the Censure.  That for me is a complete WTF moment. Personally, I think Tlaib should be taken from the capital in chains and tried for Treason. Oh, for the college educated… Censure is very different from Censor. You idiots might want to open a dictionary.

Evidence suggests Joe Biden has apparently lied about his involvement with Hunter’s businesses, and the “Biden Family Business” to the tune of millions of dollars, at minimum it looks like influence pedaling. Nothing much is said or done about it. Donald Trump inflates the values of his properties a tad, gets loans from banks, pays off those loans, making everyone money and harming no-one. Yet he’s in court on fraud charges?

Warner Brothers has decided not to release a completed movie as a tax write off. Let me get this straight, if I build a house and never move into it. I just lock the doors, and never use it, rent it, or sell it. I can write off the entirety of the house on my taxes? How about nobody gets tax write-offs on completed projects until the project actually loses money. That seems a lot more logical doesn’t it? Oh and shouldn’t Warner Brothers executive be sitting in court alongside Trump for fraud? It’s a cinch that they borrowed money to produce that movie. 

The entirety of the UAW strike and its resolution. WTF? I understand wanting higher wages and benefits. But you do realize that a nicely equipped FORD costs almost as much as a top of the line BMW luxury car. A GMC Truck costs more than some models of fully equipped BMW SUVs. So tell me again UAW how you’re going to preserve your jobs building your current line, or when everyone transitions to electric vehicles with fewer parts and higher purchase prices. If I have a choice, I’m going to pick the cheaper vehicle with longer range. Toyota? Kia? Nissan, hello paging common sense, is common sense in the building? There’s no incentive to buy FORD, CHEVY, GMC or Tesla at the prices they’re currently charging. Even if you wanted to buy one of these brands, you can’t order the vehicle exactly to your specification. Go on, try to build one on their websites. You’ll find you can’t have certain engine / trim combinations. For example I found I couldn’t have a truck with nice seats, no chrome,  a V-6 engine, 4×4 transmission in a 2 door with 6 foot bed configuration. They make what I want with a 4 cylinder 2×4 transmission but swap in a V-6 4×4 and NO! You get 4 doors and a 4.5 foot bed. Sorry, that just doesn’t work, I want to carry a full sheet of drywall flat in the bed of a pickup, and be able to drive uphill. This is especially true when the prices are at $40 – $60,000 before options.

Loyalty Reward programs. This is a bit hypocritical of me because I use these programs. Not using them in protest which I should be doing, is punishing myself, not the companies. Why do we need these Loyalty cards? Why not simply sell the goods or services at the discounted a.k.a “REAL” price to everyone all the time regardless of their loyalty? Why is it that on a recent grocery store run I was able to save $45 off the bill, but only had one .50 manufacturers coupon? Is it that the grocery store inflates the price so much they can afford to discount everyone’s bill by 1/4? How about gas stations? Why not give everyone a break on the price and speed up the refueling process along the way, instead of having folks enter loyalty numbers and selecting options of payment and 50 other questions?

Medical Costs. Same generic RX for years. Sometimes it’s $120 other times it’s $90, still other times it’s $50. I’d really like to know, how much does this shit really cost? Perhaps a better question is, “How much on average does it really cost to get medical treatment?” Maybe we should base insurance costs on the average, not how much can we get for removing a splinter in Beverly Hills.  Why can I negotiate 2/3 off on a medical bill? It’s not even negotiation. All I had to do was ask… That suggests that the actual cost of doing business is 1/3 less than advertised.

A better overall question is this;

Why do we put up with these clearly irrational things, and why are these things accepted as “Normal”?

The epitome of “Useful Idiots”

Queers for Palestine Getty 640x480I saw this photo online. After my brain rebooted, ran full computational, sensor diagnostics, and a data integrity check. I looked at this photo again.

In all honesty I thought my brain, or optical systems were feeding me corrupted information and expected, after running diagnostics, that the image would resolve into something else.

It didn’t. According to self diagnostics, I have also not had a stroke.

Which leaves only one last possibility. The image is real.

It might as well say “Jews for Hitler”, or “Blacks for KKK” Although the last one would be more powerful if the ’N’ word was used. “BLM Pro Police”, “Mandela for Apartheid”, or “Tanks for Tiananmen” makes about as much sense and causes as much cognitive dissonance.

It’s shit like this that makes me think there is no point in attempting to preserve humanity. If people are this stupid and have so much time on their hands that they protest in favor of a bunch of terrorists then I want nothing to do with them. If the majority of the TRANS or  LGBTQ $^*#(mnopwxyzdumbfucks%$⁄€›fl°°= community are this stupid, they absolutely deserve the hate coming at them.

Helpful hint MORONS. The Palestinians and most, if not all, of the Arab world will happily throw you off a building. They’ll be overjoyed to use a crane to slowly lift you off the ground and watch you strangle.

After seeing what the TRANS / LGBTQ $^*#(mnopwxyzdumbfucks%$⁄€›fl°°= community has become and what they’ve done over the past decade. I might be tempted to help the Arab world!

Thank God the TRANS / LGBTQ $^*#(mnopwxyzdumbfucks%$⁄€›fl°°= community won’t reproduce. I don’t think the gene pool could absorb the level of stupidity this sign embodies or the insanity the TRANS / LGBTQ $^*#(mnopwxyzdumbfucks%$⁄€›fl°°= community in general seems to adhere to.

Queers for Palestine MY ASS!

It brings to mind the term “Useful Idiots” and a bit of a smile, in that if you flip ahead in the book about useful idiots you know how they all end up. Sadly you don’t have to flip ahead in the current book, you can instead read a bit of history and see how useful idiots end up, again and again throughout history.

For goodness sake, if you can’t read, (since reading and math now are racist, and we’re giving High School diplomas to people with no demonstrated proficiency in basic skills these days,) you can learn about it by watching a movie. Two movies strike me right off the bat. The Mummy Returns, and The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers

I like the scene in The Mummy Returns when the useful idiot screams “Save Me Lord,” to the resurrected mummy and the mummy replies, “Why?” It’s a perfect end to a useful idiot. His usefulness was at an end, he’d become more of a liability than a benefit so the mummy he’d worshiped kicked him to the curb. Or was it the Ancient Egyptian version of Hell?

It’s not just the TRANS / LGBTQ $^*#(mnopwxyzdumbfucks%$⁄€›fl°°= community. They just happened to be the poster children for stupidity this morning.

Good Golly! I Hate Passwords!

Ihate Passwords 2Got a message this morning on my phone, maybe from my phone, that I confirmed on my computer.

Some Passwords Compromised! 

I’ve seen the message before, and like most folks I ignored it!

For some reason, this morning I actually looked at the message and the passwords that it claimed were compromised.

A lot of the compromised passwords have come about because I’ve merged the other half’s passwords into my passwords. It makes keeping things running a lot easier to have it all on one computer rather than bouncing between two machines.

The list was long… Some of it was easy to negotiate because there were duplicate logins. Once those were sorted out, then it was down to the business of changing compromised passwords. And here’s where things just go right off the damn rails!

I log into a site. Figure out where the hell the site has hidden change password. Account, Profiles, Client Access, security, or whatever other clever euphemism the company chose to use. It’s mildly annoying but navigable. 

I get to the change password option and things get super annoying! Enter the old password, then enter the new desired password, twice. 

WRONG! You didn’t include the right kinds of characters, or the right number of special characters, or not enough upper case characters, or numeric characters, the password isn’t as long as War and Peace, that password is too long, 4 characters in the entered password have been used before on this account, or, or, or, or…”

The annoying thing about this is there is almost never any description of what these assholes want, prior to making the first mistake.

I’ve gotten to the point that I’ll hit the submit button just to generate the error that describes what format is necessary for a password.

Because I’m so often annoyed by this irritating bullshit, I use the internal password generator provided by Apple. The down side to this is sometimes even the Apple system can’t generate something useable, but it stores what it generates almost instantly. Meaning that if the generated password is rejected, you may have a bad password stored in the autofill system and then you get to fight with both the password manager AND the asinine website.

This is how I end up with passwords or pass phrases that would make Marines blush.

This morning I was entirely surprised when I ended up in one of these circular password situations and resorted to using an obscenity.

Low and behold, the website told me that such words were offensive and couldn’t be used as passwords.

WTF?

Who the hell are you to tell me what words I can and can’t use for passwords? Furthermore what does it matter? The passwords aren’t supposed to be stored on the site in plain text. They’re supposed to be encrypted. No human is supposed to be able to read the passwords and therefore no human risks being offended. Are we dealing with computers now being offended?

I’d rail and complain except I find myself caring less & less. This particular vendor, service provider, will not matter to me soon. Once I’m out of California I’ll be purging a ton of passwords, and phone numbers from my systems.

I’m actually looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to having a new phone number and a new address. 

I’m also rethinking the whole web access thing, across the board. I’d prefer to have everything mailed to my address. I’d like to get things in my mailbox. Maybe , I’ll be able to step back 50 years. I might start writing checks and mailing them to utilities. Then I won’t have to deal with passwords, PINS, and poorly designed websites.

Who knows? I might even have the Sunday paper tossed on my porch instead of reading it on my pad.

Is this a function of age? Or is this my rejection of increasing complexity to do the simplest things?

Perhaps it’s both!

There’s a lot to be said for de-computerization. You’d have to really know me or be looking at that sentence through my eyes to grasp the full irony.

I wonder if the Amish would be willing to teach me how to live simply?

On Palestinian Refugees…

No Thanks!

We already have a Palestinian!Talib

This one is quite enough.

If Egypt refuses to allow Palestinians into their country, there’s a reason.

Could it be that Egypt knows that the majority of the Palestinians are radicalized and will probably launch attacks on Israel from their soil?

Could the Egyptians be smart enough to realize that they don’t want to give Israel any reason to attack them? Egypt and Israel have had wars, so it’s not that the Egyptians are all that worried about it, but maybe they’re not ready to engage in war again. Maybe they like peace more than they want to destroy Israel.

It doesn’t matter why… What matters is that Egypt knows something about the Palestinians and consider it too high a risk, or too many mouths to feed.

Now that it’s come out some of the missiles the Palestinians fired into Israel were made from water pipes that Israel gave to the Palestinians to irrigate their fields. I personally am suspicious of everything the Palestinians say. That goes for any Palestinian anywhere.

Obviously Hamas had help, while not every Palestinian is a fighter in Hamas… It’s clear a substantial number of them were helping Hamas.

By the way, this occupation narrative where people say Israel was occupying Gaza… It’s bullshit! The Israeli settlers left a long assed time ago. They left fields, greenhouses, and infrastructure.

The Palestinians and Hamas chose to do some seriously fucked up shit because like many parasites they always want more and will continue taking more and more until they’ve destroyed their benefactor.

The Palestinians and Hamas could have turned Gaza into a fantastic tourist destination with a booming economy. They could have fed and educated their population. They could have become a 21st success. Israel would have helped them do it!

The Israelis would have loved to have a stable, peaceful, productive, Gaza.

But Palestinians chose flat out evil. They chose to leave their people hungry, thirsty, and destitute. Hamas chose to use their people as human shields.

I’m pretty damn sure a martyr for Allah would choose to be alive instead of blown to bits for a cause they weren’t sure they supported, instigated by a bunch of assholes living it up in Qatar on money that could have been used to improve living conditions in Palestinian lands.

With that kind of mentality, we don’t need any Palestinian refugees at all! Hell, we don’t know who’s in our country right now, we don’t need to add any more assholes to the mix.