Thursday, April 28, 2005

Peace officers vs. Law Enforcement

Is there a difference?

From Nate's The Pan Galactic Blogger Blaster, (aka "I-pick-a-really-long-name-for-my-blog-so-I-can-force-carpal-tunnel-syndrome-on-those-who-link-to-me--HAHAHA!"):
For example... A peace officer really doen't give a crap if you're wearing a seatbelt or not. You ain't hurtin' anyone, and you ain't stirin' up a ruckus. A law enforcement officer most certainly does mind. If you're drivin' down an empty stretch of I-40 at 4am at 100mph, a peace officer really doesn't care. You ain't botherin' nobody but the deer. But an LE? He'll take you to jail for that.

LE's worry about the size of the tank on the back of your toilet. PO's worry about very little... least of which is what some politician 300 miles away thinks.

40 years ago we had Peace Officers. We traded them for the "security" offered by Law Enforcement. Freedom loving people around the country lament that fact every day.

I had never thought about this before, but then again, I had never viewed policemen, etc., as "peace officers", either.

Durn good point, Nate.



Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Note to self:

Nokia phones don't do well in the washing machine.

Dangit!

This is especially frustrating, since I have no landline, and there were a LOT of phone numbers on there that are now gone (barring a resurrection). I had the means to hook it up to the computer and back it up, but never did. Let that be a lesson to me!

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Linked!

Where's all this traffic coming from?

A hearty "Welcome, y'all!" to those following the link from Vox's blog. (And a "Thanks!" to Vox for linking me.)

Make yourself at home, but don't stink up the bathroom or jump on the bed.

Help!

I'm looking to replace my personal fincancial software (I'm currently using MS Money Home & Small Business) with something else. Quicken is out, as their 2005 version won't import .qif files, and the .ofx files will only import if your bank pays Intuit a fee.

Is there anything else out there? I need some small business features, as I'm self-employed...

Monday, April 25, 2005

I'm hating you.

Die, please.

Is anyone else sick of the "I'm lovin' it!" series of radio/TV ads by McDonald's? Everytime I hear one now, I feel the urge to maim the actors. The ads were obviously written by a group of cheerful homosexuals hopped up on heaping handfuls of Prozac and heavy corn syrup, and the voices charactors portrayed therein make me scramble to change the station everytime one of these life-draining propeganda pieces is aired.

Yechhh....

Now I get it...

That little light goes on...

I'm in the midst of reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: so far, it's really good stuff. Funny--like shoot chewed-up pancakes out your nose-funny.

And I finally understand the Vox quote and the blog title over at Nate's. Babelfish.com (a language translation site, if you didn't know...) is, I assume, a reference to the book as well.

One of the snippets that made me chortle in surprise:
As he skipped his boat across the seas of Damogran he smiled quietly to himself about what a wonderful exciting day it was going to be. He relaxed and spread his two arms lazily across the seat back. He steered with an extra arm he'd recently fitted just beneath his right one to help improve his ski-boxing.

That's good stuff.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

The Socialization Myth

Homeschooling vs. Assembly-line schooling: Social Development

From Claire Wolfe's forums, a young man who has experienced both kinds counters the old wive's tale that homeschoolers will be lonely and weird their whole life...
Luckily, a school is not necessary for socialization, any more than it is for an education. My experience suggests that schools are actually harmful to both socialization and academic achievement. One thing I learned in school is that you can be surrounded by hundreds of kids and still be lonely and alienated. Schools don’t make friends for you, after all, or even provide a good environment for making friends in. With all the rules, there’s hardly any time to make friends at all.

A healthy social life requires much more than indifferent daily contact with a few hundred people born the same year you were. It doesn’t come from compulsory herding but from a healthy sense of self-esteem. This is something many schools actively destroy, and from more than just their forced "socialization."

A healthy social life also requires a sense of self-awareness. I suspect school is harmful here too, since so many "socialized" kids seem to be idiots who wish they were people on TV because they don’t seem to know who they are themselves. They also don’t seem to know how to do anything without being told, by their peers or by their teachers.

Friendships are more likely to be formed when no one is forced to "be socialized." Friendships require conversations and helping each other. In most classrooms this is against the rules, as such socialization is considered disruptive, or even "cheating." What is approved by school rules is sitting still, doing repetitive tasks, and suffering bullies silently.

Relationships are not limited to being in a building full of chalk dust -- though it may seem so if this is the only place you ever met people -- but are found everywhere that humans are found. Out in the real world is where people like me and people who have homeschooled or unschooled their entire lives have made friends. Sometimes, they make A LOT of friends (as I did).

(Read the rest...)

This should be read by anyone deciding where/how to educate their children. Very well written response, just blows the socialization myth right out of the water.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

How an author finds he's arrived

I was reading up on John Ross, author of Unintended Consequences (a book I really need to buy), when I stumbled upon this question from an interview:

Interviewer: What has been your proudest moment as a writer?

Mr. Ross: There were a number of good memories, such as getting my first four-figure check, seeing the pallets of bound copies of my novel at the publisher's warehouse, doing my first public book signing, and getting asked to address a discussion club for the first time.

However, these all pale compared to what happened when I listened to my voicemail messages one day and heard the following message:

[Agitated woman] "John Ross? Is this thing recording? I just thought you'd like to know that you and your goddamn book have ruined my honeymoon. Probably my marriage, too. I can't believe my-" [muffled sound, a second voice, faint, as if a hand is over the receiver, then the hand being pried off] "Give me that... you bastard, you haven't
even-" [more muffled noises, then a man's voice on the phone:

[Man] "Mr. Ross?"

[The woman, from several feet away] "It's his answering machine."

[Man] "Oh." [relieved] "Uh...Mr. Ross, this is, uh, well, never mind my name, but-"

[Woman in background, yelling] "His name's _________! [name deleted for privacy]

[Man] "Yeah, uh it's_________, that's right. Uh, Mr. Ross, I'm kind of on my honeymoon, and-"

[Woman, screaming now] "KIND OF on your honeymoon?" [muffled sound of hand covering receiver, alternating screaming and soothing tones, but I can't make out the words]

[Man] "Listen, I started reading your book on the plane 'cause it was a four hour flight, you know, and now I just can't put it down. And it's pretty long, you know, so I'm still not finished, and my wife, well, I haven't been paying enough attention to her, and-"

[Woman, screaming loud enough for me to hear even though the man quickly covers the mouthpiece again] "IT'S THE SECOND DAY OF OUR HONEYMOON AND YOU HAVEN'T EVEN FUCKED ME YET!"

[Man] Um, I guess you heard that, Mr. Ross. Look, everything's going to be okay, I'm almost finished with it and I can't tell you how much I'm enj- GIVE ME THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!" [Sound of scuffle and phone being hung up].

I got a follow-up call a day later, where the husband assured me that everything was all right and his wife wasn't going to file for an annulment.

If that's not an endorsement, nothing is.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Fred: Psychology of the sheeple

Why things are so screwed up

From Fred on Everything:
I wonder whether liberal democracies do not follow an ordained trajectory into the muck, ripening like fruits, having their arteries harden, and falling, plop, to be eaten by birds and snails. (That was a two-animal medico-vegetative ballistic metaphor, not so much mixed as homogenized, almost colloidal. Patent applied for.) I note that the English-speaking countries are doing to themselves exactly what the United States is doing, and the Europeans, though better educated and more cultivated, follow. Maybe there is a pattern.

If you ever saw or heard Joe or Sally Schmoe on the radio or TV spouting foolishness, and wondered what in the name of all that smells like crap in a barnyard they could possibly be thinking, if you could call it that, you should read the aforementioned article. It explains it all too well.

Better yet: Go to your local mall or Wal-Mart on a Friday night and post yourself in a high traffic area. As each person over 18 walks past, say to yourself, "That person helps elect the people that tell me what I can and can't do." If you're not depressed and angry within five minutes, there's either something wrong with you, or your local shopping centers don't attract the dimwitted losers that mine do.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Pomp and preparation

Does it bother anyone else that weddings are nothing more than a big show? Weddings have become more and more about pomp and circumstance than about two people's love and commitment to one another. One of the most important things the pastor we were seeing for pre-marital counseling told us was that we needed to prepare for the marriage, not just the wedding.

If you're spending more time planning the pageantry than prepping for the marriage, something's wrong.

Just a thought...

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Final Four Teargassing Footage

Found via Iambored.com, some video clips of the MSU "riots" after their loss at NCAA's Final Four.

Remember, police are your friends...

Final Four Teargassing Footage

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Funny sig on /.

From someone's sig on Slashdot:

"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."