New Homelad Security Alert Code

According to Utah State Senator Chris Buttars, homosexuals lack morals, engage in abominable behavior, and are as dangerous as radical Islam.

In response, the defense department has come up with another addition to the Homeland Security Advisory System. Whenever the nation's intelligence systems pick up chatter about impending homosexual activities, there will be a "Pink Alert."

So far, the only information released on what to do in case of a Pink Alert is "Watch your bunghole."

Hopefully more information will be forthcoming.

Why Do Republicans Hate America?

GOP poised to leap on spending abuses in stimulus

House Republicans are setting up "a stimulus-watch program" that will allow watchdog groups and private citizens to report findings as contractors and agencies start spending billions of dollars on roads, schools, renewable energy projects and other initiatives, said House GOP Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Where were these "watchdogs" when stuff like THIS was going on?

Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management

Or THIS:

report said as much as $12.7 billion in cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, sent to Iraq during Bremer's watch between May 2003 and June 2004, was unaccounted for.

Or THIS:

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

Why are Republicans so happy to write a blank check for rebuilding Iraq, but hate it when the government wants to spend money on America? Do they hate America?

Use Your Words Like a Big Boy

Socialism: (sō'shə-lĭz'əm) n. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

In other words, The government, or some other collective organization, owns the means of production. The gov't owns the factories, stores and everything else producing economic results.

Socialism does not mean government handouts, bailouts or welfare.

IF ANYBODY TELLS YOU OUR GOVERNMENT IS SOCIALIST, THEY ARE TRYING TO SCARE YOU INTO BELIEVING THEIR BULLSHIT.

People are throwing the word "socialism" around a lot lately, and it is EXCLUSIVELY being used as a scare tactic. You can be relatively sure that anyone that uses that word in any form of political discussion lately is completely full of shit.

Where's Pauly's Bailout?

"Auto companies churned out oversized gas guzzling pieces of shit that no one wanted to purchase, so since those fat cats are lining up for a juicy government hand outs, I figure here was my chance to get in line behind homeowners with bad credit that never should have gotten loans in the first place..." Pauly

I realize this is the popular wisdom right now, but it's just plain wrong.

I don't know why people think that American car manufacturers suddenly stopped selling cars because all they do is "churn out oversized gas guzzling pieces of shit." But people do. Why is it that conventional wisdom is usually wrong and always overly simplistic?

In this case I guess it's because the auto slump coincided with surging gas prices. But sales were still pretty good, even when gas got up to $5 a gallon. Gas rose steadily over 5 years. But things really didn't start to get nightmarish for car makers until gas dropped down to HISTORIC lows, around $1.30 a gallon. So that can't possibly be it.

Yesterday it was announced that Nissan, who was projected to make over $1 Billion last year actually lost almost $3 Billion. Now how do GM and Ford's "gas guzzling pieces of shit" affect Nissan's performance?

People just STOPPED BUYING CARS. ANY CARS. The crashing economy scared the shit out of everyone. "Shit, my 401k just lost $300,000" isn't the kind of thing that inspires people to go out and drop $40K on a new SUV.

Every single car company is suffering. Only Subaru and Hyundai were profitable last year, and their market share is minuscule. Hell, Subaru produces ONLY all-wheel drive cars that get terrible mileage. They market solely based on safety and horsepower.

And if people stopped buying new cars, how are they surviving? They're driving their cars longer than they have. Because they are NOT "pieces of shit." They are built better and drive longer than any cars in history. It's actually the quality of the cars that's working against the automakers now. Maybe if they actually did make pieces of shit, they'd have more business.

And as far as "big gas-guzzling" vehicles, why do you think automakers produce them? Do you think automakers determine what people buy? NO! Automakers try to figure out what people will buy, then they try to make them. But it takes around 5 years for a domestic car manufacturer to get a new model on the road. Foreign auto builders can do that in 3 years, but again most of them do not produce the volume of GM and Ford. That flexibility gives the foreign makers an advantage in the short term, but too many snap decisions based on the current market can be more costly.

Decisions made in the last couple of years based on artificially high gas prices could help the industry, but since the "American Auto Buying Public" only seems to ever buy GIANT GAS GUZZLING DUELY PICKUPS AND SUVS, it could actually be a DISASTER. Drive down the street in any town and look at the ratio of giant vehicles to small fuel efficient models. It's overwhelmingly SUVs, Pickups and Mini-vans. Nearly all with one passenger in them.

Americans don't buy their cars based on what they "need." They buy based on what they "want." I want something BIG and STRONG. I want to be able to tow a boat, if I ever buy one. "What will I do with my hypothetical boat if I buy a Prius? Answer me THAT!"

Update

Steve Czaban, FOX sportscaster proclaims that Michael Phelps is a loser.

Wow, what does it take to be successful in "the Czabe's" opinion? Become a chubby middle aged sports announcer that never achieved anything? Or win 14 Olympic Gold medals and earn $100 million in endorsement deals: which of these would you consider "a loser?"

I think our poor friend Steve has fallen into the same logical fallacy that I fell into when I was a teenager.

Lucky for me, I grew out of it.

Logical Fallacy

I have never smoked pot. I made up my mind very early that I was not going to be a pot smoker. And I made that decision based on poor evidence and improper foundation.

My best friend in high school smoked pot. He worked at a car wash drying water spots off the vehicles as they came out of the tunnel. After closing time he would hang out with the other rag boys and get high. I was pretty nerdy in high school (warning: understatement) but occasionally I would go with my friend to some parties or just to hang out with some of his work buddies. And they really made an impression on me. They were LOSERS. It seemed like all they ever did was sit around and smoke pot and listen to heavy metal music. The only other thing they did was figure out how to get more pot. I was convinced that smoking pot made you a loser, so I wasn't going to fall into that trap.

I arrived at the conclusion that smoking pot made you a loser based on a logical fallacy. It's a common logical error. When it rains, the ground gets wet. The ground is wet, therefore it rained. WRONG. Maybe someone opened a hydrant. Maybe Waffles pissed all over the place. Just because rain wets the ground does not mean every time the ground is wet it rained, and just because everyone I saw smoking pot was a loser doesn't mean that everyone that smokes pot is a loser. It didn't dawn on me that they were smoking pot BECAUSE they were losers, not the other way around.

And now, this evidence:

Yes, that's Michael Phelps, smoking pot.

BUT BUT!!! Smoking pot makes you lazy! Smoking pot makes you indifferent and undisciplined! Nancy Reagan told me so!

Fourteen Olympic Gold Medals, a world record, say otherwise. Eight Gold Medals in one Olympic Games, also a record, say otherwise. Here's proof that you can smoke pot recreationally and still be disciplined and motivated to excel. Because nobody has excelled like Michael Phelps, ever in Olympic history.

And here's the kicker. Michael Phelps has a DRUNK DRIVING CONVICTION. He may in fact be doing THE RESPONSIBLE THING by smoking pot INSTEAD OF DRINKING. Not only was he given a free pass on the "irresponsible" drinking, he's being raked over the coals for smoking pot. No, drinking is not irresponsible, but drunk driving sure is. Yet people are horrified at what a HORRIBLE example he's setting for the children.

I think Michael Phelps is setting an excellent example for all people, children included. He's showing that it is possible to enjoy marijuana or alcohol, in moderation, and still be a motivated, disciplined enough person to win fourteen gold medals.

Isn't that the best example of all?

Wisdom of the Rock

Chris Rock's observation of the OJ Simpson verdict was spot on when he said "Black people were too happy and white people were too mad."

I'm seeing some of that around here today, although I don't think the black folks I've been seeing are too happy, unless they expect things to get drastically better for them in the south. Things are the way they are for a reason.

No, I'm seeing a lot of white people who are VISIBLY UPSET at seeing black people so happy. There's no real minus for them, even if they perceive a poor government in their near future. Right now they are purely upset BECAUSE black people are so happy.

I said before that an added benefit to the Obama candidacy is that it drew a lot of closet racists out into the open. This is one way you can tell who they are.

Inhibited

I actually think my current favorite blog pastime is Waffles' fault. A while ago he posted about a British poker player named Ed who was clearly insane. He bluffed off thousands of pounds on the craziest plays. His swings were unbelievable. And he was brutally honest about how badly he played. He had a few commenters who commiserated with his plight, so naturally I followed them and their incredible stories of remarkably stupid behavior.

Those blogs generally don't last very long because people with such poor awareness and judgment aren't generally stable enough to maintain a blog. But while they are blogging I can't look away. It's like a train wreck, all unfolding in front of your eyes.

I could never be that brutally honest on my blog. I'm much too inhibited to actually give you a deep look into what I really think and feel.

But I LOVE blogs that do. Especially from people who are totally unaware that what they are doing shows INCREDIBLY poor judgment. Those blogs, although reading them is probably very unhealthy, have me positively enthralled. And amazingly, some of them have kept blogging over long periods of time.

One such blog floors me with a lack of decent judgment at least once a week. This person even posted stories about doing drugs at work, which is a bad idea since the person gives their real name in their blog, but also REAL NAMES and PICTURES of other people who participated. I hope those poor victims of this person aren't interviewing for a job anytime soon with an HR person that knows how to Google.

Another one I read is incredibly racist, yet it's fairly subtle so they probably think they're getting away with it. They're totally INFURIATED with the idea that someone of a different race is getting credit for something merely because they are non-white. They're especially concerned with those that are half-white for some reason. It seems impossible for them to accept the fact that someone of color might have earned something legitimately. No, this non-white person obviously got a leg up because of his race, even though there is nary a fact to indicate that's the case. If a person is black, all his accomplishments come from riding on the coattails of other people. Other WHITE people.

Most of the blogs I read are written by very intelligent and funny people. But this is like peering into the mind of a completely stupid person, yet that person is totally unaware of their lack of awareness and massively poor judgment. I could call it enlightening, but the actual material is as shallow and insipid as you could possibly imagine. They're also very funny, but in a completely different way. An unintentional way.

The Offending Code

// Function: ConvertDays
//
// Local helper function that split total days since Jan 1, ORIGINYEAR into
// year, month and day
//
// Parameters:
//
// Returns:
// Returns TRUE if successful, otherwise returns FALSE.
//
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOL ConvertDays(UINT32 days, SYSTEMTIME* lpTime)
{
int dayofweek, month, year;
UINT8 *month_tab;

//Calculate current day of the week
dayofweek = GetDayOfWeek(days);

year = ORIGINYEAR;

while (days > 365)
{
if (IsLeapYear(year))
{
if (days > 366)
{
days -= 366;
year += 1;
}
}
else
{
days -= 365;
year += 1;
}
}

Zune Takes the Day Off

If you have a Microsoft Zune player, it's taking the day off.

The brilliant programmers at Microsoft forgot about the extra day this year because of leap year. Because there was a February 29 that your Zune didn't know about, it doesn't think there's a December 31 this year.

According to the same brilliant minds at Microsoft, your player will be fine tomorrow.

That distant laughter you hear are the folks at Apple, unable to control themselves.

Update: Stay tuned for details on the class action lawsuit. Should be a slam dunk.

Thought for Today

Never bite when a growl will do.

2008 Year in Review

Was fucked.


Predictions for 2009:

More fucked.

Hume

Not all assholes are cops, but all cops are assholes!

Santa Gets $110 ticket while giving out toys.

I Kant Feel My Feet

By understanding the sources and limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. If an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. All objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality (it does) then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it is possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, and so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside of experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. And so the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In one of my earlier epistemology classes in college we were learning about Cartesian Doubt. Rene Descartes (famous for "Cogito Ergo Sum" or "I think therefore I am") postulated that because we cannot tell the difference between dreams or hallucinations versus real empirical experience, we cannot trust sensory experience. A student disagreed with the idea that we can't tell the difference between dreams and reality. The professor asked how she can tell if she's dreaming or not, and she replied with "I can feel my feet!"

And I distinctly remember thinking "Great, centuries of philosophy and critical thought down the drain because this chick can feel her fucking feet!"

Cool New Toy

Expect more photos on this blog. I know I've promised this before, but now I have this:

Poker Source Full Tilt Poker Freeroll

Poker Source Announcement:

We are extremely pleased to announce a $5,000 freeroll at Full Tilt Poker that is open to everybody who has ever signed up through PokerSource for FTP and has earned at least 300 Full Tilt Points over the lifetime of their account. Players have until midnight on December 20th to earn these points if they have not already done so.

When: Sunday, December 28th at 4:00pm ET
Where: Full Tilt Poker
Prize Pool: $5,000
How to qualify: Have a Full Tilt Poker account that was created through PokerSource and have earned at least 300 Full Tilt Points over the lifetime of their account by December 20th at midnight ET

Plax

I'm a big fan of firearm ownership. I'm a handgun owner myself. Everyone who wants to be should be a responsible gun owner.



There's only two reasons I can think of to carry a handgun into a public place. One is to protect yourself, the other is to protect your stuff.

Plaxico Burress decided to carry an unregistered handgun into a nightclub, so theoretically he wanted to protect himself or protect his stuff. Maybe he was wearing a lot of expensive jewelry, and wanted to protect that stuff.

But I doubt the jewelry or whatever he might be protecting was worth more than the $25 million he's likely to lose from getting caught carrying an unregistered handgun into a New York nightclub. So that reason is pretty illogical.

The second reason, to protect himself might be the reason, except for one thing. HE SHOT HIMSELF. So he didn't exactly keep himself SAFER by carrying the weapon. So that reason seems pretty illogical too.

Wait! I just thought of a third reason. To be perceived as "cool." Well, the entire sports following world is now calling him an idiot, so if that was his intention, it was pretty unsuccessful.

Getting Old Sucks

I re-watched the movie "Grosse Pointe Blank" the other day, for the first time in a long time. When it came out I loved it, because it hit me square in the forehead. I graduated high school the same year as the characters in the movie, and also had unrequited love stories and hitman tendencies. This movie was right in my wheelhouse.


The movie, in case you haven't seen it, is about a man who goes to his 10-year high school reunion in Grosse Pointe, which is just outside of Detroit. He tells everyone that he became a hitman, but nobody believes him. There are several people who followed him there to kill him for accidentally performing a hit on a dog.

Just from that, you can tell that the movie is fantastic. It is, but the story is layered with wonderful details and performances that really must be seen. I was hoping to relive all of that wonderfulness when I saw the movie the other morning before I needed to go to work on the night shift.

But the rewatching just depressed me. Twelve years later and all these people who were "just like me" back then are exactly the same. They look good and young, act stupid and charming and pull it off.

Me? I just got older, fatter and far less interesting.

One of the themes in the movie is the old "you can't go home again" (noted especially when the main character discovers that the house he grew up in is now a Ultra-mart convenience store.)

I discovered that not only can't you "go home" again, you can't relive a connection to a movie you once had. Time marches on, but the movies stay young and beautiful forever.

The Blue Pill

I tried one of the $1.25 Matrix tournaments on Full Tilt Poker. Interesting.

In case you don't know what they are, you pay one buy in and play 4 tournaments against the same set of players. You get points for finishing in the top 3 of each tournament, plus points for knocking out other players and lasting longer than other players. Each tournament has a payout for the top three finishers and the top three points leaders also get a prize.

I immediately noticed the convenience of four tables for a lot of players. If you get bad beaten on one table, BANG you have three more tournaments to GIVE THE GUY SHIT. Many players take advantage of this, but fortunately playing 4 tables at a time makes it tough to type.

Anyway, I finished fourth, third, second and second. Yeah, startlingly good heads up play. When all four tables were down to approx. 4 players, it was pretty maddening. When I lost the first table I had three going with three players at the same time. I can barely think when I'm playing one table, (okay, I can barely think when I'm playing zero tables) so this was quite a challenge. I busted heads up on another so I just had one table of two and another table of three. I lost a race to come in third and got to concentrate on heads up. I built up a 3-1 chip lead there and blew it vs. a guy playing a very straightforward game.

But 4th 3rd 2nd and 2nd plus knockouts was enough points to win first prize in the Matrix pool, which payed the same as taking first at a table.

I think the payout was about $2.30, so minus my $1.25 buy-in, I made a buck-oh-five.

If you do well in these you will always end up with a bunch of tables that are down to a few players, and I don't really like the hectic feeling I get when I'm in that situation. So I probably won't play them again, but it was fun to try out something different.

Weird Amazon Reccomendation