April 7, 2007 – Some Interesting Stuff from Web Surfing This Morning

'Open Carry' [of a sidearm] Begins for Basil
“I have been open carrying on streets and trails around and in Manhattan the last week or two (and on rivers and mountain trails forever), but today I carried openly in the Three Forks hardware store and the Manhattan grocery store. No problems... everyone was friendly, though I did notice a couple of women gawking at me out the front window of the grocery store as I left, and I noticed a guy checking me out in Three Forks as I entered the store as he was leaving “ Web forum postings from the Clairefiles.

The 10 Real Reasons Why Geeks Make Better Lovers
Regina Lynn @ Wired.com

10 Foods Tough to Digest
MSN Health & Fitness column slideshow with commentary. Kind of surprising too.

Record Store Owners Blame RIAA For Destroying Music Industry
“It's not every day that you see a NY Times piece use the word 'boneheadedness' to describe the strategy of an organization." Zonk @ slashdot.org.

Cop killer 'Bucky' Phillips had time of his life on the lam
" 'I enjoyed those few months more than I've enjoyed any other time in my life,' said Phillips, who is serving his sentence at the Clinton County [NY] Correction Facility.” CNN

Max Stirner's Philosophy Examined
“ 'Eigentum,' that which is owned, is for Stirner an expression of a willed relation. As a willed relation, it can be discarded at any moment - by will. Opposed to the willed relation is the bond, the 'ought' and the 'shall'. These are simply relations that are not mine to dispose of, but which are given me from without - without also in the sense of an 'essence' I must confirm to and cannot dispose of. ” Interesting.

Parents Balking At Schools [seemingly endless] Fundraising
“"We have to pitch the merchandise, collect the money for the merchandise, and deliver the merchandise, and I'm not, as a mom and a family, set up to do that,' she says. And, after years of being asked to sell things such as wrapping paper, Eagleson finally had had enough. 'I simply called the school and called the principal and said my son will not be participating any further in sale-type of fundraisers,' she told McGinnis. And, McGinnis points out, she's not alone. At Dutch Neck Elementary School in Princeton Junction, N.J., parents voted to do away traditional school fundraisers. Principal Scott Feder says they 'went away, and now we do a 'Write a Check' campaign, where we send a letter home and the parents respond with sending in what they feel is appropriate.' Checks are written directly to the school, are tax deductible, and are producing as much money as traditional fundraisers did. Feder says the school even exceeded its goal for the campaign, two years in a row. How much time do parents save by just writing that check? 'Maybe a week's worth of hours, hours and hours and hours of time,' says Feder.” (CBS News) Voluntarism works the best anyway. (Via Strike-the-Root.com)

04/06/07 - Public Employee Unions Got What they Wanted in the Last Election – Now Let’s See if They Want What They’re Gonna Get

The Correctional Officers Union and the Michigan State Police Troopers Association both of whom happily endorsed, contributed lots of time and money, and otherwise went all out for the re-election last November of Michigan’s incumbent governor, Democrat Jennifer Grandholm. But now it seems the jokes on them. She’s pardoning hundreds if not thousands of low level incarcerates in order to close two prisons and is laying-off a few dozen state troopers and few hundred CO’s and prison staff support. Hah!

It’s sad that it took a situation of financial distress on the part of the state of Michigan to do this; it should have been done anyhow, just on principal. If these people aren’t dangerous enough to actually require incarceration on account of the seriousness of their crimes or danger to society, WTF are they even being held at all, regardless of financial considerations by the state? And good for the Grandholm administration for doing this instead of going for a big tax increase. Often the pols threaten to do this sort of thing just to scare the public into raising taxes or not at least not cutting them. She seems to actually mean it.

The union leadership, which here in Michigan is overwhelmingly Democratic, thought their support would surely lead to a different result eh? And thank you for your support guys! Haw!

April 4, 2007 - Pols vs. Educrats: An April Fool’s Joke, All Year Long

The Washington, D.C. municipal government, that exemplar of competence and rectitude, is pushing to take over management of their local school system because see, the school board is crooked, wasteful and incompetent. All reported by the Washington Post without a hint of irony or sarcasm too, although it reads like something from Fark or The Onion. This howler is like Cheech tellingChong to let him drive cuz he’s too high.

My kids go to private schools that their grandparents and myself and pay for, and I’ve found this arrangement to be worth every penny of the additional cost. Yes, I say “additional,” because the local school board still wants “their” tax money from me, too.

“School board President Robert C. Bobb said,” the article goes on to say, “in a statement that he would stay on the board, although his role would be diminished. ‘Now that the council has acted, it's time for leaders in the District to sit down, roll up our sleeves, and work together . . . with the interests of the children of the District front and center,’ he said.” Yeah, whatever Mr. Bobb; you’ll still be collecting your check and benefits even though there’s even less work for you to do, and what you’ve done so far has been just swell too.

As I’ve said before, this kind of news story could just as easily have been a satirical piece from The Onion or Fark with very little tweaking, and it is very revealing of the statist mentality of the journalists that write this stuff as well, that they can do it with a straight face. Or then again, maybe being able to is a skill the scribes learn in a class that they teach at journalism school?

Technorati Tags: politics education mainstream_media

April 3, 2007 - “Economics for Real People” vs. Vulgar Libertarian Bullshit from Corporate Press Releases

[And with all due respect to Gene Calahan who wrote a book by the same name. This article is about bad times for employees of Circuit City.]

“Like many companies,” says this revealing article in Businessweek, “Circuit City has a set of company values, which it conveniently lists on its website. First among them: 'Our associates are our greatest assets.' Last week some 3,400 of them learned what that means. Their jobs were eliminated solely because the company decided they were getting paid too much. Clearly, the company doesn't value them as 'great assets.' If it did, it would realize that firing employees because they've performed well enough to earn raises demoralizes everyone else. What kind of inducement is it for employees to work hard and excel if their reward might be a pink slip? And why would people want to shop at a store where the low premium on service is so loudly trumpeted?”

Oh the joys of being a wage slave! Those folks did everything the company asked them to do, and did it well; and their reward is to be kicked to the curb. But I hear some people actally like being wage slaves AKA corporate employees, because working for yourself is such a risky, tiresome and heavy responsibility. Whatever. Some people like S&M too.

As for me, I'll take the risk of fending for myself and come what may, rather than put my future in the hands of the corporate types and politicians who dominate American style state capitalism.

04.03.07 – The Reports of My (Impending) Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated!

I'm not dead yet.

I saw this article posted on the front page of STR today and via the BBC. Well, as Mark Twain once noted about rumors, the reports of my impending death have been greatly exaggerated.

For one, I used the moniker “Chemical Ali” way before Al-Majid ever did and I have proof. You can see it here, if you've a mind to. I should have done a DBA filing or some such action a long time ago to make sure that my ass was covered on this angle, but who knew back in the days before the Iraq invasion that I'd even need to consider such a possibility? Not me, sad to say.

So if and when the day comes when they hang this prick, keep in mind dear reader that this guy is Ali Hassan ibn-Majid Al-Tikriti and not your correspondent, who is Ali Hassan Massoud ibn-Mohammad Al-Dearborn Michigan. And as for all that other shit that this muderous Ba'athist A-hole pulled over the years as Saddam's henchman, that ain't on me folks.

04.02.07- Rent-Seeking Faux Libertarians

Far be it from me to defend Microsoft. I use their products as little as I can manage to. But suing the Redmond behemoth over tabbed browsing? The property rights of software development, especially one application that is so fookin' obvious, seems retarded to me. Inventors should benefit from developing new inventions or creative work, but in the end how can you really "own" an idea? Even if you thought of it first and then wrote code to make it work.

This whole business of "property rights" for code, DRM, copyrighting and patents is just absurd. For once you accept the idea that this is all property that you own, what then becomes the mechanism for the "owners" to protect it? Private legal eagle thugs like the RIAA or feds are equally oppressive. I have gotten into this issue before with someone who writes code for a living, and while this guy claims he's a libertarian and desires very limited government, the fly in his ointment is his hypocritical and contradictory notion that a state must exist to protect his work, but it's free markets and sink-or-swim for everyone else.

And which amounts to rent seeking on his part, and which boiled down to its essence, means he's willing to steal money from myself and others to establish a state entity that employs armed police, prosecutors and establishes and maintains prisons, all to protect his precious code. Phooey on that. That idea is nothing more than a state sanctioned market privilege, and no amount of rhetorical sophistry or spin-doctoring will make this vulgar libertarian notion seem rational. None that I've read so far, anyway. But they just keep on trying though. Go figure?

04.01.07 - Insurrectionary Anarchism?

"Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which opposes formal anarchist organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists advocate direct action (violent or otherwise), informal organization, including small affinity groups and mass organizations which include non-anarchist individuals of the exploited or excluded class."

I liked the definition right up until the part about initiating violence. At that point the author of this Wikipedia defintion starting sounding just like Lenin circa 1917. The ends don't justify the means, in my view. Some people just have a taste for blood, even on the left. Hell, this definition could be deconstructed and spun by neo-cons with just a few tweaks to justify their program of establishing liberal democracy by the sword, no?

"Insurrectionary anarchism", says the article linked in the definition above, "is not an ideological solution to all social problems, a commodity on the capitalist market of ideologies and opinions, but an on-going praxis aimed at putting an end to the domination of the state and the continuance of capitalism, which requires analysis and discussion to advance. We don't look to some ideal society or offer an image of utopia for public consumption. Throughout history, most anarchists, except those who believed that society would evolve to the point that it would leave the state behind, have been insurrectionary anarchists. Most simply, this means that the state will not merely wither away, thus anarchists must attack, for waiting is defeat;" [italics in original]

That conclusion about "waiting is defeat" is right on though. In the end every living thing ages and dies. And one never knows how long we'll live. In essence the real oppressor is the clock and the calendar; "waiting is defeat" is surely true for in the long run we're all dead. If you want to live free in the here and now, you have to act in the here and now.