Justkidding.com

No Way!

No How!

No McCain!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:36:38 EST

"I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?"

clinton |
obama |tqwhite

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:44:11 EST

"Specifically, the FTC changed its venerable Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to prohibit, as of Sept. 2009, telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages, unless a consumer has agreed to accept such calls from a given caller/seller." There are exceptions but this is a wonderful thing. Read more Here

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:26:38 EST

"We consider network services that are Free Software and which share Free Data as a good starting-point for ensuring users� freedom. Although we have not yet formally defined what might constitute a �Free Service�, we do have suggestions that developers, service providers, and users should consider" It turns out that software is also politics. These people represent leaders of a movement that will make us more free. Read the Franklin Street Statement Here

Eye to Eye

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:19:08 EST

Hey George, how are Putin's eyes looking today? Remember how it was when you got "got a sense of his soul."

At the time, the rest of us said, "George, you are a dumb shit hick. This guy was head of the KGB and everybody else that looks into his eyes sees the red glow of the abyss."

Of course, our comment was as wrong about you as yours was about him. You saw that he was a brute with no respect for human life or civil rights and, you liked him for it.

Now we have a brutalized Georgia and a brutalized Iraq. Personal freedom has been restricted in Russia and the US.

Eye to Eye.

The conflict punctuated a stark turnabout in the administration�s view of Vladimir V. Putin, the president turned prime minister whom President Bush has repeatedly described as a trustworthy friend. (here)

tqwhite|tqwhite

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:15:07 EST

Screw Barack Obama

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:42:06 EST

He lied to us when he said he would oppose the FISA sellout bill. Then he supported it. I hate him.

obama | fisa |tqwhite

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:33:14 EST

"Weinstock had his hypothesis: after a long coevolution, the human immune system came to depend on the worms for proper functioning. When cleaner conditions and new medicines evicted the worms from our bodies, the immune system went out of kilter. 'Hygiene has made our lives better,' says Weinstock, now at Tufts University. 'But in the process of eliminating exposure to the 10 or 20 things that can make us sick, we're also eliminating exposure to things that make us well.'" The age of miracles and wonder. Read more Here

Lost in the kerfuffle, my ass

Sun, 18 May 2008 20:56:30 EST

The New England Patriots have been living up to the Bush definition of their name. They violated the rules of football by videotaping their opponents signals. Low-life Mark Bowden says those of us offended don't get it. Cheating is part of the game. The only goal is winning. Nobody gets a prize for anything else.

I hereby declare: Mark Bowden is a creep. He is wrong.

In this context there are two things, games and reality. In reality, we do whatever it takes to win. Sometimes, we chop the limbs off of children to warn people not to resist. Sometimes we trick poor people with little education to sign papers that give one the right take their house if you decide to raise the price of their mortgage. In reality, the actions and consequences are extremely complicated, unlimited and, sometimes, awful.

Games, on the other hand, are a respite. We keep reality out of them. We make rules that have nothing to do with physics or natural selection because we want to want an activity that is more interesting (because it is limited and predictable) than reality.

Games are nothing more than rules. We have a word, "cheating", that refers to people that are involved in a game that willfully violate the rules to seek their own advantage.

In basketball, a foul is actually a play. Though the rules prohibit knocking a guy down, even if you think he is about to get a point, Coaches, commentators and fans applaud the adroit use of a foul.

This has always struck me as weird. A game has no existence beyond the fact that there are rules. A chessboard without rules is stupid. Move the bishop horizontally, why not. Ignore it when your opponent takes your king. Who cares?

The point is that games are all about rules. Ignoring the rules means you are not playing the game. You are simply living. When your opponents are playing the game and you are just pretending to, it's dishonest and unethical.

Mark Bowden tells us that people have always cheated in the football industry. Yuck. That doesn't make it right and it reduces my already limited respect for the people that play it. He uses the term "kerfuffle" to trivialize the violation that Belichick and the Patriots committed.

On the contrary, to the extent he is right about the long-standing condition of the game, the Patriots activity is another step on the path to destruction. There is no game if there are no rules.

ps, I think the idea that our Congress would get involved is way stupid. There are things to do that are important. Football is not important.

tqwhite|tqwhite

Sun, 04 May 2008 10:19:32 EST

"However, hospitals that have been leaders in adopting robotic technology say they are content to just break even for now, because the investment is partly about attracting surgeons who want to be leaders in research and training." An interesting article but it's painful to see this. How could anyone in health care fail to include a clause in every quote about the impact on improved patient care? The answer, of course, is that the health care industry doesn't actually care about that. Read some cool science fiction, that's actually fact, Here

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:25:55 EST

"The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law." Now, you know, I thought all the torturing the Bush gang does was to prevent terrorism. Either this is just another tired effort to say, All torturing is fine or they have some other categories we don't now about. One thing I will be really glad about when Bush is gone is these repeated, disgusting efforts to find new justifications allowing more and worse torture. It makes me sick. Read the story Here

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:35:37 EST

"Programs teaching U.S. schoolchildren to abstain from sex have not cut teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases or delayed the age at which sex begins, health groups told Congress on Wednesday. ... The Bush administration, however, voiced continuing support for such programs." No surprise really. Bush and Co live in their own bizarro land with it's own version of reality. It's insane though that Congress can't put a stop to it. Read more Here

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:39:47 EST

"Prison sentences here have become 'vastly harsher than in any other country to which the United States would ordinarily be compared,' Michael H. Tonry, a leading authority on crime policy, wrote in 'The Handbook of Crime and Punishment.'

Indeed, said Vivien Stern, a research fellow at the prison studies center in London, the American incarceration rate has made the United States 'a rogue state, a country that has made a decision not to follow what is a normal Western approach.'" Long sentences for minor crimes. The idea of a police state includes putting lots of people in prison. We have that. The NYT has a pretty thorough report Here

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:32:18 EST

"Get out of that seat . . . You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon." says Monique Davis an Illinois state rep from Chicago. She was talking to an atheist testifying before a government committee. Apparently she thinks only people that share her view of God should be heard by our government. Remember her if you have a chance to vote against her. Read the story Here

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:41:09 EST

"Schultz called McCain a "warmonger" on Friday as he was warming up the audience at a fundraiser for the North Dakota Democratic Party in Grand Forks." Obama later repudiated the use of that term and said the McCain is not a 'warmonger'. Not content, Schulz reiterates his assertion. He insists he means no disrespect but that he must call a a spade a spade. Warmonger can be found to be defined as
A warmonger is, pejoratively, someone who is anxious to encourage a people or nation to go to war. It is often used to describe militaristic leaders, or mercenaries, commonly with the implication that they either may have selfish motives for encouraging war, or may actually enjoy war.
McCain certainly wants us to see his support for the war as a neutral intellectual decision but he's been too deep in it for me to believe him. He was early in ringing the bell, has joined in with some of the most foolish plans and justification and has resisted any compromise that might change the game, eg, insisting that the pentagon follow its personnel return to service policies. Sounds like warmongering to me. Read the story Here

Right-Wing Scumbag Bites the Dust

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:40:02 EST

There will be attempts to laud Charlton Heston because he was a great actor. His supporters will try to make you forget that he spent his last decades supporting the cause of handgun murder in our cities.

As the first celebrity leader of the National Rifle Association, Heston made the promotion and delivery of handguns and semi-automatic weapons into our inner cities and poverty neighborhoods a cause celebré. Working with the gun industry, he helped to insure that tens of thousands of American citizens will die every year.

Just sayin'

charlton+heston|tqwhite

Corporate Tyranny

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:24:17 EST

Who to hate more? The corporations that cheat and kill us. The Congress that will not consider any topic seriously. The Courts that routinely subverts the public interest.

One of the ways that the vast ingenuity of large corporations turns sanity on its head is that, after spending zillions opposing the right of the public to regulate commerce, they use the regulations as a shield to cover more evil-doing.

The New York Times tells us today that the pharmaceutical companies are colluding with the conservative courts to shield them from lawsuits based on the premise that certification by the FDA shields them from liability for manufacturing dangerous drugs.

The argument is that only the FDA has the expertise to judge the virtue of pharmaceuticals and that the corporations should not be subject to a "patchwork" of rules generated by the judgement of courts in lawsuits.

Of course, this overlooks the fact that pharmaceutical safety studies are almost infinitely complicated and that there is no way for anyone to guarantee the completeness or accuracy of the information supplied by the corporation.

The Times' case in point is about the approval of Johnson and Johnson's Ortho Evra and the government's manipluation of the process.

the study's author, Dr. Larry Abrams, who has since retired from Johnson & Johnson, decided to apply a "correction factor" ...

claimed that the patch actually delivered about 40 percent less estrogen than the trial results showed ...

The company mentioned its decision to use the "correction factor" only once in a 435-page report filed with the F.D.A., and then only in a complex mathematical formula. ...

Clinical trials conducted before the patch was approved raised other red flags ...

Two other studies, one conducted in 1999 and another in 200 ...

Still, Johnson & Johnson delayed reporting those results to the food and drug agency, according to documents that have been made public in lawsuits. (here)

This is direct contradiction to their claim that, "We have regularly disclosed data to the F.D.A., the medical community and the public in a timely manner."

QED

lawyers for Johnson & Johnson say that patients should not be allowed to sue the company because the F.D.A. approved the patch and its label.

"F.D.A. is responsible for making those decisions," said John Winter, a lawyer for the company. (here)

That the simple facts demonstrate both that the companies are able to withhold information and that the FDA is not omniscient matters little.

It's hard to figure out what to do other than riot. The Bush administration is pushing the concept energetically in its effort to make sure that corporations are free to abuse us in every way. The Supreme Court, led by vicious conservatives has already supported this concept in other cases and is expected to support it in the future.

The pharmaceutical companies generate infinite amounts of data about drugs. They should be held responsible for making sure that the FDA makes perfect decisions.

Or, if they want to hide behind the FDA, we should change the laws to make it a criminal offense with strong penalties to mislead the FDA. The people that knew that the company "delayed reporting those results" should go to jail. If we cannot rely on civil litigation to oversee these lying bastards, perhaps the police can.

Of course, that would take an act of Congress and we know that those people are a diabolical combination of stupid and corrupt.

tqwhite|tqwhite

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:52:19 EST

"Under current law, they�re right. They can block certain files or Web sites for their subscribers, or slow or obstruct certain applications. And they do, albeit pretty rarely. Network providers have censored anti-Bush comments from an online Pearl Jam concert, refused to allow a text-messaging program from the pro-choice group Naral (saying it was �unsavory�), blocked access to the Internet phone service (and direct competitor) Vonage and selectively throttled online traffic that was using the BitTorrent protocol." If our legislators do not force complete network neutrality, we will enter an era of Alice-in-Wonderland-type inability to know what is real and what isn't. Once large corporations are allowed to generate information and to 'shape' your access to that generated by others, you won't know anything about the world beyond your eyesight. Haven't heard anything about Iraq lately? Is it because we got out or because it was not profitable for the internet service provider? No way to tell without doing a lot of research. The real danger is in much more subtle but numerous opportunities to manipulate you. It seems those emails from your business partner with the great idea to route around ISPs just don't get through very quickly. It's the most important civil rights issue of our time. Read about it Here

I like 'em better before they become fat cats

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:07:07 EST

I remember first seeing Mariah Carey. It was some music video a thousand years ago. She was singing in a closet or up against the corner in a wall or something. She was very young and pretty, great voice. I'm pretty sure I even liked the song. She had the sort of scruffy look of the not yet successful.

Jewell was also like that. I've seen enough biography for her that I believe the 'lived in her car' story. When she came on the scene she was pretty. Her skin was a little troubled. She felt very real. I thought of her music as a guilty pleasure. Too broadly appealing but likable.

Cameron Diaz in the The Mask was a revelation. A luminous beauty. In The Trouble with Mary she also was a little bit skinny, her hair lacked a certain perfect fluffiness. She was delicious.

There are others. Men, too (like I care!). The problem is that they all basically disgust me.

Mariah Carey just broke the Elvis Presley record by having her eighteenth Billboard Number One Song. It's called Touch My Body and it is junk. Exploitive, prurient junk. I'd rather she made good music, but I doubt it would ever get to me anyway. What bothers me is how she looks. When they get successful, hese people turn into awful caricatures of humans.

In the pic along with the article, Mariah's hair is impossibly fluffy. Her body perfected (no, I don't consider being heavy to be a flaw) and fit. Her clothes, etc, all too perfect. Her sunglasses to expensive. She's pampered to the point that it makes me think of veal. Yuck.

There isn't a trace of authenticity. No granule of humanity. I'd sooner grope a statue than fondle Mariah Carey or Cameron or any of the other plumped up stars. These people have had their interestingness absorbed by the, as Joni Mitchell said, "star maker machinery behind the popular song."

It makes me sad to lose these people. It's also creepy as hell to ponder their role in their own destcruction. I'm sure it starts with, "Finally, I can afford a facial and a good vacation." Downhill from there.

It's another good reason to beg the copyright exploiters, Stop Now! Success equals ruin - at least for artists. Pay 'em a hundred grand like everybody else and let them grow a few split ends. It will be better for everybody.

tqwhite|tqwhite

Please, just stop.

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:27:58 EST

Internet book piracy will drive authors to stop writing (here)

Musicians are going to stop making music. Producers are going to stop making movies. Innovation will stop. Creativity and all sorts of progress will stop. The righteous predictions are endless. Unless the law does something to force people to pay, our future is a bleak, creativity-less desert.

OK. I believe you. Now do the stopping already, for heaven's sake. Punish me. Show me the error of my ways. Get on with it.

Personally, I am tired of all the 'creativity'. It has produced a bleak desert of Britny Spears tunes and an awful nightmare of American Idol. Honestly, if all the authors stopped writing, I will still turn eighty and blind with a long list of unread books - and young people don't read anyway.

Our culture is a nightmare and I think it's because we pay too well for supposed creativity - "supposed" because much of it results from the reverse-engineering of old ideas (when's the last time you saw a movie that wasn't, at some level, a remake of a previous one?).

Maybe if the only people that write books were those sufficiently crazy that they stay up all night after their day job pouring nutball thoughts onto paper we would get something new. If I see another thriller with a hard-bitten, highly competent woman hero single mother that loves her child and is torn between duty and child, I'm going to vomit. (And, by the way, I'm sick of the "History of.." stuff. Somebody have a new freakin' idea!)

So, stop writing. Get a real job. Or, if you like writing so much, do it for free. Maybe you'll get a talk show. Maybe not. But please, if you are doing it for the money, STOP NOW!!

tqwhite|tqwhite

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:39:52 EST

"But he was dropped from the policy last October, shortly after the Konica Minolta company found the couple had moved to Idaho, where they couldn't register as domestic partners." Idaho has no prohibition on insuring unmarried domestic partners. Konica Minolta just saw an opportunity to screw these people. Boycott Konica Minolta! Read about it Here

Justkidding.com

No Way!No How!No McCain!

Eye to Eye

Screw Barack Obama

Lost in the kerfuffle, my ass

Right-Wing Scumbag Bites the Dust

Corporate Tyranny

I like 'em better before they become fat cats

Please, just stop.

No Way!

No How!

No McCain!