Ever notice that you can't seem to go anywhere or do anything lately without being asked to fill out some annoying survey? "How are we doing?" "Please take a minute to let us know how to better serve you!" "We appreciate your feedback." Apparently they do, because those little feedback forms are sitting on the pillows of our hotel rooms, scrawled on the back of our grocery receipts, and tucked in our checkout bags along with our new undershirts and bluejeans. One can't even go through a Taco Bell drive through without finding such a survey, waiting there to jump out from its hiding place on top of your bean burrito to proposition you. What's up with that? Why are these things popping up everywhere?
Essentially, this is Big Corporate looking to improve its customer service. They're often disguised as discounts and coupons, because they know that only really happy or really pissed customers fill out surveys. But if they can be induced to fill them out by being a coupon or including a special offer, they can get a good feel for how individual business locations are doing.
Without ever having to visit.
Yes, folks. The survey spares the company executives the bother of having to come down from on high and actually mingle with you peons. After all, if they already have quantifiable data, why should they have to get on a plane to go get it? Sure, they give up a little bit here and there to coax you into the survey with coupon discounts, but that's better than the occasional plane ticket, isn't it?
Actually, this is the latest incarnation of a trend that began decades earlier. The "mystery shopper" would occasionally visit various locales and shop there, evaluating the service of employees clandestinely, making sure that they did their jobs right. This was an effective tool, and often made sure that employees treated everyone well, because you never knew when or where that mystery shopper would show up. It also gave a service-based business the latitude to be able to deal with unruly customers. After all, if some tramp or hobo started making a fuss, the manager could simply kick him out, no muss, no fuss.
But no. Here comes the Customer Survey. Now, the unruly and unreasonable customer can simply retaliate by filling out a survey form, and Corporate thinks that there is a problem. So much for accuracy in reporting! And by customers filling these out, companies suddenly don't have to even pay the salary of the mystery shopper in order to spare themselves the hassle of dealing with the harsh realities of the daily lives of those who are less lucky than they. Thus, some luckless bastards end up losing their $40K mystery shopper jobs, and executives can pretend they're doing a good job or giving us great service.
I've got a better idea. Fuck the surveys!
Ignore the discounts, to hell with the coupon. Let's have those Corporate Clods come down from their Ivory Towers and actually talk to us for a change! We're not so bad, are we? We don't even stink like we once did back in the days when the feudal system they're trying to reinstate was in full force. We use fluoride! Isn't that worth the occasional conversation?
Don't get me wrong, customer surveys have resulted in a few positive changes. For example, checkout lanes are more prone to open up when lines grow long, because everyone from butcher to bagger can operate a register in a pinch - all to avoid the negative on the feedback form. And your local McDonald's has an automated system which pours drinks based on the order screen data, so you'll never again get a regular soda when you clearly ordered a diet. (And we're not far from the day when a robot will ask if we'd like fries with our order.) And again, all because companies quake in fear at the negative survey feedback. Still, it seems to me that if a corporation gets too big, it deserves to lose money through poor customer service. Why should we, who aren't even employees, have to behave as though we were in exchange for some silly discount that isn't really worth the time or trouble? Was it worth it to kill jobs of all those mystery shoppers who were just trying to support their families?
Sorry. I'm going to ditch the damned surveys. I see no reason I should check any boxes just so that bigger companies can drive what's left of the mom & pop operations into extinction. I ask that you join me. Vive la revolucion!
Eric.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Rush Limbaugh Needs Namenda
How interesting. This fracas over women's reproductive healthcare would be just the sort of discussion our nation needs -- if anybody were doing any discussing. Instead, as usual, everyone's entrenching, listening only to those pundits they want to hear, and thinking that their positions couldn't possibly be wrong. Well, they are.
Everyone's making a big deal about Rush Limbaugh's recent gaff in insulting Sandra Fluke, the woman who recently testified to congress about how difficult it is for broke college students to obtain contraception. Rush called her a "slut," saying that she wants, in essence, to get paid to have sex.
Well, as usual, I was the only one to go back and listen to Rush's entire broadcast segment in context to find out just what exactly was going on, here. What had Limbaugh's hackles up was the fact that public tax dollars are being used for college kids getting contraception. He pointed out that it was hundreds of thousands, and then focused in on Georgetown, making it seem like that one University alone was wasting all that money, and leaving listeners to wonder just how much more money was being wasted everywhere else. Inaccurate, of course, the hundreds of thousands includes ALL universities, and that means we're talking one grain of sand at a beach, in terms of the percentage of money being spent. Strike one.
He then equated this to students getting paid to have sex. Never mind that getting a free condom hardly comprises "getting paid"! If you were told you would be getting paid to have sex, and then were handed a condom, ("Here's your payment!") you'd feel swindled! Yet so extreme is the anti-sex agenda of the radical right that they still see basic protection as a permission slip. Strike two.
With these two misgivings in place, he called the advocate of them a slut, and this isn't surprising given his myopia about the first two points. The REALLY interesting part came afterward, however. Rush said she was a slut, a prostitute, and that made us the "Johns." He then barked, "No!" realizing that this was a mistake, and tried correcting it by saying that that made us the "pimps." Then he realized that this metaphor didn't work, either, and confessed that he wasn't sure what exactly it made us.
He seemed then to realize that he'd crossed the line (even Rush has his moments of clarity), and tried to backpedal again. "No, she's not a slut," he corrected. "She's round-heeled." As if that euphemism from the Victorian era were much better! Strike three.
The way Rush goofed on this made it seem to me that he was unfocused, almost rambling. Could it be that he's losing his marbles? I would say yes. Maybe nobody's willing to say it to his face, but he's showing the earliest signs that he's going the way of Reagan. It's time for him to go see a doctor.
My mother, who suffers from late second-stage Alzheimer's, is currently on a new drug called Namenda, which is supposed to slow the progress of the disease. Maybe it's time that Rush got a prescription for it.
This all stems from the whether insurance companies should be made to pay for contraceptive care. Really, it comes from the debate on whether or not a vendor can dictate to a customer what they can or can't buy! Isn't this exactly the OPPOSITE of what conservative values espouse about the free marketplace? Of course it is! Yet, as I've pointed out in the past, as soon as the subjects of sex, drugs, religion or war come up, conservatives become in favor of big tax-and-spend intrusive government. It's their particular brand of hypocrisy.
Example: What if the pharmacist were a Christian Scientist. Could that person deny all medications and demand the customer try prayer? Ridiculous, of course. But what's the difference between that and someone denying contraceptive medication? Isn't it the same sort of thing?
Here's another example: Is it wrong for Muslims to deny freedom of speech on the airwaves in blaspheming the name of Allah? Of course it is! But they will claim EXACTLY the same sort of violation of religious freedom if a court decision sides with freedom of speech, and the blasphemer.
Sometimes, you have to see another religion screwing up to know that your religion is doing the same, damned mistake.
Not that I'm insensitive to what it must be like for a health care provider. If a Christian pharmacist is made to support something he or she feels is murder, that person will feel made an accessory to the fact. I understand! Really! But then what needs to happen is for that person to get a coworker to distribute the contraception, or else go find another job! The day we allow a businesses' employees to dictate to customers what they can and cannot buy based on their religious preferences is the day we've lost religious freedom!
Isn't it amazing? Take away a religious person's ability to force other people to acquiesce to his religion, and the reaction is that HIS religious liberties are being trounced! Sorry, dude, but religious freedom doesn't mean you get to force others to your religion.
We knew it would happen this way: Religious freedom will be lost under the banner of fighting for religious freedom. Ironic. So fuck you too, Santorum!
Maybe all conservatives need Namenda. After all, they can't get anything up anymore, mentally or physically. No wonder they oppose contraception -- they can't fuck us without denying it!
Eric
Everyone's making a big deal about Rush Limbaugh's recent gaff in insulting Sandra Fluke, the woman who recently testified to congress about how difficult it is for broke college students to obtain contraception. Rush called her a "slut," saying that she wants, in essence, to get paid to have sex.
Well, as usual, I was the only one to go back and listen to Rush's entire broadcast segment in context to find out just what exactly was going on, here. What had Limbaugh's hackles up was the fact that public tax dollars are being used for college kids getting contraception. He pointed out that it was hundreds of thousands, and then focused in on Georgetown, making it seem like that one University alone was wasting all that money, and leaving listeners to wonder just how much more money was being wasted everywhere else. Inaccurate, of course, the hundreds of thousands includes ALL universities, and that means we're talking one grain of sand at a beach, in terms of the percentage of money being spent. Strike one.
He then equated this to students getting paid to have sex. Never mind that getting a free condom hardly comprises "getting paid"! If you were told you would be getting paid to have sex, and then were handed a condom, ("Here's your payment!") you'd feel swindled! Yet so extreme is the anti-sex agenda of the radical right that they still see basic protection as a permission slip. Strike two.
With these two misgivings in place, he called the advocate of them a slut, and this isn't surprising given his myopia about the first two points. The REALLY interesting part came afterward, however. Rush said she was a slut, a prostitute, and that made us the "Johns." He then barked, "No!" realizing that this was a mistake, and tried correcting it by saying that that made us the "pimps." Then he realized that this metaphor didn't work, either, and confessed that he wasn't sure what exactly it made us.
He seemed then to realize that he'd crossed the line (even Rush has his moments of clarity), and tried to backpedal again. "No, she's not a slut," he corrected. "She's round-heeled." As if that euphemism from the Victorian era were much better! Strike three.
The way Rush goofed on this made it seem to me that he was unfocused, almost rambling. Could it be that he's losing his marbles? I would say yes. Maybe nobody's willing to say it to his face, but he's showing the earliest signs that he's going the way of Reagan. It's time for him to go see a doctor.
My mother, who suffers from late second-stage Alzheimer's, is currently on a new drug called Namenda, which is supposed to slow the progress of the disease. Maybe it's time that Rush got a prescription for it.
This all stems from the whether insurance companies should be made to pay for contraceptive care. Really, it comes from the debate on whether or not a vendor can dictate to a customer what they can or can't buy! Isn't this exactly the OPPOSITE of what conservative values espouse about the free marketplace? Of course it is! Yet, as I've pointed out in the past, as soon as the subjects of sex, drugs, religion or war come up, conservatives become in favor of big tax-and-spend intrusive government. It's their particular brand of hypocrisy.
Example: What if the pharmacist were a Christian Scientist. Could that person deny all medications and demand the customer try prayer? Ridiculous, of course. But what's the difference between that and someone denying contraceptive medication? Isn't it the same sort of thing?
Here's another example: Is it wrong for Muslims to deny freedom of speech on the airwaves in blaspheming the name of Allah? Of course it is! But they will claim EXACTLY the same sort of violation of religious freedom if a court decision sides with freedom of speech, and the blasphemer.
Sometimes, you have to see another religion screwing up to know that your religion is doing the same, damned mistake.
Not that I'm insensitive to what it must be like for a health care provider. If a Christian pharmacist is made to support something he or she feels is murder, that person will feel made an accessory to the fact. I understand! Really! But then what needs to happen is for that person to get a coworker to distribute the contraception, or else go find another job! The day we allow a businesses' employees to dictate to customers what they can and cannot buy based on their religious preferences is the day we've lost religious freedom!
Isn't it amazing? Take away a religious person's ability to force other people to acquiesce to his religion, and the reaction is that HIS religious liberties are being trounced! Sorry, dude, but religious freedom doesn't mean you get to force others to your religion.
We knew it would happen this way: Religious freedom will be lost under the banner of fighting for religious freedom. Ironic. So fuck you too, Santorum!
Maybe all conservatives need Namenda. After all, they can't get anything up anymore, mentally or physically. No wonder they oppose contraception -- they can't fuck us without denying it!
Eric
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Here's What's Ruining Cable TV
As this blog is essentially the repository of anything I happen to have going through my mind at any given moment, I find that I'm totally forgetting some important political topic. So, instead (and perhaps to your relief), I'm going to write about an interesting discovery I made regarding cable television. It seems that the corporate powers that be are not so sensitive to what we would prefer to watch, even with hundreds of channels to choose from.
It seems that corporate advertisers really love having macho-male men endorse their products. Usually this means sports stars. But advertisers, ever anxious to megaphone more of their propaganda into your ear at less cost to them, have turned to other "manly" men. You might have noticed how Old Spice has been endorsed by Bear Grylls (as if you need deodorant out in the wilderness), and the spokesperson for Ford is Mike Rowe, the host of Dirty Jobs. Had Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) not been killed, we'd be seeing him on more commercials as well.
This is part of an overall growing trend where advertisers really don't want to shell out the big bucks to sports figures anymore because their agents have priced them so high that they're almost out of the market. So, to get the "manly" man they want to advertise their macho products, the producers of major cable programming have been strong-armed into producing shows which feature such men.
Maybe "strong-armed" isn't the right word. After all, the History Channel is owned by a consortium of A&E Television Networks, Disney-ABC Television, and NBC Universal (which, in turn, is owned by Comcast and GE). The ones being strong-armed are the junior producers, given a strict edict to find the manliest man shows available -- all so they don't have to pay more money to Jeremy Lin, Aaron Rogers, or Albert Pujols.
Hence, we tune in to Discovery, History, Animal Planet or The Science Channel - formerly havens where we could flee to in order to get something, anything, to feed our mind - only to find stuff non-educating and non-interesting: The Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Ice Fliers, American Chopper, American Loggers, Sons of Guns, Storm Chasers, Ax Men, Gold Rush, Full Metal Jousting, Swamp People, Hillbilly Handfishin', etc., etc. Thank heaven for Mythbusters!
In short, this is why we find no history on the History Channel, no discovery on the Discovery Channel, fewer animals on Animal Planet and less science on the Science Channel. Shit, next thing you know, they're going to stop showing music on MTV.
(Oh. Yeah.)
This trend was revealed to me by Steve Boettcher, the co-producer of "Pioneers of Television" which has recently aired on PBS. He has watched this trend from the inside. But he is part of a growing trend of independent producers and filmmakers who are trying to transform Milwaukee into the new home for independent films, which is possible because of our low production cost, close proximity to Chicago, and close ties to many in the independent film industry.
Who knows? Maybe Milwaukee will help solve this problem by producing independent shows that feed the mind instead of advertisers' pocketbooks. Maybe then, corporate interests will see the huge market they have unwittingly alienated.
Eric
It seems that corporate advertisers really love having macho-male men endorse their products. Usually this means sports stars. But advertisers, ever anxious to megaphone more of their propaganda into your ear at less cost to them, have turned to other "manly" men. You might have noticed how Old Spice has been endorsed by Bear Grylls (as if you need deodorant out in the wilderness), and the spokesperson for Ford is Mike Rowe, the host of Dirty Jobs. Had Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) not been killed, we'd be seeing him on more commercials as well.
This is part of an overall growing trend where advertisers really don't want to shell out the big bucks to sports figures anymore because their agents have priced them so high that they're almost out of the market. So, to get the "manly" man they want to advertise their macho products, the producers of major cable programming have been strong-armed into producing shows which feature such men.
Maybe "strong-armed" isn't the right word. After all, the History Channel is owned by a consortium of A&E Television Networks, Disney-ABC Television, and NBC Universal (which, in turn, is owned by Comcast and GE). The ones being strong-armed are the junior producers, given a strict edict to find the manliest man shows available -- all so they don't have to pay more money to Jeremy Lin, Aaron Rogers, or Albert Pujols.
Hence, we tune in to Discovery, History, Animal Planet or The Science Channel - formerly havens where we could flee to in order to get something, anything, to feed our mind - only to find stuff non-educating and non-interesting: The Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Ice Fliers, American Chopper, American Loggers, Sons of Guns, Storm Chasers, Ax Men, Gold Rush, Full Metal Jousting, Swamp People, Hillbilly Handfishin', etc., etc. Thank heaven for Mythbusters!
In short, this is why we find no history on the History Channel, no discovery on the Discovery Channel, fewer animals on Animal Planet and less science on the Science Channel. Shit, next thing you know, they're going to stop showing music on MTV.
(Oh. Yeah.)
This trend was revealed to me by Steve Boettcher, the co-producer of "Pioneers of Television" which has recently aired on PBS. He has watched this trend from the inside. But he is part of a growing trend of independent producers and filmmakers who are trying to transform Milwaukee into the new home for independent films, which is possible because of our low production cost, close proximity to Chicago, and close ties to many in the independent film industry.
Who knows? Maybe Milwaukee will help solve this problem by producing independent shows that feed the mind instead of advertisers' pocketbooks. Maybe then, corporate interests will see the huge market they have unwittingly alienated.
Eric
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Safe Sex, Unsafe Politics
Well, looks like voters in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado have said "not so fast" to Mitt Romney. And Rick Santorum, campaigning on his "I'm the best of what's left" ticket, has suddenly vaulted in front.
Interesting. In a bid to find an alternative to Romney, conservatives just keep going from bad to worse. Don't rule out a late-entry to this race right before Super Tuesday. If they'll vote for Ol' Ass-Juice, they'll vote for anybody.
The only reason I'm writing about that stuff is to grouse about what he and Romney have decided to fight over lately, and that's the recent rules that would force all hospitals, including those run by religious institutions such as the Catholic Church, to provide workers health insurance that covers contraception, including sterilization.
Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich are all calling this a violation of religious freedom, and there I have to fight back. Religious hospitals do not force employees to attend Mass, nor do they refuse to hire Muslim or Hindu staff members. That's because they recognize that their hospitals are about healthcare, not religion. By the same token, the health insurance they provide to such employees must be equally secular.
If the Catholics don't like it, they can damned well get out of the hospital business!
What cracks me up is that these birth control methods are practiced by 98% of so-called Catholics, proving once again that the Catholic Church in the U.S. really exists in name-only. What doubly cracks me up is that anyone, anyone at all, bothers to continue identifying themselves as Catholic in light of the Church not representing one damned thing they believe in, least of all Jesus' own principals.
This is why every Catholic who does not renounce his or her religion is a hypocrite. Oh, wait, TWO candidates are just such people! Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich!
And Newt Gingrich feels it's okay for religions to force people to follow the religious principles he has outright rebelled against through three marriages and numerous affairs. You just can't make this shit up.
So what's really at stake here? Is it a violation of religious freedom to keep religions from oppressing personal liberties? All the Republican front-runners say that it is. They're all wrong. But damn it all, a whole lot of people are infected with the same delusion that they are.
Gingrich did raise one legitimate point where he pointed out how secularists have been consistently restricting religious liberties over the years. This, of course, is because religion has been left to assume unlawful favoritisms throughout most of America's past, and now such illegal perquisites are being taken away. Well, religionists can complain all they want to about that, but it simply isn't a violation of religious freedom to take away a religion's ability to continue to steal undeserved privileges. So there.
It seems there are political social diseases just as there are sexual ones. If we can practice safe sex, can we not also practice safe politics? Especially since so many politicians suffer from mental gonorrhea?
Let's just hope that when these guys decide to fuck us regarding contraception, they'll have the good sense to use one of the condoms they don't believe in!
Eric
Interesting. In a bid to find an alternative to Romney, conservatives just keep going from bad to worse. Don't rule out a late-entry to this race right before Super Tuesday. If they'll vote for Ol' Ass-Juice, they'll vote for anybody.
The only reason I'm writing about that stuff is to grouse about what he and Romney have decided to fight over lately, and that's the recent rules that would force all hospitals, including those run by religious institutions such as the Catholic Church, to provide workers health insurance that covers contraception, including sterilization.
Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich are all calling this a violation of religious freedom, and there I have to fight back. Religious hospitals do not force employees to attend Mass, nor do they refuse to hire Muslim or Hindu staff members. That's because they recognize that their hospitals are about healthcare, not religion. By the same token, the health insurance they provide to such employees must be equally secular.
If the Catholics don't like it, they can damned well get out of the hospital business!
What cracks me up is that these birth control methods are practiced by 98% of so-called Catholics, proving once again that the Catholic Church in the U.S. really exists in name-only. What doubly cracks me up is that anyone, anyone at all, bothers to continue identifying themselves as Catholic in light of the Church not representing one damned thing they believe in, least of all Jesus' own principals.
This is why every Catholic who does not renounce his or her religion is a hypocrite. Oh, wait, TWO candidates are just such people! Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich!
And Newt Gingrich feels it's okay for religions to force people to follow the religious principles he has outright rebelled against through three marriages and numerous affairs. You just can't make this shit up.
So what's really at stake here? Is it a violation of religious freedom to keep religions from oppressing personal liberties? All the Republican front-runners say that it is. They're all wrong. But damn it all, a whole lot of people are infected with the same delusion that they are.
Gingrich did raise one legitimate point where he pointed out how secularists have been consistently restricting religious liberties over the years. This, of course, is because religion has been left to assume unlawful favoritisms throughout most of America's past, and now such illegal perquisites are being taken away. Well, religionists can complain all they want to about that, but it simply isn't a violation of religious freedom to take away a religion's ability to continue to steal undeserved privileges. So there.
It seems there are political social diseases just as there are sexual ones. If we can practice safe sex, can we not also practice safe politics? Especially since so many politicians suffer from mental gonorrhea?
Let's just hope that when these guys decide to fuck us regarding contraception, they'll have the good sense to use one of the condoms they don't believe in!
Eric
Saturday, February 4, 2012
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
Well, it's February already, and we're a little closer to finding out who the Republican candidate for president will be, and no closer to finding out who the season-starting left fielder for the Milwaukee Brewers will be. It's either Romney or Gingrich, and both of these guys have as much chance of beating Obama as Ryan Braun has of beating his failed drug test.
Meanwhile, Groundhog Day came and went; that superstitious holiday where people go and pester an overgrown rodent on the principle that it knows better than NOAA, the NWS, numerous supercomputer simulations and at least half a dozen strategically orbiting weather satellites when spring will arrive. And these are going to be the same people that will choose the next Leader of the Free World. Eh, who knows? Maybe Mr. Holy Underwear has a snowball's chance in Hades after all. However, Mitt did come out of his hole, saw Newt Gingrich's shadow, and ran back inside, which means at least six more weeks of campaigning.
Meanwhile, the cherry blossoms in D.C. are in bloom. Yeah. In February. No Snowmageddon this year. (Not yet, anyway.) In fact, people are wondering where the heck winter went. Oh, don't get me wrong, we'll get a cold-snap at some point. We always get at least two each year, and we're overdue for our second. But now Europe is getting socked in with record lows and massive amounts of snow, all because the Jet Stream has blown it over to them this time. I seem to recall, back when WE were getting all that snow last year, and global warming deniers were guffawing, how Europe was having unseasonably mild temperatures. Who gets the warm spell next year, northeastern Siberia?
It's not global warming, necessarily. We won't really feel the effects of that until the North Polar Cap is almost entirely gone, and that's a little ways off, yet. No, when that happens, we'll ALL be feeling it.
I guess my point to all this, whether it be sports, or weather, or politics, is that we ain't seen nothin' yet. Things are just getting (pardon the over-extended metaphor) warmed up. In politics, we're just beginning to see the contentiousness that will happen, because as the religious right begins to lose, they will get ten times more shrill. As the polar cap vanishes, global warming will very suddenly become obvious. And sports? Just you wait! Steroids are going to be the least of its problems.
We're on the cusp of producing artificial hemoglobin, which could transport so much oxygen throughout our bloodstream that someone could do wind-sprints for five hours and not break a sweat. We're close to nanobots being able to rebuild broken bones and torn muscles, and viruses being able to rewrite our DNA. If you think steroids are contentious, wait until an athlete's DNA is rewritten to produce more testosterone naturally -- beyond any possible detection. Wait until life-spans are extended and 50 and even 60 year-old athletes glut the market, making it all but impossible for rookies to break in. Wait until that classmate of Ryan Braun's, who rivaled him in high school, decides to retire from that engineering job he was forced to take after he broke his leg in college, and comes back to make a pro career at age 70.
Yes, it's all possible. Because computers can put it all within reach. A computer that filled a room in 1960 could fit into your pocket by 1980, and the computers that could fill a room in 1980 now ride on everyone's hips as smart phones. By 2030, those computers will fit inside a blood cell! Don't think so? Computers have been getting twice as powerful and half as expensive every two years, but it's not a straight curve. It's a logarithmic one -- meaning it's speeding up. And before most of us reach 80, I think one of our super-sophisticated computers will get creative, sentient, and be able to invent new technologies itself. It will built a better version of itself, which will build a better version, and so forth. We humans will never need to invent things again. And so many life-extending technologies will emerge that it will be hard to keep track of it all. Imagine having a brain with its own external computer-drive so that you have photographic memory of everything, and will be able to do six-figure calculus in your head! Imagine old age being conquered and living forever! Imagine being able to give teenagers internal contraception which they can remove when they land a steady job in their 20's? Let's see what the Catholic Church makes of teenage pregnancy becoming a thing of the past!
Now imagine if the rich get their way, and they are able to hoard all that new tech for themselves. If lassez-faire economics gets its way, that will happen. Oh, don't get me wrong, capitalism is fine, but it's not an absolute! And if some government control isn't maintained over free enterprise, then what will happen when all this cool technology arrives is that YOU, Mr. and Mrs. Public, will die, and the rich will live forever!
Don't think so? Just you wait. Two years ago a medical team was able to manufacture a kidney from scratch. Yes! An actual kidney! It's already here. It's arriving just around the corner. We'll be alive long enough to see it, I think. And if we are, we might just live long enough to live forever.
So you'll understand why I'll vote for bad Liberals over good Conservatives in the meantime. I have no intention of being one of the 99% who are denied an indefinite life-span! As for all of you, all I can say is, eat right, exercise, and vote Democrat. That way maybe I can see all of you looking like you did in your 30's, eighty years from now.
Am I way off? Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet!
Eric
Meanwhile, Groundhog Day came and went; that superstitious holiday where people go and pester an overgrown rodent on the principle that it knows better than NOAA, the NWS, numerous supercomputer simulations and at least half a dozen strategically orbiting weather satellites when spring will arrive. And these are going to be the same people that will choose the next Leader of the Free World. Eh, who knows? Maybe Mr. Holy Underwear has a snowball's chance in Hades after all. However, Mitt did come out of his hole, saw Newt Gingrich's shadow, and ran back inside, which means at least six more weeks of campaigning.
Meanwhile, the cherry blossoms in D.C. are in bloom. Yeah. In February. No Snowmageddon this year. (Not yet, anyway.) In fact, people are wondering where the heck winter went. Oh, don't get me wrong, we'll get a cold-snap at some point. We always get at least two each year, and we're overdue for our second. But now Europe is getting socked in with record lows and massive amounts of snow, all because the Jet Stream has blown it over to them this time. I seem to recall, back when WE were getting all that snow last year, and global warming deniers were guffawing, how Europe was having unseasonably mild temperatures. Who gets the warm spell next year, northeastern Siberia?
It's not global warming, necessarily. We won't really feel the effects of that until the North Polar Cap is almost entirely gone, and that's a little ways off, yet. No, when that happens, we'll ALL be feeling it.
I guess my point to all this, whether it be sports, or weather, or politics, is that we ain't seen nothin' yet. Things are just getting (pardon the over-extended metaphor) warmed up. In politics, we're just beginning to see the contentiousness that will happen, because as the religious right begins to lose, they will get ten times more shrill. As the polar cap vanishes, global warming will very suddenly become obvious. And sports? Just you wait! Steroids are going to be the least of its problems.
We're on the cusp of producing artificial hemoglobin, which could transport so much oxygen throughout our bloodstream that someone could do wind-sprints for five hours and not break a sweat. We're close to nanobots being able to rebuild broken bones and torn muscles, and viruses being able to rewrite our DNA. If you think steroids are contentious, wait until an athlete's DNA is rewritten to produce more testosterone naturally -- beyond any possible detection. Wait until life-spans are extended and 50 and even 60 year-old athletes glut the market, making it all but impossible for rookies to break in. Wait until that classmate of Ryan Braun's, who rivaled him in high school, decides to retire from that engineering job he was forced to take after he broke his leg in college, and comes back to make a pro career at age 70.
Yes, it's all possible. Because computers can put it all within reach. A computer that filled a room in 1960 could fit into your pocket by 1980, and the computers that could fill a room in 1980 now ride on everyone's hips as smart phones. By 2030, those computers will fit inside a blood cell! Don't think so? Computers have been getting twice as powerful and half as expensive every two years, but it's not a straight curve. It's a logarithmic one -- meaning it's speeding up. And before most of us reach 80, I think one of our super-sophisticated computers will get creative, sentient, and be able to invent new technologies itself. It will built a better version of itself, which will build a better version, and so forth. We humans will never need to invent things again. And so many life-extending technologies will emerge that it will be hard to keep track of it all. Imagine having a brain with its own external computer-drive so that you have photographic memory of everything, and will be able to do six-figure calculus in your head! Imagine old age being conquered and living forever! Imagine being able to give teenagers internal contraception which they can remove when they land a steady job in their 20's? Let's see what the Catholic Church makes of teenage pregnancy becoming a thing of the past!
Now imagine if the rich get their way, and they are able to hoard all that new tech for themselves. If lassez-faire economics gets its way, that will happen. Oh, don't get me wrong, capitalism is fine, but it's not an absolute! And if some government control isn't maintained over free enterprise, then what will happen when all this cool technology arrives is that YOU, Mr. and Mrs. Public, will die, and the rich will live forever!
Don't think so? Just you wait. Two years ago a medical team was able to manufacture a kidney from scratch. Yes! An actual kidney! It's already here. It's arriving just around the corner. We'll be alive long enough to see it, I think. And if we are, we might just live long enough to live forever.
So you'll understand why I'll vote for bad Liberals over good Conservatives in the meantime. I have no intention of being one of the 99% who are denied an indefinite life-span! As for all of you, all I can say is, eat right, exercise, and vote Democrat. That way maybe I can see all of you looking like you did in your 30's, eighty years from now.
Am I way off? Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet!
Eric
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wasted Money. Speak UP!
Holy underwear, he's won again.
(I really don't need to elaborate, do I?)
And with that note, it's time to take note of the ridiculous amount of money being thrown around in election campaigns.
Let's see: In Iowa alone, 12.5 million spent just on TV ads, and that's just from the candidates. If one includes the PACs, an additional 14 million.
How effective was that money? Well, the biggest spender by far, Rick Perry, spent 2.86 million to finish a distant fifth. Or, to put it in gasoline terms, his political engine gets 35 gallons per mile. Rick Santorum, by contrast, barely spent anything and tied Romney. In terms of money spent, this is the equivalent of the Toledo Mudhens beating the New York Yankees. Maybe Rick Perry should have had a better stand on the issues and spent less money.
Nah, that would make too much sense!
Since its so blazingly obvious, and has been for a while, that TV ads don't buy victory, why the hell do politicians think they can buy their way in? The short answer is that, every once in a long while, a rich and unprincipled fuck really can buy an election.
We can't outlaw political TV ads, much as we would like to. That would violate free speech. But if professional sports teams have to live with a spending cap, why the hell can't our politicians and PACs?
Nah, that would make too much sense!
What really bothers me about this, is that the idiots wasting so much money on TV ads that ultimately don't matter more than what they do and say are the same morons who are going to get into budgetary battles. To put it in perspective, 5.3 billion was spent on the presidential campaign alone between Obama and McCain, including PACs. McCain, it turns out, actually outspent Obama by just a little bit. (Yeah, how'd that work out?) Republican PACs were outspent by Democratic PACs by a little bit. The annual budget for NASA is 17.8 billion. In other words, just for presidential politics alone, the cost is nearly one third of what it takes to launch things past the troposphere on a regular basis. It used to cost 450 million to launch a space shuttle. President Obama spent roughly 850 million on his election. In other words, just trying to get elected to the White House now costs about the same as launching two space shuttle missions.
Sheesh!
And these are the same people who will turn right around and argue on the House and Senate floors that we have better things to do with our money than launch things at Mars and Jupiter. I agree! But we wouldn't have to even have the discussion if the Space Program came out of your goddamned re-election fund, now would it?!
Here's what really puts it in perspective. The amount spent by the Republican Party during the 2010 election cycle was 1.77 trillion dollars. (The democrats spent 1.8 trillion, outspending them, to get their asses kicked. Case in point again.) I reported in a previous blog about how the national 2011 budget deficit was 1.267 trillion. In other words, both the Republican and Democratic parties outspent the national deficit by at least 30%, EACH! And that's during a midterm election!
Here's a thought: Let's enact an election spending cap, then take all that extra cash and solve our national debt and deficit crisis problems at the same time! Hell, let's pay for medical care for everybody too!
Nah, that would make too much sense!
So, if you think that our money would be spent better on other things, NOW is your chance to speak up! Let politicians know the waste will not be tolerated anymore! Or else, when the time comes to argue over whether to slash Social Security and Medicare, or raise taxes on the upper part of 1%, you will have LOST your right to complain!
I've got it! Let's levy taxes on campaign spending! Brilliant! (That would certainly tax the 1% easily, wouldn't it?)
Nah, that would make too much sense!
Eric
(I really don't need to elaborate, do I?)
And with that note, it's time to take note of the ridiculous amount of money being thrown around in election campaigns.
Let's see: In Iowa alone, 12.5 million spent just on TV ads, and that's just from the candidates. If one includes the PACs, an additional 14 million.
How effective was that money? Well, the biggest spender by far, Rick Perry, spent 2.86 million to finish a distant fifth. Or, to put it in gasoline terms, his political engine gets 35 gallons per mile. Rick Santorum, by contrast, barely spent anything and tied Romney. In terms of money spent, this is the equivalent of the Toledo Mudhens beating the New York Yankees. Maybe Rick Perry should have had a better stand on the issues and spent less money.
Nah, that would make too much sense!
Since its so blazingly obvious, and has been for a while, that TV ads don't buy victory, why the hell do politicians think they can buy their way in? The short answer is that, every once in a long while, a rich and unprincipled fuck really can buy an election.
We can't outlaw political TV ads, much as we would like to. That would violate free speech. But if professional sports teams have to live with a spending cap, why the hell can't our politicians and PACs?
Nah, that would make too much sense!
What really bothers me about this, is that the idiots wasting so much money on TV ads that ultimately don't matter more than what they do and say are the same morons who are going to get into budgetary battles. To put it in perspective, 5.3 billion was spent on the presidential campaign alone between Obama and McCain, including PACs. McCain, it turns out, actually outspent Obama by just a little bit. (Yeah, how'd that work out?) Republican PACs were outspent by Democratic PACs by a little bit. The annual budget for NASA is 17.8 billion. In other words, just for presidential politics alone, the cost is nearly one third of what it takes to launch things past the troposphere on a regular basis. It used to cost 450 million to launch a space shuttle. President Obama spent roughly 850 million on his election. In other words, just trying to get elected to the White House now costs about the same as launching two space shuttle missions.
Sheesh!
And these are the same people who will turn right around and argue on the House and Senate floors that we have better things to do with our money than launch things at Mars and Jupiter. I agree! But we wouldn't have to even have the discussion if the Space Program came out of your goddamned re-election fund, now would it?!
Here's what really puts it in perspective. The amount spent by the Republican Party during the 2010 election cycle was 1.77 trillion dollars. (The democrats spent 1.8 trillion, outspending them, to get their asses kicked. Case in point again.) I reported in a previous blog about how the national 2011 budget deficit was 1.267 trillion. In other words, both the Republican and Democratic parties outspent the national deficit by at least 30%, EACH! And that's during a midterm election!
Here's a thought: Let's enact an election spending cap, then take all that extra cash and solve our national debt and deficit crisis problems at the same time! Hell, let's pay for medical care for everybody too!
Nah, that would make too much sense!
So, if you think that our money would be spent better on other things, NOW is your chance to speak up! Let politicians know the waste will not be tolerated anymore! Or else, when the time comes to argue over whether to slash Social Security and Medicare, or raise taxes on the upper part of 1%, you will have LOST your right to complain!
I've got it! Let's levy taxes on campaign spending! Brilliant! (That would certainly tax the 1% easily, wouldn't it?)
Nah, that would make too much sense!
Eric
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Iowa Caucases, And Reforms
Holy underwear! Mitt Romney has just won the Iowa Caucasians, er, I mean, Caucuses, by eight votes!
I demand a recount! (Hee, hee!)
Bachmann's out.(Apparently, God was just kidding when he told her to run.) Rick Perry is on life support. Newt Gingrich is bitching like the limbless Black Night in Monty Python's "The Holy Grail." It's a beautiful thing.
The two finalists? You have Obamacare, Jr, Mitt "Holy Underwear" Romney, and the only legislator to have homosexual ass-juice named after him.
Oh, for those of you who actually DON'T watch Jon Stewart, let me teach you about the meaning of the word, "Santorum." It began in 1996 when Rick Santorum first won election to the Senate, and garnered ire from gay activists everywhere as he fervently preached that he would, given the chance, repeal all gay marriage. Okay, fine. Then, around the time of 2001, with the "No Child Left Behind" bill pending (yeah, how'd that one work out for us?), Santorum was the guy who added an amendment to require the teaching of Intelligent Design. Maybe I've got my chronology of events wrong, but it was way back then that I became aware that the gay & lesbian community had had enough of this clown, and engaged in the best act of name-calling since the "Pink Lady," Helen Gehegan-Douglas, tagged Richard Nixon as "Tricky Dick."
You see, that gross combination of cum, anal lube and well-churned shit that stains the sheets after two men have enjoyed an intimate night together, officially has a name -- and has for over a decade, now. It's called "santorum," named after you-know-who! And it's his unflinching religious-right-wing nonsense that earned him the title, and forever wrote him into the anals... excuse me, the annals, of history.
So Iowa has given us Mr. Shit, and Mr. Underwear. Put them together and you have... well, you know.
Really, I'm driving towards a serious point with all this silly-talk. Because Iowa has given us one brown-nose, and one brown-ass, and that makes me wonder:
WHY THE FUCK SHOULD IOWA HAVE ALL THE FUN?!
Or New Hampshire for that matter? Why do these tiny little states, have such a big say? Why does Iowa, which ranks 30th in population size, and New Hampshire, with only seven states with fewer people (including Alaska, Delaware, and Hawaii), get such a big say-so? By the time the primaries reach states like Wisconsin, all but one or two candidates have dropped out! Until Barack Obama came along, I really never got to vote for my #1 choice as president, and the tracks were littered with the corpses of all those I never got the chance to vote for. Paul Tsongas, Lamarr Alexander, Arlen Specter, Dick Gephardt... the list of candidates denied to me -- and indeed all of us -- goes on and on. It seems so unfair. And that's because it so fucking IS!
So, if we're to concede that these corn-munchers and cape-codders have too much say-so, what can we do to fix it? What can we do to give the rest of us a taste of the trillion-dollar advertising bombardment that makes us sick to our stomachs, and the inability to go to the grocery store without being glad-handed by some no-name we've never heard of?
Well, we could have the primaries be a national affair done all at once. Certainly we have the technology. But this pretty much guarantees that the candidates will spend nearly all their time in California, and maybe a little bit in New York and Texas. No, having states do primaries one at a time at least guarantees that some of us common folks get to meet the candidates themselves, and this makes just as much sense today as it did back in the days before jet-planes and the Internet meant that candidates had to campaign by shoe-leather and soap-box.
So how about moving everything up? Maybe we could have a January Bonanza? A super-string of Super Tuesdays? Again, this fails. Because even with primary elections taking place at least as frequently as football games (and with just as much hype) you still have the front-running states having too much say, and the later-running states having masses of people eager and willing to vote for a candidate who (damn it all!) drops out just before primary day arrives. It solves nothing.
So what are we to do? It seems we have a choice of evils. Let two or three states have too much power, or let two or three OTHER states have too much power. What's a concerned voter to do?
Here's my solution: LOTTERY! Instead of Iowa and New Hampshire getting first crack EVERY SINGLE TIME, why don't we cycle the order of primaries for each state every time there's a presidential election? We put a bunch of numbers in a basket, start it tumbling, turn on the vacuum cleaner, and the order that each state's number rolls out (with each state's number being the order in which it joined the union, for example Wisconsin, the 30th state admitted, would be #30) is the order of state primaries. So, every once in awhile, a state like Michigan, which has always been near-last, might get to be first! And they'll get a taste of the mind-numbing responsibility of being unqualified judges of who gets to lead the nation.
Not perfect, no. But way better than the stupid shit we currently have where Iowa always picks the person who seldom is the candidate, usually isn't qualified, and even less often the president. I say, give it some thought!
Eric
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